Event Report, Nara Chapter June 2017

Mayeda talked about the challenges of a course-integrated extensive reading program, such as building a graded readers library space, developing a book loan system, and introducing an M-reader option. She emphasized that cooperation among those involved is indispensable for success in integrating ER into the curriculum.
Goldberg, the founder of Xreading, an online reading system, shared the benefits of his system for both students and teachers. Students can read whenever and wherever they want on their smart phones or tablets. Teachers can monitor their students’ reading progress, thus encouraging them to read more or giving them some advice.
Brierley’s principle of ER is to “enjoy reading,” and he also mentioned that language teaching may be more like a religion. Teachers’ enjoyable ER experiences and belief in ER as an educational advantage may lead to students’ passion for reading.
For Flanagan, ER is to be lifelong learning and enjoyment, and she believes that ER is beneficial to students’ language learning in many ways. With an individual ER report-holder exploited, she had her students write “key words” from a book they read, and based on those key words they summarized the story. This process helped improve the students’ reading comprehension and vocabulary as well as their grammar and writing.