METHOD
The current study aimed to investigate whether an online extensive reading program would affect junior high school learners‟ reading comprehension, as well as its impact on the participants‟ reading attitudes and perceptions. The present study was guided by the following research questions:
1. Does the English online extensive reading program benefit EFL junior high school learners‟ reading comprehension in junior high school? If so, is there any gender difference?
2. Does the English online extensive reading program enhance EFL learners‟
reading attitudes?
3. What are EFL learners‟ perceptions of the English online extensive reading program?
In the following discussion, the rationale of employing a mixed methods study, as well as the setting, participants, and procedures of data collection, will be described.
Rationale of Employing a Mixed Methods Research Design
Mixed methods research (collecting, analyzing, and interpreting both quantitative and qualitative data) has become a popular approach to research in the last decade (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011; Johnson, Onwuegbuzie, & Turner, 2007). Sieber
18
(1973) asserted that the combination of qualitative and quantitative research can be effective used as part of the research design, data collection, and data analysis of the research process. In this study, the researcher used a pre-test and a post-test to assess reading comprehension to collect quantitative data to answer research question one.
Some qualitative data were used to triangulate the findings. To answer research questions two and three, the researcher collected qualitative data via a survey with open-ended questions, reading worksheets, and the researcher‟s notes taken after conducting the individual conferences with the students. By establishing both quantitative and qualitative data, the research results will be more free of bias and more comprehensive.
Setting
This study was conducted in a six-year high school in a city located in the east part of Taiwan. This six-year high school comprises thirty-seven classes in the junior high section and twenty classes in the senior high section. To tailor to students‟
different learning needs, the school holds a screening/grouping exam in three subjects — Chinese, English, and Math — to examine students‟ proficiencies of the three subjects before they enter the school. After the students are enrolled, they are grouped into advanced, regular, and basic group according to their total scores of the screening exam.
Curricula with different emphases and characteristics are provided to students with different abilities. For example, bilingual courses are provided to students in the advanced group, while „normal‟ courses, such as those offered in regular junior high schools, are available for the students in the regular group. A curriculum aimed at developing multiple intelligences is in place for the students in the basic group.
19
Specifically, students in the basic group are encouraged to learn to express their opinions, as well as communicate and cooperate with others. It is hoped that through the well-rounded curriculum, students in the basic group can become active, passionate, and motivated to learn.
Participants
The participants of the study were thirty-six eighth-graders in a six-year high school in eastern Taiwan. Based on the scores of their screening/grouping exam, the students were classified as struggling learners in the basic group. The students in this class had five periods of normal English classes each week taught by a Taiwanese teacher, the researcher. Additionally, three periods of extra English classes were co-taught by a foreign teacher and the researcher. In the co-teaching periods, the courses were planned and conducted mainly by the foreign teacher mainly. And co-teacher‟s role was to assist the foreign teacher to solve disciplinary issues and translate and/or explain some difficult content.
Implementation of the English Online Extensive Reading Program
An English online extensive reading program was launched for ten weeks, starting from early February to late April 2017. The reading program was scheduled for 100 minutes on Thursday mornings. Except for meeting one and meeting ten, which were used for the pre-test and post-test respectively, the other meetings adopted the workshop approach which consisted of seven parts: minilessons, independent reading, an individual conference, a writing response activity, a group discussion, a group presentation and student reflection. What follows were the procedure of each reading workshop. First, I taught a minilesson (see the next section for details) for
20
fifteen to twenty minutes. Second, students read silently and independently online for forty-five minutes. During students‟ silent reading time, I conducted individual conferences with some students to see whether they encountered any difficulties or setbacks in their silent reading. If so, I would give them advice to help them overcome the problems. During the conferences, I also explored the students‟ feedback toward the books and the minilessons.
Fourth, each student proceeded to the writing response activity for five to ten minutes. In the writing response activity, students wrote down the sentences they appreciated, as well as their opinions, thoughts, or reflections toward the books they read on the Reading Worksheet, as shown in Appendix D. Fifth, after the writing response activity, students gathered in groups of four to conduct a group discussion for fifteen minutes. In the group discussion, students shared their feedback of the book(s) they read based on the writing responses. Sixth, after the group discussion, each group assigned a group member to present their favorite book to the whole class.
It was hoped that through the discussion and presentation, either in Chinese or English, students would not only be motivated to read more but also have a chance to develop an ability to express their opinions without pressure. Seventh, after the group discussion and presentation, students devoted ten minutes to reflecting on their overall learning experience of that day.
