Familiaridad e interés en la comprensión lectora en inglés como lengua extranjera
What is it about?
Comparative analysis of familiarity and interest on foreign language (L2) reading comprehension of secondary education students. The comparison is made in general terms, and also by gender, L2 proficiency level, and assessment method (written recall and multiple choice). The results show that (a) the influence of familiarity outscores significantly that of interest; (b) as proficiency improves, the influence of both variables diminishes; (c) gender does not seem to affect reading comprehension of not gender-biased texts; and (d) the multiple choice task seems to help comprehension to a large extent.
Why is it important?
The results suggest that, at the initial stages of L2 learning, content familiarity should be prioritized over topic interest when providing texts for reading comprehension. Furthermore, that, as L2 reading comprehension improves, familiarity and interest levels can gradually be reduced on reading texts. Finally, that multiple choice perhaps should be abandoned as a reliable assessment task.