A case study on exploring the vocabulary development through extensive reading practice without formal instructions

Immediately, the author of this thesis took the chance to research an older government official's vocabulary development through extensive reading practicing process without formal instr

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT

OF REQUIREMENTS OF THE DEGREE OF MASTER IN TESOL

SU PER V ISO R : PH A M H O N G TH U Y , M.A

Hanoi January, 2008

S T A T E M E N T O F A U T H O R S H IP

I certify th«.u the m inor thesis entitled “ A case study on exploring the vocabulary developm ent through extensive reading practice without formal instructions” subm itted in partial fulfillment o f (he requirem ent for the degree o f M aster o f Arts

in TESO L is the result o f my work, excepi where otherw ise acknowledged The researcher reported in this thesis was approved by the Hanoi University

M y sincere thanks go to Mr Vu Van Dai Ph.D, M rs N guyen Thai Ha M A and the whole staff o f the Post-Graduate Studies D epartm ent o f Hanoi University for their invaluable lectures and guidance from which I have benefited greatly in the writing of this report.

I also owe the invaluable contribution made by N guyen T hi V an H anh, the subject

o f this study, w ithout which I could have never com pleted m y dissertation

Last but far from least, my heartfelt thanks go to m y parents, my husband and

m y little daughter fo r their great and unflagging support, everlasting love, encouragem ent, and inspiration, which are extrem ely im portant to m y education endeavour

ABSTRACTOnce English is widely taught and leamt in Vietnam to meet the needs of almost every body, from the youngers to the olders, from pupils to government officials and workers and so on, the importance of developing English vocabulary is also widely recognized As a result, many programs are designed somewhere with the aim at vocabulary improvement While the same trend takes place in Hoa Binh province, the government officials here find no suitable programs Immediately, the author of this thesis took the chance to research an older government official's vocabulary development through extensive reading practicing process without formal instructions by setting up a special 3-month extensive reading program for a single subject.

In the research, the 44-year-old subject practiced extensive reading for a period of nearly three months (12 weeks) without formal instructions It means she practiced mainly on her own at home or anywhere convenient for her out of any classes During the practicing period, the subject of the study had to take two tests (hereafter pre-test and post-test) The pre-test was administrated at the beginning of the 'special course of English extensive reading', and the post­test was at the end of the course The results of the tests and the data drawn from her journal entries she wrote along the course were used as the valuable source to analyze whether and how her English vocabulary knowledge developed through extensive reading practices without formal instructions The challenges that the subject of the study had to face during the practicing period and the way she dealt with them were also addressed The researcher of the study sometimes played the role of the participant's tutor who gave the her help if necessary The author o f the research is also the test constructor, marking and scoring

The study results were finally found to be encouraging to those who support Nuttall's argument for the effects o f extensive reading:

The best way to im prove one's knowledge o f a foreign language is to go a nd live among its speakers T he n ext best w ay is to read extensively in it.

Nuttall (1982:168, cited in Yu, 1993)

L IST O F ABBREVIATIONS AND TABLES

A b b re v ia tio n s

EFL/ESL English as a Foreign/Second Language

TA B LE O F CONTENTS

A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T I

A B S T R A C T II LIST OF A B B R EV IA T IO N S A N D T A B L E S Ill

C HAPTER I: IN T R O D U C T IO N 1

1.1 Background to the S tu d y 1

1.2 A im s o f the Study 3

1.3 Significance o f the S tudy 3

1.4 Scope o f the S tu d y 5

1.5 O utline o f the T h e s is 6

1.6 S u m m ary 6

C HAPTER II: L IT E R A T U R E R E V IE W 7

2.1 Background to Extensive R ea d in g 7

2.2 D efinition o f Extensive R eading 10

2.3 M ajor C haracteristics o f oil Extensive R eading P ro g ra m 14

2.4 Benefits and L im itations o f Extensive Reading fo r V ocabulary L e a rn in g 16

2.5 Studies on Vocabulary Growth through Reading and through Extensive R eading 18

2.5.1 Incidental V ocabulary Acquisition R esearch 19

2.5.2 Extensive R eading R esearch 21

2.6 S u m m ary 25

C HAPTER III: M E T H O D O L O G Y 27

3.1 R ationale fo r the R esearch D esign 27

3.2 The Subject o f the Study 31

3.3 The Setting o f the S tu d y 33

3.4 The W ords and M aterials 34

3.5 The M easurem ent Procedure 36

3.6 M arking Procedure 38

3.7 S u m m ary 38

CHAPTER IV: DATA ANALYSIS AND D ISC U SSIO N 39

4.1 The Data from the Journal E n trie s 39

4 2 Testing R esu lts 50

4 3 S u m m ary 54

C H A PTER V: CO N C LU SIO N , R EC O M M EN D A TIO NS, LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER S T U D IE S 55

5.1 C onclusion 55

5.2 R ecom m endations 56

5.3 Lim itations and Suggestions for Further S tu d ie s 57

R E FE R E N C E S 60

A PPEN D IX ES 69

C H A PTER I: IN TRO D U CTIO NThis introductory chapter provides background to the study; It states its aims, significance, scope, and presents an overview o f the whole thesis.

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Practically, the past decades have produced an explosion o f research in the field o f second language vocabulary acquisition (SLVA) I believe that this increased emphasis

on the lexicon is w arranted as teachers and researchers have com e to understand the role

o f the lexicon in language teaching and com m unication, the increased attention to vocabulary teaching and learning has become m ore im portant than ever before The same trend also takes place in English teaching and learning since English has been widely used in V ietnam Since English has become m ore and m ore important to many people o f different ages in Vietnam, almost everybody realizes the need o f learning English in general and developing English vocabulary during learning English in particular A s such, there are multiple programs designed aim ing at improving English vocabulary in different types of learners A lot o f them are extensive reading programs However, m y colleagues, middle-aged and older governm ent o f f i c i a l s i n Iloa Binh Science and Technology Department, who, like m any other governm ent officials in the country, w ish to im prove their English vocabulary in learning English in spite o f their busy work can find no suitable program available for them here These officials' wish have inspired me to carry out a study o f which one o f the colleagues becam e the only subject

Although it is virtually impossible for somebody to have opportunity to experience, as adult, an extended period of time learning to read an d develop vocabulary in her/his first/mother language (L I) because learning how to read in L I is norm ally mastered by most ordinary people prior to the eighth grade, it is possible to find oneself in such a fortuitous situation in a second/ foreign language (L2) This situation arose for the subject o f this study when she had about thirteen w eeks to leam English, preparing for the 4-week practicum workshop on Green Productivity (GP) in K ular Lum pur, M alaysia During the w orkshop sponsored by Asian Productivity O rganization (APO) in Malaysia, the participants, who arc required to be able to com m unicate and som etim es read professional m aterials in English, will spend time visiting selected factories or service

enterprises and com m unity projects, traveling to the famous sight-seeing in M alaysia Since Hanh, the subject o f the study, was appointed to attend the practicum workshop she was aware o f the fact that although she herself felt quite confident about her basic English gram m ar and structures, her English vocabulary was really poor to read any texts and com m unicate, she decided to take this chance to spend thirteen weeks before the workshop self-studying in order to enrich her vocabulary by practicing Extensive Reading (ER ) w ithout form al instructions It means she did not join any English classes but practices ER on her ow n with the researcher's (also the tutor's) help There were some reasons why she decided to learn by herself Firstly, during the thirteen weeks in Vietnam prior to the w orkshop she still had to work at the office so that she did not have enough tim e to attend any English class In addition, since w e could not find any English courses featuring extensive reading for beginning learners whose object was to improve vocabulary as hers in H oa Binh city, where she lives and works, an ideal way to carry out this study w as to set a "special" course Furtherm ore, she was persuaded by the researcher - her clo sest niece - that she would be helped with all the researcher's best and that ER would w ork effectively in her situation since theoretically, Stanovic (1956)

states that vocabulary a b ility w ill develop as a result o f ER Elley (1991) and Krashen

(1989) also argue fo r the im portance o f ER in effectively developing language ability.Claims that E R could lead to significant improvement in learner’s vocabulary dated back some decades ago M otivated by the continued grow th o f research on ER and the positive results from a variety o f studies (e.g., Bell, 2001; Cam iciottoli, 2001; Elley and

M angubhai, 1983; M ason and Krashen, 1997; Nash and Yuan, 1992; Renandya, Rajan, and Jacobs, 1999; T se, 1996; W alker, 1997), this case study was conducted on the impact of ER w ithout form al instructions on a m iddle-aged governm ental official's self study o f English in general and English vocabulary in particular over a thirteen-week period Data were collected from m ultiple sources, including a learner's diary, and a set vocabulary tests T he results o f this study are expected to support the hypothesis that ER without form al instructions can enhance vocabulary acquisition (m eaning and using) even in such a kind o f quite old learner Besides, the study also aim s to explore the challenges that the learner has to encounter during the ER practicing process and the way she deals with them

1.2 AIM S OF T H E STUDY

W ith the attem pt to (1) help the subject of the study enrich her English vocabulary (the num ber of w ords and word knowledge in term s o f word meaning and using), (2) dem onstrate the effects o f Extensive Reading in vocabulary acquisition and support the previous research on benefit o f ER practicing in improving vocabulary acquisition, (3) encourage every people to improve their vocabulary through ER practicing, (4) pave the way for those w ho wish to do research more on encouraging Vietnam ese middle-aged and older governm ent officials to learn English through ER practicing without formal instructions, this study is carried out to answer the following research questions:

/ What challenges does a middle-aged government official as an older adult

language learner encounter in the ER process and how does she deal with these challenges?

