Language Teaching in Cambodia

Cambodia as a developing nation, every aspect of hers needs to be improved, let alone, the current education system and language teaching. With specific focus on English, it can be seen that alongside the weaknesses of which English is taught to Cambodian people, the current realities also allows for its strengths to be observed. This essay will look at the strengths and weaknesses of English teaching in Cambodia and how those weaknesses can be improved. 

Regarding what is still poor about English teaching in Cambodia, the lack of sufficiently qualified teacher of English is a major weakness. Indeed, over the past decades, it’s an obvious trends that English is becoming more and more popular especially among the current generations of Cambodian and language schools have been growing everywhere throughout the capital city. However, the major question remains, how good is the quality of the language teaching can be guaranteed. Among those many language institutions, only select few have capacity to hire native speakers or highly skilled teachers to teach proper English, which are usually expensive and not very affordable among those from typical Cambodian families. On the other hand, normal schools only manage to employ average staff with little or no teaching experience and average English ability. For sure, as such, the students can learn something and, if they try harder, can achieve good English ability, but this good can only be a special case and great or native-like English proficiency and fluency is rather unlikely. 

Besides, lack of learning and teaching facilities in public language-teaching institutions, where most Cambodian students have access to and are able to afford, is another weakness. Most universities and schools, both public and private (the not-so-expensive ones), in Cambodia do not have enough invested in improving their facilities. There are not enough up-to-date books and reading materials, vivid teaching materials, like multi-media computerized language Laboratory, and advanced language teaching, learning and testing mechanisms. 

For strengths, one of the things that can be highlighted here can be the rapidly growing awareness of the importance of English among Cambodian people. Today’s generations of Cambodians can be seen as those with the motivation and desire to study English, understanding how much opportunity and how much good it can do to them. Such mentality, I think, is the most fundamental factor that can make it all successful. After all, it’s such motivation and desire that pushes everyone to take action. 

In conclusion, lack of human resources and lack of facilities are the major bottlenecks that are hindering language teaching in Cambodia, while the fact that most highly appreciate English ability can be regarded as our strength. In my opinion, as solutions, the Cambodian government should invest more in improving facilities and strengthening focuses on language teaching and on education in general. Once proper facilities and advanced mechanisms are in place, more and more Cambodians will know English well enough to become qualified teachers of other Cambodians. Then the weaknesses can be improved accordingly. 

A Short Exciting Life over a Long Uneventful One

There are always reasons why everyone should always stay optimistic about their lives; those reasons are so obvious that no explanation or any exact statement of them is even needed. Whether young or old, rich or poor, beautiful or ugly, there is always a reason to smile and be happy, living. With that in mind, life goes on. Then there is another thing to be curious about, once we are optimistic, happy and appreciate the meaning of life, what is the best way to live our lives? I say, life is best lived by making it as interesting and as eventful as possible, just as one saying goes, “It’s better to live a short exciting life rather a long uneventful one.” 

How many times do we get to live? Once! Can various risks of accidents or any deadly occurrences be completely eliminated from our lives? No! Do we now know, or can we determine (aside from the case of suicide), when exactly our life will return back into nothingness? No! This is life; life can be short. That’s why we have to live it to the fullest and make every moment of it meaningful and exciting. Life can be made interesting and exciting by always seeking to experience, and actually experiencing, something new and adventurous (such as: snorkeling, bungee-jumping, skydiving, eating exotic foods, climbing Everest, watching movies etc), travelling to different places and countries, meeting different people and making new friends, just to name a few ways. These may be scary, they may cost us a lot of money, and they may even be dangerous, but a long life would end with regret of not doing them even once in our lifetime. They can bring joy, push up the adrenalin in our body, and can be something for us to be excited about waking up every morning. Why do we have to over-think or care too much whether such exciting elements are going to shorten our lives, while we cannot predict until when we can live, anyway. 

Having said that and held this view about life, however, I will not be judgmental towards those that value a long, peaceful, uneventful life over that excitement. Human beings are different, and how we view the world also varies. Some people may enjoy following same routines, in which their lives are kept floating like plant spores drifting through the air, which can be their value in life and which cannot be considered wrong. Letting everything be slow and uneventful, they may feel more at ease, being less overwhelmed by risks of possible dangers that life has to face. To live longer is what’s more important to them. 

Anyhow, like aforementioned, life is lived only once, and to me, it would be meaningless to live it this one time having done so little and trying to get rid of or avoid exciting elements that can spice it all up always to new and different level. It may be short, but who cares, when we cannot even determine until we can live, anyway.

