Evaluation of reading comprehension in a foreign language: A qualitative case study

Abstract

The main purpose of this qualitative case study was to describe and analyze the conceptions that a teacher and three students had regarding the evaluation of the students’ reading comprehension in an English-for-Academic-Purposes course in a university located in western Venezuela. The role of the mother tongue in the reading comprehension of texts written in the foreign language was also analyzed. Several ethnographic tools were used for data collection. The analysis and interpretation of the data was done by triangulating all the information collected during the study. The findings suggest that: 1) translation from the L2 to the L1 should be used as a complementary pedagogical tool to other activities in order to develop in students some cognitive reading strategies
and to rectify the students’ possible misconceptions about evaluation of reading comprehension; 2) the use of Spanish as a mother tongue in this English reading course is key to the development of teaching, learning, and evaluation activities to foster reading comprehension in a foreign language.