TEACHERS BELIEFS AND PRACTICES OF TEACHING READING AT SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLS IN SAMARINDA EAST KALIMANTAN

This study is aimed: (1) to investigate the beliefs held by English teachers about teaching reading at Senior High School, (2) to explore the practices of beliefs in classroom, (3) to reveal challenges in practicing beliefs about teaching reading in classroom. This study employs three instruments for qualitative research to collect data, interviews, classroom observations, and document analysis. Four teachers who teach English in Senior High School became the research participants. The data obtained were analyzed based on Miles and Huberman’s (1994) Interactive Model. It is initiated from data collection, followed by data reduction, data display and the stage was closed by drawing conclusion. The findings of the study revealed that teachers believed the source of reading texts can be taken from authentic materials and textbooks. They also believed that students needed to be equipped with reading strategies to comprehend the texts. Teaching reading taxonomy(pre-reading, whilst reading, and post reading) is also important to be acknowledged so that teachers were able to teach reading based on stages. The reading stages in which teachers practiced their beliefs, namely meaning focused input, meaning focused output, language focused learning, and fluency development. However, teachers faced challenges in practicing their beliefs about teaching reading in classroom practices which resulted incongruence between beliefs and practices. The challenges are the shift of pedagogical approach, teachers’ knowledge of teaching reading taxonomy, technology pedagogical knowledge, time constraint and infrastructure constraint. This study implied that teachers do selfadjustment to overcome the challenges . Keywords: teachers’ beliefs, teaching reading, reading practices, self-adjustment, teaching challenge