Extensive
Intensive
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Overall understanding

100% understanding
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Reading a lot
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Limited reading
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Easy texts
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Difficult texts
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Fluent reading
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Word for word
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Ignore unknown words
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Use dictionaries
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Reading for pleasure
Intensive Reading vs Extensive Reading
Intensive Reading
Intensive reading means that the readers take a text, study it line by line, and
refer at very moment to the dictionary about the grammar of the text itself.
The main goal of reading is to comprehend the printed pages.
Drawbacks
The biggest drawback, by far, is the large amount of time spent reading a small
amount of text. While most people assume that this is necessary in order to be
“learning”, it isn’t necessarily the case. Many studies have shown that the only
way people really learn how to use new grammar or vocabulary correctly is by
encountering them in a large variety of contexts. In other words, even after you
have “learned” a word, it is still extremely benificial to keep reading material
which includes it. Words frequently don’t map one to one from one language to
another. Intensive reading, by it’s nature takes a lot of time.
Reading material with a lot of new vocabulary and grammar is a slow and tiring
process. As a result, even if you spend an hour a day reading (which quite a bit
for a language student), you will only get 3 or 4 pages of input.
As a result, you won’t encounter the word “nose” in enough contexts to realize
when it’s used. This may seem like a small problem, but consider the fact that
many, if not most, words cannot be mapped 1-1 from one language to another.
Extensive Reading
It is the view of Palmer (1964) that “extensive reading” is considered as being
reading rapidly. The readers read books after books. Its attention is paid to the
meaning of the text itself not the language. The purpose of extensive reading is
for pleasure and information. Thus, extensive reading is also termed as
“supplementary reading”
Benefits
It can provide “massive comprehensible input”
It can enhance learners’ general language competence
It can increase knowledge of previously learned vocabulary
It leads to improvement in writing
It can motivate learners to read
It teaches learners about the culture of the target language users, which will
allow learners to more easily join the L2 speech community
It can consolidate previously learned language
It helps to build confidence with extended texts
It facilitates the development of prediction skills