The impact of extensive reading on students'

The impact of extensive reading on students'

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

I.1 Background to the study

The University of Labour and Social Affairs (ULSA) is a university which wasupgraded from the College of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs in 2005 Like otheruniversities in Vietnam, this university is responsible for the training of skilled students tomeet the demand of the society in the process of industrialization and modernization Thereare faculties in the university namely Accounting, Insurance, Labour Management, andSocial Affairs with about 1.200 students being trained at the moment However, thisnumber is increasing because of the expansion of the university

Every year, graduates from ULSA are sent to work in various economic fields such asnational and local resorts, the state and joint-venture companies, enterprises located inHanoi as well as throughout the country With the direction of globalization in our societynowadays, foreign languages- especially English seems to be a very important conditionfor them to get a job ULSA graduates are supposed to be able to use English tocommunicate as well as to read materials However, a lot of ULSA graduates miss their jobopportunities because of their poor English proficiency

Being aware of the problem posed to their students, ULSA authorities haveimplimented some specific innovations in order to raise the quality of training in their owncontext, among which is the change of teaching and learning English at the institution.These attempts can be seen in the curriculum of the school which allocates outnumber ofperiods for English among other school subjects and their encouragement to the Englishteaching staff to renovate their teaching methods During their course at the university,students are given 330 class-hours of English ( each class-hour equals forty five minutes)of which 150 are spent on the course book Lifeline Elementary and divided equally in thefirst and the second semester of the first year ( each semester covers 75 class hours) In therest 180 class hours, students must take English for Special Purposes (ESP) courses withthe book " English for Labour and Social Affairs" compiled by the English Division of theuniversity In this course English learning focuses mainly on reading However, after

finishing the course book Lifeline-Elementary the students still have a lot of difficultieswith new words and new grammar structures which affect their learning.

Our observations and our experience of teaching English at ULSA suggested us tothink that English teaching at the institution tend to focus exclusively on intensive reading,concentrating on the teaching of grammar and vocabulary in relatively short texts via post-reading exercises, often ending up demanding a translation of the passage into Vietnameseword by word with extensive use of a dictionary The pedagogical result of this approach isthat students read slowly, without a communicative purpose and they have had a passiveway of learning that is students only perform what their teachers ask them to do Thisresults in students finding English very difficult especially when they have to deal withESP.

Facing the problem of finding an appropriate way to help our students improvetheir English not only to do well in their exams but also to use it effectively when they goto work after graduating, and encouraged by researches on the benefits of extensivereading for students' English language learning and skills development, I decided toconduct an experimental research on the topic to gain a better understanding aboutextensive reading and its effects on the students' reading comprehension in the context ofULSA

I 2.Aims of the study

In an effort to provide more empirical evidence with regard to the actual impact ofER in ULSA setting, the present study takes a control and an experimental groups andmeasures their reading test scores before and after ER treatment in order to investigate theefficacy of exposing ULSA students to ER techniques The purpose of the investigationwas also to find out how fruitful students find the extensive program through thequestionnaires distributed to the learners.

I.3 Research hypotheses and question.

In order to gain the above purpose the study was designed to test the followinghypotheses:

 Null hypothesis: The students who take part in the program get the same

result measured in a post-test and have the same improvement in their reading skills asthose who do not

 Alternative hypothesis: Students who receive extra reading practice will

perform better overall in a post test and have some improvement in their reading skill incomparison to those who not have extra reading practice.

So as to draw the conclusion on the hypothesis, the study is to get the answer to thefollowing question:

Does an extensive reading program have a positive effect on students' readingcomprehension in the context of ULSA?

I.4 Research method

Research design can be thought of as the structure of research it is the "glue" thatholds all the elements in a research project together Therefore, it requires the researcher'sprudence and caution to single out among a variety of research methods the one that bestsuits the aims and objectives of the study

As stated previously, this study is aimed to examine the effectiveness of extensivereading on students' reading comprehension at ULSA, therefore, the best method to beused in this study is experimental research Experimental designs are proved to beespecially useful in addressing evaluation questions about the effectiveness and impact ofprograms, as Salkind has pointed out that in an experimental research" One factor is relatedto another in such a way that changes in that factor are usually causally related to changesin the other So, it is not just a relationship where two variables share something incommon (as in the case with a correlation relationship); it is much more They sharesomething, but one directly affects the other." (Salkind, 2006; 127) The three designswithin the scope of experimental method are true-experimental, quasi-experimental andpre-experimental designs They are different from one another in terms of the degree towhich they impose control over the variables being studied and the degree of randomnessthat enters into the design (Salkind, 2006; 218) Considering the conditions in which thestudy would be carried out, the quasi-experimental design is chosen for the study for thefollowing reasons Firstly, the subjects of the study have already been assigned prior to the

study In this study, two classes of first-year students were assigned to the researcher aswell as a teacher by the person who was in charge of arranging the teaching schedule forthe teaching staff In addition to this, the two classes in the study were not removed fromthe normal teaching and learning context This characteristic made up the external validityof the study which helps to increase the validity of the later generalization of the result tothe population Involving the generalization of the results, extraneous variables needcontrolling prior to the experimental like the gender, the group size, etc To control thegroup size, some students were removed from the researcher's observation and studyduring the experiment That is, though these students received the same treatment either inthe control group or experimental group, their records were not counted in the study Withregard to the disproportion in gender, three male students in the control group wereremoved to make the number of male students in this group equal to that of theexperimental group

