The impact of extensive reading on students'

English readiness was homogenous according to the result of the placement test at the beginning of the course, were assigned to the researcher as well as the teacher by the person who was in charge of arranging the teaching schedule for the teaching staff so that the removal of any individuals from one group to the other is impossible. All the students in these two classes were at the ages from 19 to 20 and had been living in a variety of provinces in the north and central of Vietnam. This may be inferred that their social and cultural background was relatively homogeneous. Moreover, the participants were selected in the second semester with the assumption that they had had enough time to get used to the teaching and learning environment at the university that was quite different from that at high school. However the two sample classes were not the same in size, which numbered 45 and 48 respectively. In addition to this there was a difference in gender in these two groups. The former consisted of 19 male students and 26 female students while the later had 21 male students and 27 female students. After considering all these factors in sampling with regard to a sudden event that one or more students in each group dropped either the pre-test or the post-test during the experimental study, the final sample of 80 were chosen and divided equally into two groups ( 15 males and 25 females in each), that is the control group and the experimental group. The other students in the two classes still attended the program but no data were collected on these students. Once again, the decision on which one would be the control group and which one would be the experimental group was made at random. In short the students in the two groups were representative of the first year students who made up the target population of the study. Of the 40 students in the control group(G1), based on the results of the pretest, 13 students with a score below 5.0(out of a possible 10.0) were regarded as bad readers and were grouped in bad control group (BCG), 15 students with a score from 5.0 to 8.0 were perceived as medium readers and grouped in medium control group (MCG) and the rest 12 students with a score of 8.0 and above were good readers and made up the good control group (GCG). In the same manner, the experimental group (G2) was sub-divided in to the bad experimental group (BEG) with 15 students, the medium experimental group (MEG) with 14 students and the good experimental group (GEG) with 11 students. The purpose of such division was to see which sub-group gave the best performance in the post-test. The detail of the groups was described as follows: Demographic factor Control Group Experimental Group BCG MCG GCG BEG MEG GEG Number of participants 13 15 12 15 14 11 Sex (M = male; F= female) 5M 8F 6M 9F 4M 8F 4M 11F 7M 7F 4M 7F Pretest results mean = 2.01 mean = 6.56 mean = 8.68 mean = 1.86 mean =6.28 mean =8.43 Table 2: Background information of informants III.4. Tests. In this study, two separate tests, a pretest and a posttest, were used to collect data on the students’ reading comprehension proficiency as well as their reading strategies (RSs) used. Therefore, the tests should assess not only language and grammar items that the students had learnt, but also should include variety of reading tasks they had practiced during the course or part of course such as multiple choice, true or false, gap filling, main idea, etc…. It was expected that in order to fulfill the tests successfully, the students would probably use different appropriate RSs. Therefore, it was very likely that the more different types of reading tasks the students fulfilled the more different RSs they probably used. Through completing variety of reading tasks in the tests, the students would have opportunities to apply variety of RSs, and as the result, they were supposed to provide more accurate information about their reading comprehension. In fact, in order to reach those aims of the tests, both pre- and post-tests were designed based on the format of the progress tests and extension units in the students’ course book Lifelines Elementary by Hutchinson (1999). Specifically, both pre- and post-tests consists of five tasks as presented below. - Task I is a multiple choice task with 8 comprehension questions. In order to complete the reading task in part I successfully, it was expected that the students would apply different RSs, such as, 'skimming for general impression or gist', ' scanning for specific information', 'understanding the relationships between words and paragraphs( text-attack skills). - Task II is a true or false task with 6 statements. It was supposed that the students would employ variety of RSs to fulfill the task effectively, such as ‘recognising opinions and view point’, ‘recognising main ideas’, ' interpreting information', and making inferences'. - Task III is a kind of ‘filling in the gaps’ task including 6 sentences with 8 blanks. To complete the task of part III well, the students were expected to utilize such RSs as 'scanning for specific information',' identifying parts of speech', 'inferring from context',' interpreting lexical cohesion' - Task IV: In this task students had to answer four comprehension questions that demanded them to use such skills as recognising opinions and view point’, ‘recognising main ideas’, ' interpreting information', and making inferences', 'inferring from context' -Task V: This task requires students to get the main idea of the text so that students need to apply such RSs as 'skimming for general