EXPLORING THE MANIFESTATION OF COMPREHENSION MONITORING AMONG MORE PROFICIENT READERS AND LESS PROFICIENT READERS DURING A READING TASK

This study investigates the intertwined relationship between comprehension monitoring and level of reading proficiency of Iranian EFL learners during reading academic materials in an EFL context. Participants were 115 freshman university students majoring in Electronics. They were first given a standard TOEFL test to make sure of the homogeneity of them in terms of general proficiency and then a standard test of reading proficiency to choose the ones with high and low reading abilities. Finally, 10 were selected as more proficient (MP) and less proficient (LP) readers. Data triangulation including think-aloud protocol analysis, error detection paradigm and retrospective questions was used to examine the comprehension monitoring of readers. The results of the t-tests, percentages of comprehension monitoring and qualitative analysis of think-aloud protocols of each group revealed that comprehension monitoring of less proficient readers is less frequent and poorly performed in comparison with more proficient readers.