This study, within the framework of improving the English course for
postgraduate level at IPB (Bogor Institute of Agriculture), attempts to determine
the extent of English reading activities for academic purposes expected by
agricultural teaching staff at post graduate level, different expectations across the
study programs or a particular area of specialised discipline, the extent of English
problems experienced by postgraduate students and the strategies used to cope
with English needs in their postgraduate studies, to test a hypothesis that there is
a positive correlation between the students' command/scores of English and their
achievements/scores in agricultural subjects.
Questionnaires for agricultural staff and students were adapted from
Hughes (1988) and Weir (1988) to address these questions. Students' academic
records were obtained to compute the correlation between scores in English and
agricultural subjects. Review of literature and research in current theories of
reading in EFL is given to serve as a theoretical foundation to discuss English
reading lessons from secondary level to tertiary level in Indonesia and to provide
general implications to improve the English course at IPB.
The results indicate that staff reading expectation in English is high in
comparison to the students' level of English and in that all eight types of reading
activities listed in the questionnaires were expected. There are some different
expectations across the study programs. However, the most relevant finding to
note in regard to the the English course is that reading English texts as review of
literature for research proposes and reading English texts for writing assignments
were expected across all the study programs.
It is also found that reading English texts for academic purposes was still
a problem for the majority of student respondents and there are various
interesting reading strategies used by the student to cope with the English needs
of their studies. However, further investigation is essential to assist the students
with reading problems since the results do not specify the nature of reading
problems and methods used by the respondents.
A significant correlation is found between scores in English and
agricultural subjects at the level of 5% and 1% by the Spearman rank- order and
the Pearson product-moment correlation formulas. This implies that English is
central to the students' success in their postgraduate studies, which is also
supported by the student respondents' opinions. General implications and
suggestions are provided to assist postgraduate with reading problems and to
improve the English course for the students.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/218888 |
| Date | January 1991 |
| Creators | Djauhari, Muhamad Thonthowi, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Canberra. Education |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | ), Copyright Muhamad Thonthowi Djauhari |
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