Combining Skills-Based Instruction and Extensive Reading

論

文

Combining Skills-Based Instruction and Extensive Reading:
Using Online Resources to Support a Reading Curriculum

Marie KJELDGAARD

要旨

日本における英語読解の指導は，翻訳と言語分析を中心に行われてきた。最近になって，学生が自分に興味ある文章を選び，そこから読むことを楽しんでもらう多読法に重点が置かれるようになった。その他にも，例
えば情報を素早く見つけることや，文章の中で状況に示されたヒントを基に文章を読み込む技能を高めることを目的としたクラスもある。この論文
では，大学のカリキュラムの中で，学生自らが読む文章を選んでいく多読法が，技能力アップを主目的とした読書術向上プログラムにどう取り込まれているかの概要を述べる。このプログラムにおいては，学生はクラスの中で読解力とその攻略法を指導された。そして毎週宿題として出される読解がその力を伸ばし，また，オンラインで読むことの出来る様々な文献がこのプログラムを支えた。ここで学生たちは，自分たちのレベルに合った
興味ある文章を自由に選ぶことが出来た。このカリキュラムは概して肯定的に受け止められており，毎週の読解の宿題とそれに対する指導法はどちらも役立つものであったと学生は捉えていた。
Keywords: reading（リーディング）, reading skills（読書術）, Extensive Reading, online resources（オンライン文献）
（多読）

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Abstract
EFL reading instruction in Japan has traditionally been basedon translation and language analysis. More recently, attention has
been given to the use of extensive reading, which encourages
students to enjoy reading by allowing them to choose materials theyfind engaging. Other reading courses aim to help students develop
basic reading skills, such as scanning for information and using
context clues. This paper outlines a university curriculum thatincorporates extensive reading philosophies into a skills-based
reading instruction program. In this program, students were given
in-class instruction on reading skills and strategies. Weekly reading
assignments allowed students to practice these skills, and the vast
amount of authentic reading material available online supported thecurriculum. Students were free to choose articles that they found to
be interesting and appropriate for their reading level. Students’
responses to this reading curriculum were generally positive; theyfound both the extensive reading and instruction in reading skills
useful.

Introduction
English reading classes in Japan have traditionally relied on yakudoku, a method of
instruction in which individual words are translated and re-ordered to match the Japaneseword order so that students can decipher the meaning of a sentence or text; this is very
similar to the Western grammar translation method (Hino, 1988). It has been argued
that the shortcomings of this method have been a major contributor to many Japanese
students’ lack of fluency in English (see Furukawa, 2006; Hino, 1988; Robb & Susser,1989). According to Furukawa, similar methods are still commonly used in Japan.
In the United States, L1 reading instruction is often based on instruction in specificreading skills. For example, students are taught how to find the main idea of a reading,or how to use context to understand the meaning of an unfamiliar word. These methods
have also been used in the ESL/EFL context. Mikulecky (1984) argued for the inclusionof these skills in the second language classroom. She defined reading skills as “the48Combining Skills-Based Instruction and Extensive Reading

cognitive processes that a reader uses in making sense of a text” (Mikulecky, 2008, p. 3).
According to Mikulecky, students should be introduced to one new reading skill at a timeto learn how to effectively apply it; eventually, they will be able to apply the skills they
have learned without conscious effort.
It is important to note the difference between reading skills and reading strategies.
As Afflerback, Pearson, and Paris (2008) explained, a reading strategy is a method thatis deliberately employed to improve reading fluency. For example, the SQ3R reading
strategy, which is commonly taught in the USA, reminds students to Survey material
before reading it, Question the contents of the article they are about to read, Read thearticle, Recall the important information, and Review it at a later date. This method will
be consciously called to mind whenever the strategy is employed. On the other hand,a reading skill—for example, using context to deduce the meaning of a word—will be
automatically implemented by fluent readers, without conscious thought.
In recent years, Extensive Reading (ER) instruction has also become a prominent
method of EFL reading education. Figure 1 shows ten basic principles for ER instruction,
as proposed by Day and Bamford (2002).

1.

The reading material is easy.

2.

A variety of reading material on a wide range of topics must be
available.

3.

Learners choose what they want to read.

4.

Learners read as much as possible.

5. The purpose of reading is usually related to pleasure, information andgeneral understanding.
6. Reading is its own reward.
7.

Reading speed is usually faster rather than slower.

8.

Reading is individual and silent.

9.

Teachers orient and guide their student.

10. The teacher is a role model of a reader.
Figure 1.

Principles of extensive reading (Day & Bamford, 2002).

