The diploma thesis deals with the relationship between graded readers and teaching vocabulary. We examine whether extensive reading leads to vocabulary acquisition on the basis of context provided by graded readers. In addition, we focus on the frequency of occurrence of individual lexical items and we interpret it as an important variable in teaching lexis. These two factors are compared using test data from two groups of experiment participants. The first group (the reading group) was asked to read the text at their own pace, while the second group was asked to read the text while listening to it being narrated by an English native speaker. Based on hitherto research, the listening group is expected to outperform the reading group. After introducing the topic in chapter 1, we attempt to define extensive reading in chapter 2. Graded readers are based on providing sufficient amount of context for understanding unknown vocabulary. In this chapter we contrast practical application of extensive reading with theoretical foundation in secondary literature. Chapter 3 delineates the methodology used in the present thesis. It is based on replicating a study by Waring and Takaki (2003), and also on research into audio- assisted reading. This methodology is used to measure the efficiency of reading and...

This is a case study focusing on the effects of extensive reading. The study mainly deals with grammatical development and the relationship between input and output, but it also discusses learning strategies. The study aimed to answer the following question: To what extent, and in what ways, does extensive reading affect output and grammatical performance? The essay analyses the grammatical performance of a Spanish speaking PhD student in chemistry, whose main exposure to English was scientific literature during the study period. Accuracy tests were used in combination with free writing. The study did not find any direct, unquestionable relationship between extensive reading and grammatical development. Instead it shows the difficulty of separating input and output. However, the study indicates that output may be an effective tool for improving grammatical performance and that some focus on form may be necessary, at least for the grammatical development of adults. Furthermore, the study indicates that teaching may influence grammatical performance and, therefore, the presentation of grammar needs to be carefully considered.

The aim of this essay is to explore in what way Graded Readers are different from authentic texts against the background of English as a Second Language (ESL) and the use of authentic and simplified text in ESL teaching. The material used for this purpose is the authentic text of Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë and two upper-intermediate Graded Readers from two different publishers. The study uses the software readability-score and manual analysis to examine the texts with regards to lexical choice, language structure and story. The study showed that the Graded Readers are simplified in all aspects studied. Moreover, the Graded Readers differ from each other as well, most notably in the style of the text due to sentence structure and story simplification. This could imply that different authors of Graded Readers adopt different styles when simplifying text and that the grading levels are not comparable between different publishers. / <p>Engelska</p>

This study investigates the possible benefits of using the extensive reading approach as means of enhancing reading motivation, and through that improve and develop EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners’ vocabular repertoire. According to the Swedish Media Council, almost 49% of the Swedish youth do not read books in their free time, and the numbers keep decreasing (Statens Medieråd, 2019). At a time where reading is no longer as common, several researchers have claimed that implementing the extensive reading approach in EFL classrooms gives space for incidental vocabulary acquisition to take place. It has been further argued that extensive reading is an appreciated approach by students, since it gives them the freedom to learn at their own pace. However, there is still some disagreement among researchers as to whether extensive reading does increase reading motivation or not. For this study, data and material were gathered through electronic searches from numerous educational databases to investigate this matter and provide an overview of the findings. The overall results indicate that extensive reading does have a beneficial impact on vocabulary acquisition, and that students are generally positive and receptive to extensive reading, especially when combined with reading-tasks and activities. However, further research is necessary to be able to understand whether vocabular gains from extensive reading actually are affected by reading motivation or not.

