EXTENSIVE READING ON A
BUDGET
Kindra Santamaria and Marie Schein
Texas Christian University
INCREASINGLY COMMON BUDGET CUTS
Budget cuts and program reductions are common
in foreign language programs
 Educators must choose among the time and
resources they have to spend on each of the four
skills
 Teachers are beginning to look for opportunities
to supplement language instruction outside of the
classroom

A SOLUTION: EXTENSIVE READING
Extensive reading is gaining recognition as one
possible way to engage students in the language
outside of class (i.e. Elley, 2000; Tanaka &
Stapleton, 2007).
 Extensive reading = reading for enjoyment

Quicker than intensive reading (reading to learn)
 One important benefit – vocabulary acquisition

THE VOCABULARY DEFICIT: LEARNING TO
READ IN THE L2

The L2 learner has




An implicit understanding that all languages have
morphology, syntax, and phonology
Previous experience with literary genres
L1 reading strategies
Hardly any vocabulary
children learn1,000 - 5,000 words per year in
their L1 (Graves & Watts-Taffe, 2002), with
many of those estimates between 2,000 and 4,000
 L2 students cannot acquire this many new words
each year unless they read in the L2 a great deal
outside of the classroom (Cunningham, 2005;
Grabe, 2009).

CHARACTERISTICS OF AN EXTENDED READING
PROGRAM (DAY & BAMFORD, 2002)


The reading material is easy.
A variety of reading material on a wide range of topics must be
available.

Learners choose what they want to read.

Learners read as much as possible.

The purpose of reading is usually related to pleasure, information
and general understanding.

Reading is its own reward.

Reading speed is usually faster rather than slower.

Reading is individual and silent.

Teachers orient and guide their students.

The teacher is a role model of a reader.
FLUENCY CAN BE EXPENSIVE
The goal of Day & Bamford’s program is fluency
(students reading rapidly and automatically).
 They argue that fluency cannot be achieved
unless students are reading level-appropriate
texts.



They must understand 98% of the vocabulary in the
text (Hu & Nation, 2000).
To acquire L2 level-appropriate texts, one must
purchase a library of graded and/or authentic
texts that vary in level and literary genre
FLUENCY CAN BE EXPENSIVE: NONENGLISH STUDIES

Hitosugi and Day(2004) created an extensive
reading program for second semester learners of
Japanese


Rankin (2005) designed a program for an honors
intermediate German course


They used a grant to fund the purchase of Japanese
children’s books.
He purchased varying levels of two different graded
German easy reader series
Rodrigo, Krashen, and Gribbons ( 2004) created
two fourth semester Spanish courses that
contained both self-selected readings and
assigned readings

They purchased authentic and graded texts
OUR MODIFIED PROGRAM
No money to create the extensive reading library?
 We adhered to all of Day & Bamford’s
characteristics except the first.



Instead of purchasing level-appropriate texts, we had
our students read from journals and newspapers
already present in our university library
Can students benefit from reading texts that are
not level-appropriate?
ANOTHER MODIFIED EXTENSIVE READING
PROGRAM: ARNOLD (2009)
for advanced learners of German
 Students read online articles of their choice for
seven 75 minute periods during the semester.
 Students were allowed to use dictionaries
 Results

Students picked a wide variety of topics that may not
have been available in a graded reader program.
 Students enjoyed the program and reported
understanding 84% of what they read.
 Some students selected more difficult material in
order to challenge their linguistic ability

ADDITIONAL GOALS

This project would provide our students with the
opportunity to
explore the French and Francophone cultures on
their own time but continuously throughout the
semester
 visit our library, grab one of the French newspapers
or magazines that we had suggested, find a
comfortable seat, and start leafing the publication in
search of an article that caught their attention
 generate curiosity in class and raise interesting
questions regarding aspects of the French culture not
necessarily incorporated in the curriculum
 create a non-intimidating venue where students
would feel encouraged to express their views freely
but would also pay attention to accuracy

OUR STUDY:

PARTICIPANTS
Third semester learners of French
They had already learned and applied the past tense
forms that frequently appear in these types of texts
 They have already been exposed to some L2 reading
strategies
 The cultural content in the course could be found
rather easily in articles

13 students participated in the quantitative
portion (pretest-posttest)
 24 students participated in the qualitative
portion (reading log)


Those in the quantitative study and 11 others
OUR STUDY: DESIGN

Publications available: France-Amèrique, Le
Devoir, Le Nouvel Observateur, L’Express, and Le
Monde
The library provided online access to all of these
publications except Le Devoir.
 Like Arnold (2009), we permitted our students to use
a dictionary.