Since all the participants were Vietnamese of the same age and had lived inVietnam since they were born, they were considered to be of the same level of social andcultural background In addition to this, their English readiness was the same according totheir scores in the placement test they had done

Apart from the quasi-experimental design that acts as the main method of the study,a post-program questionnaire was also designed and administered to the subjects to collecttheir feedback to the extensive reading program According to Seliger and Shohamy(1995), questionnaire is an attractive means of collecting data on phenomena, which arenot easily observed, such as motivation, attitude, LLS use, etc… They also point out thatthe questionnaire is self-administered and can be given to large groups of subjects at

exactly the same time; hence the data are more uniform, standard and accurate In the

questionnaire of this study students were asked about their general impression of theprogram, their preference of the post- reading activities and other ingredients such asreading materials, time spent on post-reading activities, etc

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW.II.1 Introduction

This chapter reviews different issues in the theories of reading in a foreignlanguage The three main features will be presented in this chapter are: theoreticalbackground of reading activities, definition of extensive reading and the benefits ofextensive reading in language learning

Before we go any further, however, it is important to decide whether this study isconcerned with second or foreign language learning since there a traditional distinctionbetween the two Those who learn a language as a second language live in countries wherethe language is used at least for some day-to -day activities and/or as the medium ofinstruction in the secondary schools If people learn a language in a country where it is notcommonly spoken, they are taking part in foreign language learning In the case of alanguage learnt for academic purposes, learners may not use it in everyday life but use it asthe medium of learning at least at tertiary level However, as my research related toEnglish as a subject at school, I shall refer to all non-native speakers as speakers of foreignlanguage

II.2 Theoretical background of reading and reading activities II.2.1 Definitions of reading

Reading is a completely individual activity which takes place in all different waysfrom reading newspapers, magazines, written tests, telephone directory, labels on medicinebottles, notices, ect The ability to read is such a natural part of human beings that theyseldom try to define reading However there are still different points of view on thedefinition of reading

If Ur defines "reading means reading and understanding" (Ur, 1996;138), Goodman(1971; 135) considers reading as "a psychological process by which the reader, thelanguage user, reconstructs, as best as he can, a message which has been encoded by awriter as a graphic display", and the act of reconstruction is viewed as " a cyclical processof sampling, predicting, testing and confirming." Another researcher named Tickooemphasizes "reading involves a triangular interaction- between the reader, the writer and

the texts."(Tickoo; 2006) In addition to this, Rubin and Thompson (1994; 91) offeranother definition:" Reading is active information -seeking process in which readers relateinformation in the text to what they already know" In this view, reading is aboutunderstanding written texts It is a complex activity that involves both perception andthought Reading consists of two related processes: word recognition and comprehension.Word recognition refers to the process of perceiving how written symbols correspond toone’s spoken language Comprehension is the process of making sense of words, sentencesand connected text Readers typically make use of background knowledge, vocabulary,grammatical knowledge, experience with text and other strategies to help them understandthe written text.

All in all, what all the linguists have in common is that reading involves a varietyof skills and reading usually means comprehending written language so whenunderstanding breaks down, reading actually does not occur

Learning to read is an important educational goal For both children and adults, theability to read opens up new worlds and opportunities It enables us to gain newknowledge, enjoy literature, and do everyday things that are part and parcel of modern life,such as, reading the newspapers, job listings, instruction manuals, maps and so on Readingis one of the best ways for an EFL learner to improve his or her skills in English Readersgain more than just new vocabulary They learn how words are used by native speakers.Reading a novel, for instance, can help students review previously learned grammaticalstructures and teach them to recognize rules being applied in a new way Reading providesa way for students to practice and reinforce new material learned in the classroom, with thebenefit of being portable for independent study.

With regard to the role of reading in foreign language learning, we now move to theprocess of reading

II.2.2 Reading Process Models

The reading models discussed in this part are bottom-up models, top-down modelsand interactive models of the reading process

II.2.2.1.The bottom-up view of reading

With regard to bottom-up models, Nuttal generalizes that" In bottom-up processing,the reader builds up a meaning from the black mark on the page: recognizing letters andwords, working out sentence structure." (Nuttal, 1996: 16) She also points out that bottom-up processing can be used as a corrective means to "tunnel vision"(seeing things only fromour own limited point of view) She compares this approach to the image of a scientist witha magnifying glass examining the ecology of a transect This view is supported byOmaggio who claims that language learning was characterized as a "response system thathumans acquire through automatic conditioning processes," where "some patterns oflanguage are reinforced (rewarded) and others are not," and "only those patterns reinforcedby the community of language users will persist" (Omaggio, 1993: 46 as cited inElba,2006)

