Autor: prof. Bogdan Georgiana
Sursă imagine: https://www.istockphoto.com/ro/search/2/image-film?phrase=pile%20of%20books%20with%20headphones&page=2
Most researchers like to make a difference between extensive and intensive reading and listening. Whereas the former suggests reading or listening at length, often for pleasure in a leisurely way, intensive reading or listening tends to be more concentrated, less relaxed and often dedicated not so much to pleasure as to the achievement of a study goal.
Extensive reading and listening frequently take place when students are on their own, whereas intensive reading and listening is often done with the help and/or intervention of the teacher.
The two most important reading styles are known as ” intensive reading” and „extensive reading”. If you learn to master the what, how and why of these two manners of reading, you will have two extremely powerful tools in your language arsenal which will fuel your ability to acquire vocabulary indefinitely.
Reading, despite being one of the four major skills of language learning, is one of the skills that is most often neglected by language learners. For the language learner who wishes to reach the upper levels of target language capability, this lack of reading poses a serious obstacle to the expansion of one’s vocabulary, as a limited vocabulary offers less capacity to understand and, in turn, be understood.
Extensive reading – especially where students are reading material written specially at their level – has a number of benefits for the development of a student’s language.It will make students more positive about reading, will improve their overall comprehension skills and will give them a wider passive and active vocabulary.
Extensive reading is the best possible way for students to develop automaticity – that is the automatic recognition of words when they see them. It is by far the best way to improve their English reading ( and writing) overall.
You must intensively read only when you have the most mental energy in order to further boost your capacity for learning and to reduce the risk of mental exhaustion that comes with deep analysis of even the shortest texts. Of course, mental energy levels fluctuate throughout the day – and even differ greatly from person to person – so exactly the way you should intensively read is something you need to determine for yourself.
The benefits of extensive reading are echoed by the benefits for extensive listening: the more students listen, the more language they acquire and the better they get at listening activities in general. Whether they choose recordings of passages from textbooks, recordings of simplified readers, other listening material designed for their level or podcasts which they are capable of following, the effect will be the same. Provided the input is comprehensible, they will gradually acquire more words and greater schematic knowledge which will, in turn, resolve many of the language difficulties they started out with.
Undoubtedly, extensive reading and listening are highly effective, meaning-focused language acquisition methods. By regularly consuming large quantities of accessible, enjoyable material, learners naturally absorb vocabulary and grammar, drastically improve their fluency and build lifelong confidence. Combining both modalities (for example listening to an audiobook while reading the text) yields the highest absorption and engagement, transforming language learning into an immersive experience.
