Abstract:

The biggest challenge facing young EFL learners in a predominantly monolingual society is to learn a second language efficiently. This paper addresses this issue by bringing a certain amount of exposure to the young EFL learners in their schools through a community project called Ace your English: Read for Life program. This project carried out in two elementary schools in the east coast state of Malaysia involved 95 eleven year old young EFL learners who were about to sit for the National Examination for Grade 6 in the following year. The goal of the project was to provide extra hours of exposure to English language through reading English books and interacting with facilitators in preparation for their upcoming national examination. Data were collected through interviews with the teachers and the young participants, survey questionnaire and observations. The findings reveal that the teachers were grateful for the efforts from the project team members yet felt burdened as the participants’ learning time outside school hours were taken by the project hence reducing the time for their other core subjects. On the students’ part, most of them were eager to participate and extended their English reading time during lunch break and on weekends.

Keywords:

Reading, EFL, young learners, community project, willingness to read, reading interest.