M a education paper-v methods of teaching english

B. Extensive and Intensive Reading 
“The best way to improve your knowledge of a foreign language is to go and live among its 
speakers. The next best way is to read extensively in it” 
(Nuttall) 
Reading is one of the skills that a learner of language should acquire. In the classrooms it is most 
often taught by careful reading or even translation of foreign language texts. The goal of reading 
is usually complete and detailed understanding. The idea of reading is associated with tasks that 
have to be fulfilled, a mere exercise to be done in class. But reading is also a very pleasurable 
activity that broadens ones knowledge and vocabulary. 
3.C i. Extensive reading
Extensive reading as a term naming an approach to teaching reading in a foreign language was 
introduced by Harold Palmer and Michael West after piloting a project of Extensive reading in 
India. 
Extensive reading stresses the pleasure of reading. Extensive reading involves learners in reading 
large quantities of books at the level appropriate for them (that is up to 98% of the words are 
known to the reader). The primary goal of Extensive reading is reading in order to gain 
information and to enjoy texts. 
What is Extensive reading? 
“We learn to read by reading”. 
(Nuttall) 
Extensive reading is a language teaching procedure where learners are supposed to read large 
quantities of material or long texts for global understanding, the principal goal being obtaining 
pleasure from the text. The reading is individualised. The learner chooses the book and reads it 
independently of the teacher and is not required to do a task after reading. The learner is also 
encouraged to stop reading if he/she finds the material uninteresting or too difficult. The only 
condition for Extensive reading is that learners already have a basic knowledge of the language 
and are literate in it. 

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