Online reading strategies to boost the students’ motivation

Students have a reason for reading a passage or a book. Fostering students' reading motivation is a difficult but necessary aspect. The sudden transition due to the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 has also driven the educational field to be online learning where the teacher still should advocate the best way to develop a student’s reading motivation which is a novel English learning environment. Teacher strategies are an attempt to attract students’ attention to learning and this study focuses on reading skills. This research aimed to find out the teacher strategies applied in teaching reading to foster students' reading motivation in online learning. The researchers used descriptive qualitative methods and the instruments of this research were classroom observation and semi-structured interviews. The subject of this research was English teachers and EFL students at MAN 2 Batam. This study revealed that the teacher applied three strategies: (1) read aloud, (2) scaffolding, and (3) reading outside class activity in teaching reading to foster reading motivation. Indeed, the teacher strategies applied in teaching reading through online learning at MAN 2 Batam foster students reading motivation as the advocate way of the teacher to promote reading skills.