Investigation of the Effect of Using a Novel as an Extensive Reading on Students’ Attitudes and Reading Ability

The present study aims at investigating learners’ perceptions on the use of a novel as an extensive reading in a college EFL reading course. For this purpose, fifty Iranian EFL students read and received instructions on an unabridged short novel in addition to, their text book for one semester. Three questionnaires were used to measure students’ attitudes toward novel-reading, students’ confidence in novel reading ability and students’ perceptions toward using a novel as an auxiliary material, prior to and after reading the novel. In addition, three open questions were offered to obtain benefits and obstacles of the novel reading. T-test analysis were used and findings revealed that there was a significant improvement after reading the novel in students’ attitudes, confidence, interest and their novel-reading ability. However, they suggested reading the novels according to the theme that they preferred. The result of this study are of pedagogic significance to EFL teaching in that they indicated how well a novel was received in an EFL Advanced reading class.


Introduction
To learn L2 and particularly FL the input is severely limited and the quality of input is not ideal, despite L1 that the amount of input for exposure is abundantly available.Thus extensive reading plays a great role in learning FL (Renandya, 2007) and it reduces the exposure gap between L1 and FL, Based on Krashen (2006), newer approaches to language teaching do not rely on painful skill-building approaches , that is, to learn language is not by practicing rules and vocabulary consciously but are based on comprehension hypothesis.Thus, the manifestation of the comprehension hypothesis in literacy is conducted by reading hypothesis.A large number of materials are incorporated for extensive reading in many ESL / EFL programs such as newspapers, magazines and books ( Day & Bamford ,1998).Kembo (1993) stated that extensive reading motivates students and increases their reading confidence.Literature lends itself to the integration of reading education and the development of other language skills.Krashen (2006) claimed that "the methodology of the future will, I hope, include sheltered popular literature" (p.145) to explore current cultures in other countries and to stimulate interest in reading.Melon (1994) observed that novels are excellent sources of plenty of comprehensible input.Although authentic text book novels are recommended as material list for pleasure reading they are scarcely employed to supplement reading (Chih-hsin Tsai, 2012).
There are some benefits of using novels as authentic texts to develop student-centered learning, since novels provide plot, characters , the context of settings all of which contribute to the engagement of the reader, regardless of specific proficiency levels, grammatical charts or writing exercises (Garies et al.2009).Tsou (2007) stated careful selection of novels as text books is a crucial factor to teach to students of all levels of proficiency.In contrast, with this views other researchers expressed the obstacles of considering unabridged novel as a course material that may seem as a "too radical a leap from tradition" (Garies et al., 2009, p.145).Thiongo (1986) mentioned through using well known literary texts and engaging learners in English culture, we are imposing a kind of "cultural imperialism".Garroli (2002, p.113) stated that "there is a need for qualitative studies, focused on learners to explore the relationship between literature, language and students" students require to enjoy learning the language as when there is "a mental block, caused by effective factors…that prevent input from reaching the language acquisition device" (Krashen, 1985, p.100).Therefore another factor is to consider students' perception rather than concentrating on the teachers or instructors alone.There has been a steady increase in the number of studies on the use of literature, particularly short stories and novels as the basic source of authentic texts.However, the results of EFL /ESL studies on the effect of using stories and novels on reading comprehension were not homogeneous.This study, considered novel as an authentic auxiliary source of reading for Iranian EFL students, investigated the possibility of using a novel as the auxiliary material in a college reading course.It focused on evaluating the impression of novel-teaching in terms of students' subjective perceptions instead of objective linguistic gains.

Reading Comprehension
Reading skill is a crucial element in learning another language, particularly for academic skills (Anderson, 1994).Alptekin (2006) defined reading as "an interaction of the readers' text-based and knowledge based processes.In processing texts, readers combine literal comprehension, based on higher level cognitive processes of reading such as lexical access and syntactic parsing , with referential comprehension based on higher-level cognitive processes such as the text based of comprehension (to understand what the text says) and the transition model of interpretation (to understand what it is about)" (p .494).

