Are L2 Readers Susceptible to Interesting Details in a Text?

Are L2 Readers Susceptible to Interesting Details in a Text?

  Although rich and contentious literature has addressed the effect of text-based interest on readers’ comprehension, much remains to be determined to understand whether and how interest has similar effects when reading in a first and a second language. This study examined whether L2 readers are susceptible to interesting details in a text in the similar way to L1 readers. Comprehension was assessed by three recall scores, common ideas, main ideas, and non-main ideas. The participants completed a reading proficiency and a prior-knowledge test before reading an informative text about Linus Pauling and Vitamin C. Results of a MANOVA indicated that seductive details interfered with these readers’ recall of common and main ideas, confirming past research showing an interference effect of interesting but unimportant details. However, results also indicated that interesting elaborations, designed to be of importance in the text, were not significantly beneficial to EFL reading comprehension when compared to the baseline text. Discussion centers on exploring whether students struggled with the incoherence of the seductive detail version and whether all students seemed to be approaching their reading as one requiring the memorization of ideas.