Kitakyushu JALT Meeting Reports: Archive for 2003
Our meeting reports archive contains reports of our meetings from 1999 to June 2008.
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22 February 2003
Cathy Purucker, Kurt Purucker, and Rachel Hoskins of the Covenant Players
English Language Communication Program
Stressing that they were actors rather than teachers, the three members of the non-profit California-based Covenant Players stressed that teaching English involved teaching a culture and advocated drama as a way of breaking down inhibitions and building up speaking confidence. They outlined seven basic principles of drama (projection, diction, body control, body movement, eye-to-eye contact, owning one's lines, and characterization) and proceeded to demonstrate various classroom activities associated with the first five, such as speaking with a pencil between one's teeth to raise awareness of tongue position for certain sounds and to stretch facial muscles. The final activity, entitled Michelangelo,involved one student silently molding clay (three other students) to illustrate a secret word which the rest of the class subsequently tried to guess.
Reported by Margaret Orleans
8 March 2003
Roger Fusselman
Cognitive Teaching Techniques
Reciprocating the presentation in Pusan by our Kitakyushu JALT member, KOTESL sponsored their Roger Fusselman to talk to us about his research into educational philosophy and to share some of the ELT materials he has developed.
The 'Objectivist Epistemology' of Ayn Rand (1990) was compared (favourably) with Howard Gardner's theory of 'Multiple Intelligences' and some ideas from it were incorporated into flash card design and TPR-style activities for grammar and pronunciation instruction by the speaker. These were packaged for us into a hefty handout, including samples and extra material to provide some basis and background for what we teach, integrated with ideas of how to go about it. The 'Five Essential Building Blocks of Cognition', identified as Differentiation, Integration, Abstraction from Abstractions, Concretisation and Unit-Economy, were first presented as examples applied to language and then applied to teaching.
While the theoretical background may have been a bit inaccessible for some of us, Fusselman certainly produced a plethora of teaching ideas from it. We all got something to take home, though not without a price. The 'Language and Pedagogy Integration Worksheet' part of the handout requires the reader to do some hard thinking about 'connections between the mind, the English language, and classroom techniques.'
Reported by Dave Pite
12 April 2003
Woody Hodgson
Japan Language System (JLS) PHONE PASS
Warning us from the onset of his presentation that he was a salesman, Woody Hodgson explained and demonstrated the "Phone Pass" testing system which his company, Japan Language System, has recently begun promoting to the EFL teaching market. He began with some pie-charts showing a rather slim slice of speaking proficiency testing currently available and the observation that language skill testing often does not match actual usage. In fact, high TOEIC scores could correspond to low speaking ability as a result of the emphasis upon writing in its tests. However, Hodgson pointed out, Phone Pass scores do tend to correlate closely with TOEIC scores.
One of our Japanese members agreed to be put on the spot, to take the ten minute oral test by telephone while the rest of us observed. We listened in as he was asked in recorded English to repeat statements, order jumbled sentences and answer questions. Responding within a time limit, his excellent results were evaluated by computer and available on-line an hour later.
Off-setting the high cost of this testing, a major advantage is its 24/7 availability, as well as ease of use and efficiency of processing-- though monitoring for examination purposes remains a problem. Another drawback pointed out was that the test had been designed for employees of international companies. In its present format it appeared too difficult for even the upper level college students our members are teaching.
Reported by Dave Pite
10 May 2003
Various (Moderator: Nigel Stott)
Kitakyushu JALT My Share: Web Resources for Wired Teachers
May’s meeting focused on web resources for teachers.
The first presenter introduced Hot Potatoes, a suite that includes six applications, enabling users to easily create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering, and gap-fill exercises for the World Wide Web. This is available for Windows and Macintosh machines (currently there is no OS X version, though it works fine in Classic mode), and can be used for free by non-profit educational institutions. If you’re using Hot Potatoes, it’s worth checking the finished pages in a variety of browsers as results vary. One nice option, if your provider has a FormMail CGI script installed, is that you can get the results of some tasks emailed to you—useful for checking student progress.
