advantages of extensive reading in language
learning
(2003-06-27 08:42:42)
neville grant
1. extensive reading can provide “comprehensible
input”.
krashen (1982) argues that one of the key elements
in language learning is “comprehensible input”, among which he lists
extensive reading. he argues that extensive reading will lead to language
acquisition, provided that the texts include adequate exposure to the
language, interesting material, and a relaxed learning environment.
krashen and others emphasize that the quality of the language to which
the learners are exposed is very important if they are to learn from
the input. elley (1991) notes the existence of “an exposure gap” between
l1 learners and l2 learners, and reports on a number of relevant studies,
showing that children between 6 and 12 years of age provided with extensive
reading materials showed rapid growth in language development compared
with other groups.
2 extensive reading can enhance learners’ general
language competence.
there is much evidence to support this view. for example,
the book flood project in fiji revealed significant improvements in
word recognition and reading comprehension after the first year; after
two years, wider gains were recorded in both oral skills and writing.
(elley and manghubai 1983). the studies cited by elley (op.cit) indicated
“a spread of effect from reading competence to other language skills
writing, speaking, and control over syntax.” similar points are made
by grabe (1991) and paran (1996). most relevant in china perhaps is
the study by tsang (1996) in secondary schools in hong kong.
3 extensive reading can enhance students’ general
knowledge.
while developing the widely-used series junior and
senior english for china, liu daoyi reported that time and again, one
of the key motivating factors in english classrooms was the desire to
increase the students’ knowledge of the world, (liu daoyi, personal
communication). the same applies to non-english majors in college, who
have comparatively little intrinsic interest in learning english. one
of the most popular elements in active english, the series this author
was involved in, was the “enrichment reading” component. students reported
that they liked the texts provided because they were interesting, authentic,
and “enable us to learn about the world.” (gu yueguo, personal communication.)
4 extensive reading motivates learners to read
motivations can come from many sources: the desire
for general knowledge is one f them, but the intrinsic interest of the
texts is another. students in china greatly value authenticity, so if
the text is written by a native speaker in good contemporary english,
that in itself can be a big draw.
the issue of motivation has a large literature which
cannot be explored fully at this time. bell’s account of work in yemen
(bell 1998) provides some good evidence of how well-chosen books can
motivate readers, though the students themselves were in an older age-group
(17 – 42). .more relevant is a very good south east asian case study
reported in bell and campbell (1996, 1997).
5 extensive reading consolidates and increases
knowledge of vocabulary
a study by nagy and herman (1987) claims that children
between grades 3 and 12 in the united states learn up to 3000 words
a year. clearly, these words are simply, not formally taught in class:
they are learnt by acquisition, largely if not exclusively through reading.
it s possible that the time we spend teaching new vocabulary in china
may be to some extent better spent by simply asking our students to
read!
it is also the case that extensive reading can consolidate
vocabulary and language forms already treated in the classroom. in the
past, the emphasis has traditionally been placed on graded readers,
which have a controlled grammatical and lexical load, and these certainly
have the advantage of providing regular repetition and reinforcement
of language forms. (wodinsky and nation 1988). however, the development
of the “real books” movement, particularly in the uk, has led in recent
years to an increased emphasis on “real” books written in authentic
english, rather than the pre-digested, controlled reading diet offered
by traditional graded reading schemes. others have attempted to arrive
at a compromise – real books written in authentic english roughly tuned
to the likely language level of the readers. grading, if it occurs,
is as much focused on interest levels and relevance to the students,
rather than language forms. this characterizes the approach used by
the latest series published by the people’s education press and hong
kong commercial press. (pepupye series 2002). an added impetus to this
approach is provided by the increasing variations in educational policy
across china, both within and beyond provinces and autonomous regions,
as local curriculum initiatives make it increasingly difficult to adjust
language levels to targeted segments of the student population.
6 extensive reading can lead to improvements
in writing
krashen (1984) reviews a number of studies in an l1
learning environment to support this view, but more relevant in china
are studies of l2 learners. robb and susser (1989) found that extensive
reading seems to led to an improvement in japanese high school learners
writing skills, and hafiz and tudor (1989) reached similar conclusions
in studies carried out in the uk and pakistan.
