Self-directed learning (SDL) requires students to take initiative to learn and control their own learning process. Literature highlights the importance of SDL for lifelong learning. Yet, little understanding is known regarding how to support SDL at the school level, specifically for out-of-class learning context. To fill up this gap, this research…

While previous research has provided insights into vocabulary learning through extensive reading, the differential effects of word frequency and word class on active form and passive meaning word recognition remain less understood. By evaluating learners' post-test performance in active form recognition and passive meaning recognition, this study…

In an exploration of methods to advance language acquisition without the inconvenience of participating in an immersion option, the authors discovered research on Free Voluntary Reading (FVR). FVR has made a recent resurgence, especially in the context of language acquisition. Krashen (2004) proposes FVR as the answer to building language…

This study investigated the effects of (a) the amount of pleasure reading completed, (b) the type of texts read (i.e., simplified or unsimplified books), and (c) the level of simplified texts read by 14 Japanese university students who made the largest reading rate gains over one academic year. The findings indicated that the participants who made…

We report on a large-scale implementation of extensive reading (ER) in a university setting in Japan where all students were required to read outside class time as part of their course requirement. A pre/posttest comparison between the 2009 cohort of students who read outside of class and the 2008 cohort who did no outside reading shows that the…

Few second-language (L2) reading studies have examined the relationship between reading large amounts of text and fluency, and those studies that have tend to be problematic in terms of their designs and/or analyses. In order to address this lack of empirical L2 reading fluency research, this study investigates the effects of a 1-year pleasure…

This is the 2011 edition of a biennial series of compendia describing key education outcomes and contexts of education in the Group of Eight (G-8) countries--Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The report is organized into five topical areas: population and school enrollment,…

Sales of manga or Japanese comics dominate the publishing market in Japan. Manga cater to a wide variety of readers, ranging from children's comics to adult pornography. In this paper, we focus on adolescent readers and describe patterns of learning to read manga. The findings demonstrate the importance of belonging to a community of readers since…

Describes the plight of junior high students in Japan who are apparently too concerned with doing well in the content areas to engage in leisure reading. (MKM)