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Monday, October 22, 2012

Book Reading Habits Of First-Year English Majors In Hanoi University

Abstract 

Books possess a wealth of knowledge, so people always want to read more. Nevertheless, in recent years, criticizers start worrying that the decline of reading becomes more and more popular in students. Therefore, this research investigates this area in terms of book reading habits of first year English majors in Hanoi University. A monolingual questionnaire in English was used to collect data. It was designed to look into the amount of time English majors spent reading books, their level of reading and their attitude towards reading. Besides, some reasons for the decline of reading in students were explored as well. It has been revealed that most of English freshmen did not read much and they also did not express a strong preference for reading. Five basic reasons for this problem are the students’ negative attitude towards reading, the lack of concentration, their busy life style, the uneasy feeling about reading and the influence of new reading culture – reading online. It is suggested that positive attitude towards reading should be always in students’ mind and society also has responsibility for promoting book reading in young generation. In addition, libraries, book clubs or book talk sessions should be opened more for students. To teachers, they should try to make students read more effectively.

Introduction 

Books play an educational role in our society. Thus, reading book is really essential to succeed in college. According to McWhorrter (2005), “reading and studying are keys to college success and later to success on the job” (p.4). He also said that reading could “open up the world of new ideas, show you different ways of looking at things and provide a welcome escape from day-to-day problems” (p.5). To English majors who learn foreign language, reading is more necessary because it is said that books can deeply help students improve their knowledge and learn the intentions of the authors which are good for interpreters. However, education commentators have lately begun worrying about a drop of reading in students. Students are considered as “illiteracy or post-literate” (Dock, 1996, p.1). To investigate thoroughly this matter, in this mini research, book reading habits of first year English majors were explored. Its main purpose is to point out the actual state of book reading in students and to reveal some clues why students have little passion on reading.

Materials and methods 

To collect data for the study, a questionnaire was developed. The subjects of this study were the First year English majors in Hanoi University, so a monolingual questionnaire in English was reasonably required. It included 13 items which were all multiple-choice questions. The questions were designed to find out the amount of time English freshmen spent reading books, their personal assessment of their level of reading, their attitude towards reading and some reasons for the decline of reading in students. Before the survey was administered officially, the questionnaire was trialed by a group of 10 second-year English majors in class 1A-08 on a random basis.

The survey was conducted at 3 classes - 5A09, 9A09 & 10A09 - in Hanoi University in March, 2010. Forty-five English major students were selected on a voluntary basis and delivered 45 questionnaires. The participants answered the questionnaires in their break time. Before they answered the questions, all the queries were responded and participants then progressed to finish the questionnaires. All the handouts were collected for later processing after 30 minutes.

Results and discussion 

I. Some facts about book reading habits of English major students in Hanoi university

1. Students spend little time reading 

Chart 1 shows the different activities which students enjoyed doing in their spare time by showing the number of students involved in each activity. Only 9 in 45 students read books when they had free time while the number of students who were keen on listening to music was three times larger (28). Other popular activities were watching TV, which consisted of 15 students, and playing game which was the hobby of 17 students. Besides, a considerable number of students (13) took part in extra-curricular activities such as sports or volunteering, etc. It indicates that students are less likely to read for pleasure. This figure shows steadily declining youth interest in reading when it is compared to data in National Endowment of Arts (NEA) report (2007). The survey reported that the percentage of young adults who read for daily enjoyment was 52%, however, in this study, the number of English freshmen whose enjoyment reading decreased dramatically to 20%. It is clear from the chart that students spent less and less time reading books. These figures give assurance on the assessment of Griswold, McDonnell, Wright, (2005) and National Endowment of Arts [NEA] report (2007) that reading was declinin.

Chart 2 reveals the frequency of book reading in students. Students were asked about the amount of time they spent on reading except the time in lectures. The result was startling. Over half of respondents admitted that they just read about one to three hours a day. Moreover, more than 20% of participants confessed that they read less than one hour per day. Obviously, this amount of time is not enough for them to have comprehensive and deep knowledge. This data is in line with the figures in NEA (2007) survey. The survey reported that a significant number of college freshmen read for fun less than one hour per week or less at all.

