People encounter reading in their mother tongue very early when we listen to parents or other adults reading. Then, by entering the school, we move from the listener to the reader. Teachers use different approaches to teach reading in the classroom. They introduce students to several reading strategies, paying special attention to the development of motivation to read in spare time. And while students may be able to develop sufficient reading motivation to read in their mother tongue, teachers must use other approaches to learn them to read in a foreign language. Despite the fact that children's exposure to English outside school is quite high nowadays, many students encounter reading in English only upon entering school. A foreign language teacher must therefore pay special attention to reading motivation. The teacher's reading motivation and attitude towards reading play an important role in this. A non-reading teacher will find a way to include compulsory, curricular reading in the lessons. Extensive reading brings a completely new perspective and benefits to language development. However, this is not provided for in the curriculum, so the teacher must introduce this type of reading into the lessons. The question, however, is whether a teacher’s lack of motivation for extensive reading can pose a problem in developing it in students. In my master's thesis, I will therefore explore the reading motivation of teachers and what their own attitude towards extensive reading in a foreign language is. I will include English teachers in the second triad of primary schools in Slovenia in the research. The questionnaire will first try to gain insight into teachers’ views on extensive reading in both their mother tongue and foreign language, and then check their strategies for developing students' intrinsic motivation to read in their free time in a foreign language. Thus, I will try to determine whether there is a connection between a teacher’s own motivation to read extensively and a commitment to motivate students to read at leisure in a foreign language. At the end, I will try to give some guidelines or suggestions that teachers could use to help students encourage reading in English in their free time.
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