Reading for Fun

Abstract

Nowadays, there is a big interest among language teachers to implement Extensive Reading programs (ER) into schools or institutes. According to Day and Bamford’s (1998) definition, ER is to teach and learn second language reading where learners read a large amount of books and other materials that fit their linguistic competence. The main purpose of ER for language teachers is to help students learn to read in their second language, lead them to enjoy reading, raising motivation to read, build a wide range of vocabulary, and to help increase their reading fluency. However, typical Korean English reading classes focus more on grammar and Intensive Reading (IR) for test preparation. Students may face fluency problems after entering college when they study using professional textbooks. Han (1999) argues that this problem is caused by English instruction in secondary schools in Korea where class is devoted largely to reading by doing translation. This practice can limit the student’s language development as well as teach students ineffective reading habits in their future reading. O, Kim and Yang (2009) argued that English education in Korea is greatly influenced by the KSAT (Korean Scholastic Abilities Test) and English classes have been distorted and directed toward this test. They say that as a result, English education in Korea has been driven against being meaning-centered, literacy-based, and became more test focused language practice. Jung (2009) also stated that English classes in Korea are strongly focused toward preparing students for high school and entering college, students to lack language input and lose their motivation in reading after years of going through formal English education. My solution to this problem is to provide students with an opportunity from a young age to participate in ER programs that have meaning focused activities. Currently it is hard to implement extensive reading into actual class hours in the secondary schools, so my portfolio will be designed for an afterschool extensive reading program. The target students of this textbook are Korean high school students around the age of 16-18. The students are Intermediate mid/high level in reading, writing, listening and speaking according to the ACTFL proficiency guideline. These students would have gone through pre-interviews by their public school English teachers and tested with the Informal Reading Inventory (IRI) to test reading comprehension and the Gray Standardized Oral Reading Test (GSORT) to measure their reading speed and accuracy. The results of these tests would report the students proficiency levels on reading speed at150wpm, comprehension over 95% and will read pre-intermediate level books (1000~2000words) from Oxford, Macmillan Readers, Puffin books and other books. The program will be held twice a week, four hours in total. My target students had been mainly focusing on reading for tests preparation purposes. Eventually, they are less motivated and have no chance to neither read for pleasure nor enjoy reading lessons but have simply practiced and memorized vocabulary and knowledge that are relevant to the test. For my target students, this textbook will be designed for an afterschool extensive reading program integrating task based approach. This ER program will follow the “Class Reader” program, where a single book is read by a whole class (Greenwood, 1998). Heal (1998) describes that a class reader program increased motivation to read books in an L2 setting.