The cross-linguistic transfer of reading comprehension skill and its strategies: The case of French learners of Persian language

Many studies have been conducted to determine the extent to which reading comprehension skill is important for the success of second language learning and is itself affected by L2 lexical and grammatical knowledge. The present study aimed to explore whether the reading comprehension of Persian as a foreign language could be improved solely through expanding learners’ knowledge of Persian vocabulary and grammar or it could also be enhanced through the development of general reading comprehension skills. This study investigated to what extent the learners drew on similar strategies in fulfilling Persian and French reading comprehension tasks. The development of reading comprehension skill and the implementation of reading comprehension strategies was explored in the case of 37 intermediate French learners of Persian over a four-months period in Paris at Institute National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO). The findings revealed that reading comprehension skill is primarily a general cross-linguistic ability. That is, it is not a language-specific ability which is affected by lexical/grammatical knowledge of the target language alone. Moreover, the results indicated that proficient readers employed more diverse comprehension strategies which were shared across the learners’ two languages. Less proficient readers resorted to more limited strategies which were different across the learners’ two languages.