Extensive Reading for Japanese English Majors

The Extensive Reading (ER) course is one of a suite of seven courses for freshman English Majors at Kyoto Sangyo University (KSU), Faculty of Foreign Languages. Other courses include a traditional intensive (translation) course, a grammar course, and classes in speaking, writing and listening/pronunciation. There are some 240 students per year divided into eight sections of roughly 30 students each.

As with most courses in Japan at the university level, classes meet once a week for 90 minutes for a total of 25-30 weeks per year. In addition to the minimum 7 courses in their major, freshmen are normally taking up to 8 other courses during the week, bringing their load to around fifteen 90-minute periods. Many of these courses require little homework or outside preparation which is fortunate: The ER course is probably the most demanding course they will take during their four university years, requiring up to five hours a week of preparation, and perhaps more for those with lower levels of ability.

University freshmen in Japan have come through an "entrance exam-oriented system." While their English textbooks in junior and senior high school contain short conversations and recorded passages for listening, most of the class time is spent on grammar explanations and the decoding of short reading passages. These activities are seen by students, teachers and parents, alike, as the most beneficial means of attaining the goal of passing the university entrance examinations.

These high school textbook have "composition exercises" that actually are only Japanese-to-English translation exercises. Most students thus enter the university without ever having read more than 2-3 pages at a time in their annotated textbooks, and without ever writing a sentence of their own creation. In terms of the ACTFL Guidelines, the students in our program are mostly at the "Intermediate-Mid" level ("Able to read with increased understanding simple connected texts dealing with a variety of basic and social needs").

In addition to the overall goal of increasing the students reading ability (level of comprehension, speed, increased lexis and reinforcement of basic grammatical structure through reading), a specific objective of this course is to instill better reading habits so that the students can read without feeling the need to use their dictionary every time they come across a new word. The students need to develop some level of tolerance for ambiguity when they are reading material that does not require 100% comprehension. An incidental benefit of the course is the considerable practice in summary writing that they receive since this is required as proof of having done their extensive reading.

Overview of English Education in Japan

Japanese students start studying English at the beginning of Junior High School (grade 7 in U.S. terms) where it is a major component of the curriculum. Most students continue on to high school where English is also a major subject although not so mandated by the Ministry of Education. The fact, however, that virtually all universities in Japan test English on their entrance examinations, assures its status as a major subject.

Due to the entrance examinations, most study is very exam-oriented. Although the Ministry of Education tries to encourage the study of more communicatively-oriented materials, these examinations as well as the long-entrenched grammar-translation methodology tend to undercut their recommendations.

Unlike the U.S. system, where entrance into a university is relatively easy, but graduation more difficult, Japanese students tend to think that once they have been admitted, their graduation 4 years hence is assured. In many universities, in fact, teachers are reluctant to fail students who attend classes regularly despite poor performance on classwork, examinations and homework (if any has been assigned).

In Japan, one's major is determined before one enters the university. Applicants declare their desired major as part of the admissions process. English study at the university level is thus of two clear types. By far the most common variety is "general education" English, whereby students study English as a "liberal arts subject" in order to gain credits towards their graduation. Many universities also have a English literature or English language major. These students study English much more intensively, and it is these students that this ER course has been designed for.

Some schools have designed extensive reading courses as an elective for non-majors. This presents an even greater challenge to the instructor since the students are under no obligation to take the course, nor even finish it once they have registered for it. Courses failed are normally not recorded. All the student needs to do in order to graduate is to accumulate a sufficient number of credits in whatever subject areas are prescribed by the school's curriculum. Students typically register for more courses than they expect to complete, dropping those courses which are either uninteresting or too demanding.

Courses in their major, however, are required. For this reason, we can demand a good deal of work from our students, as long as the workload is reasonable.

