Extensive Reading — No Pain and Lots of Gain!
Dear editor,
People recognize that students need to take an interest in the English language in a deeper and more meaningful way than just practicing for examinations. I'm sure that Korean English teachers recognize this.
Native speaker teachers are also concerned with students' disengagement from English from one lesson to the next. We know that our students are unlikely to bother much with English between lessons. For many, the only solution to this is homework.
Homework assignments can often be quite boring. It must be hard for students living in Korea to drum up much motivation to do this homework.
Most likely, the students never get to speak much English and rarely get much communication time with native speakers.
So what kind of homework would be best? How about extensive reading? Just storybooks for fun. Lots of them, one after another and not for testing. Kids love stories.
Students can choose the books they want to read. Easy books, with no pressure to go up in level before they are ready. One book per week, with the only requirement being to tell their classmates and teacher if they liked it or not. That's all.
The reading would be done at home, so it shouldn't interfere with the teacher's normal day-to-day obligations. Just a little chat at the end of the week about if the book was fun or not is enough.
These are the principles that lie at the heart of extensive reading. Research shows that it works and that it has significant benefits for other skills as well.
This is the way in which the teaching of English in public schools could have a big impact on students' abilities and reduce the need for parents to pay so much money to hagwon, or private language institutes.
Mike Long
Visiting professor
Daegu National University of Education