Institute for Applied Language Studies
The University of Edinburgh Institute for Applied Language Studies

Postgraduate Study & Research

The Edinburgh Project on Extensive Reading (EPER)

What is EPER?
It is a non-profit making research and development project set up in 1981 by IALS in the University of Edinburgh.
We seek to promote the systematic use of graded readers within an extensive reading programme that forms an integral part of the ELT syllabus.

Reading a bookWhat do we do?
1. We maintain a library and database of all graded readers published in the UK. We assess the quality of each title on a 5-point scale, and classify its difficulty on an 8-level scale.
2. We advise publishers on the production and development of their series of graded readers.
3. We supervise postgraduate students who wish to study an aspect of extensive reading within their course.
4. We give help and advice to individual teachers, ministries of education and educational organisations who want to set up a reading programme.
5. We publish our own materials to support individual and class use of graded readers.

Who works for EPERDavid Hill
David R Hill directs the project. He taught English in secondary schools in Uganda, the UK and Malaysia before joining IALS in 1981. As Project Director he has given talks and led workshops in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, Brunei, the Maldives, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Spain, Argentina and the UK, and corresponded with teachers and education officials in many other countries including New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, Korea, China, India, Jordan, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Namibia, South Africa, Chile, Mexico, USA, Canada, Norway, Poland, Russia, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Czech Republic, France and the UK.

See also EPER-style reading programmes and support materials. For further information please contact David Hill: eper.enquiries@ed.ac.uk

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IALS
University of Edinburgh
21 Hill Place
Edinburgh
EH8 9DP
Scotland

Telephone: +44 (0)131 650 6200
Fax: +44 (0)131 667 5927
Email: ials.enquiries@ed.ac.uk