Pronunciation features are not equal in how they affect listeners' ability to understand. Some are low value, while others are high value. This study explores whether contrastive stress is high value. Previous research has shown that identification of contrastive stress is learnable (Pennington & Ellis, 2000), and that explicit teaching about…

We compared three methods for increasing reading amount and reading self-efficacy among L2 learners. (1) We required a word-target group to read at least 2,500 words a week outside class. (2) We required a sustained silent reading (SSR) group to do (a) in class SSR for 15 minutes every week, and (b) to read one book per week. (3) We required a…

This comparative case study explains the perspectives, experiences, and instructional contexts of teachers working with English Learners (EL) in Grades 3-5 to plan, deliver, and assess Second Language Morphological Awareness (L2MA) across three different program models. ELs have experienced low levels of reading comprehension since the inception…

The article aims to outline and analyze the most demanding parts of computer-based exams for the students of the Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russian B.N. Yeltsin (Ekaterinburg, Russia) during one exam session of spring of 2016-2017. For this research, a quantitative method of mean scores for reading, listening, and…

This article uses computer-assisted analysis to study the listening environment provided by Bible readings and preaching during church services. It focuses on the vocabulary size needed to comprehend 95% and 98% of the running words of the input (lexical coverage levels indicating comprehension in connection with listening) and on the place of…

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…

Although a reader's text-level comprehension is affected by the comprehension of individual sentences in a text, little attention has been paid to the difficulty of sentences. This study investigates whether measures (features) of text difficulty affect the "gradience" observed in sentence difficulty judgments. We examine two traditional…

As far as reading comprehension is concerned, background knowledge bears significance for English as a foreign language (EFL) learners who take high-stake tests such as M.A. University Entrance Examination. The reading part of this test can pose a challenge for Iranian EFL test takers, some of whom may have enough background knowledge to enhance…

The Multimedia Principle (Fletcher & Tobias, 2005) states that people learn better and comprehend more when words and pictures are presented together. The potential for English language learners to increase their comprehension of video through the use of captions, which graphically display the same language as the spoken dialogue, has been…

The current study investigated the effect of implementing animation films on developing reading comprehension texts among EFL learners of a language institute in Kerman. For this purpose, two groups of pre-intermediate EFL learners were chosen (30 participants in each group). After three months of instruction, twice a week, 2story books named the…

Many studies have shown that learning to read in a second language (L2) is similar, in many ways, to learning to read in a first language (L1). Nevertheless, reading development also relies upon oral language proficiency and is greatly influenced by orthographic consistency. This longitudinal study aimed to analyze the role of linguistic…

Listening comprehension is an essential and challenging skill for language learners, and listening instruction can also be a challenge for language instructors, since they have little access to the listening process inside students' minds. Greater knowledge about what learners perceive when they listen could help language teachers better tailor…

The prosodic features in reading aloud assignment has been associated with the students' decoding skill. The goal of the present study is to determine the reliability of prosody for assessing reading fluency of adult ESL students in Indonesia context. The participants were all Indonesian natives, undergraduate students, adult females and males who…

In recent years attention has been accorded to language learners' affective factors and learning styles. Two of the significant learning styles are impulsivity and reflectivity which have not been studied as much as other styles such as introversion and extroversion. This study endeavored to find out whether or not impulsivity and reflectivity…

The ability to read and interpret textbooks and other assigned material is a critical component of success at university level. Therefore, the aims of this study are twofold: to evaluate the reading levels of first-year students when they first enter the university to determine how adequately prepared they are for university reading. It is also to…