Theory and Reading: Instruction in EFL settings 23 October - 29 October

Driven to read: Enthusiastic Readers in a Japanese high school’s extensive reading program

by Patrick B. Judge

Key Points: This is ER in an ideal setting: small class sizes, enthusiastic students, and high English proficiency. Through interviews with Japanese students in an international school, readers of this study learn what is going through the minds of highly motivated students in an ER program. Judge talks about the importance of 'flow' which is when educational settings are ideal and students reach a state of mind in which learning becomes enthralling. We also learn the importance of the students' perceived ideal future self and how reading is an important factor in this.

My Interaction With the Article:

1. One could say that this article is an argument for why ER is great for settings with high level students, progressive schools, and small class sizes, but not for more 'typical' settings with large classes and high pressure for exam preparation.
2. Is it safe to say that extensive reading may not work if students do not have a strong desire to read for pleasure in their L1?

Two Types of Input Modification and EFL Reading Comprehension: Simplification Versus Elaboration

by Sun-young Oh

Key Points: Modification of reading materials to make them easier to understand for English learners can be done in two ways, simplification and elaboration. This paper argues that elaboration is better than simplification because it prepares the students for the ultimate goal of reading of authentic texts. Simplification means making sentences less complex by reducing clauses and simplifying vocabulary by replacing less commonly used words with commonly used synonyms. Elaboration adds to reading by inserting into the reading explanations of uncommon words and restating ideas in different words. The experiment, which compared groups six groups of Korean high school girls, high and low reading proficiency groups for each reading type, unmodified, simplified, and elaborated, showed that students performed better with modified texts, but there wasn't a significant difference between the performances of the simplified and elaborated text groups. Oh concludes that elaborated texts are better choice because they expose students to the authentic text without reducing their reading proficiency.

My Interaction With the Article:

1. It seems to me that the elaborated texts are a mixture of the simplified and unmodified texts. Meaning that if you take the simplified texts and inserted them into the unmodified texts you would get the elaborated texts. Could this be why the test results were were similar? Becuase the only difference between the two modified texts was that the elaborated text contained text that the readers did not understand and possibly ignored.
2. The difference that Oh was trying to show between the two modified texts may have been better shown through interviews than multiple choice tests. I would like to know which type the students preferred and how their approaches varied between the types of texts.
3. When I'm selecting texts for my classes will it be clear which type of text it is? Which type of modified text is most common?
4. How do texts that were written specifically for English Learners factor into this study? Is there a clear distinction between these texts and texts that were modified?

Investigating Teacher Attitudes to Extensive Reading Practices in Higher Education: Why isn't Everyone Doing It?

by John Macalister

Key Points: Research has shown that there are benefits to teaching reading through extensive reading in EFL settings. This research seeks to understand why ER is not more prevalent by using phone interviews with university teachers in EFL programs. Specifically, the interviews sought to answer two questions 1) What do such teachers know about extensive reading? 2) How do such teachers incorporate reading into their programs? Macalster explains teacher cognition, which is the effect in which factors such as background knowledge, experiences, training, beliefs, and context, influence what the teacher does in the classroom. The results of the ten question survey showed the that teachers surveyed felt positively toward the concept of extensive reading but they were unsure how to implement it into their classrooms. Some problems cited were, lack of books and institutional support, time constrains, and difficulty with assessment.

My Interaction With the Article:

1. I think we can see from this article that ER requires a lot of institutional support and it seems that only researchers and teachers can see the benefits of extensive reading and not students or school officials. I think it would benefit teachers and researchers to show a connection between ER and improved writing and speaking skills because time spent on ER will cut-in on time focused on those disciplines.
2. I think that we also learn from this survey that teachers rely heavily on their surroundings. This is an approach to reading that relies heavily on resources and time.
3. So far, I haven't read much about the variance in benefits ER may have from age group to age group. Is the an ideal age for ER.