Paul Sevigny, PhD
Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University
As a senior lecturer I teach EFL courses and coordinate programs. I study literary discussion of ER-based texts. I am currently supported by a JSPS grant for the development of bilingual graded readers and discussion methods.
Sessions
Bilingual graded readers, literature circles, and identities
Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University is a dual-language university where half the students are domestic Japanese and the other half are international students. This presentation introduces examples of discourse in international-domestic bilingual discussion of an interlinear bilingual graded reader. Examples of text and resulting bilingual discussions aim to exemplify some affordances that bilingual texts offer learners in text-based exchange discussions in Japan. The study takes a discourse analytic approach (Gee, 1999) to investigating the ways the participants move from attempted interpretation of micro-level linguistic elements in the text to negotiating and constructing connections and interpretations of their lives and worlds.