The Effects of Lexical Coverage and Topic Familiarity on the Comprehension of L2 Expository Texts

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tianjiao Song ◽  
Barry Lee Reynolds
Keyword(s):  
Expository Texts ◽  
Topic Familiarity

Read, Understand, Learn, & Excel: Development and Testing of an Automated Reading Strategy Detection Algorithm for Postsecondary Students

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 1257-1267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Priya Kucheria ◽  
McKay Moore Sohlberg ◽  
Jason Prideaux ◽  
Stephen Fickas
Keyword(s):  
Academic Success ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Expository Text ◽  
Reading Strategy ◽  
Detection Algorithm ◽  
Expository Texts ◽  
Human Observer ◽  
Behavioral Strategies ◽  
Periodic Review ◽  
Wide Range

PurposeAn important predictor of postsecondary academic success is an individual's reading comprehension skills. Postsecondary readers apply a wide range of behavioral strategies to process text for learning purposes. Currently, no tools exist to detect a reader's use of strategies. The primary aim of this study was to develop Read, Understand, Learn, & Excel, an automated tool designed to detect reading strategy use and explore its accuracy in detecting strategies when students read digital, expository text.MethodAn iterative design was used to develop the computer algorithm for detecting 9 reading strategies. Twelve undergraduate students read 2 expository texts that were equated for length and complexity. A human observer documented the strategies employed by each reader, whereas the computer used digital sequences to detect the same strategies. Data were then coded and analyzed to determine agreement between the 2 sources of strategy detection (i.e., the computer and the observer).ResultsAgreement between the computer- and human-coded strategies was 75% or higher for 6 out of the 9 strategies. Only 3 out of the 9 strategies–previewing content, evaluating amount of remaining text, and periodic review and/or iterative summarizing–had less than 60% agreement.ConclusionRead, Understand, Learn, & Excel provides proof of concept that a reader's approach to engaging with academic text can be objectively and automatically captured. Clinical implications and suggestions to improve the sensitivity of the code are discussed.Supplemental Materialhttps://doi.org/10.23641/asha.8204786

Sharing Expository Texts with Preschool Children in Special Education

2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 93-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison Breit-Smith ◽  
Jamie Busch ◽  
Ying Guo
Keyword(s):  
Special Education ◽  
Preschool Children ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Listening Comprehension ◽  
Expository Texts ◽  
Speech Language Pathologists ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
Preschool Special Education ◽  
Limited Availability

Although a general limited availability of expository texts currently exists in preschool special education classrooms, expository texts offer speech-language pathologists (SLPs) a rich context for addressing the language goals of preschool children with language impairment on their caseloads. Thus, this article highlights the differences between expository and narrative texts and describes how SLPs might use expository texts for targeting preschool children's goals related to listening comprehension, vocabulary, and syntactic relationships.

The effects of topic familiarity on emotionality and linguistic complexity in EAP writing

2021 ◽  
pp. 136216882110335
Author(s):  
Mahmoud Abdi Tabari ◽  
Gavin Bui ◽  
Yizhou Wang
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Complexity ◽  
Task Complexity ◽  
Assessment Tools ◽  
Automatic Assessment ◽  
Complexity Measures ◽  
Linguistic Complexity ◽  
Writing Performance ◽  
Topic Familiarity ◽  
Writing Courses ◽  
International Graduate

Focusing on the relationship between linguistic, cognitive, socioemotional factors in writing English for academic purposes (EAP), this study investigated whether topic familiarity as an important cognitive factor of task complexity influences different levels of emotionality and linguistic complexity in EAP writing and whether there are relationships between emotionality and linguistic complexity. To do so, 64 international graduate learners enrolled in EAP writing courses participated in the present study. Each wrote on familiar and unfamiliar topics determined via a questionnaire at the onset of the study. Their writings were then measured for textual emotionality and linguistic complexity using automatic assessment tools. Results showed that EAP writings differed systematically in terms of both emotionality and linguistic complexity due to the influence of topic familiarity. Unfamiliar topics led to writing performance with a significantly higher level of emotional negativity and significantly lower linguistic complexity levels as compared to familiar topics. A follow-up correlation analysis also revealed significant relationships between emotionality and linguistic complexity measures, indicating complex interactions between linguistic and socioemotional factors. Implications of these findings are discussed relative to deploying writing topics with varied levels of cognitive complexity for encouraging classroom engagement and improving L2 learners’ writing performance by effective task sequencing.

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