Problems and Overcoming Strategies in Reading Academic Texts in English

This explanatory sequential mixed methods study examined the non-English major Chinese undergraduates’ problems and overcoming strategies in reading academic texts in English as well as how these strategies enable the non-English major Chinese undergraduates to overcome the problems faced in reading academic texts in English. The study employed questionnaires, one-on-one semi-structured interviews, and student journals to collect data. In the quantitative phase, the data was collected and analyzed through SPSS 26 and the descriptive analysis was used to analyze the data from the questionnaire. In the qualitative phase, thematic coding analysis was used to code and transcribe the data of three lecturers’ interviews as well as analyze and interpret the data from the students’ journals. The participants included 108 non-English major Chinese undergraduates and 3 English language lecturers at a private university in Malaysia. The results show a total of eight academic reading problems faced by the non-English major Chinese undergraduates, namely attitudes towards English language, personalities, English language proficiency level, suitability of reading materials, differences of culture and background, understanding contextual meaning, identifying main ideas and supporting details and managing time taken for reading academic materials. To overcome these problems in reading academic texts in English, the non-English major Chinese undergraduates employed several strategies such as active reading, referring to dictionaries, soliciting support from lecturers and peers, googling for information, using background knowledge to understand context, reading additional material and learning from media, attending extracurricular activities organized by the university and reading aloud. Accordingly, the strategies employed enabled the undergraduates to overcome their academic reading problems which are classified as before reading, during reading and after reading. The main findings of this study indicated that the use of social and collaborative techniques in the learning contexts proved beneficial for Chinese undergraduates to overcome the academic reading challenges faced.