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CHAPTER FIVE
DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
After analyzing the interview data and derive findings in the previous chapter, this chapter starts with a summary of major findings of the present study, followed by implications for pedagogical practices, limitations of this study, suggestions for future research, and finally concluding remarks.
Summary of the Major Findings
The current study attempts to investigate undergraduates’ habits and perceptions of reading English on the Internet. To that end, six interview questions related to habits of reading English online and four interview questions related to perceptions of reading English online were asked to twenty-four freshmen and twenty-five seniors English major undergraduates from two universities. In accordance with the three research questions, the following section summarizes the major findings with discussions from analyses.
Research Question One
RQ1: What Internet reading habits do EFL undergraduates have in terms of purposes and frequency of reading English online, types, topics and factors affecting the selection of online English reading materials, and ways to improve reading comprehension while reading on the Internet?
Students’ purposes of reading English online
With respect to the purpose of reading English on the Internet, it seems that the students’ reading English on the Internet is mainly dominated by doing schoolwork or preparing for exams, catering for their personal interests, gaining information hardly available in Chinese, and learning English. The first most reported purpose was schoolwork, which is congruent with the findings from the literature or previous studies, indicating that reading in L2 is utilitarian for the students. Reading in L2 is
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generally found to be associated with schoolwork or attainment of good grades (Kaur
& Thiyagarajah, 1999; Lee, 2005; Mokhtari & Sheorey, 1994; Smithies, 1983).
Consequently, for the students, reading in English, which is their foreign language, in place of reading in Chinese on the Internet is most often for schoolwork, including examinations and quizzes as well as presentations and reports. As for the second most reported purpose, to cater for individual interests, it is surprisingly different from the previous studies’ results. Prior studies suggested that leisure-time reading habits in English are not grown on most students because English is not their language of choice when it comes to reading non-academic materials (Camiciottoli, 2001; Hung, 2003; Lee, 2005; Mokhtari & Sheorey, 1994). Nonetheless, the current study found that around three quarters of the students are accustomed to reading English
information that they are personally interested in on the Internet as their leisure-time reading activity. This difference between results of previous studies and that of the present study lies in the different medium of reading materials. With the use of the Internet, the students felt much easier and more convenient to access and locate the non-academic information that they favor to read in English. All they have to do is merely click the mouse a few times, and there is information in visual or audio forms.
It is this multimedia feature that distinguishes the different results between this study and the previous studies that centered on leisure-time reading in print. This result echoes Krashen’s (2007) claim that using computers for Free Voluntary Surfing (FVS) can encourage EFL students to wander through the Internet and read what interests them. As a result, pleasure reading in English can be more likely to take place when the students read on the Internet than read in print. The third most-reported purpose is to obtain the information hardly available in Chinese. As Crystal (1997) states that approximately 85% of electronically stored information in the world is written in English (cited in Shin & Son, 2007), the students seem to understand that a lot more
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information can be found on the Internet if English is used as a medium to search for information on the Internet. More than half of the respondents meant to read English on the Internet given that much more information and more updated information can be accessed with English search keywords. As a result, the students seem to highly value the use of English as medium to search for information that is more up-to-date and hardly obtained in Chinese.
Types of Internet English reading materials
In regard to what types and genres of English reading materials the students read on the Internet, the top three kinds of reading materials were generated: reviews, comments, analyses, essays, or summaries, of literature works, news and columns, and multimedia (i.e. video watching and music listening). As suggested by this
finding, the students who majored in English seemed to heavily rely on the Internet to facilitate their schoolwork particularly related to both literature and mythology. To reduce the reading workload that the professors assign them to finish or ask them to prepare for the pending examinations in a short time, the students would try to look up some shorter subject-related information rather than reading the original contents. As a consequence, when it comes to reading in English, the students seem more liable to read short-length contents instead of long-length ones. This result is congruent with the result from Hung’s (2003) study, indicating that Taiwanese students are intended to read short readings rather than lengthy ones from nonfiction or E-news. However, Hung’s (2003) and Lee’s (2005) findings are somewhat different from the finding of the current study in terms of the students’ reluctance to read long articles from nonfiction work or Internet news. In this study, the result shows that the 88% of the students are accustomed to reading English news and comments online. According to the students’ responses, their habits of reading English news on the Internet are
attributed to the teachers’ guides and introductions to several worldwide popular news
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websites to help with the students’ preparations for courses. As for reading with multimedia on the Internet, 65% of the students treasure the visual and audio features the Internet bring to them in addition to English reading texts themselves. To them, reading multimedia such listening to English songs along with reading English lyrics and watching English movies or TV shows on the Internet gives them chances to be exposed to more English learning environment where they can hone their English reading and listening skills. This result is consistent with Chan et al’s (2002) finding that Hong Kong tertiary students prefer reading with multimedia on the Internet such as watching English movies and TV programs and listening to English songs to extend their English learning outside of the school.
