Accessibility and the Promotion of Autonomous EFL Reading

Motivating English as a foreign language (EFL) students to read in English extensively can be a difficult task. EFL educators often use a wide range of methodologies to encourage their students to continue reading. Many of them also seek ways to motivate their students to engage in extensive reading (ER) autonomously. This paper presents a study of a private Japanese university’s ER program which uses graded readers through a mobile library cart system as well as a main library. The study utilized 2,075 student reading records and a survey of 755 Japanese EFL students in 75 required 1st and 2nd year EFL classes to better understand how the main and mobile libraries affected student ER. Results indicate that the main library plays an important role in the ER program by making students responsible for their own learning and initiative. However, the mobile library proves to be more successful at getting students to engage in ER and develop autonomous reading skills.