This evaluation report examines extensive reading (ER) speed and words read by students at a Japanese university using a digital ER platform called Xreading and compares them to standardized test reading performance using the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). The study focuses on first- and second-year students who…

Extensive Reading (ER) emerges as a promising approach for acquiring a foreign language, allowing for a large amount of language exposure. However, the influence of supplementary activities within ER programs has yet to be thoroughly investigated, despite previous studies suggesting their potential effectiveness. This research investigated the…

Recent research has shown that reading and listening together can be helpful in developing EFL reading fluency, but learner-autonomous bimodal reading research remains scarce. The present study, in an intensive academic English program in Japan, was intended to explore whether reading rates and related reading skills might improve while…

Reaching a reading goal of 150,000 words in a semester is no easy feat for many language learners. To reach this goal, an extensive reading (ER) program needs to invest in and select a format that can best enable this achievement. This preliminary study compares the use of two different extensive reading (ER) formats that employ two learning…

The positive effects of bi-modal input on language learning are becoming a largely accepted experimental finding. However, experiments looking at bi-modal reading in a foreign language are normally limited by the common experimental situation of classroom-based researchers studying university age participants for the limited timespan of a…

This mixed-methods case study examines how an online extensive reading project impacted the 11 participants' motivation, habits, and linguistic abilities regarding L2 English reading. The participants engaged in extensive reading for one year on Xreading (an online extensive reading website). They were all female Japanese nationals aged between 30…

This study compares two instructional methodologies: extensive reading plus output activity and intensive reading plus grammar-translation with regard to improvement of non-English major EFL learners' reading comprehension and fluency development in a Japanese junior college. It identifies the minimum number of words an individual should read for…

This study aims to investigate the influence of an English as a foreign language college extensive reading program on different types of motivation to study English within the framework of Self-Determination Theory in order to identify and clarify students' motivational changes. Identical questionnaires were administered to a group of nonEnglish…

The purpose of this study is to examine whether a difference exists in TOEIC Bridge® Institutional Program scores between Japanese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students at a technical college who did extensive reading (ER) for one year and those who did ER for two years. Furthermore, by dividing the students who experienced ER for two years…

The constructive feedback on the author's article has helped him to expand his knowledge on the topic. He would like to clarify here that the purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of extensive reading on the development of Japanese high school learners' linguistic knowledge and reading abilities. The findings revealed that the…

This study applied a qualitative approach and investigated the processes of motivational change through goal setting in extensive reading (ER). The one-year ER program integrating goal setting was introduced in a Japanese university. Interviews were conducted with four selected participants from among 23 students. The results revealed different…

This article discusses the interchangeability of three self-report measures for reading anxiety. Despite their differences in target constructs, the three scales have been used for similar lines of research. After computing shared variance between the target scales and examining the behavior of anxiety indexes in relation to the amount of graded…

Aka (2019) conducted an year-long large-scale study demonstrating that Japanese high school students who undertook extensive reading performed better than a control group who undertook grammatical instruction. Those showing the greatest gains were those of lower and intermediate proficiency. The students' achievement was measured in terms of…

Extensive graded reading (EGR) was carried out with a cohort of 600 engineering students in a university in northern Japan. Pre-and post-surveys were conducted to discover changes in the general reading habits of students, their attitudes toward the assessment method and how goals changed over the course of study. The first survey was carried out…

This paper describes a pilot study conducted with English as a foreign language (EFL) students at a private university in Japan who used graded readers and the MReader website in class or independently to enhance their English reading skills. Each semester students who read 100,000 words with MReader quizzes passed enter into the "MReader…