The Experience of a Newcomer: Extensive Reading Program Setup – From Zero to 5,000 Readers

In Thailand, implementing an extensive reading program at a university level is relatively new, especially with an online library integration. This presentation focuses on the extensive reading program implementation using the Xreading virtual library at a large public university in Bangkok. The steps taken, the challenges faced, and the lessons learned will be discussed.

Experiencing ER in Thailand

Extensive Reading has yet to gain popular support in Thailand and is not widely implemented at the high school level. This presentation will describe the realities of setting up, running, and managing an Extensive Reading Project and integrating it into the curriculum to form a fundamental base in the instruction of English. After 5 years we will demonstrate the scores our students achieve in comparison to other Thai schools in the national O-Net tests, and progression over the years through the annual Oxford Online Placement Test that students take. We will conduct a survey about student attitude toward reading at the end of July 2021 just before the conference to give an up-to-date reflection from students about their feelings toward reading in general and extensive reading in particular. There will also be a reflection from teachers about implementing XReading as a tool when the COVID pandemic forced a move away from physical copies of books and the use of the MReader website.

If not now, when? It’s Thailand’s turn to be on the extensive reading map!

We are well aware that providing opportunities to our students to read extensively for pleasure can help them develop their language proficiency. It is, however, quite unfortunate that such an awareness is rather limited to only a few groups of teachers. So far in Thailand, the implementation of ER programs has been an individual teachers’ effort. It is likely that the existence and continuation of ER will remain at the individual teachers’ level as long as there is no official association or organization that consistently promotes ER throughout the country, and gathers ER advocates to help push ER to be integrated as part of the formal curriculum throughout Thailand. Although several attempts to convince university lecturers to form an official affiliate in Thailand have been made, up to now an ER association has not been set up. However, this is going to change. In this presentation, we will unveil the vision of the soon-to-be Thailand Extensive Reading Association (TERA) and invite ideas from the audience on how to build interest in ER in Thailand.