All Levels Extensive Reading Strategies Preferred by University Students more

This research aims to provide educational suggestions by analyzing extensive reading strategy preferences of Japanese university students. Extensive reading was incorporated in an English class to enhance their English proficiency. The students read books from the library for the first 20 minutes of every 90-minute class. Subsequently, a questionnaire was conducted with 16 students, employing a five-point Likert scale. The questionnaire was based on the top 10 principles proposed by Day & Bamford (2002), which were originally written for teachers but were modified in terms of students. As a result, the most favored principles were reading easy materials, choosing what they want to read and reading for general understanding. Although modeling is generally considered an effective learning strategy, the teacher as a role model of a reader was the second least favored principle. Finally, teachers should introduce those preferred principles earlier in class, creating a learning environment to realize them.