DefinePK

Abstract

Analysing students' reading attitudes has become an essentialphenomenon, it helps in assessing their reading progress. As students acquiremuch of the knowledge by reading written literature therefore, their futuresuccess both in and outside of their learning environment is determined by thedevelopment of their reading attitudes.This importance of reading attitudesbecomes crucial especiallyat the college level where learners encounter readingproblems due to their non-serious reading attitudes. Pedagogical practices forreading and learners’ reading attitudes are directly proportional variables.Students in Pakistan hardly get opportunities provided for the development ofreading skills in comparison to other language skills.Therefore, researcher isinterested to highlight this interconnected relation between teaching practicesof reading and their impact on reading attitudes of college students to find outwhat could be the gap or lack in the teaching of English language reading inPakistan.This study is attempted to examine reading attitudes of 85 privatecollege learners and 10 English language teachers’ perspectives of currentpedagogical practices for reading skills in their classrooms. The mixed-methodapproach has been followed, a reading attitude questionnaire is used tomeasure learners’ reading attitudes and semi-structured interviews areconducted to gather teachers’ perspectives of pedagogical practices. Thequantitative data has been descriptively analysed through SPSS software andthe thematic analysis technique has been used for the interviews. The resultsreveal a low level of reading attitudes of the learners, and realization fromteachers for these attitudes are found due to the rigid and limited practices. Inaddition, several aspects are reported by the respondents which highlight theimportance of flexible reading practices, learners’ choice of reading materialand institutional support.