The goal in an ER program is to increase students’ exposure to language—in

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No. 32other words, to increase the comprehensible input, as described by Krashen (1982).
Students select their own reading materials, rather than being assigned readings from apossibly boring textbook. The use of a dictionary is not encouraged, as looking up words
breaks the flow of the reading; therefore, the material chosen should be well within theabilities of the student. Mason & Krashen (1997) described extensive reading as “selfselected reading with minimal accountability,” meaning that students only wrote shortsummaries or comments on their readings, instead of answering more difficult questions
or analyzing the contents. Mikulecky (2008) suggested having students talk about thereadings in groups or with the teacher, as well.
ER has been shown to have a variety of benefits for students, including increased
enjoyment of reading, improved vocabulary, increased confidence, and better writing
skills (Bell, 1998). Waring (2009) suggested that ER could be used in combination witha more traditional course, seeing it as a vital part of a reading curriculum. While mostteachers prefer to use graded readers for ER, there is some precedent for the use of online
materials to support an ER curriculum (see for example Arnold, 2009).

MethodThis paper outlines a curriculum in which skills-based instruction is combined withelements of ER. Students were able to learn and practice reading skills and strategies inclass, then apply them in a weekly reading assignment. For the weekly readings, students
did not use graded readers, but chose articles from among the variety of authentic
materials available on the internet.
Students were Chinese Studies Department students at Aichi University. The
majority of the students were in their 3rd year; all were taking the same Reading I
course. At the end of the term, students were asked to fill out a simple survey about thecourse, indicating what elements they felt were useful and commenting on the reading
assignments. These evaluations were collected and analyzed to give a preliminary
assessment of the effectiveness of the course material.

Curriculum
The curriculum was based on a combination of reading skill instruction and ER-

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influenced reading. 90-minute classes were held weekly, and the class met 15 times
during the term. In order to maximize the limited instruction time, reading skills
and strategies were taught and practiced in class. The weekly reading homework was
designed to give students chances to practice the skills they learned in class and followed
many of the key ER principles.
In class, students learned about reading strategies and how to use the SQ3R method;context clues; finding the main idea and details; scanning for information and speed
reading; and inferring meaning. Each lesson topic was followed by an activity week, wherestudents had a chance to practice and refine their skills and check their understandingof the lesson topic. Part of each lesson was also designated for small-group discussion of
the reading homework. The skills and strategies that students learned in class could bepracticed during these weekly readings.
At the beginning of the term, students learned about the weekly reading assignments.
They were to choose an article (of a minimum 200 words) to read each week during themain part of the term, for a total of 10 weeks. This assignment, while not strictly an ER
exercise, did follow many of the principles of ER:• A wide variety of articles, covering many different topics, were available.
• Students were asked to choose articles that were interesting and level-appropriate.
• A major purpose of the reading was for pleasure and general information.
• Students reflected on the readings by answering a few simple questions; they
were not required to do in-depth analysis or translation.
• The teacher checked students’ readings each week and offered comments andguidance.
• Students were encouraged to try reading without a dictionary.
The minimum article length of 200 words, multiplied by 10 weeks, meant that even themost reluctant reader should have been exposed to at least 2000 words over the courseof the term. Many students chose to read longer articles and thus were exposed to evenmore language input.
The internet was a wonderful resource for this project. Students received a listof online article sources at the beginning of the term (see Appendix 1). These sources
covered a range of article topics, styles, and levels. Best of all, they were all authentic

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examples of English. Students did not seem to have difficulties finding articles of interest
to them, although (echoing the findings of Arnold, 2009) many did choose more difficult
articles, perhaps finding them more engaging, or seeking a challenge.
Students recorded their readings in a reading notebook, where they also answered
three simple questions about each article. (See Appendix 2 for a sample notebook page.)
A portion of the class period was devoted to small group discussions, during which each
student introduced the week’s article and the group asked a few questions about it. These
class discussions allowed the students to share the interesting information they had read;they also helped to ensure that students kept on-track with the weekly readings.

Results and Discussion
On the final day of the term, the students were asked to fill out a short survey about
the class. The first question gauged their feelings toward the course as a whole; thesecond asked which activities they found most interesting or useful; the third asked forcomments on the reading homework; and the last question asked for general comments.
(See Appendix 3 for the original survey.) Table 1 shows the range of answers for the firstquestion.
Table 1.

Student Opinions on the ClassWas this class…

Yes

Yes, a bit

SomewhatNo, not really

NoInteresting?

42

10

2

0

0

Difficult?

2

13

24

10

4

Useful?

26

21

7

0

0

Enjoyable?

39

12

3

0

0

Educational?

