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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Enjoyment of Interactive Fiction Compared to Non-Interactive fiction, in a Norwegian EFL Classroom

subject

description

This master’s thesis aims to shed light on using “interactive fiction” (IF) to promote reader engagement in a Norwegian EFL (English foreign language) classroom. In this thesis I look at interactive fiction in light of reading pleasure, enjoyment, and extensive reading. In this paper, I research whether a class of eighteen Norwegian 5th grade EFL students enjoy interactive fiction. The classroom intervention spanned three 60-minute English lessons, over three days. For this project they read both an interactive text and a non-interactive one. The students wrote reading journals where they wrote about their experiences with the two texts, before they answered a questionnaire on the final day. After the intervention was concluded, the teacher was interviewed about their observations. The student participants, on average, preferred the interactive text over the non-interactive one. The interactive text, on average, scored higher on fun, ease of reading, and fun to talk about, than the non-interactive text. There was, however, little evidence that it increased the likelihood of extracurricular reading. On average, the boys scored the interactive text higher on fun than they did reading books or stories in general. The girls scored the interactive text lower than books or stories in general, but higher than the non-interactive text they were provided for comparison.