Compensatory processing strategies in second language reading: An investigation of the effect of thematic context on the cloze task performance of ESL students in a university setting

The primary goal of the research was to investigate the capability of ESL readers to cope with the interference to reading comprehension in "bottom-up" processing caused by language-based deficiencies through the application of more "top-down" processing. In particular, the study investigated the facilitating effect of thematic context on the completion of a series of cloze tasks by ESL readers.;The 128 subjects in this study were primarily students in intensive English programs at Florida universities. A battery of three cloze tests on the same topic and a battery of three tests on three unrelated topics constituted the instruments in the study. The passages from which the clozes were constructed had been matched for readability, and the clozes had met statistical criteria to be considered equivalent forms.;A one-way analysis of covariance, with TOEFL scores serving as covariate, was applied to determine if the group taking the related-topic clozes performed any differently from the group taking the unrelated-topic clozes. Further observation of the data was carried out by plotting the results of subgroups determined a posteriori.;The correlations between the TOEFL and the cloze battery scores were above.88 for both groups, and no significant difference was found between the groups in the ANCOVA. Similarly, the plotting of scattergrams and graphing of regression lines for subgroups (determined by TOEFL) did not suggest that subjects at different proficiency levels differed in their application of thematic context in the completion of the cloze tasks, although thematic context did appear to interfere with the performance of less proficient subjects. Although the study did not support the notion of compensatory strategies, it was proposed that the cloze may limit the ability to apply top-down processing. The findings were related to the use of thematic materials in ESL curricula and to proficiency testing for admission decisions.