METHODOLOGY
The present study aimed to examine the effects of Extensive Reading (ER) and whether the online ER program had an influence on English reading of seventh graders in a school in Taitung. Additionally, participants’ reactions to adopting graded readers were explored. To further investigate the effectiveness of ER, this study mainly focused on EFL learners’ reflections toward English reading.
In this chapter, the methodology employed was described. First, the background, the setting of selected school, and the participants were described. Then, the ER implementation procedure and reading materials were discussed. Third, the data instrument adopted in this study as well as the data collection were presented. Finally, the data analysis was mentioned. The present study aimed to answer following
questions:
1. How do EFL junior high school students in Taitung respond to online extensive reading program?
2. How do EFL junior high school students in Taitung respond to graded readers?
Setting
In the present study, the selected school of this project is a junior high school situated in a remote area in eastern Taiwan. The school is located in Taitung County and there are seventeen classes in this school, including Art-gifted classes and
PE-gifted classes. The aboriginal students are the majority and they rarely use English in their daily lives. The parents of the majority of the students in this school are
farmers and workers. Due to students’ lack of exposure to English, they are inclined to lose interests and motivations to learn and read English. In this school, half of the
30
students would get grade “C” from CAP (Comprehensive Assessment Program for Junior High School Students). On Tuesday and Thursday mornings, the school usually holds English listening sessions for all students. Besides, some English competitions such as Reader’s Theater, Spelling Test, and Storytelling are held every year. Several English teachers try their own approaches to let students learn English in a happy environment. For most English teachers in this school, adopting extensive reading to help students raise their motivation in learning English is a brand-new idea. As a researcher of this project, I introduced the online ER program regarding its
advantages and specialty with my colleagues. Besides, I also discussed with a foreign teacher in my school about adopting online ER in my class. During the discussion, I got a lot of suggestions from him and he also shared his experiences on the ER program he did before at elementary schools.
Participants
The participants of the study were 25 seventh graders in a junior high school in Taitung County. The participants came from one intact class taught by the researcher, who was also the homeroom teacher of this class. The students have received English education since they were third graders in elementary school. However, students’
English proficiencies varied within every class. This class was chosen for three reasons. For one thing, these seventh graders were more adaptive to a new approach
“extensive reading” than other graders. If students gained more interests in reading English in the beginning, they might be more willing to read an English article and develop positive reading attitude in the future. For another, these students were not under great pressure of taking CAP. They could have enough time to study academic subjects and took part in the online ER program at the same time. For the last reason, it would be more convenient and practical for the researcher to conduct the study in
31
the homeroom class because of extra time, including morning sessions, at her disposal.
ER Implementation Procedure
The researcher conducted online extensive reading from November, 2018 to March, 2019, about 12 weeks in total. Two weeks were excluded because of winter vacation. There were five periods of English classes per week at seventh graders’
English curriculum. A period of an English class was 45 minutes. Because of the course arrangement and technological manipulation, about 30-40 minutes was spent on the online ER program. The researcher chose three to four periods per week and let the students read extensively at the computer classroom. Therefore, about 120
minutes per week was spent on ER activities in her class at the chosen school. The reason why the researcher wanted to implement ER activities three to four times per week was that students could read gradually and accumulate their English abilities step by step. As a result, the participants’ learning process could be observed and their reading motivation could be built up. With this supplementary reading, students might have completely different experiences from just reading the textbooks or workbooks at school. In order to know more about students’ motivation and learning process during the whole online ER program, students were required to write down their reading reports and then shared their reflections with the researcher or the student sitting next to him. During the whole week, students just did their own sustained silent reading or asked some help from their classmates or the researcher when they faced reading problems. Moreover, with the computer equipment, students could also search their reading questions online immediately. According to Day and Bamford (1998), giving students enough time to read patiently is the most important skill for students to cultivate reading interests. As a teacher, we need to let students have time and
32
chances to read and then they might be indulged in reading. During the whole online ER program, students just read books for pleasure and experienced something different from studying the textbooks.
