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…

Recently, the readability of texts has become the focus of reading research because it is believed to have implications for reading comprehension, which is of utmost importance in the field of English as a foreign language (EFL), particularly in the teaching, learning and assessment of reading comprehension. Unfortunately, the influence of text…

From a discourse perspective, this study employs an empirical research design to investigate timed reading (TR) as discourse comprehension (DC) in a Saudi English as a foreign language (EFL) enrichment reading class. DC deals with three dimensions: reading text, reading comprehension, and reading rate. In so doing, this study measures reading…

This evaluation report examines extensive reading (ER) speed and words read by students at a Japanese university using a digital ER platform called Xreading and compares them to standardized test reading performance using the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). The study focuses on first- and second-year students who…

The undeniable importance of reading in higher education prompted this investigation into the reading skills of a group often overlooked in previous research: master's level students studying in English-medium instruction (EMI) environments. Participants (148 master's-level students of engineering) completed the Nelson-Denny Reading Test (Form G),…

Silent reading frequently entails engaging the "inner voice," a phenomenon in which individuals sub-vocally articulate words in their minds. This inner voice is understood to stem from the internalization process, wherein external verbal speech transitions into internal dialogue. However, the mechanisms through which foreign language…

As a subset of the large-scale research on several issues related to EFL reading comprehension and instruction, this study investigates the potential relationship among English as a Foreign Language (EFL) reading comprehension, silent reading rate, vocabulary knowledge (i.e., receptive and productive vocabulary knowledge), and reading motivation…

Developing English reading fluency (ERF) is challenging due to cross-linguistic differences between L1 and L2. This study replicated, with modifications, prior study of "syntactic enhancement and secondary school EFL Students' reading fluency in South Korea." The current project investigated the impact of visual-syntactic text formatting…

This study examined the relationship of linguistic complexity, captured using a set of lexical richness, syntactic complexity, and discoursal complexity indices, to second language (L2) learners' perception of text difficulty, captured using L2 raters' comparative judgment on text comprehensibility and reading speed. Testing materials were 180…

This study investigates whether statistical learning ability, conceptualized as a cognitive ability to learn regularities implicitly, is a good predictor for L2 learners' online language processing performance. Native-English-speaking adults, as a control group, and native-Korean-speaking adult L2 learners of English participated. They completed:…

This study examined the effects of working memory (WM), structure, and salience on the processing of English relative clauses (RCs) and participial reduced relative clauses (PRRCs) by L1 Thai learners. Salience in this research is the phonological alterations required for irregular verbs to inflect into the past participial form. The study…

Purpose: Students of mixed-ability learning together in one class is a challenge for all educators, especially in English as foreign language (EFL) contexts. Timed reading activity (TRA) is an activity that can help educators address the learning needs of students in such a context. The present study investigated the effectiveness of the TRA in…

This study implements a timed reading (TR) approach as a scaffolding teaching and learning method to enhance reading achievement and strategies within the Saudi English as a foreign language (EFL) context. The study adopted TR intervention in which processes of EFL reading are scaffolded with those of getting a driving license. The study employs a…

Few studies have examined the effects of extensive reading (ER) on foreign language learners' acquisition of sight vocabulary, especially for partially known high-frequency words and reading fluency development. This study compared groups of non-English-major Japanese university-level students engaged in ER with intensive reading (IR) for two…

Multicomponent perspectives on second language reading proficiency offer a contemporary understanding of reading and its development (e.g., Yamashita, 2022). In this web-based experiment, we investigated the relationship among L2 reading proficiency measures--reading comprehension, listening comprehension, reading fluency--and component reading…