Past Events

Picture Books, Storytelling and Imaginative Learning
by Patricia Daly Oe

In this presentation author and teacher, Patricia Daly Oe, discussed the value of using picture books and storytelling when teaching English to children. Following on from this, she showed practical examples of how to use picture books and storytelling techniques in small and large classes and for a range of linguistic levels. Themes covered included: using stories for vocabulary development, creative activities inspired by picture books, rhythm and rhyme, making your own picture stories (students and teachers), famous Japanese stories in English and using stories for special events such as Halloween, Christmas or school performances. Ms. Daly used many examples of books by a number of different authors as well as her own materials and interactive activities to illustrate her talk.

Read Masa Tsunayasu's report on this event...

Native English Teachers: Ideas for Self Introductions
by Irina Babanova

An important problem in early foreign language teaching is what a foreign language is for the children themselves. Unless they live near a border or in a place attracting foreign workers or tourists, or holidays abroad, it is difficult for young children to grasp the reality of people who speak another language. One of the first steps in reducing the strangeness of a language is the self-introduction, letting students know something about us, their teachers, our country and culture. It is important for teachers to get students to trust them from the very beggining. Ms. Babanova demonstrated a self introduction lesson, giving practical ideas for first lessons at schools with young learners.

Read Masa Tsunayasu's report on this event...

June 2007

My Share

The Art of teaching: Applying Creativity
by Ricardo Luna

This presentation examined creating customized activities. Creativity can be broken down to 8 steps: connect, relate, experience, analyze, transform, and explore. It is not necessary to be creative to create.

Encouraging Active Listening
by Masa Tsuneyasu

This presenation demonstrated practical techniques for improving student listening.

Improve your language skills, using pictures
by Chikahiko Okada

We are surrounded by good pictures in books, newspapers, magazines, cataloges, and brochures. This presentation showed how to make use of them for learning foreign languages.

Algorithm March
by Abdel Ibrahim

This presentation demonstrated how to use translations of popular childrens song lyrics and TPR to help young learners understand stress timing in spoken English.

Effective Classroom Organization for Large Communication Classes
by Leander Hughes

This presentation explored new ways of organizing classrooms to optimize the effectiveness of one's communication lessons. Some issues discussed included how to arrange desks to maximize the amount of attention each student recieves from the teacher and how to quickly and efficiently move and group students for communication activities.

May 2007

Extensive Reading: Indispensable... but how do you do it?
by Richard Ascough and Daniel Stewart

Extensive reading(ER) is becoming more and more popular in Japan. A few years ago many people agreed it was a good idea to have students do ER. Now, ER Guru Rob Waring, calls ER "a completely indispensable part of any language program, if not all language programs" (Waring, 2006). The speakers for this presentation agreed.

This presentation started with a brief introduction to ER before showing how ER is done at Kaisei Academy in Tokyo. The presentation then went on to show the nuts and bolts of setting up a programme and how to get the most out of existing programmes.

Daniel Stewart is Head Foreign Teacher at Kaisei Academy and Director of the ER programme. He has set up and run ER programmes at the junior high, senior high and university level.

Richard Ascough has been teaching in the ER programme at Kaisei and was instrumental in incorporating drama into the programme. This has proved to be an extremely successful and popular activity. He is a full-time teacher at Wayo University and teaches part-time at Aoyama Gakuin University.

Read Masa Tsunayasu's report on this event...

April 2007

Who Puts the Play in the Role-play?
by Mitch Goodman

The presenter gave a short background narrative showing what has led him to the extensive use of role-play in the classroom. Discussions covered what a role-play is, and its applicability to diverse language learning objectives. Some other issues discussed included difficulties that teachers and students might have in using role-play effectively, its various manifestations in textbooks, its place in a curriculum, and how to evaluate it. Participants also had a chance to try out some role-play learning techniques, as well as watch some videos of the presenter's students in action. The structural, multi-intelligent, dramatic, and motivational aspects of using role-play were the focal points of interest in this presentation. At the conclusion, participants contemplated the answer to the presentation title, Who puts the play in the role-play?