Conceptual Underpinnings

In this teacher's experience, there are only three basic approaches to reading instruction in Japan, the first two of which are the most common:

1. Intensive ("grammar-translation")
2. Skills-Building
3. Extensive reading

Furthermore, Japanese instructors invariably favor the "intensive" approach" while native-speaker instructors normally adopt a "skills-building" approach. The lines are clearly drawn. The former choose texts from a wide variety of locally published material, which are normally annotated excerpts of authentic texts, while the latter adopt reading textbooks from those offered by the major international ELT publishers which are organized around a skills-building approach.

Intensive reading refers to "close" reading of material, where the student (and teacher) is more concerned with full understanding of grammar and lexis of each sentence and sometimes goes under the rubric of "Grammar Translation." This attention to detail naturally entails that a comparatively small volume of material is read. The other extreme, "extensive reading" is more concerned with the volume of material and neither assumes, nor encourages, complete understanding of the subject matter.

Skills-building readers typically are built around a set of readings which tend to run between 300 and 500 words in length. They normally preface the reading with pre-reading activities aimed at activating "content schemata" and end with comprehension questions and other activities which are thought to build useful reading skills. The texts are normally selected which will be of interest to young-adult or adult readers and pitched at a suitable reading level for the target audience.

Both the intensive and the skills-building methods have their detractors. Hino (1988) using the term "yakudoku" (literally translation-reading) states it disadvantages:

"The yakudoku habit clearly is a severe handicap for the Japanese student. It limits the speed at which the student reads, induces fatigue, and reduces the efficiency with which s/he is able to comprehend. The meaning of the text is obtained via Japanese translation and is only an approximation of the original" (p.47)

Skills-building exercises suffer from a number of problems, one of which is a lack of proof that these discrete skills are anything more than theoretical constructs. See Susser & Robb (1990) for a critical overview of the literature on this point.

Zamel (1992) calls into doubt the efficacy of comprehension questions observing that questions "which immediately follow the assigned passage and which not only call for a predetemined answer rather than the interpretation of the student reader...may, in fact, keep students from understanding the text."

Another problem stems from the fact that the readings in skills-based textbooks are rarely full-length articles but rather excised passages from longer works. Shih (1992) observes that "excerpts may deprive readers of important contextual clues" and espouses the use of whole, independent texts (p. 295).

Yet another drawback of both of these methods is their reliance on "class readers" -- all of the students in the class must read the same material, and at the same pace, since it forms the basis for the other activities in the class.

Extensive reading, sometimes termed "sustained silent reading" overcomes many of the disadvantages of these two other approaches. Furthermore, for Japanese university students, who have already been exposed to six years of English in secondary school, with a strong emphasis on grammar study and vocabulary acquisition, extensive reading provides an ideal way to consolidate what they have learned.

Krashen and others have espoused the beneficial effects of "sustained silent reading" as an effective means of consolidating and advancing ones linguistic ability. Naturally, assigned reading may not be "pleasurable" for some students, but the chances of the students finding their reading "pleasurable" can only increase when they can choose their own reading material! Only an "extensive" approach permits this freedom of choice since other approaches require a "class reader" by their very nature.

In summary, the research indicates that one learns to read through reading. Grabe (1991) observes that "longer concentrated periods of silent reading build vocabulary and structural awareness, develop automaticity, enhance background knowledge, improve comprehension skills and promote confidence and motivation" (p. 396).

Some recent work on the efficacy of extensive reading compared to traditional intensive reading in the Japanese context, reported in Mason & Krashen (1997) shows that student not only improved in ability but also in their attitude towards reading and the study of English.

The ER course consists of two separate components, the in-class component, which is based around the SRA Reading Laboratory Kit (2c), and the outside reading component where the students are required to read at least 1100 pages during the year from a class library of authentic texts popular with American youth.

