4.2 Results and Discussion regarding Attitudes toward ER
4.2.1 Results regarding Attitude toward ER
4.2.1.2 Results of Attitude In-depth Interview
A mentioned in chapter 3, the in- depth interview (Appendix G) was also considered a supplement for the interpretation of the results of the attitude questionnaire in this study to learn more about the students’ attitudes toward ER, to further investigate the learners’ view on the ER program, and to check the actual number of books the
54
students read and understood. 8 learners volunteered to be interviewed. The results of each interview will be summarize below.
1) The first interviewer belongs to pattern 1. It was surprised that she was one marginal learners who was usually absent from the class in AIEC for different reasons but she appeared in the class at week 9th to submit her reading diary as well as volunteered to join in the interview with the teacher- researcher. She reported that she has finished and understood completely 9 books in 9 weeks- the smallest number of books read among the participants as she evaluated herself “I’m not good at reading and I try my best to be familiar with this in this program”. For her, 9 books was an incredible and praiseworthy. She will stop reading whenever she find the book difficult and boring.
She prefers romance books at level 1 and 2 since level is so challenging. Especially, she did not pause reading during 9 weeks because she has much free time in summer. She supposes that her English proficiency is low but she doesn’t hesitate to read long story as long as she understand it well. As a result, she feels happy and proud of herself. Her enthusiastic engagement in the ER program is a surprise and an evidence that graded readers and ER are interesting and worthwhile to spend time for. When she was asked if she find any unfavorable conditions in reading graded readers. Her answer is graded readers are quite challenging and it takes time to be familiar with it and the readers have to be keen and patient to learn to read effectively with them. In her opinion, ER should be integrated into your English course at AIEC because it is far interesting from the text in the course book and most important, she supposes reading and discussing with classmates and teacher in class will be very funny and joyful but time- consuming.
2) The second interviewer is one of the participants who has the highest number of books read (21). She reported that she has finished and understood completely 16 books.
In the first week, she chose two book- 700 words and 400 words to read but she was discouraged because the 700 words book is long and difficult compare to her proficiency and the other seems to be more compatible. She then read regularly two books a week even though she was busy to do business at that time. “Two books a week sounds small but I approached the task with all of my determination and energy”, she said. She reported that she had started to fit ER into her schedule since she discovered
55
ER enriches her vocabulary and colloquial expression for every day conversation with her customer (she was helping her mom’s business in Ben Thanh market and had to communicate with foreigner every day). She also never pause reading during the period of nine weeks. As she experienced graded readers, She stated that graded readers is only suitable for serious, hardworking and well-organized learners because young people like her friends are not interested in reading but they mostly consume time for Facebook and games online. However, she supposed ER integrated into English course at AIEC is quite feasible because she believed that the learners will like graded readers and ER like her. She also told the researcher about her interesting story when read extensively at home that one time she retold her little sister one of the stories in Vietnamese and she was very excited. She said that she then had more motivation to read and retell the stories to her sister.
3) The third learner belongs to pattern 3 has finished and understood completely 14 books. After 9 weeks of constant reading, She noticed ER is useful for her because she can read faster and guess the main idea better and encounter unknown words even. She also found that ER met her autonomy needs through her choice of what and when to read, saying “I become more active and responsible for my learning because I’m the one who control whatever and whenever to read.” She set high goal for her reading amount of three books per week since she wanted to change her English proficiency.
Especially, she “feel good” when being able to understand texts written in English. She found that one of the unfavorable conditions in reading graded readers is that stories are long and if the learners do not have a strong desire to learn English they may give up.
