MERALF 2014 participants

White Rabbit Press (Japanese graded readers)

I had a message to pass on from White Rabbit Press' operations manager, Tomoko:

Dear Hana,

Thank you very much for your mail, and it is really good to hear that your presentation was a success. 

Yes, we have received the return of the samples in good shape. If the teachers would like to order it in bulk, we will work on a price. So, please feel free to let us know.

Thank you very much again. Please let us know if you have any questions.

Kind Regards,

Tomoko
Operations Manager

Their website can be found at:

http://shop.whiterabbitjapan.com/japanese-language/books-magazines/graded-readers.html

Andy Boon's Presentation topic - Setting up an ER program - the beginning, the middle, the end.

Andy's article on extensive reading (in PDF format) can be accessed from http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/110007043499/en

Gabriela Schmidt's Presentation - Extensive listening in and outside the classroom

ExtensiveListening Blog Schmidt

Satomi Shibata's Presentation - An analysis of perceived difficulties toward extensive reading: what makes it so difficult for Japanese learners to keep reading?

Meisei ER Forum 2013(Shibata-Rachi)

Mark Brierley's Presentation: ER - What, why, how

ER WhatWhyHow

A story from Mark about one of his students:

I was going to tell you about one of my students. Because the amount
students read is important for Extensive Reading, I include their word
count and the number of books they read in their grade. To calculate this,
we have an online system called ERS. Students access ERS each time they
start and finish a book. At least, they are supposed to! ERS has no tests.
It is possible for students to write reviews of books they have read, but
it is not compulsory. It also asks them to rate the ease of reading and how
good the book was, as well as the time it took to read, so it is a minimal
reading record. Students must also indicate how much of the book they read,
as a percentage, so even if they gave up half way through, or after a few
pages, the book will still be added to their reading record and count
towards their grade. I think this is important too as we want to encourage
students to stop reading books if they find them boring, so we should
perhaps be giving them credit for stopping reading part way through a book,
but that's another story!

One of my students seemed to have a list of books that was disproportionate
in number and range from what he was doing in class. Also, many of the
books on the list were not from the staples of our library, which has a
comprehensive selection from the main graded reader publishers such as
Oxford, Cambridge, Macmillan, Cengage, Scholastic and Penguin. My student
also had some kids books on his list, including *Curious George*, *101
Dalmations* and *20,000 Baseball Cards Under the Sea*.

ERS takes book data from Akio Furukawa's SSS database, which includes a
huge range of books from traditional graded readers to books for native
speaker children and popular fiction. Many of these books are not in our
library, but when when you access the data for a book in ERS, it will show
whether it is in the library or not.

Because my system is based on trust and assuming students are reporting
honestly, I am extremely reluctant to check up on them, and do not want to
doubt that they are reporting honestly, unless I have very strong evidence
that they are. Even then, I don't want to directly accuse them of cheating,
but need to give them the opportunity to correct mistakes they may have
made when recording their book data.

During the lesson last week, not during reading time when it was too quiet
and everybody would have been listening, but not after the lesson when
nobody else would have heard, I took my laptop over to the student and
showed him one of the books on his ERS list, asking him where he borrowed
it from. He said it was from the library, so I pointed out that this book
was not in the library. I went on to another book on his list, and asked
where he had got it from. Again he said the library, and again I pointed
out that the book was not in the library. When I asked about a third book,
he admitted that he had not read it.

The Inaugural Extensive Reading and Listening Forum 2014

Welcome to the new blog of the Extensive Reading and Listening Forum (ERALF - because it just rolls off the tongue).

We are excited to have over ten presentations on reading and listening. Check back for handouts and links.

Hana Craig
Forum Co-ordinator