Gain information hardly available in Chinese

P1: I like reading English magazines online like Vogue, Elle, Cosmopolitan, and National Geography. Foreign magazines are so expensive that I don’t want to buy them in print. So, I have to read them on the Internet. (SG#6)

P2: I also read Economist magazine on the Internet because the magazine is way too expensive. (FG#8)

P2: I like reading American magazines called Life and Style and US, so I frequent their official websites to read their updated news every day.

Reading on their websites does save me a lot of money because their magazines I used to buy here in Taiwan were very expensive. A magazine costs around 200 NT dollars. (SG#4)

Inspecting the students’ responses, it is further discovered that students’ reading English online to cater for their interests seems to pertain to teachers’ initiation, referring to the teacher’s introduction of certain topics or issues that may further motivate student’s interest and inquiry and accordingly lead them to learn beyond schoolwork purpose. A student mentioned that:

P3: I read English online because I’m taking a course related to Middle East and our teacher wants us to pay more attention to the current news of Middle East.

Unfortunately, there is little news related to this area, so I have to go to BBC news for the news about this area. In class, the teacher asks us about what we have read about Middle East. Also, I like to read about it because I am

interested in certain topic that our teacher brought up in class. I think this area is always in turmoil, it is worth our attention. (SG #5)

In addition to developing student’s interest to enquire for more information through the Internet, teacher’s initiation can beneficially foster student’s online reading habit, as exemplified by a student:

P1: Because when I was a freshman, I found that my English reading proficiency was not that good at that time, I decided to read New York Times, which was highly recommended by some of my teachers. They said that New York Times is well-written and more bias-free. Now, I add New York Times to my favorite website list, so I am used to reading it every day to keep up with current international news. (SG #4)

Purpose 3: Gain information hardly available in Chinese

Twenty-five students (51%) noted that their reading English online is in an

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attempt to obtain information that is hardly come by in Chinese, ranked as the third frequently reported purpose of reading English online. The following quotations demonstrate this respect:

P3: Another reason I would like to read English on the Internet is that when there isn’t any Chinese resource I can find, I have to read in English. For instance, I am one of the fans of IL Divo, which is an Italian signer team. Since this singer team is not that famous here in Taiwan, I have to search for their information on their official websites and of course it [the information] must be presented in English. (SG#1)

P2: I also like to go to YouTube to watch something interesting for entertainment.

Say, I remember a cartoon called “Family Guy” that I used to watch in the States. After coming back to Taiwan, I can only follow this cartoon by watching it through the Internet on the YouTube website because it is not even aired here in Taiwan. So, with the Internet, I can access information outside Taiwan very swiftly and easily. (SG#7)

Moreover, some students pointed out that by means of typing search keywords in English much more updated and comprehensive information can be accessed and found, as presented below:

P1: I also find that results usually come out more by the use of English search keywords than by Chinese ones. (SG#6)

P1: I usually read on Wikipedia, but I only read its English version instead of Chinese version because it provides much more complete information in English than in Chinese. (SG#4)

P1: The information in Chinese is comparatively less than in English. Usually I can get the latest information about Avril (a female pop singer) on the English websites.

P2: That’s right. Information here in Chinese is updated more slowly than in English. So, foreign websites can usually provide the first-hand information and news. (SG#17)

A student expressed that she would like to read English online to get better understanding of unfamiliar areas of knowledge that seems to be difficult to gain in books:

P2: Sometimes if I am not familiar with a topic, I would like to search for the related information online. Like last time my teacher asked me a question

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about “Whom John Smith wants to drink coffee with?” Questions like this are really hard to find answers through finding a book, so it is better to search the Internet tool such as Google at first to see if there is any answer. (SG#6) Purpose 4: Learn English

Twenty-three students (47%) pointed out that their reading English on the Internet is intended to learn English, namely reading online to improve English language proficiency, to learn authentic and colloquial English expressions, or to pick up proper English pronunciation.

An interviewee specifically noted that the Internet really created a very natural English learning milieu for him to learn English, as shown below:

P3: I want to improve my English ability through reading online. I don’t want to learn English by memorizing a vocabulary book that teaches us how to easily cram ourselves with about 2000 essential words. Books like this are way too cramming. However, I want to learn English by being exposed to an English environment where I can learn English more naturally instead of cramming lots of words into my mind. (FG #17)

Some of the students finding reading online can especially promote their listening ability states that:

P3: When I want to improve my English listening ability, I usually type TaiSha (太傻) on search engine to find this website that can link me to the other three websites: BBC, CNN, and VOA. I usually go to VOA because I think the words they use are easy and plain to understand.

(FG #16)

P2: I listen to English news to practice listening and reading abilities. (SG #4) P3: I go to some websites to improve my English listening ability. (SG #4) Aside from enhancing the students’ English listening ability, some of the students considered reading online to be conducive to their acquisition of authentic and

colloquial English vocabulary and daily life expressions.

P2: I love “Gossip Girls” (an American drama television series). Sometimes I would like to know how they articulate some expressions because the way they talk is really authentic and connected to daily lives. The characters are senior high students, so the words they use are rather up-to-date. (SG #4)

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P2: To me, reading English on the Internet is sort of compulsory because I usually push myself to read English every day to improve my English proficiency and I also want to learn more vocabulary every day. (SG #6) P3: I go to the website to watch movies or American TV shows such as Friends

and Gilmore Girls and sometimes read their scripts to learn daily life English and to check if I guess right about the definition of the words they used in the show. (FG #13)

A student particularly pointed out that the Internet can benefit her learning of British English accent through watching videos from YouTube. She said:

P2: I enjoy watching videos on YouTube. By watching videos about make-up tutorials on YouTube, I have heard many different kinds of English accents because there are so many make-up visagistes from different countries. Plus, I want to learn British accent. (FG #8)