Clearly, judges differed from each other in their ratings, but in all three cases, there was significant movement into the "good" category (for judge 1: chi square = 4.698, df = 1, p < 0.05; for judge 2: chi square = 19.212, p < 0.01; for judge 3: p = 0.004; Fisher Exact Probability Test: conditions for chi square test not met). When "good" and "average" categories are collapsed, results are similar.

Questionnaire. Students were asked if they felt their writing had improved. Thirty-six out of the 37 who answered this question thought it had, while one student was undecided. When asked if they thought reading helped them improve their writing, 32 out of the 38 who answered this question said "yes".

Discussion

The cloze test results of Experiment 2 replicate those of the first study. In addition, the results on our measure of writing confirm that improvement in writing is possible without conscious learning; the extensive reading students had no special instruction in composition during the study, and there was almost no correction of grammar. In addition, most students felt they had improved in writing. Of course, it can also be argued that these gains were due to the actual writing students did (the "simple writing hypotheses:, the claim that writing without feedback will cause language acquisition), but this hypothesis has numerous difficulties, including findings that people, in general, write much too little to account for the complexity of the language they acquire, and studies showing no relationship between writing frequency and writing ability (research reviewed in Krashen, 1994). Nevertheless, Experiment 3 was designed to test this possibility.

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