Model UN: Iran on Sovereignty and Right of Intervention

In the name of the Iranian government, we would like to declare our standpoint in response to the motion about national sovereignty and the right of intervention of a country; we do not, in most part, agree with the idea of external intervention in one country’s domestic affairs.

            First of all, the sovereignty of each country should be strongly respected. In this regard, no country can intervene in another country’s internal issues, including ones of Iran. The respect of one’s sovereignty is also clearly stated in international law, as well as domestic law of most states. The Charter of UN stated about the respect of sovereignty in the article 2, Chapter 1 as, “The organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its members.”  The constitution of all countries in the world always values the sovereignty of their own; therefore, sovereignty has to be respected all over the world, and the right of intervention should be very limited.

            Indeed, one of the most obvious reasons why sovereignty of each nation is given such importance is that people in a country is certainly the ones who best know and understand the internal situation and thus are capable of creating the most appropriate resolution for their country’s benefits. Accordingly, foreign agents, who do not even have any profound experience in the country, can never be as good a problem solver.

            In addition, we Iranian government believe that intervention has never been the most viable approach to problems in a country in crisis. It may do more bad than good, as seen in the history of some countries, two of which are Iraq and our country herself, Iran. Several decades ago, in Iran, the Shah, which was given the military support by the CIA of the US, was a horrible government; it was “oppressive, corrupt, and extravagant.” The Shah’s regime was so bad that it led to the Iranian Revolution by the Ayatollahs and was finally overthrown in 1979. After the revolution, maybe because of the support of CIA to the Shah, Iran became later the strongly anti-US country. This opposition against the US is what most probably led to many acts of terrorism against the US, which have brought about considerable amount of trouble to the welfare of the world. Supposing the US had not got involved in the Shah, these brutal acts of terrorism against humanity, such as one taking place in 9/11, might not have arisen. Besides, regarding the current bitter war in Iraq, in which the US military intervetion has played a big part, over 5 years has passed but the war is still going on, without any peaceful end in prospect. This plainly proves the US intervention to be such a wrong act, which should never be allowed by the UN again.

            Anyway, we do not agree with imposing economic sanction policy on a country. Economic sanction does not profoundly figures in putting pressure on the government of that country. In contrast, economic sanction can be really harmful to the citizens of that country because, with such sanction, the poor could not get benefits from, for example, domestic economic operations, such as international trade, and financial support to the country, while high ranking people in the government are still living in luxury.

            On the other hand, in some circumstances, intervention may be used as the last resort for the welfare of general people. For example, a country is being attacked by another country in a way that lives of the citizens are badly threatened. In this case, while many people are being killed in the combat, international intervention may be required to prevent the right to live of the people. In addition, if the government of that country commits a serious crime, transfering its country into a killing field like the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, the United Nations may use military intervention into that country and protect the life of the people there. However, this intervention should only be done by the international organization, which is not controlled by any particular country. We support only necessary intervention from the United Nations—the intervention that is really indispensible to the survival of the people.

            We can see that even though both the invaded and the invading countries can suffer from the impacts of intervention. For example, the war in Iraq does not result in a better condition of both the United States and Iraq. The social security of Iraq is not in control and there are a lot of bombings in Iraq. In other words, many American people are tired of war and get to hate their own government. The US and other involved nations have wasted a lot of money on war, and many soldiers have lost their lives. Hense, these past intervention and violation of a nation’s sovereignty were the precious experience to learn from in guiding us, all nations in the world, away from the same mistakes, in order for a more peaceful and prosperous future. The right of intervention must certainly, without a shadow of doubt, be limited.             

Reference:

The Charter of the United Nation.

­­­

Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Iranian Revolution. 16 July 2008, <http://en.wikipedia.org>.

By: Luu Tu Anh, Samrith Kuch Vutha, & Yi Longdy

Love & Marriage

One main theme of the story Pride & Prejudice is about what most human beings find utterly important to their lives, Love & Marriage. In the story, Jane Austen reflects three different natures of marriages. Initially, marriage represents, as well as results, from love. As seen in this novel, which is one of the most “cherished love stories in English literature,” love between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy was growing gradually from the feeling of hatred and prejudice to the point of being helplessly in love. At the end of the story, their marriage flourishes and the couple lived happily ever after. This shows that happy marriage is the son of love—love that cannot be brought on by appearance but by time with the growing of mutual understanding. This nature of marriage is also true to Jane and Bingley, between whom love was strongly shared.