Class Component -- The standard suggested procedure for using SRA materials has been suitably modified. All students start out at the first color (aqua) and need to successfully read FOUR numbered sets at that level in order to graduate to the next color. The four criteria for "successful completion of a set are

1. completion of the main power builder booklet and having passed the "How well did you read" quiz section with 80% or better accuracy.
2. passing the "Learn about Words (first section only) with 80%+ accuracy,
3. Reading the "Rate Builder" card and passing the quiz with 80%+ accuracy, and,
4. Completing the reading and quiz for the Rate Builder in 4 minutes or less.

Homework Component -- The students read texts which they choose from the department's collection, described under "Instructional Materials." The basic goal is to read 1100 pages for a passing grade of 60, or up to 2000 pages for the maximum grade of 100 for this component of their grade.

The course, which extends over the entire academic year is divided into four reading periods, each of which has its own page requirements:

                        Pages required for   Pages required for
                            60 Points           100 Points     
Period 1  (April-June)        200                 400          
Period 2  (June-Oct.)         250                 450          
Period 3  (Oct.-Nov.)         300                 550          
Period 4  (Nov.-Jan.)         350                 600          



Intermediate values are extrapolated from these two values.

Activity Types

Each class session, after the first few weeks is identical in nature. Students work at their own pace with material from the SRA 2c Reading Laboratory while the instructor check each students' progress with their outside reading. The SRA (Science Research Associates) Reading Laboratory kits have been popular in U.S. elementary & junior high schools for over 40 years. The "2c" kit used here consists of 10 color-coded levels which start at reading grade level 4.0 ("aqua") and progress in 0.5 grade level increments to 9.5 ("tan"). Each level consists of 15 "Power Builder" readings printed on folded glossy cardboard stock. The readings vary from 400-1000 words according on the level, each followed by a number of comprehension and skill-building activities. The readings are generally simplified "authentic" texts taken from magazine articles. Quite a few seem to be drawn from Reader's Digest articles.

Each "Power Builder" card is accompanied by a one-sheet "Rate Builder" card which is meant to be read and questions answered under time pressure.

A placement test is provided with the material, but we have found it easier to simply have all start with the first level. Those who find this material too easy, quickly graduate up to the appropriate level, after which they find progress more difficult.

Outside Reading

The course guidelines suggest that students read on a weekly basis and summarize their reading in their outside reading notebook.

The students are required to write summaries in a special notebook that they keep for this purpose. (B-5 (18 x 25cm) size, 30 lines per page). They are expected to write approximately one page for every 40 "weighted pages" that they have read. Adjustments in the requirement are made for variances in the size of the student's handwriting.

The following guidelines are provided for their summary writing:

1. The summary should contain only the most important sections in the story -- who, what, when, where, how and why
2. Write the summary chapter by chapter
3. Use the 3rd person. (I, you --> he, she)
4. Do not use direct speech.
5. Do not copy exact sentences from the book.
6. Use every line on the page.

When writing their summaries, they are required to specify the chapter title/number and the page range at the beginning of each summary section, as well as the date written and illustrated in Figure 2.

Figure 2 - Sample summary

Having the students write in chapter sections simplifies the instructor's task when s/he needs to compare a summary with the original. It also allows the instructor to see if the summary flows smoothly from chapter to chapter, as it should if each chapter has been summarized in its entirety. (There are often cases at the beginning of the year of students who, in order to save time or energy, attempt to summarize just the first few pages of each chapter.)

As mentioned earlier, Japanese freshmen have had little or no opportunity to write sentences of their own creation in their high school careers. Furthermore, most students have never had the experience of writing a summary even in Japanese. For this reason the course starts with a series of "warm-up" activities:

1) A short chapter from a book is presented to the students along with three brief summaries. Based on criteria presented to them, they are asked to decide which is the best summary.

2) The students read and summarize two short graded readers during the second and third weeks. The department has purchased a sufficient number of these so that half of the students can be using one while the others use the other, switching books for the second week.

