A STUDY ON THE DIFFERENCE IN THE ATTITUDES OF BOYS AND GIRLS TOWARDS READING ENGLISH

                        Abstract

Differences in attitudes towards reading English have been observed in several studies.  Some studies have found that girls (enjoy reading significantly more than boys. Boys read less than girls, which directly connects to their level of reading fluency. Boys also tend to see themselves as poor readers. Gender differences in interests have also been observed in several studies: boys tend to engage in reading through different types of literature than girls. Boys are less likely to be committed fiction readers than are girls and that they are more interested in nonfiction and non-print media and tend to lose interest in reading through their years in secondary school . Boys tend to read brief informative texts. They prefer non-fiction, comics, how-to manuals, graphic novels, sports,  fantasy, humor, horror and action books.

 key terms

Reading - refers to the process of constructing meaning through a dynamic interaction between the reader's existing knowledge, the information suggested by the written language, and the context of the reading situation.

Attitude - refers to a predisposition to react specifically towards an object, situation, or value which is usually accompanied by feelings and emotions.

A STUDY ON THE DIFFERENCE IN THE ATTITUDES OF BOYS AND GIRLS TOWARDS READING ENGLISH

The main objectives of the study are to examine boys and girls attitude towards reading English and if reading attitudes and interests differ according to sex.

Survey method was used for the current study. Primary data required for the study were collected from PKPHS school ulikkal in Kannur district. Selected respondents of PKPHS school ulikkal of Kannur district by using questionnaire. A total number of 40 samples have been selected for the purpose of this study. 20 samples took from boys and 20 samples from girls. The study covers a period of 28/09/2017 to 30/09/2017 and the relevant information was obtained.

The present study aims to find out the boys and girls attitudes reading English. The result of the study can be valid and generalized to other similar samples to a considerable extent. This study deals with the boys and girls attitudes towards reading English. Here the primary data collected from the high school students is analyzed in order to find out the habit of reading in students and to find the difference of boys and girls attitude among reading English.

                                               According to the survey it is find that 47% of boys are interested in reading English and 87% of girls are shown interested in reading English. Hence girls are shown more interest in reading English than boys. Only 13%of girls are not interested in reading English and in the case of boys 53% are not interested. This reflects the current scenario of students’ interest in reading English. 35% of boys and 50% of girls are interested to get book as present. Whereas, 65% of boys and 50% girls were not interested to getting books as gift.

                                              According to the Secondary students them only 6% of boys are interested in reading English newspaper and 94% doesn’t have the habit of reading English newspaper. But we can see that the majority of girls such as 62% have the habit of reading English newspaper. Girls grasp English easier than boys. 75% of girls can easy to understand English they read. Only 25% of girls felt difficult to read English. In the case of boys 41% can understand easily English. And 59% boys felt difficult to read English.

From the study it is clear that both boys and girls visits library. 17% of boys and 37% of girls are regularly visits library. Majority of students such as 83% boys and 63% of girls are not regular visitor of library. They visits library for any special needs only. It conveys that the students interest of visiting library. The study also shows that there were 76% male students and 62% female students are interested in reading Comics and 89% male students and 63% female students are interested in reading Adventurous books. Hence it shows that boys are more interested in reading Comics and Adventurous books than girls. Hence the reading tastes of both boys and girls are different.

                                              The illustration states that student’s interest in evil and good character. About 40% of boys and 37% of girls are interested in evil characters whereas 41% of boys and 63% of girls are interested in good characters. Most of the female students like positive and good characters. But in the case of male students they shows interest in evil characters when the read.

From this study it is clear that only 29% of male students and 37% of female students are interested in reading aloud especially English. And 59% of male students and 75% of female students are interested or like to listen when someone read aloud. Majority of the male students and female students are not interested in read aloud. But majority of students are interested to listen when someone reads aloud. From the study it is clear that majority of boys and girls likes to read together with peers. 70% of boys and 75% of girls are interested to read together with their friends. 30% of boys and 25% girls are not find enjoyment in reading together with their friends.

 There were 88% male students and 100% female students are interested in Happy ending. When they read a work most of the students want happy ending. Only 12% of male students are interested in tragic ending of work. None of female students are interested in tragic ending. From the study it is clear that the ratio of boys and girls are equal in reading fiction and nonfiction. 70% of boys and girls prefer fiction and 25% of boys and girls prefer nonfiction for reading. It is clear that boys and girls are least interest in preferring poem and drama for reading.  Only 3% boys and 5% girls prefer poem for reading. And girls are not at all interested in reading drama while mere 2% of boys are interested to prefer drama to read.

