Reading English Comprehension Difficulties



Reading English Comprehension Difficulties

Introduction

The problem was that ESL/EFL students in grade 9 lacked the skills to cope with reading comprehension tests. Many ESL/EFL students received low or failing grades in English as a core subject because they performed poorly on the reading comprehension parts of the tests. They did much better on oral and listening comprehension. Every student must learn English in junior college. At the end of junior college, there is a final examination called the English "Bagrut" which evaluates 4 skills: reading, listening, writing, and speaking. Most of the final exams consist of reading comprehension passages. Deciphering the text does not guarantee understanding. Students struggle with the text due to cultural differences between English speaking nations and Israel. Israeli students often lack background information to comprehend the reading passage.

One of the reasons for this is Hebrew interference. Hebrew is very different from English. It reads from right to left the letters are completely different since it does not use European letters. ESL students of Hebrew are at a disadvantage just like other learners of eastern languages. There is a tendency for ESL learners to translate the questions. The technique of translating the questions makes understanding very difficult. It frustrates students during the exams. Once learners feel discomfort, anxiety and fear take over. It becomes very difficult to perform well on reading comprehension tests under stress.

Reading efficiently needs practice. ESL/EFL students do not receive instruction on how to improve their reading so that it is efficient. Instead they waste time aimlessly looking for the wrong answers. They lack the skills needed to cope with the reading. Students do not have reading comprehension strategies to access information. They need guidelines on how to search for the relevant answers. Purpose

The purpose of this study was to determine the causes of this problem and provide a workable curriculum program for junior college students on the skills they lacked and improve student scores on reading comprehension tests within a particular junior college setting. ESL/EFL learners found reading for information easy in their first language but more difficult in a second or foreign language. Reading comprehension tests caused anxiety and a sense of failure for students who did not have the skills to cope with the tests. Reading in a second language was not easy but taking tests made it even more difficult. Reading comprehension tests make up over 60% of the overall final mark of English in the national "Bagrut" test. Students take the test at the end of college. ESL/EFL students lack the skills to cope with reading and taking a test in a foreign language. They display symptoms of anxiety and score poorly on their reading comprehension tests. The aim of the study was to develop a curriculum program to improve students' reading and test taking skills.

Problem statement

Students, who are deficient in the English language, do not have the skills to cope with or decode English reading comprehension in a junior ...