The purpose of this study aimed to investigate how literature circles facilitate students’ reading motivation and comprehension and also looked into students’
performances of different roles in LCs program, trying to elicit important patterns and information from students’ responses in role sheets and open-ended questions. finally, the researcher examined students’ perception to this LC program through
semi-structured interview and perception questionnaires. Based on the major findings, the results are reported in the following paragraph.
The Effect of LCs on Improving Students’ Reading Comprehension
The results of the GEPT tests indicated that students’ posttest scores increased slightly, although the improvement did not reach statistical significance. As a result, we cannot say with any certainty that participation in LCs resulted in reading comprehension improvement. It is also likely that any gains made in reading
comprehension would be difficult to be reflected in GEPT evaluation, especially due to the short 18 week treatment. However, the qualitative data collected from the interviews as well as open-needed questionnaires does suggest that students believed their reading comprehension improved through discussion and meaning negotiation.
The majority of students, 84.2%, stated that they believed that engaging in LC
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activities gave a positive effect in enhancing their reading comprehension. According to follow up interviews, work sheets and questionnaires, students believed that LCs helped their reading comprehension through meaning negotiation and discussion, and that this constant sharing and discussing helped train students to be better thinkers.
The Effect of LCs on Improving Students’ Reading Motivation
In order to investigate the effects of literature circles on improving students’
reading motivation, questionnaires of English reading Motivation pre and posttests were administered. The data was analyzed through paired-sample t-tests. After comparing the score of pre and posttests, results indicated a significant improvement in students’ intrinsic reading motivation, whereas a significant decrease was found in students’ extrinsic reading motivation. Therefore, we could say that students gradually became more interested in English reading because their motivation shifted from an extrinsic to intrinsic orientation. In other words, they read in English because of internal fulfillment or pleasure instead of reading to pass tests, rely on external rewards, or to submit to teachers’ authority.
Students Performance in Literature Circles
In examining students’ progress and performance in literature circles, the researcher looked closely into students’ responses on the role sheets. Findings were carefully transcribed and coded. According to the results, the scaffolding of the role sheets role helped students share their feelings and make a connection to life. Through the process of sharing feelings with peers in groups, students could pay attention to depth of meaning in the story. Moreover, group sharing also provided students with plenty of chances to communicate, interact, and learn from others. Additionally, the texts also inspired students to share their personal connection to previous life experiences. By making connections to their lives, students could become more
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attentive and involved in the story.
Students’ Perceptions to Literature Circles
Results of students’ perceptions of literature circles were drawn from perception questionnaires, posttest of the motivation questionnaires, and students’ answers in semi-structured interviews. Students responses were transcribed and coded based on general conceptual similarities. The major findings of the benefits of reading in literature circles are summarized as follows: (1) cultivating thinking and analyzing skills; (2) improving reading motivation by creating a non-threatening cooperative learning environment; (3) improving reading comprehension through discussion and sharing; (4) inspiring students to generate multiple responses to literature by offering them opportunities for different discussion roles during discussion; (5) increasing students’ sense of responsibility towards their own work, and (6) enriching students’
vocabulary and grammar. The findings indicate that literature circles were regard as a novel and interesting reading activities for students that helped create a
non-threatening learning environment for students to discuss and share their opinions with peers in groups. Through reading in literature circles, students worked together to sort out the meaning for texts, solved problems with each other, and shared their feelings and opinion about the stories. By working together, students learned from each other and also helped themselves comprehend the texts more thoroughly. In addition, students inspired to generate multiple responses to the texts based on the tasks of different discussion roles. More importantly, reading in groups helped students to develop a sense of responsibility for their own work.
However, students encountered four major difficulties while reading in the literature circles: (1) time pressure; (2) interaction with groupmates; (3) the lack of adequate English proficiency of their groupmates; and (4) differences in learning
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styles. According to students’ responses, students felt stressful about the time pressure.
Sometimes, they had a hard time completing the work sheets or finishing assigned readings. In addition, it was also difficult for students to arrange adequate meeting time for group discussion. Secondly, students complained about some their
groupmates inadequate English proficiency and low motivation so that those students may not actively participate in group sharing or dissuasion. Finally, students with different learning styles may have had problems sharing with peers in group; thus, they preferred reading by themselves.