The quality of summaries of expository text: A comparison between L1 and L2 undergraduates

• Main Author: Moghaddam, S.T.
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: L Education (General)
• Online Access: http://eprints.um.edu.my/11338/1/Full_paper_Shariat_Taheri.doc; http://eprints.um.edu.my/11338/

The present paper investigates how first and second English language undergraduates wrote summaries of the expository text to find out the differences in quality between the summaries of two groups. The sample consisted of seventy undergraduates from a private Malaysian university, comprising thirty-five L1 and thirty-five L2 English speakers. Data for the study include summaries by students, response to teacher and student questionnaires as well as interviews with both teachers and students. The results of the study revealed that there was a significant difference in the quality of summaries of L1 and L2 English speakers in expository text based on the summary criteria such as content points of summary product, paraphrase of the source text, use of language, level of summary, operation of summary and length of summary writing