Reading approaches in Japan and other EFL settings have typically focused on accuracy at the expense of fluency. However, reading rate and fluency are important components of reading that are currently being neglected. A review of the literature reveals growing interest in investigating the effectiveness of reading rate and fluency enhancement approaches such as extensive reading (ER), speed reading, and oral fluency training. Results of previous research indicate the effectiveness of these approaches for increasing reading speed and fluency as well as comprehension, but the overall body of evidence in this area remains weak, particularly in EFL contexts.With these gaps in mind, the purposes of this study were to investigate the effectiveness of the ER approach in developing reading fluency, investigate appropriate ways to measure reading fluency in adult EFL readers, investigate whether reading fluency increases are accompanied by reading comprehension increases, and identify the patterns of reading rate development that occur during an ER course. To this end, a longitudinal quasi-experimental study was conducted with 77 first-year students at a nursing college in Japan, all of whom participated in one 15-week semester of ER with an added fluency training component (ERFT) and one 15-week semester of intensive reading (IR). Silent reading rate, oral reading rate and fluency, reading comprehension, and written receptive vocabulary size were measured at the beginning and end of both semesters. Silent reading rate, oral reading rate, oral reading fluency, and reading comprehension were measured using both simplified and authentic texts. Approximately half of the students took ERFT in the first semester and IR in the second semester, and the other half did the opposite, so analyses were conducted separately for these two groups. Repeated-measures ANOVAs showed that for the IR-before-ERFT group, oral reading rate increase was significantly greater for the ERFT treatment (9.79 wcpm) than the IR treatment (3.05 wcpm) (p < .001) for simplified texts; silent reading rate increase was significantly greater for the IR treatment (8.26 wpm) than the ERFT treatment (-2.86 wpm) (p < .001) for authentic texts; and oral reading rate increase was significantly greater for ERFT (15.18 wcpm) than IR (4.37 wcpm) (p < .001) for authentic texts. For the ERFT-before-IR group, silent reading rate increase was significantly greater for ERFT (19.22 wpm) than IR (-2.50 wpm) (p < .001) for simplified texts; oral reading rate increase was significantly greater for ERFT (12.55 wcpm) than IR (4.81 wcpm) (p < .001) for simplified texts; silent reading rate increase was significantly greater for ERFT (21.86 wpm) than IR (-7.64 wpm) (p < .001) for authentic texts; and oral reading rate increase was significantly greater for IR (13.06 wcpm) than ERFT (6.70 wcpm) (p < .001) for authentic texts. Repeated-measures ANOVAs also showed that for the IR-before-ERFT group, reading comprehension increase for authentic texts was significantly greater for IR (1.00 logits) than ERFT (.17 logits) (p = .010); and vocabulary size increase was significantly greater for IR (.36 logits) than ERFT (-.19 logits) (p = .001). For the ERFT-before-IR group, reading comprehension increase for authentic texts was significantly greater for ERFT (1.05 logits) than IR (.11 logits) (p = .003); and vocabulary size increase was significantly greater for ERFT (.44 logits) than IR (-.07 logits) (p = .001). No significant correlations were found between changes in any of the reading rate and fluency measures (silent reading rate, oral reading rate, and oral reading fluency) and reading comprehension change. For the ERFT-before-IR group, analysis revealed a significant and moderately high negative correlation (r = -.422) between initial silent reading rate and silent reading rate change (on simplified texts) during the ERFT treatment. Analysis of individual students’ silent reading rate change patterns during the ERFT semester revealed a jagged increase to be the most common (22/77; 28.57%) pattern of rate increase. These results add to a growing body of evidence that ERFT yields greater reading fluency gains than IR, suggest that both ERFT and IR contribute to reading comprehension and vocabulary size gains, suggest that ERFT yields greater reading fluency gains among students with initially slower reading rates, and provide insight into how individual’s reading rate changes over the course of a semester of ERFT. / Teaching & Learning

This essay aims to investigate Swedish upper secondary school students' perceptions about their attitudes and motivation towards extensive reading in English. Further, this essay also aims to investigate students' attitudes towards self-selected reading as a potentially more motivational classroom strategy in comparison to teacher-selected reading. The main research questions addressed are 'What are Swedish upper secondary school students' attitudes to extensive reading in English?' and 'Do the students perceive self-selected reading to be more motivational than teacher-selected reading?'. The hypothesis is that students recognize learner autonomy to have a positive effect upon their reading attitudes and therefore prefer self-selected reading materials. Through collecting data using mixed methods consisting of 40 questionnaires and seven interviews, and further analyzing this data using qualitative content analysis and descriptive statistics, this study presents several findings. The results show that students’ attitudes are mixed: students are both more positive and negative towards extensive reading in English than for reading in general. Through further comparing the students' attitudes regarding the two reading selection practices—self-selected or teacher-selected reading—this study shows that 90% of students believe that self-selected reading would positively impact their reading enjoyment. Additionally, the results also imply that it is not necessarily learner autonomy that students perceive as likely to improve their reading attitudes, but that they rather just want their reading materials to align with their personal interests. This degree project essay concludes that many of the students are not feeling intrinsically motivated to read in their English class, and are thus relying on extrinsic factors for motivation instead, such as grades, which leaves them with negative reading experiences and attitudes. Finally, some pedagogical implications in relation to this study's findings are discussed.

