The Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction (ARCS) model provides a basis for integrating motivational dynamics and technological affordances into the design and implementation of instructions to maintain learner motivation and interest. Little attention has been paid to this potential in teaching the complex and often demotivating…

This study investigated the effects of processing three types of texts, namely expository texts, narrative texts, and a combination of both known as twin texts, on incidental vocabulary acquisition and retention in L2 learners. College freshmen (N = 109), who were lower to upper intermediate learners of English, were assigned into a control group…

The purpose of this study was to investigate two levels of reading comprehension, namely literal and inferential, of two text types of narration and exposition in Iranian EFL learners. The elicitation instruments were four expository texts and four narrative ones. One hundred eighty upper-intermediate EFL learners were assigned the reading…

Cognitive organizers (COs) are text aids which represent objects, concepts, and their relations by the use of symbols and spatial arrangements without adding to semantic content. The present study examines language learners' text comprehension through outlines, a popular CO, compared with text-only condition, and further investigates the effect of…

The following article reports the results of an action research project conducted in a public university in Chile. The project consisted of exposing ten undergraduate students from an English pedagogy program to a genre-based approach to writing expository essays. During eight weeks the three stages of the genre-based approach, namely:…

Two groups of 12-year-old ethnic minority (EM) users of alphasyllabary (66 Tibetan and 45 Yi) were compared with 42 Han Chinese students in comprehending Chinese narrative and expository texts, each with inferential questions requiring short open-ended written answers. Three constructs (verbal working memory, orthographic and sentential…

This article aims at the feature analysis of four expository essays (Text A/B/C/D) written by secondary school students with a focus on the differences between spoken and written language. Texts C and D are better written compared with the other two (Texts A&B) which are considered more spoken in language using. The language features are…

We studied the performance in three genres of Chinese written composition (narration, exposition, and argumentation) of 158 grade 4, 5, and 6 poor Chinese text comprehenders compared with 156 good Chinese text comprehenders. We examined text comprehension and written composition relationship. Verbal working memory (verbal span working memory and…

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the performance of student achievement during comprehension lesson using metacognitive strategy and examine the effects of the strategy used in reading and understanding expository text lessons. Besides, this study also identified metacognitive strategy used by students in all three reading processes…

Failure to "activate" relevant, existing background knowledge may be a cause of poor reading comprehension. This failure may cause particular problems with inferences that depend heavily on prior knowledge. Conversely, teaching how to use background knowledge in the context of gap-filling inferences could improve reading comprehension in…

This study examines how three age-on-arrival (AOA) groups of Chinese-background ESL students use two types of cohesive devices on a standardized essay exam. A discourse analysis of 90 first-year students' expository writing samples was conducted to ascertain how factors such as first language (L1) and length of residence (LOR) in Canada influence…

This article examines the effectiveness of a computer-based instructional program (e-PELS) aimed at direct instruction in a collection of reading comprehension strategies. In e-PELS, students learn to highlight and outline expository passages based on various types of text structures (such as comparison or cause-and-effect) as well as to…

This study was intended to determine whether or not the genre of a reading text affects the incidental vocabulary acquisition of L2 learners while reading. To this aim, 40 Iranian EFL students whose vocabulary knowledge was within a limited range (already determined by Nation's Vocabulary Levels Test) were divided into two groups of 20 each for…

Critics of student writing in British lecture courses as "mere rehash of lecture notes" are reminded that (1) by its nature, the lecture course focuses on and is limited to information conveyed in lectures, and (2) professors refuse to use materials such as U.S. textbooks that could supplement the information conveyed in class. (MSE)

This article presents findings from a questionnaire survey of 136 male students, 62 with dyslexia and 74 without dyslexia, from 17 British higher education institutions. The students with dyslexia reported difficulties with a wide range of skills and academic tasks, notably note taking, organization of essays and expressing ideas in writing. They…