Investigating the Impact of Extensive Reading

Program on Essay Writing Performance of Benito

Soliven National High School Grade 10 Students
Introduction
Everyone needs to learn how to read because it is a highly complex language skill.
Reading is a variety of skills and processes that readers use to interact with written words and
texts for information and enjoyment. It is not just one skill. Grammar, spelling, vocabulary,
and other linguistic features can all be taught. In addition, Zainal and Husin (2011) noted that
reading requires a variety of purposeful that must work together for the reader to be effective.
Writing is regarded as the most challenging capacity, but Dang (2019) argues that it is
essential for language production. Similar to how Omar (2019) noted that writing is meant to
convey information to others as well as sentiments and thoughts, however, it might be
challenging for EFL students. Learners need to be taught how to construct sentences,
paragraphs, and ideas properly before they begin writing (Harmer, 2007). Writing requires
the creation of concepts, the use of language, and familiarity with a range of writing subjects.
Grammar, vocabulary, and other writing-related skills are not fully acquired by EFL students.
This makes them tough to articulate their thoughts and ideas when writing (Al-Mansour &
Al-Shorman, 2014). As a result, language teachers must put in a lot of effort to aid their
students in improving their writing abilities. One of the most well-liked methods of
instruction in an EFL setting is extensive reading. Extensive reading had a favorable impact
on EFL learners' writing abilities, according to Ouafi (2019). Park (2016) showed that an
extended reading method had a significant impact on students' writing performance in
extensive reading classes and that the students could enhance their writing structure,
vocabulary, and other elements.
Students in Vietnam's majority of writing classes, however, write in a passive manner.
There have been several initiatives to help learners' writing skills, but they have not yet
proven to be sufficiently successful to inspire students to pursue them (Nguyen et al., 2011).
The majority of English instructors in Vietnam tend to emphasize the struggle of imparting
writing skills to their students. We, therefore, anticipate that the application of extensive
reading to our research will help learners feel motivated to write, reduce their anxiety about
producing papers, and create high-quality essays.
Objectives
This study focuses on investigating the impact of the extensive reading program on the
essay writing performance of Benito Soliven National High School students. Specifically, it
aims to answer the following questions:
1. Is there a significant difference between the outputs of the control group and that of the
experimental group from the educational intervention (extensive reading)?
2. What is the impact of an extensive reading program on the essay writing performance of
students?
3. What perceptions do students have about the impact that reading extensively has on their
ability to write?

