The Effect of Narrow Reading on L2 Learners’ Perceptions

Extensive Reading and Learners’ Perceptions

Many studies have shown that students’ perceptions of ER change after they have real experience of reading in L2 (Al-Hamound and Schmitt, 2009; de Morgado, 2009; Martinez, 2017; Tien, 2015; Yamashita, 2013). For example, 61 Japanese university students read for 45 minutes in class per week for a 15-week period (Yamashita, 2013). The study found that students’ comfort level in L2 reading had been greatly enhanced. Positive feedback was also reported in a large scale study by Tien (2015) with more than 1,000 English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students who had little experience in L2 ER. If reading extensively changes students’ attitudes towards reading, then it is worthwhile to explore what plays the most important role during the reading practice.

More recently, Birketveit, Rimmereide, Bader, and Fisher (2018) implemented an ER programme in Norway with 83 pupils from three primary schools in order to explore the students’ perceptions of the reading materials and their attitudes towards ER. They prepared three different crates of English graded readers to circulate between three schools. Each reading cycle consisted of 90 minutes reading per week for four weeks. The students were asked to answer a questionnaire immediately after finishing each book using three scales– good, fairly good, and poor. If a student did not finish the book, they were asked to state the reasons using three scales–too difficult, too boring, or another reason. In addition, another questionnaire probing students’ attitudes and motivations was filled out after the reading cycles were completed. Some findings relevant to the present study are mentioned here. On average each student completed 9.5 books, and they rated 50% of the books good, 39% fairly good, and 11% bad. Of the responses for not completing a book, 59% reported the book was boring, 13% too difficult and 28% gave no reason. After the project, 70% of the pupils indicated they liked to read in English and would continue to do so in the future. However, 50% of them had read in English before the project, which meant that the project encouraged another 20% of the pupils to read extensively. The results also showed most students were happy to choose what they wanted to read, but 25% of them actually needed assistance in selecting books. As shown earlier, 50% of the students had had ER experience, so only 25% needed help in choosing their books. Many ER studies that were conducted in East Asia (e.g. Mikami, 2017) reported that most students had little experience of ER, so a higher proportion of students may need help to select suitable books to read. In addition, Birketveit et al. found 54% of students selected books based on classmates’ recommendations rather than advice from teachers or researchers; therefore, an experienced ER teacher may be able to select titles popular with previous students for novice readers to begin reading.

Narrow Reading and Student Perceptions

Another approach to implementing ER is to require students to read a series of works by the same author or on the same theme, which is called ‘narrow reading.’ Narrow (series) reading has not been explored widely in the second language (L2) learning context despite the fact that some scholars (e.g. Chang and Millett, 2017; Cho and Krashen, 1994; Cho et al., 2005; Krashen, 2004; MaQuillan, 2016) have been promoting this approach. Some preliminary evidence showed that narrow reading is beneficial to L2 learners’ reading comprehension, reading rates, and vocabulary acquisition. For example, a study by Cho et al. (2005) with elementary students reading the Clifford Series found 80% of the students reported they felt their comprehension skills had definitely improved, 51% preferred reading a series of books than a single book, and 27% reported that vocabulary acquisition became easier for higher levels of comprehension and word reoccurrence. Overall, their students showed significantly more interest and confidence in reading in English after the treatment.

Chang and Millett (2017) explored the effect of narrow reading on 53 EFL learners’ reading speeds, comprehension and perceptions. During the three-week treatment period, one group of students read three texts of the same title and the other group read three texts on the same theme. After the treatment, the students filled out a questionnaire regarding their perceptions of narrow reading. The post-test results found that both groups read significantly faster on the related texts than on the unrelated text. Although both groups read narrowly, their perceptions were significantly different on some items. For example, the same title group perceived that reading in L2 became easier, they comprehended better after reading the first book, and they noticed a number of repeated words. The results may imply that text organizations have different effects for L2 readers. Neither group, however, reported being bored by reading related texts. Kang’s (2015) study on acquiring vocabulary through narrow reading showed that the participants reading related texts reported multiple encounters of the target words in the recurring texts, which was beneficial to their acquisition of vocabulary.

