ELT News Think Tank

This Month's Think Tank Panel

Marc Helgesen

Peter Viney

Curtis Kelly

Chuck Sandy

Panelists: Curtis | Peter | Marc | Chuck
Date: May 2005

Topic: "How does one set up a reading class, especially in situations where extensive reading is not an option? "

Marc Helgesen

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This is a great question. I know it is one a lot of teachers face. It also helps keep Extensive Reading (ER) cheerleaders/missionaries (myself included) honest. The research is clear ­ reading a lot of easy, interesting material really is the key. But how do we make it work in regular classrooms, with regular students taught by regular teachers (all of us mere mortals that Peter refers to)?

I saw a newspaper headline the other day ­ this was a weekend edition that had an "arts" section. The headline said: "The frame is just as important as the content." They were talking about picture frames, but I think it fits most of life: the way we frame a question can decide whether or not we can solve it. If we start by saying "situations where extensive reading is not possible", we've already made a decision (It's not possible). So can we reframe the question? (1st sentence optional): I know extensive reading is useful. But ER doesn't seem to work with my students' interests or with my program. Should I bother with it?

“Japan reads. Our students read. And if we can focus that energy into reading English, we have a powerful tool.”

With this question, we have the possibility of finding an answer that works.

Curtis said: "…the vast majority of (my students) have never even read a book in Japanese, and almost all of them say they "hate" reading. Reading for pleasure? Not my kids."

Really? Sure, most don't read Shakespeare, Hemingway or Natsume Soseki or Yoshimoto Banana. (Do you? I'm fond of sleazy detective novels.) But at my schools' co-op, the magazine racks are maybe 10 meters long. Somebody is buying those magazines. Best I can figure, they are my kids, the same as Curtis'. And how about the zillions of manga that Japan devours every month? And the book stores are filled with every thing from romances and trashy detective novels to essays and high literature. Japan reads. Our students read.

And if we can focus that energy into reading English, we have a powerful tool.

The key, I think, is having them read (a) things they are interested in, and (b) it has to be easy. "Easy is good" is almost a mantra in my classes. I do "listen and repeat" with the phrase.

Things they are interested in. Yeah, manga counts. My school library subscribes to Shonen Jump in English. It is very popular. So is anything I can find on fashion, music, pop culture. And once students get that they can read for pleasure, it is hard to find enough detective stories and adventures on the shelves. And we have hundreds of graded readers from Penguin, Cambridge, Oxford and McMillan. The point is to have enough options so everyone can find something that is interesting to them.

They get that reading English can be the same as reading Japanese (when it is not required).

I know a lot of teachers have seen readers on the shelves in bookshops but have never actually read one. So that you understand how good they can be, can I encourage you to have a look? One of my favorites is Jojo's Story. It won the Extensive Reading Foundation's Language Learner Literature Award for Beginners' Level last year. You can download the first eight pages of the book if you click here (a 125KB PDF file). It is at "Level 2." It will only take you a few minutes and I think you'll understand what I am talking about. (For a list of the other winners and finalists in the ER Foundation awards, see erfoundation.org)

Jojo's Story is from Cambridge University Press Readers. The other major publishers of readers include Longman/Penguin, Macmillan, and Oxford. I'm mentioning them here not to plug any particular publisher. They all have some great books and some that are dogs (or at least don't work well with my students). I put a form on the inside cover of each book for students to evaluate the books as "Good", "Average" or "Poor." That way, the learners are telling each other which they like. The best books get read a lot and the poor ones die a quick, silent death on the shelf.

So why do Curtis' students hate reading. I'd suggest because "the system" has taught them to. Reading, for them, isn't for fun. It is a test. It is something to be evaluated with useless, trivial comprehension questions. I like Peter's Seven Dwarfs example. My own favorite (in a warped sort of way) is from a reading about Helen Keller that was standard in a major Japanese high school textbook for years.

Helen Keller was actually a fascinating person. She overcame blindness and deafness to become a major writer, thinker, pacifist and feminist. The book had a story of her life. And here is the comprehension question:

Q: Was Helen sitting in the front seat or the back seat of the car.
Correct answer: Who cares?

OK, that is my correct answer, not the book's. But it points out the stupidity of most comprehension questions. They rarely test anything worthwhile (for an article on how to check comprehension at a deeper level - including a bunch of questions based on the nonsense sentence "The glorfs drebbled quarfly" - click here.

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Panelists: Curtis | Peter | Marc | Chuck

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