#3283

College and University Practice-based Short Session (20 minutes)

Using Xreading to implement a university-wide ER program in Japan

Permission to Record
Sun, Aug 7, 19:30-19:50 Asia/Tokyo

Location: Sunday later

“If you want to make the most positive change that you can to your language course, set up an extensive reading program” (Nation & Waring, 2020, p. 182). In 2018, the Foreign Language Division (FLD) was established at Wayo Women’s University in Japan and tasked with managing a multi-departmental English program for 700 first-year students. The above advice was heeded and the process of creating an ER program for the university began. After a small-scale trial in 2019, the ER program started in 2020 amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. This presentation will report on the development and implementation of the ER program through Xreading. It will detail how it is managed, the challenges posed by the pandemic, students' achievements, the perceptions of students and teachers in the program, and how it helped create cohesiveness between colleagues and foster a positive change in the FLD’s English program at the university.