Founded on the componential model of reading, Nation＇s construct of vocabulary breadth test and structuralists＇ view of syntactic knowledge, this paper attempts to investigate the relative significance of vocabulary...Founded on the componential model of reading, Nation＇s construct of vocabulary breadth test and structuralists＇ view of syntactic knowledge, this paper attempts to investigate the relative significance of vocabulary breadth and syntactic knowledge in the prediction of Chinese EFL learners＇ reading comprehension test performance and whether the relative significance is moderated by the learners＇ different L2 proficiency. An experiment including three tests was carried out with 68 sophomores in Anhui Medical University. The findings show that： 1） there is a positive linear correlation between the learners＇ performance on a reading comprehension test and their vocabulary breadth and syntactic knowledge, with the multiple r being 0.551; 2） syntactic knowledge outperforms vocabulary breadth in predictive power and emerges as the stronger predictor of reading comprehension test performance; and the relative significance of syntactic knowledge over vocabulary breadth in the prediction of reading comprehension does not change with the EFL learners＇ L2 proficiency. The findings of this study provide implications for both reading instruction and remediation of learners＇ reading problems.展开更多
This paper aims to investigate the effects of two components of test method facets — text type and test type on L2 reading comprehension test performance. The subjects are 30 non-English-major freshmen who were rando...This paper aims to investigate the effects of two components of test method facets — text type and test type on L2 reading comprehension test performance. The subjects are 30 non-English-major freshmen who were randomly chosen from among 150 candidates. It was found that: 1) the subjects perform significantly better in summary writing task for the narrative text than the expository one of the same difficulty level while in multiple-choice task the difference between performances for two text types is not significant; 2) for the same narrative text, summary writing task tends to elicit significantly better general test performance than the multiple-choice one while for the same expository text, there is no significant difference between the test performances elicited by the two tasks; 3)scores in the summary writing tasks for both texts are more widely distributed than those in the multiple choice ones.展开更多
文摘Founded on the componential model of reading, Nation＇s construct of vocabulary breadth test and structuralists＇ view of syntactic knowledge, this paper attempts to investigate the relative significance of vocabulary breadth and syntactic knowledge in the prediction of Chinese EFL learners＇ reading comprehension test performance and whether the relative significance is moderated by the learners＇ different L2 proficiency. An experiment including three tests was carried out with 68 sophomores in Anhui Medical University. The findings show that： 1） there is a positive linear correlation between the learners＇ performance on a reading comprehension test and their vocabulary breadth and syntactic knowledge, with the multiple r being 0.551; 2） syntactic knowledge outperforms vocabulary breadth in predictive power and emerges as the stronger predictor of reading comprehension test performance; and the relative significance of syntactic knowledge over vocabulary breadth in the prediction of reading comprehension does not change with the EFL learners＇ L2 proficiency. The findings of this study provide implications for both reading instruction and remediation of learners＇ reading problems.
文摘This paper aims to investigate the effects of two components of test method facets — text type and test type on L2 reading comprehension test performance. The subjects are 30 non-English-major freshmen who were randomly chosen from among 150 candidates. It was found that: 1) the subjects perform significantly better in summary writing task for the narrative text than the expository one of the same difficulty level while in multiple-choice task the difference between performances for two text types is not significant; 2) for the same narrative text, summary writing task tends to elicit significantly better general test performance than the multiple-choice one while for the same expository text, there is no significant difference between the test performances elicited by the two tasks; 3)scores in the summary writing tasks for both texts are more widely distributed than those in the multiple choice ones.
