Effects Of Textual Enhancement On Chinese EFL Learner’s Word-guessing And Reading Comprehension

Textual enhancement,as a way of the input enhancement on target language,is an intervention in the language form of a reading text.Through using a combination of qualitative and quantitative research,this study aims to answer two questions:(1)What are the effects of textual enhancement(with the enlarged font,16 font-size)on students’ word-guessing ability and reading comprehension ability?(2)What is the relationship between students’ ability of word-guessing and reading comprehension? Sixty-six non-English major freshman students were selected and equally divided into the experimental group and the control group,according to the odd and even numbers of the student ID number.The participants were asked to have the pretest and the post-test of reading tests,with an interval of three days between the two rounds of reading tests.The reading tests both in the pretest and in the post-test contain word-guessing questions and reading comprehension questions,both taking the form of multiple-choice question.The purpose of the pretest is to test whether the two groups of students have the same level of English proficiency,while the function of the post-test is to statistically analyze the relationship between textual enhancement and students’ word-guessing ability,and the relationship between textual enhancement and students’ reading comprehension level.Moreover,the post-test can also test the relationship between students’ word-guessing ability and reading comprehension ability under the treatment of textual enhancement.In the pretest,the students in the experimental group and the control group had not any textual enhancement in the reading texts.On the other hand,in the post-test,the students in the experimental group had used the enhanced font of the reading articles and at the same time,they were required to use think-aloud method to express their ideas of reading articles and finish the questions,however,the reading texts of the students in the control group had not textual enhancement in the post-test.The results of two tests and think-aloud show that textual enhancement of the enlarged font has a significant effect on students’ word-guessing ability,but has no effect on students’ reading comprehension ability.In addition,it can improve students’ word-guessing ability under the effect of textual enhancement,because students can pay more attention to the enhanced words in the texts and their respective meanings,grammatical features and collocation,thus contributing to the output of vocabulary knowledge.However,there has no correlation between the word-guessing ability and reading comprehension ability of the students in the experimental group.It provides an effective way of enhancing the language form of the implementation of English reading teaching in China.Teachers can use textual enhancement to strengthen students’ attention to the target language,but the language form needs to be carried out on the premise of mastering the language content.Teachers should not only help students acquire a certain number of English words,but also cultivate students’ ability to guess words in context and grasp the main idea of the article,in order to promote students’ reading comprehension in the context.