We have selected "Graded Readers" for this step because 1) we wanted to ensure that the level of the reading matter was within the reach of all students and 2) they short and thus can be easily read in a single week. (Graded readers, available from a number of ELT publishers, are simplified versions of existing literature or works especially written for students at a specific level of syntactic and lexical mastery. Such series normally have a number of titles available at each of several levels such as "beginner," "elementary," "pre-intermediate," etc.)

The students' summaries of the graded readers are gone over carefully in class using a model summary as a guide that has all key points underlined. Under the instructor's guidance, the students compare the model to their own summary, counting how many of these essential points had been incorporated in their own versions.

3) After these three preparatory weeks, the students select their first book from the class library and begin to read on their own. Instructors continue to check the summaries throughout the course provide further counselling on summary writing as needed.

The summaries are the primary means for the students to prove that they have actually read the book. Other methods, such as having them write their reflections on what they have read, maintenance of a vocabulary list, or list of interesting sentences, ideas, etc. have been considered from time to time, but it seems that the summaries are the surest way to be able to check not only whether they have read the story, but also their general level of comprehension of what they have read.

While the 40:1 ratio is arbitrary, we have found it to be a suitable figure, allowing for plot summaries with sufficient detail to prove that the book has been read, but short enough not to place an undue burden on the students. Nevertheless, for the first few weeks, the students generally find that the summarizing takes more time than the reading. This is due to their inexperience in both writing in general and summarizing in particular. Helgesen supports this, observing that the writing may well be more difficult that the reading itself. (p.31). Since the instructors at KSU for the most part cannot read Japanese, however, there is little choice in the matter.

An additional bonus to the summary writing has been the marked improvement in the students" ability to write their summaries. A quantified study of this improvement has yet to be made, but a quick glance at the first few pages and last few pages of a number of notebooks makes this clear.

Many otherwise similar extensive reading courses (see Helgesen (1997) for one example) use the vast collection of graded readers available through a number of British publishers. Our decision not to use them is based on the following rationale:

1. Many of the graded readers are reduced versions of existing "good literature" and virtually all such material is commercial available in translation. We do not allow books for which translations are available in order to remove the obvious temptation to read the text in Japanese with perhaps minimal reference to the English version. (Parallel texts in the native language have their place in language study. There is no similar restriction for the department's upper-level reading courses.)
2. There have been some reports of graded readers being more difficult to comprehend due to the low level of redundancy of information and awkwardness caused by the limitation in possible syntactic constructions. (Susser & Robb, 168).
3. The fact that the books are ones actually used by native-speakers is a motivational factor.
4. The KSU students are generally of a higher level of ability than those of other programs. Mason (1998), for example, reports a mean TOEIC score of 123 for reading and 153.6 for listening, clearly placing them at no more than an ACTFL "Intermediate-Low" level. The entering freshmen in the KSU program have mean scores of approximately 210 on both the reading and listening sections out of a possible 489 for each section. This probably means that the students in other programs have not yet reached a level at which they could successfully read authentic material.

All of the books in the lending library contain a "difficulty" factor which is actually a simple measure of text density -- the number of words on a page. This is necessary so that the students can receive equal credit for actual amount read rather than the physical number of pages. Without such a compensating factor, students would be tempted to place higher priority on selecting books by the size of the typeface rather than by the contents.

A book with approximately 200 words per page has received an arbitrary weighting factor of 1.0. A book with 400 words per page has a factor of 2.0. Other factors can be extrapolated from these two.

The students are provided with a record booklet at the beginning of the course. The booklet has a chart for recording their outside reading (Fig. 2) on a weekly basis, a conversion chart for "real pages" to "adjusted pages' (Fig. 3), space for answers to 60 SRA reading sets (Fig. 4), and orientation material (http://www.kyoto-su.ac.jp/~trobb/rules.html) on the various aspects of the course, with the main points outlined in Japanese just to ensure complete comprehension.