According to Elba (2006), the main method associated with the bottom-upapproach to reading is known as phonics, which requires the learner to match letters withsounds in a defined sequence From this point of view, reading is a linear process by whichreaders decode a text word by word, linking the words into phrases and then sentences.Sharing the same view, Anderson considers textual comprehension as a process whichinvolves adding the meanings of words to get the meanings of clauses (Anderson, 1994 ascited in Elba, 2006) In this view point, language is a code and the reader is a passivedecoder whose main task is to identify graphemes and convert them into phonemes.Information is received and processed beginning with the smallest sound units, and thenproceeding to letter blends, words, phrases, and sentences The bottom-up model describesinformation flow as a series of stages that transforms the input and passes it to the nextstage without any feedback or possibility of later stages of the process influencing earlierstages Elba (2006) also added that the ESL and EFL textbooks influenced by thisperspective include exercises that focus on literal comprehension and give little or noimportance to the reader's knowledge or experience with the subject matter, and the onlyinteraction is with the basic building blocks of sounds and words Most activities are basedon recognition and recall of lexical and grammatical forms with an emphasis on theperceptual and decoding dimension.

II.2.2.2 The top-down view of reading

The top-down approach to L2 learning strongly emphasizes the experience andknowledge of the learner In Nuttal's words, in top-down processing," we draw ourintelligence and experience - the prediction we can make, based on the schemata we haveacquired- to understand the text this kind of processing is used when we interpretassumptions and draw inferences." (Nuttal, 1996: 16) This approach is compared to aneagle's eye view of the landscape in the meaning that from a great height, the eagle can seea wide area spread out below; it understand the nature of the whole terrain, its generalpattern and the relationships between various parts of it, far better than an observer on theground Elba (2006) supports this approach by introducing the notions of meaningfullearning and rote learning An example of rote learning in her study is simply memorizinglists of isolated words or rules in a new language, where the information becomestemporary and subject to loss Meaningful learning, on the other hand, occurs when newinformation is presented in a relevant context and is related to what the learner alreadyknows, thereby being "easily integrated into one's existing cognitive structure" She alsoemphasises that learning that is not meaningful will not become permanent In this view,reading is not just extracting meaning from a text but a process of connecting informationin the text with the knowledge the reader brings to the act of reading Reading, in thissense, is "a dialogue between the reader and the text" (Grabe 1988, 56 as cited in Elba,2006) It is seen as an active cognitive process in which the reader's backgroundknowledge plays a key role in the creation of meaning Reading is not a passivemechanical activity but "purposeful and rational, dependent on the prior knowledge andexpectations of the reader (or learner) Reading is a matter of making sense of writtenlanguage rather than decoding print to sound

Apparently, top-down models have many superior strong points to bottom-upmodels To some researchers, these models still own some short comings Failure todistinguish adequately between beginning readers and fluent readers is said to be its mainweakness Moreover, Stanovich (1980) argues that the generation of hypotheses would bemore time consuming than decoding

II.2.2.3 The interactive view of reading

The interactive model takes into account the continuous interaction betweenbottom-up and top-down processing in the construction of the meaning of a text Althoughgood readers decode automatically with little cognitive effort, second language learnersneed help in decoding, since for them language is a key problem that cannot be solved byguessing The interactive model acknowledges that lower level processing skills areessential for fluent and accurate reading; it also emphasizes that as bottom-up processingbecomes more automatic, higher-level skills will become more engaged.

In interactive model, different processes are thought to be responsible forproviding information that is shared with other processes The information obtained fromeach type of processing is combined to determine the most appropriate interpretation ofthe printed page (Hayes, 1991)

To summarize, the appearance and popularity of interactive model show thatinteractive model is able to maximize the strengths and minimize the weaknesses of theseparate use of either bottom-up or top-down model The interaction of the two models isof much use as Nuttall concludes 'both approaches can be mobilized by conscious choice,and both are important strategies for readers' (Nuttall, 1996:17) In this view he suggestsusing the top-down approach, that is first activating all the prior knowledge you can aboutthe topic and the type of text and second, skimming to get the rough idea of the content andstructure when we start reading This enables you to have "an idea of the context and thegeneral direction of the argument or narrative" If the top-down approach does not provideyou with adequate understanding of the text, you use the bottom-up insights 'to weigh upcompeting interpretations.' And when you have already got the possible interpretation ofthe text, you assess its plausibility using top-down means (Nuttall, 1996:78)

II.2.3 Reading strategies /skills

Reading strategies( RSs) can be understood similarly to all other language learningstrategies and they have the same characteristics as other language strategies If Garner(1987) defines RSs as an action or series of actions employed in order to constructmeaning, Robb and Susser (1990) point out that RSs refer to the mental operationsinvolved when readers purposefully approach a text to make sense of what they read.

