The way to make students to “own” their coursebook by retouching the flexible syllabus

Abstract

The article studies the level of undergraduate student motivation to read. It was hypothesized that if we create a syllabus thatgives students a chance to choose topics from a list that contains more than the necessary amount to fulfill the need of thecourse, learners will become more involved in decision-making, more satisfied by the process of reading and, correspondingly,more motivated to read the materials chosen by them. The study was held at Ishik University, Iraq, with 46 undergraduate ESPstudents aged 17-19. It is concluded that the possibility for the students to select topics gives them a feeling of control over thelearning process and thus increases their motivation. The article should be interesting for both language (reading) teachersand language teaching researchers.