Abstract
Research has shown that phonological processing skills (phonological and prosodic awareness) play a critical role in reading development. The importance of phonological awareness in reading has been well-established for both first- and second-language (L2) environments, but prosodic awareness, the ability to recognize and manipulate prosody such as stress, rhythm, and intonation, has received little attention in L2 reading research. Therefore, this study investigates and clarifies the contributions of phonological and prosodic awareness to L2 reading comprehension among English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) learners. A total of 44 Japanese EFL undergraduate and graduate students participated in this study. Three types of tasks were conducted to assess phonological awareness, prosodic awareness, and L2 reading comprehension. The results of the correlation analysis showed that both phonological and prosodic awareness were correlated with L2 reading comprehension. Moreover, multiple regression found that only prosodic awareness significantly contributed to L2 reading comprehension. These findings have pedagogical implications for EFL learners’ reading.
