engleski

The Age Factor and L2 Reading Strategies

The strategic approach to learning foreign languages is undoubtedly applicable to any linguistic skill, following the basic principle of emphasising the process rather than the product. Our research interest in L2 reading and awareness of the importance of strategic behaviour in the process of reading have led us to verbal protocols, the most intimate methodology for providing deeper insights into the process of meaning construction while reading. The cognitive revolution highlighted that the understanding of reading requires a detailed description of reading processes that protocol analysis can provide. Thus, the qualitative and quantitative analyses of the verbal protocols gathered from a group of Croatian teenagers (aged 13-14) with either five or eight years of learning English as a foreign language have revealed their approach to reading, and allowed their categorization as good or poor strategic readers. The results have also cast a shadow on age being one of the most important factors influencing the process of learning foreign languages and its outcomes. So, they support Singleton's more recent view on age according to which age "… must be seen to involve a number of issues … ", rejecting the notion of an age factor and suggesting the idea of a range of age-related factors instead.

age factor; L2 reading strategies; verbal protocols

nije evidentirano