ESL Students’ Perspectives in Understanding English Reading Materials:

Abstract

Reading is an active language activity which comprises a variety of skills. The reading comprehensionlessons are normally used by instructors to help students develop their reading skills. However, in mostcases, it was found that reading comprehension lessons have been centred on passages or texts followedby a set of questions. These questions were usually designed to merely test the students’ comprehension ofthe given text and not part of the teaching process. It has been seen and said that students merely scan forinformation in the text to answer these questions but were unable to relate to it. This could be due to culturalfactors including the lack of reading habits among the students but most likely due to the manner readinghas been taught. Thus, this study aims to investigate the teaching of English Reading materials and readingcomprehension to a group of 15 students undergoing Diploma courses in UiTM Perlis. This is a qualitativestudy and the data are gathered through classroom observations, students’ journals, instructor’s diary andinterview sessions with the students and instructor to get a clearer picture on the problems they face whenhaving to comprehend English materials. The insight generated by the description and analysis of the datacollected for this study can be used for a variety of purposes, particularly; to better understand the problemsfaced by students when having to read in a second language, to help ESL curriculum and instructionalpractices, and to provide useful insights for educational language policymaking.
 
 Keywords: comprehend, perceptions, descriptive, insight

The use of Google Jamboard for synchronous collaborative reading strategies: The students’ acceptance

“…Students should be taught reading strategies that will allow them to fully comprehend the text with minimal assistance from the teacher. Students will find the lesson more exciting and meaningful if they participate in various reading activities (Darus et al, 2019). Reading comprehension is primarily a matter of developing appropriate, efficient comprehension strategies.…”