Cultural content and reading proficiency: A comparison of Mainland Chinese and Hong Kong learners of English

Cultural content and reading proficiency: A comparison of Mainland Chinese and Hong Kong learners of English

• Chan, Cecilia Yuet Hung Dept. of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics, City University of Hong Kong

Language, Culture and Curriculum, 16(1), 60-69, 2003

Routledge

2003

• G Curriculum, Teaching & Learning: Specific Disciplines
  • GB English Language
    • GBD Teaching Methods of Reading Comprehension & Their Outcomes, Vocabulary Teaching
• P Social Context of Education
  • PB Comparative Education
• A Human Growth & Development
  • AE Socioeconomic & Cultural Differences, Class & Family Background

College Students Comparative Analysis Cultural Context Higher Education Language Proficiency Prior Learning Reading Comprehension Second Language Instruction Second Language Learning China Hong Kong

• Hong Kong
• China

• 1997.7 onwards

• Post-Secondary Education

This study looks closely at the relation between background knowledge and L2 proficiency in L2 reading performance in two groups of university learners of English, one from Mainland China and one from Hong Kong. The students (n = 214) shared Chinese culture in general, but differed in terms of their local sub-cultural and social background. They were divided into intermediate and post-intermediate groups on the basis of a test of General Proficiency in English. Two English cloze tests were then constructed to assess reading comprehension, one with cultural content that would have been familiar to the Hong Kong students, and one that was culture free. The results show a strong cultural effect on reading comprehension, but not on post-intermediate readers. The findings have implications for teaching reading to L2 learners.
[Copyright of Language, Culture and Curriculum is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07908310308666657]

• English

Journal Articles

• 07908318

• 10.1080/07908310308666657

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/bibs/89ac6317

2010-09-08