Topics of Interest in Internet reading materials
Concerning what reading topics the students are interested in reading in English on the Internet, the most preferred reading topic is arts and leisure, including arts, celebrity news, food, music, movies, and lifestyles. Topic related to English learning is the least favored. Compared this result with that of Hung’s (2003) study that investigated Taiwanese undergraduates’ favorite reading topics in print, both studies reached the same conclusion that when it comes to English reading, the students take more interest in reading such light topics as leisure, recreation, music, and movie. In light of the students’ interview data, the reason why the students would like to read light topics is that if they read on the Internet, they tend not to read something heavy or with dry topics. Instead, they would rather read something fun and entertaining on the Internet after school as a way of relaxation. This not only further corroborates with Hung’s (2003) finding that the students expect to read some recreational topics at ease to mitigate the pressure and tiredness from school, but also explains why the students are less interested in reading English learning materials while reading on the Internet.
Frequency of reading English online on a weekly basis
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Regarding how often the students read English on the Internet on a weekly basis, more than half of the students (25 participants) reported that they read English on the Internet almost every day while there are still some students (13 participants)
confessing that they hardly or never read English online. As for the reason why the students reading English online every day is that they would like to read the
e-newsletters they have subscribed to, to obtain updated information, to develop their personal habits, and to search for and collect information to prepare for the imminent examinations. As for the reason why some of the students spend little reading English online is that they think that with an abundance of Chinese information available online, there is no need for them to read English texts. According to them, reading English online is not necessary pending teachers plan an examination or make the Internet reading a mandatory assignment. This finding can be linked back to the students’ main purpose of reading online, that is, to cope with everything involving schoolwork. As suggested by this finding, to increase the students’ exposure to English reading on the Internet, the teachers can engage them in accomplishing tasks that require them to exploit the Internet using English as a medium. Moreover, as suggested by Kaur and Thiyagrajah (1999), students need to improve their reading habits and should be encouraged to capitalize on the Internet as a tool to tap valuable reading resources which can promote autonomous learning.
Factors affecting the selection of Internet reading materials
Considering what factors influence the students’ selection of reading materials while they are reading on the Internet, top three factors were found and listed in order:
the format of documents and websites, the feature of online information, and the user’s task purpose. With the reference to format of documents and websites, the students are inclined to be influenced by the length of reading content, website design, use of words and text difficulty, font size, size of reading file, and whether the reading
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texts presented with multimedia. Basically, the students seem reluctant to read lengthy contents online; they tend to choose shorter ones. This, again, echoes the finding discussed above that shorter reading contents are always the students’ priority. Besides, websites with well-organized topic categories and layouts could easily draw the
students’ attractions to pay them a visit since the students can find it easy to use these websites with clear guidelines. Moreover, it is found that multimedia presentations of reading contents are highly favored. Accordingly, online information accompanied with texts, images, videos, graphics, animations, or audios can easily ignite the students’ motivations to read (Soon et al, 2004; Tseng, 2006). As English learners, what matters a lot to their choices of reading materials is the difficulty level of English reading texts. The students feel resistant to read texts replete with new or unfamiliar vocabulary or tough words (Kung & Chuo, 2002; Soon et al, 2004). In this regard, whether the students read online or in print, linguistic barriers have influence on their reading proficiency and their choices of reading materials (Kaur &
Thiyagarajah, 1999; Hung, 2003; Mokhtari & Sheorey, 1994; Tseng, 2006). At last, the students feel more comfortable and patient to read texts with appropriate font size of words and size of reading files for them to download. This result concurs with the result of Tseng’s (2006) study, indicating that small font sizes can aggravate the students’ difficulty in reading. For the pedagogical concern, the teachers can teach the students skills to address this problem, such as (1) opening the reading file in another window by right clicking on the mouse, (2) adjusting the website display by clicking the view button on the menu bar and then changing the display word size to the biggest size, or (3) copying all reading contents to Word files to enlarge the words by choosing the big size. Taught with these technical skills to tackle reading problems arising from font size, the students can have more reading options and avoid reading contents in small font size.
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Aside from the format of a website, feature of online information also influences the students’ selection of reading materials in terms of reliability and authority,
catchiness and sensation, novelty. As indicated by this finding, the students seem to be equipped with some senses of Internet reading literacies and with abilities to assess online information instead of being credulous about everything they read on the Net.
In addition, catchy, sensational, and updated information can easily catch the students’
attention and interest.
Users’ different task purposes are at play in the students’ selection of reading materials. Their purpose is to locate information that is very relevant to their search and has to do with their assignment. So, while reading on the Internet, the students usually exert their search skills to narrow down the search results to pinpoint the information they need, such as (1) searching with more keywords, (2) capitalizing on the cached link to brightly highlight the search terms, (3) only selecting the
frequently-visited websites, and (4) scanning through the introduction to each website from the result page.
