Join the breakout room for a discussion on Global Issues and Intercultural Communication.

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.

For Japanese as a Foreign Language (JFL) teachers and researchers interested in Japanese ER, knowing what reading goals for learners are feasible, or whether learners do develop an awareness of and ability to evaluate whether a text is at their comprehension level can be difficult. Only a handful of studies address aspects of the first question, and none appear to explore the second. This presentation discusses the reading habits of nine JFL learners recruited for an exploratory project conducted in New Zealand. Nine readers read graded readers, children’s books, and websites written in easy Japanese for one to two semesters, recording what they read in weekly reading logs. Data collected contributes to clarifying whether learners display an awareness of appropriate difficulty levels and develop an ability to evaluate which reading materials are at their comprehension level, and also what volume of reading might count as “extensive” for Japanese learners.

It’s not surprising that student engagement in compulsory English eduction is often very low. This Exploratory Action Research study investigated student engagement with the XReading program over a full academic year in a compulsory general English class at a Japanese university. Early investigations found huge gaps in students’ basic skill levels and many students were not able to articulate how or why they could study English effectively. This research shows how addressing students' language awareness of several key concepts resulted in improved engagement levels with extensive reading tasks and the impact on their general English test scores.

The positive effects of Extensive Reading/Listening on language learners have been recognized and more and more institutions have been implementing ER/EL in many countries around the world. Meanwhile, some schools, which had once shown great success with their students’ improvement of their language proficiency, are now not as enthusiastic as before or have even reverted to their previous teaching methods, for various reasons. First, this presentation will explain why ER/EL is important for language learners. Second, it will provide some reasons why many schools are not implementing ER/EL. Then, some demotivating factors for learners which keep them from ER/EL will be provided. Next, useful tips, which motivate learners to keep reading and listening extensively, will be introduced by presenting the results of practical studies. Finally, the presentation will propose teachers’ roles: what they should do or should not do to succeed with an ER/EL program.

Each of the ERF's affiliates and forming affiliates will present their activities in the past year in a 2-3 minute presentation to the ERF Board. This might include officer changes, events held, constitutional changes and so forth. Each affiliate and forming affiliate should also present on their upcoming plans. The ER public encouraged to attend to see how these ER associations work behind the scenes and potentially use this information to start their own ERF Affiliate.

Join the breakout room for a discussion on ER in other langauges than English.

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.

This session has two parts. Motivating Learners to Read Extensively Around the World Whilst there is a certain level of agreement on the activities that can be adopted to gain the benefits of extensive reading for language learning, recent discussions among the ERF affiliates have impressed upon us that different approaches are needed when motivating learners to habitually engage in extensive reading in different parts of the world. Therefore, this panel discussion aims to bring together the affiliates to discuss and answer questions related to motivating learners to read extensively in their given context. The session will include other panelists not listed here. Following the panel there will be a general discussion on forming and managing ERF Affiliates

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are an increasingly hot topic across various fields and levels of education, and it is not unusual to see them used as a framework or a reference for curricula that engage with social change as early as elementary school. Yet for many students, the SDGs are often just abstract concepts whose issues are perceived to be only related to communities and/or countries rather than ones that impacts their own lives. We discuss how SDG-based extensive reading programs can promote both local and global engagement by educating students with a passion for reading, and through that platform learning about the significance of the SDGs not only on a global scale, but also on a national level. Furthermore, we demonstrate how extensive reading can be a stepping stone to critical thinking about the SDGs and issues they can see in their everyday lives. In addition, the readers encourage students to make connections between the goals and encourage students to see social issues in that way as well. In conclusion, we introduce the process of creating locally engaged SDG-inspired extensive reading programs, student reactions to these materials, and conclude with a discussion of feedback from our students to reveal how your students can benefit from them.

This presentation describes a project that involved senior high school students in Malaysia in an English class where they did extensive reading in preparation for educating younger students about actions everyone could take to reduce climate change. In groups of 4-5, guided by cooperative learning principles, students chose their own environmental topics, researched them (mostly online), and prepared posters and other materials. The technique Gallery Tour was used in which the groups of older students stationed themselves and their materials around the classroom, and the younger students visiting from another class circulated among the various host groups who explained their ideas and fielded questions and comments. Extensive reading was involved in the initial preparation of the materials, in their refinement, and in responding to the questions and other feedback from the visiting class.

English should be learnt not only from the textbooks, but in the daily life. ER is a must for all people who want to learn the language. There are many obstacles to practicing ER in China although all people agree it is important. We are trying to help teachers and parents of young kids to overcome some problems by using the Fanreading platform and AI devices and make ER a ritual like brushing teeth. It is too difficult for kids to choose books by themselves when they have little knowledge of English and most parents also can't help. Fanreading provides an easy-to-use graded reader database to choose books by levels, series, and key words on Mobile and webpage. There is no school time for ER, while it is easy to lend books to kids to read at home, most parents are unable to help them. Fanreading allows teachers to record their lessons on the platform and push it to the kids automatically. Little kids don't have smartphones, and many parents also don't want their kids to use them in case kids are not learning on them. The Fanreading platform is connected to AI devices that are portable, and can be synchronized with a smartphone so kids can have their own English learning tool while parents can observe the students' activity.

Xreading News is an exciting new feature recently piloted on Xreading. Each week there are 5 graded news articles. Stories are short and cover a wide range of topics, such as Science & Technology, Health, and World News. The team of story writers and the series editor will discuss various aspects and perspectives on the process of bringing news stories to Xreading. They will discuss sourcing and selecting stories, writing graded text, and simplifying complex issues. They will also talk about using the stories in the classroom.