Increased Linguistic Competence as a Consequence of Extensive Reading (ER) – An Empirical Study into the Effect of ER on L2 Writing Proficiency

Abstract

Extensive reading (ER) has been identified as an effective tool in teaching vocabulary and improving students’ spelling habits. Despite this well-documented finding, the effect that ER has on writing proficiency—which is here seen as a complex of three interconnected variables, namely: accuracy, complexity and coherence—has not yet been investigated quite as rigorously. In particular, comparative research between, on the one hand, extensive reading and, on the other hand, traditional reading—which is here defined as standardized text comprehension activities as presented in textbooks for learners in educational settings—has so far remained elusive. In other words, the question of which method yields the greatest results with regard to writing proficiency as well as motivation to learn an L2 presents a promising field of endeavor. Although extrapolation of results from previous research can tentatively identify explicit practice—i.e. traditional reading—as the greater facilitator of learning, results from other research point in the exact opposite direction. For this reason, an extensive reading program was set up to contrast with a traditional reading program in the context of two VWO 5 classes in the Netherlands (N = 35; ER = 17; TR = 18) with a focus on measuring growth in the participants’ writing proficiency. Participants were asked to complete two writing assignments (cf. pre-test & post-test), one grammar test to account for inter-group comparability and two questionnaires to control for factors ranging from (prior) L2 exposure in various contexts, to various aspects of motivation.