2 Does E R lead to vocabulary development in this type o f subject in terms o f the number o f words and word knowledge (word meaning and using!grammatical behaviour)?

1.3 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

As far as the significance o f the thesis is concerned, it is known that there has been no study designed fo r a single V ietnam ese subject who is a m iddle-aged or older governm ental official so far Previous studies o f extensive reading (ER ) program s have indicated general language gains, but few examine vocabulary growth; none in Vietnam identifies older ad u lt language learners' difficulties and the way the learner dealt with these during ER practicing in an entire ER program or m easure the extent to which participant enrich her/his vocabulary knowledge This case study, therefore, is hopefully the first stone to build the house o f the cases on the sam e them e in Vietnam

M ore significantly, although it is fair to state that the findings o f this study on vocabulary developm ent through extensive reading are not o f any new issues since there have been a lot o f experts' ideas arguing for the effectiveness o f extensive reading in vocabulary im provem ent, the practical meaning o f the thesis m ay be considered its conpensations T he positive results com e from applying an ER program as the researcher did in this study can open a door to m iddle-aged and older governmental officials in the local when they are in need of suitable English (or any other foreign languages) program s It can be also expectable that an extensive program like the one applied here will be very helpful and applicable in far and remoted areas where, like Hoa

Binh province, there are only few language training centers and these are only found in the center o f the province Due to this real difficulty, teaching and learning foreign languages are difficult for most of learners to assess in rem oted areas and it is most convenient for learners to study by themselves In the case, a suitable extensive reading will surely work.

The author o f th is study has witnessed a fact that a lot o f governm ental officials in the local have to leave their L2 courses unfinished or have to spend m uch more time and energy than o th er types o f learner to finish a language course because o f their busy work They are to o busy with various types of work in the office and at hom e everyday, with unexpected w orking travels, meetings, etc M ore specially, if a governm ent official

is also a w om an, she has to spend a lot o f time taking care o f the fam ily, her husband, children and d o in g housew ork as well Under the lim itation o f tim e, these officials cannot m anage to attend and com e to the end o f any classes For m any other officials in Hoa Binh, w hile they have determined to follow a language course letting alone the limitation o f tim e, they rush into another problem: There is no language program here designed w ith the aim s at vocabulary developm ent as they w ish in w hich they can find it easy and interesting enough to follow In fact, it is a com m on thought among middle- aged and o ld er governm ent officials in Hoa Binh that learning a foreign language is too difficult and unm otivating A foreign language as English, though useful and wanted, is not prim arily needed in their working environm ent since th eir jo b s are found to be rather steady and not really requiring It is also com m only considered to be by no means easy

to learn a neW language in general and to enrich vocabulary o f a foreign language as English in particu lar at the age o f middle and older

In the cases, E R program s can become the key to resolve the problem s A n ER program can meet alm ost o f these officials' needs in foreign language learning since an ER program (like the on e I applied in the study) is flexible in tim e, econom ic in energy and money Learners d o not have to attend any classes at fixed tim e T hey can read wherever and w henever they can and feel like outside classes w ithout paying learning fees Reading under n o pressure becomes interesting task because they are suggested to read whichever genres they want to and whatever they can com prehen within their competence A nd there is few or no additional exercises after reading T he ER learners read for inform ation and pleasure only So that 'learning environm ent' is really

comfortable and flexible for learners They do not have to stop their work to attend any classes while they can still leam and develop their L2 vocabulary.

In short, the positive results of the thesis dem onstrate the suitability and effectiveness of

ER practice w ithout formal instructions in the studied subject's vocabulary development

in term s o f increased word number and word know ledge (o f meaning and grammatical behaviour/using) These encouraging results also significantly highlight the practical meaning o f the study

1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

Under the author’s m odest conditions o f time, experiences and energy, the study is conducted with o n ly one single subject, the argum ents are therefore restrictedly applied

to those cases w hose conditions are sim ilar to the subject's In addition, there is always the danger in a case study o f succum bing to tem ptation to generalize I recognize that the role o f case studies in research is not to validate strong general claim s but rather to suggest avenues fo r research and raise questions about com m only accepted assumption Trying to keep these constraints in mind, I would like to do the research and summarize its results in term s o f a few important issues in ER practice w ithout formal instructions and vocabulary acquisition research As a case study, this research also cannot make claims for statistical generations There will be, how ever, a num ber o f important

m ethodological advantages and research insights to th is type o f case study that cannot easily be explored experim entally (McCormick, 1993; N eum an & M cCom ick, 1995)

In addition, the subject had only nearly three m onths practicing ER without formal instructions (not attending any English class), I will m ake a report o f the case study, the outcome after three months, the records and reflections on the experience Also due to the time constrains and scope of the m inor thesis the researcher narrow s her focuses on the challenges a m iddle-aged government official as an older adult language learner encounters in the E R practicing process without form al instructions as well as the way she deals with these challenges Besides, since the o th er goal o f the study is to explore the extent to w hich ER practicing without formal instructions will promote vocabulary development (in term s of word meaning and word using/gram m atical behaviour), the other language skills would be put out o f question though they are assumed to be associatedly developed (Palmer, M acCleod, Long, Y Davidson, 1985; Sticht & James, 1984)

1.5 OUTLINE O F TH E THESIS

The thesis is organized into five chapters: Introduction, Literature review M ethodology,

D ata analysis and Discussion, and Conclusion, R ecom m endations, and Lim itations and Suggestions for Further Study

C hapter O ne, Introduction, consists of five sections The first section discusses the Background to the Study; The second section states the Aim s o f the Study; The third section draws the Significance of the Study, the fifth section specifies the Scope o f the Study; and the last one outlines the thesis

Chapter Two, Literature Review, deals with the literature review on the study area focusing on related theories This chapter consists o f five sections The first section focuses on the Background to Extensive R eading; T he second section presents Definitions o f Extensive Reading; The third section explores M ajor Characteristics o f an Extensive R eading Program in the previous research; T he fourth section discusses the Benefits and Lim itations of Extensive R eading fo r V ocabulary Learning; T he last section reviews the Studies on Vocabulary G row th through R eading and through Extensive Reading

Chapter Three, the M ethodology, describes the research m ethod, its rationales, words,

m aterials, and d ata collection instruments D etailed inform ation about the subject, the setting o f the study, the measurement procedure and m arking procedure is also provided

C hapter Four, th e D ata Analysis and D iscussion, show the results o f the study and analyzes the d ata collected from the tests, from the subject's diary in order to evaluate the outcom e o f the study

Chapter Five, Conclusion, Recommendations, Lim itations and Suggestions for Further Studies, sum m arizes the whole thesis and discusses th e m ajor findings in order to offer recom m endations which are hoped to be o f some help to the English/L2 vocabulary improvement o f m iddle-aged governmental officials In this chapter some suggestions for further research are also given basing on the lim itations o f the study

1.6 SUMMARY

In conclusion C hapter I has fulfilled its task o f an introductory chapter which outlines the thesis and provides the information about (1) B ackground to the study, (2) Aims of the study, (3) Significance of the study, and (4) Scope o f the study

CH A PTER II: L IT E R A T U R E REVIEW

T his chapter aim s to provide an overview of the theories concerning extensive reading and vocabulary developm ent through extensive reading The chapter comprises five sections: (1) Background to Extensive Reading; (2) D efinitions o f Extensive Reading; (3) M ajor Characteristics o f an Extensive R eading Program ; (4) Benefits and Lim itations of Extensive Reading for V ocabulary Learning; and (5) Studies on vocabulary growth through reading and through Extensive Reading

