Quantifying proper nouns’ influence on L2 English learners’ reading fluency

Abstract

Proper nouns constitute a lexical class with special properties and are thus treated differently from other words by second language acquisition researchers. An assumption exists that even low-proficiency learners will find them unproblematic, yet research suggests this assumption might be misplaced. The present study involved two self-paced reading experiments designed to investigate proper nouns’ influence on Japanese university students’ reading fluency. In Experiment 1, participants were presented with 60 decontextualized sentences containing 30 proper nouns and 30 common nouns to determine whether they are processed in a similar manner. In Experiment 2, participants read another 60 sentences comprising a book chapter to explore the effects of repeated exposure to a set of proper nouns. The results indicated that proper nouns are processed in a similar manner to common nouns in terms of disrupting reading fluency. The implications for language learning pedagogy, in particular extensive reading, are discussed.

Leveraging Read-Aloud Instructional Strategy (Rais) for Enhancing English Reading Fluency, Anxiety, and Confidence of Efl Chinese Undergraduates: A Quasi-Experimental Multi-Group Design

“…This affective turbulence not only erects barriers to linguistic immersion but, as Mills (2014) discerned, also dictates pedagogical preferences, with anxious learners gravitating towards safer, teacher-centric modalities. Nicklin et al (2023) incisive observations explicate the intricate interplay between anxiety, performance pressure, and the subsequent erosion of self-confidence. By tying one's academic self-worth to the stringent yardstick of perfectionism, the very crucible of learning metamorphoses into an arena of crippling self-doubt, paralyzing the adventurous spirit essential for linguistic risk-taking and exploration (Altumigah & Alkhaleefah, 2022;Boakye, 2015).…”