Promoting Language Learning Through “Transdicto”: An Alternative Design for ER+ Program

This paper aims to answer two research questions: (1) What design of an Extensive Reading program can be developed in the EFL setting with time constraints and (2) How do students respond to the design implementation. To achieve these goals, the study used Design-Based Research and, in the practice, it was carried out in 3 major phases. The initial phase was the analysis of practical problems. The second phase was literature research to inform the planning and development of the prototype design and the last phase was the implementation and reflection of the implementation of the design. The study was carried out in one semester in an English Education Department of a university in Indonesia. The study results in an alternative design to an ER+ program that is called Transdicto. Transdicto is conducted in five major steps: (1) extensive reading/ listening, (2) note-taking, (3) exploring, (4) contextualizing, and (5) transforming. Observation and interview revealed that the students responded well to Transdicto; they found the steps of the activity were relatively easy to follow, useful, and engaging.


INTRODUCTION
The promotion of language learning through extensive reading (ER) has been well documented in academic literatures. Viewed from the second language Language learning in an ER program is mostly incidental but when there is a time constraint for ER, Warring and Nation (2004) argued that incidental learning would not be effective. In his study comparing students joining ER and traditional reading class, Krashen (1993) found that in the duration of 7 months to a year, students in the ER alone group have no or slightly different performance to those in the traditional reading group. A similar result is also found by Song (2020) who compares the vocabulary gains of two groups of students after 8 weeks of ER.
Nonetheless, when conducted for more than one year, students at the ER group significantly outperformed the other group (Krashen, 1993;UGA, 2012). In addition, getting non-readers into the habit of reading takes time and that partly explains why the short period of study in ER sometimes give 'no difference' result (Krashen, 1993;UGA, 2012). Thus, ER is ideally conducted as a long-term program.
Some campuses, including in Indonesia, however, have not been able to set up a long-term ER program for the students due to the nature of the curriculum that they use. ER, either listed as a course name in the mainstream curriculum or as an embed program to other courses, is usually conducted in one to two semesters at most. These are evident in previous studies that portray the implementation of ER in various settings. Arguably the short ER program is meant to build readers and students who are readers can continue reading with or without the program. This argument however is lacking a warrant. The place of ER in the curriculum is an issue that is also noted by Ewert (2017). He noted that placing a greater percentage of ER in the class time is challenging and eventually most ER is conducted out of class.
Meanwhile placing ER as out of class activity needs great commitment and a reliable monitoring system. Kirchoff 2013 in Anandari and Iswandari (2019) mentioned that in the Asian context, some students are not accustomed to autonomous reading selection and time. This implies that monitoring is required to ensure the students are reading.
To implement ER, ideas for activities are abundant. ER central, for example, has listed 101 ER activities that teachers can choose. Day and Bamford (2004) have edited a book collecting ER activities as well. Success stories on the implementation of the activities are showcased in a large number of studies. For example, Yanto, Saefullah, and Kwary (2020) reported the use of reading logs in which students explored the vocabulary they learned from their reading, meanwhile Hadiyanto and Kurniawati implemented a collaborative story writing project in their ER program.
What is similar in the portrayal of ER implementation in those studies is that they commonly showcase segregated activities that are non-structured and dependent on the teacher/ instructor. But a study by Warring and Husna (2019) revealed that the teachers are still confused on how to implement the program regardless of the vast options of activities available on websites and research articles. Anandari and Iswandari (2019) have attempted to provide the general steps to establish ER in the EFL context, however, the plan is aimed to be implemented at the school level. The classroom ER plan, in this case, remains an area that needs exploration.
This study attempt to address the problems identified in the previous implementation of ER by establishing a design for ER program at the classroom level which places time constraint and clear structure into consideration. In particular, this study aims to lay (1) what design of Extensive Reading program can be developed in the context of EFL setting with time constraints and (2) How is the implementation of the design. To achieve the goal, a design-based approach is chosen. It begins with an analysis of the problem, development of design, and evaluation of the design.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This study was conducted in an English Education Department of a university in Indonesia. A group of five ER lecturers and 30 EFL students were involved in the study that was conducted in three phases of a Design-Based Research. Picture 1. The Design and procedure of the study. Adapted from Reeves (2006) In the first phase, a group of lecturers worked together to clarify the problems faced in the implementation of ER. This stage included reflection on the lecturers' experience and examination of similar issues found in previous studies. This stage was mainly conducted through focus group discussion.
Having analyzed the problems, a design was developed as a solution. The development of the design was informed by previous studies and relevant theories.
In this case, the theories are drawn from two SLA strands: The comprehensible input (as the basis of ER) and the noticing hypothesis. Meanwhile, previous studies on ER implementation, particularly which highlight ER+ program were also used to inform the design. In addition, an article on a teaching method called dictogloss was highlighted because it offers syntax of activities that potentially modified into the ER program being developed.
The last phase was the implementation followed by reflection and revision of the design. The design was implemented in one of the lecturers' class and it involved 30 second semester students who were chosen using cluster random sampling. The students had different levels of English proficiency as indicated by their EAP test scores taken right after their admission to the university. The data were collected in 16 weeks mainly through participatory observation i.e., the researcher is the teacher.
Field notes were collected in the extended form.
In addition, data were obtained from students' artifacts, questionnaires, and interviews. The artifacts in this study are students reading logs that are created using an application called Bookcreator. In the log, the students noted the content/ impression on the text that they read and the vocabularies that were either unfamiliar or interesting for them. They also put their result of the vocabulary exploration (thesaurus, definition) as well as their attempt to use the learned vocabulary in their logbook.
The questionnaire was distributed via google form and it consists of 25 open and close-ended questions to capture the students' opinions on the process they went through in the project as well as their recount on what worked well and fell short. The questionnaire went through face validity and was tried out to a different group of students. Several minor revisions were made before the final version of the questionnaire was distributed to the participants.
The data were analyzed following the interactive model (Miles and Huberman, 1994) which consists of interactive stages of data collection, data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing. The process of coding was conducted in two cycles. The first cycle coding includes the labeling of the data (attribute coding), and simultaneous coding (descriptive, emotion, and in vivo). In the second cycle, the coded data from the first cycle were categorized or mapped to get the data patterns. After data were visualized, the conclusion was drawn.