According to Duffy (1993; 232) using reading strategies means making 'plans for solvingproblems encounted in constructing meaning' Although many researchers have claimed onthe lack of consensus about the concise definition of the term of RSs (Paris, Wasik, andTurner, 1991; Ellis, 1994) Nuttall (1996) agrees that ' we can at least identify certainstrategies which readers can make conscious use of when reading difficult texts' and that 'the best way to acquire these is simply to read and read' but' there is evidence that strategytraining helps' In Salataci & Akyel (2002) point of view 'Reading researchers usuallydivide reading strategies into two major categories: cognitive and metacognitive' They citeDevine's opinion about this by showing out that "skimming a text for key informationinvolves using a cognitive strategy, whereas assessing the effectiveness of skimming forgathering textual information would be a metacognitive strategy" (Devine, 1993; 112 ascited in Salataci & Akyel, 2002)

The following diagram shows some strategies usually employed byefficient readers as pointed out by Nuttall (1996)

Efficient reading

knowing what you want

from reading Choosing the right material Using the text effectively

Flexibility Making use of all the

resources Improving readingspeed

Adequate understanding Scanning and skimming

Practising scanning Practising skimming

From this point of view, knowing what you want from reading is not of muchimportant if you are reading for pleasure but you can make your job easier if you candefine your purpose when you are reading to learn And when a reader has already defined

his objective, he must decide what resources to consult in order not to waste time on textsthat do not help by using such resources as titles and headings, the blurb, the table ofcontent, ect and also advice and a bibliography from a knowledgeable person if possible.

The next strategy to use by an efficient reader is using the text effectively by (a)reading flexibly, (b) making use of all the resources and (c) improving reading speed.

The first technique in this strategy is reading flexibly which involves using thetechniques of scanning and skimming to decide which parts of the text to ignore, which toskim to get the gist, and then which parts ( if any) to study closely in order to accomplishtheir purpose of reading (Nuttall, 1996; 43) Specifically, scanning involves readingquickly to get an overview prior to in-depth reading Although you may still need to readthe entire text, by scanning first you can decide where you want to concentrate your time.And by skimming we locate specific information to give an overview of a text to decidewhether a text is relevant to our study This overview will help you decide whether youshould read further, and how useful the document might be for your reading purpose.Scanning and skimming are important as they do not remove the need for careful reading,but they enable the reader to select texts or parts of texts that are worth spending time onbut the distinction between them is not particularly important (Nuttall, 1996)

Secondly, using the text effectively also involves making use of all the resourcesthe text provides such as graphic conventions (lay out, spacing, indentation, punctuation,symbols), figures, and other reference apparatus ( appendix, notes, bibliographicalreferences in the text, lists of symbols, abbreviations, list of special terms, glossaries) asthey enable us to read selectively ( omitting irrelevant sections) and offer some clues tomeaning by signaling what we can expect to find in which part of the text

Last but not least, improving reading speed is also an important technique in thisstrategy Speed is one of the factors to consider when judging someone's readingefficiency If two readers understand a text equally well, the one who performs morequickly is judged more efficient Readers can speed up their work by "finding the relevanttexts/ sections and focusing on these" (Nuttall , 1996, 54)

Reading skills are divided into word-attack skills and text-attack skills by Nuttall(1996) In the first place, word-attack skills are those of interpreting structural clues,

inferring from context and using the dictionary Firstly, two kinds of structural information

involving in the first skill here are the grammatical function of the word (its place in thesentence) and the morphology of the word (its internal structure) Secondly, inferringmeaning from context means getting a rough meaning from the context in which itoccurred And lastly, it is essential for students to realize that they can cope without adictionary and they should be discouraged from using one But 'any students reading for aserious study purpose need to be able to look up key words So they must learn to use adictionary very effectively and with discretion.' (Nuttall, 1996; 76)

The eight text-attack skills are sub-divided into sub-skills by Nuttall (1996) asfollows:

1 Understanding syntax

2 Recognizing and interpreting cohesive devices includes:

a interpreting pro-forms such as it, our, his, this, those, then , one, ones andcomparative ( smaller, same, additional )

b Interpreting elliptical expressions in sentences such as The days are hot andthe night cool

c Interpreting lexical cohesion includes synonymy, hyponymy, metaphor, structuring words, pin-down words

text-3 Interpreting discourse markers Those markers include:

a Markers that signal the sequence of event such as then, first, at once, next,the following day

b Markers that signal discourse organization such as that is to say, forexample, to resume, in short

c Markers that signal the writer's point of view such as moreover,incidentally, similarity, therefore, in order to, if, certainly

4 Recognizing functional value: the three functions that a single sentence canperform are:

a Independent functions (associated with propositional meaning).

b Text -dependent functions (associated with contextual meaning) c Interaction-dependent (associated with pragmatic meaning) 5 Recognizing text organization.

6 Recognizing the presuppositions underlying the text The presuppositions can bedivided into two groups:

a The knowledge and experience that the writer expects the reader to have.b The opinions, attitudes, emotion that the writer expects the reader to share,or at least to understand

7 Recognizing implications and making inferences

8 Prediction

With the presupposition of the reader's adequate vocabulary, text-attack skills are ofvaluable help in tackling unfamiliar words and clear away any lockage of comprehension.These skills will assist readers to have proper understanding of a text

There are a lot of other authors offering their own lists in order to best express theirpoint of view about reading strategies and reading skills but only the above werementioned due to the limitation of time and the scope of this study Nevertheless, whatthey all have in common is that these skills are interrelated and should be used flexibly Nosingle skill can lead to efficient reading but a combination and recycle of skills over textsand tasks.

