INCREASING MOTIVATION FOR IN-CLASS READING COMPREHENSION IN A BUSINESS ENGLISH COURSE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF COSTA RICA(UCR)
INCREASING MOTIVATION FOR IN-CLASS READING COMPREHENSION IN A BUSINESS ENGLISH COURSE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF COSTA RICA(UCR)

Summary/Abstract: When teaching an integrated-skills English class, teachers normally know what to do to increase students’ motivation to speak in the classroom; for example, they can achieve this through the use of creative and amusing conversational activities. However, when it comes to increasing students’ motivation to read in class, instructors normally consider this a more challenging task. This mixed-methods research examines the role of reading strategies as a tool to increase students’ motivation to read in class in a business English course at the University of Costa Rica (UCR). To collect the data, the researcher made use of a pre-test, a post-test, two questionnaires, and an observation form. The results of the research show that 67% of the students claimed to feel more motivated to read in class after the teaching of reading strategies, as well as an increase of 58% in the approval rate in students’ performance. From the data obtained, the researcher concludes that explicit strategy training helps students become more actively engaged when doing in-class reading activities and boosts students’ confidence when tackling written texts.

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