Extensive Reading and Literature
Extensive reading is based on this principle that we learn to read by reading.Appropriate selection of the material for extended reading is an important factor to be considered.Therefore, Literary texts (novels) are recommended to be used for extensive reading due to four reasons: first, Linguistic Development: Novels are ideal instruments to support isolated skills due to their length, varied content and to support integration of skills.Novels support the teaching of grammar in both integrated and isolated curricula through built-in context and reforming of forms and structures (Garies et al, 2004, p.143).Second, cognitive Reasons: Literature (novel) develops critical thinking skill as they are engaged in the literary texts and learners apply their own feelings and ideas regarding them.Third, motivation: Garies (2004) stated intensive reading textbooks in the traditional ESOL text books seemed boring, but using novels as the course books made readers more enjoyable and helped them to diversify their reading habits.Fourth, cultural awareness: Learners can discover the way the characters behave, feel and think.Thus, literary works develops understanding of the communication that takes place in that country.

Research on EFL students' novel reading
Some studies have been performed on the effect of novels and short stories on EFL reading comprehension.Gareis et al (2004) showed that the "benefits of extended reading; as novels are motivating and authentic; and they can support any curriculum and be used in a variety of programs" (145).Fan-ping Tseng (2010) investigated students' perceptions toward teacher's presentation of twenty four literary works.The result of survey showed that most of the students had a positive attitude towards novels most followed plays, short stories and poems.In contrast, to the previous researches, Sell (2005) criticized FL textbooks includes literary works which are full of imaginary and unnatural matters that rarely apply in real-life, to practice the language skills.Therefore, the using of literary work seems unsatisfactory for Iranian EFL learners.To the best knowledge of the author, in the EFL context of Iran, no study is performed to explore the possibility and effectiveness of teaching unabridged novels in the language classroom, thus the present study investigated EFL students' perceptions of using unabridged novel as the auxiliary material in the Advanced English Reading Course.

Research questions
In particular, the study aims to answer the following questions: 1.Are there changes in the students' attitudes, perceptions of confidence toward novel-reading ability and using a novel as an auxiliary material after the entire reading class?2. What are the students' perceived gains and obstacles from reading the novel?3. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the novel-reading class as perceived by the students?

Settings and Participants
This study was conducted in two classes of Advanced English Reading course offered at Ilam Azad University in Iran.The course constitutes sixteen weeks (one semester) of two-hour sessions and had a general goal to enhance students' reading ability.The two classes consisted of fifty sophomore EFL students (40 females and 10 males).Students' ages ranged between 18 to 24 years and considered to be of upper-intermediate reading proficiency.

Course Material
In the present study an unabridged short novel of the Red Pony was chosen as an auxiliary material.The novel was written by John Steinbeck in 1993.The full book published in 1937 by Covici Friede.John Steinbeck is one of the most popular story tellers of the twenties century.This book was chosen due to some reasons, first this book is one of the most accessible and favorite books second, this book is adequately challenging for upper-intermediate and finally, it has a special organization and setting.Furthermore, the present novel has 112 pages, and divided into 4 chapters.Each chapter is an episode holding together by common characters, locations, themes and they follow a similar time line.Therefore, this simple plot contributes students to manage these pedagogic unites efficiently and each story can stand alone.

Teaching procedure
The advanced Reading class lasted for 14 weeks once a week and the novel of The Red Pony was used in addition to their reading book.At the start of the class, quick facts about the course and the organization of the novel were given.In addition, the teacher had the role of modeling of good reading practices; therefore teacher trained students some instructional strategies, such as how to read extensively and how to get the main idea instead of reading word by word.
IJALEL 3(4):55-64, 2014 57 Students were told to read 8 to 10 pages each week to finish the entire novel by the end of the semester.Each week students orally summarized what they had read to the whole class and teacher asked questions to assess their comprehension of the content.No tests were given to the students to assess literary texts since assessing may deteriorate students' interest.In the current study a pre-test at the first week of the class and a post-test questionnaire at the last week were given to students including students' attitudes toward novel-reading, students' confidence on novel-reading ability and students' perceptions on using a novel as an auxiliary material.In addition, three open-ended questions were used to discover benefits and obstacles of novel-reading class.

Research Design
The present study is a survey research design which employs a mixed method approach.Since it includes survey (likertscale questionnaire) and open-ended questions, therefore, both quantitative and qualitative approaches are utilized to solicit students' attitude before and after the novel-reading process.As Munn and Drever (1993) stated that questionnaires "tend to describe rather than explain why things are the way they are ", due to this limitation, in the present study the qualitative data from the open-ended questions are obtained to back up the quantitative data from the Likert-scale questionnaires.