2.1 BACKGROUND TO EXTENSIVE READING

Reading has been the skill most emphasized in traditional foreign language teaching, and even today is the m ainstay o f EFL instruction in many countries In Vietnam , for exam ple, English instruction at the university level is usually the "intensive reading procedure," which implies close study o f short passages, including syntactic, semantic, and lexical analyses and translation into the LI to study m eaning This, as Alderson and

U rquhart (1984) have argued, is not a reading but a language lesson:

Such a pedagogic practice - o f focusing on the language o f a text - m ay be justified as a language lesson, but it may very well be counterproductive as a reading lesson O ften what is known as "intensive reading" (as traditionally opposed to "extensive reading") is actually not reading at all: the lesson consists

o f a series o f language points, using texts as points o f departure Reading texts, in other words, are sources of language exercises, rather than reading exercises, (pp 246-247)

This view is supported by Brumfit (1984, p 83), H yland (1990, p 14), Johns and Davies (1983, p 2ff), and Yorio (1985, p 157) See G reenw ood (1988, pp 5-9) for a dissenting view O f course, no one would deny that language training is an essential part o f any FL curriculum It is ju st that this kind o f lesson is not a reading lesson in the strict sense.Today, FL/ESL/EFL reading instruction is moving increasingly, in Haas and Flower's phrase (1988, p 169), from teaching texts to teaching readers However, the "extensive reading procedure," while often used, has attracted com paratively little research interest

As a result, we know little about either its pedagogical aspects or its effectiveness in developing vocabulary In this chapter 1 will m ake a literature review on extensive reading and exam ine its nature as a procedure for teaching ESL/EFL reading W hile the

specific example is draw n from a specific EFL situation in V ietnam , but the argum ent applies generally to the sim ilar cases.

Over the past decade or so, there have been num erous studies reporting that extensive reading not only benefits learners o f different ages, but also in different contexts In addition to the gains in reading proficiency, positive affect, and reading habits (Camiciottoli, 2001; N ash & Yuan, 1992; R enandya, et a l„ 1999; Tse, 1996), other benefits of extensive reading also include gains in listening proficiency (Elley &

M angubhai, 1983), writing ability (M ason & K rashen, 1997; Tsang, 1996), reading speed (Bell, 2001; W alker, 1997), and even spelling (D ay & Swan, 1998; Krashen, 1989) These studies provide valuable insights and pedagogic im plications for educators who want to im plem ent extensive reading in their classroom s

However, the m ajority o f these studies are quantitative with a focus on w hether a particular extensive reading program is beneficial to learners; very few o f them provide

a clear picture o f what learners experience during the extensive reading process, including the challenges they face o r the turning point at which learners them selves find ways to dealt with the challenges during the reading process In addition, researchers who have conducted studies on extensive reading a re m ostly researchers o r language teachers who lack the tim e or the opportunity to experience what it is like to engage in extensive reading from the learner's perspective O ne purpose o f th is study is to explore both the benefits and challenges that one may encounter w hen engaging in extensive reading as revealed through a learner's diary study

Last decades also see a quite large body o f research on L I extensive reading, called

"pleasure reading," "sustained silent reading" [SSR], o r "uninterrupted sustained silent reading" [USSR] (see research cited in Krashen, 1985, p 91; K rashen, 1988; Vaughan,

1982, p 69) T his corresponds m ore or less to FL/ESL/EFL extensive reading (see Bamford, 1987; D ubin & O lshtain, 1977, pp 77ff; G rellet, 1981, p 4; Krashen, 1982,

pp 164-167, 1985, pp 89-94; Olshtain, 1976, pp 39ff) However, in a survey o f the literature on FL extensive reading, Brumfit (1978) noted: (a) the role o f the extensive reader in the curriculum has been surprisingly little studied (p 178); and (b) "the discussion o f teaching m ethods is conducted at a low theoretical level if it is conducted

al all" (p 179) M acLean's (1985) bibliography o f reading in a second or foreign language lists only four items on extensive reading Zvetina's ( 1987) survey o f research

on L2 reading does not even m ention extensive reading None o f the 99 items in ERIC

computer search 200, "Reading Strategies in Second Languages" (October 1987) is about extensive reading Swaffar's (1988) survey of FL reading research mentions only one article on extensive reading out of 221 items Oddly enough, one conclusion Swaffar reaches after exam ining 220 items not about extensive reading is that teachers

in the future "m ay well be asking students to do extensive reading on a Hanher text or in

a particular field o f study" (p 141)

What literature there is on extensive reading is o f lim ited value Most general works on

FL reading that discuss extensive reading do so in term s of book selection and course administration Some even have detailed drawings showing how to display books (Nuttall, 1982, pp 175ff; see also Bright & M cG regor, 1970, pp 65-80) More useful are the articles and reports on the pedagogical aspects o f extensive reading (e.g., Boys, 1987; Hamrick, 1989; Kalb, 1986; Lipp, 1988; Lupardus, 1987; M arbe, 1979; Susser& Robb, 1989; Tangitau, 1973), including at least three at JA L T '89 (Fox, 1989; Mason, 1989; M orimoto, 1989)

O nly a few studies o f FL extensive reading exist, yet, m ost o f them are experim ental but not case studies: Elley and M angubhai (1983); H afiz and Tudor (1989) (see also Tudor

& Hafiz, 1988, 1989; Hafiz and Tudor 1990; H am p-Lyons 1983; Laufer-Dvorkin 1981: Mason, 1987, forthcom ing; Petrimoulx, 1988; R obb & Susser, 1989; and Saragi et al., 1978) These studies are limited for two reasons: First, m ethodological problems make

m any o f their results worthless Hafiz and Tudor (1990), for instance, report "significant post-treatment gains" (p 36) for students who read extensively, but the gain could be the result solely o f the 90 additional hours o f exposure to English that the experimental group received, rather than from the extensive reading procedure itself A second problem with studies on extensive reading is that the theoretical problems which underlie the extensive reading procedure - the definition o f extensive reading, the nature

o f the materials to be read, and the transfer o f L I reading ability - have not been resolved H opefully, this thesis will contribute an idea to help solve these problems.Since the background to the extensive reading has been draw n from the above review, the definition and m ajor characteristics of an ER program in previous studies will be explored in the next section

2.2 DEFINITION O F EXTENSIVE READING

As it is stated previously, Extensive Reading is an im portant aspect o f any English as a Foreign/ Second Language reading program In this section, I will make a revision on definition of Extensive Reading in the previous studies

Extensive R eading can be defined as: "Students reading a lot o f easy, enjoyable books" (Helgesen, 2005) Each elem ent o f this definition includes elem ents which contrast ER with skill-based m ethodologies that focus on skim m ing, scanning, m ain idea identification and the like

The first point is that the learners spend m ost o f th eir tim e actually reading, not answering com prehension questions, writing reports or translating They m ay do those things, but such tasks are subordinate to actually reading

The second elem en t is that the learners are reading a lot Bamford and Day (2004) suggest that, although specific targets will vary, goals such as "a book a week or 50 pages a w eek" are realistic This is in sharp co n trast to traditional reading programs which had learners reading a single book over a term or a year and doing a detailed analysis o f it T h e easy aspect o f the definition is im portant E asy books build speed and reading fluency A lderson (1999) suggests that 200 w ords per m inute is a useful and realistic goal fo r second language readers To achieve this target, the books need to be easy Enjoyable is also a key part o f ER Extensive R eading is m uch like the way people read for pleasure in their native languages E njoyable is, o f course, a relative term - it can only be determ ined by the reader For that reason D ay and Bamford (1998) suggest that it is best if the books are self-selected There is no assum ption that learners are all reading the sam e book Indeed, it would be unusual and perhaps impossible to find a single title that all m em ber o f a class find interesting D ifferent learners will prefer mysteries, love stories, biography and other forms o f non-fiction, even comics In the

ER program, these genre preferences are respected And in the context o f this thesis, the learner's habit an d preference are reading news and articles on newspaper and magazine Her reading habit and genre preference were, o f course, also respected However, since her vocabulary was rather poor, newspaper and magazine were found to be quite difficult for her to read and understand, because she got tired of reading after some trials To avoid this, she was advised (by the tutor - the researcher) to read something

easier and she chose children's storybooks to read with her brother's 2nd-grade grand­daughter.

