s_allard wrote:It is probably quite true that for many people understanding well is not that important. That is a basic principle of extensive reading. There are however at least a few reasons to paying close attention to understanding. First of all, if you don't understand a construct, how can you use it correctly?
"An understanding of the concept of extensive reading is important because the way it is perceived can greatly affect how it is practiced. Grabe and Stoller (2011) defined extensive reading as an approach “in which learners read large quantities of material that are within their linguistic competence” (p. 286). According to Bamford and Day (2004), “extensive reading is an approach to language teaching in which learners read a lot of easy material in the new language” (p. 1). These two definitions share two important concepts: (a) In extensive reading, learners read large amounts of text; and (b) in order for learners to read large amounts of text, reading materials should be within the learners’ reading-proficiency levels (a somewhat more challenging issue for L2 readers than L1 readers). Bamford and Day expanded the scope of their definition by elaborating on additional features of extensive reading, such as self-selection of reading materials, independent reading, reading for general meaning, and reading for information and enjoyment.
"Three important issues arise from these discussions, which contribute to a more fine-tuned definition of extensive reading. One important feature of extensive reading, specifically, reading materials that are within learners’ linguistic ability, stresses that reading materials should be easy enough to (a) facilitate effortless comprehension without imposing any significant learning burden and (b) keep learners on the task independently. "
"A second key element of extensive reading emphasizes the large amount of meaningful exposure provided in the target language, which plays an important role in language learning. By being exposed to large quantities of meaningful reading materials for an extended period of time, reading fluency and reading comprehension can develop incrementally (Grabe, 2009; Nation, 2009)."
"Implicit learning, according to Kintsch (1998, as cited in Grabe, 2009), involves the incremental growth of habitual associative knowledge, the tacit learning of co-occurrence patterns in the input we receive. Implicit learning is “acquisition of knowledge about the underlying structure of a complex stimulus environment by a process which takes place naturally, simply, and without conscious operations” (Ellis, 2008, p. 121). As defined, implicit learning takes place without awareness of what is learned from gradual and continual multiple exposures to the input. Implicit learning plays a central role in learning to read, contributing to the development of lower level processes in reading and resulting in automatized processing and fluency (Grabe, 2009). Nation (2009) has also argued that L2 reading fluency develops by “making the best use of what is already known” (p. 2); this argument invokes implicit learning as a way to strengthen and stabilize lexical entries and lexical networks. To have an impact on reading development, implicit learning requires considerable amounts of repeated input that develop habitual processing of that input..."
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/rrq.152/full