Hence, the main problem is at the learners themselves. Also, She quite agreed that ER should be integrated into English course at AIEC because “I am able to join in an actual reading and gain experience”
4) The fourth interviewer belong to pattern 3 of ER discovered in research question 1. He has read finished and understood completely 22 books- the highest book read in the ER program. He said “at the beginning I just read books at level one and level two seems to challenging until I conquered a book at level two. It motivates me a lots to continue my reading”. He also felt good when he can able to read and understand a book in a completely different language. “It is as interesting and useful as reading Vietnamese
56
newspaper because I gain a lot of knowledge of different topics to discuss with my friends. However, ER give him a good chance to practice reading skill outside class and therefore take full advantage of his free time. When asked about the integration of ER into his English course at AIEC, he showed his excitement that “you should do the things from the very beginning”.
5) The fifth interviewer belongs to pattern 1 and she has finished and understood completely 13 books in 9 weeks. Ngoc Anh stated that she tried her best to set her schedule for reading because her study at school and part time job are burden to her.
She evaluated ER as an enjoyable approach to learn to read in English. “I like reading since I can learn a lot of good ideas from the stories and it is useful for my speaking.
When mom knew I was reading books in English in my free time she was proud of me”, she said. She also supposed that she has not found any unfavorable conditions in reading graded readers except the unknown words she encountered by guessing. In her view, ER should be integrated into your English course at AIEC so that teacher and friends can support her to understand better. She reported that sometimes she confused and misunderstood what the author intended in the text because she her background knowledge about the world is limited. In this case, teacher and friend can support her better.
6) The sixth interviewer reported that she has read finished and understood completely 10 books. She also paused to read in week eighth and ninth because she is overwhelming and stressed with her studying and part time job and needed to relax by a vacation. She said that “I just spent 2 weeks for myself as an award to relax and refresh before the new school year and I’ll back to my reading soon even the program is ended”.
In fact, she revealed her positive thought of ER during the interview. First, she attributed the feeling of getting progressed through reading books completely written in a foreign language increased her motivation to continue to read. “I can memorize words that I encounter many times in a reading text. ER also provides me chance to practice guessing main idea from the texts. During the program I gradually realize that reading is not very difficult and reading skill can be practiced through ER”, she said. In fact, through her perceived progress she believed that ER is a good start for those who want to learn to
57
read like her. Hence, she revealed her desire to integrate ER into her English course at AIEC for learners to read more.
7) The seventh interviewer volunteered for the interview because “I want to share some experience from the program about how ER useful is”. He belongs to pattern 4.
He has read finished and understood completely 13 books. Although he has paused one week for his football practice since he was a player in a football team at that time but later then, he still arranged time for ER. Trung emphasized that he read more in the ER program because “ER is relaxing and made his free time more usefully”. Moreover, she thought the level one books was easier and more funny and enjoyable than one. She attributed that “I sometimes use my imagination to understand the stories even though there are some words I don’t know or sentence structure I never seen before”. At the end of the interview, he asserted that he was very optimistic about his English studying due to joining in the ER program this time. In addition, the integration of ER into her English course at AIEC will provide a good chance for learners to practice reading and use spare time more effectively.
8) The eighth interviewer belongs to pattern 4. She has finished completely 11 books. Trinh expressed that she stopped reading a book whenever she found it difficult or boring. She liked to read books at level 1 and 2 because it was not very challenging and exciting. Also, she preferred murder mystery since it set her curiosity agog and made her read until the end of the story. Moreover, the comprehension a book at level 2 made she feel proud of herself. She assumed that graded readers are very useful because she can read them in her free time. She supposed that ER when integrated into her English course will make the lesson in class more interesting and challenging.
“Reading in another language can also teach me think out of the box”, she said.
To sum up, the results from the attitude interview toward ER show that most of the students held a positive attitude relevant to their ER practice and by giving four similar answers in that they valued the positive reading experiences as gaining in (1) vocabulary, comprehension and reading skill, (2) confidence in reading English, (3) being proud when they can read longer stories written by native speakers of English and (4) taking full advantages of spare time. Most of learners didn’t find any unfavorable
58
conditions in reading graded readers except the long texts in graded readers require a responsibility and love/desire to learn English.