CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
3.3. Students’ preferences for a supplementary material
a. Students‟ belief in the benefit of reading exercises:
40
20 10
14
15.3 0.7
enrich vocabulary learn m ore structures
read faster and deeper broaden background know ledge enjoy learning m orenothing nothing
Chart 7: Students’ attitude towards the benefits of reading exercises
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In general, the majority of students are aware of the importance of reading exercises in English learning. 60 students (40%) think reading exercise help them to enrich vocabulary; 30 students (20%) claim that they can learn more structures through reading passages; only 15 students (10%) students appraise the effect of reading exercises on their reading ability – that is doing exercises help them read faster and deeper; 21 (14%) put their trust in the information from the reading passages as they say their background knowledge will be broadened; as many as 23 students (15.3%) believe that reading makes them enjoy learning English more; and there is 1 student (0.7%) complains that he/she can learn or gain nothing from reading passages or exercises.
b. Favourite types of text
In the questionnaires, types of reading texts are given for students to choose. It comes with no surprise that short stories are the type that students love to read the most.
This type is obviously very interesting; however, in the current situation of English as a non-majored learning and teaching, this type is still exploited limitedly. This is mostly due to the fact that the length of this type is not suitable for a non-English majored student– the text ranges from 150 – 450 words.
20 18
60
22 25
0 20 40 60 80
Favorite types of text
article texts in the textbook short stories lectures advertisements
Chart 8: Students’ preference of reading texts.
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c. Favorite types of reading and writing exercises
According to the survey, Fill-in exercise is believed to be the most difficult type.
Ranked second is Vocabulary followed by Summarizing the text. Multiple choice, Cloze reading, Matching, Short answer and True or false exercise are ranked the forth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth respectively.
Students stated in the survey that they prefer Multiple choice exercises more than any other types. In the second, third and forth place is True or false, Vocabulary and Matching respectively. Short answer, Fill-in, Cloze reading and Summarizing are not their favourite; they are ranked number five, six, seven, eighth respectively.
6 12 2
69 4
30 7
51 0
50 100
fill-in vocabulary
summarizing multiple choice
cloze reading matching
short answer true/false
Types of exercises
Chart 9: Favorite types of exercises c. Students‟ preferences for reading skills developed
According to the survey, three skills that most students wish to develop is skimming, understanding sentence/ paragraph structure and scanning:
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
skimming
scanning
making inferences
interpreting figures of speech and idioms
summarizing for synthesizing materials
recognizing the author's purpose/points of views understanding the sentence/paragraph strucutre guessing new words
Chart 10: Reading skills students would like to develop more
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0 10 20 30 40 50 60
1
1 2 3 4 5 6 65, 36%
35, 19%
45, 25%
0, 0%
10, 6%
25, 14%
1 2 3 4 5 6
d. Students‟ preferences for writing skills developed
As can be seen from the chart below, the types of writing exercise are quite various, among which, rewriting the sentences without changing the original meaning is the most frequently-practised type by NEMS. This is a guided writing type which can develop students‟ flexibility in using structures, as well as be used as check tool of students‟
comprehension. In contrast, summarizing a reading text has never been focused on. This is a quite synthesizing and difficult type of writing exercise; therefore, it should have been practiced.
1: rewriting the sentences without changing the original meaning
2: reordering the given words to make a complete sentence
3. using suggested words to make a complete sentence 4: summarizing a reading text
5: writing formal and informal letters 6: writing on the given topic
Chart 11a: The frequency of practicing writing exercises
It is understandable that most students wish to practice the type writing on the given topic (paragraphs, essays) more. This type of exercise is free writing and quite personalized one. Students can write based on their own experience, use their own way and vocabulary to express their ideas. However, teachers should be ready to provide students help with idea organization, expressions and use of vocabulary. Therefore, although it is a free type, it is better if teachers can give some guidelines, or provide students sample paragraphs or essays before hand.
1:rewriting the sentences without changing the original meaning
2: reordering the given words to make a complete sentence
3: using suggested words to make a complete sentence 4: summarizing a reading text
5: writing formal and informal letters 6: writing on the given topic
Chart 11b: Students’ preference of writing exercises
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