著者

今村 一博

出版者

外国語教育メディア学会(LET)

雑誌

外国語教育メディア学会機関誌 (ISSN:21857792)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.48, pp.185-214, 2011

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Certain researchers in Japan and abroad argue the ability to quickly recognize words and phrases is necessary for fluent reading. They recommend increasing the frequency of encounters with words and phrases through extensive reading (ER) in order to expedite their recognition. Some previous studies demonstrated that frequently processing words and phrases increased their recognition speed. However, the question of whether ER increases the recognition speed of words and phrases has not yet been addressed. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate whether ER for Japanese EFL learners increases the recognition speed of words, collocations, formulaic sequences, and antonyms. The participants chose and read English graded readers outside the class freely for approximately four months and attempted the lexical, collocational, phrasal, and antonym decision tasks before and after the reading. The results revealed that ER of about 30,000 words significantly increased the recognition speed of words and collocations, but not that of formulaic sequences and antonyms. This implies that processing a high number of words and collocations through ER increases their recognition speed. Furthermore, our results suggest that ER does not particularly expedite the assimilation of formulaic sequences and antonyms, which should be learned mainly through explicit instruction and intentional learning.