Bilingualism and reading proficiency: Experiences of Armenian, Persian and Azeri students
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
The study presented here is an attempt to investigate the role of bilingualism in EFL students’ reading comprehension proficiency, and to that end six classes of three high schools were randomly chosen. These high schools were Soghomonian (Armenian bilinguals), Taleghani (Turkish bilinguals) and Ershad (Persian monolinguals). They were given a questionnaire and a reading comprehension test and the obtained data were analysed through one-way analysis of variance test. The performance of the three groups was significantly different. Tukey’s HSD showed that the Armenian bilingual group was the first and best group and the Persian monolingual group was the second one; however, the Turkish bilingual group was the poor third. The results suggest that L1 literacy practices of the Armenian bilinguals have worked to their advantage to the extent that they have outperformed the other two groups. This has not been the case with the Turkish bilinguals whose lack of L1 practices has worked to their detriment.
Keywords: Bilingualism, literacy, reading comprehension, EFL students.
Downloads
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).