Effect Of Extensive Reading As Input On College EFL Learners' Reading Proficiency

The teaching and learning of second language (L2) reading has been long, and has been always attaching considerable attention in SLA. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of extensive reading on college EFL learners" reading proficiency in the special environment of China. Language input is mainly from reading and listening and in China particularly from the former. However, under the influence of certain objective factors, the contradiction between the exam-oriented education and the quality-oriented education becomes increasingly hotter, and the teacher-centered classroom teaching practice still gets considerable prevalence, which is time-consuming with low efficiency. The present study, based on Krashen's Input Hypothesis and other relevant reading theories, constructs the Extensive-oriented Reading Approach, that is, "teachers guide students the way to read", to replace the traditional teaching method.In the study, 78 first-year non-English majors, as the participants of the study, recruited randomly from two classes of different specialties in Zhoukou Normal University. The entire 78 participants took part in the entrance examination before the study. After the statistic analysis of the results, 70 samples were valid. Of the 70 remaining participants (Age: 18-22), there were 20 males and 15 females in each of the two randomly chosen classes (one is called the experimental class, the other is called the control class), and they all participated in reading comprehension tests and EFL proficiency measures accordingly. Both of the two classes were given the same college English textbooks which are in agreement with the standard syllabus. However, during the experimental period, the experimental class received the treatment according to the Extensive-oriented Reading Approach—the training of proper reading skills and strategies together with large quantity of reading materials such as college English graded readers and English newspapers and magazines, with the focus on enhancing students' language sense and improving their language competence. The purposes of the study were as follows: (1) to improve students' reading proficiency and their language competence; (2) to activate students' autonomous reading interest and help students build up good reading habits. Descriptive statistics and Paired-Samples t-test were employed to analyze the data.A statistical analysis of the results indicated that (1) the scores of EFL learners' reading comprehension were positively and significantly related to extensive reading; (2) the Extensive-oriented Reading Approach could contribute to activate EFL learners' autonomous reading interest and develop good reading habits.Therefore, in the reading teaching and learning practice, college EFL learners, after being equipped with a number of proper reading strategies, could selectively expose themselves to large quantity of 'authentic' materials. And by means of ER, they could further activate their limitless language potentials, with the aim of developing autonomous EFL learners—'willing to learn and happy to learn'.