27

23

4

0

0

Note. 54 surveys were collected; one student did not respond in the second section(“Difficult”). To fit the table, the phrasing has been altered slightly from the originalquestion, but the meaning is unchanged.

The responses were generally positive; the only section with answers in the negative
categories deals with the course difficulty, where over a quarter of the students said it
was not difficult or not very difficult. One of the characteristics of ER is the ability forstudents to choose easier reading material, so this response was not unexpected, nor
was it unwelcome. On the other hand, over 96% of students answered “Yes” or “Yes,52

Combining Skills-Based Instruction and Extensive Readinga bit” when asked if the class was interesting; about 87% found it useful; 94% found it
enjoyable; and almost 93% found it educational.
The students were also asked to indicate which activities they found to be the mostinteresting and/or useful. The results are shown in Figure 2.

Most Interesting or Useful Activities and Class Topics
25
20
15
10
5
0
Weekly Reading
Homework

Figure 2.

Reading
Strategies

Context Clues

Main
Idea/Details

Speed Reading

MakingInferences

Student evaluation of class activities.

The weekly readings were the most useful, followed by making inferences, speed
reading, reading strategies, context clues, and main idea/details. In total, 21 students
chose the reading homework; 11 chose reading strategies; and a total of 49 chose various
reading skills (some students made more than one selection). It is important to note that,
despite some researchers’ dismissal of reading skills in favor of ER (see, for example,
Susser & Robb, 1990), from the students’ point of view, both activities were valuable.
Furthermore, practicing these kinds of skills should also help students become better
equipped to tackle ER projects. For example, learning to guess a word’s meaning fromcontext can reduce students’ reliance on a dictionary, which in turn should allow them toread more quickly and smoothly.

Student Comments
The most common comments repeated the theme that the weekly readings weredifficult, but interesting. A majority of the comments were very positive in tone. Just tencomments were slightly negative; of these, eight were remarks about the difficulty of theassignment. This seems to indicate that some students were selecting articles above theircomprehension level, a problem which could possibly be solved by a better explanation of
how to choose articles and where to find easier reading material. The other two negative

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No. 32comments were complaints about having to do homework. Also, a few were left blank.
Still, 40 comments were positive, indicating that almost 75% of the students found thework interesting, useful, or otherwise valuable. Figure 3 shows a selection of the positive
student comments (with some small grammatical corrections and clarifications made, inbrackets.)•“It [the reading homework] was good for me.”•

“It is important practice for me to study English.”•“It’s a little difficult but useful.”• “Reading English is difficult, but I can understand […] world news.”•“I think that reading article[s is] really fun.”•“I think [it is] great to survey my favorite things.”• “I enjoy[ed] every week!”• “I think the reading notebook homework is good, because opportunities
to read English increase.”•“Choos[ing] article[s] is interesting.”

Figure 3.

Student comments on the weekly reading assignments.

Limitations
It is important to note that these results are based solely on students’ impressions of
the class. While the initial results are positive, it would be helpful to have an objective
measurement of student improvement. Opportunities for future research would include
administration of a reading comprehension or reading speed test at the beginning andend of the term, to see if the positive attitudes are supported by tangible improvements inreading skills and fluency.

Conclusion
The goal of this course was to combine ER philosophies and reading skills instruction
into a single university-level reading curriculum. Given a limited amount of class time,
this seemed best accomplished by teaching reading skills in class and having students

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select weekly readings to complete at home. The large amount of authentic readingmaterial online allowed students to choose interesting, level-appropriate readings eachweek.
This study was an initial step in evaluating the effectiveness of the combined
program. So far, the results seem promising. Students enjoyed the curriculum andfound both the reading skills instruction and the ER-based reading homework useful.
Further study is needed to determine whether or not these affective results translate intomeasurable improvements in fluency.
References
Afflerbach, P., Pearson, P. D., & Paris, S. G. (2008). Clarifying differences between reading skills andreading strategies. The Reading Teacher, 61(5), 364–373.
Arnold, N. (2009). Online Extensive Reading for Advanced Foreign Language Learners: An Evaluation
Study. Foreign Language Annals, 42, 340–366. doi: 10.1111/j.1944-9720.2009.01024.x
Bell, T. (1998). Extensive reading: Why? and How? The Internet TESL Journal, 4(12), 1–6.
Day, R., & Bamford, J. (2002). Top ten principles for teaching extensive reading. Reading in a foreign
language, 14(2), 136–141.
Furukawa, A. (2006). SSS extensive reading method proves effective way to learn English. SEG(Scientific Education Group). Available online at: http://www.seg.co.jp/sss/information/
SSSER-2006.htm
Hino, N. (1988). Yakudoku: Japan’s dominant tradition in foreign language learning. JALT Journal,
10(1), 45–55.
Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. Pergamon: Oxford.
Mason, B., & Krashen, S. (1997). Extensive Reading in English as a Foreign Language. System, 25(1),91–102.
Mikulecky, B. S. (1984) Reading skills instruction in ESL, On TESOL 84.
Mikulecky, B. S. (2008). Teaching Reading in a Second Language. Pearson Education. Available fromhttp://longmanhomeusa.com/content/FINAL-LO%20RES-Mikulecky-Reading%20Monograph.
pdf
Robb, T. N., & Susser, B. (1989). Extensive reading vs. skills building in an EFL context. Reading in
a foreign language, 5(2), 239–251.
Susser, B., & Robb, T. N. (1990). EFL extensive reading instruction: Research and procedure. JALT
Journal, 12(2), 161–185.
Waring, R. (2009). The inescapable case for extensive reading. Extensive Reading in English Language
Teaching. A. Cirocki, Ed. LINCOM Europa: Munich, Germany, pp. 93–111.

