This article considers some of the reasons teachers usually regard literature as an appropriate tool of language classroom learning. These of literary texts can be a powerful pedagogic tool. This study describes some of the approaches to teaching literature and provides a rationale for integrating the teaching of literature as an approach to…

To evaluate the sensitivity of multiple-choice cloze (MCC) tests that use different types of items--syntactic, semantic, and connective--to assess reading ability, 170 English as a foreign language (EFL) students in a vocational college in Taiwan were recruited. The students were divided into two groups (level A and level B) based on their scores…

In second language research, reading has attracted the attention of numerous researchers. However, little has been carried out to investigate effects of a reading instructional model on Thai learners' business reading and creative thinking abilities. Thus, this study investigates whether a business reading model designed based on Concept-Oriented…

Reading is important for students by contributing significantly to success in their studies and their career development. A questionnaire-based survey was conducted in the English Department of the College of Basic Education, Public Authority for Applied Education and Training (PAAET), in Kuwait. Based on 410 responses of EFL college students in…

This study examines the Sudanese EFL students' comprehension performance and measures the differences in their performance according to gender. After one semester of participation in extensive reading, 300 secondary school students from 15 schools in the state of Khartoum are randomly selected for the study. A comprehension test followed by a…

This study investigated whether video-based materials can facilitate second language learners' text comprehension at the levels of macrostructure and microstructure. Three classes inclusive of 98 Chinese-speaking university students joined this study. The three classes were randomly assigned to three treatment groups: on-screen text (T Group),…

Ambiguity tolerance and perceptual learning styles are the two influential elements showing individual differences in EFL learning. This research is intended to explore the relationship between Chinese EFL learners' ambiguity tolerance and their preferred perceptual learning styles. The findings include (1) the learners are sensitive to English…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of reading strategies by the university Business English majors in relation to their levels of reading proficiency. The participants were 926 university Business English majors from 6 universities in southwest China. The Strategy Questionnaire for Business English Reading (SQBER) and the…

There have been a number of studies on reading interventions to improve students' reading proficiency, yet the majority of these interventions are undertaken with the assumption that students' reading challenges are obvious and generic in nature. The interventions do not take into consideration the diversity in students' reading backgrounds and…

Corpus linguistics has transformed linguistic research but has a slightly moderate impact on the ESL teaching and learning. The Wikipedia Corpus, designed by Mark Davis is introduced in this essay. The corpus allows teachers to search Wikipedia in a powerful way: they can search by word, phrase, part of speech, and synonyms. Teachers can also find…

The last decade has witnessed an increasing research trend on foreign language reading anxiety as a skill related to but distinct from foreign language anxiety. However, sources of foreign language reading anxiety have rarely been investigated. Thus, the current study responds to the study by (Saito, Horwitz, & Garza, 1999) and extends the…

This action research is aiming at improvement of reading comprehension of College English teaching and learning, which is a major time-consuming course with low efficiency in colleges and universities in China. The research subjects were 134 first-year college students of science, engineering and liberal arts, who were from either developed…

The research presented here involved a one-semester study; during this period of time, reading comprehension instruction representing three major discussion-centered approaches (Book Club, BC; Literature Circles, LC; Instructional Conversations, IC) was designed and implemented. The effectiveness of the three experimental approaches and one…

The aim of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of portfolio assessment on EFL learners' reading comprehension ability. 50 EFL language learners at intermediate level all female from a private institute were selected for this purpose. Then they were randomly divided into the control and experimental group. The control group received the…

"A picture is worth a thousand words." In a modern-day classroom, students are surrounded by visual imagery through textbooks, notice boards, television, videos, or computers. Many middle school classrooms are filled with colorful pictures and photographs. However, it is unclear how--or if --these images impact the middle school ESL…