The current study examines the impact of culturally relevant background knowledge on second-year Saudi EFL learners' reading comprehension. The purpose of this study is to contribute to a better understanding of culturally diverse texts and to enhance the teaching-learning process by utilizing the background knowledge of local learners. This qualitative study employed a think-aloud retrospective interview methodology to help readers express their in-depth thoughts, interpret, and reflect on familiar and unfamiliar cultural passages. Thematic analysis was used to classify think-aloud retrospective interview protocol on two passages, which were audio-recorded, transcribed, and coded for specified categories. The qualitative data were analyzed to examine if there was a link between EFL respondents' cultural background knowledge and the passages. A total of five English-major undergraduate respondents from Majmaah University took part in retrospective think-aloud interview protocols. The findings of this study revealed that EFL undergraduate respondents' cultural background knowledge had a favorable impact on a culturally relevant topic. The findings of this study revealed that culturally relevant topics differed significantly from culturally irrelevant topics.

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Cultural schemata mediate an interaction between a text and the reader which ultimately facilitates reading comprehension and recall of the text content. This interaction between a text and a reader requires reader's cultural knowledge in making meaning and understanding of a text. This study investigates the contribution of cultural familiarity, language proficiency and background knowledge on reading comprehension of culturally familiar and unfamiliar texts of Saudi EFL learners by employing qualitative and quantitative approaches for data collection and analysis. Respondents were 30 male and 30 female undergraduates from Majmaah University in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Data were collected using two main instruments which were four culturally familiar and unfamiliar expository English texts and written recall summary reading protocols as a measure for reading comprehension. The findings from the written recall summary protocol and genderspecific text analysis revealed that respondents performed well on familiar texts than texts of unfamiliar contents. In addition, the study found that cultural background knowledge had a significant impact on recall and reading comprehension based on gender. The findings suggest that background knowledge and language proficiency were significant constructs on meaning inferences and predictions. The results also indicate that there was a significant relation between language proficiency, cultural knowledge, and its impact on reading comprehension. Overall, this study recommends that critical variables like cultural background knowledge and language proficiency could enhance learners' reading comprehension level and thus need to be considered by EFL reading teachers.