INFORMAL ARTICLES AND READING-WRITINGSPEAKING CYCLE IN EXTENSIVE READING (ER) PROGRAM: EFL LEARNERS’ PERCEPTION

This study is based on the recognition that EFL students in the context of a Korean university not only had limited exposure to English but also were reluctant to actively participate in their own learning; thus they needed a useful reading program. Acknowledging the situation, the current study initiated an extensive reading (ER) program incorporating the approach of active learning and applied the ER program to a regular EFL reading class for a semester. The reading class was small with nine students and taught by one of the co-researchers. The exploratory study aimed to examine how students engaged in the ER program and how the participants perceived their new experience of the program. To this end, students’ book reading reports over eight sessions of the ER program and post-task interviews were qualitatively analyzed. The data analysis suggests several findings. First, the analysis implied that students eagerly engaged in their learning processes during the ER program. In return, their confidence and motivation in reading English texts improved. Second, it proposed that during the ER the students were responsible for their own learning and were autonomous learners. The study concludes with suggestions for pedagogical practice and for future research.

Most university students are struggling in learning English as Foreign Language. The utilization of an extensive reading strategy will potentially promote more striking influential impacts on EFL learners’ target language proficiency. The students' perceptions influence the success of teaching and learning English. The research aimed to know the students’ perception of Extensive Reading in EFL contexts. The researcher used the Qualitative Research method. This study was conducted in Universitas Islam Majapahit. The researcher selected twelve senior students of the English language education department who have already received the extensive reading subject in their previous semesters. The researcher collected the data through semi-structured interviews. The data were then analyzed by following Miles and Huberman’s (1994) framework. The results showed that the students had positive perceptions toward Extensive Reading practices. They considered if Extensive Reading is a reading activity for pleasure and information search where they can read material without any restraint. Besides, Extensive Reading also contributed to developing their comprehension and English skills such as listening, speaking, reading, writing, vocabulary mastery, and grammar. Moreover, Extensive Reading enabled them to enjoy the learning experience.

This article reports on an EFL reading programme that integrated extensive reading with task-based learning to promote L2 learners’ language development, increase their motivation in reading, and help them build reading habits. In this programme, students took an active role in selecting graded reading material relevant to their interests and participated in reasoning-gap, information-gap, opinion-exchange, and decision-making tasks in the classroom. Data were collected through interviews with students, classroom observation, students’ reading logs, and reflective journals. The results indicated that the combination of interesting reading materials and meaningful tasks created positive experiences in language learning. Comprehensible input from extensive reading and productive output in the follow-up tasks proved to be effective in facilitating language development. Most importantly, students reported feeling a sense of achievement when sharing what they read with peers and completing the tasks, which then motivated them to read more books and gradually develop reading habits.

Many language courses now offer access to simplified materials graded at various levels of proficiency so that learners can read at length in their new language. An assumed benefit is the development of large and rapidly accessed second language (L2) lexicons. Studies of such extensive reading (ER) programs indicate general language gains, but few examine vocabulary growth; none identify the words available for learning in an entire ER program or measure the extent to which participants learn them. This article describes a way of tackling this measurement challenge using electronic scanning, lexical frequency profiling, and individualized checklist testing. The method was pilot tested in an ER program where 21 ESL learners freely chose books that interested them. The innovative methodology proved to be feasible to implement and effective in assessing word knowledge gains. Growth rates were higher than those found in earlier studies. Research applications of the flexible corpus-based approach are discussed.

As the nature of Extensive Reading (ER) emphasizes the reading activity, most ER follow up activities are developed to support the act of reading. This might neglect the fact that reading can also be a stimulus for creative and imaginative writing. Although ER has a potential role to develop students’ L2 writing, not many have explored it. This preliminary study investigates a writing project undertaken as a post-ER activity. This project was done at the end of an ER program in an EFL context. In this project, the students worked collaboratively to write a 1,000-word short story. The study examined how the ER teachers and ER students in the study perceived the story writing project. Data were gathered from semi-structured interviews with three ER teachers and six ER students. Findings showed that both the teachers and students perceived the story writing project as beneficial to enhance the students’ creativity and imagination. They also agreed on the connection between reading and writing. The quality of the story was perceived to be significantly influenced by the students’ reading behaviors. Practical suggestions on how to integrate this project into an ER program were also offered.