Major  findings

·        Majority of students like to read books. In which47% of boys and 87% of girls are shown interest in reading English. Hence girls are shown more interest to reading English than boys.

·        42% of students shown interest in getting book as present. Girls shown more interest than boys in getting books as present.

·        Among the samples, only 29% of male students and 37% of female students were interested in reading aloud especially English.

·        Among the samples 59% of male students and 75% of female students were interested or like to listen when someone read aloud.

·        When we compare with boys and girls boys shown more interest in reading comics and adventurous books than girls.

·        About 40% of boys and 37% of girls are interested in evil characters whereas 41% of boys and 63% of girls are interested in good characters.

·        Most of the students like happy ending. Only few boys shown interest in tragic ending.

·        Among the samples only 6% of boys were interested in reading English newspaper and 94% of them didn’t have the habit of reading English newspaper. But the majority of girls have the habit of reading English newspaper.

17% of boys and 37% of girls are regularly visits library. Majority of students visit library only for special needs.

·        Girls can understand English easier than boys. 25% of girls and 59% boys felt difficult to read English.

·        Majority of boys and girls likes to read together with peers.

·        Most of the students prefer fiction than poem and play.

Conclusion

 The aim of this study was to examine the boys and girls attitude towards reading English. Where, boys and girls had different views in reading English. Some cases they had same opinion on reading and in those studied the answer appear to be yes. This was highlighted by the fact that all of the girls questioned said that they liked reading, whether it is reading at home or in school, whilst boys were less enthusiastic. Further extending this was the discrepancy between the time spent reading at home, with boys reading less on average and a minority of one boy reading more than the class average.

From the data collected in this investigation we can draw some important implications for reading policy and practice and some information that can help us motivate both boys and girls taking into account the multiple differences observed in interests and attitudes towards reading.

Though in our study, unlike the Finnish study (MerisuoStorm, 2012), no significant differences in global attitudes towards reading were found between boys and girls, multiple differences were observed in some variables such as interests in reading, type of reading materials preferred and self-concept. Boys tend to find interest in different types of literature than girls. Boys prefer non-fiction books, comics, adventures and sports magazines … For them reading must be related with their outside of school interests. They tend to read brief, informative texts they also enjoy adventure, humor, horror and those stories with fearsome villains and evil characters. Therefore, boys don´t enjoy typical school texts and this might lead to a lower reading level which can affect their performance in all subjects.

On the other hand, although our study shows that girls enjoy reading more than boys, and that they are more interested in fiction books and books that reflect emotions and positive feelings.

Our study therefore confirms that preferences and interests are not always the same in boys and girls. As teachers, we must try to uncover the interest of each of our students. We believe that single sex education might help cater to boy´s and girl´s natural interests and strengths and therefore facilitate motivation towards reading.

Both find most difficult remembering the contents of the texts they read in school. Teachers have an important role in the development of a positive self concept of children. In all cases, but specially when teaching girls, teachers must be careful to provide positive experiences and encouraging feedback to help students become more confident with reading during their school years, since achievement beliefs are especially important in further years when tasks and reading becomes more challenging.

Study Material

Definition : A learning system based on formalized teaching but with the help of electronic resources is known as E-learning. While teaching can be based in or out of the classrooms, the use of computers and the Internet forms the major component of E-learning. E-learning can also be termed as a network enabled transfer of skills and knowledge, and the delivery of education is made to a large number of recipients at the same or different times.

Concept of Learning with E-learning

Concept of e-learning or online education is still vague to many students in India today. However, this new digital way of education is catching up quite drastically to vie education facilities in Western countries. This concept is quickly attracting a broad spectrum of industries today, but the meaning of e-learning varies, depending upon the sectors. In educational sector, this term is mainly utilized to specify the method through which programs and course content is conveyed virtually to students, while in industries it refers to the strategy utilized to offer training to employees online. The process of e-learning has been widely adopted by the education system in India today and it is widely used in several universities as well as in different research areas.

Benefits:  Multiple Delivery Options: E-Learning makes it easy for you to deliver training to your workforce through a variety of deployment options over Internet, intranet and CD ROM.

Just-in-Time Training: E-Learning is easily accessible to employees and students. There is no waiting for classes. It can be used just before doing a task at place of work.

