Reading for fun? A case study of approaches to promoting and supporting recreational L2 reading in a Hong Kong primary school

Reading to Learn has been listed as one of the four key tasks by the Hong Kong Education Bureau (EDB), stressing the importance for children to learn reading skills in order to enhance their communication skills, academic achievement and language skills as well as for students to achieve life-long learning. For students to develop interests in different areas, enhance quality of life, develop values and cross cultural knowledge and understand life are also other goals for the bureau to promote reading program in schools. However, the policy seems to be overlooking the importance of recreational reading to the learning of a second language. The policy also seems to be underestimating the challenges to motivate students to read. From personal observation, not a lot of Hong Kong students engage in L2 recreational reading. This does not mean most Hong Kong students are not capable of doing so, but they lack the motivation to do so. Kropp (1993) describe this as aliteracy — a situation in which learners had the ability to read but do not have the motivation to read. This problem seems to be very serious in the Hong Kong context and the implementation of some of the common Hong Kong strategies often fail to address this problem. Therefore, there is a necessity to review whether these strategies are effective or not. The following paper is a case study of approaches to promoting and supporting recreational L2 reading in one Hong Kong primary school. The study provides a profile of the strategies and policies in place in the Hong Kong primary school and their effects through interviews and surveys with the teacher and students. The study attempts to examine the question of whether these strategies are effective to enhance students’ motivations and interests in L2 recreational reading and support their L2 recreational reading habits.