Read Masa Tsunayasu's report on this event...

March 2007

Getting to know STEP and the EIKEN Test

by Michael Todd Fouts


Part 1: Who is STEP? What is EIKEN?

During this half of the presentation, Mr. Fouts gave a crash course in the history, purpose, and content of the EIKEN Test in Practical English Proficiency, one of the world's most widely administered language tests, and yet one of Japan's best-kept secrets. He also explained how EIKEN items are developed.

Part 2: EIKEN goes global

Until four years ago, EIKEN was virtually unheard of outside Japan. In Part 2 of his presentation, Mr. Fouts explained how the test has come to be recognized for admissions at hundreds of institutions in North America and Australia and why the number of institutions recognizing the test is rapidly increasing.


About the Presenter: Michael Todd Fouts is International Operations Manager and Chief Editor at the Society for Testing English Proficiency (STEP), where EIKEN is produced by a team of 200 writers, editors, and advisors. He also coordinates partnerships between STEP and foreign institutions. Fouts has worked for 17 years in Japan as a teacher and test developer.

Read Masa Tsunayasu's report on this event...

For more information on the EIKEN test, click here for the JALT Testing and Evaluation SIG's interview with Mr. Fout's.

February 2007

Understanding and adapting to the changes to the TOEIC

by Grant Trew

The recent changes to the TOEIC have significant implications both for students, and educators running test preparation courses.

The first half of this workshop walked participants through the new test format of the TOEIC (Listening and Reading) test, clarifying the main changes and highlighting the implications for test takers and teachers. It also presented some approaches to overcoming the problems Japanese learners are likely to face.

The second part of the presentation provided an overview of tasks included on the soon to be introduced TOEIC: Speaking and Writing test. The presenter focused on the challenges these are likely to present, and the skills students will need to score well on these components.

The seminar gave participants hands-on experience with new test items providing specific knowledge and skills that students will need to get the correct answers as well as practical techniques for teachers to help develop that knowlege and those skills. The seminar also touched on areas related to course design, handling mixed ability classes and factors to consider when choosing class materials.

Read Masa Tsunayasu's report on this event...

January 2007

The following presentations on reading were given by special guests Richard Barber and Hugh Graham Marr:

Reading and young learners: song lyrics for reading content with young learners

by Richard Barber

In this presentation, Mr. Barber provided an in-depth description and explanation of a set of activities he developed for young learners that use song lyrics for reading content words. After getting to grips with the meaning of the song, the learners do various activities to read the form. Step-by-step, they work together to build up to reading the content words in the lyrics. Specifically, the learners focus on reading the onset letters (the letters representing the initial consonant sound of a word) as an essential sub-skill of phonics. This set of activities encourage peer interaction and collaborative dialogue as the learners help each other in putting the mixed-up lyrics in order.

Intensive Reading in the EFL Classroom

by Hugh Graham-Marr

Mr. Graham's presentation contrasted extensive and intensive reading and examined their relative merits and their relative places within a reading program. It also examined some of the textual features that can be looked at in an intensive reading program - reference, ellipsis. word choice, the use of discourse markers, organization.

Read Masa Tsunayasu's report on this event...

December 2006

My Share / Bounenkai


Seven members took center stage at this Omiya My Share presenting ideas, techniques, games and activities that have worked in their teaching situations. Afterward, attendees went to a local izukaya for a bounenkai (end of the year party).

My Share Presentations included:

Prepositions
by Masa Tsuneyasu
Focus: A speaking and drawing activity

Meaning-focused classroom task for listening
by Joe Falout
Focus: A drawing activity.

Junior High School Debates (Yes, They are Possible)
by Leander Hughes
Focus: Choosing topics that work and getting an argument line.

James and the Giant Peach
by Joshua Halsband
Focus: Using hyperlinks to create activities that assess reading comprehension.

Wittgenstein and language teaching
by Ruth Kambartel
Focus: Using a language philosopher in a language class activity

Autobiography Projects
by Michael Stout
Focus: Getting your students to write autobiographies that are interesting.

