Differential Allocation of Attention to Meaning and Form in Reading Comprehension for Monolingual and Bilingual Learners of English

In the light of evidence that attention can facilitate and enhance learning, this study attempts to investigate the allocation of attention to meaning and form simultaneously in reading comprehension in the foreign language among monolingual and bilingual learners of English. To this end, three groups of learners namely, bilingual (knowing Kurdish, Persian), monolingual (knowing Persian) learners of English and mixed (equal number of bilingual and monolingual learners) as the control group were selected based on the results of a language proficiency test (MTELP). The learners in the two experimental groups were asked to read a written text for meaning and circle a designated lexical form. The learners in the control group were only required to read the text for meaning and answer the follow-up questions. To examine whether the type of attentional condition and bilinguality, as the two independent variables of the study, have any significant effect on comprehension scores, a two-way ANOVA was run. Think aloud technique was also employed to elicit the learners' targeted thought processes from the groups which had to circle the targeted lexical form. The results indicated that the experimental group who paid simultaneous attention to form and meaning and processed the targeted item for both form and meaning gained better comprehension scores regardless of the number of languages they knew. Moreover, it was shown that deeper levels of processing are associated with better comprehension ability. Therefore, we may conclude focus on the lexical form might improve comprehension as indicated by comprehension scores and may be an effective way to make texts more comprehensible.