Novels in the classroom: Motivating students in pre-university level to read their novels with the reader approach

Abstract

Students are not motivated to read novels for EFL classes. This research project attempts to introduce the so-called reader approach in order to improve students´ motivation for reading novels and also improve students´ learning outcomes. A control group of pre-university level students received a traditional approach, where they only had to read their novel and then answer the questions of different levels of processing of a book test. A research group received the reader approach. They were asked to read the same novel as the control group, but received additional classes where they worked in literary circles to make assignments based on the reader approach. Results have shown that students of the research group performed better than the control group on the lower levels of processing. Additionally, students of the research group claimed to be more motivated than the students of the control group.