Do young adults read for pleasure or obligation? “Adolescents are not keen on reading. They do it because they have to. If they don’t read for school, they fail the subjects. If you asked them to choose between reading school texts and not doing it, they would definitely choose not to do it.” (A language teacher) This kind of thought has become common today among secondary schools teachers. When it comes to the topic of young adults reading, most of us, will agree that they do not like doing it. What is more, we tend to believe that adolescents only read when they are asked to do so and that they do not enjoy reading since they take it as a school obligation and a waste of time. This paper will describe how young adults do like reading depending on the literary genre but not necessary on their social contexts. At the same time, it will illustrate how we, as teachers of English, have prejudged - before doing the research- teenagers because of their social backgrounds and how results have surprised us. The study reported here and the results obtained come to sustain Amey’s work (1985) who proposes that the reading material has to fulfil the special needs that young adults have. These needs include:
the need for entertainment and information, the need to belong, the need to learn in a social context, the need to experience responsibility, the need to establish a self-concept, the need to communicate with adults who have an interest in them and their concerns.
Adolescents’ needs and likes are two aspects that teachers should have into account when choosing the reading materials as, in fact; the wrong teaching decisions seem to be the reason that cause young adults not to be likely to read school texts. Background and methodology Over the last modifications that the Argentinean Educational System has undergone during the last decades, it is quite common to hear from the conservative sectors of the population, that education is no longer what it used to be, that secondary students do not achieve a high level of competence as they used to, that they no longer read and that if they do, they do not read writers or works that are believed to be classics. Moreover, it is usually believed that young adults’ relationship with literary texts is a forced one and that they do not read for pleasure, but for obligation.
To confirm or break this people’s belief, we designed a questionnaire for secondary students. This paper will discuss the data from the interviews with the students. The purpose of the survey was to learn if young adults read for pleasure or for obligation and whether their social backgrounds affect their choices or not. To see what kind of texts they read and how they obtain them. SURVEY Students´ information AGE: COURSE: MALE:
FEMALE:
Do you read for… A- PLEASURE? What type of texts do you read? a- comics b- novels c-short stories d- magazines e- newspapers f- plays g- social nets h- other ________
B- OBLIGATION? Which type of texts would you like to read? a- comics b- novels c-short stories d- magazines e- newspapers f- plays g- social nets h- other ________
How do you get texts?
abcd-
buy them you borrow them from a friend you borrow them from the library the state provides them to you
The survey was carried out in two Secondary schools to students between 15 and 16 years old. The schools were of different socio-economic contexts. One of it was a Private Bilingual school located in the centre of Ituzaingó province of Buenos Aires. In this private school, with a high fee paying, students daily attend doubleshift classes; having Spanish subjects in morning and English and sports subjects in the afternoon. Students in this school, belong to high-middle class families, many of them living in private neighbourhoods and urban areas. The other, was a Technical State Run school situated in the centre of General Rodriguez, province of Buenos Aires. In this school, students daily attend doubleshift classes; in the morning shift, they have the theoretical subjects and the
practice subjects in the afternoon. Since most of the students live far away, they stayed at school the two shifts. They have lunch at school provided by the State. Students come from low-middle class and low class families. Many of them live in worker’s neighbourhoods.
Results A total of 28 students aged 15-16 years were questioned between the private and the state-run school. Surprisingly, the results were different in some aspects, but they coincided in others. In the private school, 14 students took the survey. Three of them said that they read for pleasure, seven students said that they read for obligation and four said that they do it both, for pleasure and for obligation. Therefore, and as the graphic below shows, we can say that the majority of the adolescents who were questioned said that they read for obligation and a minority, only a 20% of them, do it purely for pleasure. Moreover, there were a 30% of the students who agreed that they read for obligation, but also for pleasure.
Results in the Private School
Reading for pleasure Reading for obligation for pleasure and obligation
In the State run school, however, the results were more solid. Out of 14 students who took the survey, twelve said that they read for pleasure and only two of them do it for obligation. That is to say that more than the 80% of these young adults enjoy reading and there was a minority who agreed on reading texts because they have to.
Results in the State-Run school
Reading for pleasure Reading for obligation
Among the kind of texts teenagers read, they agreed that read or prefer reading comics, short stories and social nets the most without social contexts distinction. All the same, poetry and plays were the less popular types of texts between the young adults.
Types of texts young adults read Poetry Plays Newspapers Magazines Types of texts young adults read
Novels Comics Short stories Social nets 0
5
10
15
20
When students were asked about the way they obtain the texts, the vast majority pointed out that they buy them. However, in the State Run School, students stated that they also get the texts through the internet. Moreover, we can clearly observe in the graphic below, how the economic factor influences in this aspect.
Results in the Private School 15 10 5
How do students get the texts
0 Buy the texts
Borrow them from a friend
Results in the State-run school 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Buy the texts
Download Borrow Borrow them from them from a them from the net friend the school library
How do students from the State-run school get the texts?
Discussion This research has shown us, teachers of English, how young adults do read and how they like doing it. Contradicting to those teachers who feel and claim that it is useless to give texts to adolescents because they will not read them, the findings shown in this research paper have clearly stated that the most secondary students who were questioned claimed that they read for pleasure, which means that they are enthusiastic about the idea of entering to the literary world. According to Krashen (1993), who is a major proponent of the value of reading for pleasure: When adolescents read for pleasure, when they get “hooked on books”, they acquire, involuntarily and without conscious effort, nearly all of the so-called “language skills”: they will become adequate readers, acquire a large vocabulary, develop the ability to understand and use complex grammatical constructions, develop a good writing style, and become good (but not necessarily perfect) spellers. Furthermore, a recent research from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 2002) showed that reading for pleasure could therefore be one important way to help combat social exclusion and raise educational standards. Since most of the students enjoy reading and they have the opportunity to get texts through different sources. It is the adults’ duty then, to motivate and encourage them to enlarge their likes and literary genres, working on their skills and strengths. So, making a proper and good selection of the literary texts depends on the teacher, and the way in which he/she will work with it is even a much more important issue.