Taylor Melton
Overseas Chinese University of Science and Technology
About
Originally from the US, I have been living in Taiwan for 7 years. I currently teach in the Department of Applied Foreign Languages at Overseas Chinese University in Taichung, Taiwan. Additionally, I'm completing a MA in Linguistics at National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei with a focus on L2 syntax acquisition. I'm an avid user of extensive reading in my own L2 acquisition journey and incorporate extensive reading into my classes.Sessions
All levels My Personal Journey into ER and How it has Shaped my Foreign Language Learning Style more
Sun, Aug 7, 15:30-15:50 Asia/Tokyo
After 5 years of living in a Chinese speaking country and over 100 hours of class lessons, I failed to get a grasp of this language and communicate in my daily life. After discovering ER and the Mandarin Companion series, I began a serious quest into extensive reading for myself. Within weeks, my comprehension grew as did my “feel” for the language and for how to correct troublesome grammar points. In this talk, I describe the experiences of first getting into graded readers, where my reading was slow initially and how it improved quickly, how this helped my grades, and the difficulties that arose. Additionally, I found ER is beneficial for those at advanced language level. This talk is to help teachers better understand their students’ extensive reading experiences and encourage teachers to write graded readers in their own languages.
College and University Making Avid Readers out of Reluctant Readers: Factors that Motivate some Students to Finally Embrace ER on XReading more
Sun, Aug 7, 12:30-12:50 Asia/Tokyo
This preliminary study seeks to understand why some readers were at first reluctant to do Extensive Reading (ER) on XReading but later became avid readers and what caused this shift. As part of a university writing class for English majors in Taiwan, ER was introduced as a class component to help improve student writing. In the fall semester, many students failed to do the assigned reading but became motivated in the spring semester; embracing ER and surpassing the semester goal of 60,000 words within 6 weeks. Using a questionnaire and group interviews to investigate this change, this researcher expects that externally motivated factors, such as test exemption, better grades, and a grand prize, may play a large role in their motivation. It is hoped that educators can use this study to better motivate current Reluctant Readers (RR) or reduce the future number of RRs in their classes.
All levels XReading more
Sat, Aug 6, 16:00-18:00 Asia/Tokyo
Join the breakout room for a discussion on XReading.
