The difference between Reading Challenge and other contests

The main purpose of Reading Challenge held by IWiLL online learning community

is to improve high school students’ English reading capacity by promoting excellent

English books. The difference between characteristic of Reading Challenge contest

and other related English reading activities are listed as follows:

(1) Scale of activity

Different from common regional reading contest, Reading Challenge is directed

by the Ministry of Education, coordinated by DLLA-Digital Language Learning

Association, cooperated by Center for Digital Language Research of TKU,

Institute of Information Science of SINICA, and Graduate Institute of Learning

and Instruction of NCU. Reading Challenge integrated the resource of

government, academic organizations and research authorities, developing an open

and fair platform of competition. There are thousands of high school students

registered this contest every year for it is a benchmark of national large-scale

English reading challenge.

(2) Based on online learning community

Usually when an English reading contest is finished, nothing follows. However,

Reading Challenge is a contest based on an online English learning community.

A student who would like to participate in this national English reading contest

must join IWiLL online learning community as a member first, then he/she could

sing up for Reading Challenge. Before the contest, all of related information will

be posted on IWiLL website. During the contest, participants could online

discuss related issues about English books provided by IWiLL online learning

community. After the contest is finished, participants could access My Cube blog

and express how they felt about the contest. By this, the community coherence

will be strengthened with expectation of more online members to take part in the

contest in the future.

(3) Active choice of English novels

For common English reading contests, the reading material is usually designated

by the main coordinating organization. But for Reading Challenge, the

participants could choose more than one novels from a list given by Reading

Challenge. From this, the participants would have more options of books to read.

(4) Credits accumulation

For common English reading contest, it will be processed in one day and

participants will be informed of their results on the same day when contest is

finished. However, Reading challenge last for 8 weeks. During the period,

participants could accumulate credits by positively taking part in the learning

activities designed by IWiLL online learning community. They will be rewarded

with prizes according to their credits after the contest is finished. Therefore,

Reading Challenge is used to understand a participants’ reading comprehension

through their long-term learning performance instead of a simple result from one

single reading article.

(5) Online Discussion and interaction

General English reading test is proceeded by paper-formed. Participants won’t be

able to discuss with each other. In the Reading Challenge, participants not only

have 8-week long to interact and discuss with others, they could also discuss the

current popular English novels by joining the Reading Club and share their

stories with all of online members in My Cube blog.

(6) A variety of awards

To offer participants have more opportunities of winning, Reading Challenge is

designed to encourage students to take part in the contest with a variety of

awards. The items of awards are as follows:

a. Reading Accomplishment

When the participant passes a reading comprehension test (over 80 points)

with any one of book he chose, he would receive a silver medal in his Cube.

If he expresses comments particularly on the book, and receives more than

3 feedbacks, recommended by two people, then he could get one Gold

medal. Ranking results, at the same time, will be listed on the webpage of

IWiLL and in the Reading Club.

b. Joy of Reading – Beginner

When a student finishes 5 books for beginners and passes reading

comprehension (to reach 80 points), he will be awarded with Beginner

certificate, and one IWiLL prize, which are given in a public awards

ceremony.

c. Gold Award of Joy of Reading

When a student finishes 8 books for beginners, intermediate level and

advanced level, and then passes reading comprehension (to reach 80 points),

he will be awarded with a certificate for Gold Award of Joy of Reading, and

one IWiLL prize, which are given in a public awards ceremony.

d. Silver Award of Joy of Reading

When a student finishes 5 books for beginners, intermediate level and

advanced level, and then passes reading comprehension (to reach 80 points),

he will be awarded with a certificate for Silver Award of Joy of Reading,

and one IWiLL prize, which are given in a public awards ceremony.

e. Award of Outstanding Cube

When a student posts his article, or his thoughts about the book in the Cube,

receiving a great number of viewers, feedbacks and responses or when he

replies his feedback, submits a question or gives others credits in others’

Cube, all of these interaction will recoded as a figure. The articles and

feedbacks will also be further evaluated by an instructor to select the winner

of this award. The winner will receive a certificate of Outstanding Cube and

a prize of IWiLL in a public awards ceremony.

f. Award of Learning Expert

All of winners of Joy of Reading - Beginner, Gold Award of Joy of Reading,

Silver Award of Joy of Reading, and Award of Outstanding Cube will be

further evaluated to be the final winner of Learning Expert, who is going to

receive a certificate of Learning Expert, 1000NT coupon and a prize of

IWiLL in a public awards ceremony.

(7) Offline reading and online discussing

Reading challenge is done not only by offline reading but also online discussing.

That’s why it is so special and the reason we chose Reading Challenge as our

case study.

3.3 Summary

For high school students in Taiwan, the second language acquisition is based on

English. The reason school teachers do not emphasize on extensive reading is that

students are often under tremendous pressure to pass the exams and obtain the

admission to university. Unlike traditional teaching offering exam-passing skills,

extensive reading can’t directly help students obtain high scores. Courses at school

are very intensive so that students hardly have spare time to read out of their interest.

Therefore, we designed Reading Challenge as a platform for teachers to encourage

students to do extensive reading after school.

Taiwan is a country where admission exam is highly emphasized. Most of high

school students must pass the exams for qualification to enter university. As a result, a

weird phenomenon is created. Students, to obtain high scores, will only pay close

attention to every vocabulary and correctness of grammar, ignoring the whole point of

article. Comparatively, when a student reads an interesting book, he/she would focus

on the message from the story. Even when the student bumps into vocabulary that

he/she doesn’t know, he/she tends to study the words in an attempt to understand

whole point of story, instead of memorizing the words deliberately.

IWiLL, an online learning community, aims to encourage students to do extensive

reading when learning English. We expect that English learning is not just learning

the language subject, but also the cultures that get expressed, described. And most

importantly, hopefully high school students would fully enjoy the language learning

by using IWiLL.