AWARENESS OF TEXT STRUCTURE - IS THERE A MATCH BETWEEN READERS AND AUTHORS OF 2ND-LANGUAGE TEXTS

The purpose of this study was to investigate the types of rehetorical structures that beginning-level Spanish students encounter in their te xtbook reading materials. The intent was to determine if there was a m atch between the types of structures that English-speaking students ar e most typically able to demonstrate awareness of and the types of str uctures used by authors of reading materials found in Spanish textbook s. Also considered in the investigation was the issue of authentic tex ts and how they were the same or different than texts specifically wri tten for textbook purposes. Finally, an analysis of words used to sign al text patterns was done both for the authentic passages as well as t hose that were artifically constructed. Fifteen textbooks used to teac h Spanish as a foreign language were selected randomly for inclusion i n the study and from those 15 books, 39 passages were analyzed.