2. Impact of textual enhancement and type of linguistic item on efl learners’ comprehension and processing

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to study the impact of textual enhancement (capital letters) and type of linguistic item (passive voice & present perfect) on an EFL class (beginners) from two Venezuelan universities: Universidad del Zulia and Universidad Pedagógica Experimental Libertador – Barquisimeto. First, a MANOVA showed textual enhancement had a low impact on comprehension and processing in contrast to type of linguistic item whose impact was high. These results led the researchers to apply an ANOVA for comprehension and processing. This time results revealed passive voice is more beneficial regarding comprehension, whereas present perfect was more effective for processing. It is concluded that English teachers should design classroom activities and tasks to suit the degree of difficulty of such grammatical forms to promote processing more effectively.