by Wong Shin Pyng

INTRODUCTION

The program is for students aged 13 to 18 years old. It requires students to read books extensively online by using netbooks. The online extensive reading program that I propose adopts the online stories of Project ChiLD and the concept of e-class platform.

DESCRIPTION

To participate in this online extensive program, students are to purchase a netbook laptop, which is also referred to as mini notebook. The mini notebook is a rapidly evolving category of small, light and inexpensive laptop computer suited for general computing and accessing web-based applications. Students who cannot afford the netbook, will be sponsored with one from the school by offering service to the school as appreciation, for instance, cleaning the school compound or assisting the teachers in administrative work.

The ProjectChiLD website provides six levels of stories. The stories of Level 1-5 are read by children and young readers aged 12 below; the stories of Level 6 are targeted at young teenage readers aged 12 to 15 as they are a collection of longer stories such as "Mr. Sticky", "The Silly Goose", "How Frog Went to Heaven: A Tale of Angola" and "The Little Mermaid". Level 6 however does not cater for students aged 16 to 18 years old. Therefore, stories will be identified and collected for senior students aged 16 above.

The choices of ProjectChiLD Level 6 stories depict the vital criteria for story selection: simplicity, variety, grammar and vocabulary. Based on these criteria, more stories are selected and categorized into 6 different levels which are similar to the ProjectChiLD’s. The stories of six different levels are targeted at adolescent readers aged 13 to 18. A number of free fiction stories are available online in the form of e-book, using the Scribd file which enables readers to maximize the font size of the text. A recommended website is http://younglearners.eslreading.org/ which contains fiction for young adults, for instance, "Prisoner of Zenda", "Ghost", "Do You Love Me", "Fred and Rita" and "Diary of a Nobody". Therefore, teacher needs to select the stories according to the criteria listed above.

"English Extensive Reading" section is created in the school e-class platform. It contains three parts: e-library, book report folder and class forum. The stories of six different levels (including the ProjectChiLD stories and other stories) are uploaded into the e-library. Book report folder comprises of sub-folders named with different class, for example I2A (Intermediate Form 2 A) or X6B (Advanced Form 6 B). Also, each class is provided with an online forum where the English teacher of the particular class becomes the administrator to supervise students’ discussion about what they have read.

For this online extensive reading program, an e-library is set up to store all the stories which are categorized into six levels. Therefore, LiberOne 1.6.527 software is highly recommended in the management and maintenance of online reading materials. With LiberOne teachers can at any moment know the stories that you have read or downloaded. Moreover, stories of a certain subject, classification, group or author can be listed systematically. The LiberOne software also keeps track of students’ activities in the online reading program: a student is only allowed to download a new story when she uploads the book report of the previous story; the stories a student has downloaded are also listed in the LiberOne e-record so that teacher can assess the progress of a student and decide whether he or she can read the stories of higher level.

Before running the program, all English teachers have to attend seminars and workshops to learn practical approaches to maximize student participation. Below are the ten principles of teaching extensive reading (Bamford & Day, 2002):

1.         The reading material is easy.

2.         A variety of reading material on a wide range of topics must be available.

3.         Learners choose what they want to read.

4.         Learners read as much as possible.

5.         The purpose of reading is usually related to pleasure, information and general understanding.

6.         Reading is its own reward.

7.         Reading speed is usually faster rather than slower.

8.         Reading is individual and silent.

9.         Teachers orient and guide their students.

10.      The teacher is a role model of a reader.

Teacher plays the pivotal role in making the extensive reading program a great success. Throughout the program, teachers must take part actively by keeping track of the amount of stories students read, reading the students’ book reports and giving comments in the online forum. Adolescent students are emotional beings who can feel the dedication of their teacher. They will be motivated to read when the teacher cares how much they have learnt.

In the first class, the teacher needs to explain to the learners why extensive reading is important, that extensive reading helps to build their reading speed and automaticity in reading of already known language in a pleasurable way. The learners also need to know:

·            the goals of the extensive reading program

·            how they select stories

·            how much they need to read a week

·            how many stories they can download

·            whether they have to write reports

Before reading the stories, the readers have to assess their own reading ability level.

According to Waring (2008), there is a simple way of assessing one’s reading ability level:

1.    The teacher copies one page from one book at each level (if you have identified 6 levels then you would have 6 pages) and puts them all on one piece of paper.

2.    The teacher copies this paper, and gives each student a copy.

3.    Each student reads over the paper to find the level where she can read 80-100 words per minute, with about 2 or 3 unknown words per page.

4.    Once each student has found her level, it is best to ask that each student starts off with stories one level below this comfort zone, in order to build confidence with longer texts. It is important to remember that each student should choose what she wants to read, and that not all the students will be at the same difficulty level.

5.    Remember, teachers cannot assume that because all the students have studied together, they will all be able to read at the same ability level.