A STUDY OF THE EFFECT OF L2 AND L3 GLOSSING ON READING COMPREHENSION

Davis (1989) argued about using vocabulary glosses in second language materials. Bell and LeBlanc (2000, as cited in Ko, 2005) stated that glossing is the most common form of text adaptation since it assists the reader in comprehending words and phrases and, therefore, helps second language learners to comprehend reading materials. Some benefits of glossing have been claimed to be as follows: (a) according to Gettys et al. (2001), it provides learners with essential target word knowledge for bottom-up processing, (b) Paribakht and Wesche (1997) argued it prevents learners from making wrong inferences, and (c) Karp (2002) stated glossing replace dictionary use during reading and making vocabulary access convenient for readers. As learners are engaged in reading, their attention to new words can be drawn by glosses and their knowledge of the unknown words can be enriched by the rich context of reading material. First, all volunteer students took proficiency test, and based on the results of this test participants with intermediate level of proficiency recognized and randomly assigned into three groups. The three groups took the pretest. All groups involved in four treatment sessions that covered four reading texts. Teacher instructed the students in L2 and L3 glossing conditioning how to read the texts which were supported by L2 or L3 glossing at the bottom of the text. The control group received the same texts but without glossing. Finally, the multiple-choice reading comprehension test administered as a posttest. Results of the reading comprehension test of the current study clearly reveal that L2 glossing has significant effect on the reading comprehension achievement which was more beneficial than L3 glossing. This finding is consistent with the results of previous studies such as Aweiss (1994), Luo (1993), and Stoehr (2000). Moreover, the difference between L3 gloss condition and no gloss condition is not significant. Possible explanation for the effectiveness of L2 glosses is based on the Kroll and Stewart (1994) modal who believed that that learners process the text with L2 glosses faster than that without L2 glosses which can be explained through the model of lexical and conceptual representation