Using Internet-Based Children's Literature to Teach EFL

Larry J. Mikulecky
Mikuleck(at)Indiana.edu
Indiana University, Bloomington (Bloomington, IN, USA)

Introduction

Even though it has been nearly twenty-five years since scholars began exhorting EFL and ESL teachers to use children’s and young adult literature to teach adult learners (Flickinger, 1984), the practice has never become wide-spread. During the past two decades, research has continued to document the benefits of extensive L2 reading within one’s proficiency range (e.g. children's and young adult literature).

One likely explanation for this puzzling situation of documented benefits but little actual use is the problem of access (i.e. locating a sufficient range of simple literature in English in a form that is economically feasible). Goshen (1997), an EFL teacher with experience teaching in Lebanon, Syria and the United Arab Emirates, has noted that expense is a major hurdle. This is especially true if a teacher must order multiple copies of several different titles needed to address a range of student interests and language ability levels. Shipping costs can double the already high cost of books.

While this was clearly a problem in 1997, when Goshen first wrote of it, a growing wealth of children's and young adult literature available over the Internet can help overcome the problems of access and expense. Free and inexpensive Internet resources can now allow teachers to more easily use children’s and young adult literature to gain the benefits of extensive L2 reading for their students.

Evidence Supporting the Extensive Reading of Comprehensible Material

If the only time one uses English is during English class, it is very difficult to secure the practice time and develop the vocabulary needed for rapid growth in English proficiency. During the past two decades, research has consistently documented the benefits of extensive reading in L2 to the development of second language mastery. Waring and Nation (2004) summarize and synthesize nearly three dozen studies that demonstrate and examine the benefits of extensive reading in L2 to improvement of vocabulary, grammar, reading comprehension and writing.

In order for benefits to occur, the reader must already understand the majority of vocabulary on a page. For beginning and intermediate level students, this means relatively simple language such as that found in children's and young adult literature. Laufer (1989) and Liu and Nation (1985) demonstrated that unless a reader has control of at least 95% of words on a page, it is unlikely that he or she will be able to use context to guess the meaning of unknown words. Subsequent research (Hsueh-Chao and Nation, 2000), indicates that previous mastery of even higher percentages of vocabulary (i.e. 98% or more) is associated with the most benefit in new vocabulary growth.

These percentages correspond with similar percentages presented in the 1940’s by Betts (1946) for mastery levels in L1 reading of English. Betts suggested using vocabulary mastery as one indicator of a reader's independent, instructional or frustrational reading level.
Independent: 99% of words already known for fluent, enjoyable reading.
Instructional: 98%-95% of words known and some instructional support such as teacher suggestions, vocabulary explanations, illustrations etc. needed for benefit.
Frustrational: Below 95% of words known can damage fluency and lead to disruptions in comprehension strategies.

These suggested levels tend to match most of our experiences as readers. Few of us willingly continue reading books if we need to use a dictionary to understand 15-20 new words on every page (i.e. 5% of the words of a paperback book page with 300-400 words), though we can usually continue to read fluently if we encounter only three to four new words per page. In American elementary schools, teachers show children how to use the "five-finger method" when selecting books from the library. For each unknown word a child finds on a page (usually containing about 100 words of print), the child raises a finger. If five fingers are raised before completing the page, the book is probably too difficult and the child should select another.

Depending upon the difficulty of material to be read and the technical complexity of academic and professional material, scholars differ on the number of words and word families a reader needs to master before benefiting from extensive reading (Waring and Nation, 2004). To benefit in vocabulary growth from extensive reading of simple, non-graded text, previous mastery of 2000-3000 L2 words is suggested as a minimal level. This is roughly comparable to the vocabulary level of an average 9-10 year-old L1 speaker. It also corresponds to the vocabulary level of many high school and beginning college level EFL learners.

Finding Simple, Accessible and Inexpensive Readings in English

As has been mentioned above, children's and young adult literature in English has been recommended for more than two decades as a potential source of reading material for extensive reading. It is only relatively recently, however, that the Internet has helped to overcome problems of access and expense.

There are four web-sites that are particularly rich in extensive and accessible children's and young adult literature and which have demonstrated a stable existence (as much as anything on the Internet can be called stable). These sites (described in the attached Appendix in more detail with URL’s current in October 2007) provide a wide range of materials, topics, difficulty levels and sophisticated illustrations--sometimes accompanied by oral readings with animations. Even if one's EFL students don't have easy access to the Internet, it is possible for teachers with Internet access to download and print out materials for student use.

Ways to Use the Resources

The main point of using these resources to increase student practice time with English outside the classroom. Though some class time might be used to show web-sites to EFL students and model how to use the stories, the majority of time should be spent by students doing assigned or volunteer reading on their own.

There are some things the teacher can do to make the reading experience more productive for students. For example, the teacher can either match students to books at appropriate difficulty level or teach EFL students to use their own version of the five-finger method. The research cited earlier in this article indicates the most benefit is gained when students already know 98% or more of the words on a page. In addition, the teacher can produce questions to guide readers' attention and focus while reading. These same questions can be used by groups of two to three students for oral discussion after reading the same story.

Below are some assignment ideas and choices that can foster extensive reading by EFL students. These assignments might be spread over several weeks.

• Ask students with access to younger relatives to read and teach the English stories to their younger relatives.
• Ask future teachers of English to read simple stories and then design lessons for younger students.
• Ask students to keep a list of what they have read, brief summaries of stories or chapters, and new vocabulary learned.
• Have students do presentations on stories to "sell" them to other students.
• Have students create their own simple stories in English, possibly with illustrations.

The key elements here are fostering more practice reading English outside the classroom and finding enough variety of materials so all students can read something they can understand. In the last few years, the availability of children’s and young adult literature on the Internet has exploded and these resources will continue to grow. In many places, access to Internet technology has become easier than access to resources for purchasing printed books. For teachers and students with Internet access, it is time to reconsider how English reading practice might be expanded through the use of online children's and young adult literature.