translate, and I have a French and English dictionary I look up the words. (interview 1)
Of the four participants who reported using a dictionary, only Tabasum and Musa seemed to have a hard copy and seemed to use it regularly. Kayhan and Solange mentioned online
dictionaries, but the excerpts above were the only times they brought up this topic in our interviews. Sabrina and Arezo also mentioned online dictionaries, but they seemed to use this resource more frequently when working on writing assignments. Arezo says, for example,
I just read [the article] and I don‟t use a dictionary. I don‟t have one. […] If I‟m writing
something and I have no clue what it is, so I just go online and look for the definition of the word, but like, reading an article, it would take me like days if I do that, so I‟ll just
like read it and I highlight the things that I think it‟s important. (Arezo, interview 1) It was interesting to notice the change in Musa‟s use of the dictionary as the year went
by. At the beginning of the fall semester, as can be seen in the comment above, Musa seemed to use his English-French dictionary quite frequently. In our last interview, however, he seemed to be weaning himself away from this habit, which accompanied an improved self-confidence in his reading comprehension ability:
Before, I would just read, because it‟s there, I don‟t really get it, I can read an entire sentence, I don‟t try to understand […] what the author was talking about, but now, I can read and picture “oh, he‟s talking about this”, except when there are words that I can‟t get
then I have to use, I mean, dictionary or something, but, I mean, now I‟m trying to, even with that, I can still go and read, there‟s a word that I don‟t get, but I keep reading and
figure out what the meaning is. (Musa, interview 8)
Yar Zar, likewise, even when he felt the reading was difficult, as it sometimes was in the Theatre class, tried not to focus on the words he did not know, but, rather, kept reading to see if he could grasp the overall idea of the play. He says:
When I‟m reading […] like in Theatre, it‟s like really hard, what I would do is I‟d just keep reading and then I‟ll try to make sense out of it, you know, you know how
sometimes you just skip it and if you keep reading it starts making sense, you pick it up, so that‟s what I‟ll do every now and then. (Yar Zar, interview 1)
5.2.3.4 Re-reading after lecture
When the World Issues professor suggested to Arezo and Sabrina that they should re-read the articles when they could not understand them, they did not think his advice was helpful and they felt frustrated. This is discussed above. As it turns out, both of them ended up going back to the articles after the lectures and found the practice very useful. Arezo explains her new reading habit:
In my government class, instead of reading the article once, I read it once before I go to the class and then we discuss in class and once after the class and it just help me, cause we talk about it in class and once I read it again afterward, then I like kind of remember “oh, yeah, we did talk about this”, so […], it‟s better for me. (Arezo 2)
Sabrina did not mention re-reading the articles after the lectures, but she said she started going over the parts she had highlighted in the articles, as well as over her notes, after the professor had explained the articles in class.
This was not, understandably, common practice among the participants. Most of the strategies they used to cope with reading involved trying to find ways of cutting back on the time they needed to accomplish the reading assignment. Reading the same text again clearly did not fit this description. Just to illustrate, when I asked Kayhan if he ever re-read the plays he had struggled with in his Theatre class, he replied: “No, you‟ve got to be kidding me, no way. I must lose my mind” (Kayhan, interview 6).
5.2.3.5 Tutor-supported reading
As will be discussed below, tutors for the different courses are available to students at Hope College. Most of my participants made use of this resource to help them with readings they had difficulty with. Table 5.13 shows some of their comments.
Table 5.13
Tutors helping with reading Participant Comments
Yar Zar Now I‟m meeting with [the American Government tutor] about the readings […]
because, you know, some of the stuff, it‟s a government book, so it‟s like some of the stuff need to be explained, so [the professor] wanted me to meet with my tutor like more. (interview 8)
Kayhan When I read that Federalist Papers, [the American Government tutor] explains what it‟s saying and what it meant to say, what its meaning is. And actually when he explains it, I understand it and then so that helps a lot and I basically take notes on the Federalist Papers, what it‟s saying, I take notes what its meaning is, so, it helps me. (interview 2)
Arezo [The World Issues tutor] just like help me go over the article once again and I just take more notes and the study guide that [the professor] give us, the points, we go over each point and talk about it. (interview 2)
Tabasum First, like [the Economics tutor] said, “what do you not understand in the
content?” and I said “I don‟t understand anything” and then we read the book, the first time we read the book […] and the second time we just study the sample questions. (interview 8)
Sabrina I met [the World Issues tutor] on Sunday, and we spent an hour talking about one