impression', recognising main idea', 'interpreting information' The more details of the pre- and posttest are given as follows. Pretest The pretest was given to the students in the week before the program was implemented. The content of the pretest covered the followings. Grammar: Present simple tense, past simple tense, adverbs of frequency, countable and uncountable nouns, model verb can, prepositions of time, of position. Vocabulary: words and expressions of different topics, such as shopping, weather, transport, likes and dislikes, food and drinks, animals, daily activities, free time activities Structure: simple sentence Reading sub-skills: reading for specific information Types of reading exercises: multiple choices, true or false, filling in the gaps with missing words, rearranging sentences to make paragraphs, labeling pictures, matching lines to make complete sentences. The results of the pretest were used to identify effective and less effective groups of readers and set up students’ reading comprehension proficiency baseline. Posttest: The posttest was administered to the students at week 6 after the pretest. At that time, the students had completed 110 class-hours of the course, thus the posttest apart from the language covered in the pretest included the followings. Grammar: Present continuous, ‘going to’ Vocabulary: Words and expressions of topics, such as sports, clothes, parts of the body, the world,… Structure, reading sub-skills, and types of reading exercises were similar with what students had learnt and practiced when they did their pretest. The results of the posttest were compared with the results of the pretest to assess the effects of extensive reading on the students’ reading comprehension proficiency. III.5. The questionnaire As stated in chapter I, a questionnaire was used as a complementary tool to obtain their feedback on the program and their suggestions for future programs after the experiment. The questionnaire consists of two parts and was delivered to the students taking part in the extensive reading program after the experiment. The first part of the questionnaire includes 7 questions aimed at obtaining students' attitudes toward the program in which the question number 4, 5, 6 were to ask students about the advantages of extensive reading in learning English. The second part includes items relating to students' suggestions about the future extensive reading program. In this part students were also encouraged to give other suggestions in addition to the four items in the questionnaire. In order to avoid any language difficulties due to lack of English proficiency that might affect the objectiveness of the research results, the questionnaire were translated into Vietnamese. The English and Vietnamese versions of the questionnaire are in Appendices 3&4. III. 6. The extensive reading program In extensive reading, a large amount of reading is necessary but Ono, Day and Harsch (2004) suggest that setting personal goals can often be a strong motivational factor. Although students are advised to read as much as possible, it is necessary to set a goal in each program. Considering the fact that the course required teachers and students to engage in many other activities other than reading and the students had to perform many other tasks at school so their time for English subject was limited, this study would like to make an examination of ER as reading a total of more than four times the number of texts found in the class textbook with the purpose that the students would read at least four texts each week during the experiment. As a result, a set number of 24 texts for them to read in 6 weeks was the goal. The number was determined with the hope that the students would feel more confident in themselves and in their reading abilities after achieving success. Another way to set and monitor reading goals was to encourage, or require, students to keep a log of their extensive reading. This activity was also used to demonstrate that they were reading the texts. Each week the students handed in a “weekly reading log” detailing information on the texts they had read and the amount of time spent on reading during that week. The information of the amount of reading time was also recorded to be later analyzed. In an extensive reading program it is advised to have a collection of books, magazines, and other materials that match students' interests and abilities including graded materials, children's literature, high interest-low vocabulary books, literature for young readers, and popular writing. In this study the materials students were advised to focus on are stories and some texts extracted from newspapers. To provide context for our library’s characteristics, it is important to know the demographics of our learners. The students were recruited from two classes among the total of 25 classes at ULSA with elementary level of English. They had six periods of English a week to finish half of the course book Lifeline-Elementary in 13 weeks. Because English is only one of the subjects they have to cover, the time spent on English by them was limited. Taking the learners' English readiness and their purpose on learning English into consideration, the researcher decided to choose stories and newspaper as the main sources of texts for students to read. Stories provide students with opportunities to access to language in context rather than in bits and pieces. Stories also introduce new vocabulary and language forms within rich networks of associations. Equally important, stories can have a deep impact on a person’s construction of knowledge and self. Stories, a form of narrative, help us to make sense of our world. With regard to newspaper, greater numbers of English-language newsmagazines are now becoming available for us to read. They provide us with a large amount of texts with different topics. With the intention of encouraging students to read "authentic texts- texts that "represent the kind of material students will need to handle" when they finish the program.