II.2.4 Types of reading

There are a great deal of ways to classify reading such as the classificationaccording to manners of reading and the classification according to the purposes of

reading In this study the two kinds of reading mentioned are intensive reading andextensive reading

Intensive reading "involves approaching the text under the guidance of a teacher ora task which forces the students to focus on the text" (Nuttall, 2000:38) Brown considersintensive reading as "a classroom-oriented activity in which students focus on the linguisticor semantic details of a passage" (Brown, 1999: 297) The objective of intensive reading is

to achieve a full understanding of the text, not only of what it means but also of how themeaning is produced Through intensive reading, the reader must arrive at a profound anddetailed understanding of logical arguments, the rhetorical arrangement, the pattern of thetext, the attitude and purposes of the writer and his linguistic means to achieve hispurposes Intensive reading has the following characteristics:

1 The reading materials may not be relevant to learners' ability and interest as theyare chosen by teachers not learners

2 In doing intensive reading, the actual amount of time spent on reading is verylittle as a lot of procedures such as listening to the teacher's instructions, readingcomprehension questions, writing answers to comprehensive questions, discussing thecontent of the text, doing pos-reading activities have to be followed

3 Reading speed is usually slower than faster as learners have to stop at somemoments during their reading in the classroom to look up new words in dictionary, ask theteacher for a definition or analyze the text by reading it word-by word or sentence-by-sentence

4 Reading in intensive reading approach is not individual as learners are assumedto interact more with the teacher than with the text

What is meant by all the characteristics of intensive reading approach mentionedabove is not that intensive reading is bad, only that it is limited in what it tries to do

Another type of reading is extensive reading In comparison with intensive reading,extensive reading approach is argued to be more beneficial to learners in foreign languageacquisition in general and reading ability in particular Due to the importance of extensivereading in foreign language learning, the next section will be devoted to the discussion onthis kind of reading

II.3 Definition of extensive reading.

A lot of trials have been made on working out a thorough definition of extensivereading by those who are interested in the approach One of these is the definition byHelgesen (2005): Students read a lot of easy, enjoyable books Obviously, this definitionfails to help readers imagine the whole picture of extensive reading since it only mentions

generally the amount of books and what kinds of books to read without the purpose toread

In "Handout from the Extensive reading Forum" Omiya (1998) introduces adefinition as follow:

*Extensive Reading usually means reading a lot of self-selected easy,interesting texts, and doing few or no exercises afterwards

*Extensive Reading is a way to teach a foreign language (in general) and away to teach reading (in particular

Although this definition can show the role of extensive reading in languageacquisition, it does not mention the purpose to read

In Susser and Robb's (1990) point of view extensive reading is reading (a) of largequantities of material or long texts; (b) for global or general understanding; (c) with theintention of obtaining pleasure from the text Further, because (d) reading is individualized,with students choosing the books they want to read, (e) the books are not discussed inclass What makes this definition more satisfying than those mentioned above is thesummary of the general characteristics of extensive reading it provides including the issuesrelated to the amount of and primary purpose of reading and the role of learners in doingsuch activity However, because of the last characteristic that is the books are not discussedin class, this definition is still not suitable to this study

Given the fact that there is hardly any definition that can work in all contexts, it isnecessary to give out a working definition for this study Considering various definitionsand the context of the study, our working definition is that extensive reading is reading (a)without help (b) authentic texts in the foreign language (c) at students' own level ofproficiency (d) for general or global understanding (e) with primary intention of obtainingpleasure from the materials and (f) done out of class without the added pressure of acomprehension test to follow

Large quantities are essential for this kind of reading to be "extensive," but thequestion of how much "extensive" is still controversial Our students are advised to read asmuch as possible because the more they read, the greater they benefit from reading FromDay and Bamford's point of view "the quantity of reading is not an absolute number of

hours or pages but depends on teacher and student perceptions of how extensive readingdiffers from other reading classes; this will vary according to type of program, level, andother variables (Day and Bamford ,2002)

The level of global understanding required varies with the student's languageproficiency, the nature of the texts, and other factors The aim of reading for pleasure canalso be derived from the fact that students do not have to face the pressure of completingthe tasks provided after reading activity Moreover, taking part in extensive readingstudents do not have to face the time pressure set by their teachers or any tasks involved inthe reading Most of the reading tasks are done out of class, therefore students have todevelop the ability to read on their own, without the teacher's help Students can read withpleasure within their own comfort zone, both in the students' own time when and where thestudent chooses, or inside the classroom when part or all of a classroom period is set asidefor silent, self-selected reading

With regard to authentic texts, Nuttall gives her idea about this as follow "The

reading skill is of no practical use unless it enables us to read texts we actually require forsome real-life purpose At least some of the practice should be with target texts, i.e the sortof texts the students will want to read after they have completed their course." (Nuttall,1996; 32)

A few other points on the definition of extensive reading should be clarified Thefirst one is about selecting texts Usually in an extensive reading program, learners choosewhat they want to read This can be inferred that learners can choose texts they expect tounderstand, to enjoy or to learn from Correlative to this principle, learners are also free,indeed encouraged, to stop reading anything they find to be too difficult, or that turns outnot to be of interest If they have chosen correctly, the texts should be easy to read forgeneral understanding But, according to Nuttall "some classes have such specific needsthat most of the materials must be collected by the teachers" (Nuttall, 1996: 173) Fromthis point of view, she suggests that the materials, in addition to being interesting, some ofthem at least should "represent the kind of material students will need to handle" when theyfinish the program However, she also mentions that "it is often better to begin on materialschosen chiefly for enjoyment, until reading skills improve" even if you are trainingspecifically to read, for instance, university level medical texts

In comparison to intensive reading, extensive reading has the followingcharacteristics.(Table 1)

Table 1 Factors and characteristics of intensive and extensive reading approaches

Intensive reading approachExtensive reading approach

Reading is for language skills andknowledge

Reading is for pleasure, information,and general understanding

The teacher selects reading materials Learners select reading materialsReading materials are usually not

varied

Reading materials are varied.

