EFL Teachers' Perspectives of Bisha Secondary schools students' Reading comprehension Difficulties

Name:
Institutor:
Course:
Date:
EFL Teachers' Perspectives of Bisha Secondary schools students' Reading comprehension Difficulties
Introduction
Reading and comprehension is a skill that goes along way into helping people understand what they are reading be it in a formal setting or informal setting. However, with reference to the formal setting, in this case high school, the ability to read and comprehend what one is exposed to in the class setting, determines their grade. Even in the technical fields, students’ ability to read and understand affects the way that they deal with the problems presented to them. In subjects such as mathematics and other technical sciences, the ability of the students determines if they understand the concepts behind the mathematical formulas and the theories presented to them (Du Boulay). As such, their ability to understand the concepts trickles down to their ability to apply the knowledge learnt in class during the lessons to the solutions that they seek in their exams and other aspects such as the practical tests.
Other than the technical subjects, the English language has become one of the most crucial subjects in the schools. This is due to the fact that it is used virtually in all areas of life and most of the countries have turned it into an official language, as per the global trends. Much of these trends can be attributed to the fact that America is the super power and it has influence on the language. This is not alien to world and the evolution of language, as it has been the case with other super powers. Much of the medieval times saw the rise of the Greek language among other languages relative to the super powers that were recognized at the time (Simard, Denis, and Marie).
High school students much like other levels, where language is not their first language, have some difficulties reading, comprehending, predicting meaning, lexical abilities, skimming and scanning through texts. Reading through texts can take different form, from skimming, scanning and deeply engaging with the texts. All these forms depend on the task at hand and the objectives of the reader. This paper takes to task a sample of English first language teachers and the second language experienced teachers at Bisha Secondary School to establish the reading and comprehension difficulties among the students. Most of the students at Bisha secondary school have been found to have difficulties reading through the English language texts due to their difficulties in vocabulary and comprehension (Du Boulay). They also illustrate the difficulty of summarizing what they read written in the English language as well as scanning though the texts while looking for themes and other information.
Aims of the study
To establish the main difficulties experienced by the students at Bisha secondary school with reference to prediction, vocabularies, understanding and skimming abilities.
To establish the view points of the EFL teachers with reference to the reading and comprehension difficulties
To establish the viewpoints of the experienced teachers on reading and comprehension difficulties of the students at Bisha secondary school.
To bring forward recommendation to the teachers ad the students on the various ways to tackle reading and comprehension difficulties.
Significance of the Study
The English language is widely used in various fields across the globe. Learners do not only have to contend with the academic relevance of the same as most texts in advertisements, announcements and other basic application of language are done in the English language. This makes the English language one of the universal modes of communications, as most of the formal system use the language to pass along the messages that they want. High schools are among the main institutions that use the English language to communicate. With reference to the students learning the English language as their second language, understanding the main vocabularies and predicting he meaning of various phrases and word is crucial (Watson et al). This is especially so where the students need to make out what the text they are reading means. Where they are required to skim through certain texts to come up with the mains ideas of the author or to complete the objectives of their leaning exercises, the students have to have the right skills to read and comprehend. If they do not understand certain vocabularies and phrases, they should also be in a position to predict what the texts may be implying relative to the rest of the sentence content and context. It is for this reason that the study tries to establish the various difficulties that Bisha secondary students may be experiencing (Ediger). This is crucial given that the language is not their first language and it also happens to be globally accepted a formal language in many fields. The study is also significant in that it also tries to bring out the various recommendations that can help the students and the teachers improve the difficulties established, with the aim of polishing the language skills of the students. This will culminate in more benefits than just reading and comprehending the English lessons passages, as the skills are highly applicable in other field of study. The students can also be competent in the international markets as they can easily communicate with other people that use the English language.
Research questions
What are the causes of reading and comprehension difficulties facing secondary education students in Bisha from viewpoints of EFL teachers?
Do Causes of Reading & Comprehensions Difficulties Facing Secondary Education Students in Bisha Vary from of EFL teachers' viewpoints according to teacher's qualifications?