7 extensive reading can develop autonomous
learning
the classroom focuses inevitably on shorter texts,
and extensive reading provides learners with the opportunity of reading
longer texts, on more varied subjects, on their own, and in their own
way. this is a very important aspect of extensive reading: students
do need to be liberated from dependence on the teacher, and reading
gives them the opportunity to do so. many of our students go on from
senior middle school to formal on informal learning situations, where
they may have to study extensively on their own. extensive reading can
give them the confidence and competence to cope with longer texts.
however, a word of caution is required on this issue:
most texts selected for wider reading tend to be fiction; fictional
texts are a very different genre from the non-fiction that learners
have to use in academic study, and it is questionable how far the reading
strategies and approaches appropriate for fiction are also appropriate
for non-fiction. we cannot assume that there is transfer from one genre
to another, and for this reason it is strongly urged that non-fiction
as well as fiction – in fact, as wide a range of genres as possible
– should feature in an extensive reading programme. for this reason,
the pepupye series already alluded to does include a wide range of genres,
and a healthy infusion of non-fiction as well as fiction. it is to be
noted that this is also one of the requirements of the latest ministry
of education syllabus.
how to implement an extensive reading programme
extensive reading can be approached on two fronts:
1 shared reading: the class reader
the aim of the class reader is to enable the learners
to improve the quality of their reading. (grant 1975; grant 1984) the
class reader is a text that all the class read for a period, typically
four or five weeks, both in class and out; selected parts are treated
by the teacher in class, and it is the basis for numerous classroom
activities, including (almost entirely oral) questioning, discussion,
role-play, reading aloud (by both teacher and students) and creative
writing. it is important not to spend too long a period on any one class
reader; spending too long on one book can turn it into a bore, and the
whole exercise can then become counter-productive.
the class reader has not been a common feature of
many chinese classrooms, but it can play a valuable part in helping
to orchestrate imaginative response. as it is not directly related to
examinations, it does not have to have any examination-style question
types associated with it, and the teacher can send the students a number
of crucial messages, including
* reading can be fun.
* it is entirely acceptable to skim read – you don’t
have to understand every single word to get the gist.
* it is good to develop opinions and personal responses
while you are reading, both social, ethical and aesthetic.
2 the individual reading scheme - the irs
if the class reader is concerned with the quality of
reading, the irs is concerned with both quality and quantity. the aim
of the irs is to get the learners to read as widely as possible, and
as much as possible, as enjoyably as possible. how this is done depends
very much on the resources that a school has available. it can approached
in a number if different ways:
using the school library
students go into the library once a week, and select
the books they want to read. during this period, the teacher monitors
what books they are reading, helps them to choose, and carries out personal
interviews with learners who have just completed a book – usually to
find out their response to it (and in a perfect world to find out if
they have in fact read it.) students and teacher keep a record of titles
read, with dates.
forming a class library
this operates in a very similar way, but this time
the library is a smaller selection of books, and is available to the
class in a book box, or cupboard. the books are carefully selected so
that they are suitable for the class (one of the problems with a school
library is that students sometimes select books that are inappropriate
for one reason or another.)
forming an invisible library
if the resources of the school are limited, it is sometimes
possible to get individual students to each buy one book, or share in
the cost of buying books, and exchange them every week. by purchasing
one book, a learner then has access, potentially, to 50 or more, depending
on the size of the class.
developing personal libraries
it may be possible in some areas to encourage the learners
to purchase their own books, and build up their own individual (or family!)
libraries. if such schemes are to be successful, teachers have to persuade
parents that such purchases are a worth-while investment.
practical suggestions on approaches
experience suggests that a number of features can assist
in developing a successful irs.
1 maximizing learner involvement
however the irs is organized, there are always practical
problems – organizing books, maintaining lists, sharing experiences
of individual books, and so forth, and experience suggests that the
more learners are involved, the better. much better than asking the
teacher to do everything!
2 learners’ presentations
every week, a small number of learners should be invited
to give a short presentation on the book they have just completed. learners
love to hear what others think of individual books, and these presentations
play a useful role in helping others to choose books they are likely
to enjoy.
3 reading aloud
reading aloud is often disparaged as “a special skill”
which has “little transfer” to the key skill of silent reading. reading
aloud – especially in the intensive reading lesson – seldom plays a
major role, but students like doing it; and they also like to listen
while the teacher reads specially selected stories or extracts from
stories aloud. (the books i remember most from my own secondary school
days were those read aloud to me by my teachers!) this can play a powerful
motivating role.