The final elem ent o f the definition is books/ m aterials W hile any reading material can

be used, the subject o f this study will mainly read children's books which covered about 1,260 pages o f sim ple English text, of which 483 pages cam e from comic books and 170 pages from children's textbooks The rest of the pages were from simple children's storybooks and fairy tales with an average o f about 10 sentences per page

There is an o th er w orking definition of "extensive reading" as a language teaching/learning procedure is that it is reading (a) o f large quantities of material or long texts; (b) for global or general understanding; (c) with the intention o f obtaining pleasure from th e text Further, because (d) reading is individualized, with students choosing the b o oks they want to read, (e) the books are not discussed in class (Based on Bamford, 1984a, pp 4; Bamford, 1987; Barnett, 1989, p 167; Brumfit, 1984, p 84;

Dawes, 1979; D u b in & O lshtain, 1977, pp 77ff; Eskey, 1973, p 173; Grellet, 1981, p 4; Hedge, 1985, pp vii, 68, 70; Krashen, 1982, pp 164-167; K rashen & Terrell, 1983, p 134: Norris, 1975, p 208; O lshtain, 1976, pp 39ff; Rivers, 1981, pp 37, 278;

M cGregor, 1970, p 69); (q) a novel (Ferris, Kivochi, and Kowal, 1988)

This variety suggests that quantity o f reading is not an absolute num ber o f hours or pages but depends on teacher's and learner's perceptions of how extensive reading differs from o th er reading classes; this will vary according to type o f program, level, and other variables In an EFL situation such as V ietnam , a typical university "intensive reading" class m ight "read" fewer than 100 pages a year (in one 90-m inute class weekly few 26 weeks) T hese students and teachers would perceive 1,000 pages as extensive O f course, quantity by itself does not make the extensive reading procedure It has specific techniques, practices, and activities Consequently, there is no hard and fast rule for the amount o f reading to be done extensively, but a good rule o f thum b is offered by Light (1970): the assignm ents should be o f sufficient length "so that neither teacher nor learners will fall fo r the tem ptation to talk them through in class" (p 123).

¡pr

By aim ing at g eneral com prehension, this procedure (ER ) reduces both teacher demands

on the student an d student dem ands on the text to attain the objectives o f fluency and speed as well a s com prehension Broughton et al.'s com m ent that extensive reading must imply a "relatively low degree o f understanding" (1978, p 92) m ust be taken in context:

we want students to achieve a degree o f understanding sufficient for pleasure reading If the student finds the book too difficult to enjoy, the extensive reading procedure inquires that the book be changed, and not that the student be m ade to study it more closely The level o f global understanding required varies with the student's language proficiency, the nature o f the text, and other factors

The third aspect, pleasure, may seem dubious, because, after all, the reading is an assignment, an d m ost o f us do not take pleasure in assignm ents However, pleasure, like quantity, is relative T he procedure assumes that learners will enjoy reading books that

they have cho sen on topics o f interest to them m ore than they will enjoy assigned

readings from a reader If they have chosen correctly, the book should be easy to read

for general understanding Nell (1988), in his interesting study o f the psychology of pleasure reading, argues (anecdotally) that one cannot read for pleasure in a foreign language before m astering it (p 93), but any EFL reading teacher can supply anecdotal counter-evidence Further, even learners who are fa r from fluent derive pleasure from

the very experience o f reading a book in a foreign language Learners in extensive

reading courses regularly com ment on their joy at having finished whole books in the

target language

A few other points on the definition of extensive reading should be clarified Some writers (e.g Field, 1985, p 177; M unby, 1979, p 143) see extensive reading as just another reading sub-skills such as skim m ing or scanning This confuses the whole with its parts W e should see extensive reading as a teaching/learning procedure, not a reading sub-skills Further, the implication in m any works that extensive reading is by definition the reading o f graded readers (e.g., Bam ford, 1984b, p 3; 1987; Bright &

M cGregor, 1970, p 65; Broughton et al., 1978, p 110; Dubin & O lshtain, 1977, pp

77ff; L ivingstone et al., 1987, pp 5-6; Stoller, 1986, p 65) has no basis in theory or practice There is no reason extensive reading should be confined to graded materials

In conclusion, w hile definitions vary, m any other experts agree that ER involves the independent reading of a large quantity o f m aterial for inform ation or pleasure The prime focus o f E R is on the meaning o f what is being read rather than on the language

On the other hand, in intensive reading students work with short texts under the guidance o f the teacher The aim o f intensive reading is to help students construct

detailed m eaning from the text, to develop reading skills, such as identifying m ain ideas

and recognizing tex t signals, and to enhance vocabulary and gram m ar knowledge These

two approaches to teaching reading - intensive and extensive reading - are not seen as

being in opposition, as both serve different but com plem entary purposes (Carrell & Carson, 1997; N u ttall, 1982)

And I, in short, a lso agree with many experts' idea that ER is a w ay to teach/leam a

foreign language in general and a way to teach/leam reading in particular which means

reading a lot o f self-selected, easy, interesting texts, and doing few or no exercises afterwards In the other w ords, it involves the independent reading o f an 'as large as

possible' quantity o f m aterial for inform ation or pleasure In this thesis ER will be understood in the light o f this definition

Next, I will review what previous researchers find about characteristics o f an extensive

reading program

2.3 MAJOR CHARACTERISTICS OF AN EXTENSIVE READING PROGRAM

This section discusses some main characteristics o f an extensive reading program in the previous research In this section I also describe briefly the extensive reading program in

my study

The following eight characteristics are generally thought to be am ong the most important (Campbell, 1989; Davis, 1995; Day and Bamford, 1997; Fielding & Roller, 1992; Gam brell, 1979; Hill, 1997; Hsui, 1994; Jacobs, Davis and Renandya, 1997; Kim

& Krashen, 1997; Nash & Yun-Pi; Park & Turn, 1987; R aja, 1995; W aring, 1997; Yu, 1993);

Students read large amounts of printed material;

Students choose what they want to read;

Students read a variety o f materials in terms of topic and genre;

The material students read is within their level o f comprehension;

Students take part in post-reading activities;

Teachers read with their students, thus serving as role models o f good readers

Teachers and students keep track of student progress;

Teachers provide help and guidance where needed

Finding the m aterials to support Points 1, 3, and 4 above can be difficult, especially where funding is insufficient Lituanas (1997) describes how she collected materials from a wider variety o f sources, including fellow teachers, past students, and community groups Toh and Raja (1997) explain ways that teachers themselves can w rite ER materials suited to their students' cultural contexts and proficiency levels W ays that students can be involved in creating reading materials for them selves and peers are explored in Davidson, Ogle Ross, Tuhaka, and Dupuy and M cQ uillan (1997), while Derewianka (1997) gives ideas for finding ER materials on the internet

It is worth noting that not all writers on ER agree with Point 5 above, i.e., including post-reading tasks in the ER program The main objection is that post-reading tasks may spoil students’ reading enjoym ent, and that in ER reading should be seen as its own jfeward However, I feel that post-reading tasks, if carefully designed, can serve useful purposes (see Y u, 1993; M ason and Krashen, 1997 for a sim ilar view) Post-reading

activities can be used to (i) reinforce what students have learned from their reading; (ii) give students a sense o f progress; and (iii) help students share information about materials to read or avoid The output hypothesis (Swain, 1985, 1993, in press) provides additional support for the use o f post-reading tasks This hypothesis states that while com prehensible input supplies an essential basis for second language acquisition, it must

be supplemented by the production of com prehensible output if learners are to reach a high level of proficiency in the target language Sw ain argues that production tasks force learners to notice features of the target language and to form and test hypotheses about the language A num ber o f post-reading activities used are described in their study.Some educators use student groups to support ER G roup activities support reading interest and proficiency and can take place before, during, and after ER For instance, Cockbum , Isbister, and Sim-Goh (1997), Rhodes (1993), R odgers (1997), and Samway,

W hang, and Pippitt (1995) depict programs in w hich m ore proficient, often older readers, support less proficient, often younger students, in various literacy activities Daniels (1994), Hill and Van Horn (1997), and M cQ uillan and Tse (1997) describe group activities that provide readers with opportunities to discuss w hat they have been reading In another experim ent reported by Lituanas, Jacobs, and Renandya, they wonted to exam ine if ER could be successfully im plem ented w ith older adult second language learner and they were interested in the relationship betw een learning gain and

a set o f ER variables These variables include the am ount o f ER m aterial read, the extent

to which this m aterial is perceived as interesting, easy/difficult, and com prehensible, and whether or not ER is perceived to be a useful and enjoyable activity