2. Negative attitude towards reading among students 

Chart 3: Reading purposes It can be seen from the chart that the main aim of reading books was for knowledge and for entertainment. 25 in 45 participants claimed that they read to get knowledge from the books. It was approximately equal to the number of participants who read for relaxation and entertainment (24). There is a slightly difference between these figures and the data of Van (2008). He reported that students were more likely to read book for entertainment and killing time.

The attitude towards reading is strongly associated with reading level which is shown in table 1. Of ten respondents who rated themselves as good readers, there were 9 students having passion on reading. Nevertheless, a huge number of students evaluated themselves at fair level in reading. It amounted to 62% of the total participants. But most of these readers (21 on 28 respondents in this group) confessed that they did not take much interest in reading. Additionally, there were up to 7 English freshmen who said that they hardly felt like reading. In fact, this is an alarming number, yet it justifies the negative attitude towards reading of students and confirms other findings (Clark, Torsi, & Strong, 2005; Richardson, & Morgan, 1997). They said that leisure reading and self-evaluated reading proficiency had strong relationship and students who perceived themselves as good readers had positive attitude towards reading while none of the students who regarded themselves as poor readers enjoyed reading.

As can be seen from the table, students hardly read textbooks regularly within the course. Although most of asked students bought textbooks at the beginning of the courses, over half of them just read textbooks some days before exams. It appears that students avoided reading textbooks. It is in congruent with a recent survey in Vietnam about self-study habits of student (2008). This investigation revealed that a large number of students were learning without self-study habit.

II. Some reasons explaining for this negative trend

As is illustrated by chart 2, almost students did not like reading so much. Overall, 60% of them indicated that they enjoyed reading “a little bit” or “normal”, which was contrary to figures in the research of Clark, Torsi and Strong in 2005. 60 % students in their studies held positive attitude towards reading. Fortunately, only 4.4% asked students did not enjoy reading at all. Obviously, students were not in favor of reading because they did not have a positive attitude towards reading. Consistent with previous study (Richardson, & Morgan, 1997), reading proficiency varied in many factors, but the core subject lied in attitude of each student towards reading.

The data in table 3 shows that the lack of concentration was the most popular problem for the decline of reading in students. Most of them (30) admitted that they could not concentrate when reading. This finding goes in line with what McWhorter (2000) has found out. According to his book, “many other college students who say that concentration is the main reason why they can not read or study effectively” (p.6).

As far as the lack of concentration is concerned, students spend little time reading book because of their busy life style. Most of them claimed that reading books required much time while they had many things to do. Roberts and Foehr reported that teenagers had a lot of activities to do in their time such as taking part in outdoor activities or doing part-time jobs as cited in Griswold et al (2005), therefore the amount of time they read book was limited.

The uneasy feeling about reading is also a considerable factor which influences reading book. It is clear from the table that 17 respondents considered reading as a difficult task. This finding is similar to Richardson and Morgan (1997) conclusion. They affirmed that “poor readers tend to avoid reading because it is not easy, pleasurable and satisfying” (p.20).

In modern society, computer and internet have huge impact on people’s life and affect reading habit. A large number of respondents confirmed that they preferred reading on internet to reading printed book. It is consistent with report of Marker & Opinion Research International (2004). In this study, 55% participant would rather use internet than read printed book. Students in this survey added that internet was more convenient and they could download a numerous of materials easily.

Furthermore, there are some other reasons for the decline of reading. The problem is not so much that we read images better than we read words on a page (Dock, 1996). Moreover, some studies demonstrated that literacy reading was decreased significantly by gender, age, ethnicity, race, education and family income (National Endowment for the Art, 2002; Griswold, McDonnell & Wright, 2005).

Conclusion 

In brief, this small-scale investigation shows some points related to book reading habits of the English freshmen in Hanoi University. Generally, leisure reading isn’t popular interest among students. Book reading is really at risk. There is variety of reasons but the main one lies in each individual. Poor readers do not enjoy reading and have no particular schedule for learning so it is hard for them to achieve high academic performance. Therefore, promoting reading culture among students is an important task. It is expected that book publishers, educators will develop appropriate polices and plans to foster the love of reading in young generation. It is suggested that weak academic performance students should change their own habits into better ones. Book lovers as well as administrators should draw people’s attention to book through book talk sessions or reading book contests. It is hoped that more and more students will read book not only to pass the exam but also to gain enjoyment and wealth knowledge from books for themselves.

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