Instrument
A pair of novel-reading questionnaires adopted from Tsi (2012) was used.Tsi reported that these questionnaires were validated and reliable tools with reference to Bacha (2012) and Chiang (2010).First, a pre-reading questionnaire (pretest) incorporated questions about students' demographical information and their previous reading experiences, was used.Then, a pair of questionnaires measured students' perceptions prior to and after the novel-reading experience in the Advance English Reading course.Both questionnaires consisted of 23 similar Likert 5-scale items pertaining to measure students' perceptional changes in terms of their attitudes toward novel-reading (8 items), their confidence in novel-reading (5 items), and the appropriateness of using a novel as an auxiliary book (10 items).Besides Likert items, three open-ended questions were offered to elicit students' opinions about the course.

Data Collection and Analysis
The pr-etest and the post-test questionnaires were given respectively when the class met for the first (1st week) and the last week (14th week) during the semester.
Pre-and post-test Likert-scale test results were analyzed to gain better understanding of the students' reading experiences and to discover statistically significant differences in their perceptions toward novel-reading prior to and after the reading process.To serve this purpose, the analysis procedure involved two stages.First descriptive statistics were used to answer the first three research questions via frequency and percentage analysis.Then, through Pairedsample t-tests hypothesis were tested, to compare the means of the pre-test and post-test scores in the 23 Likert-scale items by using SPSS package 21.0 for windows.Finally, Responses of three open-ended questions in the post-test were analyzed after coding and frequency calculation.

Results
In the present study first back ground knowledge obtained through the demographical pretest Questionnaire showed that the students had a little previous experience.Only one -fourth of 50 students had read simplified novels.The results of the pretest and posttest Likert-scale questionnaires are represented below:

Results of research question two: Are there changes in the students' confidence in novel reading ability before and after the reading?
The results of (items8-13) responses of students' perceptions of confidence in novel reading ability before and after reading the novel are indicated in bar chart 2 and table2.The results obtained clearly indicate students' confidence in novel-reading ability increased after reading the novel.The results of (items13-23) the total responses of students' perceptions of using a novel as an auxiliary book before reading the novel are presented visually as a bar chart in Figure 3 and in table3 the frequency of data indicate students' perceptions of considering a novel as the auxiliary book after the novel enhanced significantly.The descriptive statistics showed significant positive changes after reading the novel (post test) in students' attitude toward novel reading, their confidence in reading ability and setting a novel as an auxiliary book for the reading course.

Testing the hypotheses
To answer the first research question that consists of three parts three hypotheses are provided.

Hypothesis one:
There are not changes in the students' attitudes toward novel-reading ability before and after the reading.
To test this hypothesis Paired-sample t-tests was run.In this test, if Sig <0.05, the hypothesis is rejected and if not, it is accepted.Table 4. indicates Siq = 0.002 < 0.005 the null hypothesis is rejected, therefore, there are significant changes in the students' attitudes before and after reading the novel.In addition, due to the above-average mean scores 3.93 after reading the novel (post-test) in comparison to pre-test mean score of 3.52 students held positive attitudes toward the novel-reading.4.4.2The results of hypothesis two: There are not changes in the students' confidence in novel-reading ability before and after the reading.In table 5. the data revealed that Siq = 0.006 < 0.005 thus, the null hypothesis is rejected, therefore, there are significant changes in the students' confidence in the pre-test and the post-test and due to the above-average mean scores 3.05 after reading the novel (posttest) in comparison to pretest mean score of 3.23 students' confidence in novel-reading ability enhanced significantly after reading the novel.4.4.3The result of hypothesis three: There are no changes in the students' perceptions toward using a novel as textbook before and after the reading.Table 6.revealed that Siq = 0.025 < 0.005 the null hypothesis is rejected, therefore, there are significant changes in the students' perceptions toward considering a novel as the textbook in the pre-test and the post-test and due to the above mean score 3.31 after reading the novel in comparison to pre-test mean score of 3.23, students held positive attitudes toward using a novel as the main textbook after reading the novel.7. shows the most mentioned gains are consequently related to students' linguistic knowledge, their reading ability, novel-reading strategies, and their background culture enhanced.In addition, students' pleasure in reading skills and grammatical structure developed and finally their everyday use of English and students extra knowledge extended from the content.Extra knowledge extended from the content 2 Table 8 shows most students perceived difficulty with linguistic aspects.As some students stated, they had to look up unfamiliar and old vocabulary in the dictionary to understand the novel words.Several students complained about complex grammatical structures, in addition some students were not satisfied with the theme of the novel due to a large amount of description about the nature instead of every day dialogues, finally just a few students were not interested in novel reading.Table9.demonstrated that twenty students left it blank, while a total of 24 students stated 'nothing' as an answer, 6 students complained about the details of content and grammatical points which were not explained by the teacher, just 2 students stated the novel was too difficult and finally, 2 students reported two hours a week was not enough to discuss the content of the novel.