Besides, love is not always the reason to why people decide to get marriage, as indicated in the novel. Marriage can happen by just the reason of appearance and attractiveness. One example of this type of marriage can be one between Lydia and Wickham. Lydia fell for him and decided to elope with Wickham, whom she saw as an attractive man. This appearance-based marriage can turn out to be unhappy and disastrous. Early in the marriage, Lydia got a lot of care from her husband, but after that, their relationship grew weaker and weaker, slowly fading away. This case is also true to Mr. and Mrs. Bennet. He married her because of her quality of sexually attractiveness, not because of her intelligence or sensibility. As a result, in the story, Mr. Bennet was described as not living a very happy life, partly because he felt ashamed by his wife’s and some of his daughter’s foolishness.

Lastly, there is also a kind of marriage that is based on economics, based on money. Women, such as Charlotte Lucus, decide to have a husband as they wish to avoid spinsterhood and to gain financial security. Charlotte did not have love for Collins, but since Collins had money, house, etc, she readily took the chance and agreed to his proposal. Despite the financial security that she gained after marriage, there was a great lacking of love and happiness in the family, which was nothing but suffering.

Therefore, there are two conclusions that can be made out of this love and marriage theme discussed in the novel. First, a happy and strong marriage takes time to build and must be based on mutual feeling, understanding, and respect. Second, hasty marriages acting on impulse and based on superficial qualities will not survive and will result in inescapable unhappiness.

Intercultural Communicative Competence

How can Intercultural Communicative Competence be defined? Is it possible to teach and to assess ICC? Discuss

In learning a foreign language, one mostly puts, or is told to put, four items on their agenda, which obviously includes speaking, writing, reading, and listening. And that is it; these four items are it. However, according to various discussions and empirical studies, these may be it on just the surface; deeper below the surface is something known as ‘Intercultural Communicative Competence,’ which is sometimes referred to as “the fifth skill”. This essay will look closely at this “fifth skill”, determining how it can be properly defined, and then discuss if the teaching and assessment of this skill is possible.

If each word of Intercultural Communicative Competence is examined literally, ICC can be most safely described as the ability to communicate across cultures. However, is it really that simple and straightforward? ICC is mentioned in an article by Fantini (2005) as without “clear consensus” about its actual definition. He wrote, “Some researchers stress global knowledge, others emphasize sensitivity, and still others point to certain skills.” Acknowledging this being true, Fantini also gives a conclusive definition of ICC as “the the complex of abilities needed to perform effectively and appropriately when interacting with others who are linguistically and culturally different from oneself.” One example is the ability to be able to interact with others with cultural relativism, being open and ready to delay any judgement on (the behavior of) other people of different cultures. Another is the knowledge of one’s culture, of other culture, and how both are different, which enables one to know what to do and what not to do in particular circumstances in the presence of other people without the incidents of offending or/and clashing with them.

As an illustration of this definition, let us look at the example of foreigners wanting to do business in Japan. For one thing, as not many Japanese people speak English, knowing Japanese is definitely an advantage. Besides, with a long history, with an ancient culture, Japanese people have developed “unique values, traditions and customs” (Kwintessential), so to do business with them in their societies, one have to know and understand those aspects (such as: stress on teamwork and group cohesiveness, maintenance of respect by the use of appropriate language, behaviour, body language, etc.), and be ready to conform to them, with an open mind and tolerance for the differences. With these being understood and followed, mutual understanding between both sides is promoted, misunderstanding minimized, time saved, fruitful outcomes generated, and successful business deals made.

Anyway, can ICC be taught and assessed? With it as a hard-to-define concept, it can be argued that how to teach or assess ICC can be done in various ways, none of which may be labeled as the single best one. This competence can be improved through curricular activities and further bettered through genuine experience and exposure with people belonging to different societies, cultures, beliefs, and so on, both manners of which can be considered as the learning process. Besides, with regards to assessment of ICC, based on a composition by Faniti (2001), “competence is abstract and cannot be witnessed directly; consequently, it must be inferred by observing how one performs” (as ICC correlates with “the abilities to perform effectively and appropriately [when in contact with] another language-culture […].” Thus, assessing one’s intercultural communicative competence can be done by the means of examining or “observing” his/her performance.

In short, although defining the intercultural communicative competence may be of some complications, it can be put as the combinations of abilities, including attitudes, knowledge, and skills, all of which enable one to perform effectively and suitably while dealing with members of “another language-culture background on their terms” (Fantini, 2001); plus, teaching and assessing it is not impossible; in one way or another, it can be done. After all, there should be 5 items on the agenda of every language student – speaking, writing, listening, and reading as the first 4 skills and intercultural communicative competence as the fifth one.

Reference:

Byram, Michael, Gribkova, Bella & Starkey, Hugh 2002. Developing the Intercultural Dimension in Language Teaching. Strasbourg: Council of Europe.

