Abstract
The current study investigated phrase-level (chunk) processing fluency, using accelerated chunk reading task which manipulates the presentation time of chunks. Another purpose of this study was to examine whether the accelerated chunk reading promotes learners' reading comprehension and fluency. There are plenty of reports in literature on speed of word, sentence, and passage-level processing, but none on fluency of chunk-level processing in context. This study involved 43 Japanese EFL learners reading passages in three different speed conditions: fast, normal, and slow paces; and recalling these contents. Fast-paced condition in the reading task was assumed as a fluent reading, thus learners who comprehend text well in this condition are supposed to process chunks flunetly. A hypothesis represented that chunk-processing fluency rates to reading proficiency. Findings support this hypothesis: There were differences of chunk-processing fluency between proficiency levels in the accelerated reading. Results does not reveal a significant improvement by accelerated chunk reading as expected from previous studies, but the reading efficiency, one of indices of reading fluency, in fast reading condition was superior to the other conditions in both proficiency levels (upper and lower). These results suggest that this reading method is effective for EFL reading fluency without any special instruction in chunking.
