Teaching Reading of Japanese Texts Reading to Extensive Reading for International University Students

Abstract

This paper reports on a Japanese reading class, "Applied Japanese III," which is for international students in their second year at university. The class used four different genres of texts such as editorials, and classical literature as teaching materials, and incorporated reading activities. The students' responses in the questionnaires and reports at the end of the 15 lessons showed that the class activities that took into account the characteristics of the reading materials functioned as scaffolding for deeper understanding of the texts. In addition, it was suggested that reading texts in varieties of reading materials may broaden the students' intellectual interests and lead to their extensive reading.