engleski

Young EFL Learners and Their Reading Awareness: A Case Study with Twins

This study refers to the first stage of a larger- scale investigation into the strategic reading behaviour of young Croatian EFL learners in Grade 5. Its particular aim was to investigate the development of the reading ability of a pair of twins, who had started learning English in Grade 1 (age 6/7). It was especially focused on the participants’ comprehension awareness, and included the following instruments: Meta- comprehension Strategy Index, a Croatian reading comprehension task and after-reading self-report questionnaire, as well as an English reading comprehension task and after-reading self-report questionnaire. The participants’ general school achievement and achievement in EFL proficiency, based on year-end grades (Grade 1 to 4), were also taken into account. The so-called mixed-method approach (quantitative and qualitative analysis) was used for interpreting the data, which was collected from several sources. The obtained results indicated not only crucial similarities between the twins, but also revealed some interesting differences between them. In line with the focus of the study, both types of characteristics primarily referred to the children’s awareness of strategic processes before, during and after reading. In addition, they showed their ideas of L1 and L2 (EFL) reading and evaluated their reading in Croatian and in English. The current case study should be seen as a contribution to the investigation into the two broad and relevant fields of reading and early SLA, from a perspective that still seems to be under-represented in the research.

L1 and L2 reading, comprehension and meta-comprehension, twin case study

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