Nigel, evening moderator and second presenter, focused on demonstrating a solid list of EFL resources available online. Most attendees knew many of the sites, but every one of us came away with something we hadn’t seen before. First on the list was Google , with particular focus on the Images tab in the opening menu—an excellent place to find graphic and pictorial resources.
Next up was Dave’s ESL Café —as Nigel stated, “This site has everything! The first place to look for ESL-related stuff.” For translation of text or websites, he recommended Babel Fish Online Translation , though there are many others available. Most search engines have similar services.
If you’re looking for articles, lesson plans, or grammar quizzes (and much more), the Internet TESL Journal has a huge resource available. This well-maintained site is very fast and reliable—welcome news for teachers who have planned an Internet lesson, only to find their resources have disappeared overnight! Another excellent resource is the BBC and British Council Teaching English site
The ever-popular Randall’s ESL Cyber Listening Lab is a fun and well-made site; very useful for teachers wanting to give their students extended listening practice.
Finally, Nigel introduced the online National Public Radio, which has extensive audio archives of USA news, information, and discussions. Most of the material is very high-level, so is probably most suited to advanced-level classes or as a teacher resource.
Next up was Peg with what was arguably the gem of the evening. The Plumb Design Visual Thesaurus is better experienced than described. All I can say is that if you ever wanted a very graphic method of illustrating the relationships between words, this is a jaw dropper! Please take a moment and try it out. It is available as a downloadable standalone player ($39.95) for Windows (98 or higher) and Macintosh (OS X), or as a free online service.
She also introduced SelfAccess, which builds lessons from Reuter’s news articles, and the British National Corpus, a self-described “unique snapshot of the English language, presented in a way that makes possible almost any kind of computer-based research on the nature of the language.”
Lastly she presented Surfing the Net with Kids, particularly recommending Barbara Feldman’s weekly newsletter, not just as a resource for teachers in Japan, but for our children as well.
The last presenter of the evening, Dave, introduced an activity for finding key vocabulary words used in class in song titles by using Napster-like Limewire. “What I do is write the part of speech I want the class to practice, such as ‘going to’, ‘has been’, ‘if you ever,’ etc. and get lots of songs that include those words in the titles.”
Reported by Malcolm Swanson
14 June 2003
John Small
Putting Words in their Mouths: Shadowing, Summarizing & Dictagloss
Small described and demonstrated three language teaching activities, beginning with shadowing, a process in which the speaker pauses after reading a ‘manageable chunk’ of English prose and having students repeat it, first out loud and then silently to themselves. Initially the teacher models the activity with all the students and then they practice in pairs. The next step is to summarize what the speaker said, switching to reported speech from simple repetition.
Dictagloss has many variations. One is dictating a prepared narrative at a speed which prevents students from writing more than about 80 per cent of it, encouraging collaboration with partners. Another is having partners repeat the dictation as they hear it and try to write it. Students can also be told to imagine the teacher is a tape recorder and tell it to “Stop. Go back to ....” This could include a rule that each student gets just one chance to say “stop”. “Cloze dictation” has missing words replaced by the teacher saying “beep” which the students note as blank spaces and fill in later.
Having authored some truly inspiring (global issues) teaching materials
Reported by Dave Pite
12 July 2003
Margaret Orleans & Dennis Woolbright
Lateral Thinking: Jumping the Tracks
Margaret Orleans introduced lateral thinking with 'shooting questions' (which are the type of question used to check on an expected answer) and 'fishing questions' (for investigating a new idea) via games we tried in small groups.
Dennis Woolbright followed with definitions and elaborations on the concept of lateral thinking as an approach to problem solving which tweaks established patterns of cognition towards new points of view and ways of doing things.
They then guided us through a series of exercises for using lateral thinking in the classroom. An example was to introduce an "impossible statement" about some aspect of language teaching, plus a totally different concept which was then imaginatively manipulated to solve the problem.