Extensive research on reading in a first language has shown the critical role fluency plays in successful reading. Fluency alone, however, does not guarantee successful reading. Cognitive and metacognitive reading strategies and schemata that readers utilize also play important roles in constructing meaning from text. Most research, however, indicates that good reading ability is virtually impossible in the absence of fast and accurate word recognition skills and reading fluency. Therefore, efficient ways of improving fluency must be developed. In answer to this need, extensive reading programs have been implemented as an effective approach in EFL settings. Another method, repeated reading, seems equally promising. The main objective of the current study is to focus on whether and how assisted repeated reading with an auditory reading model enhances EFL readers' fluency. Some comparisons of Japanese university students' performances in repeated reading and extensive reading programs are also made in an attempt to see gains in reading fluency and comprehension, and to explore some characteristics which are unique to assisted repeated reading. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of participants' reading behaviors suggest that assisted repeated reading is equally as effective as extensive reading in increasing EFL readers' silent reading rate, and favorably affects learners' perceptions of reading activities. Furthermore, the results indicate the specific role the repetition and listening components of assisted repeated reading play to facilitate reading comprehension. Assisted repeated reading can potentially develop weak ESL/EFL readers' fluency and help them become independent readers by providing a distinct form of scaffolding.

The low level of literacy of the Indonesian students has become a major nation-wide concern in Indonesia. The 2015 PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) result showed that Indonesian students’ literacy level in English was one of the lowest in the world. Gerakan Literasi Nasional (GLN) was established in 2016 as one of the possible solutions to increase the Indonesian students’ literacy level. The extensive reading programs done in the schools and in the universities described here is in line with GLN’s vision and mission, in that the Extensive Reading programs and activities play a tremendous role in the schools’ and communities’ effort to create more established, well-planned actions to increase the students’ literacy level. Therefore, this paper will discuss two objectives: (1) describing steps to establish a successful Extensive Reading program at Indonesian schools and (2) reporting factors that contribute to the success of an extensive reading program. The findings of this research revealed how extensive reading activities supported the success of GLN through the creation of extensive reading programs within and outside the curriculum, and how schools and home literacy culture could be contributing factors to the success of this program.

PurposeThe present study focused on examining the effects of a multimedia-based Internet extensive reading program on promoting the receptive skills of Iranian university students.Design/methodology/approachIn the quantitative section of this explanatory sequential mixed-method study, a pretest-posttest design was used to compare the performance of three groups of Iranian university students in terms of their degrees of improvement in receptive proficiency. Besides, the differences in the levels of motivation among the learners were sought. The three classes under study included linear text extensive reading for the first experimental group, a multimedia-based Internet extensive reading group for the other and a control group. The qualitative phase of this study included a semi-structured interview and an open-ended questionnaire.FindingsAnalysis of the results revealed that the multimedia-based Internet extensive reading group outperformed the two other groups in terms of proficiency in receptive skills. They also had a higher level of motivation for reading. The findings of the qualitative phase showed that the participants preferred working with multimedia material rather than working with linear texts, or, in other words, printed books. University EFL instructors may be the most beneficiaries of the present study, as they can gain insights into applying Internet-based extensive reading programs into their courses.Originality/valueAlthough some studies have been carried out in this area, the paper provides its readers with a new procedure and methodology.

This study aims to investigate the impact of extensive reading program using the website er-central.com to promote reading habit among high school students in East Java. The study employs a qualitative case study where the program has been done in a high school of 17 Agustus 1945 Senior High School which runs the extensive reading using a digital website. The data is given in two ways, the report of students' reading progress on the administrator page and the response to an open-ended questionnaire that asks students’ perception of how the program impacts their reading habits. The 5 examples of students reading progress reports show that students' reading is still in progress where students have the autonomy to choose the texts and do the quiz. The answers to the open-ended questionnaire show that students argued the program impacts their reading habits. It is shown that 60.78% of the respondents agreed that extensive reading encourages them to read and be autonomous. It can be concluded that the extensive reading program encourages the students’ reading habits.

