The idea is to help the learners get used to previewing books and also to give them a bit more structure on their reporting task. I had students this this for two books and liked the results. The reading reports seemed more thorough. But I`m not sure if it is the technique itself or just the fact that they were doing something different. Does anyone have experience with this type of thing over the long term? Thanks.

Thanks

I try not to impose any frame on their poster presentations other than that. (And when I do poster presentations myself, I try not to work to any preconceived pattern either.) I think pairing up students who have the read the same book is one possibility. Recently I asked a class for the second half of the term if they wanted to work individually or in groups. (They were reading webpages on Medicine in Society and their own texts.) Half the group wanted to work in groups and ended up doing group poster presentations. The other half wanted to work individually, of whom half again wanted to work with the same partner each week (but each on their own topic), and the other half wanted to change partners each week (each on their own topic). So, there's a great variety of preferences within any one class, and part of the fun (and challenge) is trying to allow for students to read, discuss and present according to their own preferences.

I take it they do the poster outside of class. I wonder if it would be useful to pair up students who have read the same book and do one in class.

I totally agree. There is a scale called "Barrett's taxonomy of comprehension" that breaks down understand like this:
1. literal (lowest)
2. reorganization
3. inferrence
4. evaulation
5. appreciation.
Questions like, "How do you feel" are likely to get at the highest levels. If you are interested in this, there is a short article on comprehension quesions on my web page: http://www.mgu.ac.jp/~ic/helgesen/marc.article1.htm

Here is a variation on an "instant oral report" that I have had great results with lately. I have the students choose a book they enjoyed. Then they close their eyes and, in their "mind's eye" get a picture of the main character (s). Then I ask a series questions (starting with WH questions -- Where are they? What does the place look like? How do they feel? What is happening?) etc. This supports them in sort of recreating the story in their mind. Once they have done this, I give them a minute or so of silence to "Watch the movie again. This time, think about how you will discribe it in English." Finally, they open their eyes and tell the story to a partner. The "mental rehearsal" really makes the speaking part of the activity flow a lot better.

I do agee that it is useful to have students do more with talking about books, their opinions, etc. In a special issue of the JALT language teacher a while back, I wrote an article called, "Bringing those books back into the classroom: tasks for extensive reading." It is available on line at: http://langue.hyper.chubu.ac.jp/jalt/pub/tlt/97/may/shr_helgesen.html

People who want more info. can contact Longman (Pearson) ELT at elt@pearsoned.co.jp I am mentioning this not as an advertisement (I try to buy readers from all the publishers that distribute in Japan) but as a way of let teachers know about something useful. It sure is easier to just order a set, then notice which books are popular and buy multiple copies of those during the next order season.

It seems to reinforce the "if I don't know every word, I can't really understand." This has always happened with print dictionaries but it seems even more of a problem with electronic dictionaries since they are so easy to use. Are other teachers noticing this? What do you do to encourage learners to think about when and when not to use their dictionaries.

I hope some other people will let us know which titles (Penguin or not) are hot with their students.

Also, if you know of any work or research by Japan-based people that I haven't cited (can be in a university kiyo, might be somewhere else)it would be good to include that.

Good luck with the thesis!

(or just go to eltnew.com and click on 'Think tank'.)

I was just going through final reading notebooks and came across the following note which a graduating jr. college student wrote to me. I think it reflects what we all are trying to do as teachers so I wanted to share it: "I had many English classes for these two years. I enjoyed each, and the also gave me many interests for learning English, but 'English Reading' is special for me. I mean, I'm what we call "bookworm" but when in entered I.C. [the department], I thought reading English was too difficult. And I didn't think I could enjoy it. But now, I love English reading and do appreciate the classes which encouraged me. Thanks again, and I'll keep on reading."

Oxford University Press Japan have put a 'Guide to Graded Reading' on their website. It is a downloadable Adobe pdf file. It is also available in print - contact OUP directly. The English version. http://www.oupjapan.co.jp/jr_sr/pdf/Guide_to_Graded_Readers_e.pdf The Japanese version. http://www.oupjapan.co.jp/jr_sr/pdf/Guide_to_Graded_Readers_j.pdf Best regards Rob Waring

B: I wish someone could tell me why ER did not have the power to creep into the core curriculum of English education in Japan.

5. The postings I read were quite substantial. Do you have any system for judging the quality of what they submit? My students will be happy to hear your praise! I give them some articles which might help them write a good reaction report. I also give them some copies of good reaction reports written by the members who took IRC in the past. But I don't think that I do anything special. I beleive that their attitude toward "writing and reading" gradually changes from the environment of the classroom and the BBS. They write not to me but to the participants of IRC. "Write to be READ" by the other members of IRC who MAY read the same book because of their reaction reports can have a tremendous impact on what to write and how to write about books. If you read their final report, you can understand how much students enjoy reading in an environment where they can express and share their reaction to the books on the BBS as well as in the classroom. They read and write to "communicate" with each other. 6. Do replies to an earlier posting count as entries for the reading race? Yes. They can get 2km when they post a comment on a reaction report or a comment. Well, like I mentioned, my reflection on IRC is written in the paper. And finally I must tell you that in order to implement IRC, I read over and over again the book "Extensive Reading in the Second Language Classroom" by Julian Baford and Richard R. Day. Without reading this book, I would not have carried out the idea of IRC.