Discussion and conclusion
The outcomes obtained from the present study confirmed previous studies that proposed to incorporate literature into ESL/EFL classes (Garies et al., 2009;Kim, 2004;Paran, 2008, Tsou, 2007;Wu, 2005;Tsai, 2012).That is, using authentic literary work make students hold a positive attitude and take pleasure in extensive reading.Although the students in the study had some doubt in their ability to cope with the predicted obstacles before reading the novel, their confidence in novel-reading ability enhanced significantly after reading the novel.This improvement might be due to students' instruction in extensive reading strategies practically, as the results supported by Anderson (2005).The result of using a novel as the auxiliary course material in reading is most welcomed in the present study since it presents narrative and plot, as also pointed out by Fan-ping Tseng's (2010).Furthermore, Wu (2005) stated students tend to give warm greetings to "anything other than a conventional textbook " (p.60).
Other than that, the study provides students' views of gains and obstacles encountered during the novel class.Students mentioned they developed their linguistic knowledge by acquiring a large number of vocabulary and familiarizing with different grammatical patterns, as is indicated by several studies ( pecllicer-Sanchz and Schmitt, 2010).Students were satisfied with learning extensive reading strategies.In addition, they improved their cultural awareness that changed their views toward the world.The obstacles some of the students encountered at the initial of reading novel, the high frequency of referring to a dictionary gradually wore out their patience and high frequency of complex grammatical patterns made the content of novel difficult to understand.Owing to limited course hours, some students couldn't participate in the discussions to share data by the whole class each session.Finally, a few students were not much interested in the classical novels and they suggested to have an opportunity to select their favorite novel before reading the novel as Fan-ping Tseng (2010) stated "Every individual literary taste differs, teachers are recommended to survey their students' literary preferences before teaching literature to them.

Implications
No border is defined to separate language from literature in practice since "no teacher of literature ignore linguistic problems and no language teacher really wants to leave his students speaking a sterile impoverished version of the language" ( Smith, 1972, p.275).Novels are useful resources to be used in the reading classes since students prefer reading prose fiction (Fan-ping Tseng, 2010).As this study aimed at exploring the feasibility of using novel as the auxiliary textbook in Advance reading class.Thus, this study suggests course designers and teachers to use short and authentic novels as the main course material in the Advance reading course since reading novels makes them motivated in reading, enhanced their confidence in reading ability and contributes them to develop their linguistic knowledge.In addition, before starting the novel some points are necessary to be considered first, what novel to teach is an important factor since it should arouse not only students' interest but also it should be enough challenging to their proficiency level of study, otherwise it may deteriorate students' interest.Second, teachers train students some instructional strategies of extensive reading to enable them handle the difficulties they encounter during the study.

Limitations and suggestions for further study:
However, there are some limitations need to be mentioned: the sample size was 50 learners, if the sample increases the result may differ and the subjects are 40 female and 10 male thus, the gender was not considered, if the role of gender was taking into account the results may differ.Further research is recommended to study students' linguistic gains from novel-reading.

4. 1
Figure1.Total comparison Percentages of Students' Attitudes before and after reading the novel

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Total Percentages of Students' Confidence in Novel-Reading

4. 3
Results of research question three: Are there changes in the students' perceptions of using a novel as an auxiliary book before and after the novel reading?

Figure 3 .
Figure 3.Total Percentages of Students' Perceptions of a Novel as an Auxiliary Book

Table 1 .
Frequency of Students' Attitudes Toward Novel-reading

Table 2 .
Frequency of Students Confidence in Novel-Reading ability

Table 3 .
Frequency of Students' Perceptions of Using a Novel as an Auxiliary Book

Table 4 .
Paired Samples Test of Students' Perceptions of Novel-Reading

Table 5 .
Paired Samples Test of Students' Confidence in Novel-Reading Ability

Table 6 .
Paired Samples Test of Students' Perceptions of Using a Novel as Textbook Results of the second research question: What are the students' perceived gains and obstacles from reading the novel?

Table 7 .
Frequency Counts of Students' Self-stated Gains from the Novel-reading

Table 8 .
Frequency Counts of Students' Self-stated Obstacles during Novel-Reading Results of the third research question: what do you think are the weaknesses of the novel-reading class?

Table 9 .
Frequency Counts of Students' Feedback on the Weaknesses of the Novel Class (n=34)