Effects of Adjunct Questions on L2 Reading Comprehension with Texts of Different Types

Author(s)/Creator(s)

Yunmei Sun
Wenhui Zhou
Shifang Tang

Publication Title

Behavioral Sciences

Document Type

Article

Abstract/Description

Answering text-related questions while reading is a questioning strategy which is called adjunct questions or embedded questions, the benefits of which have been established in first language reading as to enhance comprehension. The present study aims to study the effects different adjunct questions exert on second-language (L2) readers’ comprehension of texts of various types. One hundred and forty-four intermediate-level Chinese EFL learners participated in this study and were divided randomly into six groups. Each group was given either a narrative or an expository text with ‘what or why’ questions or no questions. A brief topic familiarity questionnaire was attached to the end of each text paper. The results showed that inserted adjunct questions improved the readers’ reading comprehension both in expository and narrative texts, but only narrative texts inserted with why questions had significant effects on the L2 reading comprehension. The findings suggested that text types and question types modulate the effects of inserted adjunct questions on the English reading of intermediate learners. Pedagogical implications and suggestions for future studies are provided.

Department

Psychology and Special Education

DOI

10.3390/bs14020138

Volume

14

Issue

2

ISSN

2076-328X

Date

2-15-2024

Citation Information

Sun, Yunmei; Zhou, Wenhui; and Tang, Shifang, "Effects of Adjunct Questions on L2 Reading Comprehension with Texts of Different Types" (2024). Faculty Publications. 20.
https://digitalcommons.tamuc.edu/educ-faculty-publications/20