Impact of Reading on EFL Students Vocabulary Development. Case Study: 2nd Year Students of the English Branch at Mohamed Khider University of Biskra- Algeria

Foreign language teaching and learning in the era of globalization urges EFL teachers to rethink their teaching methods and approaches with a view of helping students improve competencies in the different language skills. The focus of this study, which seems to be urgent due to the amount of the printed and online materials, is on the omnipresent skill: Reading. To my regret, I have noticed that reading is deliberately ignored in our EFL classrooms for no cogent reason. The present paper aims to spot light on the importance of the reading skill in foreign language learning as well as its impact on EFL students’ active vocabulary development. My interest in investigating such an important issue is the students’ poor vocabulary knowledge and repertoire. From an insider’s perspective, and the experience of teaching Oral Expression (OE) to 2nd year classes, I have discovered that our students’ passive attendance may be primarily due to their limited vocabulary. I hypothesize that if EFL students read relevant, authentic materials so frequently, their active vocabulary knowledge will exponentially develop. To test my hypothesis, I have integrated reading as one compulsory element in the OE syllabus of 2nd year classes. The main data collection tool is a questionnaire that is administered to both 2nd year OE teachers of the English Branch at Mohamed Khider University of Biskra (MKUB), and 30 students of 2nd year classes. The results reveal that integrating reading in OE classes is beneficial for the students’ vocabulary development.