conference extensive reading Language learning presentations video
by sendaiben
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ER program development (workshop at ERWC)
This is our workshop from the 2nd Extensive Reading World Congress last month.
Extensive Reading World Congress next week in Seoul, Korea
I am really excited about attending (and presenting at) the ERWC next week in Seoul. I was forced to cancel my plans for the first one due to fallout from the earthquake, so this is going to be my first time at the global extensive reading event.
Details are here, the schedule is here, and I am hoping to see you there 🙂
career expectations jobhunting life in Japan presentations public policy technology TED
by sendaiben
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TED Talk: What will future jobs look like?
Here’s an optimistic TED talk on yesterday’s topic (thanks Tom!).
Oxford Teachers’ Academy
Oxford Teachers’ Academy (OTA) is a teacher training program jointly administered by Oxford University Press and the University of Oxford. Courses normally last three days and there are a number of topic areas. The content of the courses is developed in the UK and delivered by local or international trainers.
OTA has now come to Japan and I’m incredibly excited and honored to be involved in the first course, to be held in Tokyo next month. All the details are here.
The course will be run on a long weekend, from July 13-15 on the Principles of Teaching Young Learners.
conference extensive reading graded readers Language learning presentations Reading
by sendaiben
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Readability (and the lack of it) in graded readers
At the JALT Pan-SIG conference a few weeks ago (my favourite conference in Japan) I attended two extremely thought-provoking lectures, back to back. Both of them were talking about something very similar, something that has also been coming up in conversations with students this week.
The topic was readability of graded readers, or why some books are easier to read than others.
Marcos Benevides has a great blog post outlining the content of his talk. It’s well worth taking a few minutes to read that now.
Amanda Gillis-Furutaka, from Kyoto Sangyo University, talked about her fascinating research into the specific problems students have when reading English text. Her findings were echoed by my students when I talked to them about their reading in extensive reading classes this week. If you have the chance to attend one of her presentations on this topic at JALT or elsewhere, please consider doing so.
So what makes books difficult for students (focusing on students reading texts up to around 1000 headwords, ie beginner to lower-intermediate readers)? In short, the following:
-number of characters (the more characters the harder it is to understand the story)
-the complexity of the language (modal verbs and allegory are a real barrier to understanding)
-literary devices such as changing between different perspectives, changing from the present to the past suddenly, or unexpected plot twists
While these insights are perhaps most useful to authors and publishers, they can also help teachers recommend books for students (and know which books to put off until later!). Really interesting stuff, and I’m looking forward to reading Ms Gillis-Furutaka’s research when she publishes it.