Author: Mamadou Moustapha Sanghare (University of Sussex, UK)
Abstract
This experimental study investigated the impact of task instruction language on the performance of Senegalese secondary school students in English reading comprehension. Fifty students were randomly assigned to two groups: one received task instructions in French and the other in English. The results indicate that students receiving French task instructions scored significantly higher (Cohen’s d = 1.94). Qualitative analysis demonstrated that those students used comprehension strategies that focused on meaning. Students who received instructions and questions in English employed surface-level strategies because they misunderstood the task. These findings suggest that monolingual English assessment introduces substantial construct-irrelevant variance and underrepresents students' reading comprehension abilities.
Keywords: reading comprehension; task instructions; language of assessment; construct validity; Senegalese EFL learners.
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