(Nuttall, 1996:173), newspapers are suitable source to them to find texts to meet some degree of their demand in their learning ESP after finishing this reading program. In order to increase the learners’ confidence and motivation to read, they were encouraged to select texts that they would find easy to read. Therefore, they were advised to start with a text that was a little below their current reading level and to slowly increase the level of their chosen texts. It was our hope that if the students could easily read a book, they would find reading it a pleasant activity and, after completing the texts, experience a feeling of accomplishment that may show them the value of reading, which is a major first step in the process of becoming an independent reader and a life-long learner.  At the beginning the reading program, a candid discussion was held with students to determine their general attitudes to reading and to gather information on the amount and the reading materials to which learners have ready access. Before the pre-test, students read a consent form that explained the purpose of the study and they agreed to participate in the program. With the condition that there is not a library of English books for students in ULSA, we have found that the following measures could provide students with increased access to appropriate reading material in an under resourced school. The first two measures were borrowed from Latha (1999) and the last one was the author's own idea when conducting the program. The primary reason for this was the lack of published reading materials appropriate to low proficiency level. Another reason was the rather prohibitive cost of setting up an ER program (Davis, 1995). Reading box The reading box consisted of 68 texts collected from books and media to coincide with the students’ interests. These included advertising leaflets, newspaper articles, stories, postcards, and letters. Topic familiarity and ease of reading are two of the principle tenets of the texts. The topics, most of which were also the topics in the textbook Lifeline Elementary by Hutchinson, included shopping, sports, everyday activities, food, health, climate, life in the countryside, life in the city, entertainment, hobby, fashion, etc. The adaptation was largely based on limiting the passage lexicon to words in the vocabulary list of the class's English textbook and familiar syntax. This was to make certain that the researcher could control the vocabulary level appropriate to students’ proficiency and vocabulary level based on previous studies conducted to explore appropriate difficulty levels for foreign language readers. Although the results of previous research differ, Walker (1997) concluded that “a 95% minimum level of comprehension for extensive reading is a figure which seems to be generally accepted”. In a study of the relationship between unknown vocabulary and degree of comprehension, however, Hu and Nation (2000) implied that “learners need to know at least 98% of the running words in the text” in ER for the purpose of language growth. The average number of words in the materials in each reading box text was 450 and the instructor restricted each passage to fewer than 20 unlearned words so that the percentage of unknown vocabulary did not exceed 5% of the total text and came close to 2% as Hu and Nation(2000) suggested. When it was impossible to keep the number of unlearned words to less than twenty, Vietnamese annotations were added for some important words at the end of the text. After being numbered and divided into topics (for example Health 1, Health 2, ect), five copies of each text were made to make it convenient for students to access. Those texts were brought to class in each English lesson by the teacher to make sure that the students could make a photocopy of the text(s) or they could borrow new text(s) or give back the one(s) they had borrowed. Fund-raising In the absence of a school library, a simple fund-raising project was organized to obtain inexpensive reading materials for a class library. In this way, a small selection of book and newspapers were circulated in the class on a regular basis. Due to the fact that our students only learned English as one among other subjects at school, their collection of books and newspapers written in English was limited. One student who was living in the hostel of the university was appointed to be a class librarian to make sure that it was convenient for the students to find out about the book they wanted to borrow. Any one who had book(s) and newspapers to share were able to inform the class librarian to make a list of all the books and the person who owned the books. Students who wanted to borrow the book should ask the librarian to know who was keeping the book and whether it was available to borrow or not. It was the class librarian's responsibility to fix the time one student could borrow a book and the time he had to give it back. With the assistance of the class librarian, the teacher could ensure that this precious core of reading materials was well maintained and available to all. Making use of the English club In the