Learning Activity Stations
by Ricardo Luna
Focus: How to organize learning activity stations for various sized classes.

October 2006

JALT2006 Conference Preview

This meeting provided a preview of some of the presentations that were later given at the JALT2006 Conference (the 32nd JALT International Conference on Language Teaching and Learning, in the city of Kitakyushu). The event featured three speakers, Eric Skier, Masa Tsuneyasu and Kyoko Miyazato. Summaries of each of their presentations are provided below.

What motivates older learners?

by Eric Skier

In this presentation, Mr. Skier presented a paper on the motivations of elderly learners at a culture center in Japan and how learning of those motivations affected the approach to teaching, the role of the teacher, and the decision on which materials to use. Participants, who currently are or may very well be teaching similar students that make up the fastest growing segment of Japanese society in the near future, also had an opportunity to share their stories, observations, and classroom-proven practices.

Teaching Writing

by Masa Tsuneyasu

In this presentation, Ms. Tsuneyasu first summarized the major differences between the written rhetoric of the two languages: Japanese and English. Then elaborated on the inclinations of how Japanese students write English papers based on the findings of a writing experiment. Finally, the author discussed some effective ways to teach writing papers in English for Japanese students.

Role and Power Sharing Between JTEs and AETs

by Kyoko Miyazato

The study Ms. Miyazato presented investigated team-teaching (TT) relationships between JTEs (Japanese Teachers of English) and AETs (Assistant English Teachers) focusing on power-sharing between native-speaking (NS) and non-native-speaking (NNS) EFL teachers in Japanese high schools.

Read Masa Tsunayasu's report on this event...

September 2006

Teaching Pre-Teens: Problems and Possibilities

In this activity-based presentation, the author of author of Super Kids and Super Tots, Aleda Krause (Seigakuin University), shared some secrets for success with upper elementary, junior high, and senior high students. These activities and tips addressed the following issues: How do you feel about teaching pre-teens? Even the most confident teachers can feel challenged. They are no longer small children and not yet young adults, but seem to swing back and forth between the two. Do you experience difficulties generating energy, managing classes with mixed levels, or bringing out shy students?

July 2006

In this workshop, Kumiko Fushino (Temple University) demonstrated several cooperative learning techniques for English classrooms. As communicative language teaching has gained momentum, English teachers have started using group work in their classes. However, getting students interacting with each other in English can be a problem. In theory, group work increases opportunities of student-student communication; however, this does not always happen. Cooperative learning principles provide teachers with many useful ideas to promote effective student-student interaction, and books on CL offer countless techniques which teachers can easily adapt to their classrooms. However, techniques for the EFL situation are seldom introduced in those books. Therefore, in this workshop, Kumiko Fushino introduced the basic CL principles explained in Jacobs, Power, Loh's The Teacher's Sourcebook for Cooperative Learning (2002), which Fushino co-translated into Japanese while demonstrating CL activities. She introduced each CL principle and demonstrated techniques which have been effective in her English lessons. Workshop participants joined in these CL activities to actually experience them so they can better apply CL techniques in their own English classes. Finally, some cautions about CL group work in English classes were discussed.

Read Masa Tsunayasu's report on this event...

June 2006

Chuck Sandy led a presentation and workshop explaining how classroom projects are an effective way to consolidate and extend learning, increase motivation, enhance classroom dynamics, and promote learner-autonomy. He stressed that because projects by definition result in some sort of tangible end product, project work provides clearly definable learning outcomes and real take-away value.

He first discussed the benefits of project work before demonstrating several easy-to-manage single and multi-class projects that require little set up and that could be easily adapted to work with learners of almost any age or ability. In addition, he offered a number of techniques for having students share or present completed projects to classmates, as well as suggestions for encouraging both self and peer evaluation of project work.

March 2006

Steven Morgan, of Daito Bunka Daigaku, Music Director of the British Embassy Choir and St Alban's Church, gave a presentation examining music in EFL education.