Figure 3 - Outside Reading Record
(Click for larger, clearer version)

Figure 4 - Adjust Pages Conversion Chart
(Click for larger, clearer version)

Figure 5 - Sample of SRA Answer Sheet
(Click for larger, clearer version)

The booklet is made a little smaller than the size of their summary notebooks so it can easily be slid inside for safe-keeping.

When the students return a book after finishing (or giving up on) it, they use this paper record for inputting their pages into the course computer. Periodically the records are printed out and circulated around the class so that the students can check their own section for accuracy. This also allows them to gauge their progress compared to the other students in the class. There are normally a number of outstanding performers in each class who might have an inspirational effect.

Students evaluate each book that they have read on a scale from 0 (Terrible!) to 3 (Great!). The students input this data into the computer database along with their record of pages read. On the basis of these evaluations, more copies of popular titles are ordered. Books which consistently score poorly are removed from circulation.

A copy of the evaluations is also made available to the students as an aid to book selection. The most recent list of evaluation scores for books currently in use can be found at <http://www.kyoto-su.ac.jp/~trobb/evals.html>

Teacher's Roles

The teacher's role is, in fact, a bit circumscribed in this program. There is no up-front teaching except for the first few weeks, so the teacher mainly acts as a counselor, checking on each student's progress individually during the class session. Some teachers rotate through the classroom, sitting down next to each student to examine their notebooks. Others have the students come up to the front of the class in turn.

Teachers read through the summaries weekly, glancing through what the students have written. While the instructors probably have not read many of the titles, good summaries will exhibit a smooth flow of ideas from chapter to chapter. If not, the instructor can ask the student to produce the book, quickly read through a chapter and provide further counselling, pointing out important details that have been missed, or trivial points that should have been omitted.

Teachers also provide input into the structure of the program itself, which is improved each term based on their suggestions.

Learners' Roles

As with most types of learning, the effectiveness of the reading program depends heavily on the learners. The students are expected to be responsible for their own learning to the extent that they must choose materials at an appropriate level and do their reading on a regular basis.

The guidelines of the ER reading program suggest that the students read approximately 100 pages per week Unfortunately, in Japan, many university students do not consider their courses as their main priority during their university life. Nevertheless, since this is a required course, most students manage to do the minimum required work although, in many cases, not by reading on a regular basis, but rather attempting to fulfill the requirement just before each of the reading period deadlines.

One might interpret this to mean that the reading material itself was boring and unmotivating. The fact that even these students will report that their book was "liked" or "great" in their evaluations suggests otherwise. Despite the negative tone of these comments, there are, indeed, some motivated learners who achieve high grades in the course. Furthermore, surveys of the same students in their senior year shows that many of them, in retrospect, have come to realize the value of the course.

Instructional Materials

Due to limited open-stack space in the the university library the department keeps its collection on rollable library carts. The carts, which also contain the SRA materials, and the course computer are brought into each class and made available outside the author's office when not in use.

We use two combined SRA 2c kits so that there are a sufficient number of readings at each level. This is particularly crucial at the beginning of the year when everyone is at the same, initial level (Aqua). A new kit is purchased every 2-3 years so that damaged and lost cards can be replaced.

The school provides a modest budget for purchasing new material annually. All new books for the outside reading library are numbered, assigned a "difficulty factor" and input into the computer database before being put into circulation.

All of the ourside readers have been obtained from two U.S. suppliers of books for the young reader, PermaBound (http://www.perma-bound.com) and Perfection Learning (http://www.plconline.com).

The titles held include old stand-bys such as The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, more modern series such as The Baby Sitters Club, the Great Brain series as well as such favorites as the many books by Judy Blume, Eve Bunting, Beverly Cleary and Gordon Korman. Others have been selected from the annual ALA (American Library Association) Notable Books for Children, concentrating in those suitable for the Grade 4-7 level. Titles which prove popular with the students are ordered in greater quantity with future purchases.

Minute Particulars

Here are two sample sessions between student and teacher during the weekly summary checking. These dialogs are fictitious but representative of the type of give-and-take that occurs.

