The Extensive Reading Foundation

The ERF has in its Board of Directors well-known educators, writers and academics who work in different countries around the world and who, along with their other professional activites, are committed to promote Extensive Reading among English language learners and teachers.
We will now bring you periodically a short report on our Board Members' activities and we hope this will help you to get in touch with them and engage with their initiatives in your own corner of the world.

Our first activities report comes from Alan Maley,

'I seem to have been getting involved with ER in several ways in past months. Here are some of my ER activities:

- I was guest writer for the British Council/BBC 'Teaching English' website for the month of December 2009 . One of the two full-length articles I posted was on ER, and this gave rise to some good discussion.

- In 2009 I published a Level 6 Reader for the Cambridge English Readers series: 'The Best of Times?' It is set in Malaysia and is mainly about a teenage boy growing up in a broken family.

- I have continued to write a regular column for English Teaching Professional, entitled 'Over the Wall'. The intention is to remind teachers of the importance of wide reading to keep themselves in trim. The latest article deals with books on the theme of immigration and its effects on language.

- I am currently working on a revision of a Level 4 Reader for the Cambridge English Readers series: 'Happy Families'. It is set in England and deals with the problem of Alzheimer's and family conflict.

- I have continued, with my Malaysian colleague (and fellow Board member of ERF) Jayakaran Mukundan, to coordinate Creative Writing workshops in Asia. Our last workshop was in Jakarta and the next, in October, will be in Nepal. meantime Jaya and I have run smaller events for specific countries in Oman and Cambodia. One of the outcomes from these workshops is to produce ER materials for students in the countries from which our regular workshop group members are drawn. Pearson Malaysia publishes our work.

- In the context of the ERF, I am currently coordinating a group to launch the 'John Milne Innovation Awards scheme.' The intention is to publicise innovative work in ER."

Best,

Alan'