Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (bulletin of university, research institution)  

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Language：English  

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

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Language：English   Publisher：The Japan Society of English Language Education  

Information in narrative texts is linked by different, multiple dimensions such as protagonist, causality, intentionality, spatiality, and temporality. However, little is known about how English as a foreign language (EFL) students understand different dimensions of narratives during reading. This study explored Japanese EFL students' understanding of multidimensional links between narrative sentences, focusing on three important dimensions for comprehension: protagonist, causality, and intentionality. In the experiment, 35 Japanese graduates and undergraduates read narrative texts. Some of the texts contained context sentences that are consistent or inconsistent with later target sentences in terms of the three dimensions. Reading times for target sentences revealed that the participants detected inconsistencies in the causality and intentionality dimensions, indicating that they understood causal and intentional links during reading. The participants understood intentional links most stably, suggesting that intentionality has the prominent status in EFL narrative comprehension. By contrast, the participants failed to understand protagonist links. These findings lead us to propose that EFL readers understand three important dimensions of narratives to different degrees, which provides some implications for EFL reading instruction.

DOI： 10.20581/arele.29.0_81

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Other Link： https://kaken.nii.ac.jp/grant/KAKENHI-PROJECT-16K13256/

Language：English   Publisher：The Japan Association of College English Teachers  

This study discusses the processes of reading in a second language that determine success in maintaining the coherence of narrative comprehension. In an experiment, Japanese university students thought aloud their cognitive processes when reading narratives, which included discrepancies between characters’ traits and actions. Participants, first, read 4 narratives to answer comprehension questions and then mentally visualized situations described in the other 4 narratives to prepare for drawing the 4-frame pictures. After classifying their verbal reports from lower-level processing (e.g., lexical and grammatical analysis) to higher-level processing (e.g., inference production), a decision tree analysis was conducted to examine which types of reading processes were more likely to reach success in keeping narrative comprehension coherent. In conjunction with the qualitative interpretations of think-aloud protocols, the results revealed that (a) mentally visualizing characters’ traits based on inference was a trigger for detecting coherence breaks in comprehension, and (b) strategic rereading and reasoning were used to resolve these comprehension in consistencies. These findings were consistent with the framework of the standards of coherence; goal-oriented reading regulated by a specific instruction affected the criteria that individual learners set for the level of coherence in comprehension.

DOI： 10.32234/jacetjournal.62.0_109

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Other Link： https://kaken.nii.ac.jp/grant/KAKENHI-PROJECT-16K13256/

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：The Japan Society of English Language Education  

The present study explored how the interplay of text cohesion and L2 reading proficiency affects EFL readers' text comprehension at different levels (i.e., textbase, situation models). In the experiment, a total of 100 Japanese university students read a low- or a high-cohesion expository text and performed 3 comprehension tests: a free recall test (FRT) assessing memory of explicit ideas in the text, a causal-question test (CQT) targeting understanding of relations between text events, and a problem-solving transfer test (PSTT) measuring learning from the text. Results showed that text cohesion facilitated memory of explicit text ideas regardless of readers' L2 reading proficiency level. In contrast, a Proficiency × Cohesion interaction was found for understanding of relations in the text: high-proficiency readers benefited from the low-cohesion text, whereas low-proficiency readers performed better when reading the high-cohesion text. Finally, a proficiency effect, but no cohesion effect was observed for learning from the text. The findings suggest that text cohesion affects textbase-level comprehension more than situation-model-level comprehension, whereas L2 reading proficiency consistently influences EFL readers' comprehension. Based on these findings, the study suggests pedagogical implications tailored to specific levels of comprehension and characteristics of the reader and text.