In m y study, I have included some major characteristics o f an extensive reading into the real context In our three-m onth extensive program, H anh, the subject o f the study could choose what she wanted to read However, under her lim itation o f language proficiency and material availability she only read childrens' books and used English Streamline Connections (student's book) as a guidebook She read children's books on a wide range

o f topics at hom e, at her own pace rather than attending any classes Hanh herself selected what she could read and wanted to read and had the freedom to stop reading material that failed to interest her since the purposes o f reading were usually related to pleasure, inform ation and general understanding Som etim es I, as a tutor, also read with Hanh as so to provide help and guidance if necessary During the extensive reading practicing process reading was considered its own rew ard Hanh did not have to take

part in post-reading activities but to be required (by the researcher) to write journal entries which would help the researcher - the tutor an d the learner herself keep track of her progress O n running this special extensive reading program while I examine if extensive reading could be successful implemented with older adult government official learner, I can also focus more on the effectiveness of ER in improving the only participant's vocabulary improvement in terms o f num ber, use and m eaning o f words Simultaneously in my study, 1 describe a different context in w hich the challenges that the only subject o f the study has to face and deal during the ER practicing process

w ithout formal instructions are explored

W ith reference to research evidence, we now turn to the role o f extensive reading in Language Learning with the aim to review what the previous researchers found about this issue in general and if any researcher found extensive reading lead to vocabulary developm ent as th e assum ption in this thesis in particular

2.4 BENEFITS AND LIMITATIONS OF EXTENSIVE READING FOR VOCABULARY LEARNING

I have finished review ing the general role o f ER in Language Learning In this section I will make the them e o f the thesis more specific by exploring the benefits and limitation

o f ER for vocabulary learning through previous studies on this topic

According to its definition, extensive reading exposes learners to "large quantities o f

m aterial within th e ir linguistic competence" (Grabe and Stoller, 2002: 259), which is, at the sam e time, pleasurable There are several reasons why it is so attractive to develop language know ledge (and more specifically vocabulary) through extensive reading To mention a few, it is considered a "pedagogically efficient" (H uckin and Coady, 1999: 182) approach, as two activities - vocabulary acquisition and reading - occur a t the sam e time T his approach facilitates learner autonom y, can be very pleasant and motivating, provides learners with the opportunity to m eet words in their context o f use (Thom bury, 2002), increases sight vocabulary (Coady, 1997; N agy, Herman and Anderson, 1985; Nation and Coady, 1988), and could theoretically result in substantial vocabulary learning, which seems difficult to achieve with explicit teaching during the relatively short period of time that L2 learners spend in the language classroom In fact Nation (2001: 155) argues that "the use o f reading and other input sources may be the

only practical options for out o f class language developm ent for some learners,'' especially in EFL contexts.

M any other experts such as Nagy & Herman (1987) also argue for the role of extensive reading in increasing knowledge o f vocabulary They claim ed that children between grades three and twelve (US grade levels) learn up to 3000 w ords a year It is thought that only a sm all percentage of such learning is due to direct vocabulary instruction, the rem ainder being due to acquisition of words from reading This suggests that traditional approaches to the teaching o f vocabulary, in which the num ber o f new words taught in each class was carefully controlled (words often being presented in related sets), is

m uch less effective in promoting vocabulary grow th than sim ply getting students to spend tim e on silent reading o f interesting books

Considering the above, it seems that extensive reading should be an indispensable dim ension o f vocabulary teaching/learning H ow ever, there are m any counter-argum ents

to the potential benefits discussed so far First o f all, there is still little actual evidence of the supposedly substantial contribution o f incidental L2 learning (Raptis, 1997) It is also argued that reading for meaning does not autom atically lead to the acquisition of vocabulary (H uckin and Coady, 1999) A num ber o f researchers (e.g., Huckin and Coady, 1999; N ation and Coady, 1988; Parry, 1993) m ake a distinction between guessing the m eaning o f a word with the use o f context clues and actually retaining that meaning

Moreover, richness o f information can som etim es result in learners ignoring the target word, as they d o not need to understand its m eaning in order to com prehend the text (M ondria and W it-de Boer, 1991; Nation and C oady, 1988; Zahar, Cobb and Spada, 2001) There is also the question o f w hether vocabulary learning from reading is really incidental, as it is argued that the learner has to pay at least som e attention to a given new word and to put some effort into finding its m eaning (Paribakht and W esche, 1999) For all these reasons, Paribakht and W esche (1997: 175) describe the role o f reading in vocabulary acquisition as "unpredictable and not necessarily the m ost effective."

To sum up, a num ber o f studies during the last tw o decades have confirm ed the widespread belief that second language learners can acquire vocabulary through reading However, the sam e findings suggest that incidental vocabulary acquisition is a time- consum ing and unprcdictablc process and, hence, raise questions about the suitability of

the approach for second language learners (Paribakht and W esche, 1997; Zimmerman, 1997) At the sam e tim e, Meara (1997) com m ents that most o f these studies do not contribute to the understanding of the acquisition process, since they do not investigate the challenges that learners encounter during extensive reading process and, to some extends, lead to w ord retention As a result, the process o f vocabulary acquisition is not yet understood to any great degree (Paribakht and W esche, 1997; Paribakht and

W esche, 1999; Schmitt, 1998), and therefore, it cannot be fully exploited by teachers and learners

In an attempt to further this understanding, this case study also investigates the relationship between vocabulary acquisition and extensive reading, exploring the extensive reading process during which what challenges an older adult learner has to face and deals to get vocabulary developm ent Few reading studies have actually exam ined this factor (exceptions include Horst, C obb and M eara, 1998 and Saragi, Nation and M eister, 1978) Moreover, reading and vocabulary studies have almost exclusively focused on word meaning in determ ining vocabulary acquisition However,

it has been acknow ledged by a large num ber o f lexically-m inded researchers that knowing a word involves m uch more than just understanding its meaning (Aitchison, 1994; Laufer, 1997; M cCarthy, 1990; Nation, 1990; Nation, 2001; Richards, 1976; Schmitt, 1998; Schm itt, 2000) Therefore, the other aim o f this study is to exam ine the effects o f extensive reading on vocabulary acquisition in a particular process learning - vocabulary will be understood here not only the num ber o f w ords learned by the subject but also w ord know ledge in term s o f meaning and gram m atical behaviour (or using) of words This study, as far as I know, is the first in V ietnam to relate o f extensive reading process with vocabulary acquisition from that perspective in such a specified type of learner

2.5 STUDIES ON VOCABULARY GROW TH THROUGH READING AND THROUGH EXTENSIVE READING

Horst (2005) divides research in the field into tw o strands: studies on incidental vocabulary acquisition and studies on acquisition through extensive reading As it will

be shown below, these two do not always coincide In fact, in most cases the focus is on incidental acquisition and not extensive reading, since the participants are exposed to only one or very few texts

2.5.1 In c id e n ta l V o cab u lary A cquisition R esearch

Incidental vocabulary acquisition research has verified the assum ption that exposure to reading texts can contribute to L2, and also first language (L I), vocabulary growth, as all studies have found evidence o f incidental vocabulary learning Yet the am ount o f that contribution has been reported to be small, and the efficacy o f the m ethod compared to others is still debatable (Nagy et al., 1985; Nation and Coady, 1988; Coady, 1997; Raptis, 1997; H orst and Meara, 1999; Huckin and C oady, 1999; W aring and Takaki, 2003) Early L2 reading studies indicate a rate o f roughly one word correctly identified

in every twelve w ords tested (Horst et al., 1998)

An interesting resu lt that came to light in one of the first studies (Saragi et al., 1978) was the small but significant correlation (0.34) they found between the num ber o f tim es each word occurred in the book and the num ber o f people who chose the correct meaning in the test From th at, they concluded "repetition affects learning but the relationship is considerably com plicated by other factors" (Saragi et al., 1978: 76)

However, m ost L2 incidental vocabulary acquisition studies (D ay, O m ura, and Hiramatsu, 1991; D upuy and Krashen, 1993; Ferris, 1988; Pitts, W hite and Krashen 1989; Saragi et al., 1978) have been criticized for a num ber o f lim itations (H unt and Beglar, 2005; R aptis, 1997), most o f which are also acknow ledged by the researchers themselves First o f all, they used measuring instrum ents not sensitive to sm all amounts

o f learning (N ation, 2001) For exam ple, Pitts et al (1989: 272) com m ent that their measuring instrum ent was designed in such a way that "rendered partial know ledge useless." A t the sam e time, they did not adequately control text difficulty (Nation, 2001), considering that, for instance, in the Pitts et al (1989) study, over 50%

o f the participants did not manage to finish reading the assigned chapters Furthermore, the number of target w ords was quite small; for exam ple, only seventeen words were tested by Day et al (1991) For the same study, the w riters also point out that, since the test was taken right after the reading, the effects o f the reading on the long-term retention of the w ords could not be predicted

The studies discussed so far were not im plem ented under "extensive reading" conditions The participants were given only one text to read which m ight not have been interesting or m otivating enough for them As Day and Bamford (1998: 29) comment,

in the absence o f interesting texts very little is possible." In addition, none o f the earlier

reading treatm ents (except for Saragi et al., 1978) lasted for more than an hour (Horst et al., 1998).

