The Efficiency of Priming Techniques for the Word Recognition and Sentence Comprehension of EFL Learners: Conceptual and Perceptual Priming in Comparison
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Abstract
This study attempted to examine the impacts of conceptual and perceptual primes on the word recognition and sentence comprehension of beginner, intermediate and advanced EFL learners. Consequently, 246 EFL learners were recruited for study and categorized into three English proficiency levels. The needed data was collected via Lexical Decision Tasks (LDTs) and a constructed multiple-choice sentence comprehension test. The findings indicated that both priming techniques improved word recognition and sentence comprehension of the participants significantly, however the conceptual primes were more facilitative for both word recognition and sentence comprehension tasks. Moreover, language proficiency was found to be determinant of priming efficiency, in the way that, as the learners become more proficient their performance would be more positively affected by both conceptual and perceptual priming techniques. Finally, the pedagogical implications and suggestions are discussed in the light of the findings.
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