4 discouraging slow-motion reading
“slomo” reading is what takes place in the intensive reading classroom,
where every word is sometimes taken apart and put together again; this
is frequently counter-productive in the intensive reading lesson, and
is doubly so in an extensive reading programme. the crucial skills of
“infski” should be developed as an important reader’s survival strategy.
“infski” is not a russian psycholinguist! it stands for “infer or skip”.
so dictionaries should very seldom be used, and good
extensive reading materials will typically provide instant glosses of
any key words that may cause readers to stumble. (this is a strategy
employed in pepupye.) actually, one feels ambivalent about providing
these bilingual glosses, but research suggests that this is what both
students and teachers wanted, and if it makes the reading process easier,
and quicker, and more motivating, so be it.
5 monitoring the students’ reading
teachers should keep track of what the students are
reading – and how much they are reading. backsliders may need a pep
talk! or maybe, as i have frequently found happened, the students may
have chosen something highly unsuitable. when i was teaching in dar-es-salaam
i once found that one of my students, normally a high-achiever, seemed
to have ground to a halt in the irs lesson. i found that he had chosen
an original version of a charles dickens novel, and had got totally
bogged down in chapter 1 for weeks on end!
records of students reading can be kept in a book
or on catalogue file cards, or even (in the case of a class library)
on a wall chart (done by students!) big enough to list all the books
available on the reading scheme down the side, and all the students’
names along the top. the date a book is completed is then entered on
the chart. at the end of each semester stars can be awarded if desired,
and can be converted to marks, if that is found to be motivating.
on the whole, tests, as such, should be avoided; davis
(1995) suggests that extensive reading programmes should be “without
the pressures of testing or marks”. however, in our experience, in china,
a task done with no visible trace is seldom regarded as a real task,
and it is advisable for texts to be accompanied by short, gist-type
questions of one sort or another. remarkably, it seems, students actually
like these questions, and so, once again, in pepupye, we have included
them, and some other question-types, though many of them are optional.
short pieces of written work, as appropriate, may
also be done – a good text frequently acts as a useful stimulus, as
we saw with the young woman from
6 teacher’s promotional activities
these are essential, and can take many forms. enthusiasm
for reading, and about books, can be infectious; and teachers are urged
to develop such enthusiasms – and to demonstrate them in action (see
below, section 3). among the promotional activities suitable are:
pep talks
reading aloud
the use of multi-media (videos, cd-rom, audio tapes,
film etc.)
enrichment activities ( anecdotes, theatre visits,
film visits, exploiting posters, indeed, exploiting anything that is
relevant to what they have been reading.
awarding marks as appropriate to students as a reward
for their reading efforts (efforts – not achievement!)
sustained silent reading programmes
ssr, and its numerous variations – ussr (uninterrupted
silent reading) dear, (drop everything and read) and power (positive
outcomes while enjoying reading) and fever (free voluntary reading)
is another procedure which we can all learn from. it has been tried
out in hong kong, with some success (, and would be worthy of classroom
research in china.). we shall call it ssr: ssr provides students with
a block of time during the day (typically twice a week) devoted to reading.
during ssr time, everyone in class reads a book of their choice (including
crucially the teacher). there are no interruptions, and, usually, no
assignments, or other activities related to reading. pilgreen (2000)
indicates that in order for it to be effective, it needs to be carried
out over a period of at least six months, and that time be needs to
be allocated on the basis of at least two sessions of between 15 and
30 minutes per week.
ssr is not that new: as far as i know it was first
introduced by hunt (1970) and has since attracted much research, both
in l1 and l2 situations. the results have been mixed, partly because
many adaptations to the approach have been made. the research is reviewed
in chow and chou (2001). an exhaustive account of ssr and its ramifications
can be found in pilgreen (2000). the consensus seems to be that it can
work with some linguistically disadvantaged students, or esl students,
but that there are doubts as to the value of such a program with no
testing or monitoring involved; this applies particularly to l2 students.
this whole subject needs more research in china! and in keeping with
gertrude stein, i leave you with a question, rather than an answer!
conclusion
experience from across the world suggests that extensive
reading programs can play an important role in promoting language improvement
and development. they require a certain amount of investment in both
time and resources, but the benefits far outweigh the costs. with the
new introduction of a new syllabus in china that gives due weight to
the importance of extensive reading, we can look forward to a nationwide
change in attitudes to reading, and to wonderful opportunities for progress.
（adapted from the author’s lecture the theory and pratice
of extensive reading.）
