| Abstract: | How does national culture interact with second-language reading comprehension? This study investigated the effect of cultural medium of presentation, language, and sequence of cultural/foreign and first-language/second-language presentation on the literal and interpretative comprehension of Form I (seventh grade) bilingual Nigerian students. Data were analysed using ANOVA. Previous studies concerning schema theories were upheld in that the present results for Experiment 1 revealed significantly superior scores for culturally related English language text when compared with scores for foreign-based passages written in English. The data from Experiment 2 also revealed similar results when the subjects were presented with the same Experiment 1 foreign-based passages written in English and with translations of these English passages to the mother tongue. In spite of sequencing, scores were higher for the first-language passages. For both experiments, scores were higher at the literal level and sequencing was found to have little effect in enhancing comprehension of culturally unfamiliar material. |
