The Relationship between Knowledge of I^craab, Lexical Knowledge, and Reading Comprehension of Nonnative Readers of Arabic

Abstract

This article reports on an investigation into the role played by knowledge of both icraab and vocabulary in the reading comprehension of American learners of Arabic as a foreign language (AFL). Two groups (46 participants), proficient and less proficient, of nonnative readers of Arabic read an expository text, wrote an immediate recall protocol in their first language to measure their overall reading comprehension, and completed a vocabulary task and an icraab task. Whereas the analysis of the data revealed that vocabulary knowledge had a significant main effect, icraab was found not to have a significant role in reading comprehension. Although the issue of icraab needs further investigation, the results suggest that reading comprehension is independent of a knowledge of icraab and depends mainly on vocabulary knowledge.

Correlates of Listening Comprehension in L1 and L2: A Meta-analysis

“…Our results also underscore the important role vocabulary and grammar knowledge play in determining listening comprehension scores. Similar to L2 reading studies which report strong links between vocabulary knowledge and comprehension (Hawas, 1990;Khaldieh, 2001;Koda, 1992;Pulido & Hambrick, 2008;Shiotsu, 2010), strong associations were found between vocabulary knowledge and L2 listening comprehension (Matthews & Cheng, 2015;Sağlam, 2014;Staehr, 2009;Teng, 2014Teng, , 2016. It is strongly advocated that core word knowledge should be promoted to enable learners to comprehend texts (Koda, 2005).…”

L2 Reading Comprehension and Its Correlates: A Meta‐Analysis

“…Abu-Rabia & Sanitsky (2010) 0.184 -0.135 0.469 1.132 0.258 Khaldieh (2001) 0.276 -0.016 0.524 1.858 0.063 Haynes & Carr (1990) 0.371 0.129 0.571 2.941 0.003 August (2006) 0.399 0.150 0.601 3.046 0.002 Guo & Roehrig (2011) 0.580 0.496 0.653 10.986 0.000 Shiotsu (2010) 0.624 0.536 0.699 10.751 0.000 Nassaji & Geva (1999) 0.660 0.488 0.783 5.986 0.000 Choi et al (2003): Sample 1 0.714 0.619 0.789 10.169 0.000 Irvine et al (1974) 0.736 0.655 0.800 11.762 0.000 Lefrancois & Armand (2003) 0.791 0.631 0.887 6.354 0.000 Van Gelderen et al (2004) 0.800 0.754 0.839 18.318 0.000 Bensoussan & Ramraz (1984) 0.827 0.795 0.855 24.496 0.000 Henning et al (1981) 0.830 0.779 0.870 15.985 0.000 Choi et al (2003): Sample 2 0.961 0.945 0.972 21.724 0.000 Sang et al (1986) 0.990 0.989 0.991 120.706 0.000 Shiotsu & Weir (2007)…”

Arabic Diacritics and Their Role in Facilitating Reading Speed, Accuracy, and Comprehension by English L2 Learners of Arabic

“…In the Arabic L2 context, few studies were conducted on the role of Arabic script and diacritics. One such study was conducted by Khaldieh (2001) who investigated the role of knowledge of ʔiʕrāb 'case and mood' endings (i.e., inflectional endings involving vowels in final word position) 3 and vocabulary on reading comprehension among American learners of Arabic as an L2. The study employed an expository text, vocabulary, and ʔiʕrāb tasks, and an immediate recall protocol conducted in the learners' native language.…”

“…The findings revealed that participants relied on knowledge of vocabulary more than that of ʔiʕrāb. Khaldieh (2001) suggested further research, using texts employing classical Arabic prose, may provide evidence for the importance of ʔiʕrāb endings in reading comprehension according to text type.…”