Thomas E Bieri
About
I am based in Nagoya, Japan, where I am an Associate Professor at Nanzan University responsible for overseeing the Business English Program in the Department of Business Administration as well as Deputy Director of the Center for International Affairs. I am currently Chair of the TESOL Assoc. Reading and Vocabulary Interest Section, I was the Coordinator of the JALT Extensive Reading SIG for several years, and I have held several other volunteer and elected positions in language teaching professional organizations, conferences and publications. My undergraduate degree was in Women's Studies and I have MAs in Applied Linguistics and Educational Technology.Sessions
College and University Learners' Materials Selection Methods and Criteria in Xreading more
Extensive reading researchers have previously identified a number of factors used in selecting texts, including difficulty level (Nation and Waring, 2020; Takase, 2007), length (Nishizawa, et al., 2010; Robb and Kano, 2013), personal interests (Yamashita, 2013), and initial impression of the cover and title (Bamford and Day, 2004). This research identified methods and information learners use within Xreading. A convenience sample of 32 university students in Japan required to use Xreading were surveyed anonymously. An equal percentage of responses indicated always using the filtering function as those always simply scrolling through the automated offerings (34% each), while 19% indicated always using the search feature. Further details, including results regarding use frequency for all filtering categories and perceived usefulness of all types of information available in each book's description will be presented and discussed. Implications for how instructors guide students in selecting materials and related research possibilities will also be discussed.
All Levels 'The kind of girl who eats pizza': Gender Representation in Graded Readers more
Research into the pedagogical benefits of Extensive Reading has bloomed in the last decade, yet socio-cultural content of ER materials has not received similar attention. While there is a significant body of literature related to gender in ELT textbooks, research into gender representation in English-language graded readers is nearly non-existent. The presenters worked to address this gap through a collaborative, two-pronged study of English graded readers. A set of narrative fiction readers and another of non-fiction readers, including titles from several publishers, were selected while considering relevance in the researchers' teaching context. The researchers examined and coded the visual and textual content in the selected readers for gendered representations and used content analysis to build a description of each set, then compared and contrasted the respective data. This session will present the findings in detail, explore the implications for instructors and ER programs, and note further avenues for related research.
