Extensive Reading for Univer-sity Conversation Classes

Kyle QuinnAndong National University

KOTESOL PresentationSunday, October 21st, 2012

2:25-2:50

Extensive Reading

The Library• Oxford Graded Readers• Students mostly read Starter books (250

headwords) and Stage 1 books (400 head-words), with a few students dabbling in Stage 2 books (700 headwords)

• I’m not paid or associated with Oxford in any way, I just happened to use their level tests and graded readers. Cambridge, MacMillan, and Penguin (and maybe others?) also make well regarded graded reader series

The Library

The Students• University Freshmen Conversation class• Three 50-minute classes a week, 15 weeks• Reading Group Students read for about 25

minutes once a week (about 17% of class/week)

• Non-Reading • Took 2 tests at each the beginning and end

of the semester (Oxford Bookworms Level Test)

The Test

Students in the Reading GroupFirst/Second week of March 2012: Students took the Oxford

Level Tests- Starter Test 1 and Stage 1 Test 1 (Scores recorded)

For the next 13 weeks students read silently in class once a week for about 25 minutes per session.

First week on June: Students took the Oxford Level Tests- Starter Test 2 and Stage 1 Test 2 (Scores recorded)

The Reading Group included 222 students in 12 different classes

Students in the Non-Reading GroupFirst/Second week of March 2012: Students took the Oxford

Level Tests Starter Test 1 and Stage 1 Test 1 (Scores recorded)

For the next 13 weeks students engaged in regular conver-sation classes (No in class reading time)

First week on June: Students took the Oxford Level Tests Starter Test 2 and Stage 1 Test 2 (Scores recorded)

The Non-Reading Group included 106 students in 7 classes

The ResultsStarter Test 1/20 points

Starter Test 2/20 points

Stage 1 Test 1/30 points

Stage 1 Test 2/30 points

All Stu-dents (Reading + Non-reading students)

14.95 13.60 18.05 20.36

Reading Pro-gram Stu-dents

15.12 13.65 18.10 20.42

Non-reading Program Students

14.60 13.47 17.95 20.24

Kyle’s Classes (Reading Students)

15.19 14.16 18.16 21.25

The ResultsStarter Test Differ-ence

Stage 1 Test Differ-ence

All Classes -9.05% 12.63%Reading Classes -9.70% 12.83%Non-reading Classes -7.76% 12.71%Kyle’s Classes (Read-ing)

-6.72% 16.97%

Statistically Significant?• Probably Not (But I’m not at all confident in my

statistical analysis)• Data analysis in a 2 tailed, type 2 T Test resulted

in a t-score of 0.000000185 for the Starter Test data, and 0.000000000124 for the Stage 1 Data

• Using an alpha score of 0.05 and my df (degrees of freedom) of 326, my data falls well below the threshold for statistical significance (which would be a t-score of about 1.9)

• It would be awesome if someone better qualified could do some data analysis (My Excel sheets are available to anyone interested)

In 2001, Stephen Krashen reviewed 53 Extended Reading studies. The table below shows the number of studies classi-

fied by impact.

Duration Positive No difference Negative

Less than 7 months (23 to-tal studies)

7 13 3

7-12 months (20 total stud-ies)

9 11 0

More than 12 months (10 to-tal studies)

8 2 0

My Study: about 13 weeks

Statistical Notes• Students who didn’t take all 4 tests were

excluded from the study• Some suspected cheating on the tests• Some suspected lack of effort on the tests• Outliers were not excluded from the study

Benefits of Reading• Students responded really well to

reading• Loaned books to students wanting

more practice in English• Teacher training curriculum• Discussion based night classes• Other teachers have started ER pro-

grams in their classes

Extensivereadingstudy.wordpress.com

• The Raw Data• The Powerpoint presentation• Background Information• List of all the books, with recommenda-

tions• Oxford Bookworm App reviews• I’m happy to provide results/data, ad-

vice, and recommendations to anyone interested

Further Research• Expand original study (what I just

presented on) to include TOEIC scores

• Use TOEIC scores to compare the current semester’s students

• Track students from the original study to gauge the effect on TOEIC scores after 10 months

• Results will be posted to the blog

Q&A