Adolescent’s Approach to Texts

INSTITUTO SUPERIOR DE FORMACIÓN DOCENTE N° 30 Profesorado de Inglés Lengua y Expresión Oral IV Año 2012

Adolescent’s Approach to Texts: A Look into the Young’s relationship with Reading

During the last decades, the idea that Argentinian young people have a null or almost null contact with reading has become part of the society mainstream ideology in our country. This widely shared opinion about the relationship of adolescents with texts has reached adolescents themselves, making them believe that they read much less than what they actually do. Being in close contact with young people, as we, teachers at secondary education level are, makes it easy to know that they are constantly reading texts of all sorts, although this does not mean they read books precisely. So, do they really read little or nothing? On the basis of the data collected after surveying twentytwo 17-year-old students from a state school in Mariano Acosta, this paper will examine the extent to which this belief is shared by the young, and, at the same time, it will explore the high level of contact with texts that adolescents in the perifery of Buenos Aires have nowadays.

Methodology Students from 6th grade in a secondary school situated in Mariano Acosta, a town which is 50 km far from the capital city of Argentina, were asked to take part in a survey concerning reading. The students, aged 17, and most of them belonging to families from the working class, were asked about the amount of time they consider they devote to reading in general and to reading specific sorts of texts. As regards the type of texts they were given to choose to give details of their reading habits, they were able to select articles, tales, novels, chat services, text messages, or social networks. The data collected was organised in two charts. One specifying the number of hours students devote to each source of reading, and another, in the form of a pie chart, showing their opinion about the quantity of time they spend reading in general.

Results As you can see in the pie chart, the results reveal that 14% of the students surveyed believe that they do not read at all. A 63% of them think that they read little and only a 23% believe that they read a lot.

Amartino, Marina – Brucciamonti, Natalia – Chaves, Camila

INSTITUTO SUPERIOR DE FORMACIÓN DOCENTE N° 30 Profesorado de Inglés Lengua y Expresión Oral IV Año 2012

The following charts show the quantity of hours the students devote to reading the different sources of text. As to facilitate the reading of the charts, we can take as an example the source “social networks”. From the group who answered they read “a lot”, there were four students who marked they read more than two hours per day and only one who devotes between one and two hours to reading that specific source.

 ¿Cuánto leés? (marcar con una cruz)  Mucho 5  Poco  Nada  Marcá con una cruz cuánto tiempo de lectura le dedicás a cada una de las siguientes fuentes: Horas Fuentes Articulo Cuento Novela Chat SMS Redes Sociales

mas de 2

entre 1 y 2

1

menos de 1 3

1 1 4 3

1 2 2

4

1

1 1

nada 2 3 1

 ¿Cuánto leés? (marcar con una cruz)  Mucho  Poco14  Nada  Marcá con una cruz cuánto tiempo de lectura le dedicás a cada una de las siguientes fuentes: Horas Fuentes Articulo Cuento Novela Chat

mas de 2 1 1 1 6

entre 1 y 2

1 3

1 2 4

1

menos de 1 4 1 4 2

Amartino, Marina – Brucciamonti, Natalia – Chaves, Camila

nada 6 11 7 1

INSTITUTO SUPERIOR DE FORMACIÓN DOCENTE N° 30 Profesorado de Inglés Lengua y Expresión Oral IV Año 2012

SMS Redes Sociales

10

2

1

6

6

1

1 1

 ¿Cuánto leés? (marcar con una cruz)  Mucho  Poco  Nada3  Marcá con una cruz cuánto tiempo de lectura le dedicás a cada una de las siguientes fuentes: Horas Fuentes Articulo Cuento Novela Chat SMS Redes Sociales

mas de 2

entre 1 y 2

1

menos de 1

1

nada 2 3 3

2 3

1

2

1

It is interesting to remark that from the group of students which answered they read “little” or “nothing” we found that they devote per day more hours to reading than the group which answered they read “a lot”.

Discussion As it was mentioned previously, according to the results of our survey, just 23% of the students surveyed answered that they read “a lot”, whereas the rest of them, that is to say 77%, answered that they read “little” and “nothing” (63% and 14% respectively). This gives account of the common held belief among young people from the peripheral areas of Buenos Aires that they read very little or, in some cases, that they do not read at all. But the survey carried out also provides us with information about the number of hours students devote to different reading sources, and it is at this point that the most interesting results appear. Most of the students who, according to the first question of the survey consider that they read “little” or “nothing”, answered that they spend more than three hours a day reading text messages, and more than Amartino, Marina – Brucciamonti, Natalia – Chaves, Camila

INSTITUTO SUPERIOR DE FORMACIÓN DOCENTE N° 30 Profesorado de Inglés Lengua y Expresión Oral IV Año 2012

two hours reading from chat services and social networks respectively. That is a total of seven hours a day reading.

So, according to the students’ answers, it is clear that the idea that adolescents do not devote time to reading is utterly erroneous. On the contrary, the survey conducted indicates that they spend a high number of hours reading.

Therefore, it is evident that there exists a close relationship between the young and reading. But why is it that they do not believe so? Although the aim of this paper is not to provide an answer for such a question, we consider it is worth mentioning one plausible reason: students appear to have a misconception of the concept of “reading” itself. The results obtained through our survey show that most of those who answered that they read “little” or “nothing” chose the option “nothing” in the number of hours corresponding to tales and novels, mostly. Hence, it seems as if for adolescents, “reading” would be equal to novels and tales, that is to say mainly equal to literature. So, it is clear that if students took into account that making use of text messages, chat services and social networks implies being exposed to reading, they would be conscious of their everyday high contact with reading and therefore, they would abandon the idea that reading is equal to literature.

We, as teachers from secondary education, should collaborate in the process of raising awareness in our students that online publications, comments and dialogues in chat services are part of written texts that they read all the time. In this way, they can realise that their relationship with reading is much closer than what they actually believe it is. This can help students to have a positive attitude towards reading. Also, it would be interesting to make use of students’ reading preferences in order to create new materials that resemble the text sources they are in contact with everyday. Like so, students would be more receptive to the material they are required to read at school.

Amartino, Marina – Brucciamonti, Natalia – Chaves, Camila