Extensive Reading in English Language Teaching

Abstract

In this long collection, the editor and contributor, Andrezej Cirocki, writes that the volume ‘constitutes an undertaking to analyse the degree to which the new investigating perspective, that is, extensive reading has influenced language education and whether it is worth implementing in the EFL/ESL classroom’ (p. 20). To anyone with even a passing awareness of the robust literature on the benefits of extensive reading (ER), this might seem to be somewhat odd. However, Cirocki apparently believes that ER has not made sufficient inroads in Europe as he writes, ‘I have decided to edit this book, first and foremost with a view to instilling ER in the European educational context …’ (p. 21). Extensive Reading in English Language Teaching is divided into four sections. Section 1, entitled ‘Developing reading skills in a foreign or second language’, has two chapters that treat second or foreign language (L2) reading in general and are not concerned with ER. Section 2, ‘Promoting literacy through extensive reading’, is the longest of the four sections, with 24 chapters. The aim of the four chapters in Section 3, ‘The efficacy of extensive reading: insights from the research’, is ‘to demonstrate the numerous benefits which can accrue from extensive reading’ (p. 21). The fourth and final section, ‘Extensive reading in the EFL/ESL classroom: teaching tips’, has seven chapters that are descriptions of activities.