Reading in English in Swedish Classrooms : A study of Swedish upper secondary students’ reading habits and their attitudes towards reading in English

Abstract: This thesis is a study concerning Swedish students’ usage of reading strategies, attitudes towards reading and their reading habits when reading in English as a Foreign Language (EFL). This thesis also examines what motivates students to read in Swedish EFL-classrooms. To be able to answer the research questions in this thesis, a survey was handed out to 32 students in order to provide an authentic picture of these students’ perspectives. The theoretical background in this thesis concerns motivation, or more specifically intrinsic motivation, which is described and defined through Deci and Ryan (2000) and Ryan and Deci’s (2000) Self-Determination Theory (SDT).    This study concludes that the informants in this study seem to have a tendency to not use reading strategies before, during or after reading texts. The importance of teachers teaching and for students using reading strategies will be discussed in correlation with the results from the students’ surveys. This study also shows that students who do not use reading strategies seem to have a negative attitude towards reading and read to lower extent than students with a positive attitude towards reading. Lastly, this study shows that students benefit from appealing to their intrinsic motivation in order to regard reading as more fun, and therefore read more.