Week 7: A Good Teaching Approach----Extensive Reading

The Main Points:

Nowadays, extensive reading has become one of the most significant ways for language learners to gain knowledge. The reading “Extensive Reading: Why and How” also focuses on the importance of extensive reading programs. In our learning, there are so many benefits supplied and some are new for me to understand, like the concept ‘exposure’ which I think is the simple and selected or given by our teachers or others. The extensive can reduce precisely the difference between L1 and L2 learners. However apart from these, many suggestions are presented which make the students and teachers figure out what they should in daily learning how to have the perfect performance in reading and language learning.

In the reading “Extensive Reading in English as a Second Language”, the author makes 3 different experiments to demonstrate that there are the positive effects of extensive reading on second language learner which not only let reluctant students become eager readers but also make students exceed traditional students in EFL. In addition, teachers should have the exact ways to encourage them, so that they will get good outcome in EFL learning.

The advantages of extensive reading have been indicated in above readings. And the author of “We Acquire Vocabulary and Spelling by Reading: Additional Evidence for the Input Hypothesis” pays more attention to gaining vocabulary and spelling. According to the detailed comprehension with the Skill-Building Hypothesis (SBH) and the Output Hypothesis (OH), The Input Hypothesis (IH) is proved as the best for us to study and the comprehensible input is also the important part which can lead to competence in spelling and vocabulary.

My Interaction Portion:

Extensive reading is one of the important ways of teaching reading. One author wrote, “extensive reading means reading in quantity and in order to gain a general understanding of what is read." Extensive reading program has also become a hot topic in today’s teaching, which compared with what is called intensive reading. In extensive reading program, students read relatively simpler materials than in intensive reading program, and they just need to know the meaning rather than the specific words. Extensive reading, as partly mentioned above, is intended to develop good reading habits, to build up knowledge of vocabulary and structure, and to encourage a liking for reading", which mainly focus on its effects on learners' development.

Extensive reading is very different from usual classroom practice. For teachers, they are responsible to guide students and make the orientation of extensive reading experience. Teachers can encourage students to read as widely as possible and, as their language ability, reading ability and confidence increase, to read at progressively higher levels of difficulty. Guidance implies a sharing of the reading experience, which leads us to know more about extensive reading. However, the success of extensive reading program depends on several factors: How we are able to motivate the students to read; how the program is organized and implemented; and how their reading is monitored. Thus, these factors should be given careful consideration when implementing an extensive reading program.

After discussion in above, there are so many factors we should consider, which is not the single one but the integrated process. Extensive reading is what we can do now, but the more important is to cultivate the good teaching habit, which is not only beneficial for the learning, but also for the development in the future.