Effects of Graded Texts on EFL College Students' Incidental ...

2004 to March, 16, 2004. About one week after the administration <strong>of</strong> the pretest,
participants’ on-line extensive reading course began.
The main extensive reading activity took place during winter vacation and the
first month <strong>of</strong> the second semester. Participants were required to complete a total <strong>of</strong>
sixteen reading texts during the eight-week period, that is, two reading texts were
scheduled per week. An account was created for each participant and they were to
log on the extensive reading website, read the text in sequence with on-line resources
and gloss help, and answer four to five comprehension questions on-line. A time
limit <strong>of</strong> five minutes for reading was set before learners is able to click to the part <strong>of</strong>
comprehension questions. A tracker was set up in order to record participants’
on-line behaviors, and to guarantee that learners were reading texts as scheduled
instead <strong>of</strong> saving all reading assignments at the end <strong>of</strong> the winter vacation. It was
hoped that learners would proceed with the reading process as it is in natural
extensive reading manner. Weekly monitors were scheduled during the winter
vacation each at third and sixth week for researchers to check students’ records from
the trackers (see Appendix L). E-mail was sent for learners who have not proceeded
with the reading as scheduled. Moreover, since the Freshmen English course is a
two-semester course, <strong>of</strong> the two classes, learners from one <strong>of</strong> the class were informed
in advance that their reading progress will be graded and accounted for as part <strong>of</strong> their
grades in the second semester. They were acknowledged that performances on
comprehension questions at the end <strong>of</strong> each reading would only be a practice and
would not be graded; however, their reading performances according to scheduled
time would be crucial in grades. The learners in the other class, on the other hand,
were told that the online extensive reading syllabus was a voluntarily assignment for
them to improve their English ability. All participants were not informed about the
vocabulary posttest. The posttest was distributed in class one week after learners
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