In addition to the interviews, TAPs and RVRs completed with students, and as outlined in Chapter 4.7.3.4, six lecturers were interviewed using a semi- structured interview format. As with the student interview, lecturer responses were coded according to protocols outlined in Chapter 4.8.3 and the findings are presented below. In the following section, numbers in brackets represent the number of the six lecturers who made the response. The results from the six sections are as follows:
19) Table 5.9: Sections of the lecturer interview
Section Title
1 Access to reading 2 Teaching reading
3 Cues to reading comprehension 4 The reading process
5 Student's recurrent reading behaviours 6 Factors affecting reading challenges
In the information presented below, I use direct quotes in two different ways, either to illustrate examples of dominant themes, or to provide examples of unique responses. The results from the six interview sections are as follows:
5.3.4.1 Access to reading
In the first section of the interview, lecturers were asked whether their students had access to libraries in the university and the English Departments at the three universities, and whether they encouraged their students to borrow books
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from either library or assigned them reading. They were also asked whether towns have libraries or public spaces for reading and whether students received encouragement from others than themselves in read in English
All lecturers said that none of the three universities had a library; nor did the English departments. Not only did they say that were there no reading resources within the universities, but that even textbooks had to be personally and individually obtained by the students from towns some distance from the city.
"When students want to buy even textbooks we have to gather the student's name and buy the books from other cities which are far away from here" (Lr2).
The absence of libraries meant that they could not encourage borrowing books or reading material from within their institutions and departments, although Lr2 said that he encouraged the borrowing of books '… to a certain level' and was not certain whether students follow his advice. The other five lecturers expressed regret about the absence of libraries and Lr1 commented that he hoped that this would not always be the case.
"No, unfortunately. It is a new university, only five years old and I hope there will be a library in the new buildings which will be built soon".
Lr3 added that:
"… reading comprehension would be improved if there was a library from which students could borrow books. There is a necessity to make access available to various books because we are very limited to the course material, as we don’t have a library in the university".
However one lecturer said that he believed that even if resources were available within the university, students did not have time to read beyond the core material required for the course in order to complete homework and prepare for examinations. Lr3 commented:
"… students are not capable of finishing the minimum course requirements. There are certain core texts which must be read to keep the student on track and I do not want to put more of a load onto them".
Other lecturers (e.g., Lr2) took up a similar negative theme, saying they did not think students would read more if resources were available, because of the poor standard of their reading:
"…because of the low standard of the students in English language in general and reading comprehension in particular, I only assign simple English reading to a minimum degree …".
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"… students hardly read because they haven’t developed the habit of reading in their formative years".
One lecturer also said he believed that "… students prefer to read on the
Internet".
Three lecturers said that they did not assign reading beyond curriculum requirements and course materials because students would not be able to cope with it because of their poor reading standard. They also said that they believed that students lacked time and read only for exams. The other three said that they assigned minimal reading, and sometimes from the Internet. Only two said they encouraged their students to read and even then "not much" and most said that they do not believe that there was any additional encouragement from outside the course for students to read in English, e.g. parents, friends and society.
Of the three cities in the research, lecturers said that two have public libraries. However they said that they do not encourage students to go there. They also said that any public reading spaces contained only magazines in Arabic.
5.3.4.2 Teaching reading
In the second section of the interview, the six lecturers were asked their opinions on the standard of English reading teaching in Saudi schools prior to university level, about their perspective on the teaching of English reading in the university and whether they assess their students' reading levels.
Five lecturers said that they believed the English reading teaching in intermediate and secondary schools was unsatisfactory, of a poor standard and ineffectual. Lr3 added that it ''lacked seriousness'' and Lr1 that "… it is not of
the standard we are aiming for." Lr2 added that "… reading is a problematic skill for Arabs".
All lecturers said that they believed students learned English letters in school by name rather than phonically. They said they saw this as a problem because students could not sound words out properly in order to recognise the sound and therefore the word's meaning. For example Lr 3 said,
"Mostly in schools they teach letters by saying them alphabetically in a loud voice and this is a big mistake. If they would teach them phonically, students would be able to read smoothly and without hesitation".
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He added that this made it difficult for students to decode and pronounce phonemes correctly.
Two of the lecturers said they believed that phonic reading was taught at the university. However the other four said that if it was, then the level was still unsatisfactory. A number of reasons were put forward to explain this, including the following:
- teaching reading strategies would interfere with other teaching on the course,
- the student reading standard is so low that it is ineffective to teach reading,
- student absence is high – more than half the class are absent at any one time so that lessons would lack continuity, and
- they are not themselves specialists in teaching reading and therefore lack the required expertise and knowledge to teach reading strategies. Lr4 said:
"Teaching reading is assigned to linguistics lecturers who are not specialized in teaching reading. This is because we don’t have enough lecturers."
