Pat Conaway
Shokei Gakuin University
About
I teach at a small private university in north eastern Japan. I’ve been interested in extensive reading for several years now. I’m especially interested in transfer of skills from reading to writing and speaking. Also, Recently I have been experimenting with using cooperative board games to help develop my students interactive speaking skills.Sessions
Extensive Reading ER SIG Forum more
Sun, Jul 10, 14:30-16:00 Asia/Tokyo
The first part of this panel discussion is dedicated to a review of theories of fluency development, including ACT theory, Instance Theory, and Verbal Efficiency Theory, how these theories apply to extensive reading, and the potential limitations of extensive reading where reading fluency development is concerned. The second part focuses on how reading fluency improvement can be encouraged and monitored in the EFL classroom via extensive reading as well as silent and oral fluency training activities. The results of a study comparing the effects of an intensive reading approach and an extensive reading (with added fluency training) approach on various measures of reading fluency will be presented and discussed. In addition, there will be a discussion about how reading fluency can be enhanced when extensive reading is combined with timed reading, repeated oral reading, and chunking activities among L2 English Japanese university learners. The changes in their cognitive processes used for reading, oral reading fluency scores, and L2 reading self-efficacy will also be examined. Qualitative data regarding these reading activities will also be shared.
Task-Based Learning Cooperative board games for developing turn-taking in EFL discussions more
Sat, Jul 9, 10:35-11:00 Asia/Tokyo
Effective turn-taking is vital for successful participation in group discussions. In Japanese EFL contexts, group discussion often exhibits turn-taking behavior that is markedly different from that of competent English speakers, often limited to each participant making a short speech and brief comments of agreement or disagreement. Turn-taking behavior is also a major component of the interaction in cooperative board games, which encourage group decision-making and often exhibit more varied forms of turn-taking. This presentation describes the use of cooperative board gameplay in the classroom as a training aid to develop learners' turn-taking skills. First, the presenter will explain the characteristics of cooperative board games from a TBLT perspective, including the range of speech acts contained within their gameplay. Then an analysis of student transcripts collected over one semester will be presented to illustrate changes in student turn-taking behavior in a variety of contexts. The changes explored include differences in turn lengths, speech act use, and turn-taking patterns of learners. The presentation will conclude with some suggestions for using cooperative board games in the language classroom to maximize language use.