FINDING AND DISCUSSION
The findings and its discussion are presented based on the order of the two research questions posed in this study (1) What design of Extensive Reading program can be developed in the context of EFL setting with time constraints and (2) How is the implementation of the design.

The ER design for classes with time constraints
Series of focus group discussions and careful study on relevant literature on extensive reading resulted in the ER design that we called Transdicto. This ER design consists of five stages: (1) extensive reading, (2) note-taking, (3) exploring, (4) contextualizing, and (5) transforming. The syntax was then implemented to second semester-students for one semester through the online mode due to the covid-19 pandemic.

a. Extensive reading
The extensive reading stage in this study refers to "pure ER" as defined by Day (2011). By pure ER it means that the students read for pleasure and all ten principles of ER (Day and Bamford, 2004) are applied. At this stage, the students read selfselected books or other materials that are both easy and interesting. They are allowed to read comics, fanfictions, and other reading materials which suit their personal preference and level.
To help students understand the concept of reading for pleasure and be able to select their own reading material, the lecturer introduced the ER in three stages.
At the very initial phase of this first stage, the students were encouraged to read (and listen to) self-selected song lyrics or poems. Later the students were encouraged to read short stories. In this case, the lecturer used free resources of graded reader stories and let students choose the story that they think they would like based on the title. At the last stage, students were assigned to read novels of their choice. At the transition between short stories to novels, the lecturer-initiated book flows and shared several synopses, reviews, and book blurps to attract students' interest and curiosity to the novels. Starter pack activities were adopted from Day and Bamford's Extensive Reading Activity for Language Teaching (2004).
The ER stage was conducted individually as an out of class, asynchronous activity. It means, each student read the novel at their own time and their own pace.
As pointed by Ewert (2017) ER as an outclass activity required well-planned monitoring. In this study, monitoring was conducted in two ways: chat and reading log. On a weekly basis, group chat was scheduled for a 100 minutes of regular class time. This is when the students and lecturer exchanged their reading experiences.
In the chatroom, the students and lecturer shared selfies with the book they read, the progress of reading, statement of excitement and/ or complaints on the plot, and quotes or lines from the book. The conversation was maintained to be fluid and non-formal, but in the moment of stagnancy, the lecturer-initiated topic or prompts such as "what is the most memorable line you read this week" or "if you were in the position of one of the characters, how would you respond to the situation".
Although the class session followed a predetermined schedule, the chatroom was open 24/7 for discussion. In this study, several posts were occasionally made by either the lecturer or students outside the regular schedule. To highlight, the lecturer in this ER stage also read with the students. The reading log was also used to ensure that the students keep reading. At the same time, the log serves as a means to conduct the next step of the design, i.e., note-taking.
b. Note-taking Note-taking was conducted while the students read their texts or right after they finished a reading session. In this stage, the students took notes of a certain lexical or grammatical feature of the text. This stage was based on the view that input alone is not sufficient. Schimdt, (1990,2020) theorized that input has to be noticed by learners to become intake. For this reason, several ER programs have included explicit teaching of language features and additional activities. Such programs are often referred to as ER+.
