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withoutconsultingadictionary.Gradedreaders,booksthatarewrittentocertainlevelsofEnglishproficiency,areoftenused.Studentschoosethebookstheyreadandhopefullythestudentswillforgetwhattheyarestudyingandenjoyreadingthebookwhilstreapingthebenefits.Thebenefitsofextensivereadinghavebeenwelldocumented.JeonandDay's（2016）meta-analysisof49studiessuggeststhatstudentsinanEnglishasaForeignLanguageEnvironment（EFL）,asisthesituationhereatChubuUniversity,benefitedmorethanstudentsinanEnglishasaSecondLanguageenvironment（ESL）.Butwhatarethesebenefits?Oneclearbenefitisthatstudentsincreasetheirvocabularyinthesecondlanguage（L2）.Iwata（2022）lookedat72non-EnglishmajorsandusedtheMochizukiVocabularySizeTest（MVST）tomeasurevocabularyknowledge.Hefoundthatthelevelofthestudents'vocabularyincreasedsignificantly.LiuandZhang（2018）meta-analyzedthedataof21studiesandalsofoundgreatbenefitsintermsofL2vocabularyforstudentswhohadutilizedER.SeveralotherstudieshavealsofoundthatL2vocabularyincreases（Hafiz&Tudor,1990;Waring&Kano2003）.TheimprovementoflexicalknowledgeisnottheonlybenefitstudentscangainfromER.Readingproficiencyalsoimprovesforstudents（Aka,2019;Beglar,Hunt,&Kite,2012;Iwata,2022;Jeon&Day,2016;Robb&Kano,2013）.Furthermore,knowledgeofgrammarimproves（Aka,2018;Rezaee&Nourzadeh,2011）,helpswithlisteningandspeakingabilities（Cho&Krashen,1994）,writingintheL2（Mermelstein,2015）,andhelpswithimprovedscoresontheTOEIC（Nishizawa,Yoshioka,&Fukuda,2010）.Thebenefitsareclear,buttheimplementationmightnotbeclear.3TheDepartmentofEnglishLanguageandCulture'sExtensiveReadingProgramRobb（2002）providesuswitharealisticviewofERinJapanandhowtoimplementit.LetustakealookatthehistoryoftheERprogramintheDepartmentofEnglishLanguageandCulture.3.1CreationandDevelopmentoftheERProgramTohaveanERprogram,booksareneeded.ThedepartmentpurchasedseveralgradedreadersforstudentstouseandthesebooksarekeptintheMulti-MediaRoom（MMR）.Atfirst,studentscouldcomeandgetbooksandreturnthemtogetanother,butwehadaproblemwithstudentsnotreturningthebooks,soweimplementedaborrowingsystemtoensurethebooksreturned.Inthespringsemesterof2010,studentshadamodestgoalof15,000wordstoreadbytheendofthesemester.Forevery5,000wordsoverthegoaltheyread,theyweregivenabonusof1%pointsontheirfinalgrade,butiftheydidnotmeetthegoal,theirfinalgradewaslowered20%points.Inthefallsemester,thisgoalwasraisedto30,000words.ThefollowingyeartheERprogrambecameabitmoreorganizedwithfirst-yearstudentshavingagoalof50,000wordsforthespringsemesterand75,000wordsforthefallsemester.Studentsintheirsecondyearhadagoalof100,000wordsforbothsemesters.Thebonussystemremainedinplace,butwaschangedto10,000wordsoverthegoalfora1%-pointincreaseinthefinalgrade.Failuretoreachthesegoalswouldresultintheirfinalgradebeingloweredby25%points.TheERprogramisconnectedtoavarietyofclasses.Forfirst-yearstudents,theseclassesareEnglishforAcademicPurposesAandB,CommunicativeGrammarAandB,andIntegratedEnglishAandB.Inthesecondyear,theseclassesareEnglishforAcademicPurposesCandDandIntegratedEnglishCandD.Totrackthestudents,awebsitecalledMoodleReader,laterchangedtoMReader,wasused.Thiswebsiteisusedtochecktoseeifastudentactuallyreadandunderstoodwhattheywerereadingbyhavingstudentsanswertenmultiple-choicequestionsaboutthebook.Thesequestionsaredesignedtobeeasilyansweredifthebookwasactuallyread.Oneproblemwithoursystemwasthatmanystudentswouldwaituntiltheendofthesemestertoreadtherequirednumberofwords.Thiswillnothelpstudentsasmuchasconstantlyreading,soweimplementedamidtermgoalthatwashalfofthetotal.Ifstudentsfailedtoreachthemidtermgoal,JournalofChubuUniversityEducationNo.23（2023）―16―