Methods to improve reading comprehension on the Internet
Two mostly employed methods to help with reading comprehension while
reading on the Internet are the uses of online dictionaries and online instant translators and, one least utilized yet very inspiring and noteworthy method is the visualizing of the reading content. The finding reveals that even though the participants highly treasure the convenience of online dictionaries, the participants do not simply resort to online dictionaries without sensibly choosing the appropriate online dictionary based on their purposes and their understanding of the new words. In other words, if they sense that the words they are going to look up are newly-invented or very colloquial, they would rather resort to dictionaries specializing in this area than utilize normally used dictionaries such as Yahoo Dictionary. In addition to convenience that an online
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dictionary brings to the students, the online dictionary also provides the students more functions, such as the reference to antonyms, synonyms, and sentence examples to show how the search word is typically used. As for the use of instant translators, the students take advantages of Yahoo Mini Pen Translator, Dr. Eye, Google Instant Translation, Yahoo! Babel Fish Translation, and the function of Translation This Page built in Google search engine. Their comprehension breakdown can be immediately addressed by using the above translation tools to copy-and-paste or key in the unknown part of the reading. Other than the use of instant translator to convert the confusing part of the reading into Chinese, the students also make better use of another translation service built in the translator, which refers to the instant display of the definition of the unknown word by merely putting the mouse cursor on it.
With regard to visualizing the unknown or unfamiliar part of the reading content by searching images from Google Images and videos from YouTube, in spite of being the least reported method, it remains quite pedagogically meaningful for language learners and educators. It implies that multimedia can indeed increase the readability of text-heavy pages, illustrate complex ideas, promote new knowledge, and highlight connections between difficult concepts (Eagleton & Dobler, 2007; McPherson, 2005).
This result is similar to the finding in Petrie’s (2003) study, suggesting that visual language (the use of words, graphics, images, and so on to make meaning) can be used as an alternative form of text to assist language learners’ reading comprehension.
In the current study, Google Images, where the visual modality of both conceptual words and concrete words can be obtained, seems to help the students with their reading comprehension by providing them with concepts of their inquiry. Therefore, as Chinnery (2008) suggested, Google Images or Google Image Labeler, as an informative tool, should be taught to the language learners for their vocabulary development or reading comprehension.
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Research Question Two
RQ2: What perceptions do EFL undergraduates have for Internet reading in terms of the drawbacks and advantages of reading English online, preferences of reading online or in print, and the students’ suggestions to the teachers?
Disadvantages of reading English online
Regardless of the convenience the Internet brings to the online readers, reading on the Internet is not without its drawbacks, particularly for English learners reading English on the Internet. Nine types of disadvantages are engendered and the top four types are: inflexibility, distraction and disorientation, oversupply of information, and lack of ergonomic concerns. Respecting the inflexibility of reading on the Net, most of the students find that they are unable to take notes and highlight any words, that it is difficult to relocate the websites, and that it is tedious to go back and forth
between screens and scroll windows to read through the content. This finding implies that even though the students grow up and live in such an advanced digital age, they remain accustomed to reading in print, in which they can use annotations marginal notes at their will so as to deepen their memory and comprehension and stimulate their reflection on the text, stop reading at any page without losing the trace to get back to where they stop reading, and comfortably read full-size format of materials without scrolling and flipping between windows.
Moreover, the students think that reading English on the Internet can lead them to distraction and disorientation. They perceive reading on the Internet is a dynamic process instead of static process, in which their reading performances can be
impeded by pop-ups and advertisements, embedded hyperlinks, synchronous
communicative devices (i.e. MSN and Yahoo Messenger), misleading search results, and many small words that cause line skipping. This finding suggests that in order to efficiently and effectively accomplish assignments using the Internet, the students
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should totally focus on their tasks by searching target information with more accurate keywords, shutting communicative devices, and ignoring all the advertisements coming along. Only with full attention paid to the task will the students not be distracted while reading online.
The excess of information provided by the Internet is another drawback.
Bombarded with a myriad of information from the Net, the students feel that less information can be absorbed and let alone transferred to long-term memory. On top of it, they also find it difficult to search for target information on the Internet that is presented as exhaustively and in order as in books. Reading online additionally fails to give them sense of achievement since there are always more to read after they finish reading through a webpage. To solve the problems that the overabundance of information causes, it is advisable that the teachers assign the students online tasks with clear task purposes and goals, specific guidelines, suggested search keywords, or credible websites. In this way, the students’ sense of achievement may not be dominantly gained by reading through all the information on the Internet but by accomplishing the assigned tasks.
Ergonomic concerns are another defect that can be detrimental to the students’
health. They are composed of eyestrains, aggravation of aggravation of eye vision,
health. They are composed of eyestrains, aggravation of aggravation of eye vision,