Mohammed, Nuru (PhD)Shibabaw, Haile2018-06-202023-12-052018-06-202023-12-052007-07http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/1997Reading constitutes much of the work at colleges. For example, they read to study different courses, to do assignments and to write project works. To do all these, efficient reading is an instrument without which success in college studies is not possible. As Hedge (2000) states, the level of reader comprehension of a text is determined by how well the reader variables interact with the text variables.Hence, the main objective of this study is to examine the application of interacting reader variables with text variables in a reading lesson. Accordingly, the specific research questions are designed to see the extent to which EFL instructors used reading activities to activate trainees prior knowledge to create new knowledge; to examine the extent to which EFL instructors got trainees to have purposes of reading that helped them to construct meaning, and to investigate the major problems that trainees faced when interacting with reading texts. Moreover, the other research questions addressed in this research were related to examining whether the reading texts had clear organizational structure, and whether the level of difficulty of contents of the reading texts was appropriate to the trainees’ level of understanding. The subjects of the study were all the EFL instructors (8) and 96 EFL trainees at Debre Markos CTE. The 96 EFL trainees were selected using simple random sampling technique; that is, using lot. To gather data for the study, questionnaire, interview, and classroom observation were used. Mean, standard deviation and percentage were employed to analyze the data obtained through close-ended questionnaire whereas qualitative data analysis was used with the data obtained through open-ended questionnaire, interview and classroom observation. The results from both the quantitative and the qualitative study showed that EFL instructors frequently helped trainees to do pre-reading questions and share ideas with a partner about the pre-reading questions. However, they did not seem to understand why they let them do the pre-reading questions and share ideas with a partner about the questions. Because, after trainees had finished discussing the pre-reading questions, they were asked to read the passage silently to answer the comprehension questions. They were not asked to read part (s) of the passage to adjust their prediction to link the old knowledge with the new one. The types of purposes of reading used were reading to identify specific and general information. Though these purposes are crucial to reproduce the exact text, they do not enable trainees to maintain coherence. The coherent meaning constructed by the reading will be some how related to the reader’s prior experience (world knowledge) and the structures already formed in the reader’s mind (textual knowledge).Moreover, inability in English language; shortage of vocabulary knowledge; lack of reading habit; negative belief on the use of doing comprehension questions; lack of exposure to do comprehension questions in the lower grades, and not getting the necessary help and follow-up from instructors were the main problems for the trainees not to be interested in doing comprehension questions. These problems were also causes for trainees’ difficulty to express what they know about pre-reading questions in English. Regarding text variables, the results showed that most of the reading texts that trainees read were related to the trainees’ socio-cultural context; had clear organizational structure; introduced abstract concepts by using concrete examples; explicitly stated complex relationships, and included the three levels of comprehension questions. Nevertheless, they seemed to have problems in containing appropriate vocabulary load. Finally, it is recommended that reading should be taught based on predict-sample text- repredict –resample process. Setting continual individual and group purposes for reading is also crucial to help trainees to construct meaning from reading texts.enThe Case of Debre Markos Cte First Year Trainees in 10+3 ProgramThesis