university, we have a large room for English club with quite a lot of books written in English used for all of the students in the university. When we started the program, we did consult those who take charge of the English club for their help and advice on a number of issues such as having students mark their book evaluations on a small form glued to the inside cover of each book. Perhaps it was involving those people from the beginning that made it easy for students to borrow and keep for reading in their own time. Although at the beginning of the program the students were told that they could use all of these sources, our observation showed that they mostly used the reading box, as according to some of them it was convenient and easy to access. Students' and Teacher's Role In such an extensive reading program, the students undeniably play the leading role who will actively take part in the reading as well as all the activities that follow under the teacher's instructions. The role of the teacher in an ER program is crucial. Due to the fact that this approach is quite new to students, the teacher needs to help learners understand the principles of the ER approach as well as the rationale for what, why, and how to read. Not only should the teacher describe the methodology and goals of the program, but the teacher should also become a role model for the learners. In our program, for example, when the students read, the teacher also read a text from the ER library and similarly engaged in the talk about the text being read. The teacher also played a crucial role in creating an environment that encouraged learners to read. For example, the teacher decided where to keep the library, as well as how to display the materials so that it appeared as appealing as possible. So far, the overall description of the ERP has been presented. What comes next is a discussion of how these activities were introduced into the present reading syllabus for the first year students in their second semester. As a matter of fact, the population of this study was supposed to follow a syllabus designed by the teaching staff of the English Division of the university that was based on the course book Lifeline-elementary and the reading session was to be conducted in three class-hours involving one reading passage followed by a number of questions and a part of time devoted to correcting homework. Normally, the activity of homework correction took as much as one class-hour and was conducted by the teacher or nominated groups of students. In this study, while the teaching and learning routine was kept intact in the control class, a small change took place in the experimental class. Specifically, the homework was collected and commented by the teacher. At home students would correct their homework by themselves basing on the comment of the teacher. And the time for homework correction activity was devoted to the extensive reading program. The four post reading activities that could reinforce the students’ involvement to keep up with their reading applied in this study were: (1) The instant report, where learners are given a form to complete about the text (its title, the characters’ names, etc.) and subjective information such as why the students liked or disliked it. This becomes the basis of the student’s critique of the texts which he or she could share with other members of the class. In doing this activity, students worked in pairs and were given the following form on the board to complete: I read a story called ______________. It's a _______________ (mystery, love story, detective story, tale......) It's about ______________. The main characters are ____________. In the story, there was a problem. ____________. I liked/didn't like it because ___________. In class, students worked in pairs. They simply talked about what they were reading. The sentences on the board give them enough support to be able to talk about a text. The teacher could require partners to ask two or three follow-up questions (e.g.? Why did she (the character) go there? When did that happen?) to encourage interaction and to make sure the partner is really paying attention. In this activity, the teacher could read and give comment on the report without correcting their lexical or grammar mistakes. (2) Story-telling: where students could take turn to tell the stories they had read and then answer the questions of their peers. This activity could be done in pairwork or groupwork. In this activity, teacher played the role of a listener/ questioner and gave encouragement and support when needed. (3) A “how many questions” competition that can be used to encourage groups to ask large numbers of questions about a text through one of its illustrations. In this activity students were asked to work in groups of three. Each group selected one picture from their story or drew one picture about the story if there was not a picture available. One person showed the chosen picture and explained it. Partners listened and asked as many questions as possible (What's this person's name? Where is she? Why did she go there? etc.). The goal was to ask as many questions as possible in a given period of time (usually about three minutes for asking questions about the text). To do this as a game or to introduce competition to encourage reluctant speakers, students got one point for each question they asked and it was the task of the teacher to collect the results of all the groups to decide who the winner was. (4) Narrating and debating: where students took turn to tell the whole class stories they had read and then answered the questions raised by other students or raised questions for class to discuss. Each turn of telling stories lasted 10-15 minutes. In this activity, the teacher could give encouragement and support when it was needed and be a listener/questioner. An overview of the ERP introduced to the reading syllabus for first year students in their second semester is shown in the table below. Table 3: An overview of the ERP introduced to the reading syllabus for first year students in their second semester. Week In-class (135') Out-of-class Intensive reading Extensive reading Topic Activity Time Activity 1 Entertainment Introduction to the ERP including: Clarification of extensive reading. Introduction on how to borrow books or collect texts. Introduction of activities. 