Lecturers were uncertain about whether final stable syllables such as '-tion' (pronounced '-shon'), '-cial' (pronounced '-shul), '-cious' (pronounced '-shus') and '-ique' (pronounced'-eek') were taught at the university. Some said they did not know, while others said that they did not teach it and one (Lr4) said that any that were taught, would only the most common ones, such as '-tion'.
Most (4) lecturers stated that English reading teaching in the university was unsatisfactory and Lr4 said this was because they (the lecturers) were not reading teaching specialists, but three said poor student reading is due to poor attendance.. Lecturers 1, 4, and 6 said
"Most of the class are absent".
Three lecturers added that, because it was not of the standard they expected, poor student reading slowed their teaching process
Half the lecturers said they did not know whether stable syllabic patterns were taught at the university, although Lr6 was clear that they were not. Two disagreed and said there were courses on phonetics and linguistics in the university. Five lecturers said they did not assess student reading levels, but Lr1 said that he did but only 'sometimes'.
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These findings suggest a poor relationship between student's reading ability and the level of reading material assigned. This makes it unlikely that many will understand what they have read.
5.3.4.3 Cues to reading
In the third section, lecturers were asked about the role of punctuation, phonics and spelling as facilitators of reading comprehension. They were also asked about their students' awareness of the importance of these to English reading comprehension.
a. Punctuation
Four lecturers said their students did not appear to understand punctuation and paid it no attention. Lr3 said he believed this was because it had not been taught properly in previous schools. The two lecturers who said their students were aware of punctuation, said they believed it was only "of very few" [punctuation markers] and that students seemed to struggle with it.
Lr2 commented that these problems could be due to differences between the location of punctuation marks in Arabic and English punctuation which could cause confusion for Arabic students learning English.
"Arabic doesn't have full-stops after each short sentence but only after long sentences or paragraphs. We use commas regularly and they seem to take the place of full-stops in Arabic. So I think the students apply the same strategy in reading English and apply the full-stop expecting it to be a comma."
His implication is that students do not expect to see full-stops as often as they appear in English text and therefore do not notice them.
b. Phonics
All lecturers agreed that it was important for students to be aware of, know and understand English phonic patterns and four emphasised this by saying it was 'vital' in facilitating correct decoding and comprehension. Two said that phonological awareness would help their student's decoding and understanding of what they read in English. As Lr1 expressed it:
"It will help with pronouncing the word correctly and help understanding the word and then the text as whole. Teachers often miss seeing the connection between the two."
Lr2 added that such phonological awareness should be taught from an early stage, i.e., from the beginning of learning English in schools at intermediate and secondary school levels.
191 c. Spelling
All lecturers said that spelling was important and two specified that this was because it helped with decoding and reading comprehension. Five agreed that spelling is an important aid in decoding, word knowledge and comprehension. However, lecturers were divided on whether it was taught at the university, two saying that it was not, three that it was (though Lr6 added "only the plurals", and one said he did not know. Four lecturers said their students English spelling was very weak. And Lr2 explained the reason.
"They are not good at spelling because English spelling, unlike Arabic spelling, does not correspond to the sound system and as a result it is a problematic for them."
Despite these challenges, Lr1 said that most students indicated that they wanted to learn how to spell in English.
5.3.4.4 Reading process
In the fourth section lecturers were asked about cues, techniques and strategies they believed their students used in order to facilitate comprehension. They were also asked how they assessed the level of their students' reading comprehension, about the reading challenges their students seemed to face, and about what they believed would help their students to become better readers and understand more of what they read.
a. Cues, techniques and strategies
All lecturers said that they believed their students prepared for reading. Four lecturers said they believed they did so by familiarising themselves with the text, two that they seemed to explore the topic and two that they seemed to familiarise themselves with new and long words. All lecturers said their students appeared to employ reading techniques and they identified a range they used. These included talking to each other, talking to the teacher, guessing, translating text, finger pointing, trying to derive meaning from context or correct decoding. With regard to cues, techniques and strategies, lecturers generally stated that, in their experience, students were minimally aware of reading cues and Lr6 described this as ''only to a certain degree." Four lecturers described their student's awareness as limited to title/topic sentences at the beginning of a text and summary/conclusion sentences at the end and added
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that they needed more awareness. Lr6 added that they knew the importance of 'examples and quotations'.
One lecturer commented that he believed students would benefit from scanning the text in advance, although all six lecturers agreed that students generally familiarise themselves with the topic before beginning. Lecturers identified a number of preparation techniques which they believed would facilitate comprehension. These included building on background knowledge and cognitive abilities, being made aware of reading strategies prior to reading and working in pairs.