Literature Review
 Numerous studies have recently been done to determine the impact of extensive reading
program in different colleges and schools.  Some of the papers that were most pertinent to the
subject of the current study were reviewed by the researchers.
“In my own experience as an English language student, including reading into writing
lessons improved my writing abilities. I enrolled in an advanced reading and writing course
at a university in the American Midwest. This particular EFL course was being taken for the
first time. I initially didn't understand how such two skills were taught in tandem. As time
went on, I began to see that teaching the two disciplines together had a positive impact on my
writing abilities. My grammar accuracy improved because to the numerous reading
assignments, use of words, the development of ideas, and the effective application of
rhetorical devices and intricate frameworks. Additionally, using models as writing resources
enabled me to learn more about sentence structure, punctuation, transitional words and
phrases, cohesion, and coherence.” (Alomrani, 2014)
Graham and Hebert (2010), the incorporation of extensive reading with writing exercises
may inspire students to discuss a material they have read and aid in their ability to make
connections between what they have read and what they have learned understood, and
believed. Al-Mansour (2014) stressed the impact of extensive reading on EFL students'
writing abilities and thought that extensive reading may serve as an excellent framework for
EFL teachers to use. A study was done by Salehi et al. (2015) to look at how extensive
reading affects pre-university Iranian EFL students' writing abilities. The outcomes
demonstrated that the experimental group outperformed the control group and suggested that
extensive reading had a significant positive impact on the writing performance of EFL
learners. A lack of vocabulary and weak mastery of grammar were discovered in Iranian EFL
students. With the aid of extensive reading, grammar structures may have been enhanced.
Ouafi (2019) sought to determine whether ER would have an impact on students' writing
abilities. 30 intermediate-level Algerian students from the University of Algiers served as the
samples. The findings of this study demonstrated that ER had a good impact on the
participants' writing abilities. In a study done at a US university in 2016, Park explored the
effectiveness of an ER method on EFL writing performance. The participants were first-year
international students from Asian nations like China, Korea, and Japan. Results revealed that
the experimental group fared better on their post-test writing assignments, indicating that the
group supplemented with ER had made greater progress than the other group in terms of
content, organization, vocabulary, and grammar usage and structure of language.
Kirin (2010) described a 15-week reading experiment with a group of Thai EFL students
who were encouraged to read and later divided into smaller groups for statistical analysis
based on how much they had read. This indicated the amount of exposure to understandable
input for the "high" and "low" groups, respectively. Throughout the duration of the
engagement with simplified reading materials, all subjects had their essay writing skills
assessed every five weeks. The results of the study revealed that while low ability students'
writing skills did not improve despite increased reading involvement during the four-month
experiment, high ability students' writing skills did.
The results of all the studies described above show that extensive reading can be utilized
as a tool to help students' writing skills. The impact of extensive reading on the writing
performance of BSNHS grade 10 students will also be investigated by the researchers. 
Elements of Language Attitude
The three components of language attitude are cognitive, affective, and behavioral,
according to Garrett et al. (2003). Thoughts help shape the cognitive side of things. While the
behavioral aspect shows how people act toward a language either consciously or
unconsciously, the affective aspect deals with how people feel about a language.
In this study, three factors namely: cognitive, affective, and behavior will also be used to
examine the participants' attitudes.
Methodology
Research Design
To conduct this study, the researchers will use a randomized control-group pretest-posttest
design to investigate the impact of the educational intervention (extensive reading) on the
students’ essay writing performance. The pretest-posttest control group design, also known as
the pretest-posttest randomized experimental design, is a design of a study in which subjects
are randomly chosen to either receive an intervention (the experimental group) or not (the
control group). Two measurements are made of the desired outcome: one before the
intervention is given to the experimental group (pretest), and one thereafter (posttest).
(Choueiry, 2021)
Research Participants
The participants in this study will be 20 grade 10 students enrolled at Benito Soliven
National High School which will be chosen through the use of simple random sampling.
Moreover, researchers will randomly assign the 20 participants into two groups (experimental
and control) of 10 students each.
Research Instrument
The main instruments that will be used by the researchers to address the research
questions will be reading materials, a pretest, a posttest, and a questionnaire. The data for this
study will be gathered using the two writing tasks (pretest and posttest) and the questionnaire
adopted from Duong & Trang, (2021). European Journal of English Language Teaching.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353796885. While the questionnaire will be used to
look at the attitudes of Grade 10 learners concerning the usage of extensive reading, the
writing tasks will be used to assess writing performance.
Data Gathering Procedures
The researchers will prepare a letter requesting the School Principal of Benito Soliven
National High School to conduct this study. An agreement letter will also be formulated to be
given to the respondents which states that the research participants will agree to take part in
this study and assure their responses and personal information will be confidential.
1. The research participants will be given an orientation on the process of the educational
intervention.
2. The research participants will be assigned into two groups (experimental and control
group)
 3. The research participants in both groups will have their pre-test to examine their writing
performance before any educational intervention.
4. The researchers will give the reading materials to the experimental group as their
assignment. The control group will not be given ER materials.
5. After 20 days of the intervention, both groups will be given a post-test to determine if
there is a positive impact of extensive reading on the
6. The questionnaire will be delivered and answered by the experimental group 2 days
after the post-test to examine their attitudes towards the intervention.
The research respondents’ outputs will be scored by an English teacher at Benito Soliven
National High School based on the writing criteria that will be given.
 Research Questionnaire
Name: Section:
Age: Gender:
Direction: Put a check on the number that best suits your answer from the given statements
using the following scales:
5- Strongly Agree 4- Agree 3- Neutral 2- Disagree 1- Strongly
Disagree
These research questions were adopted from Duong & Trang, (2021). European Journal of
English Language Teaching. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353796885
5 4 3 2 1
Affective Attitudes
1. I feel writing is more interesting.
2. I feel writing is easier.
3. I feel more confident submitting my writing output.
4. I feel more active and motivated when I write.
5. To improve my writing skill, I would like to have
more extensive reading materials.
6. I feel that extensive reading materials aren’t helpful
at all.
7. I think students should be encouraged to have
extensive reading to improve their writing skill.
Cognitive Attitudes
1. I can have more ideas to write.
2. I can arrange ideas logically.
3. I can use linking words better in writing essays and
stories.
4. I can use connective devices flexibly (such as
firstly, secondly, thirdly, but, etc.) in writing essays
and stories.
5. I can use more appropriate words in writing my
outputs.
6. I can avoid repetitive words.
7. I can avoid spelling mistakes because I am
continuously exposed to many familiar words.
8. I can use more grammatical structures when
writing essays.
9. I can reduce my grammatical errors.
10. I can use more appropriate sentence structures in
writing after learning extensive reading.
Behavioral Attitudes
1. I can write better.
2. I would like to have more writing tasks to practice.
3. I think extensive reading materials help me
improve my critical thinking skills.
4. I can edit my writing output by myself better.
5. I can make myself pay attention during my writing
lessons.