5. The postings I read were quite substantial. Do you have any system for judging the quality of what they submit? My students will be happy to hear your praise! I give them some articles which might help them write a good reaction report. I also give them some copies of good reaction reports written by the members who took IRC in the past. But I don't think that I do anything special. I beleive that their attitude toward "writing and reading" gradually changes from the environment of the classroom and the BBS. They write not to me but to the participants of IRC. "Write to be READ" by the other members of IRC who MAY read the same book because of their reaction reports can have a tremendous impact on what to write and how to write about books. If you read their final report, you can understand how much students enjoy reading in an environment where they can express and share their reaction to the books on the BBS as well as in the classroom. They read and write to "communicate" with each other. 6. Do replies to an earlier posting count as entries for the reading race? Yes. They can get 2km when they post a comment on a reaction report or a comment. Well, like I mentioned, my reflection on IRC is written in the paper. And finally I must tell you that in order to implement IRC, I read over and over again the book "Extensive Reading in the Second Language Classroom" by Julian Baford and Richard R. Day. Without reading this book, I would not have carried out the idea of IRC.

Oxford University Press in Japan (http://www.oupjapan.co.jp) have just published a free 20 page guide to Graded Reading. It is available on request in English or Japanese. there will soon be a downloadable version. best regards Rob

Mizuno-sensei, here are a few more questions about your program which I've also sent to you by personal e-mail: Are you working with English majors or what type of program is it? Where do students access the books (library, available in the class room?)? Do you have a minimum reading goal everyone must meet? Do students receive credit for their BBS entries automatically? The postings I read were quite substantial. Do you have any system for judging the quality of what they submit? Can they submit a four word sentence and that satisfies their requirement? Do replies to an earlier posting count as entries for the reading race? How do you introduce the program and help students get excited about reading and about posting their thoughts? Great work, and I hope to hear/read more about your program!

I found out that Japanese people first did Tadoku about 70 years ago. At that time, there was not enough reading material of the right kind and at the right levels. They called graded readers something, but I can’t remember the exact term they used right now. If I find it, I’ll write again.

Thank you. Mizuno Kunitaro

http://www1.harenet.ne.jp/~waring/papers/assesser.html Please send comment to waring@harenet.ne.jp Thank-you

Finally, Clark raises the point that kids love to reread kidlit and do it a lot. Marc's Alice in Wonderland has some of the same characteristics and appeal to adults. I'll add that adults reread spiritual and religious texts. If rereading equals big learning, is there a kind of book that can be written for language learners that will awaken their child-like or spiritual desire to reread?

There was one study done with Clockwork Orange on repeated readings, claiming that students gained in vocabulary through re-reading (Saragi, Nation & Meister, 1978). One study that was presented at the Swansea PhD conference in July was by Marlise Horst (based in Canada) with a German reader. She had the student read the book 10 times, and each time measured the vocabulary gains. How? At the outset she created a stoplist of all the words that occurred only once in the book. She then created a computer-based test where the student clicked one of the following for each of the 'singletons', something along the lines of: know very well / know somewhat / know but not sure / don't know. The student completed the vocab test pre and post each reading. Consistent gains were made, and consistent movements were made up the scale for degrees of knowledge, with some predictions possible of vocab. gains. Note the student was asked and pledged to have no contact with German other than through reading the book during the period of the study. Horst found much better vocabulary gains with this study than are usually reported for ER, and part of this may be that she could isolate unknown words at the start, plus measure gains in degree of vocabulary knowledge. (Marlise also used a translation test as an independent check, I believe.)

I don't know. Not sure if it will be a tool or a tool. That's one of the reasons I'm thinking about a research project about this. I know common sense says we don't reread for pleasure (However, I wonder how many times I've reread Alice in Wonderland). But some things we do redo for pleasure. I think about how many of my students have see Titanic many times. It isn't like they think in ain't gonna sink next time. Movies are one reason I'm thinking about this. I've noticed is how popular movie tie-ins are as readers. What very often happens is students read the book version of a film they've already seen. They already know the story. The fact that they know it make it that much easier to read -- the schema is already in place. But they do read and enjoy it. I'm wondering what will happen in the classroom (I should mention this is with an elective class so learners have already made the choice to be in a class where they have to read 500+ pages per term). And this is totally the students' choice. They don't have to reread anything. But they have that choice.

