Additive extensive reading and syntactic development in second language writing: Analyses of syntactic complexity and sophistication in young EFL learners’ book reports

Abstract

This study explores how input-driven activity through extensive reading leads to syntactic growth in young students’ written production. Twenty-six young students learning English as a foreign language participated in extensive reading as an additional activity after school for a month (ER group), and their syntactic development was inspected by analyzing 14 syntactic complexity and six syntactic sophistication indices in the students’ book reports written preceding and following the reading activity. This group’s performance in writing was compared with that of another group of students who did not participate in the reading activity (Comparison group). Results of analyses for syntactic complexity showed that the ER group significantly improved in the length of sentence, the number of clauses, the number of coordination, and the number of verb phrases. This group also improved in syntactic sophistication by using less frequent verbs and less frequent verb-construction combinations in writing after the reading activity. In contrast, the comparison group showed improvements only in the length of sentence. We discuss these findings and pedagogical implications in light of usage-based approaches to language learning.