THE EFFECT OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF MARGINAL GLOSSING (FIRST LANGUAGE & SECOND LANGUAGE) AND PICTORIAL GLOSSING) ON IRANIAN AND TURKISH ENGLISH AS FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNERS' READING COMPREHENCION

Abstract

Purpose: Researchers and educators have expressed interest for providing techniques that facilitate reading. A technique that has received a lot of attention in the area of second language acquisition is glossing. This study aim to explore the effect of Textual Glossing (First Language (L1) & Second Language (L2)), and Pictorial Glossing on University students’ reading comprehension. Method: Subjects of the study were 120 University students, 60 in Tabriz University-Iran and 60 students in Ataturk University, Erzurum, Turkey. Each group were divided randomly into 4 group of 15. First, to determine the homogeneity of the subjects, a general English test was used. Then a passage was give to the students as the reading comprehension passage with four glossing conditions (First language (L1), Second Language (L2), Pictures with text, and no gloss).  Students are classified, according to their proficiency levels, and then they are divided randomly into experimental and control groups who received reading with or without glosses. Multiple-choice tests were used to collect data. After data collection, One-way ANOVA and SPSS software were used to determine whether there was significant differences among the performances of 4 groups. Also, I used a Post-hoc comparison to show the differences among different groups. Findings: First, the results of the study manifested that all Gloss styles were obvious in EFL learners at different degrees. Secondly, students’ nationality and place of education did not play significant roles in their reading comprehension after using different kinds of Glosses. Thirdly, instructors with First Language (L1) Glosses had distinguishably better reading comprehension results.  Conclusion: The results of the study showed that the experimental groups performed better in reading comprehension tests compared with the control group. The researcher concluded that when the text is difficult, students tend to use glosses while reading; in addition, different types of gloss effect positively on student’s reading comprehension.