The present study aimed at examining the effect of macro- and micro-discourse markers in EFL academic reading comprehension. The study involved 70 college students, enrolling the ‘Intermediate English Reading Course,’ and they were from diverse majors. Of 70 participants, half (n=35) read a text with discourse markers and the other half (n=35) read a text without discourse markers. The findings of the study revealed that discourse markers played an important role in English reading comprehension. Compared to the group without discourse markers, the group with discourse makers comprehended significantly more information from English academic reading in an accurate manner. The present study makes an important contribution to the current literature on EFL reading comprehension, by providing the additional empirical evidence concerning the effect of macro-and micro discourse markers as well as the combination of both on English reading comprehension.

• Youn-Kyoung Lee(Catholic University of Daegu)