I have had 12 readers published and get anything from 6% to 10% as a royalty. I now have a plan to self publish and advertise on the net. Has anyone tried this? Anything I should look out for? Any tips or advice gratefully received. jeremytaylor@esatclear.ie http://www.esatclear.ie/~jeremytaylor

I'm thinking of trying this out with an elective class next term. The idea is that reread book(s) they've read before. This time they report on what they got/noticed/felt the 2nd time through. They'll get half the points they got the first time. Anyone done this sort of thing? Advice?

The URL is: http://www.eltnews.com/kids/kidsmain.html

Movie tie-ins? My students love them. They've often seen the film which provides the schema. They often pick up on differences between the film and the reader.

I've added a page to my home page to teach students about some of these sites. I've tried to write it in a way students can understand. I'd like to invite you (and your students) to visit it. The URL is: http://www.mgu.ac.jp/~ic/helgesen/charity.htm I should mention that this page is based in Japan. If you're using a computer that doesn't read Japanese, there will be a few random "@" marks. Ignore them. (or send me an email telling me how to get rid of them. I hope you and your students check out the page. It's a really cool way to make a difference. Thanks. Marc

You can see the visuals for a presentation I recently made on this project at http://www.kyoto-su.ac.jp/~trobb/LET/LET0500.html

I am a junior high school teacher and know well that students need time to understand what free voluntary reading (FVR) is all about. Students need time to get used to this freedom. Students need time to learn how to look for books and when to put a book back when it does not interest them. Students also need time to expand the amount of time that they engage in FVR. One study identified in this report only lasted 10 weeks. This is not enough time to study FVR. I agree with Dr. Krashen when he pointed out this discrepancy in the report. The report seems to miss an important fact of oral reading activities. Students who participate in oral reading who are not actively engaged in reading orally may be following along silently thus increasing the amount of reading practice during oral reading activities. The need to work in small groups for more one on one oral reading time is also cost prohibitive. Schools are not going to provide the resources for one on one work such as was used in most of the studies identified in the report. The negative affects (such as anxiety) of round robin oral reading with large groups may have more devastating long-term affects on life long love of reading than positive effects. The report seems to have an agenda that precludes the use of whole language.

For the complete text, please see this link. See http://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/nrp/findings.htm for the report, itself.

Here's an article on ER in the IRA electronic journal Reading Online.

Location: British Hills, Fukushima
Date: April 22 and 23 (arrive 4/21 eve. if possible)
Contact: Colin GrahamTel: 0248-85-1313 Fax: 0248-85-1300
Further Information: colin_japan@hotmail.com
Website: http://members.xoom.com/jalt_teach/workshop.htm

The information is as follows: Friday, March 17, 2000 4:00 - 5:45 p.m. Convention Centre, Ballroom C Speakers will include Richard Day , Beniko Mason, Thomas Robb, Ken Schmidt and myself. We hope to see a lot of ERer's there. (ERer's?)

ER-List is up and working with a regular and digest function available. To subscribe to the regular list, interested parties should send a message to requests@cedar.miyazaki-mu.ac.jp with the line subscribe ER-List in the body of the message. The command for the digest is subscribe digest ER-List The mail server software is intelligent enough to ignore signature files, so they won't cause interference in the subscription process.

Just asking as a few teachers are trying to combine quantitative and qualitative research methods. One other question is to do with checking vocabulary size, pre and post: any user friendly time-efficient vocabulary tests in the making or published, other than Nation's?

4. Would it be good to have one category for original works and another for adapted ones?

The guiding principle is that, in nominating and/or judging, students are the ones who make the choices. One possible system is for up to a certain number of newly-published books to be nominated by each publisher who sends them to participating schools where students judge them. Another system would be that teachers and students nominate books which are then judged either at participating schools or by an expert panel.

Right now, I am facing a situation where I will have a class of 45 'repeaters' and many of them have already gone through the SRA materials to a certain extent, so I'd like to try something different this time around. Thus my query.

You can find it at: http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,3953274,00.html

The twist I would propose is that instead of comparing a condition in which students only read books (plus wrote a brief L1 summary) with conditions in which students read books and then wrote longer L2 summaries, with or without correction, we could compare a Read Only condition with a Read Plus Discuss in Groups Condition, using some of the simple cooperative learning techniques mentioned in the draft: RoundRobin and Three-Step Interview. Perhaps, the group discussions would be beneficial because they might: a) motivate students to read more because they get recommendations from peers about what to read and because they are to tell peers about what they read; b) motivate students to read more carefully in preparation for the discussions. What would the dependent variables be? Perhaps: a) amount of reading to see in which condition students are motivated to read more b) reading and language proficiency Please contact me <gmjacobs@pacific.net.sg> if you think you could implement this research design or something like it, or if you have feedback on the design.