The Six Hats Game is a way to perceive a problem from perspectives of optimism, pessimism, creativity, passion, information and management-- represented by a different colored paper hat worn by the person with the idea.
Participation and discussion was animated among the twenty-odd members present, which extended the meeting later than usual.
Reported by Dave Pite
26 July 2003
John F. Fanselow
I've Got a Problem
In his low-key, discussion-oriented presentation, John Fanselow took a very practical approach to the teaching of vocabulary. He argued that language is essentially a guessing game and that by teaching words in isolation teachers are removing the built-in redundancy that helps even native speakers understand the words that are being used.
Research shows that when teachers isolate words from a reading text in order to pre-teach them, they often teach different definitions and usage for those words. Fanselow suggested that a more productive and engaging approach would be to blank out the words that the students are not likely to know and to let them process the text. They can then work out what kind of word will fit in the blanks (parts of speech, for example—though it is not necessary to use formal terms) and even illustrate the information or ideas contained in the reading. The teacher's role is to help students reduce ambiguity with a series of questions and to encourage students to guess at the missing words.
Reported by Margaret Orleans
12 October 2003
Christopher Chase
The Learner-Centered Revolution
Focusing on the question of “How can we make our students comfortable with real English language materials and motivate them to independently spend time to improve their skills?”, Christopher Chase shared various techniques he uses in his classes.
Chase began his presentation by reviewing how language is naturally acquired-- and provided some examples of his children's strategies. Noting that language acquisition relies on the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, he stressed that the most important thing is practice. Then he described and showed several ways that he uses his imaginative artistic talent to encourage that practice in learners, often encouraging us in the audience to discuss in small groups how to make classes more learner centred and give initiative back to the students. His own classes include organising student presentations, enacting role plays, rewriting scenes from movies, writing dialogues, singing and discussing songs. Everyone left the meeting with plenty of handouts and ideas.
Reported by Dave Pite
8 November 2003
Nigel Stott & Chris Storey
Building Better Dialogues
To liven up the standard (too short) repetition and practice of textbook model conversations in English class-- and include some interest and originality, Stott and Storey have designed a system where students create, practice and perform their own dialogues after intensely studying models. The class is organised so that several groups can perform simultaneously, observed by other groups between performances and evaluated by the teacher. Popular themes include Meeting People and Talking About Ourselves, Experiences, Future Plans and Opinions-- more relevant than the usual fare.
After listening to a conversation on cassette and trying to write down as much of it as possible from memory, we participants (as students) formed pairs, worked out dialogues (on the theme of “My Most Embarrassing Moment”), acted them out and then reflected as a group on the process. (One very positive dynamic of this kind of assignment is the encouragement it offers students to do homework, prepare for acting in front of their peers.)
A detailed handout with diagrams outlining the eight stages of preparation and performance in both language laboratory and normal classroom was used to focus the concluding discussion of a very interesting evening.
Reported by Dave Pite
13 December 2003
Mike Guest
Creative and Productive Testing
The basic premise of this presentation was that classroom tests should serve an educational function as well as an administrative one, bearing in mind that they are just one aspect of student evaluation.
After eliciting some reasons and methods for language testing from members of the audience, Mike Guest described features of the four types; placement, proficiency, diagnostic and achievement-- noting that achievement tests should contain diagnostic elements.
He then gave examples of creative testing, elaborating upon ideas of what should be examined and how it might be done. Tests should be a comprehensive overview of materials taught and include both receptive and productive items, discrete and open-ended. They should not only check memory-- open-book and open-resource tests are also valuable. The “recognition” aspect of memory is just one (often overrated) learning skill. It is also appropriate to test critical and creative thinking, problem-solving, hypothesis making, organisation/order, rhetorical patterns, sociolinguistic factors, research etc. in order to address the various types of learners and learning styles. Previews and recycled tests are useful as are included homework items. Guest suggested that students might make their own, pointing out that the tests do belong to the students.
As a result of constant recycling and contextual and connected use of key items during testing and in class, students should have better retention and higher scores, as well as improved performance in projects and tasks.
Reported by Dave Pite
