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Visual-Syntactic Text Formatting: Develo** EFL Learners’ Reading Fluency Components

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Abstract

Develo** English reading fluency (ERF) is challenging due to cross-linguistic differences between L1 and L2. This study replicated, with modifications, prior study of "syntactic enhancement and secondary school EFL Students' reading fluency in South Korea." The current project investigated the impact of visual-syntactic text formatting (VSTF) on develo** ERF components (i.e., parsing skills, reading speed, and comprehension) in an Iranian context. In order to reformat block-formatted English text in a way to be more concise, the VSTF technology was used. For 20 weeks, two experimental groups (76 intermediate EFL students) read reformatted passages, whereas the control group (n = 38) read their block-formatted textbook. After analyzing the pre-and post-test results, it was demonstrated that reformatted texts could support EFL students to enhance their ERF elements. The researchers also found that VSTF can be used as a syntactic enhancement, making it simpler for EFL learners to receive English syntactic information as input. Findings have led to the reasonable interpretation that learning L2 reading fluency components (RFC) was more productive when the VSTF technology was utilized for the learning processes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Teacher Education, Taishan University, Shandong, 271000, China

    Wei Gao

  2. University of Applied Science and Technology (UAST), Khuzestan, Iran

    Ehsan Namaziandost

  3. Mehrarvand Institute of Technology, Abadan, Iran

    Ehsan Namaziandost

  4. Department of English, College of Sciences and Humanities, Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Kharj, Saudi Arabia

    Mohammad Awad Al-Dawoody Abdulaal

  5. Department of English, Faculty of Arts, Port Said University, Port Said, Egypt

    Mohammad Awad Al-Dawoody Abdulaal

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  1. Wei Gao
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  2. Ehsan Namaziandost
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  3. Mohammad Awad Al-Dawoody Abdulaal
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Correspondence to Ehsan Namaziandost.

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Gao, W., Namaziandost, E. & Abdulaal, M.A.AD. Visual-Syntactic Text Formatting: Develo** EFL Learners’ Reading Fluency Components. J Psycholinguist Res 51, 707–727 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-021-09823-x

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