After the students had finished the post-instructional questionnaire, some of them were interviewed. The interview was carried out in Chinese and recorded. Firstly, the students were asked what they would do when they encountered difficult words in the course of reading. Some of the students’ responses to this question are listed below.
“Because the stories are interesting, I will spontaneously look up those words I don’t know in the dictionary to understand the stories…I don’t do this when reading the articles in the textbook because the articles in textbooks are very boring.” (Mandy)
“In this approach, I can also review some of the words that I have learned [from the textbook]…I think I have less pressure learning new words in this way (reading novels).” (Sue)
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“I think guessing the meaning of difficult words is OK for me… I will keep on reading the stories even though there are unfamiliar new words because I am eager to know what will happen.” (Shira)
“I understand most of the words. If there are some words I don’t know, I just guess the meaning, but sometimes I will look them up.” (Siena)
From these responses, it could be seen that students understood most the words in the selected material. And when they encountered some unfamiliar words, some of them would consult the dictionary while some of them would keep on reading. They consulted the dictionary because they considered the stories interesting and wanted to understand the storylines, but they would not do that with the textbooks because they regarded the articles in textbooks boring. Many of them did not consult the dictionary because they understood the stories and was eager to know what would happen in the stories. This result is consistent with the result in the questionnaires that the selected reading material is more interesting than the textbook. It shows that because students were interested in the reading material, they were motivated to read it and to learn from it. These findings lend support to many studies that the reading material has to be easy and within students’ competence to motivate them to read (Chern, 1987;
Claridge, 2005; Day & Bamford, 2002; Nation, 2007).
Next, the researcher investigated students’ opinions of the pre-class worksheet and the response journal. The following are some of their responses.
“I don’t like to do the worksheet…Because of the pre-class worksheets, I have to read the stories more in detail… Without the pre-class worksheets, we may not want to read the story…Because we need to do the pre-class worksheets,
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sometimes I have to read the story the second time to find out some of the answers…I think doing the pre-class worksheets gives me some pressure because there are quite a lot of [questions] and it takes me much time…but I like to do the response journals because I can write down many of my own opinions…I don’t have to write everything about the book; [instead], I can write down my opinions and my interpretation of the stories.” (Sue)
“I think doing the pre-class worksheet and the response journal is quite good for me because the teacher will give feedback to what I have written…I feel quite happy if the teacher responds to what I have written…I will feel disappointed if the teacher just gives a check to my work. The teacher’s responses will encourage me to write more, But if the teacher gives little response or corrects my sentences, I will question myself why I have to write so much…When doing the response journal, I will think of many
things…Some questions make me recall something that happened in the past.”
(Siena)
“In the beginning I have some feelings [for the stories], but after the
discussion with my classmates, I have other feelings… The response journals helps me rethink why I have those feelings before… and why I have different interpretation of the stories later.” (Eve)
“When I do the response journal, I will think of many things…For example, I will think of the past experience…It seems that I am using my experience to
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understand the stories and to answer the questions…It seems that I am turning the response journal into my own personal journal.” (Siena)
Students had mixed opinions and contradictory feelings of the pre-class
worksheet. Although some of them didn’t like to do the pre-class worksheet because they had much pressure when figuring out the answers to the questions, they admitted that the pre-class worksheet drove them to read the stories more in detail. On the other hand, students liked the response journal because when doing it, they would recall their memories and past experience, as well as reflect on the change of their
interpretation of the stories after the discussion. Moreover, students were encouraged to write more if the teacher gave them feedback to what they had written. This result echoes the result in the post-instructional questionnaire. On the contrary, if the teacher just gave a check or corrected students’ linguistic errors, they would prefer to write less.
The third question that the researcher examined in the interview is students’
opinions of using the reader response approach to learn literature. Some of their opinions are presented below.
“I think this approach is very interesting…There is no test. I can learn something in a relaxed way.” (Mandy)
“We don’t need to sit there and listen to the teacher’s lecture…We can share our opinions and negotiate our interpretation [of the stories] with our
classmates…We always have a lot of fun.” (Shira)
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“I think I can enjoy the pleasure of reading English literature…We have a lot of fun when discussing the stories in the groups…The discussion help me understand the stories in different ways.” (Eve)
“I think I have made more improvement learning in this way than the traditional way when learning from the textbook…I read faster and I can understand the stories without having to wait for the teacher to translate them into Chinese.” (Siena)
The students held very positive opinions of using the reader response approach to learn literature. Firstly, this approach helped them to have much fun to learn English in a relaxed way. The discussion helped them interpret the stories in different ways. In addition, they had made more improvement in this approach than in the traditional one because they could understand the text without the teacher’s translation.
Lastly, the students were asked to give some suggestions for literature instruction using the reader response approach in the future. Similar to the post-instructional questionnaire, many students considered this approach interesting and motivating, so only a few of them gave some suggestions. Their opinions are as listed below.
“I don’t want to do the pre-class worksheet. Can we just do the response journal?...It really takes me much time to do the pre-class worksheet…I hope we can choose our own group members…because if our group member doesn’t read the stories, it becomes difficult to carry out the discussion.” (Sue)
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“We spend one-third of our English class on this activity. Although it is fun and motivating, we have to rush to finish the scheduled syllabus…I don’t want the textbook to be roughly taught…We may perform worse in the monthly exam than those students who were taught the textbook intensively … Maybe we can do the discussion in groups during the break or after school and then present our opinions in class.” (Shira)
Some students preferred this kind of activity to be carried out after school or during the summer school as they did not want the teacher to rush to finish the scheduled syllabus because they were afraid that they could not perform as well as those students who read the textbook intensively. Besides, they did not want to do the pre-class worksheet although they showed preference for the response journals. Lastly, they wanted to choose their own group members because if some group members did not read the stories, they could not carry out the discussion.
To sum up, students’ responses in the interview show that (1) they understood most of the words in the selected reading and considered the stories interesting. If there were difficult words, most of them would guess the meaning of the difficult words and keep on reading, but some of them would consult the dictionary to understand the stories, (2) although the students didn’t like to do the pre-class
worksheet as it was a burden for them, the pre-class worksheet drove them to read the stories more in detail. In addition, they liked to do the response journal as it helped them to relate their past experience and become more reflective thinkers, (3) they liked the reader response approach because they made more improvement in this relaxed learning approach than the traditional one. Moreover, they could discuss and
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negotiate the meaning with their classmates, and (4) some students wanted to choose their own group members so that they could carry out the discussion easily.
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