Academic Text Features and Reading in English as a Second Language
Abstract
Several general text characteristics can have significant impact on reasoning and comprehension. In our efforts to examine the strategies ESL (english as a Second Language) students' employ when learning from test, it became necessary to carefully examine such test characteristics. We first review the literature on ESL students' study strategies and how they might interact with formating and linguistic conventions in text. Three classes of discourse-level phenomena are then described and illustrated with examples from typical college text: topic development and background knowledge, subordination, and logical connectors. We suggest several ways in which these potentially impact ESL reading strategies. Finally, directions for research and some preliminary empirical findings from work conducted with ESL students are presented. (KR)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 29, 1989
- Accession Number
- ADA213110
Entities
People
- Michaele Smith
- Richard P. Duran
- Susan R. Goldman
Organizations
- University of California, Santa Barbara