engleski

EFL reading in young learners: The teacher's perspective

The current paper is focused on the diversity of Croatian EFL primary school teaching and the role of EFL reading as understood and implemented in their teaching practice provided to YLs in Grades 1-4. The main aim of the research, conducted with 130 of them, was thus to determine what was the Croatian teachers’ perception of EFL reading and its early development, taking into account some of the crucial characteristics of their professional backgrounds. They were anonymously administered a questionnaire, comprising 13 items (multiple-choice, open-ended, ranking-based), in order to (dis)confirm five different hypotheses regarding, apart from teaching circumstances, their reading habits, ways in which they encouraged YLs to read more in EFL, and perception of reading as a language skill along with their ideas of EFL readers. The obtained results reveal that (1) their teaching context is mostly heterogeneous ; (2) most of them have developed Croatian and English reading habits ; (3) most of them (in)directly encourage YLs to read more in EFL, also outside school, through various creative activities ; (4) most of them perceive reading as important in their own teaching, and (5) most of them put an emphasis on comprehension and fluency as the products of accomplished reading, generally neglecting the process-oriented strategic component of reading. The research presented here is certainly one of the rare ones into (E)FL reading from the purely teacher’s perspective, even when a wider context is considered, not just Croatian. Therefore, it might be of interest to both scholars and practitioners.

EFL reading ; teachers ; young learners ; heterogeneity

Indeksirano u SCOPUSu.