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EXTRAMURAL ENGLISH ACTIVITIES AND INDIVIDUAL LEARNER DIFFERENCES
simple, and the singers do not speak very elaborately because its difficult to find
words that rhyme”. By this, Lucas means that in songs, it is not using a varied
vocabulary but making words rhyme that is more important. He continues:
[If there are] lines that I have difficulty understanding, I usually look up the words
in the dictionary, but this is less common than in the case of movies because most
of the words are familiar, and if somebody speaks at least a little English, they can
figure out [the meaning or message] because there are really simple words in these
songs.
This, again, reflects on the lexical coverage of songs, which is much lower
than movies, enabling learners to have a deeper understanding (Murphy 1992).
Finally, Ben highlighted the differences between native and non-native
English performers. He claimed that it is easier for him to understand non-na¬
tive speakers. He commented on this as follows: “If there are performers who
learned English as a foreign language, I understand it better because they speak
more clearly [than native speakers]” (Ben). It is somewhat surprising that he
considers non-native speakers’ pronunciation “nicer” than that of native speak¬
ers.
4.5.6 Reading in English
Reading books, blogs, and online content in English is another EE category
that could serve as an important resource for EFL input (Day-Bamford 2002,
Day et al. 1991, Krashen 2004, 2011, Nation-Waring 2020). Reading books,
however, does not seem to be a popular pastime activity — at least not in Eng¬
lish. However, it is important to point out that reading in English and even in
L1 is a common problem for this generation, whose reading habits are very
different from that of the older generations. Therefore, it cannot be neglected
that some learners may spend considerable time reading English texts while
many other learners prefer not to read at all. Half of the interview participants
do not read English language books at all in their free time, but those who do,
like to read on a regular basis. Valentina read some of the Harry Potter books
because she could not wait for the Hungarian translation. She explained this
as follows:
There was one book I read in English, the last book of Harry Potter, I wanted to read
it right when it came out because I was very hooked, and [the English version] was
the only one I could buy in Hungary at the time.
On the other hand, Vera, for instance, would like to read a book in English
and then reread the same book in Hungarian and would like to see to what
* 80°