Minilesson
In each workshop, I taught a minilesson for about 15 to 20 minutes depending on the difficulty of the reading strategies. The themes of the minilessons included how to select a just-right book, as well as the following reading strategies: skimming, scanning, predicting, clarifying, questioning, and summarizing.
21
Barrentine (1995) stated that minilessons are a crucial instructional practice in meaning-centered reading programs. Minilessons are created and determined by the needs of learners. Moreover, minilessons may be taught to a whole class, a particular group, or individual students. Most important, minilessons should be concise and focused on one strategy, skill, or concept each time so that learners can practice using the specific strategy during the reading process.
According to Fountas and Pinnell (2006), there are three major kinds of minilessons: lessons on management, lessons on strategies and skills, and those on literary analysis. In this study, the eight minilessons mainly focused on strategies and skills, owing to the fact that “strategies are „in-the-head‟ processes that readers employ as they construct meaning from print (p.128).” The minilesson in each meeting was short and precise, and focused on one clear concept so that the students would read effectively and would be able to have forty-five-minutes of individual online extensive reading time. The study procedures and the topics of the minilessons are summarized in Table 1 below:
22
Table 1
Study Procedures and Minilesson Topics
Meeting Session
Meeting Date Minilesson Topics Note
1 February 9th N/A Pre-test
2 February 16th Selecting suitable
materials
3 February 23nd Skimming
4 March 2nd Scanning
5 March 9th Predicting
6 March 16th Clarifying
7 March 23nd Questioning
8 March 30th Summarizing
9 April 6th Integrating strategies
10 April 13th N/A Post-test
23
Individual Conferences
In order to make sure that students had an experienced process while doing online extensive reading in English, I conferred with them individually during silent reading time. I checked whether the students were reading at the right level, enjoying their books, and/or encountering any difficulties, troubles, or frustrations. In addition, through the conferences, I examined what types of reading materials the students tended to choose from and their perceptions of the overall online extensive reading program. If possible, I also shared my personal reading experience, and recommended some books for them to read so as to strengthen the teacher-student relationship and motivate them to read more.
Material
In the current study, Reading A to Z, an online reading program with more than 1,200 downloadable books containing 29 levels, was used as reading materials.
During the eight-week treatment, students selected the online readers according to their proficiency levels and interests.
Data Collection
In this study, two sets of the General English Proficiency Test (GEPT) and a survey of learner perceptions were used for major data collection. Additionally, individual conferences with students, students‟ reading worksheets as well as teachers‟
notes and reflections were collected to triangulate with the data gathered from the tests and surveys.
24
General English Proficiency Test (GEPT)
Two sets of reading comprehension tests from the GEPT for beginners were administered before and after the online extensive reading program. Both were taken from the standardized test package. Each test was composed of three parts. The first part contained ten items of incomplete sentences with one word omitted in each. The students needed to choose one best or more suitable answer to complete the sentence.
This was designed to confirm whether the students had sufficient vocabulary and basic grammar knowledge. The second part of the test comprised two passages of cloze questions, each with five multiple-choice questions. The third part consisted of four short articles of different types, including notices, e-mails, stories, and scientific reports. There were 10 multiple-choice questions in this part. The students needed to choose the best answer based on the information provided in the passages. This part contained both local and global questions. The local questions focused on specific vocabulary, sentences, or parts of sentences, and the global questions required students to identify the main ideas of the article and make inferences.
Students’ Reading Worksheets
The reading worksheet (refer to Appendix D for the Chinese version and Appendix E for the English translation) contained four parts: what books the students had read, fiction or non-fiction; the sentences or vocabulary the students had learned or felt impressed by; the setbacks or the difficulties they had encountered during the independent reading; and the reflection parts in which students could express their feelings toward the English online extensive reading program. The reading worksheet was designed for the students to record what they had read during each English online extensive reading program so that they could discuss and share this with their group
25
members during the group discussion. Based on the reading worksheets, students expressed their opinions to the members and the whole class without feeling awkward or shy.
Teacher’s Notes
During the eight-week treatment, when students were doing their independent reading, I conducted an individual conference with the students one at a time. During the individual conference, I asked the students their perception about the minilessons, what difficulties they had encountered, what kinds of the reading materials they had read and how they perceived the English online extensive reading program. At the same time, I shared my reading experiences with them and asked them whether they had used the reading strategies while they were reading extensively. After conducting the individual conference with each student, I took notes of the students‟ responses, reactions, questions, and involvement.
Perception Questionnaire
To answer the second and third research questions, a self-reported questionnaire in Chinese (see Appendix A; the English version is shown in Appendix B) was administered to explore students‟ attitudes toward and perceptions of English online extensive reading. There were ten open-ended questions in the questionnaire.
26