Students’ Response to Extensive Reading in An EAR Class
No overt attempt was made to gather qualitative data relating to students’ acceptance of the loss of teacher centered class time and a non-E AP focus for part of each lesson, primarily because the students were well aware that the class teacher was enthusiastic about the benefits of reading, and thus were likely to answer direct questions with that in mind. However, data was gathered from a variety of sources. Replica Watches
Initial information about the students, their English language learning background, and their goals for the course was gathered by a seven-item questionnaire. One question asked students to indicate the importance of twelve different course components using a six-point scale. Analysis of the valid responses suggested that ‘Writing practice’ was most important to the largest number, followed by ‘Learning new words’. ‘Reading practice’ appeared to be the third most important to the largest number, followed by ‘Listening practice’ and ‘Speaking practice’ with identical results. If nothing else, this question showed that students could be expected to view reading activities positively.
During the course, every student had two one-to-one interviews with the class teacher. The interviews covered students’ learning goals, their progress, and their strategies for independent study. Attention was paid to the extensive reading programme in these interviews, as a means of monitoring the reading suitability of readers chosen, and of encouraging further reading. No direct questions were asked about attitudes to reading, but sometimes comments were offered. In the initial interview, these ranged from the positive (‘I like reading, it’s my hobby’) to the unenthusiastic (‘I don’t like reading, it makes me sleepy’).
The initial interview also produced a slightly different picture from the pre-course questionnaire of the importance learners attached to different course components. In the interviews, of twenty-five skill area mentions, reading was mentioned only three times. Most mentioned were listening and writing, with speaking having one more mention than reading. This suggested that the learners may not have been as open towards a strong emphasis on reading in the teaching programme as the pre-course questionnaire responses indicated.
Responses during the second interview suggested that learners had not shifted their perceptions of what was important to them greatly. The main exception was one student (M2)3 who remarked that he no longer thought that writing was the most important for him, but that all skill areas were equally important. On the other hand, it may not have been the case that what students said necessarily equated with what they did. For example, there was a clear dissonance between the stated important skill area of another student (M3) and his actions; while maintaining that listening was the most important skill for him to improve, he told the interviewer that he practised writing in his independent study. Students who spoke about reading sometimes made interesting comments, suggesting a developing awareness of their individual learning processes. One (M/j) said that he had taken to reading and then rereading his graded readers. Another (M6), who was reading ‘about one book’ a week, acknowledged that reading speed was an issue for him.
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