Speed Reading: University EFL Students' Strategies And Perception

prof. dr. h. abdul majid latief, mm, m. pd; siti zulaiha, ma, ph.d; hamzah puadi ilyas, ph.d;

EFL reading classes are often teacher-centered and focus on direct knowledge transmission, the emphasis is often put on the production of comprehension rather than the processing skills. The present study attempted to maximize the students’ participation in evaluating themselves by using speed reading program, to find out the strategies the use in the reading process, and to know the students’ perceptions on speed reading in order to enhance their reading comprehension in English. The participants of the study were twenty one students of English Education Study Program of Faculty of Teachers Training and Educational Sciences, in the fifth semester of 2017/2018 academic year.
The method used for this study was qualitative case study research design. This design involved collecting data abut and from the students by means of reading different types of English texts, answering the comprehension questions, putting the result of the speed and comprehension in the graphs, writing a reflection journal regarding the process of reading and answering the interview. Their graphs, reflection journals, and the result of interview were analyzed to find out how the students read the texts, how the achievement of the comprehension was, what strategies they used during the reading process and what perceptions they have toward the speed reading program. Based on the results of students’ reading rate and reading comprehension, although the average rate cannot achieve the ideal speed 300 wpm, the sign of the students’ improvement was seen both on the students’ reading speed rate and also the reading comprehension. Findings from the students’ journals and interview showed that most of the students did not think the reading strategies when they got a text, they used to see the tittle and just read it. Most of them still read slowly and even re-read the whole passage to measure the understanding for difficult texts, but when it came to the easier and interesting texts they read it once and faster. Some students had already applied skimming, scanning, and previewing. It can be concluded that the students that the students actually had used some cognitive strategies by applying some techniques while they read, and as they involved in thinking about their own reading process, doing the self-monitoring and self-evaluation, it means that they used metacognitive strategies. This study also reveals that although the students’ reading rate remains low, they are not poor readers. At this level, they have acquired some reading skills and strategies, and by recognizing their own weaknesses, they have tried to improve themselves to get better.