Hooked on Reading: Azusa's Journey up the Extensive Reading Ladder

Abstract

The majority of research in Extensive Reading has been done with students in the secondary and tertiary levels of education; however, very little research has been done with adults. Fewer still focus on the progress of language acquisition in adults out of school. This paper looks to study the progress of an adult, female language learner in Japan, named Azusa, who has been out of school for many years, but has continued to study English on her own, and uses Extensive Reading as a part of this learning. The research in this paper also seeks to be a replication study of Yamanaka (2013), who also investigated the language process and progress of an adult female, not in school during her learning journey, and discussed her findings at the ERCW 2, in Seoul.  This paper will seek to track how Azusa learned English out of school, why she did so, and what her progress was before and after adopting Extensive Reading principles. It will also discuss her motivations, including of how she keeps a photo record of all the Graded Readers she has used to improve her ability to communicate to others, in both speaking and listening.