4. METHODS
5.5 W HAT ARE THE INFORMANTS ’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE TEACHING OF READING AND READING
In order to find the answer to this I asked my informants two questions:
1. Do you consider the teaching of reading strategies to be important?
2. Do you think that reading is suitable as a basic skill for English?
5.5.1 Do you consider the teaching of reading strategies to be important?
All of the informants reported that the teaching of reading strategies is something they consider important. I proceeded to ask the informants to embellish a little on why they think that. However, I found that many of the informants had trouble answering this question. It was clearly not something they had given a lot of thought to prior to the interview. In fact I
found that five of the 12 informants could not give an answer to why they feel that working on reading strategies is important. The answers they gave were ranged from that working on reading strategies is important because it helps enhancing the pupils vocabularies, that it gives the pupils a better feel for the language, and that it awakens the pupils as readers. In my opinion this is not something that is promoted directly through working on reading strategies, but rather through all kinds of reading, in English as well as other languages, that takes place in and outside of the classroom.
In addition to these five I found that three other informants answered that yes, they saw it as important to work on reading strategies, but they did not know to what extent they promoted it. Clearly this does not answer why they see reading strategies as important, however, it was all I could get them to say on the subject. In other words, I have a total of eight out of 12 informants who think that reading strategies are important, but who nevertheless do not know why they think so.
Next I have a group of three informants. In their opinion working on reading strategies is important because it promotes text comprehension. These three are all informants that work on reading strategies in class. One of these informants added that he feels that text
comprehension is very important because it will be of great help for the pupils when they enter into higher education. The last of the 12 informants only reported that reading
strategies are important for higher education, but did not elaborate on how it could be of help to the pupils.
5.5.2 Do you think that reading is suitable as a basic skill for English?
In order to further investigate the teachers’ attitudes towards reading, I proceeded to ask them whether or not they think that reading is a suitable basic skill for English. If we look back to chapter 3 on syllabi, we see that reading is mentioned in the LK06 curriculum as one of four basic skills that are to be worked on in every school subject. When I asked my
informants this they all reported that they do see reading as a suitable basic skill for English, however, again, not all could give a reason why.
One of my informants only answered that yes she feels that reading is a suitable skill, but when I asked why she proceeded to talk about why mathematics is not a suitable basic skill for English. A second informant said that she believes reading is suitable as a basic skill for English, however she does not think that the teaching of reading is something she should have to focus on when she is teaching in upper secondary school. This is something she expects her pupils to know already.
The last ten informants were all able to give one or more reasons why reading is suitable as a basic skill. One said that being able to read is crucial in order to be a part of society as a whole, and that therefore reading is not only a suitable basic skill for English, but for all school subjects. One said that reading is important in order to enhance the pupils’
vocabularies. Another listed vocabulary and a better feel for the language as a whole as reasons why reading is important. Three informants listed only a better feel for the language as reasons why reading is important in English. Another three said that reading proficiency is important for higher education and therefore reading is something that should be worked on in all school subjects. The last informant said that it is important to him to give the pupils an opportunity to find the same joy in reading as he himself does.
As we can see it is not easy, based on the answers they gave to my questions, to deduce what the teachers’ attitudes towards the teaching of reading are. One thing I can say for certain, however, is that all of them think that reading is suitable as a basic skill for English, and that all 12 think that it is important to work on reading strategies in school. In other words the teachers do believe that reading is an important skill for their pupils, but far from all of them feel that it is their job as English teachers or teachers in upper secondary school to help the pupils develop this skill. Another thing that becomes quite clear during this part of the interview is that most of the informants do not know why they see reading and reading strategies as important. Most of them gave vague or unclear answers when I asked about this
and one just started talking about another basic skill instead. At this point it was becoming increasingly clear to me that these teachers might benefit from more in service training, both, as mentioned above, on how best to teach reading, but also on why reading is important.