Only short reading passages are used Long and full texts are used.Reading materials may not be relevant

to learners' linguistic competence

Reading materials are well withinlearners' linguistic competence.

Learners actually do little reading Learners do a lot of reading.Learners read words by words or

sentence by sentence

Learners read with ideas

Reading speed is usually slower thanfaster

Reading speed is usually faster thanslower

Learners have no chance to activatetheir background knowledge- schema-while reading

Learners have chance to activate theirbackground knowledge-schema- whilereading

Reading is mostly done in class Reading is mostly done out of class Reading is not individual and personal Reading is individual and personal.The teacher usually instructs and

controls learners' reading

The teacher usually instructs andmodels learners' reading

II.4 Research into the effectiveness of extensive reading on language acquisition

On the whole the effectiveness of extensive reading on language acquisition issummarized in the slogan cited in Nuttall's "The best way to improve your language of aforeign language is to go and live among its speakers The next best way is to readextensively in it." (Nuttall, 1996; 128) Studies on language acquisition have a great dealof evidence for the assumptions made about the benefits of extensive reading on learning

as well as teaching a foreign language For the aim of this study, some studies on theeffects of extensive reading on learners' reading proficiency will be discussed in thissection

In the first place, extensive reading has been claimed to help increase learners'knowledge of vocabulary and grammar In their study implementing on children of gradesthree and twelve ( US grade level) Nagy and Herman(1987) found out that the childrenlearned up to 3000 words a year and that only a small percentage of such learning was dueto direct vocabulary instruction, the remainder being due to acquisition of words fromreading Rodrigo, Krashen and Bribbons in their study in 2004 found that those who tookpart in an extensive reading program outperformed those in a traditional class on achecklist vocabulary test and on a grammar test The subjects in their study-fourth semesterstudents of Spanish as a foreign language at the university level in the US-were grouped inan extensive reading class that combined assigned and self-selected reading; and a'Reading-discussion' class that consisted of assigned reading, debates and discussions Thereading program proved to have effect on students in both classes in comparison tostudents in traditional teaching method class

Extensive reading is also proved to lead to improvement in reading proficiency Inhis study conducted to determine if young adult students’ reading rate over two semesterscould be increased through ER in Yemen, Bell (2001) used an intensive reading class as acontrol group The participants’ English proficiency was at a beginning level The meanrate in the post-tests of the treatment group improved from 68.10 to 127.53 words perminute (wpm) and the control group showed gains from 78.45 to 92.54 wpm He used t-tests on pretests and posttests to compare means between groups and found that thedifferences were statistically significant Results indicate that subjects exposed to"extensive" reading achieved both significantly faster reading speeds and significantlyhigher scores on measures of reading comprehension.

In another study on the same issue which Lai (1993) conducted over 4 weeks onlower secondary students aged 11 to 15 in Hong Kong he also found the evidence for theimprovement on students' reading proficiency There were three treatment groups, nocontrol group, and the students’ English proficiency was heterogeneous Participants tookpretests and posttests, and the researcher used a t-test to compare means within groups The

mean rate in the posttests in Treatment 1 improved from 165 to 226 wpm, in Treatment 2from 85 to 181 wpm, and in Treatment 3 from 106 to 121 wpm

Sharing the same interest, Robb and Susser (1989) conducted a study over twosemesters, on freshmen, at a university in Japan The participants’ English proficiency wasnot mentioned They were divided into two groups: an ER group and IR group They tookpretests and posttests, and researchers conducted an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) tocompare the means between the groups The mean rate of the posttest in the treatmentgroup (ER) improved from 79.31 to 86.55 wpm, but not in the control group (IR), whichfell from 78.50 to 76.75 wpm They found that the mean differences in the posttest werestatistically significant However, readability of the rate texts was not mentioned

In the experimental study over six months done by Lituanas, Jacons and Rynandya(2001), the 60 students at a Philippines secondary school were divided into two groups.Almost all students (ninety percent) of the school came from low-incomes homes wherereading materials tend to be scarce In this study, the control group studied via a traditionalapproach, focusing on intensive reading and phonics and the extensive reading class readself-selected materials and did a variety of post-reading activities The results of the t-testsshowed that after the 6-month experiment, there was a significant difference between thetwo groups in terms of reading proficiency However, there were some limitations in thisstudy such as the two groups were managed by two different teachers (this may interferewith the interpretation of test results), and extensive reading was done in class (notdifferent from intensive reading- reading in class under teacher's control)

