Importance of Reading skills for EFL learners in a private high school in second year of Bachelor in Loja city: a case study

Abstract

This research work is focused on explaining the importance of reading skills for EFL learners, by means of identifying teachers’ reading strategies applied in English classroom, and determining the effectiveness of reading comprehension activities on EFL students’ motivation for EFL learning. In this context, this research was carried out in Loja city, and it was a non-experimental study, which was developed under a mixed-method approach. One hundred students of second year of baccalaureate and two English teachers participated in this study. In order to gather empirical information, questionnaires and observation sheets were applied. Findings mainly show that both teachers and students are aware of the importance of reading to enrich especially the vocabulary background while learning English. However, vocabulary is also the principal challenge students face when performing reading comprehension activities, so it is literally provided by the teachers as pre reading strategy or after students’ question on meaning; students weakly identify or cope with it in reading contexts.