In this study, note-taking highlighted and directed toward vocabulary enhancement. The students record words/ phrases/ sentences which (1) were unfamiliar or new to them and (2) they liked or found unique or inspiring. The notetaking was filed using an application called Bookcreator. The Bookcreator augmented the traditional notebook with a feature called "Read to me" which allows students to listen to how the words/ sentences are pronounced or read. Also, the app allows students to add words record anytime and it promotes students' creativity in designing the book. For the teacher, the app eases the monitoring of what students do in this program.

c. Exploring
The exploration is conducted after an individual reading session. In this third stage, students explored the vocabulary which has been noted down in the second stage. This activity is similar to the reading log activity that is used in Yanto, et al. (2020). The activity includes guessing the meaning of the words from the context, looking for the thesaurus or corpus, provide the dictionary definition, or interpreting figurative meaning. The results of the exploration were also noted in the students' Bookcreator app.

d. Contextualizing
At this stage, students apply the newly learned language feature in context.
It aims at providing meaningful practice for the students to use the language item.
In this study, the students constructed their sentences using the words/ phrases that they had noted earlier. This contextualizing stage adopted one technique of vocabulary learning that has been widely used. Nevertheless, it can be applied to features other than vocabulary, depending on what aspect is being highlighted in the previous stages. This stage marks the shift from reading to writing.
Altogether, note-taking, exploring, and contextualizing stages are mostly explicit instead of implicit and they aim at making the input noticeable. During the three phases, the student mine the rhetorical linguistic, and lexical features in the text (Hirvela, 2004). These three steps were recorded in a log using Bookcreator app which is accessible for monitoring at any time. Two of the log links are attached here: a text that they like using words that they like from their notes. Collection of the students' transformation was then published for limited number of readers in a book entitled Heartstrings.

Picture 1. Collection of students' Transformation
At this last stage, the shift in students' roles becomes more obvious. Initially, the students read as a reader, then read as a writer, and eventually write as a reader.
As Renandya (2020) pointed out students need to consciously attend to the rhetorical, syntactic, and lexical features that authors use to present their contents before they can use them in their own writing. This means that during their reading students read as a reader to get the content of the passage and increase their skill as a reader and at the same time, they read as a writer, i.e., they mine the rhetorical linguistic, and lexical feature in the text (Hirvela, 2004). Up to this point, we can see, the prototype proposed in this study is based on both input and noticing theories As observed, the Transdicto syntax shares similar steps to Dictogloss.
Dictogloss is a modified version of the traditional dictation which has been widely used to teach language skills including spelling, pronunciation, and listening. Renandya (2020) listed that Dictogloss roughly can be carried out following the steps of listening at normal speed, listening at a slower rate while note-taking key information, and reconstructing the text (usually in a group). Dictogloss encourages students to pay close attention to both the information, words, and grammatical feature.
But unlike dictogloss, Transdicto does not aim at reproducing the same text.
Following the students' agency that begins at the first stage, the transformation stage also lets the students produce a text of their choice and interest. While in Dictogloss the input is selected by teachers and drilled to the students, in Transdicto, the input is self-selected and the intensity of exposure to input is not conducted through drilling but extensive reading.
The model draws heavily on three prominent SLA theories i.e., the

