The Relationship between Reading Behaviors and Reading Proficiency of Thai Students: An observation in L1 and L2

Abstract

This study aimed to examine Thai university students’ Thai and English reading behaviors, reading proficiency, and the relationship between the behaviors and the proficiency. Five hundred Mae Fah Luang University students were tested and asked about their reading proficiencies and behaviors. For reading behaviors, it was found that students normally read Thai text for pleasure but English text for knowledge while their speed of read in both languages vary greatly. In  ddition, Thai reading hours seems to correlate with Thai and English reading speed while English reading hours correlates with only the English reading speed. For reading proficiency, surprisingly, English reading proficiency of Thai students is averagely not significantly lower than that of Thai. For the relationship, it was found that Thai reading proficiency correlates with Thai reading for pleasure and Thai reading speed while English proficiency correlates with English reading for knowledge and both Thai and English reading speed.