Comprehension monitoring in first and foreign language reading

This paper presents a study of comprehension monitoring of Chinese lower intermediate EFL (English as a foreign language) learners in first language (L1) and foreign language (FL) reading. It investigates the outcome of comprehension monitoring in L1 and FL reading, as well as the separate contributions of L1 reading proficiency and FL comprehension monitoring to FL reading proficiency. 126 students in the vocational department of a foreign languages university in China participated in the study. They completed a Chinese and an English error detection task, in which they were asked to read two texts in each language embedded with external and internal inconsistencies. Measures of Chinese and English reading proficiency were obtained from the mid-term examinations. Four of the 126 readers also participated in retrospective interviews in which they explained the basis on which they had identified the textual inconsistencies and also offered possible corrections. Quantitative data from the two error detection tasks and the reading scores were analyzed using Address for correspondence: Marie Stevenson, Faculty of Education and Social Work, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia; Email: [email protected]. University of Sydney Papers in TESOL, 3, 73-110. ©2008 ISSN: 1834-3198 (Print) & 1834-4712 (Online) Feifei Han & Marie Stevenson 74 repeated measures ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) and multiple regression analysis. Supplementary qualitative data from the retrospective interviews were analysed using content analysis. The results showed that participants performed significantly better in comprehension monitoring in L1 reading than in FL reading. They also showed that FL comprehension monitoring made a small, unique contribution to FL reading proficiency, but that L1 reading proficiency made a much larger contribution. The results suggest that metacognitive control does play a role albeit a small one in FL reading.