All levels Practice-based Breakout Forum
Running Online Extensive Reading Groups
The session will explain how remote online extensive reading (ER) groups were created using Zoom video conferencing for after school activities and summer camps. Teachers of Arabic in local schools in the UAE were invited to join the project and interested teachers were provided access to the Arabic ER website that contains links to online Arabic reading materials and the Arabic M-reader site.
The project aimed to introduce ER in the home in an attempt to encourage families to embrace and normalize reading. The Arabic version of M-reader was used to track students' reading and to facilitate a competition. Feedback on reading achievements and the competition was provided in the Zoom meeting activities by volunteer undergraduate students. They also assisted in supporting students' ER practices in Arabic by reading aloud to children in the reading group.
The outcomes of the project will also be explained so that online reading groups can be implemented in any ER setting.