The implementation of an online

book club in a university EAP program

Chris Harwood, TESL Canada, Regina 2014

Reasons to experiment with Facebook in EAP

さTeaIhers may utilize Facebook as a way to foster their relationships with

studentsざ (Mazer, Murphy & Simonds, 2009, p181)

さOur results show possibilities for re-framing the activity [in Facebook] and

initiating extended spaces for language learning aIti┗itiesざ

(Lantz-Andersson, Vigmo, & Bowen, 2013, p.310)

さ“tudeﾐts began to express more opinions and give extended reasoning in

not only their face-to-faIe iﾐteraItioﾐs Hut also iﾐ their ┘ritteﾐ Ilass┘orkざ (Promnitz-Hayashi, 2011, p.315)

さThe need to manage large amounts of

content – typically content from reading –

is a primary requirement in academic

Ilassrooﾏs.ざ (Carrell & Carson, 1997)

Extensive reading

Extensive reading

Reads

faster

Understands

better

Reads

more

Enjoys

reading

Reads

slowly

Doesﾐげt enjoy

reading

Doesﾐげt read much

Doesﾐげt understand

Vicious

Circle

Virtuous

Circle

Nuttall, C., & Alderson, J. C. (1982)

Data collection

Facebook

Book

Club

Posts &

comments

Student

focus

group x 1

Student

survey x

60

Teacher

interviews

x 2

Facebook functionality

Facebook Comments

& Post

(editing)

Tagging &

Notifications

Seen by

Pinned

Posts The けlikeげ button

Upload &

share docs

Share

photos,

hyperlinks

etc.

Quiz

Questions

Participation & assessment

General:

E.g. quality,

frequency and

timeliness of

comments

Detailed: Specific

expectations

about how to

interact in

different weeks

throughout the

course

Questions types • Questions that encourages unique responses and collaboration

• Questions which enable students to make connections between

the text and their personal experiences

• Teacher posts images, video and audio links related to the

subject(s) in the book

• Questions that incorporate language learning and encourage

students to make connections between the text and what they

are learning in IFP

• Students ask and answer each others questions

Example question

• Chapter 27: While Jimmy is flying the

Dragonfly, he notes a peculiar sensation:

"Someone is walking over my grave." This is

a well-known idiom to describe how you

feel in a particular situation. What does it

mean and when have you felt this way?

Example Answer

I agree with Jane , Janice, and Jessica's opinion toward this idiom, but I want to say it is not just because Big Horn is dangerous. As Clarke write 'A feeling of foreboding, and, indeed, of physical as well as psychological discomfort, had come over him' I think the reason why he said that idiom is mainly because of his psychology. Sometimes when I stay at home alone at night, I will also feel the same way, because I will think what if there is a robber intrude in my house, what can I do? I will also recall the plot in horror movie, the more I combine myself with the character in the horror movie together, the more horror I will feel.

Reading

• 83% read for pleasure in first language

• 63% read Books

• 20% read eBooks

• 33% read PDFs

• 36% enjoyed reading the books in both terms

• 15% enjoyed reading the

book in the fall term

• 35% enjoyed reading the

book in the winter term

• 15% did not enjoy

reading in book club

Reading

さlast semester when I started to read there were

lots of ┘oヴds… kiﾐd of slang for me, I cannot find

the translation in the diItioﾐaヴ┞… I can just to

guess, and when I was ヴeadiﾐg like I didﾐ’t understand reading lots of words and I tried to

translate each word and understand the meaning

and it was really hard but this seﾏesteヴ… I also

tried to, not to pay attention on some difficult

words just to read the whole paragraph and kind

of understand the ﾏeaﾐiﾐg aﾐd… I feel like I can, I

really can read English and uﾐdeヴstaﾐd…ざ

Writing & Vocabulary

• 91% said their vocabulary knowledge improved.

• 81% said they used new vocabulary when writing comments.

