Effects of Predictive Inferences on Japanese EFL Learners' Reading Comprehension : Focusing on Goal Information in Narrative

抄録

This paper explored predictive inferences in narrative reading with Japanese EFL learners. Two types of narratives (Goal Success and Goal Failure) were used in the experiment. Analysis showed that (a) predictive inferences are more effective for comprehension of Goal Success narratives than Goal Failure narratives; (b) effects of predictive inferences on text comprehension differ by readers' second language (L2) proficiency; and (c) some factors such as the coherence of the narrative affect how predictive inferences influence comprehension. These findings suggest that there are some limited conditions under which readers can benefit from making predictions, and they provide further insight into effects of predictive inferences on L2 reading comprehension.