This article focuses on research into academic reading practices of international graduate students in taught Master programmes in a Malaysian university. The purpose of the study was to examine the challenges faced in the academic reading practices as well as the strategies employed to overcome the challenges in the academic reading practices.…

Reading in content areas is generally difficult for English-language learners (ELLs), but reading in social studies is particularly challenging for ELLs for several reasons. First, ELLs often lack background information that textbook authors assume readers have. Second, ELLs in the process of learning a new language do not have…

A British publisher conducted a readability study of its English language content area texts being used in foreign countries to determine how the texts could be made more readable. A cloze procedure assessment of a secondary school Hong Kong social studies series indicated that the English texts were too difficult for 91% of the pupils tested.…

This paper is the fourth in a series of studies focusing on the problems that Israeli students encounter in reading technical texts in English. This study deals with non-native students' understanding of what they read and on how their understanding compares with that of natives. Also being tested is a method for investigating students'…