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Presenter
Dr. Yakup Çetin
Fatih University  

Title
Reading for Pleasure 

Abstract
As it is well-known, reading skill is an indispensable component of language teaching. In connection with this, as a result of long experience different reading types – scanning, skimming, intensive reading, and extensive reading- have been developed and practiced so far. In a limited time finding the main idea in a document, text, newspaper, or article requires ‘skimming’; looking for a particular information, word, or number necessitates ‘scanning’; a full comprehension of a text calls for ‘intensive reading’. The type of reading in large quantities for pleasure and global meaning which is not restricted to time is called according to some ‘pleasure reading’ or ‘extensive reading’. Among them whose contribution will be greatest to native and foreign language learning is obviously ‘pleasure reading’ which does not receive the considerable merit neither by teachers nor by students. Unfortunately, reading classes have lost their purpose and turned into grammar lessons to study the structure of either the native or foreign language. The state of such an invaluable reading type whose effectiveness has been reported so many times in the shadow of other reading types is a great lost for language teaching. This paper in the light of a second language acquisition theory highlights the remarkable contributions of pleasure reading to first and foreign language teaching, and makes us reconsider what we understand and expect from reading skill.  

Key words: Pleasure reading, intensive reading, motivation, language acquisition, input, grammar, affective filter.