Fantini, Alvino E. 2001. “Exploring Intercultural Competence: A Construct Proposal”. Available at: www.councilnet.org/papers/Fantini.doc

Fantini, Alvino E. 2005. “About Intercultural Competence: A Construct”. Available at: http://www.sit.edu/SITOccasionalPapers/feil_appendix_e.pdf

Kwintessential, n.d., “Doing Business in Japan”. Available at: http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/etiquette/doing-business-japan.html

What’s behind Cambodia’s struggle to cut down illiteracy?

Illiteracy has always been a big social problem in Cambodia, and despite ongoing efforts and engagement by various agents, both national and international, in missions, projects, campaigns to enhance literacy and education among Cambodians, the process seems to be full of struggles, with not-so-impressive improvement. A substantial part of the population still hasn’t been through any formal education to gain the basic ability to read and write, and others who have participated in some sort of education get later relapsed back into illiteracy. So who is to blame? Is it mainly due to the inefficiency and incapability of our government, or do other factor play a bigger contributing role?

            To study this matter more thoroughly, let us begin by looking at why many Cambodians do not go to schools in the first place. The blame can certainly be partly put on poverty. Many, especially those who breathe with the help of subsistence farming that produces only enough for them to survive, depends on the contribution of every single labor in availability. Little is left for such families to think about education of their children. Besides, typical cultural perception among Cambodians in term of gender roles is also believed by many to be another cause. Many conventional families prefer that their girls stay home and do housework, and if resources are limited, boys are usually biased when it comes to education.

            However, I believe interference by the government and various NGOs can respond well to these afore-mentioned problems. The government can and should invest more in building schools, equipped with enough facilities and teaching staff, even in remote areas, so that no child is denied education simply because schools are not present in their community and it costs too much to go miles from home to school. Not only should institutions for formal education be in place, but other programs should also be there for non-formal education, where illiterate adults can go. But how do those adults get interested in joining such programs or in sending their children to schools? The answer is in the hand of the super powerful tool of the modern days, the media –whether it’s TV, radio, billboards, or posters. Inspiring clips/spots to encourage people’s involvement in education should be prevalent in the local media. Accordingly, people get informed about the importance of education, the ready availability of education and the like.

            There is no doubt that the Cambodian government and many local NGOs have been implementing similar strategies, yet immense success hasn’t been achieved, most probably because not enough has been done. In my opinion, the government should double, or even triple, their efforts on what they are doing now to boost literacy. 

Discipline among university students

It is agreeable that unless we are really patient and level-headed, teaching children at the kindergarten level can be unbearable. Although there sure are lovely moments when they listen, interestedly pay attention, and behave themselves, they can get out of control. It is fairly imaginable to think of controlling their behavior as trying to get tens of moving crabs onto a single tray. No wonder this is the case; they are young and such concepts as discipline is still rather abstract to them, to which some force and constant repetition may be needed for them to conform. For adult students, on the other hand, especially at university level, discipline is automatically expected. But, from my point of view as an adult student myself, sometimes we tend to be disobedient and not very disciplined.

In classes we talk when others, including teachers, are talking. We come late. We sometimes break the uniform rule, coming to class in casual clothes or, for girls, wearing mini-skirts. We don’t read books before classes, despite being asked many times to. These behaviors are rather common among IFL students, to say the least. Why is that? Aren’t we supposed to be obedient, considerate, and more disciplined?

There are rules and we all know and understand that those rules are imposed for all the right reasons, but I guess, sometimes we just like to rebel and go against them, especially when such breach will not bring up any grave consequences. To be honest, I can feel how comfortable and friendly the classroom atmosphere becomes when students are a little disobedience, for no bad intention. Some frowns can’t be shunned, though. In my opinion, at this age, our defiance is one of the ways we are seeking to express ourselves and to claim our freedom. At particular points, it is so difficult to keep our mouth shut once having anything in mind that we just blurt it out to our friends without putting it off until break time, in spite of the fact that our voice will go against our teacher’s or other classmate’s. For sure it is disrespectful, but sometimes we just can’t help it. To remain considerate, though, I think we need to tone it down or whisper if needed, and make sure to shut up when our teachers are obviously annoyed.

This aspect is something worth understanding for teachers, especially. Now that I have put some thought into this, hopefully things will become less tense once I get to teach adults in the future, and I as a teacher can design techniques for classroom management accordingly. I guess to keep this under control is not a piece of cake, but for such cases, a combination between tolerance, understanding, and open mind should be the best remedy.

