Abstract—One common concern of Iranian students in taking final English exams is the existence of several unknown vocabulary items in reading comprehension section. Students often argue that not knowing the meanings of such items negatively affects their performance. The purpose of this study was to see if providing test takers with L1 equivalents of the unknown vocabulary items would affect/enhance their reading comprehension level. Two passages were selected, each containing six multiple-choice items. Following Day and Park’s (2005) categorization, the first two items aimed at literal, the second two involved reinterpretation, and the last two were inferencing type of comprehension items. Forty nine students took the test twice. The first time they answered the questions without asking for the meaning of the unknown word. During the second administration, they were allowed to ask for the meanings of the unknown vocabulary items. Statistical analyses of data showed that ‘telling’ L1 equivalents of the unknown items led to a statistically significant difference. Further analyses, however, revealed that teacher assistance had significant effects on students’ performance on inference questions but not on their performance on literal and reinterpretation items. The potential reasons for the findings are discussed first. The findings, then, are used to argue that the commonly-held view by the students is only partially valid.
کلید واژگان :reading comprehension, reading assessment, comprehension questions
ارزش ریالی : 600000 ریال
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