Administrative Control and Reporting :With learning management software, administrators can quickly and easily access detailed reports to verify student progress, quantify training investments, and plan effectively for the future.

Engaging and Effective: Benefit from the powerful combination of audio, animation and software simulations that produce highly engaging multimedia training.

Assessment: Student assessment can be a powerful and helpful aid in the learning process.

Increased Productivity: Training is a proven benefit and incentive to employees, giving them the opportunity to advance their skills and careers. Employees that have the skills to successfully do their jobs will be more motivated, effective, and productive.

Lower Cost: E-Learning is available at a fraction of the cost of classroom learning and is provided right to student’s desktops, eliminating the need for travel and expense.

 E-resources : An electronic resource is any information source that the library provides access to in an electronic format. E-resources is short term for Electronic Resources or electronic information resources. These are collections of information in electronic or digital format that are accessed on an electronic device, such as a mobile phone, computer, etc.

Advantages of E-resources :

Easy retrieval of information.

Ability to do full text search across a huge number of resources.

Ability to download, print, or send the desired document instantly.

Ability to link directly to additional resources.

                

M-Learning: Mobile learning, also known as m-learning, is an educational system. Mobile learning supports, with the help of mobile devices, a continuous access to the learning process. This can be on appliances like your phone, laptop or tablet.

        Advantages of M-Learning:

Wherever and whenever: It’s possible to lay in bed and watch a lecture whenever you want.

Motivation: It really motivates children to learn from tablets or other mobile devices.

More content: Videos and audios are things you can add with mobile learning.

Working together from long distance: While the one student might be in New York and the other one is in Amsterdam, it’s still possible to work together .

E-Learning Materials

E-text book: An educational or instructional book in digital form. As more students use their laptops and smartphones on a daily basis, e-textbooks are increasingly taking the place of printed books.

E-journals : Electronic journals, also known as ejournals, e-journals, and electronic serials, are scholarly journals or intellectual magazines that can be accessed via electronic transmission. Some journals are 'born digital' in that they are solely published on the web and in a digital format, but most electronic journals originated as print journals, which subsequently evolved to have an electronic version, while still maintaining a print component. As academic research habits have changed in line with the growth of the internet, the e-journal has come to dominate the journals world.

Digital library: A digital library is a special library with a collection of digital objects that can include text, visual material, audio material, video material, stored as electronic media formats (as opposed to print, or other media. ), along with means for organizing, storing, and retrieving the files and media contained in the library collection. Digital libraries can vary immensely in size and scope, and can be maintained by individuals, organizations, or affiliated with established physical library buildings or institutions, or with academic institutions.[1] The digital content may be stored locally, or accessed remotely via computer networks. An electronic library is a type of information retrieval system.

E-governance : Electronic governance or e-governance is the application of information and communication technology (ICT) for delivering government services, exchange of information, communication transactions, integration of various stand-alone systems and services between government-to-customer (G2C), government-to-business (G2B), government-to-government (G2G) as well as back office processes and interactions within the entire government framework. Through e-governance, government services will be made available to citizens in a convenient, efficient and transparent manner. The three main target groups that can be distinguished in governance concepts are government, citizens and businesses/interest groups.

E-content development : The purpose of e-content development is to create an information rich society. Everyone in the society is empowered to create, receive, share and utilize information for their progress. Very well designed, developed and validated e-content will provide access to high quality meaningful digital content and serve as an effective virtual teacher. E-content design, development and approach will depend upon the nature of the content and the learners. It will also depend on the quality and complexity the learning you wish to create.

WEB BASED LEARNING

Web-based learning has got much attention as being an incredible opportunity to study nowadays. Web-based learning is one way to learn, using web-based technologies or tools in a learning process. In other words, learner uses mainly computers to interact with the teacher, other students and learning material. Web-based learning consists of technology that supports traditional classroom training and online learning environments. "Pure" web-based courses are wholly based on computer and online possibilities. In this case all the communication and learning activities are done online. On the other hand, web-based courses may have some face-to-face sessions besides the distant learning tasks. In this case they are called blended courses as they blend web-based activities with face-to-face activities. Web-based learning can be also formal or informal. Formal web-based learning is purposed and learning activities are organised by teachers. Informal learning takes place while you are searching material from the Internet. It is self-paced, depending on your goals and ambition to learn.

