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Focus:
I will examine the ways in which motivational factors affect the development of
convenient umbrella term covering needs and reasons for learning, along with
positive attitudes and attributes of the learners. I will consider three main areas:
Finally, different strategies in reading and how motivational factors can play
In my teaching experience I have often found learners have difficulties reading, and
are reluctant to work on improving this skill. For many students reading in English is
important; whether for future study, work, exam preparation, integration into an
despite being reasonably proficient in the language and a prolific reader in English. I
keen to help them overcome this as many of them have specific reasons for
I feel that a deeper understanding of motivational factors would help me, and other
skills work.
Reading habits:
It is often assumed that students with good reading skills in L1 will be able to
transfer these into L2. My personal experience would lead me to disagree with this
to an extent. Perhaps this is true for students whose mother tongue shares the
same script and has similar discourse patterns. However, learners whose first
language has a very different alphabet -Arabic, Farsi, Russian, or character system
- Chinese, Japanese, Korean, may not be able to use the same approaches to reading.
Training your eyes to move in a different direction across a page, and within a word,
is challenging. Knowing where one phrase or chunk of language ends, and another
begins, when the punctuation system is unfamiliar, takes time. These problems can
students may be unwilling to expend the necessary effort if the task seems too
Learners who do not read much in their native language might need additional
support in L2 reading. If they have affective issues, for example, lacking self-
confidence and doubting their own ability to master this skill, they may be
disinclined to read in English. Motivation is not static, but ebbs and flows with
experience. Past success and failure, and a corresponding judgement of one’s own
capabilities will influence how a student approaches a new task. The teacher needs
purpose.
and in terms of topic. If the learners can relate what they read in class to a real-
world situation (Dornyei: 2001) they may be keener to engage with the text. It is
not always possible to use authentic materials; there may be text-book constraints,
or lack of availability of alternatives. In Oman, Bahrain and the UAE, the Ministry
of Education have to approve any materials used in class for reasons of cultural
(Paran: 2003), and real-world needs, should be taken into consideration and
to read something in English that they would find boring and irrelevant in L1, they
library means students can choose a text they find interesting. This is the most
natural way of reading, for pleasure and general comprehension, rather than task-
completion. We can train students in strategies, but they only get sufficient
The students need language input and reading automatically increases their
exposure. Native speakers develop their lexical range through reading and L2
students need to do likewise. Readers are very motivated to understand lexis within
inaccessible and of a currently unattainable standard. Nuttall (1996) points out that
to develop reading ability, the chosen text should be slightly above the learners’
current linguistic level, which fits with Krashen’s model of comprehensible input
being “i + 1”. However, learners also need to read at their intellectual level in L2 to
Reading strategies:
There are many reasons for reading (Hoey: 1991): evaluating content; studying;
translating; informing yourself about a new subject. These are only some of the
most common uses and each requires a different method of processing. Proficient
readers approach texts in ways they consider most appropriate for that genre and
their purpose. When reading quickly, they look for structural clues and overall
collocations, syntax, morphology and cohesive devices to derive meaning from the
text. Paran (1996) sees this as the most important strategy to develop. He feels
proficient readers need to be less reliant on context, which only compensates for
weak linguistic knowledge, and more focused on decoding. However, in this approach,
comprehension and understand nearly every word. This is not necessary, unless the
students’ goal is translation, and can lead to them getting bogged down by sentences
they do not understand. It also seems to undervalue the experience and knowledge
pictures or discussion, and the learners would be encouraged to share what they
already know and possibly predict the content. This approach is aimed at developing
a desire to read the text. Motivation is not exclusively about developing enthusiasm;
(Dornyei: 2001).
In a top-down approach, the students would also consider the text type, and
therefore the possible structure and function at discourse level, before reading.
(Richards: 1990). It is useful for learners to look at the text in different ways, but
an interactive approach which gives equal attention to these strategies seems most
detriment of their overall comprehension (Carrell: 1988). The reader has an active
role in extracting meaning from the text, and proficient readers automatically
One key problem which learners face has already been dealt with above; the
difficulty students have if their L1 is written very differently from English and
Another problem is when learners have very different schemata from the writer.