Provincial and federal government surveys and commissions have consistently reported that English literacy training for adults with no or limited English is urgently needed and that access to training is limited. The effectiveness of existing literacy training programs and instructional strategies at the adult level has not been well researched. However, at the classroom level literacy training can be easily compromised by instructional strategies that limit the concept of full-literacy by focusing ESL literacy instruction on survival, functional and skill-building reading experiences. English and second language reading research suggests that student self-selection of reading materials and a high exposure to text are effective means of increasing vocabulary knowledge and reading proficiency. This study examined the effect of an Extensive Reading program on reading proficiency and vocabulary knowledge for 2 classes (N=33) of adult low intermediate ESL learners enrolled in a 15 week English language training program at a large Canadian community college. This quasi-experimental treatment group participated in a reading program supplemental to their regular classroom reading instruction. Subjects met weekly with the researcher and self-selected reading material from a collection of graded readers. Data on the frequency of the students' reading, their preferences in reading topics and materials and self-evaluations of their first and second language reading abilities were tallied for subjects in both groups. No statistical significant differences were found for the treatment in the analysis of assessments of reading and vocabulary. However, the experimental group posted higher gains in the group mean score on reading proficiency than the control group. Analysis of the Reading Behavior Survey suggests subjects in both groups were low frequency readers (less than 5 hours of reading time in English per week) who generally evaluated themselves fair to good readers in L2 but good to excellent readers in LI. The inconclusive results for the effect of the treatment on reading proficiency and vocabulary acquisition implies the need for future studies on the effectiveness of extensive reading programs on literacy training in ESL programs where literacy in English is a concern for students and educators.

Purpose This study investigates two extensive reading (ER) programmes carried out in a secondary school in Beijing during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the aim of analysing how differentiated instruction (DI) is reflected in the ER implementation and how this forced online learning inform foreign/second language (L2) pedagogy in relation to ER and DI. Design/methodology/approach Adopting an exploratory case study approach, the study collected data from multiple sources: interview with six students and two teachers; questionnaire survey (N = 74 + 27); teachers’ reflective journal; documents related to the two reading programmes. Data collection lasted for a semester (six months). Thematic analysis was used to code and interpret data. Findings Following the five-category framework for differentiated instruction (Tomlinson, C. A., and T. Moon. 2013. Assessment and Student Success in a Differentiated Classroom. Alexandria: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development), this study collects evidence of DI implementation in terms of content (three-tiered system of providing reading materials), process (personalised reading frequency and quantity), and product (diversified forms/platforms of presentation of reading results) of the reading programmes. However, due to the online teaching mode, DI was not fully reflected in aspects of affect (inadequate collaborative activities and interaction between students and teacher) and learning environment (lack of studying-together atmosphere). Results also indicate a widening gap between higher and lower achieving learners regarding engagement with ER activities due to differences in student autonomy and parental involvement. Originality/value This study provides some insights into differentiated instruction in ER implementation in the lockdown period, and proposes implications for L2 pedagogical design and innovation with a DI approach to ER.

This paper presents a study analyzing second language vocabulary gains after an extensive reading program that included non-fiction graded readers of scientific content in English. The study was conducted in a Spanish primary school (N = 96) and implemented in two different modalities: reading-only and reading-while-listening, which included audiobooks. The study lasted one school year and involved 39 science graded readers, making it unique in its duration and scope. The findings indicate that the practice of extensive reading resulted in notable improvements in vocabulary acquisition during the first half of the school year; however, the advantages were less evident in the second half. Different factors intrinsic to the program but also related to students’ motivation will be discussed in order to explain the findings.

This study explores the key challenges encountered in the implementation of extensive reading in the Thai context. The samples were 400 Thai students and teachers who were already familiar with the concept of ER. The participants' opinions, thoughts, and beliefs about the implementation of ER were also gathered through surveys and semi-structured interviews. The results reveal that these challenges include teachers’ beliefs about ER; insufficient support from schools and educational authorities; teachers' workload and lack of training; and students' motivation and reading habits. Overcoming these challenges requires collaborative efforts between educational institutions, administrators, teachers, and students to provide adequate resources, training, and a supportive environment to promote a reading culture in the EFL classroom in Thailand. Extensive reading programs (ERP) can be effectively implemented in Thailand by recognizing and resolving these issues, which will improve language learning outcomes and a lifelong motivation for reading among students.

At the beginning of the 2014 academic year, the author initiated a pilot extensive reading (ER) program within PACE classes at Hitotsubashi University. Details of the initial motivation and procedures for setting up the program are provided in Hunt (2014), and briefly summarized here. The pilot program ran successfully for 12 weeks during the spring semester, with positive feedback. Assessment of the ER program, discussion of student feedback, and a description of program modifications are detailed in these research notes.

This paper starts a discussion of the process of extensive reading (ER) program implementation in schools from a functional perspective.It discusses some considerations that may have hindered the spread of ER into the public school systems of many countries.It makes an argument for a top-down approach being required for widespread implementation as well as the need for materials other than graded readers, which while being the gold standard for ER, cannot realistically be purchased by and managed in a large school system.The impact on student choice of what to read is also discussed.The paper ends with suggestions for a way forward.