Comprehensible Input, Noticing Hypothesis, and Comprehensible Output
Hypothesis. The ER at the initial stage provides the input necessary for language acquisition (Krashen, 1982). The next phases: the note-taking and exploring are rooted in the noticing hypothesis. Schimdt (1990) noted that input cannot become intake for language learning unless it is noticed or consciously registered. One way to 'notice' the input is to point or highlight a specific feature of the language, for example, grammar and vocabulary. The attempt to make students notice the language feature is facilitated in the stages of note-taking, exploring, and contextualizing. Meanwhile, the contextualizing and transforming stages draw on the view that pushed output is beneficial for language learning (Swain, 1995). In spite of the unresolved debate among the SLA theorists e.g., Krashen (1982) who argued the insignificant and indirect role of output and explicit teaching for language acquisition, from the pragmatic view there is no harm to make students produce the language they have learned from their readings (Renandya, 2009).
Overall, the model combines explicit and implicit teaching. Teng (2015) reported that a combination of incidental and intentional learning instruction yields greater vocabulary gains. The combination of the underlying theories is seen as consensus due to the unresolved debate in the field of SLA. From the pragmatic point of view, it is rather difficult to fit pure ER into any mainstream curriculum, particularly in countries that implement blanket curriculum such as Indonesia. Time constraint, as often found in mainstream curriculum, has been identified by Warren and Nation (2004) as a factor that makes incidental learning less effective. For this reason, ER is often conducted as an out-class activity or is conducted in an ER+ program, combining ER with other activities. This Transdicto model addresses the time constraints by combining explicit and implicit teaching/ learning in its stages.
The clear syntax is expected to help teachers and students to better structure the ER program and concurrently build a reliable monitoring system for the ER.

a. Ease of use, interest, perceived benefit, and challenges
The questionnaire result reveals that 93 % of respondents viewed Transdicto syntax as relatively easy to follow. The lecturer also reported in the observation sheet that the students knew what they have to do in their reading log in the third week of Transdicto introduction. They directly noted down vocabularies or interesting lines from song lyrics and stories into their log and do exploration and contextualization without the lecturer's instruction.
Meanwhile, through the questionnaire, the students reported their opinion on the level of enjoyment and usefulness of each activity in Transdicto as presented in Table 1.  Table 1 shows that most of the students think that the stages in the design are equally useful. In the following interview, the students confirmed that they felt improvement in three aspects: reading skill, vocabulary, and writing. Earlier studies have shown that reading, vocabulary, and writing are closely related (e.g., Krashen, 1989, Sedita, 2005Lee and Schallert, 2016, Grabe, 2001, and Myhill, Lines, and Jones, 2020. When the ER is broken down into types of reading as seen in Graph 1 and 2, it gives clearer information on the challenge. As seen in Graph 1, the students liked reading song lyrics the most. The challenge in ER is experienced when students read novels (Graph 3).
The challenge in reading novels can be explained by the language threshold and interest. Data from the lecturer's field note revealed that finding the 'right-book' in self-selected reading was key in the ER but it was not always easy to do. Some students reported that they decided to change their book into another book that they think more interesting and 'readable' based on their current level of proficiency. Two factors are identified making ER challenging for some students: the vocabulary/ text complexity and the content of the story.
"I like the story about the rebellion from a dictator-like government. But I don't like some parts that just explained about Winston workplace. They were very boring parts. And there are many words that I didn't know the meaning [lol emoticon]" (Class chat, sharing reading Student Fa reflects on his impression on "1984") "I enjoy reading song lyrics but I have a little trouble reading poetry because the words are too difficult to understand. (Questionnaire -Student C reflects on her experience in general) "There are many lessons to be learned from this novel, especially teach the true meaning of friendship. This is an amazing novel. But, unfortunately, there are some terrible events that I don't like it. Besides, I prefer it if there is no love story in the novel because it only makes me annoyed." (Class chat, sharing reading -Student D on Maze Runner) The three excerpts in this section are very interesting in a way that most of them do not only reveal challenges but also how students were really into their reading. This reflects engagement which is further explored in the following section.
b. Students' engagement The students' responses to Transdicto model were mostly positive as indicated in their engagement during the project. Two types of engagement that were largely identified during the implementation are the affective and behavioral.