DOI： 10.20581/arele.27.0_201

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：The Japan Society of English Language Education  

This study examined whether and how Japanese EFL readers maintain coherent narrative comprehension in their memory representations. If readers can successfully maintain coherence in their text comprehension despite encountering coherence breaks, their text memory is enhanced, but if they fail, their text memory can suffer (Otero & Kintsch, 1992). In this study, 48 Japanese EFL university students read 8 experimental narratives and performed a recall task. In each narrative, a character performed an action (e.g., "Mary ordered a cheeseburger") that was either consistent or inconsistent with a prior description of him or her (e.g., "Mary loved junk food" or "Mary was a vegetarian"). The results showed that participants recalled more descriptions and actions of the characters in the inconsistent texts than in the consistent texts, indicating that they selectively reprocessed the inconsistent information in order to maintain coherence. Moreover, most readers chose to edit the later character actions, rather than the preceding descriptions, by substituting the inconsistent actions with more neutral actions (e.g., "Mary ordered food"). These findings suggest that L2 readers slightly edited subsequent information in order to maintain coherence. Pedagogical implications are argued in terms of developing autonomous readers who can self-monitor coherence in their text comprehension.

DOI： 10.20581/arele.27.0_81

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Japan Association of College English Teachers  

This study involved two eye-tracking experiments that investigated whether and how Japanese EFL learners maintain coherent text comprehension (i.e., a situation model). The participants' eye movements were recorded while reading narratives each of which included an inconsistency between a description of a character (e.g., a vegetarian) and a subsequent action of his or hers (e.g., ordering a cheeseburger). In Experiment 1, these inconsistent statements were separated by only a single intervening sentence, so as to examine the maintenance of local coherence of situation models. The results showed that inconsistency increased initial processing time of the sentence describing the characters' action; furthermore, it caused more participants to look back to the earlier description of the character. Experiment 2 manipulated the distance between inconsistent statements (1 vs. 4 sentences) to examine the maintenance of both local and global coherence of situation models. The results indicated that local inconsistency induced more look-backs, but that there was no such effect in the global condition, thus indicating the difficulty of maintaining global coherence of situation models. These results are discussed in light of the cognitive process involved in construction of coherent situation models during EFL reading.

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Other Link： http://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/10501844

Language：Japanese   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：日本英語検定協会  

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：The Japan Language Testing Association  

The present study describes the first step in the development and validation of a task-based reading performance test. We designed 6 information transfer task test items in which test-takers were required to transfer what they comprehended from passages (e.g., reading a travel schedule and communicating it to circle members via email). To validate extrapolations on the construct validity of our task-based reading performance test, this study examined the reliability of the test scores by performing a generalizability theory study and a qualitative analysis of rating approaches. In particular, we considered 3 factors (task characteristics, number of raters, and type of rating scale) that affect the reliability of observed scores to obtain an appropriate rating scale and procedure. Over 3 weeks of English classes, 122 Japanese university students completed the 6 different reading tasks. Their reading task outcomes were scored by 6 raters using either a task-dependent or task-independent rating scale. A generalizability study suggested that the 2 types of rating scale could be used alternatively, but qualitative analysis revealed that the 2 rating procedures differed in scoring of local errors associated with detailed information, appropriate reorganization of passage contents, and appropriateness of sociolinguistic elements. Moreover, a decision study demonstrated that the reliability of the observed scores was strongly affected by the number of tasks. To obtain a strictly high-reliability coefficient (.80), 7 tasks by 3 raters are desirable using the task-independent rating scale, while 9 tasks by 3 raters are necessary using the task-dependent rating scale. This study suggested the applicability of task-based reading performance tests and points to be noted for the test implementation from the viewpoints of test material development, scoring procedures, and possible washback effects on teaching and learning of English as a foreign language.

DOI： 10.20622/jltajournal.18.0_92

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Japan Association of College English Teachers  

This study examined whether (a) EFL learners can build a mental representation of an expository text that represents causal relations among text ideas and (b) building a causally coherent representation leads to learning from the text. In the experiment, three groups of Japanese university students at different English reading proficiency levels (i.e., advanced, upper-intermediate, and lower-intermediate) read an expository text and took an immediate recall test. To assess the learning outcomes from text reading, participants also answered a why-question test a week later in which they were asked to explain the causal sequences of a scientific phenomenon described in the expository text. The results indicated that causally important text ideas were represented in the participants' memory regardless of their proficiency, but linking those ideas based on causal relations was difficult especially for lower-intermediate learners. In addition, maintaining a causal linkage of text ideas in long-term memory promoted learning performances. This research suggested that good expository comprehension and learning depend on the degree of learners' involvement in explanation-based reasoning.

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Other Link： http://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/10501831

Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

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Language：English   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

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