He outlined typical ways that music is used in EFL and reflected on research into teaching EFL through music; i.e., using music as a content area. Mr Morgan discussed his PhD. Project; teaching a weekly vocal music class in English to students at a primary school in Tokyo based on Kodaly's methodology of music education. The test group, which learned English songs by rote, was compared with a control group taught by another teacher without music to discover whether the children taught through music acquired a better sense of the prosody of English language.

Statistics on the groups have not been finalized, and although indications were that the difference is not large, there is some anecdotal evidence within the test school that its students could follow classes given in English better. Mr. Morgan accepts this could have resulted from using English as the language of instruction but raises the possibility the music training itself was responsible.

Mr Morgan discussed acquisition theories: there is increasing evidence that speech and song are initially perceived being the same. The presentation raised questions about the link between speech and music and showed a need for more research.

Reported by Cecilia Fujishima

February 2006

Dr Shinichi Izumi, Assistant Professor of English and Area studies at Sophia University, gave a presentation in which he synthesized the results of second language acquisition studies and provided suggestions about how teaching in Japan can be adapted in the light of these studies. Dr Izumi began with a questionnaire and discussion, asking the audience to consider their own beliefs about language learning and teaching. He examined the traditional 'focus on forms' (grammar translation, and audio-lingual approaches) as well as the more recent 'focus on meaning' (communicative) approach and highlighted their weaknesses. When learning with 'focus on forms' approaches, students are apt to develop accuracy without fluency. Conversely, communicative learners may develop fluency without being pushed to be accurate. According to Dr Izumi, the way ahead is to find middle ground where form and meaning are integrated. Rather than simply adding communication components to a grammar based curriculum, the learner's attention should be drawn to the form-meaning relationship within the context of each task . He suggested ways in which meaning can be added to the language classroom and discussed studies that have direct practical application to teaching: effective ways to modify input; when and how grammar should be introduced; and helping students improve their grammar in communication. Dr Izumi's presentation stimulated much discussion.

January 2006

Robert Diem—one of Japan's pioneer podcasters—gave a presentation on what podcasting is, potential uses for podcasting, and how we could release the podcaster within. Podcasting, a portmanteaux of the words i-pod and broadcasting, is audio material (radio shows) on the internet, that can be subscribed to, and downloaded onto MP3 player. The podcast can then be accessed by listeners individually at time and place that is convenient. Diem showed numerous examples of the ways that podcasting is currently being used, with an emphasis on how it is being used in TESOL. He introduced and explored with the audience ways the vast array of potential uses of podcasting and the way it is likely to evolve. Using analogies Diem explained the mechanics behind podcasting and took the audience through the steps that are necessary for making ones own podcast: in the same way that anyone with an internet connection can set up a blog, anyone with an internet connection and a microphone can become a podcaster, making their own radio show, or radio blog.

December 2005

My Share event.

November 2005

Alistair Graham-Marr discussed the problems English learners face in trying to decode spoken English when they move from the classroom to the 'real world' and the role of listening in providing a bridge between the two. Classes where the medium is written English or clearly enunciated dialogues do not adequately prepare students for comprehending spoken English in the real world. Teachers can help prepare students for the uncertainty they will face by focusing on developing their 'top down' predictive skills. Additionally raising awareness of suprasegmental phonology, paying attention to how something is said not just what is said, helps students develop their 'bottom up' decoding skills.

Graham-Marr talked about the potentially infinite number of communicative needs an English learner may face: textbooks cannot possibly cover all situations. According to Graham-Marr the only thing that a teacher can safely predict about students future communicative needs is that they're likely to face difficulties. As such, teaching speaking strategies provides the students tools to cope to help with difficulties. Teaching these strategies within a communicative framework empowers students and helps compensate for their lack of language. Speaking strategies discussed included conversation openers, elaboration, involvement questions, clarification, and asking for repetition.

Graham-Marr has recently written a new speaking and listening text, Communication Spotlights, that is designed around these communication strategies.