At the beginning of the online ER program, the researcher introduced what the ER was and the purposes of implementing the ER activities. After introducing the ER, the researcher demonstrated how to manipulate the website, Reading A to Z. In order to make sure every student could know how to log into their account, the researcher typed out the procedure and checked if they could handle by themselves. During the first two weeks, there were two important things to make sure. First, the researcher needed to let students get accustomed to using the surface to see if there was any problem. Second, the researcher needed to help the students find out their appropriate level. In the beginning, the researcher gave them a suggested level depending on their English performances at school exams or daily behaviors and asked them to start reading from that level. During the reading time, the students chose several books to check if they could understand most of the content. If they could understand most of the content, and they could start their ER. However, if they felt too challenging while reading at that level, the researcher would help the students choose the suitable level.
Nation (1990) and Laufer (1992) mentioned that students have to recognize the vocabulary at least 19 out of 20 words, or understand approximately 95% of the content and that students can guess the meanings of unfamiliar words from the text.
Therefore, students could just browse a few pages and read some words or pictures to see if they could understand the story. During the selections, students were free to discuss with their peers about the covers or pictures they saw on the books. In the meantime, the researcher went around the classroom and checked out students’
choices. If needed, the researcher provided her opinions or helped students choose a book. After choosing their preferred books, students could start to read in a pleasant
33
atmosphere.
After choosing books, students just did their own sustained silent reading and continued to read books. After reading a book, students were asked to write a reading report to record the books they read. Moreover, if students felt bored when reading the book, they could change books whenever they wanted to and started from the
beginning. When finishing a reading report, students had to show it to the researcher.
The researcher signed her name and gave some comments or suggestions on the reading report. Then, students could choose another book and kept reading as much as possible. At the end of the online ER program, students counted how many reading reports he or she has written and put them in a folder.
When students read extensively, the researcher also read the books from the website, Reading A to Z. During the reading time, the researcher invited the students to come over and shared their feelings or reflections about the books they just read.
This way could let the researcher know more about what kind of books or topics interest students. From the students’ sharing, the researcher could know what books were better or appropriate and then they could also be introduced to other students.
Moreover, the researcher also asked two or three students to make a group; then, they discussed the book they just read. Through this small group, every student had a chance to be the sharer and talked about the reflections with other classmates. While students did their sharing with their classmates, the researcher walked around and sat in different groups; and then, she could observe students’ responses to the books.
From the researcher’s observation, every student had its own personalities and characteristics and the researcher could make a record of the students’ special or interesting talk and take notes in the research paper.
34
Reading Materials
The researcher adopted “Reading A to Z,” an online program published by LAZEL Inc. with thousands of downloadable books. In this website, there are more than 1000 graded readers with multiple genres (fictions and non-fictions included) and formats to meet the different needs of students. There are 29 reading levels from
“aa” to “Z2” according to the vocabulary, content, and plots of the books. Graded readers used in this study are appropriate for beginners because of the various difficulty levels among books. This program is mainly for use online, students could log into the website easily. Students could use their laptops, mobile phones, and tablets at any time and any place. At school, students could read extensively at the computer classroom. At home, students could keep reading books if they don’t finish the book at school. With online service, students could choose books quickly and browse the content in the beginning to see whether this book is appropriate to them.
With the help of technology, the website provides colorful illustrations, pictures, and comics. In addition, Reading A to Z also offers audio help and lets students read and listen at the same time. In the website, it also gives every student one character, a robot, to represent themselves. If students read one book, they could get extra bonus, stars; and if they listen to the book or answer the reading questions, they could also get more stars. These stars might boost students’ interests and motivations because they could use these stars to buy some clothing, accessories, makeup to decorate that character. This might motivate students to read more books willingly.
Instruments
In this present study, five instruments were used to obtain information about students’ reactions and examined the effects of online ER on EFL learners in Taitung.
They were online reading records on the website, Reading A-Z, individual reading
35
reports, one questionnaire, interviews, and teacher’s observation. These data allowed the researcher to know more about learners’ opinions and get deeper insights. Besides, no homework or handout was assigned to students after school. The participants of this study just read and finished their individual reading reports at school. The researcher did not want to give participants pressure while doing extensive reading.
Day and Bamford (2002) mentioned that “Reading is its own reward” and they thought that the learners’ experience of reading is the key factor of extensive reading.
The following section will describe five instruments: (1) online reading records, (2) the individual reading report, (3) the questionnaire, (4) the interview, (5) teacher’s observation.
