Bnp Formulas For Algerian Middle School Efl Learners: Predicting Readability Through Estimated Reading Time

Abstract

Readability formulas for English are normed to predict grades in the United States (Flesch 1948; Chall and Dale 1995). This limits their usability outside of their creation context and schooling system, especially for EFL teaching. This study proposes to predict student reading times as an empirically observable operationalization of readability. Specifically, we induce formulas to be used by Algerian classroom teachers in predicting the readability of the reading texts for middle school EFL learners through estimated reading time. Learners in different middle schools in Algeria participated in the study by reading selected texts to get the approximate reading time for each category of readers. BNP formulas are the first that combine a characteristic of the text, i.e., character count, with a characteristic of the intended readers, i.e., reading speed, to predict the readability of the text to EFL readers through estimating their reading time.