Future-ready means life-ready. As well as skills in science and technology, our students need non-technical skills such as social emotional learning (SEL), critical thinking and cultural awareness. To be truly future-ready learners will need to display knowledge and sensitivity to other people, places, and cultures. Reading is essential to both language learning and understanding other cultures. 'China Showcase Library' (CSL) from National Geographic Learning is a graded reader series that showcases authentic content and high-interest topics that stimulate higher order thinking skills. In this session we will discover how CSL incorporates critical thinking, SEL, and cultural awareness to inform, engage and prepare students for the future.

Fluency, a major component of the construct of language proficiency, is largely ignored as a focus of language instructional practices, in training programs for teachers, in published instructional materials, and in curricular design. In fact, it seems that in most cases “fluency” has maintained its “on the street” meaning as the final result of language learning when you function almost like a “native” speaker. Nothing could be farther from reality. Fluency is the component of proficiency which reflects the learners’ ability to access implicit knowledge for spontaneous language to express their ideas quickly and continuously. Some researchers claim that fluency is a driver of acquisition and not a result. Nation (2000) claims that fluency building activity should make up 25% of any language curriculum, and no matter what you know, you should be able to produce it fluently. Research on the teaching of reading also supports attention on fluency development apart from accuracy-focused activity. This session will review the rationale for including fluency development activity along with extensive reading at all levels of second language proficiency.

Listening is the most frequently used language skill and requires rapid, on-the-spot processing, so “why has our field [ESL/EFL pedagogy] completely ignored the need for graded fluency listening input that is for pleasure, and aimed at building listening automaticity?” (Waring, 2010). A viable response to this dilemma is Extensive Listening (EL), a method that builds listening fluency implicitly by focusing on general meaning through self-access to commercially produced and Internet-based pleasurable listening “texts” (Brown, Waring & Donkawbua, 2008; Chang & Millett, 2014; Cutting, 2004; Field, 2000; Oxford, 1993; Renandya & Farrell, 2011; Waring, 2009). Although specific research evidence on the benefits of extensive listening is still quite limited, engaging in large amounts of self-selected, easy and enjoyable listening for general comprehension purposes is theoretically supported (Ellis, 1994; Ellis, N.C., 2005; Lightbown & Spada, 2006). This session provides a rubric for curating listening texts, a course outline for EL and other listening fluency development activities, and a deeper understanding of how EL can support ESL/EFL listening proficiency development.