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The Language Research Center seminar by Erich Beer on November 17, 2014, kicked off with the following quote: “This presentation is ultimately about the students – not about me, or even you, for that matter.” Erich further quoted Margaret Elizabeth Sangster, who said: ‘No one should teach who is not in love with teaching.’ Building on this, he added: “If we are not in love with teaching, how can we expect our students to be in love with learning?”

The results of three investigations were discussed:

(1) The findings of readability tests conducted on 16 texts in the Well Read series, four each from four consecutive chapters in each book.

(2) The results of a survey of Reading Comprehension 1 students’ reported levels of enjoyment of reading English and Arabic texts.

(3) The results of an investigation into the question: is there a correlation between the time students take to complete a Reading Comprehension test, on the one hand, and the test result, on the other?

The complete data and the interpretation thereof can be found on a blog specially created for the presentation, the address of which is:

https://rcspresentation.blogspot.com/2014/11/readability-texts-well-read-...

Here is a summary of the results.

(1) Each level (book) of Well Read covers a range of levels of difficulty regarding reading comprehension. There is considerable overlap in these levels between books 1 and 2 and books 2 and 3, but hardly any between books 3 and 4. There, therefore, seems to be a sudden jump from book 3 to 4.

(2) Most students surveyed (anonymously) reported an increase in their enjoyment of reading English texts. Overall there was a 17% increase in satisfaction levels from when the course started to midway through the course. Interestingly, the level of enjoyment of reading English texts halfway through the course is very close to the reported level of enjoyment of reading texts in Arabic.

(3) In observation of the test sample, there was a consistent overall drop in grades the longer students took to complete the objective Reading Comprehension test. These results were compared with those for a productive skill test (Writing). The pattern in the latter was different: after an initial drop in grades, they rose.

Besides full coverage of the above investigations, reported during the presentation, the blog contains the following documents:

• Introduction and continuity commentary
• PowerPoint presentation (in PDF)
• 16 texts from Well Read 1-4, downloadable and editable
• Readability statistics for Well Read 1-4, based on the above 16 texts
• Three experimental texts for the lower levels
• Two additional texts for readability tests (J.K. Rowling, Steve Jobs)

The presenter concluded his presentation by saying:

“Teaching Reading Comprehension offers immense and unparalleled and too-good-to-miss opportunities. Every moment counts. Every word counts. Seize them. I challenge you. Be challenged.”