서강대학교

목차

Traditional reading instruction in Korea has been intensive reading？he practice of reading short, difficult texts and analyzing the vocabulary and grammar. However, a growing body of research in extensive reading (reading a lot of self-selected and relatively easy texts) suggests that extensive reading may be at least as effective in developing reading skills as intensive practices. Reading comprehension is a significant part of the TOEIC test. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of extensive reading on TOEIC test development, particularly in reading comprehension.
The experiments were conducted twice in the 2007 and 2008 winter vacations. The subjects are undergraduate students in Sogang University who volunteered for the study. The students were given access to graded readers and read self-selected books over a 2-month period. During this period, students agreed not to do any other kind of English study. A pre-test on TOEIC was administered at the beginning of the study and a different TOEIC test was given as a post test. Subjects read from 10-30 graded readers during this time and were categorized according to numbers of book read. Students on average read 3 graded readers per week.
The results of the study as are follows: First, numbers of graded readers read by students positively correlated with gains in TOEIC. Secondly, students reading from 20-30 graded readers increased their overall TOEIC scores by 74.2 points, while students reading from 10-19 graded readers gained an average of 51.3 points. Students reading more than 20 graded readers saw significant gains both in the reading and listening portion of the TOEIC, while students reading from 10-19 graded readers only made significant gains in the reading portion.
Through the result, we can infer that the extensive reading program is beneficial for TOEIC preparation, as well as general language acquisition.