The Effect of Business English Curriculum on Second Language Reading Comprehension of English Text

This paper investigates the role of the Business English curriculum in second language reading comprehension of business text. We recruited two groups of Chinese-speaking ESL students, 30 students taking courses in a Business English undergraduate program and 22 students enrolled in a non-business program. Participants read two English texts, one with a business topic and one with a non-business topic, and then took a reading quiz composed of both explicit and implicit comprehension questions targeting their literal and inferential reading abilities, respectively. The results showed that background knowledge facilitates L2 reading comprehension of business text. Students trained in the Business English program had a better understanding of business-related text than students without business knowledge when answering both literal and inferential comprehension questions.