ONLINE LEARNING

Online learning is the newest and most popular form of distance education today. Within the past decade it has had a major impact on postsecondary education and the trend is only increasing. In this workshop we will explore what the experience of online learning is like for students and how it has changed the role of the instructor. Online learning is education that takes place over the Internet. It is often referred to as “e learning” among other terms. However, online learning is just one type of “distance learning” - the umbrella term for any learning that takes place across distance and not in a traditional classroom.

VIRTUAL LEARNING 

A virtual learning environment (VLE) is a set of teaching and learning tools designed to enhance a student's learning experience by including computers and the Internet in the learning process. In general, VLE users are assigned either a teacher ID or a student ID.

A VLE, or platform, is an online system that allows teachers to share educational materials with their pupils via the web. Examples include Moodle, WebCT and Blackboard.

 A virtual classroom is an online classroom that allows participants to communicate with one another, view presentations or videos, interact with other participants, and engage with resources in work groups.

Virtual education refers to instruction in a learning environment where teacher and student are separated by time or space, or both, and the teacher provides course content through course management applications, multimedia resources, the Internet, videoconferencing, etc

MOOC

A massive open online course is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the web. In addition to traditional course materials such as filmed lectures, readings, and problem set, many MOOCs  provide interactive user forums to support community interactions among students, professors, and teaching aassistence (TAs). MOOCs are a recent and widely researched development in distance education which were first introduced in 2006 and emerged as a popular mode learning in 2012.

Early MOOCs often emphas ized open-access features, such as open licensing of content, structure and learning goals, to promote the reuse and remixing of resources. Some later MOOCs use closed licenses for their course materials while maintaining free access for students A massive open online course (MOOC) is a free Web-based distance learning program that is designed for the participation of large numbers of geographically dispersed students.

Video and Audio Conferencing

1.    Video and audio, or just audio connection between two computers communicating via the Internet.

Transmitted to & received from any computer in any location that has Internet connection (broadband desirable for effective use). Teacher must have microphone, can have camera. Ideally end users have microphone (camera not essential) for synchronous communication.

Technology requirements for video/audio conferencing:

o    Computer with access (ideally broadband) to the Internet.

o    Browser.

o    Speakers to hear audio.

o    Microphone (to contribute audio).

o    Web camera to contribute video.

Electronic Communication

Communication using electronic media known as electronic communication. Such communication allows transmission of message or information using computer systems, fax machine, e-mail, title or video conferencing and satellite network. People can easily share conversation, picture, image, sound, graphics, maps, interactive software and thousands of things for the development of electronic communication. Due to electronic technology, jobs, working locations and cultures are changing, and therefore people can easily access to worldwide communication without any physical movement.L.C. Bovee and Others said, “Electronic communication is the transmission of information using advanced techniques such as computer moderns, facsimile machines, voice mail, electronic mail, teleconferencing, video cassettes, and private television networks.”

Forums

Conversations that go on indefinitely, involve large numbers of people or need to be archived are not well suited to email. Forums, often hosted on the Web, provide an alternative that combines many of the aspects of email and Web pages. They involve discussions around a single, limited topic but can take place over months or years and involve dozens or even hundreds of participants. Most use a treelike structure that allows participants to jump in at whatever level their comments are most appropriate.

Social Networking

Social networking sites facilitate communication among people with common interests or affiliations. Sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn provide places for people to interact, sometimes in real time. Microblogging services like Twitter, allow short textual messages of no more than 140 characters to be broadcast to a large audience. Unlike text messages, which are delivered to only small groups, microblog posts are intended to be seen by all of a user's followers. Microblog users can repost messages that they want to share with their own followers, so a microblog post can spread quickly. A widely reposted message is called a viral post.

Blog

A blog is a personal online journal that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. Blogs are defined by their format: a series of entries posted to a single page in reverse-chronological order.Blogs generally represent the personality of the author or reflect the purpose of the Web site that hosts the blog. Topics sometimes include brief philosophical musings, commentary on Internet and other social issues, and links to other sites the author favors, especially those that support a point being made on a blog.

Bulletin Boards & Signs

Bulletin boards and cork boards keep information at the ready in classrooms, offices and meeting spaces. With magnetic and push-pin styles, these boards keep priority items such as audition notes and work updates pinned where everyone can read.

Webinar

The word ‘webinar’ is a blend of ‘web’ and ‘seminar’. A webinar is an event held on the internet which is attended exclusively by an online audience. This distinguishes it from a webcast, which also includes the presence of a physical audience. Other terms used as alternatives for webinar are web event, online seminar, webcast, web lecture and virtual event.

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