My Credo about Education

In such country as Cambodia, where economic development, technology, social infrastructure, and politics co-exist with flaws and a certain level of inefficiency, I believe education figures as one of the key truths towards a difference. But what difference is being thrown into focus here and what does education has to do with this difference? By the means of education – a process through which one studies and accumulates a certain level of knowledge, skills, and know-how – Cambodian people can somehow manage their ignorance, qualify themselves for jobs/careers that pay, and acquire intellectual ability to decide and do whatever that bears positive impact on themselves, on their family and friends, on their community and, more or less ultimately, on their country. Although a clear, concrete picture of how this chain of impact sometimes cannot be easily seen, one way or another, education can lead to a betterment of Cambodia. To put in a narrower sense, an example of a below-average farming family can be looked at. Educational activities, either in formal, non-formal or informal environment, which any member participates, can turn things around for that family. Amid unprofitable consequences from their farming businesses, through education,  a silver lining can be spotted, new perspectives and creativity can emerge out of a look at the situation from a different angle, and improvement (or in other word, a difference) ensues.  In this case, a difference is in the form of betterment of humans’ lives and their community, nurtured by education.

Besides my hope in education to bring about change and difference, I also see education as a platform where one can stand and execute their qualification as a leader, as the one with the power and compelling quality to influence and lead others, and as the one that deserves people’s respect and admiration. When in school, ones are put into situations where they can listen, be presented with facts, question various ideas and concepts, and produce related writing and speech, which are just some of the activities that enrich their experience and boost their level of knowledge and understanding to a certain level. As longer time is invested and higher levels are pursued, their level of knowledge and understanding goes up accordingly. What is being conveyed here is that with what they acquire by being educated, they achieve a certain level of credibility to the eyes and ears of other people; they tend to have the charisma and the reasoning ability, in addition to the recognition of their degrees of higher education, that automatically and easily earn trust and attention from other people. And that embodies leadership, as well as respect.

Other than my firm beliefs in these afore-mentioned positive impacts put forth by education, in terms of how education should be carried out, one of my strongest beliefs lies in quality of educators and their open-mindedness towards students’ freedom to go beyond their imaginary boundaries. Teachers should be the one who knows best about what they are teaching, not necessarily the best in the country or the best in their institution, but at least the best among their class. In events of teachers lecturing what they are not sure and not competent enough about and, at the worst case scenario, choosing to hide such insecurity and fake a confident conclusion about certain things, not only does that project a bad model to students, but students can also risk absorbing inaccurate inputs, which could be proven harmful in students’ future endeavors. As an educated person and as an educator, teachers should be open-minded to and encourage changes, so that the class environment can be most productive for students. Students should be made feel comfortable to ask questions, to question ideas put forward, and think outside the box, instead of feeling afraid to go for what they think is right and just apathetically move on despite doubts and resulting anxiety in their head. I believe, with such practices not only can knowledge and skills aimed be attained, students’ creativity, critical thinking, self-confidence and the like can also simultaneously nurtured and invigorated, or else, hampered.

Reading for pleasure

Introduction:

In today’s societies where education is widely considered as a prominent factor to contribute to the development of a community, of a country, or of the world as a whole, there are many ways by which people can acquire and keep accumulating new knowledge—from watching award-winning, well-informative documentaries on TV to listening to daily news, both national and international, on the radio. And as the world is globalizing and as modernity and modernization start affecting more and more societies, new ways of getting knowledge nowadays go beyond just TV and radio. There is now the internet, by which human beings can watch, listen, write, read and do many other things to get all the updated information. Despite such varieties, reading has always been one of the most effective means through which learning to improve general knowledge and/or sharpen any knowledge and specific skills can always be done.

In fact, it is not just about knowledge acquisition for which reading is used as a tool. According to a paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (San Francisco, CA, April 18-22, 1995) by Otter, Martha S.:

Reading is rightly considered to be very important. Personal development, social and cultural participation, participation in education and professional development all benefits from a good level of proficiency in reading comprehension. Besides its value for individual purposes, literacy also plays a crucial role at a social level in keeping, transmitting and further developing of knowledge and cultural expressions (page 3).

However, in Cambodian contexts, it is often heard that, compared to people in some other countries who have somehow understood the importance of reading better and thus implement it more seriously and more vigorously, Cambodian people read a lot less. But what are the reasons behind this; why do Cambodian students read less in spite of the massive benefits reading can bring about? With this in question, reading was selected as a topic under which this research was to be conducted.