Students read an article of their choosing for 15
minutes during class


They could spend an additional 30 minutes reading
at home if they did not finish
5 articles over the semester (once a chapter)
QUANTITATIVE ASSESSMENT

We selected a text from L’Express for both the
pretest and the posttest.
933 words (read for comprehension not speed)
 Topic: a trip several scientists took to learn more
about baobabs


Students read the article for 15 minutes and
answered 5 comprehension questions about the
article and wrote a summary in French.
They marked the last word they read when they were
told to stop.
 The summaries were compared for an understanding
of what happened and why as well as depth of
expression.

QUANTITATIVE RESULTS

Participants were more accurate on their
responses to posttest comprehension questions
than they were on their pretest responses


Participants also significantly increased the
number of words they read when reading for
comprehension


p < .01, d = 1.12
p < .01, d = .45
the posttest summaries included
a chronological order
 more transitions
 more detail, they understood the gist

QUALITATIVE ASSESSMENT
Students turned in reading logs after each
reading
 We evaluated the reading log based on content
rather than grammar.
 Students had an opportunity to

summarize short articles in French and express their
candid responses to what they had read
 produce meaningful observations within a stress-free
writing environment
 practice the subjunctive tense with verbs and
expressions that indicate will, doubt, preference,
etc…

READING LOG RUBRIC
Study participation
Points given
Student brings his/her reading log each
class period and a copy of his/her article
and dictionary on free reading days.
1 point
Student selects a level-appropriate
article that relates to the chapter theme.
1 point
Reading log includes a word bank with 5
vocabulary words that the student plans
to start using in class. Each entry
includes gender, number and function
(noun, verb, etc.) as well as a definition
that best fits the context.
1 point
Student writes a 3-5 sentence, levelappropriate summary
1 point
Student writes a 5 sentence reaction
1 point
QUALITATIVE RESULTS: GENERAL
OBSERVATIONS
11 students consistently produced brief
summaries of no more than 4 sentences and brief
reactions not exceeding the 5 sentences required
 13 students produced more elaborate summaries
and clearly more engaged reaction paragraphs of
between 5 and 8 sentences
 Many students preferred perusing the online
versions of the newspapers and magazines we
had suggested

QUALITATIVE RESULTS: COMMON THREADS
Most participants tended to select articles in
popular music, film, sports
 Participants demonstrated varying degrees of
understanding of the details in their articles but
grasped the core ideas
 All participants offered some reactions to and
observations about their articles
 Most participants compared the ideas presented
in the articles with events and trends in the US
 All participants attempted to use the subjunctive
tense with verbs and expressions of opinions

QUALITATIVE RESULTS: COMMON THREADS

Participants took advantage of the stress-free
writing environment and focused more on
articulating their thoughts than producing
accurate grammar
SAMPLE PARAGRAPHS
RESULTS BY TYPES OF LOG ENTRIES
Entries longer than 5
sentences
Entries 5 sentences or less
1.
Students who produced brief
summaries and reactions
tended to compose short
sentences
2.
These students seldom used
transition words to connect
their thoughts
3.
They were able to identify
the main ideas but could not
address the details of their
articles
4.
Their reactions to the
reading were not engaged or
personal
1.
Students who produced longer
summaries and reactions had
annotated their articles and left
evidence of sustained vocabulary
search
2. These students captured the core
ideas of their article and were
able to discuss some of the
details
3.
The responses showed greater
lexical and grammar accuracy
4. The students used some
transition words to make their
paragraphs more coherent
RECURRENT PATTERNS IN THE REACTION
PARAGRAPHS
Transitions:
Donc= thus
par exemple= for example
Aussi= Also
en fait= in fact
À mon avis= in my opinion
Toutefois= however
Ensuite= then
Bien que= although
Verbs that address the author’s intentions:
Montrer= to show
Apporter= to bring
Donner l’impression de/que= to give the impression that
Exposer= to bring to light
Expressions used with the Subjunctive tense:
Se demander que= to wonder
Penser que =to think that
Aimer que= to like that
Il est certain que= it is certain that
CONCLUSIONS
Can students benefit from reading texts that are
not level-appropriate? Yes!
 We found our modified extensive reading
program to be a success

Students improved in accuracy and reading rate from
pretest to posttest
 Participants were able to summarize and compare
ideas they gleaned from the article in the reading log
 Students of differing abilities and interests were able
to approach and react to the articles in unique ways

CONCLUSIONS

It is important to note that we did not have a
control group
We wanted to evaluate whether students would
indeed be able to understand and benefit from
material that was not level-appropriate
 We plan to do a replication study with a control group
in the future

It is our belief that extensive reading provides an
excellent opportunity for students to interact
with the language in a meaningful way outside
the classroom.
 While an extensive reading program does take
work to establish, it may not take a lot of money

POSSIBLE EXPANSION ACTIVITIES
1. Schedule whole-classroom roundtable discussions of the articles;
2. Create content-specific mini-lessons to expand field-specific
vocabulary ;