Reading for pleasure among Iraqi college EFL students

Abstract

This study was carried out to explore the pleasure reading practices and preferences of sample Iraqi college EFL students. This study seeks to fill the gap in researchs concerning pleasure reading in Iraq since the Iraqi college EFL students' practices and preferences of reading for pleasure have not been explored yet. To do this, the study employed a questionnaire for collecting data. A sample of 177 Iraqi college EFL female students of department of English language of College of Education for Women of Al Iraqyia University in Baghdad volunteered to fill in the questionnaire. Descriptive statistics using frequencies and percentages were used to analyze the quantitative data from the questionnaire. The findings indicate that the majority of the participants read for pleasure weekly. It was also found that the participants preferred to read song lyrics, books of fiction, and articles posted on social media or websites over other types of reading texts. The research findings also showed that some of the participants read 1-2 hours per week and very few of the participants read 4-5 hours weekly. All the participants faced problems when practicing reading for pleasure and these difficulties can be attributed to several factors, such as watching TV/DVD/online