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The Transfer of Reading Comprehension - Coggle Diagram
The Transfer of Reading Comprehension
Methodology
Participants
Similar background in L1 , but diverse L2 provenance
Baseline comprehension measure
Summary completion offers a reding comprehension assessment format and doens't require the reader to undertand extra material other than the one that's in the text given
People were asked to read texts in their L1 and L2, and complete a fill-in the blanks summary in both languages.
-The instructions were given in their mother tongue.
-They were allowed to ask meaning of words they didn't understand.
Pro-form resolution measure
Study of young L1 comprehenders' resolution of co-referring expressions
Two stories were written, both containing action and exploration of feelings. There were instances of pronoun and pro-verb co.reference (immediate and remote).
Students were asked to read the stories in both languages, when they got to a pro-form they had to explain what the word meant
Verbal working memory measure
Working memory comprises both processing and storage
Students were asked to read different sets of simple declarative sentences (six to eight words long) in both languages
-Sentences needed to be judged by participants as logical or illogical. -The time taken for this judgement was recorded (processing) -Participants attempted to remember the last word of each sentence in order at the end of each set
Results
pro-form resolution test
The upper-intermediate students resolved immediate and remote pro-forms similarly well in L1 and L2
The lower-intermediate students resolved immediate and remote pro-forms well in L1 and resolved immediate pro-forms in L2.
The better an upper-intermediate student was at structure building, the better they were at comprehension.
This supports the hypothesis that the transfer of structure building skill is associated with success in L2 comprehension.
working memory measure
Having a higher WM corresponds to being better at being better at reading comprehension. There is a link between the development of verbal WM in L2 and success in L2 reading comprehension
comprehension assessment
At upper intermediate level:
showed patterns of transfer from L1 to L2
At lower-intermediate level: more difficulty to complete the summary in L2 than in L1
If successful language structure building is accomplished in L1 but not in L2, it is not the ability to build mental structures that is absent.
What is the link between language 2 reading comprehension and L2 WM?
Possible sources of demand?
Less well elaborated L2 phonological representations?
More effortful syntactic processing?
Mental structure representing the text
Working memory
(to be referred as WM from now on)
Structure Building (Gernsbacher, 1990)
:check: Foundation for structure is laid at the beginning of a clause
:check: Subsequent info is mapped out onto the foundation based on relevance.
:check: a hierarchichal structure is thus established
:check: Irrelevant structure will trigger another structure.
Rapid process (unconscious)
Activation of knowledge (long term memory)
Readers supress inappropriate meanings
Elements actively repeated are easier to recall (neuron activity)
Sucess in building mental structures
Gernsbacher postulates readers will resolve co-referring expressions
-Well in L1 no matter hoy close or far the expressions are. -Well in L2 provided expressions are in close proximity. -Poorly in L2 if expressions are remote from one another
Reference resolution (pro-verbs and antecedents)
Working memory and reading comprehension
Process in which humans process the informatiojn needed for cognitive tasks and mantain them in accesible form (processing and storage systems)
Correlation: Good L1 comprehenders / encoders tend to display great WM but poor comprehenders fare poorly as they possess lower WM capacity.