Author(s): Zühre YILMAZ GÃNGÃR
This research aims to determine the factors which make reading texts difficult to understand for students who learn French as a foreign language. The research was carried out in French Reading Comprehension Lessons and it involved 23 first year students of Program in Teaching French as a Foreign Language, studying at Anadolu University, Faculty of Education. A four sectioned survey, prepared by Lin (2002), was used as a data collection tool and there were multiple-choice sentences for each section. The survey contains three general categories which are thought to cause problems for reading comprehension as grammatical, contextual and sociocultural. To analyze the obtained data, the frequency distribution analysis was applied. The data obtained from the first part of the survey showed that the most important factor that makes understanding difficult texts is unknown words. It was also found that a complicated syntax and content caused problems. Responses to the second part of the questionnaire show that different meanings of words in texts, in which sense they are used, content of the text, and the idioms used, also cause problems. The third part showed that poor performance in reading comprehension and annoying context makes learning difficult and causes anxiety. From the data collected in the last part of the survey, we can say that a simple syntax facilitates comprehension of texts and phrases. At the same time, it was found that the socio-cultural background and having no unknown words in the text are factors that facilitate understanding.
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