Contents

pp 5-10

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

pp 11-12

INTRODUCTION

pp 13-14

PART I - ESSENTIAL COMPONENTS OF READING – A CROSS-LINGUISTIC APPROACH

pp 15-16

1 - FL/L2 reading – a language problem or a reading problem?

pp 16-19

2 - Lower-level language processing – word and sentence level

pp 19-32

3 - Higher-level language processing – discourse level and text structure knowledge

pp 32-58

4 - Language-independent factors

pp 58-74

5 - Summary of the findings and implications for future research

pp 74-82

PART II - THINK-ALOUD READING COMPREHENSION STUDIES

1 - Think-aloud methodology

pp 83-92

2 - A review of selected studies in the L1 reading context

pp 92-105

3 - A review of selected studies in the FL/L2 reading context

pp 106-113

4 - A review of selected comparative studies in L1 and FL/L2

pp 113-124

PART III - THE THINK-ALOUD STUDY

1 - Description of the study

pp 125-129

2 - Analysis of students' strategies: Stage 1

pp 130-145

3 - Analysis of problems and solutions: Stage 2

pp 145-156

4 - Analysis of propositions: Stage 3

pp 156-165

5 - Students’ idiosyncratic patterns of constructing comprehension: Stage 4

pp 166-168

6 - Evaluating the readers’ comprehension – how well the subjects understood the texts: Stage 5

pp 169-174

7 - The interview with the students: Stage 6

pp 174-179

8 - Evaluation of the study

pp 179-188

9 - Implications of the findings

pp 189-194

CONCLUDING SUMMARY

pp 195-198

APPENDICES

APPENDIX 1

pp 199-200

APPENDIX 2

pp 201-210

APPENDIX 3

pp 211-214