The Effect of Pleasure Reading on Japanese University EFL Learners’ Reading Rates (original) (raw)
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Reading in a foreign language, 2017
Fluency development instruction lacks in reading in Japanese as a foreign language instruction. This study examined how 34 upper-intermediate level learners of Japanese responded when they first experienced pleasure reading and speed reading. The participants also engaged in intensive reading, the main component of which was translation. Survey results indicated that the two novel approaches were more welcomed than translation. There was a positive correlation between the participants’ favorable ratings of pleasure reading and speed reading. The participants exhibited flexibility toward the two novel approaches in that they were willing to be meaningfully engaged in pleasure reading, whereas they put complete understanding before fluent reading when speed reading. The latter phenomenon may be explained by their predominantlyaccuracy-oriented attitudes, fostered by long-term exposure to the grammar-translation method. The study’s results imply that key to successful fluency developme...
The Role of Pleasure Reading in Enhancing Reading Speed and Reading Comprehension: A Case Study
Abstract Effective reading is mandatory for the students to keep abreast themselves of the vast knowledge around them. Venkateswaran (1995) defines reading as a psycholinguistic process by which the reader reconstructs a message, which has been encoded by a writer. He views reading as an interaction among three essential factors: background knowledge, conceptual abilities and learning strategies. Slow reading is a widely recognized problem, in the realm of ESL/EFL, which hinders effective learning (Hamp-Lyon, 1983; Cooper, 1984). And keeping in view the same scenario, this study investigated 74 Saudi medical undergraduates studying at College of Medicine and Medical Sciences (CMMS), Taif University to determine the positive overbearing of an extensive pleasure reading project on reading speed, reading comprehension and their attitude towards reading in their leisure time. The reading speed and reading comprehension of the participants were calculated by using graded readers in the beginning and at the end of this project. The data were scientifically analyzed and the results reported that the gains in the reading speed and reading comprehension of the experimental group were significantly higher than the control group. Furthermore, the questionnaire data revealed that the pleasure reading had a positive change in their behavior and majority of the samples declared that they would continue reading in their leisure time in the future as well. Key Words: Pleasure reading, top-down, bottom-up, loud reading, and silent reading
2018
The orthographic system of Japanese is unique in using two types of syllabaries and logographs, which renders mastering reading in Japanese difficult, in particular to learners from alphabetical language backgrounds. This difficulty is exacerbated when learners of Japanese proceed to advanced-levels and begin to read demanding expository and academic texts. This study examines fluency development in reading instruction targeting advanced-learners of Japanese who learned to read expository texts in genres such as history and economics. Specifically, it investigates the effects of speed reading and extensive reading as fluency development instructional practices. Quantitative analyses show that the practice of speed reading significantly increased participants’ reading rates for both specially prepared and authentic expository texts. Qualitative analyses demonstrate that the practice of extensive reading dramatically revitalized the participants’ previously dwindling motivation to rea...
This study investigated the effects of a six-month course in speed reading on three areas of reading proficiency development: (1) general reading comprehension; (2) knowledge of high-frequency vocabulary; and (3) reading-rate and accuracy. The participants (N = 105) were Japanese students studying English as a foreign language in Grade 10 of a Japanese private senior high school, randomly assigned to an experimental group (n =51), which received the speed reading treatment, and a control group (n =54), which received supplementary activities focused on high-frequency vocabulary development. The findings indicated that both the experimental and control groups made significant improvements in general reading comprehension. However, there was no significant difference between the experimental group (M = 14.27, SD = 4.01) and control group M = 14.31, SD = 4.07; t (103) = -.051, p= .959. Both the experimental group (M = 1.29, SD = 2.52) and control group (M = 1.35, SD = 2.49) increased their knowledge of high-frequency vocabulary. However, again there was no significant difference between the experimental group (M = 25.78, SD = 2.96) and control group M = 25.61, SD = 2.24; t (103) = -.337, p= .737. In terms of reading-rate development, the findings indicated a significant increase (M = 47, SD = 41.99) t (50) = 8.01, p < .0005. Finally, while higher levels of general reading comprehension and high reading speeds were correlated, the relationship was a small, r=.19, n = 51. The range of findings emerging from this current study adds weight to the existing research and go beyond those conducted in the Japanese context to date. One of the important questions these findings raise relates to the greater influence that other variables, such as lexico-grammatical knowledge, might have on the development of reading comprehension at this level of language proficiency.
Reading Performance of Japanese High School Learners Following a One-Year Extensive Reading Program
Reading in a foreign language, 2019
The present study investigates the effects of extensive reading on developing the language knowledge and reading abilities of high school learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) over the course of one school year. Participants were divided into control (n = 205) and experimental groups (n = 200), with the former receiving regular grammar instruction and the latter receiving extensive reading instruction. Preand posttests consisting of a grammar and vocabulary section and a reading section were conducted to test the effects of the extensive reading program. The study further divided the participants into three proficiency groups. The results showed that the scores of the middleand lower-proficiency groups increased dramatically compared to the higherproficiency group. These findings suggest that the participants activated the knowledge they had learned in junior high school through the one-year extensive reading course, resulting in the improvement of their language knowledge...
The Effects of Extensive Reading on Learners' Reading Ability Development
2004
This paper reported two studies on the effect of an extensive reading program (ERP) on the reading development and learning attitudes of Taiwanese 2nd-year junior high school students. In each study, two ERP groups using graded readers (GR) and books for native English speaking children (BNESC) respectively, and one control group receiving grammar-based instruction, were involved. The results showed that when the reading time was limited and only reading was involved in the experiment, the reading speed of the three groups was improved, but they performed differently in the language tests after the experiment, and also their attitudes became negative to English learning and reading. When the time was doubled and collaborative activities were included, the two ERP groups came out as clearly better to the control group in all aspects of language development, and also developed positive attitudes. This suggested that the longer the learners are immersed in a pleasurable and meaningful ...
The Reading Matrix : an International Online Journal, 2015
A perennial challenge to second language educators and learners is getting sufficient input in settings where the L2 is not widely used, in this case beginning-level American university students learning Japanese. Reading is a significant means of getting L2 input, with recent calls for attention to reading and authentic texts as curriculum components for language learners at all levels. Nonetheless, L2 learners do not read much. This underscores a significant impediment, which is L2 learners’ lack of reading fluency. Using a time-series design, this report focused on a theory-based reading fluency program called Repeated Reading in which learners read a text repeatedly both silently and with audio support (where a text is read aloud while learners follow along silently). Engaging in a moderate-intensity 23-treatment program over a full semester, 14 beginning Japanese language learners in a U.S. university increased their hiragana character and word decoding skills, and improved the...
2018
Extensive reading (ER) plays a prominent role in EFL classrooms as it provides learners with English input in various contexts. This study has two aims: to investigate how the development of grammatical knowledge is related to the development of reading rates and to ascertain the reading behaviors of learners who developed grammatical knowledge and fluency and of those who did not. A total of 431 Japanese university students participated in the study: 247 in ER classes and 184 in the control group, where textbook-focused teaching was implemented. A latent profile analysis was conducted to find latent classes of related cases (individuals) from multivariate data. Three classes emerged, and they were named Classes 1 to 3. The results showed the grammar gain scores and reading rate gain scores were almost positive across all three classes. A detailed analysis of the reading behaviors of different class members showed similar reading patterns.