To be more specific, the topic of this research is defined under two controlling components:

- Reading for pleasure: As the researchers believe that one of the biggest reasons of ones not reading so much is because they find reading not so enjoyable as some other activities, such as watching TV or listening to music, this research will centre on for-pleasure reading, especially. Reading for pleasure take a more specific path in a way that it refers to activities of reading that readers find enjoyable and would happily do, rather than ones that readers see as more of an obligation. In short, reading for pleasure, for the purpose of this survey, is specified as how much time and how often undergraduate students in Cambodia take joy in reading.

- Undergraduate students at the Paññāsāstra University of Cambodia: This study targets at only those who are currently students at the Paññāsāstra University of Cambodia (PUC), where one of the things found quite noticeable is that big, thick books are attached to each course students take. With such number of books assigned, the researchers are curious to find out if the reading habit of students there conforms to the amount of the assignment.

Therefore, the mini-research aims to examine how much PUC undergraduate students read, to see whether they read as much as it is evident by the numbers of big books they carry daily. With the information received, the researchers hope to be able to construct the overall pictures of the reading behaviour of the students and explore how reading and reading for pleasure, in particular, are perceived among them. Ultimately, the assumption made earlier about Cambodian students not reading much is put into test for its reliability and rightness.

Literature Review:

People can actually go in any direction when it comes to exploring and accumulating new knowledge and ideas, one of which is through the means of reading. However, it is not just about gaining new knowledge that reading can do; “reading is a necessity,” which is essential for both school and life (for example, reading enables readers to gather information and make important decisions, making it easier for people to adapt to rapidly-changing demands and other changes) (Teaneck, 2008).

Unfortunately, many students are not showing their appreciation with a good habit of reading. According to a study conducted among Emirati students by Celine Kamhieh of Zayed University, it has been revealed that most university students do not read when they are free (Kamhieh, 2007). It is a similar story for Turkish students in the Ankara University, 46 percent of whom, based on the study by Hüseyin Odabaş and Coşkun Polat, assistant professors from Erzurum’s Atatürk University information and document management department, read the maximum of 5 books a year, while 4.5 percent had confessed not reading at all (Study reveals).

Compared to these two groups of people, for Cambodian university students their habits of reading may be relatively not very different. In an abstract found on CamTESOL.org, Mr Kruy Virak and Ms Cecilia Johnson were quoted as saying that “Traditionally, most Cambodians don’t have a habit of reading” (Abstract: Parallel sessions.) Nevertheless, there has not been any profound research to find out and determine if the claim about many Cambodian university students not having a habit of reading is true yet.

This research will basically look at the habits, the behaviour and the attitude of a sample of students at the Paññāsāstra University of Cambodia to see if it is really a correct proposition that many Cambodian university students are not reading much. Related matters, such as determinants of students’ existing reading habits plus their perceptions about reading, especially, for pleasure, will also be thrown into focus.

Research Questions

RQ1:   To what extent do PUC students read for pleasure?

RQ2:   To what extent do they perceive reading for pleasure as important?

RQ3:   What are the perceived causes of the amount of leisure reading among them?

Methods

For this study to serve its purpose of looking into PUC undergraduate students’ perception and behavior towards leisure-time reading, participation from the students themselves is indispensable. For that, plus time constraint and resource availability, a self-completion questionnaire was seen as the best tool for data collection and was, therefore, designed for distribution among a number of bachelor’s degree students at PUC.

The questionnaire, a combination of open-ended and closed-ended questions, was constructed through a number of stages. First, all items to be included in the questionnaire were brainstormed and narrowed down to a number of points that are relevant and responsive to the 3 research questions. The brainstorming was followed by ten people being asked to complete the questionnaire, which was used as a piloting tool so that comments and feedbacks could be considered for a better questionnaire before the final ones could be ready to be distributed among the actual sample. After all, the questionnaire comes out in a four-page format containing 16 questions, which can be categorized into four different types. Type one is to ask about respondents’ attribute information, including their sex, age, and university major.  Type two asks for the student’s reading habits, while questions in type 3 are intended to explore their opinions and attitudes towards reading. The last 4 questions are open-ended questions, which are cited as optional so that the respondents that find the whole questionnaire too long do not have to give additional opinions of theirs if they do not want to.

Besides, with the population of the study as the current undergraduate students at PUC, two main sampling methods were adopted.  Since most classes at PUC are not homogeneous but so diverse with students from different year levels and different majors, accidental/adhoc sampling and snowball sampling were viewed as the most appropriate. The first method, accidental/adhoc sampling, worked very well in favour of the limited time the researchers had for the study. That is, the researchers had the questionnaires completed by some friends/classmates of theirs. With that same method, the researchers have, for a few times during the distribution period, stayed at certain places at the university and asked some of the people who happened to be there spontaneously to complete the survey form. Another method, the snowball sampling, was put into use in a way that the researchers gave some of the questionnaires to a few people they know, expecting each to help further distribute them to a number of people they know.