Do Causes of Reading & Comprehensions Difficulties Facing Secondary Education Students in Bisha Vary from of EFL teachers' viewpoints according to years of experience variable?
Limitation of study
The study used the insight of the teachers at Bisha secondary school. This aspect of using the data acquired from the teachers alone was due to the fact that the study objectives focused on the teachers insights on the reading and comprehension difficulties of the students. The main limitation to using this approach is that, only one part of the data set is acquired with reference to the aspects of reading difficulties. In future, the study will include or entirely focus on the insights of the students being the ones that have the learning difficulties. This approach will compliment the two reports and refine the recommendation put across for the students and the teachers (Kucer).
Literature Review
As children grow they learn their first language from the data that they receive from the environment and their parents. Much of this information is passed through reading, listening and gestures. However, much of the data that the children get on their second languages is taken through classes. This is the same case with the high school students, as most of them are used to their first language. Much of the information required to learn the second language such as English to the Bisha secondary school students, comes from the teachers and the textbooks (Azodi, Fatemeh, and Ramin).
There are quite a number of hypothesis and theories that try to explain how students acquire and perfect second languages. This is relative to the input method that the students have been exposed to since they first started to learn their new language. One of the main hypotheses that are used in light of explaining the process of acquiring new language skills is referred to as the Krashen’s input hypothesis. According to this input method, students can only acquire the skills of using a certain new language if they can understand the inputs. As such, if a student understands the inputs that are just above their competence levels in the given new language, they have acquired skills in that language. According to the hypothesis by Krashen, there are four characteristics that grace the language acquisition at optimal levels. These characteristics include, sufficient quality, grammatically correct, comprehensible and relevant.
Of the four characteristics, comprehension is quite crucial and is fundamental to the premise of this paper. This is because is the subject of the ability to read and understand the various words, the phrases and the sequence of ideas displayed by the writer. As such, comprehension marks one of the mile stones that students have when they understand the basic skills of the language, in this case English. If the student does not have the ability to comprehend the content of the material, the context is also going to be lost to the student’s abilities (Ediger). Different words and phrases depending on their use in a sentence have different meanings. Ideally to a students that has a problem reading the texts of a certain passage in the English language, the text does not mean anything to them and it is just like a maze of word and phrases. As such it is hard to get the student to understand or even effectively carryout the various objectives of a course.
Comprehending content read from a book or any other material that is written in the second language, required some of skill. For student, such as those from Bisha secondary school, it can be quite difficult to understand some of the content. As a general rule, pictures always prove to be quite efficient in elaborating the content that has been written. When images are used in context, they help the students understand much better. This is due to the fact that the students are able to easily connect with the content that they are reading. Using the previously acquired knowledge in the English language, the students can draw parallels and enhance their ability to comprehend the content exposed to them.
Other than the use of images it is also common for teachers to simplify the content of the material and the level of language that has been used. This can be done by slowing down the rate of articulation, use of frequent vocabularies, use of shorter sentences and avoidance or low use of idioms. This ensures that the students are accustomed to basic language rules and aids in faster reading, prediction and comprehension of the content. This also means that as the teachers address their students it is crucial tat the level of vocabulary that is used is much less tasking for the students. Where the teachers use simple English, it is much easier for the students to spend les time trying to figure out what the teacher was referring to and focus on comprehending the content (McCown, Margaret, and Gina). If the level of English used by the teachers is higher than what the students can master at their skills level, the students are more likely to get distracted trying to predict the connections between the ideas floated and the premise of the lecture. There have been a lot of debate as to whether simplifying the level of complexity is going to help the students master the language in the long term (Watson et al). However, increasing the level of complexity has to be regulated with a lot of caution that it does not throw the students off course as they struggle to catch with the level of information they have to process at any given time. This is because, if the language level is too high, the students will be lost between trying to understand the actual content of the material presented to them whether in writing or in spoken word and the vocabularies and idioms used in the sentences. As such raising the level slightly higher is going to facilitate growth in the English language, but enough caution should be taken to regulate the exposure that it does not hinder growth and comprehension abilities.
Lexical Difficulties
These are difficulties associated with abilities and the skil...