• 89% said they used composition skills learned in class when writing in book club

• 61% said they practiced writing academic short answer questions in book club

Writing

さI aﾐs┘eヴed questions and I used the transition words like theヴefoヴe… foヴ eaIh ケuestioﾐ. I was explain it iﾐ details so that’s stヴuItuヴe, that’s what I learn from the writing course and I could make it clear for the relation between the each sentence and also… ﾏ┞ instructor he pressed me use the strategies, or I remember he said that I’ﾏ glad to see you getting improved or use strategies from the writing course and I think that’s a really good… ﾏ┞ answer more easy for you to read.ざ

Vocabulary

さlast seﾏesteヴ it’s ┗eヴ┞ haヴd to ヴead the Hook… there aヴe a lot of ┘oヴds I doﾐ’t kﾐo┘ e┝aItl┞ so I need to check on the dictionary so also it

sometimes like me, you need 30 minutes to

read like 3 or 4 pages - it’s very hard... and but

for this semester I tried to not to focus on the

details… just to uﾐdeヴstaﾐd and the idea of the

book. So, I try to ignore some words and try to

focus on the whole idea…ざ

Discussion conventions

• さI agヴee ┘ith ┘hat Fan We said aHout this aヴtiIle…ざ

• さI paヴtl┞ agヴee ┘ith ┘hat Julia said...ざ

• さI doﾐ't agヴee ┘ith this iﾏpliIatioﾐ…ざ

• さ“oヴヴ┞ foヴ aﾐs┘eヴ the ケuestioﾐ late… ふBus┞ ┘eekぶざ

• さYes ! I totally agree with you! Mario Totti . Also ,thank you interesting [answer] to my ケuestioﾐ…ざ

• さI have a similar opinion with Rita Lou. But in my opinion, is more about the background of the world...ざ

The teachers role

• (T) Excellent use of textual reference and original connection to real life, Eric Liu!

• (T) Nice answers, Sammy Li. You are really making an effort to use variety in your sentence structure.

• (T) "instilling the importance of consumption ", great phrase choice Wendy Xu!

• (S) Thank you Chris Harwood

• (T) Thoughtful comments

Polly Cao

• (T) Hobbit ? Veronica Chang??

• (S) I'm soooo sorry. It should be hobby.

• (T) Clive, that's not far enough in Annie's past for this question

• (T) Interesting, Sophie Xi Who decides who can and can't become an alpha?

Challenges

Book choice

Student-student interaction

Assessment

Participation

Participation

25% did not participate Grade 0

19% participated occasionally Grade 0.5-1.5

15% participated often Grade 2

11 % participated most weeks Grade 2.5

30% participated every week Grade 3

Book Choice

• さI ┘ould Ihaﾐge the faIt that the iﾐstヴuItoヴs choose the books for us. I know that we have

the opportunity to choose between a list of

books, however, those books were already

chosen by instructors. I would prefer instead

that studeﾐts gi┗e theiヴ optioﾐs fiヴst.ざ

Student-student interaction

• さI would like to have more interaction with

the members in the group, rather than only

answering the questions.ざ

Final words

• さMy experience in book club was one of the

best ones. Therefore, I would not make any

change to it. Reading and writing are two skills

that are greatly developed when reading a

book. Hence, participating in book club helped

me to improve my grammar and vocabulary.

Now, I am capable of performing my academic

activities with more accuracy and in a shorter

amount of time than before.ざ

References

• Lantz-Andersson, A., Vigmo, S., & Bowen, R. (2013). Crossing boundaries in FaIeHook: “tudeﾐtsげ fraﾏiﾐg of laﾐguage learﾐiﾐg aIti┗ities as exteﾐded spaces. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 8(3), 293-312.

• Nuttall, C., & Alderson, J. C. (1982). Teaching reading skills in a foreign language. London: Heinemann educational books.

• Promnitz-Hayashi, Lara. "A Learning Success Story Using Facebook." Studies in Self-Access Learning Journal 2.4 (2011).

• Mazer, J. P., Murphy, R. E., & Simonds, C. J. (2007). I'll see you on さFaIeHookざ: The effeIts of Ioﾏputer-mediated teacher self-disclosure on student motivation, affective learning, and classroom climate. Communication Education, 56(1), 1-17.

Questions please

chris.harwood@mail.utoronto.ca

chrisharwood@animakuri