DOI: 10.36347/sjahss.2017.v05i11.015

Pages: 1648-1654

Among the four macro skills of English, Reading deserves sacrosanct consideration and greater weight as it is a building block, though not a cornerstone, in the process of acquiring a Second Language. Apart from concretising the vocabulary and grammatical components that students learn in classrooms, Reading provides them the necessary schematic knowledge for better comprehension and effective writing skills, unique aesthetic pleasure and a vast repertoire of active as well as passive vocabulary. The present paper centres around the findings of an empirical study on the Omani EFL learners’ reading habits in English, source of (de)motivation for them to read, their attitude to study or leisure reading and how this leaves destructive impacts on their acquisition of other macro/micro-skills, particularly writing. A few remedial measures to tackle the issue and its educational implications are also dealt with.