Impact of Interest on EFL Learners' Reading and Learners' Perceptions
Subject Areas :Rusul Ismaeil Sakran Alkemi 1 , Majid Asgari 2 , Riyadh Abbas Ubeid AL-Jashami 3 , Fatemeh Karimi 4
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Keywords: EFL Teaching, Instructional Materials, Reading Performance, Interest, Perception,
Abstract :
Improving the way of designing syllabus by making it more tailored to the needs and interest of the learners has been an important objective in language teaching, which leads to selecting and grading instructional materials with a consistent attention. This study focused on studying some dark areas of material selection in language teaching, aiming to make instructional materials more attractive to learners. There was also an attempt to see if learner's interest could affect reading and grammar differently. Lastly, the research also sought to find learners' perception on the use of interest in material selection and its possible effect in their performance. A mixed-method design was used to answer the research questions. The findings and results revealed that the use of interest in selecting class materials helped learners have better performance in reading, and the improvement showed a high correlation with learners' performance in grammar learning. Furthermore, the results of the questions asking for learners' perceptions disclosed the effectiveness of integrating interest to teaching materials in language learning. Researchers and teachers are suggested to seek ways to assist the syllabus planners to grow achievement by changing the materials to be more interesting, which can facilitate the language teaching and learning.
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