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Appendix 1: List of Online Resources for Students
Where can you find articles online?
Anime News Network
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/
News about Japanese animation, games, and culture in English.
BBC News
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/wordsinthenews/index.shtml
Videos and news articles for English language learners.
ESPN
http://espn.go.com/
Sports news from the USA and around the world.
The Japan Times
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/
News and articles about Japan, in English.
Newseum’s Top Pages
http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/topten.asp
Front pages of papers from around the world (not all English).
NHK World in English
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/index.html
NHK World News in English.
Scholastic News Online
http://magazines.scholastic.com/
A news site written for and by students in the USA.
PBS News Hour Extra
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/
Short news stories with videos.
Time For Kids
http://www.timeforkids.com/
A news site for students in the USA, made by Time Magazine.
Wikipedia—Simple English Edition

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http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
An online encyclopedia with information about many different subjects.
Yahoo!
www.yahoo.com
Articles about all kinds of subjects, including news, sports, and health.

Appendix 2: Reading Notebook Example
Date: 4/17/14
Title: “Beckham to help Chinese football”
Author: Damian Grammaticas
Article Date: March 4, 2013
From:http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/wordsinthenews/2013/03/
130304_witn_beckham_china.shtml[Print/copy/cut out the article and paste it in your notebook or put it in your file]
The former England football captain, David Beckham, has been hired by China’s footballauthorities to do a very special job. They want Beckham to promote their domestic Super League. He
will perform his new role while still playing for Paris St. Germain.
David Beckham says he’s ‘honoured’ and ‘excited’ by this new role, as part-time global
ambassador for Chinese football. It could be one of his toughest yet.
In the world’s most populous country, football has struggled for popularity. Corruption andmatch-fixing have tainted Chinese football. And recent attempts by Chinese clubs to hire star players
from abroad, including Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka, have foundered. The big foreign names
have left after just a few months, disappointed by their new clubs or the standard of the game in China.
In the same way he was an ambassador for the London Olympics, David Beckham’s role will beto promote China’s Super League inside and outside the country. In particular he’ll try to encourage
Chinese children to get interested in the game.
It’s not clear how much he’ll be paid by China’s League to be its ambassador, but he’ll continue
to play football for his new French club Paris St. Germain.
[200 words]
1. Write down any words you learned. What do they mean? (Write the meaning in English.)honoured—proud and happy
ambassador—person who represents something (like a country or a sport)
corruption—illegal activity, usually by people with power or by the government

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No. 32tainted—spoiled, made bad
2. What does the article talk about? (Please write about the article in your own words.)
This is an article about soccer player David Beckham. He will be representing and promoting soccer
in China. There have been problems in China’s Super League, and they hope he will help.
3. What did you think about the article? (Please explain your opinions.)
I thought this was very interesting, because I am a fan of David Beckham. I was surprised to read that
he will be a representative for soccer in China. He must be popular in China, too.
(X “It was good.” → O “It was interesting/funny/frightening/
because.”)Appendix 3: End-of-Term Class Survey
1.

Do you think this class was…

Yes

Somewhat

No

Interesting?

1

2

3

4

5

Difficult?

1

2

3

4

5

Useful for you?

1

2

3

4

5

Enjoyable?

1

2

3

4

5

Teaching you new things?

1

2

3

4

5

2.

Which of these did you find interesting or useful? Circle as many as you want:
Reading Notebooks
Reading Strategies
Context Clues
Main Idea/Details
Speed Reading
Making Inferrences

3.

What did you think about the reading notebook homework?

4.

Do you have any comments about the class in general?

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