Introduction

Language learning is intuitively and rationally considered by most to be interactive in nature. Certainly, we all learned our first language through interaction with parents and caregivers. And, if we are fortunate enough to have mastered a second or third language, they too were most likely acquired either in a natural immersion-like setting, replete with interaction with parents or peers, or in an academic setting traditionally characterised by teacher–student and student–student interaction. Indeed, the role of the ‘other’ in language learning has rarely been questioned, be it an interlocutor or the author of a printed text (Brown, 2001; Wu, 1992). In truth, what is the point of developing skills in reading, speaking, listening and writing, if there is nobody to speak, to listen, or to write to, or whose works are to be read. However, of all the skills, reading has traditionally been the one most readily assumed to be ‘an individual responsibility – a task conducted outside of class’ (Swaffar et al., 1991: 117). In fact, Walz (2001: 1202), among others, believes that second language students should be ‘encouraged to read critically on their own’. As a consequence, the reading skill has historically received relatively little attention, with many researchers and practitioners assuming that first language (L1) reading skills were easily and automatically applied to new second language situations (Lally, 1998).

Although subject to much debate, Krashen’s Input Hypothesis and subsequent research sparked a renewed interest in extensive, as opposed to intensive, or detail-oriented, reading. Indeed, second language students ‘need large amounts of comprehensible input [...] and reading materials provide the most readily available source’ (Chastain, 1988: 218).

In extensive reading, students are encouraged to read independently by using resources within their reach and that appeal to their personal interests. According to Bell and LeBlanc (2000), increased attention to reading, in general, and self-directed reading, in particular, can also be attributed to developments in technology and the resources it affords the individual learner.