English extensive reading (EER) is an effective way of improving English learners’ reading abilities and motivating them to have a positive attitude toward English reading, and therefore, it has been widely conducted at various schools in Japan. The idea that teachers should give students many opportunities to encounter wide varieties of books seems to be shared among teachers using extensive English for instruction. On the other hand, the importance of a very positive reading experience through EER has been less emphasized than it is through first language reading. Based on the result of a prior practical study, Yamanaka and Tanemura (2018), which demonstrated the effectiveness of a very favorable reading experience, the “home run book” experience,on EER, the present paper investigated primarily whether Japanese university students, who mostly majored in English, could also have the home run book experiences through EER activities and if so, whether the experience would affect their performance on EER positively. The results indicate that students do encounter home run books and that the encounters encourage students to read English books. In addition, this paper attempts to explain what kinds of books students select as home run books, their emotional response to them, and why they evaluate them as home run books.

The Western rhetorical style was introduced to Japan and China almost a century ago, a time when the two countries shared similar theories on text genre classification. Since then, the Japanese view of genre classification and the Chinese counterpart developed independently. This study aims to compare the present states and understand how genre classification has evolved in the two countries, as well as investigate the impact on composition pedagogy in each country. Based on a survey of dictionaries,curricula and textbooks from both countries, the study finds that in Japan, genre is classified largely by the specific intent and application of the text. Composition pedagogy in Japan emphasizes on the social function of an essay and promotes teaching composition writing via language activities. On the other hand, genre classification in China is determined mainly by the text’s writing style and content. Composition writing is taught with an emphasis on the expression of self and writing pedagogy focuses on narrative techniques.