Learn English the extensive way by reading 1 million words
本文作者： DAILY YOMIURI
IF you read 1 million words in English, eventually you will think in that language. With this theory in mind, the Gamagori Municipal Library, in Japan, recently started a lending service for books in English with the purpose of helping people learn of the language more comprehensively. Kunihide Sakai is an associate professor at Electro-Communications University in Tokyo and president of the Extensive Reading Association of Japan. Since the early 1990s, Sakai has been exploring ways to apply extensive reading to reading books in English. The method’s rules are: use no dictionaries while reading; skip over difficult words and phrases; and stop reading the book if it is too content-heavy. According to Sakai, if you stick to these rules, you can get through more than 1 million words with ease. And eventually you will think in English. The method also helps readers enjoy reading books in English rather than growing to dislike them. According to Professor Hitoshi Nishizawa at the Toyota National College of Technology in Japan, four technology colleges have adopted the extensive reading method. His own college adopted the method for its electric technology English class, which is held for one hour each week, from the second grade to the fifth grade as well as in the two-year advanced course. After applying the method, the average TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) score of the college’s graduates jumped from 330 to 500, out of 990. The Gamagori library decided to follow the college’s example and lend books for extensive reading. The library has purchased about 1,400 books, which include those designed for students of English as a second language. The English level is equivalent to that of fourth-grade primary school students in Britain and the United States. After completing this level of English, they can read Harry Potter books in English, according to the professor. “The method is effective not only for improving their reading skills, but also for their hearing ability,” said Nishizawa. |  |
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