Promoting Extensive Reading among Chinese Students Learning Thai as a Foreign Language

摘要

This study explored Chinese students' reading abilities after being assigned to read Thai texts for pleasure out of class for one semester. The sample of the study was purposively selected from 44 Chinese students registering for a Thai reading course at a university in Thailand in the academic year 2010, second semester. The reading promotion activities were integrated into normal reading lessons involving such activities as an orientation, discussion about books, best readers selection and sharing of stories and language elements. The books adopted in the project were chosen on the basis of individual readers' language level, interests and choices. The purpose of reading was for global understanding thus details of texts were not emphasized or assessed. Data gathering included students' scores from pre-and post-tests of reading speed and perception surveys of reading comprehension and teacher's interview on students' reading progresses and problems. By the end of the semester, individual students added up the amounts of pages each has read;; they were then divided into the high group, which read over 200 pages and the low group, which read below that. Quantitative data were analyzed through SPSS program and qualitative ones through content analysis, each of which was based on either the high or low group. Results of the quantitative analyses show that students who read more pages performed better in their reading comprehension and speed.