Taguchi et al (2004) conducted a study on university students for 17 weeks inJapan Their English proficiency was at a beginning level The participants were dividedinto two groups: an extensive reading group and a repeated reading group The totalamount of time the participants in the extensive reading group spent on sustained silentreading was from 733 to 901 minutes, and the number of pages they read was from 147 to337 with an average of 205 pages To measure rate, the participants read an entire text,measured the time they spent, and calculated their wpm They read the passage 5 times,and their rate was measured each time To compare means, only their first reading rate wastargeted The results in this study showed that within themselves, both repeated readingand extensive reading groups increased their comprehension scores on both pretests and

posttests as the number of readings multiplied In terms of comparisons between groups,the RR and ER groups performed similarly on pretest and posttest comprehensionmeasures

Another study was carried out by Mason and Krashen (1997) through threeexperiments In Experiment 1, "reluctant" EFL students at the university level in Japan didextensive reading for one semester They began the semester far behind traditionally taughtcomparison students on a cloze test, but nearly caught up to them by the end of thesemester In the second experiment, four intact classes of EFL students were used with thetotal sample size of 128 students, two classes from the English literature department at ahighly regarded four-year university, and two from a junior college The experimentalclasses in each institution read from graded readers; the students from the four-year collegewere able to move to authentic texts in the second semester Students read at their ownlevel and at their own pace The results show that on the reading comprehension test, bothextensive reading groups were significantly better than the comparison group, and were notsignificantly different from each other The subjects in the third experiment were dividedin to three groups including an English response group (students participated in anextensive reading program and wrote their responses in English.); a Japanese responsegroup (students did extensive reading, but wrote their summaries in their first language,Japanese.); and a comparison group On the reading comprehension test, both extensivereading groups were significantly better than the comparison group, and were notsignificantly different from each other Interestingly, the study found out that the extensivereaders who responded in Japanese improved their speed significantly more than those whoresponded in English

In summary, the studies presented above have shown some evidence to prove thegreat impact of extensive reading on learners' reading proficiency Nevertheless, due tosome drawbacks, their results have been limited in their own contexts Sharing the sameinterest in examining the effect of an extensive reading program on the students' readingproficiency, this experimental research is conducted in the context of ULSA with theintention of encouraging those who are interested in extensive reading as a remedialreading teaching approach to improve learners' reading proficiency

II 5 Conclusion

This chapter so far has presented the relevant literature including the theoreticalbackground of reading activities, definition of extensive reading and the benefits ofextensive reading on language learning On the whole, extensive reading, if being well-conducted, is believed to result in achievement in learners' reading proficiency and isproved to be effective in a great deal of different contexts However, one may wonder ifextensive reading does have effect on learners' reading proficiency in the context of ULSAwhere the language teaching and learning conditions are different This study is conductedin order to find out the answer to this question The following chapter will discuss themethodology of the study in the light of the above-mentioned theories and practices

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGYIII 1 Introduction

This chapter aims to provide readers detailed description of how the study wascarried out Firstly, there will be information about the research questions and detaileddescription of variables of the study Next, the readers will be provided information aboutthe data collection instruments as well as the subjects of the study Data collectionprocedures and data analysis will be presented in the following section

III.2 Description of variables

As mentioned in chapter I the aim of this study is to examine the effectiveness ofextensive reading on students' reading comprehension at University of Labor and SocialAffairs In other words, experimental design is used in this study to determine how theextensive reading program (the independent variable) causes the changes in students'reading comprehension (the dependent variable)

 Independent variable

An extensive reading program may be measured by the amount of texts read bystudents and that of time spent on extensive reading Although the texts selected bystudents in this study were considered to be at the same level, they might be different fromone another in terms of length Therefore it would be unsatisfying to compare a studentwho had finished one text of shorter length with another who had finished one of longer Incomparison with the amount of texts, the amount of time spent on extensive reading waseasier to controlled and measured As reading is mostly done outside the classroom,students not have to suffer from time pressure and they were free to choose the timesuitable for reading If two readers understand a text equally well, the one who performsmore quickly is judged more efficient Readers can speed up their work by "finding therelevant texts/ sections and focusing on these" (Nuttall , 1996, 54) In short, the amount ofreading time would be the better choice to be the independent variable in this study To getthis type of data the students in the experimental group were asked to submit a "weeklyreading log”, which included information on the texts they had read and the amount of

time they spent on reading per week All these weekly resutls were then summed up toyield the final ones for later analysis

 Dependent variable

With regard to the dependent variable, comprehension in this study might bedefined as" the ability to use information in a text to accomplish a related writing task"

(Johnson, 1992) The values of this variable were measured from the scores that students

gained in a test designed and administered to the students in both control and experimentalgroups

III.3 Subjects

The subjects of the study were selected from two classes in the Insurance Faculty ofthe university Of the 93 students attending the program, the subjects of the study wereonly 80 students selected from 2 elementary classes The reason for this will be explainedin the next paragraph

In making an experimental research, to make sure that differences in the results ofthe study is due to differences in the two different treatments, rather than to other factors,"nothing except the planned treatment being studied is different for the two groups."(Johnson, 1992; 177) To get this result, all the other conditions- such as the teacher,curriculum, environment, materials, and so on - should be exactly the same in the twogroups