Two later studies (Horst et al., 1998; Horst and M eara, 1999) tried to overcome some of these lim itations by expanding the reading treatm ent and adding new measuring instruments, which possibly allowed for partial know ledge to be recorded (e.g., an association test in H orst e t al., 1998) They confirmed the small but meaningful amounts

o f incidental vocabulary learning as a result of reading, but with a higher pick-up rate than its predecessors (e.g., about one new word in every five in H orst et al., 1998) In addition, in the sam e study, knowledge "persisted over a period o f ten days" (Horst et al., 1998: 219) W hat is especially interesting in relation to the research questions o f the current study is that, Horst e t al (1998) found a higher correlation (0.49) than Saragi et

al (1978) (0.34) betw een the num ber of times each word occurred in the text and the relative learning gains This makes the role o f word frequency m ore dom inant, but it is again implied that other factors are also involved

In Horst and M eara (1999), the need for m ultiple encounters with a word was emphasized H ow ever, the learning conditions were again not typical o f extensive reading Considering that the participant read the sam e text eight tim es, he did not simply have eight encounters with the unknown w ords, but he encountered each word eight tim es in exactly the sam e context This does not necessarily have the same effect

on the retention o f the word as w hen the word is encountered in eight different contexts.Brown, Waring, and Donkaewbua (under review) found encouraging am ounts of incidental vocabulary learning in terms o f word-form recognition and prompted- meaning recognition, but far less in terms o f unprom pted meaning production Moreover, the w ord-form and receptive meaning know ledge seem ed relatively durable over time However, W aring and Takaki (2003) found that relatively little vocabulary was remembered after three months, for exam ple, o f tw enty-five words correctly answered in the im m ediate post test, only one was rem em bered in the delayed test

2.5.2 E x ten siv e R ea d in g R esearch

The 1990s saw renew ed interest in ER and the role it plays in second language learning The May 1997 issue o f The Language Teacher (a journal published by the Japan Association fo r Language Teaching), for example, was devoted to papers on ER The authors o f these papers argue that ER should be given a larger share in our language curriculum and present ideas on how to achieve this

In the field o f extensive reading, two studies (N ation and W ang, 1999 and W odinsky

and Nation, 1988) investigated the potential contribution o f graded readers to vocabulary learning by exam ining word frequency They concluded that graded readers

can be an im portant source o f vocabulary learning fo r second language learners i f used appropriately A lthough useful, these are corpus-based studies that, as their writers

suggest, should be followed by research in order to test w hether this learning actually

takes place

There are a n u m b er o f L2 extensive reading studies that have found gains in vocabulary

using either d irect or indirect m easures of vocabulary (Cho and Krashen, 1994; Elley

and M angubhai, 1981; G rabe and Stoller, 1997; H afiz and Tudor, 1989; Hafiz and

TUdor, 1990; L ai, 1993 (also noticed improvement in spelling); M ason and Krashen, 1997) However, the indirect m easures employed and the conditions under which these

studies were im plem ented m ake us cautious when evaluating the findings For instance,

some of the participants were living in the L2 environm ent (H afiz and Tudor, 1989, Cho and Krashen, 1994, G rabe and Stoller, 1997), while others used a dictionary for parts of

the reading (C ho and Krashen, 1994, Grabe and Stoller, 1997) Both factors make it difficult to attribute any learning solely to the reading involved in the studies

Grabe and Stoller (1997) report some interesting conclusions that further com plicate the

issue of incidental vocabulary acquisition and reveal the relative learning difficulties of

different words; it seem s that "som e words needed to be looked up only once while

others required m ultiple exposures and multiple dictionary consultations" (Grabe and

Stoller, 1997: 112) Based on that, they argue "each learner seem s to encounter some

sets of words th at ju st will not be rem embered" (G rabe and Stoller, 1997: 115)

Besides, in a recent study of extensive reading that took place in an authentic extensive reading environm ent (Horst, 2005: 374), participants appeared to have learned "well over half of the unfam iliar" words they encountered in the sim plified readers (although

there m ight have been "a role for other sources of exposure in learning" for some of these words) T his seem s a very encouraging result; we should take into consideration, however, that the procedure involved a self-rating test, and that as Horst (2005) acknowledges, the pre- and post-tests were not the same.

Clearly, the literature provides good evidence that vocabulary is learned incidentally from reading, at least to some extent, but there are still large gaps in our knowledge of this learning in an authentic extensive reading context For exam ple, we do not know much about what challenges an older adult learner encounters during extensive reading process, how she deals with them and if her vocabulary really improves, how it improves

in terms of num ber o f words, and word know ledge (including meaning and use of words)

In fact, research in E R has been undertaken to dem onstrate that language gains o f many types occur from exposure to sim plified second language texts Research by Elley (1991), Hafiz and T udor (1990), K rashen and C ho (1994), Lai (1993), Lituanas, Jacobs and Renandya (1999) and R enandya, Rajan and Jacobs (1999) among others, report linguistic gains as a result o f ER W riting ability is said to improve as a result o f extensive reading (E lley and M angubhai, 1981; H afiz and Tudor 1990: Hedgcnck and Atkinson, 1998; Janopolous, 1986; M ason and K rashen, in press; Robb and Susser, 1989; Tsang, 1996); so as is spelling (Polak and K rashen, 1988) Reading extensively has also been reported to increase m otivation to read and the developm ent of a positive attitude to reading in th e second language (Cho and K rashen, 1994, 1995; Constantino, 1994; Evans, 1999; H ayashi, 1999; M ason and K rashen, 1997) Oral proficiency was (anecdotally) said to have improved after reading large am ounts o f text (Cho and Krashen, 1994) T here are a considerable num ber o f vocabulary studies that report gains

in vocabulary from E R (D ay, O m ura and Hiram atsu, 1991; Dupuy and Krashen, 1993; Ferris, 1988; Grabe and Stoller, 1997; Hayashi, 1999; Mason and Krashen, 1997, Mason and Krashen, in press; Pitts, W hite and Krashen, 1989 and Yamazaki, 1996 are just a few examples) H ow ever, very few o f these studies explore the vocabulary development

in a deeper perspective o f increased num ber o f word and word knowledge (in terms of meaning and gram m atical behaviour or use o f w ords) through extensive reading practice without formal instructions Hence, this study was conducted to fulfill that gap

Almost all of that research has been done by researchers who wish to show ER in a good light and there is considerable cross-citation w ithin this literature which is used as

evidence to support the claim s made in the research However, rarely does one find in these citations any critique o f this literature and most often it is accepted as fact and cited without com m ent The HR research literature (as a body o f research) has been severely criticized by m any researchers For exam ple, Coady (1997 : 226) referring to some oft-cited E R research says that "there appears to be a serious methodologicalproblem with these studies" Nation (1999:124) says that "second language s tu d ie s generally lacked careful control of the research design" Horst, Cobb and M eara (1998) also point out that som e o f the incidental learning from exposure experim ents that are often cited as supporting an ER approach are 'm ethodologically flawed' (1998 : 210) Unfortunately, a detailed exam ination o f these 'flaw s' is not made apparent in the papers and researchers need to be m ade aware o f what problem s exist.

As the popularity o f ER , both as an approach to learning and as a research topic, has boomed in recent years, it seem s timely and pertinent to look carefully and in detail at a broad range o f E R studies to determine what we do know about ER , what problems these researchers have had while undertaking this research, and how that can inform future research so that we can learn from past m istakes Unless we have a solid foundation o f research upon which to form our ideas about what ER can do effectively and what it cannot, it will be that m uch more difficult to promote the need for ER within foreign language learning contexts Thus, my concern in this section is also with the quality, reliability and accountability o f much, but not all of, the research surveyed (and the claim s em anating from them ) as a canonical base upon which the house o f ER rests.This section is n o t prim arily meant as a review of findings, but the central focus is with issues concerning research design, assessm ent m ethodology and other issues related to researching ER and vocabulary development M any o f these studies assessed the effectiveness o f E R w ith children (i.e those under about 15) learning second languages This research on children is widely cited as relevant to L2 ER without the qualification that children learn differently from adults and it is not altogether obvious that this research necessarily applies to adults, and vice versa There are crucial differences that may give us pause w hen assum ing that they are the same Firstly, children are characterized as learning w ithout much apparent analysis, freely and naturally compared

to adults, w hereas adults learning second languages are characterized as requiring a lot more effort Secondly, the testing procedures that have been used in some o f this research suggests that it corresponds much more to LI children forms of assessment

than for adults Thirdly, many of the younger children in some o f these studies would not have yet developed many of the necessary cognitive strategies for dealing with longer texts in second languages and may not be as able as adults to benefit from ER This has been little explored Therefore, another aim o f this thesis is to explore the challenges that an older adult government official subject has to face in the ER process

as well as the w ay she deals with them

Another concerns centers around the applicability o f the LI tests to L2 subjects Hafiz and Tudor, (1990) and Lituanas, Jacobs and R enandya (1999) both used assessment instrum ents that were designed for LI rather than L2 subjects and th eir applicability to L2 subjects have not yet been explored Their article begins by presenting an overview

o f why and how to im plem ent ER This is followed by a report on a study o f the impact

o f ER on the language proficiency o f a group o f V ietnam ese government officials studying English

