A talk for The Japanese Association for Studies in English Communication (JASEC), The Twenty-ninth Annual Convention (online Zoom convention), October 17, 2020.

In this talk, I claim that humans are naturally wired for story. We find story more comprehensible, memorable, and compelling than non-story. And though story may be the language teacher’s oldest tool, we can clarify and simplify how we define story. And with the clear and simple sense of story, we can work to weave it more deeply into every strand of language education — making all our language teaching — more story-centric.

Language teachers may easily weave story into input, output, and fluency activities, but grammar and form-focused activities present a more difficult challenge because we usually teach grammar simply by focusing on the nuts and bolts of language. Thus, in this talk I introduce a few ways that we can infuse story into the teaching of linguistics forms.

Click here for a PDF of the talk.

Nudges encourage behaviors without mandating them. Using nudge theory, teachers can create a “choice architecture” to encourage students to read more and more honestly. Presenters compare nudges versus mandates in ER. We give numerous examples of ER nudges and suggest ways to research nudge theory to promote extensive reading.

A Paper Presented at The Fifth World Congress on Extensive Reading, Feng Chia University August 9-12, 2019. By Joseph Poulshock, Senshu University; Douglas Forster, Japan Women’s University

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AI may solve problems we face when doing extensive listening. The cloud service Amazon Polly “converts text into life-like speech.” We show how teachers can use Amazon Polly, and we summarize a pilot research project that compares student responses to a human voice and Amazon Polly’s AI voice.

A Paper Presented at The Fifth World Congress on Extensive Reading, Feng Chia University August 9-12, 2019. By Joseph Poulshock, Senshu University; Douglas Forster, Japan Women’s University

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We gave a brief panel talk about ReadOasis at the The Sixth Annual Conference on Global Higher Education at Lakeland University, Japan. It’s a great conference! We enjoyed the presentations by the other panel members: Mark Feeley, from Lakeland University, gave a talk entitled “Improving Academic Literacy.” And Christopher Tempest, from Sojo University, talked about: “Implementing Quizlet in a Japanese EFL University.” We also enjoyed the atmosphere at Lakeland — very friendly and pleasant!

We wish to thank everyone who attended our talk. — Joseph Poulshock & Douglas Forster

By Doug Forster and Joseph Poulshock

We present a simple framework for our students to think about motivation. Students (n = 249) responded to a questionnaire based on this framework regarding their aspirations to learn English. Students showed a much greater level of aspiration to learn English than teachers might generally expect.

For example, students responded on a scale of 1-10 to the statement “I want to learn English.” One equaled disagree, and 10 equaled agree. When asked about this question, teachers often predicted that 30-40% of students would rate their desire to learn at 8 or more. But the result was much higher. Eighty-one percent of the students rated their desire to learn at 8 or above, and 88% of the students rated their desire to learn at 7 or higher.

Other questions also revealed that students seem to have a higher motivation than teachers might expect. In the PDF, we summarize the results of each question in the questionnaire, and we draw some general conclusions regarding the results.

Abstract
Why should our students learn English? What motivates them to do so? How can we get them to become ASPIRERS who truly want to improve their English skills? The presenters will share an effective motivational lesson to help students reach their language goals more effectively based on seven good reasons for learning English using the acronym, ASPIRER.

Appeal: English stories and songs intrinsically appeal to you. Social: You want to socialize in English.
Professional: You need English professionally for work.
Individual: You want to improve your life and mind with English.
Required: You have to study English at work or school.
Educational: You want English for education or study abroad.
Results: Success (good results) with English motivates you.

Click here to download the PDF.