Students’ Attitudes Toward Undertaking Writing Activities on Extensive Reading

Abstract

This study examines university students' attitudes toward second language (L2) writing that is implemented as a follow-up activity to extensive reading (ER). Sixteen students voluntarily participated in the study, and their written reflections were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively to explore these students' attitudinal positionings toward the writing activity. The findings indicate that students not only displayed a favorable attitude toward the ER writing activity, but also appreciated its benefits and usefulness in the development of their writing skills and writing habits. The present study also suggests that well-integrated pedagogical practices can produce positive perceptions of L2 reading and writing among students, thus facilitating their engagement in the classroom activities.

The Effects of Extensive Reading on Turkish Learners’ L2 Reading/Writing Performance and Foreign Language Self-Concept

“…Research, with varying degrees of confidence, has reported beneficial effects of ER on various aspects of L2 ability, such as gains in reading speed and reading comprehension (Bell, 2001;He, 2014, Mermestein, 2014Suk, 2017;Tanaka & Stapleton, 2007), silent reading rate (Taguchi, Takayasu-Maass, & Gorsuch 2004), vocabulary knowledge (Tiryaki & Tütüniş, 2012;Wang, 2013), reading comprehension and vocabulary knowledge (Chen, Chen, Chen & Wey, 2013), grammatical competence (Sheu, 2003), and general English language proficiency (Al'zubi, 2014;Elley & Mangubhai, 1983;Yamashita, 2008), and development of writing skill (Al-Mansour & Al-Shorman, 2014;Kirin, 2010;Mermelstein, 2015). The benefits of ER is not limited with linguistic aspects alone, it is also found to boost students' L2 reading motivation (Fujito & Noro, 2009;Guo, 2012), L2 reading attitude (Atay, 2004;Ro & Park, 2016;Salameh, 2017;Yamashita, 2013), L2 reading self-efficacy (Burrows, 2012;Lake, 2014;Raissi & Roustaei, 2013), learner autonomy (Channuan & Wasanasomsithi, 2012;Mede, Incecay, & V. Incecay, 2013) and to lower L2 reading anxiety (Ro, 2013). The positive attitudes that L2 learners hold towards ER has been on the most commonly discussed issues in ER studies.…”