45' Prepare for the activity. 2 Survivors Instant story report 45' 3 Travel A “how many questions” competition 45' 4 Fashion Story-telling 45' 5 Health Narrating and debating 45' 6 Winners Story-telling 45' III. 7. Procedures The chronological steps of the study are summarized as follows: Study the literature to set up the theoretical background for the study; Work out the methodological frame work of the study; Administer the pretest to both groups (the experimental group and the control group); Apply the extensive program on the experimental group; Administer the posttest to both groups; Collect all the data for analysis; Analyze the data for findings; Draw conclusions, implication and suggestion for further study based on findings. III.8. Conclusion This chapter has presented some description of the variables, the subjects, the tests used as tools of collecting data, the detailed introduction of the extensive program applied as the experimental treatment of the study as well as the specific steps of conducting the study. In the next chapter, readers will be provided with results and discussion of the study. CHAPTER IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION IV.1 Introduction As stated in I.2, the aim of the study is to examine the effectiveness of extensive reading on students' reading comprehension at ULSA, and it seeks the answers to the following research question: Does an extensive reading program have a positive effect on students' reading comprehension in the context of ULSA? Therefore, in order to find out the answer to the research question, the study was designed as a quasi-experiment and addressed the hypotheses as follows. Hypotheses: Null hypothesis: The students who take part in the program get the same result measured in a post-test and have the same improvement in their reading skills as those who do not. Alternative hypothesis: Students who receive extra reading practice will perform better overall in a post test and have some improvement in their reading skill in comparison to those who does not have extra reading practice. The study was carried out under the assumption that the null hypothesis is true. Thus, the alternative hypothesis was directly tested by means of t-tests using SPSS, version 13.0 based on the following rules: The significance level used for this study is .05 (P = .05). If the probability value – P value (which is a number obtained from the research results using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), version 13.0) is less than or equal to the significance level (P ≤ .05), then the researcher rejects the null hypothesis and tentatively accepts the alternative hypothesis. The researcher also concludes that the finding is statistically significant. On the contrary, if the probability value is greater than the significance level (P > .05), then the researcher cannot reject the null hypothesis. The researcher can only claim to fail to reject the null hypothesis and conclude the research finding is not statistically significant. Moreover, as stated in III.2, the effect of the extensive reading program on students’ reading comprehension was assessed by the results of the reading comprehension pre- and post-tests. (See III.4 and Appendix 1&2 for more detailed information about the tests). Therefore, the data collected from the test results was computed, analyzed and reported in the following subsections: (1) The pre-test results between control and experiment group. (2)The test results within groups of readers; (3) The post-test results between groups of readers. The results of the questionnaire and some discussion on the finding are also included in this chapter. IV.2 The pre-test results between the control group and the experimental group The results of paired-samples t-test shown in Table 4 indicate that there was a small difference in the performance on the reading comprehension pretest between two groups before the experiment ( T= 3.031> +2; P= 0.004< 0.05). The results of descriptive statistics also show that the mean score on pretest of the control group was only a bit higher than that of the experimental group by 0.19 points. This finding implied that the difference in reading comprehension ability of the students in the two groups was inappreciable. Table 4: The pretest results of the control group and the experimental group Tests Groups Mean SD Min Max T P Pretest Control 5.725 2.896 0.5 9.0 3.031 0.004 Experimental 5.537 2.770 0.25 9.0 IV.3 The test results within groups of readers In this section, the results of pre- and posttest of each group were analyzed and compared using Sign-test in order to determine whether there was any improvement in reading comprehension in each group after the extensive reading program. IV.3.1 The test results of the control group Table 5 presents the results of pre- and post-test