The three studies above provided some evidence that reading a series of related texts benefits various aspects of L2 learners’ of linguistic knowledge, and enhances their interest to read more. Having said that, the participants in the studies reviewed above read only one theme or one series of books; it is unknown whether if L2 learners had more experience in reading different texts, they would perceive differently or favour one theme over the other. This study hence exposed students to different text organizations to address the following four questions:

The Participants

Thirty-two of the 56 students finished the full narrow reading programme, which meant that the 32 finished reading the 12 books; four level 1, four level 2, and four level 3. In addition, the 32 students had taken various official language tests, such as Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) or General Test of English Language Proficiency (G-TELP) and the scores showed that their language proficiency level ranged from high beginning to intermediate. Their academic advisor helped the researcher to classify the students into two proficiency levels based on their various language test scores. Seventeen students were classified into the higher level, and 16 into the lower level.

The Reading Texts

Twelve graded readers were selected from Oxford Bookworms, Compass, and Penguin. Each set contained three different levels of graded readers (see Table 1). Three of the four sets were organized according to the same author, the same theme, and the same title, and another set of three books was randomly selected, the purpose of which was to use it as a comparison–unrelated texts. All texts had been used by previous students and had been reported as being interesting. All texts were scanned and then analysed using British National Corpus/Corpus of Contemporary American English (Nation, 2012). Each set contained approximately 22,000 words, and all words except those on the off-list, were within the first 1,000 words. The titles and levels are presented in Table 1.

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Table 1.

The Book Titles and Levels for the Study Materials in Each Set.

Text Types	Level 1	Level 2	Level 3
Same author	The Elephant Man	Grace Darling	The Mysterious Death of Charles Bravo
Same genre	Sherlock Holmes and the Duke’s Son	Sherlock Holmes Short Stories	The Last Sherlock Holmes Story
Same title	The Railway Children (Penguin)	The Railway Children (Compass)	The Railway Children
Random texts	The Little Princess	Robinson Crusoe	Chemical Secret

Note: Books without indicating publishers were from the Oxford Bookworms series.

The Questionnaire

An eight-item, 7-point Likert scale questionnaire was developed by the researcher to examine students’ perceptions of narrow reading. The eight items explored whether the text organization made them perceive reading to be easier, whether they felt confident in reading the texts, and whether they noticed repeated words or phrases. The students had to choose an answer that best suited their feelings from the 7-point scale – strongly agree (7), agree (6), somewhat agree (5), neither (4), somewhat disagree (3), disagree (2), and strongly disagree (1). See Appendix A for the eight questions.

In addition to answering the questionnaire, an open-ended item allowed students to express their thoughts about reading each set of the graded readers. The students were encouraged to write as many comments, problems, and suggestions as they could, and they were told what they wrote would not affect their course grade or cause any negative outcome because the researcher would not look at the comments until their grades were announced.

Data Analysis

SPSS version 25 was used to analyse the quantitative data collected through the questionnaire. To take account of individual difference, linear mixed effect models were performed with the participants as the random effect variable. The fixed effect variables involved: text organizations (four levels: same author, same theme, random, and same title), reading time order (four levels: 1, 2, 3, and 4), language proficiency (two levels: higher and lower), and reading text sequence (four levels: A, B, C and D). The dependent variable was the rating scores from the questionnaire. The students’ written feedback was translated from Chinese to English, and grouped into four categories according to the text organization. In each text organization, the comments were further classified into three groups: positive, negative or mixed.

Procedure

The student participants took turns to read four sets of graded readers. Each cycle took five weeks, with a total of 21 weeks because the first week of the first cycle was used to administer the pre-test on vocabulary knowledge, and to introduce the narrow reading programme. After they had finished one cycle, they took a vocabulary test and then filled out the questionnaire. They also wrote feedback about the books as they finished them. Therefore, student participants filled out four questionnaires and wrote feedback four times.

Students’ Written Feedback

The following section considers students’ written feedback after reading each set. Students’ comments are categorized into four sets according to text organization and were further classified into ‘positive’, ‘negative’, or ‘mixed’ comments. Students’ language proficiency was also indicated: H for higher level, L for lower level. Despite being encouraged to do so, not every student provided comments after every reading cycle. Similar comments are not repeated. Most students’ comments were written in Chinese. The following excerpts are the first author’s translation from Chinese to English.

Same author texts: The students read three of Tim Vicary’s books: The Elephant Man, Grace Darling, and The Mysterious Death of Charles Bravo. Many higher level students expressed their strong fondness for the three books because they thought the books were interesting. However, three lower level students commented that the three books were boring or were not one of their favorite titles, and one student disliked Grace Darling but preferred The Mysterious Death of Charles Bravo. Overall, no students commented that the books were too difficult to read.