Korean College Students' Experiences of Extensive Reading in English Outside the Classroom

Abstract

Despite the growing importance of English reading abilities for college students, extensive reading in its genuine form has been rarely implemented to college students. Thus, the present study examines the feasibility of independent practice of extensive reading in English among Korean college students and observes their development both in linguistic and affective domains through the course of an extensive reading program. Ten college students with mixed genders, grades, and majors volunteered to participate in the study, and they read one graded reader at a week during their eight-week summer vacation. For analysis, their reading journals and both pre-experiment and post-experiment interviews were used, and the data were analyzed according to the generic process of qualitative data analysis. Out of the ten participants, nine completed the eight-week program while one participant dropped out after the third week. Among the nine participants who completed the program, seven participants evaluated that the experience was satisfactory while the rest two mentioned that it was not very helpful. When it comes to their English language abilities, first, participants learned a number of new words from each book. They pointed out that seeing new words repeatedly in many different contexts helped them to retain those words. Also, the various genres of the graded readers provided participants with a list of genre-specific vocabulary, which they found very useful. Second, they positively responded to native-like expressions or idioms most of which they had not seen before in other reading materials. Third, they noticed various grammar points such as prepositions, adverbs, auxiliaries, and verb tense, all of which are difficult for L2 learners to master. Fourth, the seven participants who evaluated the program was satisfactory raised their awareness of well-written sentences in graded readers. They enjoyed the way how authors creatively used English, and they thought of a number of ways to improve their current writing abilities. Last but not least, most satisfied participants made improvement in their reading rate. In regards to the affective aspects of the program, all of the participants commented that the experience was fun and enjoyable. In addition, all of the participants mentioned that the experience helped them to lower the pressure of reading texts in English, which consequently led them to build confidence and motivation for reading in English. Lastly, the seven satisfied participants turned into autonomous learners in that they searched for their own ways of assisting extensive reading. The fact that most participants successfully completed the present extensive reading program is a welcoming result in that they practiced extensive reading as an independent reader. This means that extensive reading outside the classroom is a viable learning method for college students. Furthermore, most participants made gains in both linguistic and affective areas within the short period of time. Therefore, the current study calls for more attention to be paid to extensive reading for college students. The concept of extensive reading should be thoroughly introduced to college-level learners of English so that they can choose books that they want to read and to read them at their own pace. Also, they should be informed on the numerous benefits of extensive reading so that they can expect that they will improve in vocabulary, writing, and reading abilities in general. Reading instructors in all educational settings should provide information on extensive reading and encourage students to become an autonomous reader. In addition, both reading instructors and students should acknowledge that they should take full advantage of students individual learning contexts so that students can eventually become an independent, life-long reader.

Key words: extensive reading, feasibility, graded readers, linguistic gains, affective gains, college students independent reading Student number: 2009-23395