The principal theoretical motivation behind the use o f ER in second language learning comes from the idea that learners need large am ounts o f com prehensible input in their new language in order to m ake progress toward overall com m and o f that language (Krashen, 1982) In this way, ER benefits not only reading proficiency but overall language proliciency as well Numerous research studies in both L I (e.g., Herman, Anderson, Pearson, & Nagy, 1987; Nagy, Herman, & A nderson, 1985; for an extensive review, see Krashen, 1993) and L2 (Elley, 1991; E lley & M angubhai, 1983; Hafiz and Tudor, 1990; K rashen, 1997; Mason & Krashen, 1997; Nation, 1997; Lituanas, Jacobs and Renandya, to appear; Sims, 1995) have consistently shown the benefits of ER for learners' language developm ent

The experiment reported by Lituanas, Jacobs, and R enandya, for instance, demonstrated how remedial students at a secondary school in the Philippines considerably improved their reading skills during a six-m onth ER program In this experim ent, two groups of students received the sam e amount o f daily instruction (40 m inutes) during their remedial reading class However, unlike the control group who were taught the conventional w ay, the experim ental group were given class tim e to read books, magazines, and new spapers, and were encouraged to continue this ER outside class hours After six months, the ER treatm ent was associated with learning gains that were greater to a statistically significant degree than those registered by remedial students taught via the traditional mode o f reading instruction

In addition to being associated with learning gains in experim ental studies, ER has also been a reliable predictor o f second language proficiency in ex post facto research In a study of ESL students in the US, Constantino, S.Y Lee, Cho, and K rashen (1997) report that, along with am ount o f previous English study in their home countries and length of residence in the US, the am ount o f reading was a significant predictor of students' TOEFL scores In contrast, other variables (i.e., am ount o f TV viewing in English, frequency and am ount o f L I reading, and amount of English study in the US) included

in the study w ere not significantly correlated with TO EFL scores

In another study involving ESL students in the U nited States, Y.O Lee, Krashen, and

Gibbons (1996, cited in Krashen, 1997) report that am ount o f L2 reading was also a

reliable predictor o f students' ability to translate and to perform a grammaticality judgem ent task It is interesting to note that in th is study, unlike the TO EFL study

above, amount o f formal study in English and length o f residence in the US were not significant predictors Providing evidence for the view that ER benefits all aspects of language proficiency, Jonopoulos (1986) found a significant correlation between the

am ount L2 reading and L2 writing proficiency, as m easured by holistic evaluation o f

student writing

2.6 SUMMARY

In Chapter II, I have reviewed the literature on (1) extensive reading definition, (2) its roles in language learning, (3) its benefits and lim itations for language learning I also have explored th e studies on main characteristics o f an extensive reading program as well as vocabulary grow th through reading and extensive reading

In conclusion, from the perspective o f study m ethodology, over the past years a considerable am ount o f experim ental research has been published, while case studies are

of really few, th a t deals with some aspects o f second language ER There have been studies that ask w hether subjects can learn from ER (including m any incidental learning from reading experim ents), other studies that com pare ER approaches with other treatments (such as with 'norm al' approaches or 'translation' approaches), and yet others that have looked at the effect of ER on other aspects o f language learning (such as on reading com prehension, writing, confidence and m otivation and so on) As a research methodology, a sm all num ber o f case studies are published Few case studies, however, specifically address the development o f L2 vocabulary skills (see Parry, 1993); Or

explore the extent to which extensive reading practice w ithout form al instruction would promote vocabulary developm ent in English And n o case study in V ietnam has been done with V ietnam ese subject like mine Therefore, I do this research to fulfill the gap The research, from the perspective of objectives, will represent an effort to explore L2 vocabulary developm ent through extensive reading in general In particular, the case study was designed for the specified subject with the following objectives in mind: (1)

to consider the relationship between the ER practice without form al instructions and vocabulary developm ent from some perspectives: word m eaning and using (2) to

explore W hat challenges the specified subject has to face and How she deals with them

C H A PTER I I I : M E T H O D O L O G YChapter Three describes the research method, its rationales and data collection instrum ents Detailed information about the subject, the setting o f the study and the research procedures is also provided This chapter consists o f 6 sections: Rationale for the Research Design, The Subject o f the Study, The Setting o f the Study, The W ords and

M aterials, The M easurem ent Procedure, and M arking Procedure

3.1 RATIONALE FOR THE RESEARCH DESIGN

In an effort to encourage the subject of the study learn English through extensive reading, the researcher started the program with som e suggestions for her subject of the study including: a) start reading something simple and interesting; b) review and leam

more som e basic vocabulary; c) try to read out loud to get a feel for the language Hanh,

the subject o f the study, tried to follow the suggestions as she started over the study after

having tried reading her preferred genre o f m aterials, new spapers and magazines in

English, then found these genres were too difficult fo r her Then she borrowed children's

books from the local library, her brother's grand-daughter's friends and the school

library and I bought her some Occasionally, she m ight ask the researcher to clarify

some o f the gram m ar points and explain the English sentence structures to her She also

got help from a book called Streamline English C onnections (Hartley & Viney, 2004) It

contains basic gram m ar and dialogues focusing on learning English for comm unication

Apart from these activities, we tried to applied the characteristics o f the ER approach

established by various studies (Bell, 1998; Day&Bamford, 1998; Renandya, et al., 1999;

Walker, 1997):

a Learners read as much as possible.By the end o f the study, Hanh had read 32 books

which covered about 1,260 pages of simple English texts, o f which 483 pages came

from comic books and 170 pages from children's textbooks The rest o f the pages were

from simple children story books with an average o f about 10 sentences per page

b Learners read a variety o f m aterials o f their interest Due to Hanh's limited English

proficiency, she was not able to read a variety of m aterials in'term s o f genre or even her

preferred genre of newspapers and magazines as she had intended However, she was

able to read a variety of children's stories of interest and available to her that included some classic English fairy tales such as The Sleeping Beauty in the W ood, Three

W ishes, Beauty & The Beast, Snow W hite and the Seven Dwarfs (Retold by Sue Arengo), etc., which her brother's grand-daughter borrowed from her friends and brought home from her prim ary school library A dditionally, I bought her a book called Streamline English Connections (Student's book & w orkbook) which was kept by her side as a guide in case of any difficulty in basic gram m ar and structures.

c Reading materials are well within learners' linguistic competence.M ost o f the books that Hanh read were children's books with pictures She read books with which she felt comfortable and ones that were interesting to read However, there were children's books that she found difficult W hen that happened, Hanh stopped reading and chose other books to read

d Learners choose what they want to read and the purposes of reading are usually related to pleasure, information, and general understanding. A part from English newspapers and magazines which H anh did not ch o o se to read because they were found

too difficult, H anh enjoyed reading English children's books w ith her brother's 2nd-

grade grand-daughter and was entreated by the different cultural values that were

portrayed in the children's literature

e Following-up tasks should he simple, encouraging, / elate to learners' readings, and

b e done in a low anxiety environment.Since H anh did not study English in a classroom setting, there were no follow-up tasks in the study However, keeping a journal regarding her ow n progress and experience about h er study could be considered as a task related to h er reading which was done in a low anxiety environm ent

Hanh spent an average o f one to two hours studying and reading English each day Every day after her study, H anh reflected on what she learned that day and wrote in her journal issues that concerned h er in either E nglish o r V ietnam ese (English is encouraged) Then Hanh's notes were gathered by the researcher and m ade one to two diary entries recording learner's experience and progress for the weeks During the whole period of the study Hanh continued to follow the sam e study pattern and journal recording procedure According to Bailey (1990), a diary study "is a first-person account

o f a language learning or teaching experiences, docum ented through regular, candid entries in a personal journal and then analyzed for recurring patterns or salient events" (P- 215) In fact, diary studies have been an important instropective tool in language research because they can provide an em ic perspective o f learners' learning experiences

and processes w hich may be "hidden" or "inaccessible" through observation from investigators (Bailey & Ochsner, 1983, p 189) W hile some diarists are commissioned to keep a journal recording their language learning experience as a participant in someone else's study, others diarists are the investigators them selves (e.g., Bailey Y Ochsner, 1983; C ohen, 1997; Jones, 1994; Schmidt & Frota, 1986) Although diary studies, like any other case studies, cannot make claim s for generalizations, they have provided valuable insights regarding various aspects of language learning which include learners' anxiety, learning strategies, impact of classroom interaction, conversational interaction, proficiency thresholds, self-study, vocabulary developm ent, and pragm atics, to name a few.

