Contributions of Motivation to Read in L2, Proficiency and L1 Reading Strategy Awareness to L2 Reading

Abstract L2 learners, when reading in L2 have access to their L1 literacy as a repertoire of reading strategy in L1. The main purpose of this study was to investigate to what extent awareness of reading strategies in L1 (strategy) and general proficiency in L2 (proficiency) contribute to reading comprehension ability in L2 (reading) and how it would differ among Iranian EFL learners with different degrees of motivation to read in L2 (motivation). To this purpose, a reading strategy inventory assessing strategic reading behavior in L1, a test of general English proficiency, a reading comprehension test in L2, and a motivation to read questionnaire in L2 were distributed among 289 university students selected conveniently at a Teacher Education University. To gain a deeper insight into the issue, a structured interview was also devised with thirty purposively selected participants subsequent to quantitative analysis of the data. Pearson correlation and Regression analysis as well as a two-way ANOVA were used to analyze the collected data. The results showed that proficiency accounted much more strongly for the participants' reading score variance than strategy and motivation. Additionally, it was found that strategy and motivation contributed nearly similarly to reading, showing that motivation is fairly as important as strategy in predicting reading. It was also found that the role of proficiency in the participants with low and high levels of motivation was significant. When motivation is high or low, proficiency has strong effects on reading. When strategy is low, motivation has strong effect on reading and when proficiency is medium, strategy has a strong effect on reading. This study has implications for EFL classroom practitioners and L2 pedagogy to adjust instruction to individual learner profiles.