of control sub-groups. Sub-groups Tests Mean SD Min Max T P BCG Pre-test 2.01 1.10 0.5 4.0 0.227 Post-test 1.86 1.21 0.25 4.5 MCG Pre-test 6.56 1.10 5.0 8.0 0.039 Post-test 6.28 1.32 4.5 8.0 GCG Pre-test 8.68 0.28 8.25 9.0 0.180 Post-test 8.43 0.51 7.5 9.0 Total Pre-test 5.72 2.89 0.5 9.0 4.471 0.000 Post-test 5.49 2,91 0.25 9.0 Table 5: The pretest and posttest results of the control sub-groups. As can be seen in Table 5 the overall results of the pre- and posttest implied that there was no improvement in reading comprehension of the control group. The finding was backed up by the specific data, which presented in Table 5 indicate that there was significant difference between the pre- and posttest results (T= 4.471>+2; P = .000 < .05), but in the negative direction. In fact, the posttest mean decreased by 0.23 in comparison with the pretest mean (pretest: M = 5.72, SD = 2.89 v posttest: M = 5.49, SD = 2.91). In addition to this, though the sub-group BCG expressed no difference in their results between the pre-test and the post-test, the posttest results of the 3 sub-groups within the control group, as can be seen in Table 5, show that there was no improvement in the test results in any of the three sub-groups. (BCG: P = .227 > .05; MCG: P = .039 < .05; GCG: P = 0.180 < .05).Specifically, the posttest means of three sub-groups decreased in comparison with their pretest means. In fact, the posttest means of BCG went down by 0.15 compared with the pretest means (BCG: pretest M = 2.01, SD = 1.106 v posttest M = 1.86, SD = 1.218; MCG: pretest M = 6.56, SD =1.107 v posttest M = 6.28, SD = 1.325); the mean score of the posttest in GCG reduced by 0.25 in comparison with the pretest mean score (pretest M = 8.68, SD =.284 v posttest M = 8.43, SD =.512). IV.3.2 The test results of the experimental group In this section, the results of pre- and posttest of the experimental group were analyzed and compared to see whether the extensive reading program impacted and enhanced the students’ reading comprehension ability. The results of pre- and posttest of the experimental group are presented in Table 6. Table 6. Pre- and Post-test Results of the Experimental Group Sub-groups Tests Mean SD Min Max T P BEG Pre-test 2.43 1.34 0.5 4.25 0.000 Post-test 3.55 1.81 0.5 6.0 MEG Pre-test 6.41 0.92 5.0 7.75 0.002 Post-test 7.46 0.97 5.75 8.75 GEG Pre-test 8.65 0.28 8.25 9.0 0.001 Post-test 9.18 0.42 8.5 9.75 Total Pre-test 5.53 2.77 0.5 9.0 -10.202 0.000 Post-test 6.47 2.69 1.5 9.75 The results of paired-sample t-test shown in Table 6 reveal a positive improvement in reading comprehension between pre- and posttest of the experimental group (pretest: M = 5.53, SD = 2.770 v posttest: M = 6.46, SD = 2.693). Thus, there was an increase of 0.93 points between pre- and post-test mean scores. This difference was statistically significant (T = -10.202 <-2, P = .000 < .05). Moreover, the improvement was not only reflected in the total test results, but also in the test results of all three sub-groups. Specifically, the results of sign-test shown in Table 5 indicate that there was significant difference in positive direction between pre- and post-test results in all three sub-groups (BEG: P = .000 < .05; MEG: P = .002 < .05; GEG: P = .001 < .05). In fact, the post-test mean scores of all three sub-groups increased in comparison with the pre-test results. The post-test mean score of BEG was higher than that of the pretest by 1.12 points (pretest M = 2.43, SD = 1.34 v posttest M =3.55, SD = 1.81); there was an increase of 0.53 points between the pre- and post-test mean scores MEG (pretest M = 6.41, SD = .92 v posttest M =7.46, SD = .97); in GEG, the post-test mean score raised by 0.53 points compared with the pre-test mean (pretest M = 8.65, SD = .28 v posttest M =9.18, SD = .42). IV.4 The post-test results between the control group and the experimental group The results of paired-samples t-test shown in Table 7 indicate that there was a significant difference in the results of the posttest between the control group and the experimental group (T= -8.812 <-2; P=0.000< 0.5) Table 7: The posttest results of the control group and the experimental group Tests Groups Mean SD Min Max T P Posttest Control 5.49 2.91 0.25 9.0 -8.812 0.000 Experimental 6.47 2.69 1.5 9.75 More specifically, after the experiment, the mean score of the experimental group were much higher than that of the control group (Control group: M= 5.49; SD= 2.91; Experiment group: M= 6,47; SD=2.69). It can be inferred that the experiment group got much development after the experiment. IV. 5. Results of the questionnaire. The results of the questionnaire are presented in the following sections. IV.5.1 Result of the first part of the questionnaire Table 8 indicates the results of the first part of the questionnaire on the students' attitudes to the program. Statements Y NI N 1. The ERP did not give me pleasure in learning English. 4 10% 6 15% 30 75% 2. I wish I had been encouraged to read extensively before. 35 87.5% 4 10% 1 2.5% 3. If I had been given a choice, I wouldn't have participated in this ERP. 0 0% 0 0% 40 100% 4. The ERP helped me to gain more self-control of my English study. 33 82.5% 7 17.5% 0 0% 5. My background knowledge has been widened due to extensive reading. 32 80% 6 15% 2 5% 6. Reading extensively did not help to expand my vocabulary and grammar in English. 2 5% 2 5% 36 90% 7. If this program does not continue in the following school-year, I will keep on reading extensively. 