An Implementation of Online Extensive Reading to Improve Reading Comprehension of Social Work Students

Abstract

This research aimed at studying the reading skills of finding the main idea of an article, learning new vocabulary, and students’ opinions towards extensive reading through online weekly journals. The sample consisted of 27 third-year students from the Faculty of Social Administration enrolled in English for Social Workers 1 in the first semester of the 2021 academic year. The research instruments consisted of online weekly articles published in reliable online sources, such as the BBC, CNN, and National Geographic, and were relevant to their field of study. The findings showed that (1) students were able to identify the main idea of the written text from reliable online sources based on a topic of interest or field of study. Students could write a summary of the written text to determine the main idea. As for students’ opinions about extensive reading after eight weeks of online reading activities, (2) students were able to read faster and were familiar with reading strategies during the activities. They were capable of reading long articles with new vocabulary and did not have to rely on translation tools.