The EFL reading proficiency test

An EFL reading proficiency test was especially developed for this study. It was composed of 6 open-ended questions rated 1 point each, whose design was based on Pearson and Johnson’s (1978) taxonomy for comprehension tasks.

In this taxonomy, question-answer relations are classified as: (a) textually explicit, (b) textually implicit and (c) scriptally implicit. According to Alptekin and Erçetin (2009), textually explicit questions (TEQ) serve to measure readers’ literal comprehension, while textually implicit and scriptally implicit questions (TIQ and SIQ, respectively), on the other hand, serve to measure readers’ inferential comprehension.

In the case of TEQ, answers derive directly from information explicitly presented on the page, and demonstrate the readers’ “shallow understanding of the text since it does not go beyond the representation of textual meaning as expressed by the author” (p. 629). That is, readers can find the information they look for, in the exact terms presented on the surface of the text, and this type of question-answer relation leads the reader to a literal comprehension. For instance, if a text presented the following information: ‘Brazil hosted the 2014 FIFA World Cup’, one respective TEQ about it could be: ‘Which country hosted the 2014 FIFA World Cup’.

In the case of TIQ, answers derive from connective inferences based on the text structure, but not derived from extensive amounts of prior knowledge. In other words, readers can identify information which

is also found on the surface of the text, but not cued by its language. In this type of relation, readers have to generate minor bridging inferences to be able to integrate ideas. For instance, if a text presented the following information: ‘The forgetful teacher spent the whole day correcting tests last Saturday’, one respective TEQ about it could be: ‘Why did the students get frustrated with the birthday party they had prepared to their teacher last Saturday?’.

Finally, in SIQ, answers derive from elaborative inferences based on previous knowledge, but still related to the text. Readers must go beyond information found on the surface of the text. In this case, personal schemata have to be activated and inferential comprehension is deeper because text-base information and prior knowledge are simultaneously processed. For instance, if a text presented the following information: ‘The British parliament couldn´t agree on the new law of social quotas’, one respective SIQ about it could be: ‘Is the disagreement result of disastrous experiences observed in other European countries where social quotas were approved?’.

Thus, textually implicit answers derive from the processing of implicit textual information while scriptally implicit answers, from the processing of both, textual information and prior knowledge. Both of them reveal “the readers’ deeper understanding of the text that comes from the integration of the surface code, the textbase, and the reader’s relevant knowledge” (p.629). These three types of question-answers relations can also be identified in the Reading Comprehension Chart constructed by Tomitch (2011), based on Gagné et al. (1993), already shown in the review of literature, Figure 2.

In that framework, TEQ would be related to the comprehension of literal meaning from print, involving the subprocesses of lexical access and parsing. TIQ and SIQ, on the other hand, would be related to the comprehension of ideas that go beyond information literally stated in text, involving the subprocesses of integration, summarization and elaboration. The EFL reading proficiency test used in this study did not contain scriptally implicit questions, considering the fact that personal schemata and background knowledge on the theme of the text used in this test would probably vary from participant to participant and, in the present study, there would be no way to control this variable.

As the main purpose of this test was to check reading comprehension and not knowledge in the target foreign language, the aforementioned types of questions were written in Portuguese, the native language of the participants, who were also allowed to answer them in the same language. Based on Buchweitz (2008), it does not seem to be

reasonable to demand an outcome in English in tasks such like this, because “the objective is to understand the reading processes used in the second language and not to analyze speaking and writing abilities” (p. 87, my translation)3_{. In sum, such a procedure aimed at decreasing an} unnecessary cognitive overload imposed to the participants of this study. The text on which the questions of this test were developed was an adapted version of ‘David Luiz:I Only Wanted to See People Smiling’ (Itri B et. al, 2014). The text contained 214 words and was published by Folha de São Paulo International, on July 2014. It had as context Brazil’s defeat in the World Cup semifinals, an episode that caused a national commotion and that was widely disseminated by different types of medium. Once soccer is highly influential in the Brazilian culture, it was believed that this text would motivate participants to get interested in its content as well as to focus higher attention while reading. One aspect to be considered is that the text basically contained grammatical topics that were already studied by the participants in the current and in the previous year. These grammatical topics were found in the series Globetrekker, 2nd edition, (Costa, 2010), which is a series of didactic textbooks distributed by the PNLD ( Programa Nacional do Livro Didático), a Brazilian educational program that aims to subsidize the pedagogical work of teachers by providing collections of textbooks to students in basic education. All textbooks offered by this program are thoroughly analyzed by evaluators from renowned Brazilian educational institutions, who follow very precise criteria before collections are officially approved and distributed by the Ministry of Education (MEC).