Extensive Reading With Adult Learners of English as a Second Language

Abstract

This paper reports on a study of the impact of extensive reading (ER) on the language proficiency of a group of Vietnamese government officials studying English. Two questions were of interest. First, we wanted to examine if ER could be successfully implemented with older adult second language learners. Secondly, we were interested in the relationship between learning gain and a set of ER variables, such as amount of ER material read, the extent to which this material was perceived as interesting, easy/difficult, and comprehensible, and whether or not extensive reading was perceived to be a useful and enjoyable activity. The results indicated that older adult ESL learners could indeed benefit from a carefully planned and systematically implemented extensive reading program. Further, a regression analysis showed that amount of ER was the only significant predictor of participants' gain scores.

Exploring the Reading-Writing Connection: A Yearlong Classroom-Based Experimental Study of Middle School Students Developing Literacy in a New Language

“…A number of researchers have demonstrated positive effects of extensive reading on reading comprehension among second‐ or foreign‐language learners, from elementary school (e.g., Elley, ; Elley & Mangubhai, ), middle school (e.g., Lai, ; Sheu, ), high school (e.g., Tanaka & Stapleton, ), and university (e.g., Al‐Homoud & Schmitt, ; S.Y. Lee, ; Mason & Krashen, ; Nakanishi & Ueda, ; Smith, ; Yamashita, ) to older adult levels (e.g., Bell, ; Renandya, Rajan, & Jacobs, ). These studies were conducted in diverse educational contexts, with different lengths of instruction, age of participants, native (dominant) language, and tests used to measure reading proficiency, and the presence of a control group (for a listing of these studies with some explanatory details, see Appendix B, which is available as supporting information for the online version of this article).…”

Evaluating the Effects of Extensive Reading Circles on Esl Learners’ Oral Communicative Competence

“…The positive effects of ER on speaking are best presented by Renandya, Rajan and Jacobs (1999). Their experiment with senior Vietnamese government officials revealed that their subjects benefitted from ER towards L2 acquisition within two months.…”

A large-Scale Study on Extensive Reading Program for Non-English Majors: Factors and Attitudes

“…In addition to the massive studies on reading skills and strategies already in the literature, much attention has also been paid to the effectiveness/ benefits of extensive reading. The growing amount of research supporting the use of extensive reading includes studies concerning young learners (Juan & Cheng, 2008;Nishino, 2007;Williams, 2007), adult learners (Greenberg et al, 2006;Renandya et al, 1999), vocabulary building (Horst, 2005;Kweon & Kim, 2008;Pigada & Schmitt, 2006;Modirkhamene & Gowrki, 2011;Tran, 2006), reading habits (Asraf & Ahmad, 2003;Lemmer, 2010), reading speed and comprehension (Bell, 2001;He, 2014;Taguchi, et al, 2004), writing performance (Mason & Krashen, 1997), and reading ability (Meng, 2009;Robb & Susser, 1989;Sheu, 2004;Yamashita, 2008). Significantly, there is also a substantial number of studies stressing students' positive attitudes (Camiciottoli, 2001;Johanson, 2012;Shen, 2008;Stoeckel et al, 2012) and motivations (Apple, 2005;Takase, 2007) towards the extensive reading process after the treatment.…”