Aka (2019) conducted an year-long large-scale study demonstrating that Japanese high school students who undertook extensive reading performed better than a control group who undertook grammatical instruction. Those showing the greatest gains were those of lower and intermediate proficiency. The students' achievement was measured in terms of…

The present study investigates the effects of extensive reading on developing the language knowledge and reading abilities of high school learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) over the course of one school year. Participants were divided into control (n = 205) and experimental groups (n = 200), with the former receiving regular grammar…

Despite the growing number of studies highlighting the complex process of acquiring second language (L2) word recognition skills, comparatively little research has examined the relationship between word recognition and passage-level reading ability in L2 learners; further, the existing results are inconclusive. This study aims to help fill the…

The paper reports on a long-term, multi-case study examining the motivations of avid readers in an extensive reading program at a private Japanese high school. Using an ethnographic approach to case study research, the project explores nine participants--their motivations for reading and what English study means for them. The two and a half year…

To investigate factors that motivate Japanese high school students to read English extensively, I assessed 219 female high school students who participated in an extensive reading program for 1 academic year. The results showed that the 2 most influential factors were students' intrinsic motivation for first language (L1) reading and second…