1) Affective engagement
The affective engagement is identified from the student's interest, curiosity, or preference for the topic or task. (Malloy, Parson, and Parsons, 2013, p. 125) "I really like the moment when we have a task to create some poems or music, or other texts on our own. I really enjoyed it. I don't know why but it's so memorable" (Questionnaire-Student B reflects on the whole process). (IV/Q/1009/B/like/memorable/task/THSE-AF) "I really like this book because the story is unique, interesting, so much tension and many events that are deceptive and unpredictable. This makes me curious and excited to know what happened next. The author also writes with detailed stories so that when I read the book, I can imagine being there. I also really like the characters in this book, they never give up, help each other, work hard, and maintain brotherhood. There are also scenes that cause my tears can't be held back. The part that I remember the most is when one time, Chuck asked Thomas if he really had parents. Then, Thomas told him that he must have parents who were sitting and waiting for him at home, carrying a pillow and they must be sad. But, at the end of the story, Chuck died because he protected Thomas. Oh my tears :') And this line from Thomas sticks in my head "I swear Chuck. I swear I'll get you back home" (Class chat, sharing reading. Student D shared his experience reading "Maze Runner" (IV/A2/0805/D/like/curious/tear/atten.plot/THSE-AF) As seen from the excerpt, students' interests and preferences were articulated well. However, it was difficult to detach data in this affective engagement category to those in the behavioral engagement category. While the students indicate their affective engagement, they also showcase their detailed attention to the characters. This attentiveness can be used to trace their behavioral engagement as well.

2) Behavioral engagement
The behavioral engagement is identified from the observable actions of the student during the activities that show the degree of attention and interaction with others (Malloy, Parson, and Parsons, 2013, p. 125). Most students indicated their detailed attention to the characters. In some cases, they expressed their attempt to build a relation between the characters and themselves as seen in this excerpt.
"I want to be a Trevor, because of his maturity. He is very wise, not the type of person who likes to be angry for no reason, patient, sincere, ambitious/ hard-working, and always dress neatly even when outside working hours, which in my opinion is an attitude & habits that are coveted by many people, especially he as a man; there must be many girls who want to be his life partner" (Class chat, sharing the reading -Student F reflected on a character from "After" that she wanted to be.) (IV/A2/0705/F/want/atten.chr/THSE-AF) I like starting from the way the author makes suspence throughout the book with small conflicts is a great way to keep the author reading, for example in the beginning of the book the main conflict is the pirate named Billy Bones and all his actions and friends. The unique storyline, not mainstream, sometimes makes me feel trembling anxiety, and makes me curious. Also, the cast of characters displayed also have a variety of traits so I can know how to deal with someone with these trait, it's a novel that best suits the tastes of children and young people. (Student J reflects on the things that she liked from "Treasure Island") (IV/A2/0805/J/like/curious/lesson/atten.chr. /THSE-AF) As seen from the two excerpts, the students were able to give detailed description of the character and storyline of the novel that they read which indicate high degree of attentiveness.
The behavioral engagement is also observed from the students' willingness to actively interact during the weekly class chat. In average, a class chat recorded 110 chats per week. Students does not only comment on their peers' post but also build conversation with the lecturers as well.
Student L : "I have finished reading the book but I don't like the ending" L: "How come?" Student L: The ending is "gantung" mam [grin emoticon]. But, it's okay, it won't stop me from getting my happy ending" L: "Ah… the three words at the ending, right?" Student L: "Yes mam, I am curious with the three words. [laugh emoticon] L: "Google fanfiction of Eleanor and Park, and you'll get a lot of it. Most readers want to have their version of ending". Student L: "The couple is so adorable ma'am and I think know what those fanfic writers feel. This book was beautiful, but also beautifully heartbreaking." (Class chat, sharing the reading. Student L reflects on "Eleanor and Park" at near end of the semester. The lecturer had read the novel earlier) As seen from the excerpt the flow of the interaction indicates minimum gap of power relation among participants; responses are elaborated and reflects relatively fluid relation.
While affective and behavioral engagements were the most frequently found during the implementation, there was also cognitive engagement that can be identified.
"I did my project every night after and before the class. I somewhat enjoyed the project. Moreover, I am aware that the project is beneficial for my English skill. So I try to do it the best I could. The efforts never betray the results. I finished my project a week before the deadline" Questionnaire. Student A reflects on the whole process. (IV/Q/1009/A/how to/effort/task/THSE-C).
Cognitive engagement is "changes in learning due to strategic involvement with the task that represents attempts to encode new information" (Malloy, Parson, and Parsons, 2013, p. 125). In the excerpt, it is evident that student A employed a certain strategy in doing the task because he sees the benefit of doing the task.
The following data obtained from the questionnaire add hints of the students' engagement.

