engleski

L2 learners and their strategic reading behaviour

The paper is based on the research into L2 reading strategies as its aim was to identify the main differences between L2 learners, this time seen as good or poor L2 readers, with a special emphasis on the strategic behaviour of the less accomplished ones. The data was collected in a group of Croatian teenagers - EFL learners, who were first administered tests that investigated their L2 proficiency. Afterwards, 3 different cloze-tests were administered and the participants were asked to verbalise their thoughts while doing the task. They were finally interviewed, so that the entire cloze-test, think-aloud and interview procedure resulted in 111 verbal protocols. These were transcribed, coded and analysed qualitatively and quantitatively. The results showed that good L2 learners had achieved significantly better results for their cloze-performance than poor L2 learners, to be further identified as good and poor L2 readers. This supports the idea of high-level L2 language proficiency as being an important pre-requisite of successful L2 reading comprehension. In terms of the reading strategy use, good L2 readers used a significantly greater number of strategies than poor L2 readers and their range of strategies was also wider. The author here points out the problems with which poor L2 readers faced and the ways in which they tried to solve them, providing their reading profile and suggesting some guidelines on how to help them become more competent in L2 reading and raise their awareness of reading as a process in general.

L2 learners; reading behaviour; L2 reading strategies

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