She Kept Reading. Then She Took the TOEIC.

By Beniko Mason

I began a reading program at Shitennoji University Junior College in 1985. Miyako was one of the first students. She took the course for one semester—and then she graduated.

After graduation, she studied in Tampa, Florida for a year and four months. Before returning to Japan, she took the TOEFL and scored 520—roughly equivalent to a TOEIC Listening & Reading score in the mid-600s.

She then worked for 23 years at a shipping company in Osaka, where English was used daily in the workplace.

In 2011, when the company closed, she took a new job in Kobe. Employees were required to submit a TOEIC score, and those who scored over 800 received a bonus.

Miyako took the test.

Her score was 975 out of 990.

What She Had Done

When I asked how she had achieved such a high score, she said she had done nothing special. Then she realized: She had been reading in English over the years.

Agatha Christie—nearly the complete works. The Harry Potter series. Newspapers. Books she picked up during her commute.

She did not read constantly. She read off and on. But she continued because she had discovered, during her final semester in college, that reading in English could be enjoyable.

What Her Score Means

Miyako did not read to improve her English. She read because she enjoyed it.

There was no pressure, no test preparation, and no conscious effort to study. What developed instead was a deep, automatic command of the language—something standardized tests happen to measure, at least in part.

When I speak with her nearly forty years after graduation, she is still reading.

She has become a lifelong reader in English.

This is what can happen when students discover the pleasure of reading.

— Beniko Mason

Reference: Mason, B. (2017). The Effect of Pleasure Reading Experience 30 Years Ago. Turkish Online Journal of English Language Teaching (TOJELT), 2(3), 130–132.