"Reading was boring work when I was high school student. But this year, I found "Reading" is fun and enjoyable thing, through this class. And also, I could learn new vocablaries from book, newspapers and articles. It helped me a lot."

www.eltnews.com just mentioned that the book company Scholastic decided to donate 1,000,000 books to poor neighborhoods in the USA. I think all of us who are interested in reading see how cool that is. On another point (not at all related to reading, but related to anyone who is on the Web -- so sorry if I'm off topic but it is the holiday season,right?) The website <http://hungersite.org> gives food to starving people. To help, all you have to do is visit the site and click the 'donate food' button. Their sponsors(advertisers) pay for the food and the United Nations delivers it. OK, here's the reading tie in. Once classes start up again, print a copy of this. Copy it for your students (assuming they have access to the Internet). Maybe you walk into class with an empty rice bowl. Whatever. Have them read it. See what happens. We are, after all, in the business of empowering people. Have a great holiday.8-)

The interview should be appearing in the next issue of Literacy Across Cultures, published by JALT's Foreign Language Literacy Special Interest Group, editor: David Dycus <dcdycus@asu.aasa.ac.jp>. You can find back issues of LAC by going to: http://www.aasa.ac.jp/~dcdycus/LAC99/MAR99/LACMAR99.HTM Speaking of the FLL group, one other quick plug... They're looking for officers from January 2000 to help run the group. Your chance to help keep the group going through 2000 and beyond. Please contact David Dycus for more details - you would really help this group by volunteering a few hours of your time over the next year. Plugs finished! Off to play! Bye!

Anyway, the survey I use: Reading 1 Student Feedback DO NOT write your name on this paper. Think about the class. Answer the questions.
1. Is reading English easier or about the same as before the class? • much easier • a little easier • about the same
2. Do you read faster now or about the same? • much faster • a little faster • about the same
3. Do you use your dictionary more or less than before? • more • about the same • less
4. What did you think of the outside reading (library books)? really liked/it helped hated/didn't help 5 4 3 2 1
5. Did you usually read at a level that was easy or difficult for you? • easy level • difficult level
6. What did you think of the SRA kits? really liked/they helped hated/ didn't help 5 4 3 2 1
7. What did you think of the other in-class readings (prints)? really liked/ hated/ they helped didn't help 5 4 3 2 1
8. Do you think you'll take READING II next year. • Yes • Maybe • No

Thanks.

Beniko Mason as written an intro to ER in Japanese to use to orient students. You can find it by going back to 'Starting an ER program.' Then go to Beniko Mason's information (in Japanese)

R

Comments? R

R

One opinion was that we need two letters - on a more technical one for word counts - a response was that we need not have a second letter just yet. A second response was that a readability measure would be the most useful one to ask publishers for. A third opinion was that the amount of reading and the gain scores on the tests do not correlate highly. When you compare readers to non-readers, you can see a significant difference. Let's take it form there. R

Your thoughts welcome. We could put this to the audioence for their reactions. best

As for readers themselves, the closest thing I've found here in Nagoya's largest int'l bookstore were simply collections of authentic materials (essays) and which are accompanied by kanji readings, glosses and translations: Ashby J 1994 "Read Real Japanese" Tokyou: Kodansha. Butler K D & Osamu M (eds.) 1984 "Integrated Spoken Japanese 1, Volume 1" Tokyo: Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies in Tokyo. Melchinger G & Kasha H (eds.) 1998 "The Japanese Written Word: A unique reader" Tokyo: Kodansha. [This book and Butler's include exercises for language practice.] Again, none of these are ER based. If anyone knows of something else, I too'd be glad to hear about it. BTW, does anyone know of computerized frequency counts for Japanese corpora, a la COBUILD or Bank of English?

Does anyone know of other extensive reading programs in Japanese? In addition, we would appreciate suggestions for materials that the students could read.

There will also be an ER Colloquium on Monday, Oct 11, from 12:30 to 2:15. If you need more information about the JALT conference, check their web site: http://www.jalt.org/conferences/ If other people are doing ER related sessions, please let us know the titles, dates and times.

Hope to see you there. If you need information on PAC 2, check their web site: http://www.kotesol.org/pac2/

Magically, the books started to walk back. I now have about 70 of the 150 back in circulation!

At last year's JALT conference, I did a session on grammar and included some ideas for adding "noticing tasks" to other classroom activities. I often do these as a follow-up to reading. If you'd like a copy of the handout, email me: march@mgu.ac.jp

Concerning word count, one work-around would be for those of us who have counted or estimated the pages for some titles to contribute those counts to a new page on the ER site. I'd be very happy to compile the info!

Is this a non-issue for most people? If it would seem useful, do you have any advice for ways to pursue this? Thanks!

At any rate, what I would like to suggest is that we go with this as an initial device, and then when we find problems with it, that we either modify it or put in a different system.