This study analyzes ten beginning-level, Spanish-language graded readers in an attempt to answer the question of how much vocabulary do students need to know before being able to successfully participate in an extensive reading program. The study also analyzes the vocabulary taught in a beginning-level Spanish textbook to determine how well this vocabulary reflects the most common words in Spanish according to a frequency dictionary. It was found that a lexicon of 5,000 words was needed to obtain a sufficient level of comprehension in order for extensive reading to occur and that the textbook examined in this study did not present vocabulary that was extremely reflective of the most common words in the Spanish language.

Research has showed repeatedly the value of extensive reading in the L2 classroom for improved reading comprehension (Elley & Mangubhai, 1981; Mason & Krashen, 1997; Renandya, Rajan, & Jacobs, 1999). However, additional support beyond traditional extensive reading practices may be needed for very low proficiency learners. This report reviews research on implementing an extensive reading program for beginning level adult-education English language learners. It presents arguments for supporting extensive reading through shared reading, including read-alouds, use of children’s literature, and strategy modeling techniques. It also discusses the benefits of student-generated texts for boosting vocabulary and comprehension skills. The report concludes with pedagogical implications for including a strong reading component in the adult education ESL curriculum and suggestions for evaluating the strength and utility of such a program. / text

This diploma thesis Extensive reading - Position and Practices of Using Graded Readers in Prague Grammar schools and Students' Attitudes to a Particular Programme presents the phenomenon of extensive reading. It looks into its history, theoretical grounding, the existing body of empirical research, graded readers and benefits for English language teaching and learning. The analytical part gives reasons for the contrast between the great potential of extensive reading for the student's improvement on the one hand, and the implementation which has been infrequent and often at odds with the principles on the other. To find the reasons, the theoretical part analysed the situation of the English language teaching in countries which had implemented extensive reading into the curriculum. In the research part it assesses the scale and the practices of using graded readers in all relevant grammar schools in Prague. In the second part of the survey of grammar schools, it focuses on a grammar school in Mělník, which has been systematically using GRs. It examines the students' attitudes towards the practices of reading GRs in order to assess the potential and the limits of the European Union financed project I read, you read, we read. Key words: Extensive reading, Methodology of English Teaching, Implicit...

The reasons for incorporating literature in foreign language classrooms range from increased language proficiency and gaining cultural experience to increasing literary knowledge. In Swedish upper-secondary school, literature inclusion is advocated by the course curriculum, but with few specifics as to how teachers should approach it. This study investigates how teachers approach literature teaching, what their ideals for their teaching are, and what difficulties they experience when teaching. These questions were addressed in semi-structured interviews with seven upper-secondary school teachers. The data was analyzed using Content Analysis. The results show that the teachers viewed the role of literature as a way to enhance students’ social and cultural awareness, as well as their language proficiency. The teachers emphasized maintaining and cultivating students’ interests by choosing literature that contain themes relatable and interesting to students, as well as by enthusing students when introducing the texts. When working with the texts the most common assignments and exercises were based on literary analysis and subjective student reflection. The biggest constraint perceived by the teachers were unmotivated and uninterested students. A possible conclusion to be drawn from the research is that it is increasingly important for teachers to connect to students’ needs and interests when incorporating literature. A suggestion for further research is therefore to investigate students’ perceptions and experiences with literature in English class. In addition, the efficiency of literature teaching approaches needs to be researched, as this area is fairly unexplored.