31 77.5% 7 17.5% 2 5% Table 8: Experimental subjects' attitude towards the ERP As can be seen in Table 8, seven items were involved in investigating the experimental subjects' evaluative attitudes towards the experiment treatment. According to the results shown in the table, the majority of the subjects believed that the ERP promoted their pleasure and autonomy in their language study. Most of them also expressed their enjoyment of having taken part in the program as well as their continued pursuance of extensive reading in the future. Up to 90% of them confirmed that the ERP helped to enrich their vocabulary and grammar and 80% of them agreed that ERP helped to widen their background knowledge. In sum, the result of the first part of the questionnaire has revealed that almost all the experimental subjects seemed to have positive attitudes towards the ERP that had been carried out. The next sub-section will investigate their suggestions for future program. IV.5.2 Result of the second part of the questionnaire Suggestions A D 1. The teacher should choose reading materials more carefully. 13 32.5% 27 67.5% 2. There should be more post reading activities. 11 27.5% 29 72.5% 3. Post-reading activities in class should be longer. 8 20% 32 80% 4. Instructions on activities in the ERP should be explained more clearly. 7 17.5% 33 82.5% 5. The program should be in a longer period of time. 36 90% 4 10% Table 9: Experimental subjects' suggestion for future program As shown in Table 9 most suggestions concentrated on the amount of time for the program and also for the post reading activities. 90% of them suggested that the program should be carried out in a longer period of time and more time should be spent on post reading activities. 32.5% of the students would like to have better collection of materials made by the teacher and 27.5 % of them were not satisfied with the number of post-reading activities in class. In sum the above sections and sub-sections have presented the major findings of the study. These included the results of comparing the reading performance in the pretest and posttest between the experimental and control groups; the results between the sub-groups within the two groups and also the results of the questionnaire. The findings are valuable for the discussion in the last section of this chapter. IV.6 Discussion The results of the reading comprehension tests provide strong support for the hypothesis that students who receive extra reading practice will perform better overall in a post test and have some improvement in their reading skill in comparison to those who do not have extra reading practice. Large and significant differences between the groups were recorded on the post-test, with the experimental group obtaining significantly higher post-study scores. Those evidences are as follows. Firstly, the comparison of the pre -test results of each group revealed that there was a difference in reading comprehension between the two groups in which the reading comprehension ability of the experimental group was a little bit lower than that of the control group. However, the gap was inconsiderable. (See IV.2) Secondly, the post-test results between the two groups show that students in the experimental group demonstrated better performance on reading comprehension than their peers in the control group. More specifically, the details of the pre- and post-test results of each sub-group within the two groups also indicated that the post-test mean scores of the control group decreased, whereas the performance of the three sub-groups within the experimental group on the posttest significantly increased. It can be concluded therefore that the extensive reading program has led to much greater improvement in learners' reading comprehension than traditional text-based, intensive language exploitation activities. The improvement was not only reflected in the total test results, but also in the test results of all three sub-groups especially of the students in the medium experimental group (MEG) who spent the most amount of time on reading extensively in comparison to the other sub-groups ( MEG: pretest M= 6.41; posttest M= 7.46). With freedom to select material according to their interests, and with associated high motivation, these learners expressed substantial improvements in achieving a greater understanding of the material. This gain may be the result of the combination between the industriousness and the right method of studying. In addition to this answers to the questionnaire also revealed that the majority of the subjects found their background knowledge, their vocabulary and grammar improved thanks to extensive reading. The approval of the improvement and the gain in the posttest results of the experimental group helped to confirmed that there existed significantly strong positive relationship between the extensive reading hours and the gains obtained by the experimental group. IV.7. Summary To sum up, Chapter 4 has reported the results that the study brought about. Critical discussion and contrast analysis of the major findings of the study were employed in the study to interpret and assess the collected data. The findings as shown explicitly through out the chapter indicate that the study has enabled to reject the null hypothesis and give answer to the research question. CHAPTER V: IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION This final chapter includes three sections. The first section provides readers some discussion of the major implications. The limitations of the study and some recommendations suggested for further research will be discussed in the second section. The last one will be the conclusion to the whole study. V.1 Implications