An Investigation Of Non-English Majors' Out-of-Class Reading

The paper aims to study whether non-native English learners are doing regular and massive reading out of class, which is important but seems to be neglected to some degree in some contexts. What is emphasized and discussed a lot is reading strategies, training of such strategies, other topics and activities related to reading. There is, however, no possibility of reading strategy development if reading a lot is not conducted. Therefore, the first questions that should be addressed are whether learners are doing a lot of reading and what affects their autonomous reading in large amounts. The paper tries to find answers to the questions and hopes to alert language teachers and researchers that massive reading seems to be an old notion but is actually discarded or a missing component in learners'out-of-class reading improvement.What is presented first is a literature review on the nature of reading which leads to why out-of-class reading is of great necessity. First, reading definition and reading comprehension are addressed with an attempt to cover and summarize comprehensively the nature of reading. Then, the paper goes on to talk about the roles of out-of-class reading in reading development. The third in the literature review is about what affects learners'out-of-class reading.After literature review, the paper moves to its focal point, i.e. investigation of learners'out-of-class reading. The research subjects are non-English majors and teachers in the context of Northeast Normal University, concerning the following questions: - How much do non-English major students read after class? - How do they deal with their out-of-class reading? - What prohibits their out-of-class reading? - What can teachers do to facilitate learners'out-of-class reading?Investigative tools are questionnaire and interview since the nature of the research is observation instead of experiment. Questionnaire data were collected to be sorted, analyzed and presented in statistical figures using Excel technique. Interview data are presented in descriptive words.The result of the investigation is surprising to the author of the paper. Although it was thought that non-English majors at Northeast Normal University did not do much reading after class, it is out of expectation that non-English majors do so little reading (72% of the total 164 only read half an hour every week). The other data results tell us other aspects of out-of-class reading for teachers and researchers to have a general look at non-English majors'out-of class reading performance and why they read so little.Discussion is conducted to study the reasons for learners'poor performance in out-of-class reading, which are both subjective and objective from learners'perspective and also from teachers'perspective. Some principles and measures are suggested to help with students'out-of-class reading, of which the key sense is teachers need to make a balance between leaving students'to do autonomous reading and executing authoritative role to make sure that students do reading after class.It is concluded that non-English majors do not do much reading after class and that what they need most is to read regularly and in large amounts. Reading strategies and training of such strategies are important, but they may not be well developed if students do not conduct large massive of reading in a regular manner. In other words, it is an ultimate goal in English teaching and learning of reading that learners are enabled to do autonomous reading consistently, but in the process of their reaching the goal, teachers should exercise their authoritative power to discipline, supervise and encourage students to perform satisfactorily in their out-of-class reading.