The importance of English is evermore rising as it is a medium of communication and information exchange in the 21st century characterized by an explosive increase of information and globalization. To be a leader among others in such times, the abilit ...
The importance of English is evermore rising as it is a medium of communication and information exchange in the 21st century characterized by an explosive increase of information and globalization. To be a leader among others in such times, the ability to rapidly read and process information of various fields written in English is a necessity. In this sense, the ability to rapidly read English is essential for university students who will soon hold the future in their hands. In addition, with the fast development and expansion of computers, the internet, use of multimedia, and related technology, there have been many attempts to integrate these with education. Although there have been noticeable accomplishments from e-Learning to u-Learning, in order for there to be a meaningful leap, software and teaching methodology centered on end-users must be developed.
In this research, a computer based English reading comprehension program designed to enhance rapid reading skills has been developed and applied to university students. The focus is to find the effectiveness the program may have. In selecting the reading material, a preliminary survey was conducted to find various topics that subjects took interest (Anderson, 2006; Hedge, 2000; Nuttall, 1996) in. Also considered was meaning-focused input by Anderson (2003) and recommended readability by Nation (2009). With the target of rapid reading skill enhancement, a total of 48 reading materials containing easy contents were selected. The selected reading materials were then sorted according to the relative difficulty grounded on Fry’s Readability Graph (1963) and with consideration of length (number of words) a rapid reading skill enhancement syllabus was devised. The degree of difficulty varies from grade 3 to college level. These selected reading materials were then used to develop a computer based English reading comprehension program using Microsoft Office Powerpoint.
To enhance rapid reading skills, it is important to expand the eye span through methods of reading in accordance with the English word order, also known as progressive reading, instead of manipulating it to fit the Korean word order and also comprehending semantic units (Buzan, 1997; Nuttall, 1996; Zom, 1980). The English reading comprehension program developed during the research to enhance rapid reading prevents regression by using appear and disappear, techniques provided by Microsoft Office Powerpoint. In addition, as already read materials are programmed to disappear, increasing the learners’ concentration ability has also become possible.
The research was conducted for one whole semester at K University, located in K City, C Province, to verify the effectiveness of the English reading comprehension program. Subjects of the study were 38 students who had enrolled in the English Reading Comprehension for Beginners course, an elective general educational course, showing a wide distribution of 18 departments of 6 colleges within the university. The subjects were divided into an experimental group and control group, each consisting of 19 students, determined by a preliminary test using intermediate level TOEIC reading comprehension materials. All data was processed through SPSS, version 9.0. Results show an average increase of 22.1 wpm and a gradual 0.6 increase of comprehension rate with 10 being perfect. A TOEIC reading comprehension test, 495 points being perfect, conducted before and after the study showed a 42.4 point increase in the experimental group and the paired sample t-test concluded there to be a notable difference. The affective attitude was also surveyed before and after the study with results revealing notable shifts of attitude in 5 categories out of 10 along with other positive changes in remaining categories also. As a result, the English reading comprehension program developed for this research was concluded positively effective.