Library pushes English, 1 mil. words at a time
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Read 1 million words in English, and eventually you will think in the same language. Based on this theory, the Gamagori Municipal Library has launched a lending service for English books to help people learn of the language more comprehensively.
The library is the first to have a section for extensive reading assistance in the Mikawa area, located in the eastern part of Aichi Prefecture.
Kunihide Sakai, associate professor at the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo and president of the Extensive Reading Association in Japan, has been exploring the extensive reading method as a new way of reading English books since the early 1990s.
The rules of the method are:
--Use no dictionaries while reading.
--Skip over difficult words and phrases.
--Stop reading the book if it is too content-heavy.
According to Sakai, by keeping these rules, one can get through more than 1 million words with ease and eventually think in English. The method also helps readers enjoy reading English books rather than growing to dislike them.
Hitoshi Nishizawa, a professor at the Toyota National College of Technology in Toyota, Aichi Prefecture, proposed setting up the section in the library in a letter sent to the mayor of Gamagori in August.
According to Nishizawa, four colleges of technology nationwide have adopted the extensive reading method, while Nishizawa's college adopted the method in its electric technology English class, which is taught for one hour a week, from the second grade to the fifth grade as well as in the two-year advanced course.
By adopting the method, the average TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) score of graduates from the college jumped from 330 to 500.
Encouraged by this, the library decided to follow the college's example by lending books for extensive reading for citizens.
The library has purchased about 1,400 books that include those designed for learners of English as a second language.
The books also include children's literature such as "Peter Pan" and "Jack and the Beanstalk," as well as popular novels such as from the Sherlock Holmes series.
The level of English is equivalent to that of fourth-grade primary school students in Britain and the United States. After completing this level of English, one can read Harry Potter books in English, according to Nishizawa.
"The method is effective not only for improving one's reading skills, but also for hearing ability. I particularly want working people who need to learn English to read these books," Nishizawa said.
(Jun. 6, 2005)
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