Communicative English Learning Through Extensive Reading

Abstract

Introduction Purpose: This textbook is designed for middle school students to facilitate learning through extensive reading program as well as to stimulate their intrinsic motivation of reading with fun providing reading strategies and various activities to interact with others in the natural communication. Rationale: There is no doubt that one of the most important ways that students have for learning English is the extensive reading. The reason why they should read is that books not only generate a great deal of thinking about meaning and language but also students can develop their confidence as language learners by being exposed to the language naturally. In addition, students can benefit from reading and should learn how to read effectively. According to Grabe and Stroller (2002), reading fluency is the ability to read at an appropriate rate with adequate understanding. Among the features of fluent reading, there needs many processes such as a rapid, efficient, interactive, strategic, flexible, evaluating, purposeful process etc. Therefore, this book will allow students to achieve language learning within the classroom. Target learners: 7th grade in middle school, ten to fourteen students consisting of both male and female Proficiency level: Intermediate-high to advanced-low according to the ACTFL proficiency guidelines Learning context: Afterschool programs focusing on the extensive reading and communicative language learning - an English lesson would be 50 minutes twice a week at the formal education settings in middle school in Korea. Method Extensive Reading (ER): The reading material is the series of fiction novel of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Dog days., which is the 4th book and this program will use only nine books among twelve. These books are based on the story of the middle school students and will help students develop not only their receptive skills but also productive skills from the lesson. Students will complete reading assignments at home and teachers will plan activities based on the reading. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT): Communicative language teaching helps EFL students improve their communicative competence (Hymes, 1972) in English while engaging in diverse situations. The textbook gives many opportunities to participate in discussions and team projects which are relevant to the main story of the book. Therefore, students negotiate real meaning and cooperate with each other. Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT): Task-based Language Teaching will be integrated into the activities such as discussions and team projects which draw the students’ attention to the target cultures and social issues and also encourage them to be active when it comes to tasks that they complete in the learner-centered classroom. Process-genre Approach: The process-genre approach is used to aid students to understand the writing process, organizational skills in different genres so it emphasizes on instruction for communicative tasks (Tribble, C., 1996). The genre approach usually takes a model and gets the students to analyze features, before producing something similar. For EFL students, it is a good teaching approach because students understand the texts within the real world context of the topic through experiencing the language by physically being involved in activities. Expected Outcomes Students are able to develop reading comprehension skills with the authentic reading materials. Students are able to encouraged to freely share their opinions and practice their critical thinking through group works and activities. Students are able to learn the target language and strategies. Students are able to express their thoughts and opinions while discussing the character’s situation and finding solutions to the problems. Students are able to expand their knowledge and create some artworks cooperatively by following the procedures in the team project. Students are able to become exposed to and aware of the different cultural contents.