A commonly-held belief is that many university students are 'assessment-driven'; that is, students engage more with activities that are assessed compared with those that are not. 'Incentivised engagement' includes the practice of providing incentives (such as marks or otherwise) for students to engage in particular activities. Perusall is a social…

The purpose of the study was to examine (a) students' social annotation behaviors and engagement change in an undergraduate course throughout the semester, and (b) which social annotation behaviors impact active engagement time. A total of 91 university students' social annotation behaviors, as well as their active engagement time in readings,…

This article examines the effect of Jim Kay's illustrations on the experience of reading "A Monster Calls" by Patrick Ness. The author compares the responses of six Key Stage Three children (11-14 years old), three of whom were given an illustrated version of the text, and three a non-illustrated version. The children with an illustrated…

As New South Wales (NSW) bids farewell to the 2009-2014 Area of Study concept "Belonging", this article summarises some critical reflections from English teachers on the main pedagogical issues encountered when using prescribed texts to teach "Belonging" to both the Standard and Advanced English courses in contemporary…

Active learning is increasingly promoted within institutions of higher education to assist students develop higher order thinking and link knowledge to meaning. In this paper, the authors evaluate the use of weekly online quizzes based on prescribed preparatory material as a tool to incentivize preparatory reading in order to enable and encourage…

This article reports on a principle-based evaluation of eight dedicated extensive reading coursebooks published in mainland China and used in many universities across the country. The aim is to determine the extent to which these coursebooks reflect a core set of nine second language acquisition and extensive reading principles. Our analysis shows…

At the Danish University School of Education we have experimented with a form of assessment called "active participation". A week before each class students are given reading guidelines and questions to help them approach the texts, and on the basis of one of those questions the students each write a two-page essay. The students are…

Access to the textual world of academia requires that learners are familiar with the critical open-ended questioning stance demanded by textuality. Anecdotal evidence suggests that learners registered for the Bachelor of Education Honours degree are unable to generate appropriate questions to interrogate academic text, impacting on their ability…

Using a reading lesson designed for advanced university students in Brazil, the author discusses different types of exercises that can help students become more active readers and be more critical about the reading materials. The author distinguishes between passive and active reading tasks and argues that active tasks are more beneficial because…