In o rder to triangulate the subjective data from journal entries and provide a more objective view, an o th er source of data was used to evaluate H anh's progress in her learning as part o f the study That source o f evaluation was a battery o f two tests (pre­test and post-test) w hich would be specified in The M easurem ent Procedure part

Follow ing the principles suggested by Horst and M eara (1999: 309) o f a "combination

o f long input texts and m ore sophisticated testing," th is study will involve a three-month period o f extensive reading in English The test battery (see in The M easurement Procedure part) w ill try to cover a relatively high num ber o f target words (133 out of nearly 700 target w ords in Streamline English Connections), and will include

m easurem ent procedures that are sensitive to partial know ledge o f words This is

im portant because "vocabulary learning is not an all-or-nothing piece o f learning" but is rather "a gradual p rocess o f one meeting with a w ord adding to or strengthening the

sm all am ounts o f know ledge gained from previous meetings" (Nation, 2001: 155) Likew ise, Nagy, A nderson and Herman (1987) argue that any meaningful encounter with a target w ord could contribute to its acquisition, even though this contribution

m ight be very sm all O ne likely reason why many previous studies fail to show much vocabulary grow th from reading is that the m easurem ents utilized required "full" know ledge of a w ord (usually its meaning) in order for it to be counted as being positively affected Because vocabulary learning is incremental in nature, "more sophisticated testing" w hich taps into incremental im provem ent is necessary in order to fully appreciate the benefits extensive reading has for vocabulary learning

Furtherm ore, the study adds a new dimension to extensive reading research by exam ining types o f word knowledge other than full m eaning only As it is mentioned

before, different criteria for a broadly based view o f vocabulary know ledge have been proposed (A itchison, 1994; Laufer, 1997; M cCarthy, 1990; Nation, 1990; Nation, 2001; Richards, 1976; W ebb, 2005), with the upshot that "lexical com petence is far more than the ability to define a given num ber o f words" (Zim m erm an, 1997: 122) Read (2004: 201) suggests th is "com prehensive word know ledge" approach involves not only the semantic features o f a word, but also "its syntactic, collocational and pragmatic characteristics." It has been recognized that reading tasks contribute to multiple aspects

of vocabulary know ledge; However, it has been rare for studies to measure aspects of knowledge apart from m eaning (W ebb, 2005) This is problem atic because "studies that measure only m eaning m ay be unable to find a significant result when there have in fact been significant g ains in other aspects o f vocabulary know ledge" (W ebb, 2005: 48) For practical reasons and d u e to the "lack o f suitable m easures for several word knowledge components" (R ead 2004: 217), my study focuses on tw o word know ledge components, which were selected from N ation's (2001: 27) three categories (in his analysis o f what is involved in know ing a word): m eanings and use (gram m atical functions)

One o f the few studies that attem pted to capture degrees o f lexical know ledge through more sensitive m easurem ent procedures was carried ou t by Schmitt (1998), who tracked the acquisition o f eleven w ords over the coursc o f a year for three adult learners with advanced proficiency in E nglish More specifically, he m easured four kinds o f word knowledge: spelling, associations, grammatical behavior and m eaning A lthough the study is not related to extensive reading, it offers a m easurem ent battery sensitive to small gains o f w ord know ledge, which was used as a m odel for my study O ne o f the conclusions draw n from h is results was that "students can possess other kinds o f word knowledge even w hen they can dem onstrate no m eaning know ledge" (Schmitt, 1998: 301) Schmitt highlights the need to focus on individual w ords and to be able to measure the degree or depth o f know ledge for each o f these w ords, in order to reach a better understanding o f vocabulary acquisition

One o f the lim itations o f incidental learning is that the learner m ight not put effort into guessing a new w ord's m eaning However, this argum ent, although valid, ignores other aspects o f word know ledge that could be improved through reading, often regardless o f how informative the context is, such as meaning and gram m atical behaviour For example, Day and Swan (19 9 8 ) found that subjects exposed to seventeen words in a short story achieved a m odest but significant advantage (1.52) in the num ber o f words

spelled correctly com pared to control subjects Furthermore, Parry (1993) argues that vocabulary acquisition can som etim es be unconscious; although a new word is often not noticed because the general sense is already understood, some association may be established for that word and that association may be reinforced at the next encounter (also see A itchison, 1994).

Finally, most o f the studies reviewed above focus on new vocabulary However, Nation (1990) suggests that learning new words is only one o f the com ponents o f learning vocabulary The rest are concerned with learning m ore about previously taught words (consolidation o f w ords) or increasing the autom aticity o f words M uch earlier West (1955), one o f th e so-called parents o f L2 extensive reading in m odem times (Day and Bamford, 1998), assigned the following purpose (among others) to sim plified readers:

"review and fix th e vocabulary already learned" (W est, 1955: 69) In fact, Nation and

W ang (1999: 364) predict that "it is not likely to be the [graded reader] level at which the w ord is introduced that establishes knowledge o f that word, it is likely to be the later levels that establish the know ledge."

Considering all th e above, this case study will explore w hether E R practicing without formal instructions over a three-m onth period can enhance lexical knowledge on one hand T o fulfill th is task, the study will em ploy m ultiple, sensitive tests o f word know ledge to determ ine the vocabulary acquisition benefits which a learner o f English derives from a period o f ER practicing without form al instructions O n the other hand, a diary is also kept and written regularly by the subject and the inform ation dawn from which will be used to analyze the impact o f ER on an adult's self-study o f English over a thirteen - w eek period in the light o f the fact that E R can enhance vocabulary acquisition The ch allen ges that the subject encountered during the E R process and how they w ere dealt w ith are also addressed

The hypothesis is that ER practicing even w ithout form al instructions will enhance significant vocabulary acquisition in this specified type o f subject in terms of word meanings and using/gram m atical behaviour

3.2 THE SU B JEC T O F THE STUDY

Nguyen Thi V an H anh, the subject o f the study is a 44-year-old Director of TBT (Technical Barriers to Trade) Section, Hoa Binh Science and Technology Department She is a keen official who has spent over twenty years w orking hard and effectively for

the organization W ith a view to rew arding her effectively devoted working as well as promoting o th e r officials' work, the organizations leaders, under the upper administration boards' approvals, have decided to sponsor her joining a practicum workshop on G reen Productivity (GP) in M alaysia for four weeks, departing on August 1st, 2007 T he w orkshop, as m entioned, is sponsored by Asian Productivity Organization in K ular Lum pur, M alaysia The program module o f the workshop will consist of classroom lectures as well as actual field work in a selected factory, agricultural farm /project, service enterprise, and com m unity project This module will involve the follow ing activities: site visits to factory/agricultural project/ service enterprise/com m unity project for data collection, observation/discussion, problem identification, c au se analysis, and assessm ent o f G P options; Discussion with other participants; R eport preparation; and Evaluation T hese activities take participants tw o weeks During th e w orkshop the participants will also spend the last two weeks traveling around "U niquely M alaysia" for sight seeing guided by English-speaking M alaysian tourist guide fro m the organization Since H anh's English is rather poor to attend the workshop w ithout helps from an interpreter, the author o f this study was chosen to accompany h er a s an interpreter and secretary w ho helps her with English document, report and com m unication in M alaysia However, H anh stated iliai she would try her best to use E nglish herself to com m unicate hoping h er English would be improved and

my help would be h er last resort for report writing during the practicum workshop

Before learning E nglish again this tim e, H anh has had a num ber o f language learning experiences tho u g h none is particular successful; H anh retains little from these experiences and characterizes herself as a som ew hat poor language learner "I am now at the m iddle age and m y m em orizing ability becom es worse and worse Therefore, learning is som ething rather difficult, especially learning a foreign language though I know that foreign languages are alw ays useful for every body, in every job", said Hanh Her first language learning opportunity involved instructions in French language which she studied as a com pulsory subject from 1979 to 1981 at her secondary school Two years later, w hen she entered Bio-technology D epartm ent under Natural Sciences University - N ational University o f H anoi, she had to com plete an 180-period module of foreign language at her option and the language she chose this time was French again In

1996 she started her part-time 3-year m aster course majoring in Bio-technology in Natural Sciences U niversity during which she spent 180 periods o f learning English