Reading Comprehension of L1 Culture- and L2 Culture- Based Texts: Same or Different?

Ferya Babaee Chegeni*, Servat Shirkhani**
*English Language Academies, Safir Language Academy, Khorram Abad, Iran
** English Department, Khorram Abad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Khorram Abad, Iran.
Periodicity:July - September'2020
DOI : https://doi.org/10.26634/jelt.10.3.16402

Abstract

Nowadays the consideration of culture in second/foreign language (L2) teaching is considered quite necessary. The ability of the readers in comprehending texts may be influenced by their familiarity or lack of familiarity with the culture the text is based on. So, the present study tried to find the difference between Iranian university students' comprehension of texts based on their own culture and that of texts based on the L2 culture. To carry out the study, after the homogenization process, 77 male and female learners were selected as participants of this study. They were asked to take two reading comprehension tests, one consisting of texts with background from the participants' own culture and the other consisting of texts with background from the English culture. According to the results of the matched t-test comparing the means of scores on the two reading comprehension (RC) tests, the participants significantly outperformed on the RC test based on their own culture than the RC based on the L2 culture. The findings of the study have implications for language teachers, language learners, and material developers.

Keywords

Background Knowledge, Culture, Foreign Language Learning, Reading Comprehension, Second Language Learning.

How to Cite this Article?

Chegeni, F. B., and Shirkhani, S. (2020). Reading Comprehension of L1 Culture- and L2 Culture- Based Texts: Same or Different? i-manager's Journal on English Language Teaching, 10(3), 57-63. https://doi.org/10.26634/jelt.10.3.16402

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