EFL Learners’ Comprehension of a Story in Different Narrative Discourses

This study investigates what story do students comprehend of a text with different
narrative discourses and their reasons comprehend of the text the way they do.
The findings show that EFL learners comprehend stories based on actors and
events without any sequence. In narrative discourse 1, they comprehend “I” as the
actor, events (V) are robbed, robbed, stolen, and stealing, and events (N) are
robbery and criminal activity. In narrative discourse 2, they comprehend “I” as the
actor, events (V) are robbed, robbed, dreaming, and disguised, and events (N) are
robbery, criminal activity, dream, and dinner. In narrative discourse 3, they
comprehend “He” as the actor, events (V) are robbery, imagination and feeling,
and events (N) are robbery, crime, hallucination, and sensation. The reasons EFL
learners comprehend the text in the way they do are because students comprehend
the story by focusing on keywords in the narrative discourse, students
comprehend the story because they have background knowledge or experience in
narrative discourse, and students comprehend the story for personal and illogical
reasons. This is in line with the theory of Van den Broek et al. (1999) which states
that background knowledge influences one's understanding. This study concluded
that EFL learners' reading comprehension was strongly influenced by background
knowledge and simple strategies such as keyword recognition, in line with the
theory that readers' backgrounds play an important role in comprehending texts.