Dr. Gillis-Futaka’s presentation began by outlining a number of points to lay the groundwork for a broader workshop on methods to engage students while doing extensive/intensive reading classes. She outlined 6 areas that teachers need to be aware of in order to motivate students: emotion; personalization; choice; variety and novelty; challenge and; using multiple senses.
She then presented a number of tasks directed at each of these areas that teachers could use in class. Letting learners create and collaborate was emphasized as a key strategy as well as the notion “Repeat to remember and remember to repeat”.
Teachers were given a list of ten activities to use in class and then the group as a whole demonstrated a number of the activities.