Student 2

Masashi is a reluctant reader. He's a "jock" and very busy with his club activities, not to mention his part-time job. He has read only 60 of the required 250 pages for this reading period and has read nothing in the past two weeks.

T: Hi, Masashi, can I see your notebook please?
S: (He passes it over silently)
T: Let's see... What? You haven't read any pages this week either.
S: I'm very busy.
T: Yes, but you know, if you don't read the pages, you will have to come next year again. Do you want to do that?
S: No.
T: What book do you have now?
S: (He pulls it out of his bag)
T: Is it interesting?
S: So, so
T: Well, if you don't like it, why don't you just return it and borrow another one? Did you see the ones on basketball and football? Maybe they would be more interesting. And they aren't so difficult to read.
S: OK. I'll change my book.

Assessment

The students' grades are based solely on their performance on the outside reading and the in-class SRA material according to the following proportions:

The students' notebooks and record booklets are collected at the end of the year and reviewed once more by the instructor. The number of pages read is reduced for any shortcomings found at that point in the summaries, although this measure is taken for fewer than 20 students of the 280 enrolled in the course.

The material is then stored until the students graduate three years hence, to remove the temptation of them "lending" the material to future students.

Caveats, Final Thoughts

To some extent, the teacher serves a "policing function," checking to see if the students have really done the reading they have claimed to have done, and encouraging them to work harder. While this approach works against the philosophy of many instructors who ideally would like to "facilitate" the language acquisition of highly motivated learners, Japanese university students are in many respects similar in mentality to secondary school students in Western countries. For many, studying is not their highest priority during their "university" life, and they actually expect that the instructor will be a positive motivator. Put another way, students will normally do 70-80% of what the instructor expects them to do, so the goals of the instructor and the degree to which they are enforced are generally strong predictors of the students" academic performance. (Naturally, there are self-motivated students, as well; they are merely fewer in number than in most Western classes.)

One clear indication of the students' reluctance to study is the tendency for them to postpone their required reading until the last moment. When the extensive reading course was first implemented, the minimum requirement to pass was 1000 pages for the entire year (26-28 90 minute class meetings). We soon discovered that many of the students were postponing the reading until the end of the term, which would not only reduce the pedagogical effectiveness of the approach, but would also place a huge burden on the instructor at any already busy time of the year!

From the next year, however, we revised the requirements by dividing the year into four terms with each progressive term requiring a bit more reading. While this does not encourage the students to read on a weekly basis, at least they now have to read in four installments of one-quarter the amount each, which is an improvement.

We are still uncertain about the effect of the summary writing on their willingness to read. The students might read more if they knew that they did not have to spend time writing a summary afterwards. The problem here, of course, is to devise another way to check that they have, indeed, done the reading. Some other programs use short reports. Another possibility is to prepare short quizzes for each book available in the program, or to use the commercially available "Accelerated Reader" program. (http://www.advlearn.com/).

References for further reading

Day, R, & Bamford J. (1998). Extensive Reading in the Second Language Classroom, Cambridge University Press.

Grabe, W., (1991). Current developments in second language research. TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 25,375-406.

Helgesen, M., (1997). What one extensive reading program looks like. The Language Teacher (JALT), Vol. 21, (5), 31-33.

Hino, N., (1988). Yakudoku: Japan's dominant tradition in foreign language learning. The Language Teacher (JALT), Vol. 10,45-55.

Mason, B. & Krashen, S. (1997). Extensive reading in English as a foreign language. System, Vol. 25, 91-102.

Nation, P. (1997). The language learning benefits of extensive reading. The Language Teacher (JALT), Vol. 21(5), 13-16.

Parry, K. (1996). Culture, literacy and L2 reading. TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 30, 665-692.

Shih, M. (1992). Beyond comprehension exercises in reading. TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 26, 289-318.

Zamel, V. (1992). Writing one's way into reading. TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 26, 463-485.