There are inherent assumptions in any text, and if students do not recognise these
or understand the cultural content then it is difficult for them to access the
meaning. If the learners wish to integrate into an English speaking society, they may
personal goals – the cultural dimension may not be interesting for them and could
learners do not recognise links and make the connections across sentences and
the text (Carrell: 1988, Hoey: 1991) which will affect their “summary” of the
meaning.
guess the meaning of new lexis from the context, or reject the word as unnecessary
a distinct advantage, as many complex items of vocabulary will be similar in their own
strategies for overcoming potential lexical block. Without this skill learners are
liable to lose motivation as they will read very slowly and be so focused on the
3. Validity:
Students’ levels of aspiration are dependant on the likelihood of success and the
importance they attach to that. (McDonough: 1968) For this reason, students need
to be convinced of the value of the set task, and able to see the link between the
The standard approach to reading involves tasks for pre- while- and post- reading
Some textbooks (see appendix 1) include texts which only display the target item of
language e.g. narrative tenses, or future forms; or act as a springboard for another
activity (appendix 2). These text-based lessons can therefore end up focusing on
Another issue is that some course books rely on certain types of reading tasks,
Multiple Choice comprehension questions may simply highlight discrete areas of the
textbooks may not provide a task which leads to unfocused reading and encourages
students to try and understand every detail (appendix 4). Learners need a relevant
The students need to focus on developing specific sub-skills like skimming, scanning,
inferring, or increasing reading speed. Texts need to be chosen which naturally lend
themselves to these types of reading. For example, in daily life we might scan TV
listings and decide what to watch, skim a magazine article for entertainment, or
read a newspaper and infer the journalist’s viewpoint. If the students can see the
relevance of the task to the text, then they will be more motivated to participate.
Pre-Reading:
If it is possible for learners to have an element of choice in what they read they will
feel more motivated (appendix 6). However, realistically this is not always possible,
and students will read what the teacher has selected. It is therefore crucial to
activate their schemata before reading to raise awareness of issues and, through
previewing activities for genre and culturally specific content are essential to
guess, and helps students develop confidence in reading alone. This can be done
through looking at pictures, the title or doing activities which expose students to
text incrementally e.g. on the OHT and asking students to predict what will come
next. This also increases awareness of genre and likely structure. An alternative is
giving students the first and last line of a paragraph and asking them to guess what
ideas might be expressed in between (Carrell: 1988). This should increase motivation
by giving the students a clear purpose for reading, checking their predictions, and
creating interest.
While-reading:
It is important that students feel they have a purpose for reading. If they feel the
task is valid, they will be motivated to complete it. Often simply noting personal
reactions to content is sufficient. This could be done by simply putting a tick, cross
Problem solving creates interest and involvement and gives learners a real reason to
unscramble two mingled texts, can help them overcome their reluctance to read, as
Unscrambling a text also makes students more aware of the cohesive devices used in
writing and shows the internal organisation of information. It makes them pay
Students can track the bonding of sentences (Hoey: 1991) by looking for repetition
of lexical items, and also, at a more advanced level, for paraphrasing. You need to
find three or more lexical links for the sentences to be considered connected. Even
a beginning level learner can identify three words that are the same in different
sentences. If they can track the content bearing lexis, they can identify key
sentences and get the main idea more efficiently despite reading in a non-linear way.
Post-reading:
to reflect on what they have understood, and deepen their knowledge of language
and content. This should be as natural as possible and so there should always be a
Learners also need to develop strategies for inferring meaning of unknown lexis
(Nuttall: 1996) to increase reader autonomy and help them with future reading
tasks. They can use structural clues to establish the function of words, and look at
surrounding text to establish probable meaning from context. They can develop this
skill by doing cloze exercises, where they have to fill in the missing word, or
guessing the meaning of imaginary words in a paragraph. (Train Bing: appendix 5).
Carrell (1998) also recommends using texts like The Clockwork Orange, or
Conclusion:
students’ needs into consideration, and being principled in text selection and task
allocation. If students can see the overall relevance of the reading then they will be
Bibliography:
CUP
CUP
OUP
OUP
CUP
Unwin
Mera Rivas, R 1999 Reading in recent ELT coursebooks ELTJ 53/1 OUP
Heinemann
OUP
CUP
Textbook Sources:
Heinemann
Heinemann