As stated earlier, these two classes, which were arranged in such a way that theirmembers' overall English readiness was homogenous according to the result of theplacement test at the beginning of the course, were assigned to the researcher as well as theteacher by the person who was in charge of arranging the teaching schedule for theteaching staff so that the removal of any individuals from one group to the other isimpossible All the students in these two classes were at the ages from 19 to 20 and hadbeen living in a variety of provinces in the north and central of Vietnam This may beinferred that their social and cultural background was relatively homogeneous Moreover,the participants were selected in the second semester with the assumption that they had hadenough time to get used to the teaching and learning environment at the university that wasquite different from that at high school However the two sample classes were not the same

in size, which numbered 45 and 48 respectively In addition to this there was a differencein gender in these two groups The former consisted of 19 male students and 26 femalestudents while the later had 21 male students and 27 female students After considering allthese factors in sampling with regard to a sudden event that one or more students in eachgroup dropped either the pre-test or the post-test during the experimental study, the finalsample of 80 were chosen and divided equally into two groups ( 15 males and 25 femalesin each), that is the control group and the experimental group The other students in the twoclasses still attended the program but no data were collected on these students Once again,the decision on which one would be the control group and which one would be theexperimental group was made at random In short the students in the two groups wererepresentative of the first year students who made up the target population of the study

Of the 40 students in the control group(G1), based on the results of the pretest, 13students with a score below 5.0(out of a possible 10.0) were regarded as bad readers and

were grouped in bad control group (BCG), 15 students with a score from 5.0 to 8.0 wereperceived as medium readers and grouped in medium control group (MCG) and the rest 12students with a score of 8.0 and above were good readers and made up the good controlgroup (GCG)

In the same manner, the experimental group (G2) was sub-divided in to the badexperimental group (BEG) with 15 students, the medium experimental group (MEG) with14 students and the good experimental group (GEG) with 11 students The

purpose of such division was to see which sub-group gave the bestperformance in the post-test The detail of the groups was described asfollows:

Demographic factor Control GroupExperimental Group

Sex (M = male; F= female)

5M 8F

4M7F

Pretest results mean= 2.01

mean= 6.56

mean = 8.68

mean = 1.86

mean =6.28

mean =8.43

Table 2: Background information of informants III.4 Tests.

In this study, two separate tests, a pretest and a posttest, were used to collect dataon the students’ reading comprehension proficiency as well as their reading strategies(RSs) used Therefore, the tests should assess not only language and grammar items thatthe students had learnt, but also should include variety of reading tasks they had practicedduring the course or part of course such as multiple choice, true or false, gap filling, mainidea, etc…

It was expected that in order to fulfill the tests successfully, the students wouldprobably use different appropriate RSs Therefore, it was very likely that the more differenttypes of reading tasks the students fulfilled the more different RSs they probably used.Through completing variety of reading tasks in the tests, the students would haveopportunities to apply variety of RSs, and as the result, they were supposed to providemore accurate information about their reading comprehension

In fact, in order to reach those aims of the tests, both pre- and post-tests weredesigned based on the format of the progress tests and extension units in the students’

course book Lifelines Elementary by Hutchinson (1999) Specifically, both pre- and

post-tests consists of five tasks as presented below

- Task I is a multiple choice task with 8 comprehension questions In order to

complete the reading task in part I successfully, it was expected that the students would

apply different RSs, such as, 'skimming for general impression or gist', ' scanning forspecific information', 'understanding the relationships between words and paragraphs(

text-attack skills)

- Task II is a true or false task with 6 statements It was supposed that the students

would employ variety of RSs to fulfill the task effectively, such as ‘recognising opinionsand view point’, ‘recognising main ideas’, ' interpreting information', and makinginferences'

- Task III is a kind of ‘filling in the gaps’ task including 6 sentences with 8 blanks.

To complete the task of part III well, the students were expected to utilize such RSs as

'scanning for specific information',' identifying parts of speech', 'inferring from context','interpreting lexical cohesion'

- Task IV: In this task students had to answer four comprehension questions that

demanded them to use such skills as recognising opinions and view point’, ‘recognisingmain ideas’, ' interpreting information', and making inferences', 'inferring from context'

-Task V: This task requires students to get the main idea of the text so that students

need to apply such RSs as 'skimming for general impression', recognising main idea','interpreting information'

The more details of the pre- and posttest are given as follows.

The pretest was given to the students in the week before the program wasimplemented The content of the pretest covered the followings.

- Grammar: Present simple tense, past simple tense, adverbs of frequency,

countable and uncountable nouns, model verb can, prepositions of time, of

- Vocabulary: words and expressions of different topics, such as shopping,

weather, transport, likes and dislikes, food and drinks, animals, daily activities,free time activities

- Structure: simple sentence

- Reading sub-skills: reading for specific information

- Types of reading exercises: multiple choices, true or false, filling in the gaps

with missing words, rearranging sentences to make paragraphs, labelingpictures, matching lines to make complete sentences.

The results of the pretest were used to identify effective and less effective groups ofreaders and set up students’ reading comprehension proficiency baseline.

 Posttest: