Effects perceived by Vietnamese B1 EFL students of extensive reading on intercultural competence

Abstract

Investigation of effective approaches for supporting students’ linguistic and intercultural competence in the process of learning English as an international lingua franca has generally been an issue of great concern for teachers and researchers in language education. The study considered how fiction reading and non-fiction reading supported students’ reading comprehension and fostered their self-perception of intercultural competence. The scaffolds were tested in a pretest-posttest design on 58 participants, and in a classroom-based setting. Two measurement instruments included a reading comprehension test and a questionnaire on students’ self-perception of their intercultural competence. Both groups made significant progress in reading comprehension. Fiction reading condition was also found to contribute to the higher self-perception of intercultural competence. Discussion of the pros and cons of the experimental design and suggestions for further research into extensive reading and speech act appropriateness are in the last part of the paper. The paper finally puts forward the suggestion that short literary texts of cultures around the world might be considered as one of the meaningful inputs in B1 EFL classrooms.