Coming from different directions: A comparison of the eye movements of
      English L1 and Arabic L1 speakers reading in English and the
      implementation of an intensive reading intervention programme
Creators: name: Oakley, Joan
Publisher: name: Publisher unspecified
Year: 2018
Subjects: Eye tracking
Reading in a second or foreign language
Reading ability
Pedagogical practices
Arabic L1 students
Vowel blindness
Practitioner research
Reading interventions
Noticing and awareness

description: Eye movements have been widely used to investigate cognitive processes
      during first language (L1) reading and in the last few years it has become
      more common for applied linguists to use eye tracking technology to
      examine topics that had previously been investigated using off-line
      measures (Conklin &amp; Pellicer-Sánchez, 2016). However, few eye
      movement studies have investigated Arabic L1 speakers reading in English,
      although there have been numerous studies which showed that this
      population experiences great difficulty learning to read in English (see,
      for example, Abu-Rabia, 1997b; Fender, 2003, 2008; Hayes-Harb, 2006;;
      Randall, 2007; Randall &amp; Groom, 2009; Randall &amp; Meara,
      1988; Ryan, 1997; Ryan &amp; Meara, 1991; Saigh &amp; Schmitt,
      2012; Thompson-Panos &amp; Thomas-Ruzic, 1983). There is general
      consensus in the literature that these problems are related to inefficient
      processing of English vowels. The overall aim of this thesis was to
      investigate the causes of the reading difficulties I observed with my own
      students and then to devise a barrage of pedagogical interventions which
      would remediate these problems. The research was comprised of two studies.
      The aim of Study One of the present research was to investigate the
      differences in eye movements between skilled English L1 (N=36) and Arabic
      L1 EFL participants (N=39) reading English sentences. Study One found that
      the Arabic L1 participants displayed eye movements which were
      significantly different from the patterns exhibited by the English L1
      participants, and were indicative of potentially less efficient cognitive
      processes. These differences were demonstrated in 10 of the 11 metrics
      calculated. Specifically, the Arabic L1 EFL participants exhibited
      significantly more and longer fixations than the English L1 participants.
      They also made significantly more and shorter (forward) saccades than the
      English L1 group. Furthermore, data analysis showed a highly significant
      difference between the two groups in visits on vowels and consonants.
      Study One constitutes an important contribution to the literature on the
      difficulties experienced by Arabic L1 students learning to read in
      English. It demonstrates that their eye movements are significantly
      different from those of skilled English L1 readers. Little or no work
      exists which investigates any differences in allotment of visual attention
      when comparing the eye movements on vowels and consonants of Arabic L1 and
      English L1 speakers as they read sentences in English. The finding that
      the Arabic L1 EFL participants spent more time attending to vowels than
      did the English L1 participants questions the ‘vowel blindness’ hypothesis
      as proposed by Ryan and Meara (1991). This refers to the assumption that
      Arabic L1 speakers “lack an awareness of the function which vowels perform
      in English” (Ryan, 1997, p. 189) and consequently do not recognize or
      attend to them.The aim of Study Two was to investigate the effects of
      focused reading interventions on the eye movement patterns and overall
      reading proficiency of Arabic L1 EFL students. Study Two was a
      quasi-experimental study which compared two groups of proficiency-matched
      Arabic L1 EFL learners (N= 39), before and after an intensive reading
      intervention programme during a 14-week semester at a technical college in
      Qatar. It included two intact classes in the experimental group (N=20)
      which received reading interventions consisting of textual enhancement,
      phonemic awareness, spelling, tracking exercises, rapid word recognition
      and oral text fluency and two intact classes in the control group which
      received regular classroom instruction (N=19). The effect of the treatment
      on reading test scores was analysed using a 2-way repeated ANOVA. Analysis
      of total reading scores showed a significant main effect for time, but no
      significant main effect for experimental condition. To investigate the eye
      movements of the two groups before and after treatment, this phase of the
      study used the same eye tracking metrics employed in Study One. Results
      showed there was no statistically significant interaction between the
      experimental group and time, indicating that both the treatment and
      control groups showed improvement in their eye tracking measures during
      the 14 weeks. Study Two is the first study to investigate a barrage of
      pedagogical interventions on the eye movements and reading proficiency of
      Arabic L1 EFL students. Although the interventions did not produce
      statistically significant results, the study provides a building block for
      future studies using focused pedagogical interventions with this
      particular group of learners.