In this presentation, I will present three reasons for the necessity of developing and publishing our own pre-extensive reading materials for tertiary-level EFL classrooms. The first is that, while some reading material is commercially available, much of it fails to include word count per page. The second is that characters who are described as being the same age as the target audience of readers are often missing from such materials. A third reason is that few books for this audience are short-story collections, which are suitable for gaining extensive reading habits. Books with these features enable beginning readers to experience two core principles of extensive reading, namely reading quickly and reading for pleasure. As the author of two pre-extensive reading materials, I will also provide useful tips for developing and publishing pre-extensive reading materials.

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers across the whole world had to take urgent action to effect a rapid transformation. The purpose of this presentation is to reflect on the resultant virtual teaching practices, focusing on how secondary school EFL teachers enhanced their skills of navigating and managing both themselves and the learners using innovative approaches. While putting forth an effort to avoid panic and embrace pedagogy at the same time, the teachers were able not only to manage but also to motivate and regulate virtual teaching environments for a sustainable change that later resulted in high performance and engagement of both teachers and learners. This practice-based observational study paves the way for future studies to highlight the needs of online teachers’ professional development supported by digital tools and technological aids. Some examples of effective and interactive online resources and web tools applied on the Zoom platform will also be shared.

This study explored how vocabulary may affect responses from second language (L2) English users who completed Vandergrift’s Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ). Six participants (N=6, low-intermediate to advanced L2 English learners) from varied educational and professional backgrounds were recruited for this study. Participants were instructed to complete the MALQ and use textual enhancements to indicate the degree of familiarity with new or infrequently-viewed words and phrases. Participants were also instructed to write notes regarding any unknown vocabulary expressions. After collecting the participants’ data, the researcher engaged in individual confirmation checks. The researcher entered the statements presented on the MALQ into the Compleat Lexical Tutor to determine word families. The results indicated that multi-word expressions and vocabulary from the 3000-word family range and higher influenced responses. Furthermore, this study reinforced the necessity of teaching secondary and tertiary word meanings, teaching vocabulary as multi-word units, and simplifying the language used on surveys.