It's always so exciting when former BIG BOW English Lab students come to visit us. Last week, one student came to see us after almost a year at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles). Now that she's back in Japan, she'll return to Tokyo to finish her degree at ICU (International Christian University). She had a great experience at UCLA and I was glad to hear that she appreciated the award-winning novels we read in class, especially The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.

The JALT International Conference will be held in Nagoya this year. Last year, I had an in-depth conversation with Dr. Willy Renandya about a new idea called "supportive extensive reading". Supported extensive reading is a way to get young learners started on extensive reading by doing shared reading activities in the classroom. After doing some research on this topic, I submitted it to the conference and it was accepted! My presentation is on November 22 at 1:10 p.m.

Soon after, I was pleased to find out that Dr. Renandya was chosen as the Asian Scholar Plenary Speaker for this conference. Last week, I interviewed him and it was just uploaded to YouTube. He has taught about TESOL at universities across Asia, and I think those of us in Japan can learn a lot from him.