A Survey of Undergraduate Chinese Students’ Self-perceived Reading Ability in English

Reading is one of the indicators of how much a reader understands a language. Though reading is taught early in students’ education, some still struggle to comprehend texts, especially if a language is a stranger. Reading is a skill that enhances intellectual and affective processes, including reasoning, inferences, empathy, and critical thinking. Thus, a lack of language familiarity to interact with the text can hinder reading comprehension. This article focuses on Chinese students’ self-perceived reading ability that hinders reading comprehension. The aim is to answer the question; To what extent do Undergraduate Chinese students’ of University X perceive their reading ability in English? This survey is significant because letting the students understand their reading ability helps the teacher understand what to focus on in the English course and provides the correct reading strategies to achieve the reading goal. One hundred ninety-nine students from one of the private universities participated in this study. Using a questionnaire survey to assess students’ self-perceived reading ability supported by the semi-structured interview, this study found that although Chinese students employed good reading strategies, they still found their reading comprehension problematic because of the influence of their reading speed. Thus, this affects the reading goal and students’ interest in reading.