Abstract
Motivating English as a foreign language (EFL) students to read in English extensively can be a difficult task. EFL educators often use a wide range of methodologies to encourage their students to continue reading. Many of them also seek ways to motivate their students to engage in extensive reading (ER) autonomously. This paper presents a study of a private Japanese university’s ER program which uses graded readers through a mobile library cart system as well as a main library. The study utilized 2,075 student reading records and a survey of 755 Japanese EFL students in 75 required 1st and 2nd year EFL classes to better understand how the main and mobile libraries affected student ER. Results indicate that the main library plays an important role in the ER program by making students responsible for their own learning and initiative. However, the mobile library proves to be more successful at getting students to engage in ER and develop autonomous reading skills.
Highlights
It was noted that the mobile library group had a higher reading consistency than the main library group; this should be put into perspective as students using the main library could take up to five books at a time, compared to students using the mobile library who could take three books from the cart plus five books from the main library
As to why mobile library users exceeded main library users in terms of the number of MReader quizzes passed, it could be because the books in the mobile cart were geared to the class level, but that students could find necessary support and guidance for extensive reading (ER) in the classroom environment
A great deal of planning and energy needs to be devoted to an ER library and perhaps even more to a mobile library
Summary
To gather data on student reading outcomes, students’ MReader reading logs were compiled and analyzed. This study looks at 75 required 1st and 2nd year English classes that met two days a week in one 15-week semester (spring 2015, fall 2015 or spring 2016). The students are streamed into three proficiency levels: basic (CEFR A1), intermediate (CEFR A2) and advanced (CEFR B1) in accordance to the universities freshman placement testing and English test scores from their freshman year. 2,075 student MReader logs and 755 survey responses were assessed in this study. ER accounted for approximately 10% to 30% of the student’s final grade according to the teacher’s discretion, with the number of required words set depending on the class level. For the data collection and analysis, these participants have been grouped according to where they obtained their graded readers from: the mobile library (Table 1) or the main library (Table 2).
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