The aim of this section is to propose some implications to promote students’ reading comprehension ability based on the discussion of the study findings related to the extensive reading program. As discussed in chapter IV, the major findings of the present study reveal positive effects of extensive reading on students’ reading comprehension ability. Therefore, the results of the current study once again confirm the theory in the Literature that extensive reading is one of the effective ways to improve the learners’ reading comprehension. However, in order to make extensive reading effective, based on the findings of the present study, there are two issues including selecting materials and designing the program that should be taken into consideration as follows. Firstly, the process of choosing materials is quite important in the context of this study. Besides the fact that there was no library of English books in this study, there existed another fact that the subjects of the study were of elementary level. For this reason, such factors as new words, grammar structure and topics had been taken into consideration when selecting materials for the program. The finding of the present study indicates that in case no library is available there is still a hope for such program to come into existence providing that the materials are carefully selected to meet the demand of the students' interest and English readiness. Secondly, once the materials have been well- selected, it is time to design the program. In the first place, it is important to consider the issue of time or how the program should be introduced. It is also advised to provide students with necessary reading skills before they participate in the extensive reading program. This can be done in some weeks before and even during the program. Once the issue of timing has been dealt with, the program designing takes place. Here is a suggestion of what to do in each program. The activities of explaining the effectiveness of reading extensively, clarifying the aims and objectives of the program, and giving instructions on how to select and borrow texts should be done in the first class. At home students read their texts and do some tasks (if required) and return the texts when they have finished reading them. In the last class, all the texts are returned and evaluative and suggestive opinions from the students are collected for later reference. Another equal important step is evaluating the program after running the program for the first few weeks to see if any changes need to be made on the agreement of all those involved. Another review should be taken at the end of the program for evaluation of its effect and suggestions for the future one. V.2 Limitations of the study and recommendations for further research In spite of the significant findings that supported the alternative hypothesis of the positive effect of extensive reading on students' reading proficiency, there existed some limitations to the study. First, the total amount of reading input was insufficient when compared with previous research. Susser and Robb (1990) suggest that in an EFL situation, reading about ten times as much as in an intensive reading program would be perceived as ‘extensive’ at the university level. Second, the length of the treatment period was only six weeks. This period may be too short for the students to achieve gains. Other research (Lai, 1993) conducted over shorter periods revealed their ER programs’ positive effects on reading comprehension, but the total amount of reading input in these studies was much larger than that of this study. Third, the total time engaged in reading was too short for about nearly half the students in the treatment group, who had spent an average time amount of only about 50 minutes a week as reported in the "weekly reading log" on reading extensively. Based on the limitation of the study as discussed above, and the findings that the students in the bad experiment group (BEG) did not have the same progress as those in the medium experimental group (MEG, further research is required to examine whether those learners will advance in reading comprehension with increasing reading input both in the class and at home. V.3 Conclusion In conclusion, the aim of the current study is to examine the effectiveness of extensive reading on students' reading comprehension at ULSA. The researcher has made her best attempt to find out the answer to the research question. Results showed that there was an improvement in the final reading performance made by the students who was given the treatment. In addition to this, answers to the questionnaire revealed that the students evaluated the effects of the ERP highly. The results of this study serve as a starting point for research into the effectiveness of extensive reading on students' reading comprehension in different language learning contexts. Continuing research in this area will help teachers more appropriately prepare their students for higher achievement in reading comprehension as well as in overall language learning. REFERENCES Brown, H.D. (1990). Principles of Teaching and Learning. Prentice Hall Regents. New Jersey. Brown, J.D. (1988). Understanding Research in Second Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bell, T. (2001). Extensive reading: Speed and comprehension. The Reading Matrix, 1, 1-13. Davis, C. (1995). Extensive reading: An expensive extravagance? ELT Journal, 49, 329-336. Day, R. & Bamford, J. (1998). Extensive reading in the second language classroom. 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