The Impact of Background Knowledge and Linguistic Knowledge Obtained in Pre-Learning on Reading Ability of Japanese EFL Readers Aimed at Interactive Reading Performance

抄録

The purpose of this study is to investigate the difference in impact on the reading ability of Japanese EFL readers between two pre-learning programs, one enriching only background knowledge and the other enriching both background and linguistic knowledge, aimed at interactive reading performance. The study was conducted in the spring semester of 2009 and in the autumn semester of 2010. Participants of both years were first-year students at a four-year college. Though the students in both groups received the same instruction to form and/or activate interactive reading conception, students in one group enriched their background knowledge of the content area of the text from the Internet individually as a pre-learning exercise, while students in the other group enriched their background knowledge and linguistic knowledge of the text through reading a passage with similar background and linguistic features to the target text as a pre-learning exercise. The results of this study showed that though both groups improved their reading ability, there was no significant difference in the rate of growth of reading ability between the two groups. Hence, it can be said that neither one of the two different pre-learning programs made a greater difference in the students' reading ability.