NO CHANGE NO GAIN: IMPACT OF RIGID PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES ON READING ATTITUDES OF LEARNERS

Abstract

Analysing students' reading attitudes has become an essential
phenomenon, it helps in assessing their reading progress. As students acquire
much of the knowledge by reading written literature therefore, their future
success both in and outside of their learning environment is determined by the
development of their reading attitudes.This importance of reading attitudes
becomes crucial especiallyat the college level where learners encounter reading
problems due to their non-serious reading attitudes. Pedagogical practices for
reading and learners’ reading attitudes are directly proportional variables.
Students in Pakistan hardly get opportunities provided for the development of
reading skills in comparison to other language skills.Therefore, researcher is
interested to highlight this interconnected relation between teaching practices
of reading and their impact on reading attitudes of college students to find out
what could be the gap or lack in the teaching of English language reading in
Pakistan.
This study is attempted to examine reading attitudes of 85 private
college learners and 10 English language teachers’ perspectives of current
pedagogical practices for reading skills in their classrooms. The mixed-method
approach has been followed, a reading attitude questionnaire is used to
measure learners’ reading attitudes and semi-structured interviews are
conducted to gather teachers’ perspectives of pedagogical practices. The
quantitative data has been descriptively analysed through SPSS software and
the thematic analysis technique has been used for the interviews. The results
reveal a low level of reading attitudes of the learners, and realization from
teachers for these attitudes are found due to the rigid and limited practices. In
addition, several aspects are reported by the respondents which highlight the
importance of flexible reading practices, learners’ choice of reading material
and institutional support.