With these two sampling methods described above, 175 copies of questionnaires were handed out – 70 to student in the morning shift, 70 in the afternoon shift, and 35 in the evening shift – over the course of 3 days (May 19 to 21, 2009). Although quite a number of questionnaires were collected immediately after the respondents having filled in all the needed information, because some asked to keep the questionnaires overnight, the response rate was just moderately high, which was only 80 per cent (141 questionnaires returned).

Findings

With 141 questionnaires completed and returned, the researchers started to piece together the information and analyze the data. According to Figure 1, the respondents’ age ranges in between 18 and 30, but the majority of the population (92%) is between 18 and 24 years old. In term of sex, there are 78 males and 63 females.  Besides, the group that makes up more than 50 per cent of the research population (60%) is year-2 students (85 out of 141), studying business administration, international relation, English, finance and banking, and so on (the majors are put in the order of frequencies from the highest to the lowest).

            Figure 1:

Age	Sex		Year level
	Male	female	Year1	Year 2	Year3
18	2	3	3	2	0
19	7	7	5	9	0
20	6	15	2	16	3
21	19	20	6	24	9
22	18	10	5	18	5
23	12	3	1	8	6
24	7	1	0	2	6
25	2	1	0	2	1
26	3	2	1	2	2
27	1	0	0	0	1
30	1	1	0	2	0
Total	78	63	23	85	33

As the result of our research, we found out that people do many activities in their free time. Among those many activities, (Figure 2) watching TV stands out as the most popular past-time activities (with 79.4 % of the respondent saying yes to it), which is followed by listening to music (76.6%). Surprisingly, but in a good way, reading books comes next after the TV watching and listening to music; 63.8 % of the population chose reading books as one of the activities they do during their free time.

Figure 2: Free time activities

Free time activities	Frequency	Percent (%)
Reading books	90	63.8
Reading magazines	51	36.2
Reading newspaper	53	37.6
Sleeping/resting/relaxing	74	52.5
Watching TV, movies	112	79.4
Listening to music	108	76.6
Playing games	43	30.5
Going out with family/friends	73	51.8
Surfing the internet	60	42.5
Emailing &/ chatting	42	29.8
Playing sports	38	26.9
Others	7	4.9

           

About the amount of time spent for each time’s reading, it varies from respondents to respondents.  The quantity of time spent is between 15 to 240 minutes per day, but the majority (81%) use between 30 minutes and 120 minutes (as you can see in Figure 3). However, the largest population spends 60 minutes a day for reading (about 30%).

           

Figure 3: Average time spent on reading

Time ( in minutes)	15	20	30	40	45	60	75	90	110	120	150	180	210	240
Frequency	7	3	22	1	1	43	1	28	1	18	4	6	4	2
Percent	5.0	2.1	15.6	.7	.7	30.5	.7	19.9	.7	12.8	2.8	4.3	2.8	1.4

In research question number 3 (Figure 4), the researcher aims to discover the reasons why students read. The findings show that most of the students agree that reading helps them a lot, especially in terms of improving their general reading ability. Reading can also enable them to understand different cultures, broaden their general knowledge and benefit their study at the university, as books provide a good source of various kinds of information.

On the other hand, on the negative notes, some other respondents describe reading as affecting their eye sight and studying time and as making them feel stressful. Moreover, they agree that reading take away the time they could otherwise use for meeting with their family and friends.

           

Figure 4: Perception of reading for pleasure

However, no matter important the majority of students perceive reading, many still do not read much, due to some perceived causes; Figure 5 tells about those causes of people failing to build up a good habit of reading for pleasure. 81.60 percent of the respondents say that books are too difficult to read in terms of language use and complexity of contents, mainly as many good books are in English. The next biggest reason is the fact that 63.80 % find watching TV and/or listening to the music more interesting, resulting in them spending more time with TV rather than with books. Further, some say they have no time and/or are lazy to read.

It is also interesting that only few (4.3 %) do not read because they think reading is not so important. 11.30 %, moreover, say they do not like reading at all, finding it is boring.

Figure 5: Reason why people don’t read

 

  

Discussion

The data presented in this study is both interesting and surprising. What we had expected was mostly wide of the mark and it turns out that the result is much better. Indeed, at first glance, PUC students are always busy with their courses, especially reading those weighty textbooks. However, after having collected the data, the researchers found out that PUC undergraduate students tend to read a lot as well as adopt positive attitude toward reading for pleasure, according to the information collected from the questionnaires.

