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Mitsue Tabata-Sandom; Yoko Ikeda – Reading in a Foreign Language, 2024
This study examines how the perceptions that twelve teachers of Japanese as a second language (L2) had of extensive reading (ER) changed following 10 months of online English ER. Interviews provided much of the study data, supported by pre-project and post-project questionnaires. The participants' pre-project and post-project vocabulary sizes and…
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Teacher Attitudes, Japanese, Second Language Instruction
Miki Satori – Reading in a Foreign Language, 2025
This study investigated the relative contributions of English morphological and vocabulary knowledge to second language (L2) reading comprehension among 100 adult Japanese English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. The study also investigated the extent to which the roles of morphological and vocabulary knowledge in L2 reading comprehension…
Descriptors: Morphology (Languages), Reading Comprehension, Second Language Learning, Second Language Instruction
Mitsue Tabata-Sandom – Reading in a Foreign Language, 2023
This mixed-methods case study examines how an online extensive reading project impacted the 11 participants' motivation, habits, and linguistic abilities regarding L2 English reading. The participants engaged in extensive reading for one year on Xreading (an online extensive reading website). They were all female Japanese nationals aged between 30…
Descriptors: Instructional Effectiveness, Teaching Methods, Reading Programs, Second Language Learning
Kevin Parent; Stuart McLean; Brandon Kramer; Young Ae Kim – Reading in a Foreign Language, 2023
Graded readers are a great asset to learners acquiring the vocabulary of another language. Homonyms, on the other hand, are a recognized source of trouble for students with that same goal. Publishers of graded readers control the presentation of old and new words, but does this control extend to homonyms? Are only the word forms controlled for--in…
Descriptors: Reading Materials, Vocabulary Development, Definitions, Etymology
McQuillan, Jeff – Reading in a Foreign Language, 2020
Several researchers have claimed that low-achieving students, especially second language students, need explicit academic vocabulary instruction to "catch up" with their age peers (e.g., Nagy & Townsend, 2012). Two possible paths to vocabulary growth -- free reading and explicit vocabulary instruction -- were compared in terms of…
Descriptors: Childrens Literature, Teaching Methods, Novels, Vocabulary Development
McLean, Stuart; Stoeckel, Tim – Reading in a Foreign Language, 2021
In response to McLean (2021), Laufer (2021) makes three claims which are either not supported by research or are based on studies with important limitations. First is that a vocabulary size, instead of a level, can be used to match learners with lexically appropriate materials despite test creators and research not supporting this. Second is that…
Descriptors: Mastery Learning, Second Language Learning, Second Language Instruction, Vocabulary Development
Taylor, Charlie – Reading in a Foreign Language, 2021
In this article, Charlie Taylor offers a commentary on Yang et al.'s 2021 "Reading in a Foreign Language" article, "Text Difficulty in Extensive Reading: Reading Comprehension and Reading Motivation." In their study, Yang et al. analyzed the effects of text difficulty on the reading comprehension and motivation of high school…
Descriptors: Linguistic Theory, Second Language Learning, Second Language Instruction, Reading Comprehension
Yang, Ya-Han; Chu, Hsi-Chin; Tseng, Wen-Ta – Reading in a Foreign Language, 2021
This study investigates the effects of the text difficulty of extensive reading materials on the reading comprehension and reading motivation of English as a foreign language (EFL) vocational high school students in Taiwan. Two experimental groups were assigned, on an individual basis, to read graded readers at either one level below ('i-1') or…
Descriptors: Difficulty Level, Reader Text Relationship, Reading Materials, Reading Motivation
Bentahar, Adil; Alalou, Ali – Reading in a Foreign Language, 2022
Using a mixed method explanatory sequential design, this study investigates intensive English program (IEP) instructors' perceptions of the impact of COVID-19 emergency remote teaching on reading instruction. Forty-four IEP instructors completed an online survey, and seven of them participated in follow-up interviews. Both quantitative and…
Descriptors: Intensive Language Courses, Second Language Learning, Second Language Instruction, Reading Instruction
Laufer, Batia – Reading in a Foreign Language, 2021
In the late 1980s Batia Laufer worked with teachers who believed that to understand a text it was enough to understand 80% of the text's word tokens. In response, Laufer set out to calculate the minimal text coverage, i.e., percentage of running words in a text the reader should understand to comprehend it reasonably well. In 1992, she explored…
Descriptors: Second Language Learning, Second Language Instruction, Vocabulary Development, Inferences
Zhang, Zhiying; Webb, Stuart – Reading in a Foreign Language, 2019
This study investigated the effects of reading bilingual books on vocabulary learning. Eighty-two Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) learners read different versions of the same text: English-only text, English text with target words glossed, English text followed by the Chinese text, and Chinese text followed by the English text. A…
Descriptors: Bilingualism, Books, Reading Materials, Vocabulary Development
McQuillan, Jeff – Reading in a Foreign Language, 2016
Nation (2014) concluded that most of the vocabulary one needs to read challenging texts in English can be acquired incidentally through voluminous reading. This study examines possible texts that second language (L2) readers can use to move from controlled-vocabulary materials such as graded readers, which go up through approximately the…
Descriptors: English (Second Language), Second Language Learning, Reading Materials, Vocabulary Development
Stephens, Meredith – Reading in a Foreign Language, 2019
Aka (2019) conducted an year-long large-scale study demonstrating that Japanese high school students who undertook extensive reading performed better than a control group who undertook grammatical instruction. Those showing the greatest gains were those of lower and intermediate proficiency. The students' achievement was measured in terms of…
Descriptors: Second Language Learning, Second Language Instruction, High School Students, Foreign Countries
Kramer, Brandon; McLean, Stuart – Reading in a Foreign Language, 2019
Reading rate, usually measured in words per minute, is a common operationalization of reading fluency in second language (L2) research and pedagogy. However, the impact of word length is often not addressed. This paper presents two studies showing how the number of characters in a text influences L2 reading time, independent of word counts, within…
Descriptors: Reading Rate, Second Language Learning, Second Language Instruction, Comparative Analysis
Cobb, Thomas – Reading in a Foreign Language, 2016
Thomas Cobb's 2007 applied linguistics paper, "Computing the Vocabulary Demands of L2 Reading" dealt with whether reading alone can build an adequate reading lexicon in a second language, or whether some sort of extra vocabulary training will normally be required. In the article, Cobb proposed that in the case of adult academic ESL…
Descriptors: Vocabulary Development, Vocabulary Skills, Second Language Learning, English (Second Language)