The Relationship between L2 Willingness to Read and Reading Achievement among Indonesian Theology Students
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18592/let.v16i1.19918Keywords:
English for Specific Purposes (ESP), Reading Achievement, Second/foreign language (L2), Theology, Willingness to Read (WTR)Abstract
Second/foreign language (L2) Willingness to Read (WTR) is thus far under-researched in the Indonesian context despite its strategic position for L2 learning. This study intends to investigate the L2 WTR of Indonesian learners of English and its predictive power on their reading achievement. To this end, 41 English for Specific Purposes (ESP) for Theology students participated in a survey and four of them took part in interviews. The study revealed that the participants generally reported a high level of L2 WTR. The participants reported a willingness to read texts with visuals for easier comprehension when they needed to read the texts for academic success and when they felt they could understand them with teacher support. The study also found that the participants’ L2 WTR significantly predicted their reading achievement, accounting for 13.20% of the total variance in reading achievement. Pedagogical implications include enhancing relevance and channeling the participants' interest through various multimodal instructional activities to enhance interest in L2 reading.
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