Graph 3. Students' self-description/reflection
Top three options that the students chose when being asked to describe their response to the model are: orientation towards creativity, attainment of new things from the reading, and determination in doing the tasks. All three were found evident in the students' artifacts i.e., the log and the transformation. The logs which was created using bookcreator app displays creative design of the students. The words and phrases that the students had collected and explored in the log got new context in the students' original stories, poems, and songs that they created in the transformation stage.
Altogether, the activities that the students did indicate engagement that refers to a "student's willingness, need, desire and compulsion to participate in, and be successful in, the learning process promoting higher-level thinking for enduring understanding." (Bomia, et.al., 1997). Student engagement is also frequently used to address "willingness to participate in routine school activities, such as attending class, submitting required work, and following teachers' directions in class." (Chapman, 2003).
The data mirror the characteristics of engaged students that were forwarded in Malloy, Parson, and Parsons (2013) i.e., are enthusiastic or curious about topic or task, think beyond the content or the task and/ or make strategies to complete the task, and posture or tone reflects enthusiasm or excitement; are eager to participate; reveal deep or critical thinking; make connections, make responses extensive and elaborate. The data display how the students were attached to the story. Their ability to articulate certain moments from the storyline as well as the specific traits of the characters indicate their intense attention toward their reading which defines their behavioral engagement.
Regardless of the positive results, 3 students or 10 percent of the respondents reported one issue that was often found in ER i.e., fake reading. These students tended to do the task at the minimum bar; only to fulfill the basic requirements to pass the class. While the number is relatively small, it is a factor to be considered in the revision of the model.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
This design-based study yielded a design of ER+ program for EFL context which faces the challenge of time constraints. The design is called Transdicto and it can be implemented following the syntax of extensive reading, note-taking, exploring, contextualizing, and transforming. The incidental learning in the ER stage which takes a long time to occur is supplemented with explicit teaching on certain language features (either grammar or vocabulary) through the stages of notetaking and exploring. Meanwhile, production is encouraged through contextualizing and transforming stages. The combination of explicit and implicit learning is seen as a way to accelerate the students' learning. The design theoretically conforms to three major SLA theories: the input hypothesis, the noticing hypothesis, and the output hypothesis.
In the implementation, the students responded well to the design. The students noted that the stages are relatively easy and perceived to be useful for their learning. The students also indicated and behavioral engagement during the program. to follow and it has a good degree of reception from the students as indicated from their response to the level of interest and perceived usefulness.
More, students indicate behavioral, cognitive, and affective filter engagement to Transdicto. Nonetheless, this design still premature and some areas need further empirical exploration. Effectivity of the model, degree of engagement, and overcoming fake readers are among the major issues that need to be touched upon in future studies