Comprehension Monitoring in First and Second Language Reading: an Investigation with Chinese Efl Learners

Comprehension monitoring, an essential skill for competent reading, enables an individual to keep track of what he/she is reading in order to make sure the information makes sense. While comprehension monitoring is widely studied in reading as a first language (L1), it has not been well documented in second language (L2) reading and there is a dearth of studies in which a cross- lingual comparison is made of comprehension monitoring of the same reader when they read in L1 and L2. This book which is based on a study conducted with Chinese learners of English as a foreign language on a comparison of comprehension monitoring in their Chinese and English reading contributes to the field of L2 reading research and education both theoretically and practically. From theoretical perspectives, the study of comprehension monitoring in reading two distant languages is more meaningful since the distance requires those readers to compensate their decoding through comprehension monitoring. Practically, the information obtained from the investigation can be useful for L2 reading educators to efficiently design reading curricula.