Hi, my name is Liana Kerr. I’m 29 years old and live in Tacoma, Washington with my husband Brian Kerr and our two cats. I work as a rater for the writing portion of the TOEFL iBT, and when I’m not studying Japanese, I’m often drawing paper dolls, playing video games, cooking or watching movies. I volunteer at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium doing miscellaneous office work (and not feeding the polar bears, don’t get the wrong idea), and I’ve recently started organizing the Tacoma Japanese Language and Culture Meetup Group.

I studied Japanese for three years in college, but studied and used the language only intermittently for several years after I graduated. I’ve been interested in extensive reading, or tadoku (多読) since some of my friends on Lang-8 told me about their experiences with it in late 2009; I started trying to do extensive reading in spring of 2010, but I started focusing on it (and finally stopped using the dictionary) around the end of the same year, a few months after we moved to Tacoma. I follow the guidelines my friends use, loosely translated from Kunihide Sakai’s tadoku.org:

1. Don’t look up words in the dictionary.
2. Skip over parts you don’t understand.
3. If you aren’t enjoying one book, toss it aside and get another.

My goals are to read a million words, to read all of the Japanese children’s books in the Tacoma library system and to read my copy of 三国志. I hope to someday be able to read Japanese as quickly as I can read English. I also consider extensive reading one of the most valuable methods of language learning I’ve ever come across, so I hope to help others who are learning Japanese and may be interested in extensive reading.

I have a M.A. in Teaching English as a Second Language from Eastern Michigan University and am fascinated by the process of language learning, so I hope to use this blog to describe and categorize books that should be helpful to extensive readers learning Japanese, summarize and discuss papers having to do with extensive reading, particularly as it relates to Japanese, and describe my own experience as a language learner.

Feel free to about anything having to do with extensive reading, Japanese or language learning!

 

8 Responses to About Liana

  1. さかい@tadoku.org says:
    May 30, 2011 at 6:46 pm

    新しいプロフィールを読みました。

    多読三原則のことを書いてくださって、ありがとうございました。
    お役に立ったようで、うれしいです。
    そしてほかの日本語を勉強している人にも知らせてくださるとのこと、
    とってもうれしいです。

    これからも、一緒にお互いの言葉を楽しみましょう！

    Reply
  2. Liana says:
    May 31, 2011 at 6:09 pm

    さかいさん、コメントをありがとうございます！
    たいてい、多読について英語で書かれたブログや記事などは多くの言葉で基礎を説明しているような気がします。
    このブログも含めています（^^）
    でも、多読三原則を初めて見た時、その単純さこそに引かれました。
    私はすごく頑固なので、多読の前の暗い頃、本を読もうとすると知らない言葉を全部辞書に引いて、意味が分からないところに集中して、
    諦めたいと思った時も我慢して続けました。
    そのような苦労には必要がないと日本語を勉強している人々に伝えたいと思います。

    さかいさんはいつも多読を応援していますから、本当に感謝しています。
    これからもtwitterで楽しいことについてたくさん話しましょう ♪

    Reply
  3. Koyami Tulley says:
    June 10, 2011 at 3:31 am

    Hello Liana,
    I just happened upon your site and was very surprised to find a link to my blog here. Thank you very much! I checked out some posts and they have changed how I approach extensive reading. I have added a link to your blog to my site as well. Good luck on your journey to fluency!

    Reply
  4. Liana says:
    June 10, 2011 at 4:44 pm

    Hi Koyami,
    Thanks for linking to me! ^^ I’d be interested to hear how the changes you make affect your progress — I hope you write about it by and by! Good luck to you too :)

    Reply
  5. Bob says:
    July 3, 2011 at 5:44 am

    Lianna, Thank you for putting this blog together. I looks like an excellent resource for all levels. Being able to find different levels of books online is very helpful.

    Reply
  6. Liana says:
    July 4, 2011 at 3:40 pm

    Thank you, I hope you find it helpful! ^^

    Reply
  7. さかい@tadoku.org says:
    July 29, 2011 at 3:35 am

    1) Why Japanese teachers of English are the hardest to convince about the merits of tadoku.

    This is a big topic which would need a few thousand words if discussed in full, so let me just enumerate some of the problems teachers have with tadoku.

    * Teachers of English are the hardest nuts to crack because they have semi-instinctive resistance to tadoku, which is against everything they have believed in all along: use of a dictionary, translation into Japanese, vocab building through sheer memorization, focus on grammar, evaluation by tests and exams, among other things.
    * They think they are proficient in English thanks to the conventional methods described above, and they expect their students to follow their own steps. We all know the kind of disaster that results, don’t we?
    * Most teachers blame students for not achieving the proficiency they think they themselves have reached. Very few think that it’s not the students but the conventional methods that are at fault.
    * So, tadoku is only accepted by teachers who have tried everything in their arsenal and have seen no visible improvement in their students.

    Liana, do send me further questions re my answers above, ok?

    Answers to your other questions will follow.

    Reply
  8. Liana says:
    August 13, 2011 at 7:14 pm

    I just realized you posted this on the “about liana” page and not on the interview, so I added it to the interview itself. Thank you for answering! :)

    Reply

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