It is quite a remarkable, but expected discovery as the top two choices for the students’ free-time activities are watching TV/movies and listening to music. That is, besides normal classes, they are likely to spend time sitting on the comfortable sofa and enjoy their time in front the TV set and/or with headphones. Nevertheless, reading books comes at number three, which is amazing in a way. Accordingly, a conclusion that the students might read at home or come to the library and school campuses on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, which are the days PUC students do not have regular classes. Another problem that can be seen in the study is that half of the  respondents chose to sleep, relax or rest, rather than read. This means that a lot of them tend to spend their time idly in their free-time. Lastly, reading newspapers and magazines show little popularity among the students though they both are very good sources for getting to know the society and improving the general knowledge.

Another fascinating aspect of our study is that nearly all of our respondents have a very positive perception of reading for pleasure. In the first place we thought that reading might appear boring to a lot of students, but, in fact, almost a hundred percent of them chose to say that reading for pleasure can improve their general reading ability and help them to understand different cultures. Moreover, around 90% agree that reading for pleasure does benefit their study and broaden their general understanding of the society. In this regard, one can assume that PUC students do not just take reading for granted; they really understand the values of reading for pleasure. Furthermore, many students also believe that reading for pleasure is really beneficial for those who study the second language, especially English, because, generally, most books are written in English. Some students also claim that reading for pleasure can make them happy (71.6%) and keep them updated (83.7%). So it is not only for the reason of boosting their academic performance but also for making themselves feel good or up-to-date.

It is a great finding that nearly 90% of students agree that reading for pleasure is important. In contrast, reading for pleasure is also shown by the study to pose problems for a minority of the sample. 2 out of 10 people say that their eyesight is affected so they, most of the time, can only read for a very short period of time. In addition to that, about 15% of all the respondents argue that reading for pleasure can affect their study time as well as their time with their friends. As such, these students tend to read less often than others.

The fact that some students at PUC don’t read should be better explained by the following reasons. The most striking information we got is that over 80% say that books are difficult to read in terms of the contents and the language use in the books. If this is true, it is really problematic for most Cambodian university students because they might as well do something else as they find it difficult to bear with the difficult books they read. What is most disturbing is the fact that for 6 out of 10 students, watching TV/movies is more appealing than reading. As a result, these students would love to watch TV/movies rather than to read for pleasure. The next barrier that hinders students from reading is the unavailability of books in Khmer. They say that some English-written books are difficult to understand as their English is still limited and they add that it would be much better if there are more books written in Khmer.

As undergraduate students at PUC are required to read many books, some of them (42.6%) say that they do not have enough time to read. Other factors that hold them back from reading include: laziness, sleepiness, no interesting books, book price, the attractiveness (pictures and color), and influences from their peers.

However, because the research sample is only 141 and the questionnaires were distributed only among PUC undergraduate students, these results may not well represent the whole population of the Cambodian students in general. PUC is quite an expensive university, with which thick text books are assigned to most courses – the fact that might be quite contrary to the lifestyles of students in most universities in the country, some of which are a lot less expensive and have students from less affluent families, for example. With limitation on time and resources, this is the flaw, no matter how impressive the findings are, that the researchers have to admit.

Conclusion:

To conclude, it can be inferred from this mini-research that PUC students tend to read a lot more than what had been previously expected by the researchers. It turns out that besides heavy tasks assigned at school, students still find their ways to read for pleasure. This suggests that no matter how difficult reading for pleasure is, PUC students are still fond of it for many down-to-earth reasons. Whilst it is common to find that TV/movies and music are so much popular among students, it is both astounding and pleasant to find out that reading books come third.

References

Abstract: Parallel sessions. (2005). Retrieved March 16, 2009, from http://www.camtesol.org/2005conference/parallel_session.html

Kamhieh, C. (2007). The factors that affect the free reading habits in English of female Emirati students. Retrieved March 16, 2009, from http://www.zu.ac.ae/research/aspx/readinghabits.aspx

Otter, M. S. (1995). Relationships between reading achievement and leisure-time reading in grade 3, 4, 5, and 6: A longitudinal study in the Netherlands. paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association.

Study reveals poor reading habits among university students. (2009, February 26). Retrieved March 16, 2009, from Today’s Zaman web site: http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=168037

Teaneck, N.J. (2008). American reading habits influenced by parents. Retrieved March 16, 2009, from http://www.thefreelibrary.com/American+Children%27s+Reading+Habits+Influenced+by+Parents.-a0174641958

Wechsler, H. B. (2007). Students: Reading is irrelevant. Retrieved March 16, 2009, from http://www.ednews.org/articles/14541/1/Students-Reading-is-Irrelevant/Page1.html