This chapter contains discussions and suggestions of the responses of EFL students in Taitung to online ER program and graded readers. This chapter could be categorized into four sections: (1) major findings and discussion, (2) pedagogical implications, (3) limitations and suggestions for future research, and (4) conclusion.
Major Findings and Discussion
This study aims to explore the effects of online ER program and graded readers on EFL junior high school students in Taitung. In the present study, an online ER program was conducted for twelve weeks in an intact class of a junior high school in Taitung, Taiwan, with 25 students. Two research questions were proposed : (1) How do EFL junior high school students in Taitung respond to an online extensive
reading program? (2) How do EFL junior high school students in Taitung respond to graded readers? During the implementation of the twelve-week ER program, the students’ opinions and reflections of the online ER program and graded readers were collected through their reading reports, the open-ended questionnaire, interviews, and the researcher’s observation.
To have an exploration of students’ reading experiences of online ER program, these 25 students were asked to finish a reading report with pictures and feedbacks about the book they read. The final outcomes showed that students had great interests in reading English books online. The reading reports showed that students paid a lot of effort to draw pictures or write down their feelings. While examining their reading reports, the researcher found that some of reports were filled with colorful pictures and full descriptions about their thoughts, which showed students’
devotion to this reading activity. Generally, the majority of the students expressed
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that they loved doing ER at school. More than three-fourths of the students loved to read English through this brand-new approach. From this ER program, learning English becomes a meaningful event to these students. Students just need to choose their own favorite books and then do their silent reading. The books they read become more interesting and everyone could read English books of their own choices. The online ER program brought these 25 students a completely innovative learning experience and increased their motivations to read. Additionally, most of the students held positive attitudes towards ER. Similar results were found by Al-Homoud and Schmitt (2009), Asraf and Ahmad (2003), Elley (1991), and Mason and Krashen (1997).
To the researcher’s surprise, the results showed that some of the students read extensively out of class. About one-third of the students spent their time reading English books after school, on the weekend, and during winter vacation. It was worthy to note that these students read voluntarily and they viewed ER as a golden chance. Therefore, ER has the magic power to enable students to read autonomously, similar to other studies that found ER’s influences on students’ autonomy (Castillo
& Bonilla, 2014; Fujigaki, 2012; Mede, İnceçay, & İnceçay, 2013).
As to the answer to the second research question, this study found a great majority of the students (22 out of 25) agreed that graded readers were beneficial and helped them choose a book more easily. These English books were graded and then put in orders according to the difficulty of words, grammar, and the content.
These 22 students agreed that graded readers provided a great variety of books for them to choose from. The collection included fictions and nonfictions such as picture books, storybooks, and history books. Students had great freedom to choose a book depending on their interests. Moreover, graded readers solved teachers’
problems of having to design different materials and teachers do not have to worry
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about the inappropriate levels or content for students.
In short, most of the students perceived that they could understand the
meanings of the article and had some progress in English reading abilities. Besides, they thought that they would not be afraid of reading English articles and would be more patient to read. Most important of all, some of the students would be willing to spend more time reading English books. Half of the students depicted that reading English books became an interesting and meaningful activity. To sum up, doing ER program changed these students’ attitudes in reading and lowered their fear to learn English.
Pedagogical Implications
Based on the previous findings of the present study mentioned above, some pedagogical implications can be suggested for teaching instructions in junior high schools in Taiwan.
First, the technology used in this study had positive impacts on these 25
students. With the development of technology, students are good at using computers or mobile devices nowadays. Therefore, these 25 students used computers as their reading tool to do ER. Because of convenience and practicality, students could read on the website which provided colorful pictures, questions about the story, and listening tools. Besides, students could read extensively anytime and anywhere. If students could not recognize the vocabulary or phrases, they could check up the meanings immediately via Yahoo dictionary or Google translation. Then, the researcher also found that if students were not interested in one book, they could quit reading the book at once, and then search for another one. Technology has brought many advantages and benefits and could be utilized in the online ER program.
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Second, ER is an appropriate teaching method to be used in a class with learners of diverse English proficiencies. Bimodal distribution is now a serious problem existing in schools, especially in Taitung. Students come from different families with different reading readiness and English proficiencies. How to design suitable materials is a great challenge to teachers. Besides, previous studies were rarely conducted in remote areas, like Taitung. Therefore, the researcher
implemented ER as a brand-new teaching method and adopted it on her homeroom class. According to the results mentioned in Chapter Four, the participants of the study were delighted to read extensively on the computers.
Third, reading reports are utilized to keep track of students’ complete reading journey during this twelve-week online ER program. The reading reports used in this current study allowed students to write down their feedback in Chinese, English, or through paintings. There is no restriction in what reading reports should include and students could choose their favorite or interesting books to write or draw. The purpose of this task is for the researcher to have a better understanding of students’
feeling and thoughts after finishing reading a book. Moreover, most of the struggling learners in this study often draw cute pictures from the books. If they are asked to write their feedbacks only through words, they might feel stressful and frustrated in reading English books. Therefore, the researcher let them decide which method they want to make a record of.
Fourth, peer support, small competition between students, and extrinsic rewards are also key factors to motivate students to read willingly and actively. Students needed to report their feelings towards the books they read to their classmates or to the researcher. This task gave students a lot of excitement and a sense of
accomplishment because they could share their favorite books with the whole class and invite others to read them together. Some element of competition is also an
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indispensable element to conduct this online ER program in this study. Students in this study would compete with their classmates to see who had more bonus stars and their own characters, robots. Decorating the robots was another interesting game that motivated students to read more books to earn more stars. Besides, extrinsic rewards provided by the researcher also encouraged students to read more books diligently.
With peer support, competition, and extrinsic rewards, students were willing to indulge themselves in reading.
Lastly, graded readers are also an important feature in this study. Students felt comfortable to choose English books according to their own level. Graded readers adopted in this study derived from Reading A to Z have great variety of books for students to choose. They include fictions and nonfictions and have different topics, such as history, geography, literature, art, exotic cultures, small tips in life, and so on.
The students not only improved their English skills from these graded readers but also learned knowledge from these books.
Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research
Although the present study confirmed that ER could benefit EFL learners in remote areas and change their attitudes towards reading English, there are some limitations. First, owing to the limited resources and the course arrangement, the current study was only implemented in one intact class, the researcher’s homeroom class. Only 25 students participated in this study. If ER could be conducted in more classes; for example, the art-gifted class, the study might yield different results.
Secondly, the time frame of this study might not be perfect for these 25 students.
The study was conducted from November, 2018 to March, 2019 and its timeframe included two-week winter vacation. Some students still kept reading extensively during those two weeks; nonetheless, most of them did not at that time. Future
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research should consider implementing ER during the whole semester to avoid breaks during winter and summer vacations.
Conclusion
In conclusion, ER is an effective and convenient learning method for students to learn a foreign language. To the teachers, ER solved a lot of problems of teaching and choosing reading materials. This study, in line with previous studies, has found positive effect of ER on students’ attitudes and motivations to learn English. It is also confirmed that students with huge gaps between English proficiency and different learning environment could also benefit from ER. To these 25 seventh graders in junior high school, it was helpful to read English extensively and this helped them to establish a feeling of achievement towards learning English and encouraged them not to give up learning English. It is hoped that online ER program could be adopted as one part of English curriculum at the researcher’s school in a remote place, like Taitung, in Taiwan.
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