Lecturers identified a number of challenges students appeared to encounter when reading new text. These included new words (4 lecturers), long words (2 lecturers) decoding (2 lecturers) and concepts (1 lecturer). Lr4 reported that they appeared to have problems with summarizing and Lr2 with understanding the overall meaning of the text. Two lecturers said that, in their experience, students did not understand the text as a whole and treated every word and sentence as if all were equally important and contributed equally to the overall meaning of the text. Although they all said that students seemed to use techniques to facilitate understanding, they described traditional methods such as talking to each other, asking the lecturer or translating into Arabic. However, they all said they had observed students using a range of consolidation techniques such as re-reading, note-making (summarizing) and further discussion which, from informal observation, students undertook.
b. Assessment
All of the six lecturers in the sample claimed to know whether their students had understood a text. Several said they know this from informal techniques such as reading facial expressions and 'checking' as they moved around the classroom. However, two lecturers (i.e., Lr2 and Lr6) said they found out by questioning students on comprehension and Lr2 identified challenges they experienced such as "retrieving information from the text" and "understanding
the overall meaning of the text". Lr6 said he knew when his students did not
understand because they interrupted with questions. c. Becoming better readers
All lecturers described plans to help students read better and identified a wide range of ways in which students could become better readers, although no two
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agreed on a single method. Some suggestions focused on text, for example, that it should be more "authentic". Although lecturers did not explain precisely what they meant by this word, given my understanding of the use of this term in the Arabic EFL context, I have interpreted this to mean 'appropriate to the student's reading level and relevant to their cultural context'. They also said that it needed to be more interesting and other suggestions (by two lecturers) included the need for more re-reading and more discussion of ideas and concepts. Other suggestions (advocated by two lecturers) centred on classroom activities and techniques such as brainstorming and explanation and the use of pictures as cues, together with focusing on difficult words and punctuation, building on background knowledge and abilities. Lr1 suggested more knowledge of reading strategies and Lr3 suggested that silent reading might be more productive.
However one lecturer (Lr5) commented on what he perceived as a lack of student effort when it came to improving their English reading comprehension and some suggestions focused on changing student behaviours, such as reading more (practice), and two lecturers who suggested more reading for pleasure and enjoyment. Lr5 said that students needed to put more effort into reading.
5.3.4.5 Recurrent reading behaviours
In the fifth section, lecturers were asked about their perceptions of their students' habitual patterns of reading behaviour - for example, whether they skipped or skimmed over text and what they did when they encountered a difficult word.
Five of the six lecturers said they had occasionally or often observed their students re-reading aloud words or phrases. However two believed that it was unproductive for students to re-read because they were not able to self- correct in doing so.
"Some of them re-read but most are not able to correct themselves because they read without understanding." (Lr4)
Two lecturers said their students did not re-read, or that if they did, it would be futile as they were not capable of self-correction. Two others said that their students scan and skim text.
When it came to difficult words, three of the six lecturers said that they regularly observed students using dictionaries to translate and understand what
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they are reading. However Lr1 and Lr2 described more than one student behaviour for dealing with difficult words, e.g., guessing and asking the teacher or other students. Four of the six lecturers said that students seemed to derive meaning from the context of the sentence or the story. Lr3 said his students were too embarrassed to say they were experiencing challenges.
Lecturers were divided on whether and why students skipped parts of a text. On the one hand, three of the six said that students appeared to skip text, but they gave opposing reasons. Lr2 said this was because
"… [some] parts of the text … are superfluous; unnecessary to the general meaning …"
On the other hand Lr1 said that students seemed to skip words which they found too difficult, e.g., long, difficult words, and Lr3 said they skipped words which are difficult to decode and pronounce. The remaining three lecturers said that students did not seem to skip text because they were not sufficiently sophisticated to be able to differentiate between important and unimportant information. For example, Lr5 said that students:
"… don’t differentiate between the details and the main ideas in the text".
As a result, the lecturers said that their students read all the text in order not to miss any important information.
All lecturers said students seem to read some parts of text faster than others; most that they skipped text which contained short, familiar words which were easy to read.
5.3.4.6 Factors affecting reading difficulty
In the final section, lecturers were asked what, in their opinion, made English reading difficult for their students and what could be done to improve their student's English reading comprehension.
a. What makes English reading difficult for students
Lecturers described a wide range of challenges, from lack of background knowledge to vocabulary, training, morphology, syntax and decoding, which they believed were encountered by their students when reading English text. These challenges were of four types – Linguistics, Topic, Education and Culture.
Linguistics
One lecturer said that he believed that the differences between Arabic and English (Latin) script and the opaque grapheme/phoneme correspondence of
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English made it difficult for Arabic students to understand English text well. As Lr2 commented:
"This could be because Arabic … uses a completely differ from the Latin script used in English. Unlike Arabic spelling, English spelling does not correspond to the sound system and as a result it is a