(1) Online Reading Records
Each student had his/her own account on the website, Reading A-Z, and also had their own character, a robot. This account recorded students’ total number of books read as well as the book levels. Students could examine their reading levels and checked if they improved. Besides, it also helped students quickly find out what books and what page they read last time. This website was just like a reading log for the researcher to examine every student’s progress in reading. By checking this online reading records, the researcher could provide immediate help for the students who needed help. Last, this online reading record could also compare with students’
individual reading reports to understand their reading experiences.
(2) Individual Reading Reports
Every participant was asked to fill out an individual reading report (Appendix A) after reading each book. The purpose of this individual reading report was to keep track of students’ reading history and experiences they had during the online ER
36
sessions. In this individual reading report, students needed to write down the titles, the dates, the levels, the vocabulary they have learned, and their own reflections on this book. Moreover, in order to let students reduce anxiety, the reading report could be written in Chinese or English or even with pictures. When students finished reading a book, they were asked to fill out an individual reading report. The more books they read, the more reading reports they accumulated. This approach not only helped the researcher have a better understanding of students’ reading process but also brought a sense of accomplishment or success to students. Besides, students could examine their own learning experiences step by step and challenged themselves with the help of this individual reading report.
(3) Open-Ended Questionnaire
At the end of the ER project, the participants were asked to answer thirteen questions in the open-ended questionnaire (Appendix B). This open-ended questionnaire was administered to explore students’ reading reflections towards English and graded readers after participating in the online ER program. Questions 1 and 2 are general questions to understand students’ reading habits and opinions toward multiple genres or topics. Then, Questions 3, 4, 5, and 6 focus on participants’
responses toward the ER program. Besides, Questions 7, 8,9, and 10 explore participants’ opinions toward graded readers as a reading material in this online ER program. At the end of the questionnaire, Questions 11, 12, and 13 ask students
whether they think ER should be incorporated into the regular curriculum and adopted as one reading instruction at school in the future and assess the overall ER programs’
input on their English proficiency. In this open-ended questionnaire, answers to Questions 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, and 13 were used to answer research question one, the reflections of participants in this project towards the online ER program. Besides,
37
answers to Questions 7, 8, 9, and 10 were used to answer the research question two, the reactions of participants towards adopting graded readers in this online ER program.
(4) Interview
To further explore the reasons behind students’ responses to questions, a more insightful method, interview (Appendix C), was conducted to some special students.
About 5 students were chosen to do the interview at the end of the ER project. The reason for choosing these 5 special students was because of their behaviors while reading and their responses written on the reading reports. The purpose of the interview was for the researcher to gain more opinions of every participant’s reactions towards ER and graded readers and difficulties they have encountered while doing ER activities. This interview was divided into two sections. The first section explored students’ deeper ideas to the ER program. Then, the second section mainly focused on students’ responses to graded readers used in the online ER program. Each student was interviewed for about 10 minutes individually. This face-to-face interview allowed students to tell their true feelings and opinions. To avoid the language barrier, the interviews were carried out in Chinese. During the interviews, the researcher informed participants that all the conversations were recorded, transcribed, and then translated into English. Their answers helped the researcher have a better understanding of the appropriateness of adopting ER in class and had no impact on their grades.
(5) Teacher-as-the Researcher’s Observation
When conducting ER sessions, the researcher played a role of a facilitator to students who faced challenges and frustration. The researcher walked around the class
38
and observed students’ reactions and choices of books while reading. The observation done by the researcher was to provide supports of the evidences from the open-ended questionnaire and interviews. During these observations, the researcher recorded students’ behaviors and responses to the book they chose. These records might give the researcher more information to look at students’ responses to the ER program and graded readers on the website, Reading A to Z.
Data Analysis
The data from the individual reading reports and questionnaire was collected and analyzed in a qualitative method. All the participants’ responses were classified and categorized into the following sections: students’ reactions and reflections toward ER programs and graded readers. Interviews collected in this study were videotaped and then translated into English. Teacher’s observations done by the researcher were used to help testify the evidence of the students’ reactions toward this online ER program and graded readers. The researcher categorized these questions into several themes: (1) difficulties and challenges when reading English books, (2) opinions on extensive reading, (3) suggestions for implementing extensive reading programs in the near future, and (4) self-examination and assessment on reading and learning motivation.
39