The Relationship between L1 and L2 Reading Comprehension and Language and Reading Proficiency at the Tertiary Level
The importance of reading is especially emphasized nowadays when the majority of information, irrespective of the source (books, daily press, professional literature, web sources, etc.), is primarily accessed via reading. Therefore, effective reading and reading comprehension are important in everyd...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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National Research University Higher School of Economics
2019-12-01
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| Series: | Journal of Language and Education |
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| Online Access: | https://jle.hse.ru/article/view/9773/11013 |
| _version_ | 1818755869197729792 |
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| author | Alenka Mikulec |
| author_facet | Alenka Mikulec |
| author_sort | Alenka Mikulec |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The importance of reading is especially emphasized nowadays when the majority of information, irrespective of the source (books, daily press, professional literature, web sources, etc.), is primarily accessed via reading. Therefore, effective reading and reading comprehension are important in everyday life, but also in an academic setting. This particularly refers to pre-service preschool and primary school teachers, whose teacher training courses imply a good command of reading skills, but also teaching skills required for the development and teaching of pre-reading and reading skills. In L2 reading, there are additional issues that need to be considered, principally the possibility of skill transfer between the mother tongue and the second/foreign language. Hence, this research aimed to test reading comprehension in both Croatian (L1) and English (L2) languages in a group of university students (N=83), studying to become pre-service preschool and primary school teachers. Reading comprehension tests and a background questionnaire were used as research instruments in this mixed-method research. Contrary to our expectations, reading comprehension test results were fairly low, i.e. out of a total of 17 points, the mean results for the Croatian language reading comprehension test were M=13.6 (SD=2.05), while for the English language reading comprehension test they were M=11.29 (SD=2.24). The results were further correlated with the participants’ self-assessed language knowledge and reading abilities in both languages. A positive correlation was found only between the English language reading comprehension test and the participants’ self-assessed language knowledge and reading ability. Based on the obtained results, it may be proposed that teachers should focus more on developing reading skills and reading comprehension at all levels as well as in all of the languages that the learners are acquiring, especially in view of the proposed possibility of the transfer of skills among languages. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-18T05:46:00Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-39a88a84492e4e4e939506e61912fb9a |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2411-7390 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-18T05:46:00Z |
| publishDate | 2019-12-01 |
| publisher | National Research University Higher School of Economics |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Journal of Language and Education |
| spelling | doaj.art-39a88a84492e4e4e939506e61912fb9a2022-12-21T21:19:02ZengNational Research University Higher School of EconomicsJournal of Language and Education2411-73902019-12-01545465https://doi.org/10.17323/jle.2019.9773The Relationship between L1 and L2 Reading Comprehension and Language and Reading Proficiency at the Tertiary LevelAlenka Mikulec0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6795-9430University of ZagrebThe importance of reading is especially emphasized nowadays when the majority of information, irrespective of the source (books, daily press, professional literature, web sources, etc.), is primarily accessed via reading. Therefore, effective reading and reading comprehension are important in everyday life, but also in an academic setting. This particularly refers to pre-service preschool and primary school teachers, whose teacher training courses imply a good command of reading skills, but also teaching skills required for the development and teaching of pre-reading and reading skills. In L2 reading, there are additional issues that need to be considered, principally the possibility of skill transfer between the mother tongue and the second/foreign language. Hence, this research aimed to test reading comprehension in both Croatian (L1) and English (L2) languages in a group of university students (N=83), studying to become pre-service preschool and primary school teachers. Reading comprehension tests and a background questionnaire were used as research instruments in this mixed-method research. Contrary to our expectations, reading comprehension test results were fairly low, i.e. out of a total of 17 points, the mean results for the Croatian language reading comprehension test were M=13.6 (SD=2.05), while for the English language reading comprehension test they were M=11.29 (SD=2.24). The results were further correlated with the participants’ self-assessed language knowledge and reading abilities in both languages. A positive correlation was found only between the English language reading comprehension test and the participants’ self-assessed language knowledge and reading ability. Based on the obtained results, it may be proposed that teachers should focus more on developing reading skills and reading comprehension at all levels as well as in all of the languages that the learners are acquiring, especially in view of the proposed possibility of the transfer of skills among languages.https://jle.hse.ru/article/view/9773/11013language knowledgereadingreading comprehensionself-assessed reading proficiencytransfer of skills |
| spellingShingle | Alenka Mikulec The Relationship between L1 and L2 Reading Comprehension and Language and Reading Proficiency at the Tertiary Level Journal of Language and Education language knowledge reading reading comprehension self-assessed reading proficiency transfer of skills |
| title | The Relationship between L1 and L2 Reading Comprehension and Language and Reading Proficiency at the Tertiary Level |
| title_full | The Relationship between L1 and L2 Reading Comprehension and Language and Reading Proficiency at the Tertiary Level |
| title_fullStr | The Relationship between L1 and L2 Reading Comprehension and Language and Reading Proficiency at the Tertiary Level |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Relationship between L1 and L2 Reading Comprehension and Language and Reading Proficiency at the Tertiary Level |
| title_short | The Relationship between L1 and L2 Reading Comprehension and Language and Reading Proficiency at the Tertiary Level |
| title_sort | relationship between l1 and l2 reading comprehension and language and reading proficiency at the tertiary level |
| topic | language knowledge reading reading comprehension self-assessed reading proficiency transfer of skills |
| url | https://jle.hse.ru/article/view/9773/11013 |
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