2013 Events Archive

December 2013

2013 All-Kansai JALT Bonenkai-Pub Quiz at the Blarney Stone Irish Pub in Umeda

Saturday, December 14th, 2013

This year’s all-Kansai JALT year-end party is taking place at the Blarney Stone Irish pub in Umeda, and will include a Pub Quiz from 7-8pm, and followed by the ever-popular Tardy Boys live band playing classic rock music covers.

It’ll be a friendly match-up amongst Kobe, Kyoto, Nara, and Osaka JALT chapter members, with questions about both JALT and the Kansai area in general. Come with your own teams of 3-4 people, or come solo and join with others to make a team upon arrival.

Food and drink will be pay-as-you-go, and the area will be non-smoking. It’s sure to be a great time.

November 2013

Research methods in TESOL

Sunday, November 17th, 2013

Our last event of 2013 sees us welcome two special invited speakers to discuss issues of research in TESOL. First, Robert Croker will lead a workshop looking at making effective questionnaires. Next, Dawn Booth will discuss how qualitative data can be strengthened. We hope to see you there for what is sure to be extremely valuable to all who are interested in practitioner research.



Robert Croker

Seven steps to writing effective classroom questionnaires 

Creating a classroom questionnaire might seem daunting, but think of it as a series of seven steps: deciding what information to collect; creating, editing and ordering your questions; writing the title, introduction, instructions and conclusion; laying out your questions; and piloting and checking your questionnaire. This workshop will walk you through these seven steps to help you to create a simple, effective questionnaire to investigate your classroom.


Robert Croker is a professor in the Faculty of Policy Studies, Nanzan University. He is interested in classroom research, particularly action research, qualitative research, and mixed methods. He teaches a number of research methods classes at the undergraduate and graduate level. With Juanita Heigham, he co-edited Qualitative Research in Applied Linguistics: A Practical Introduction (2009, Palgrave Macmillan).

Dawn Booth

Strengthening the validity of qualitative research 

This presentation offers both theoretical and practical guidance for those who are interested in the process of strengthening the validity of their qualitative data analysis. It begins with a basic outline of the type of quality criteria expected in qualitative research and provides practical examples of how the process of peer debriefing may help to achieve part of this criteria.

Dawn Booth is an Assistant Professor at Kansai Gaidai with multiple publications and research awards in the field of language testing and qualitative research. Having completed both a Master’s and PhD thesis using predominantly qualitative methods of data collection, it is hoped that this presentation serves to support others thinking about or in the process of conducting qualitative research.

September 2013

My Share For Young Learners

Saturday, September 21st, 2013

Kyoto JALT is pleased to present an event that focuses on elementary school, junior high school, and high school teaching. We have three very experienced teaching professionals who will offer help and advice for new teachers, and provide fresh ideas for seasoned veterans. Come along and learn something new. Some light refreshments will be supplied courtesy of OUP.

Dr. Sato
13:30-14:40

How to Collaborate with JTEs through Materials Development

Based on an English curriculum reform project in a public senior high school in Gifu, Sato & Takahashi (2008) concludes that teacher collaboration results in better student outcomes. Then, how can ALTs collaborate with JTEs in English classes so that students can learn better? The presenter will talk about two action research projects for which teacher collaboration between an ALT and a JTE went successful. He will conclude his presentation with four keys to success.


Kazuyoshi Sato teaches at Nagoya University of Foreign Studies. He holds a MA and a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Queensland, Australia. He has written several papers on communicative language teaching and teacher education. His research interests include language teaching and learning, teacher development, and curriculum development.

Eric Kane

14:55-15:55

Phonics – Before, During and After

Ask 10 educators the question, “How do you teach phonics?” More than likely you’ll get 10 different answers!  This presentation will discuss when and where phonics fits into a balanced reading program. We will look at the development of phonemic awareness and direct phonics instruction within the context of whole language goals and briefly touch on the, “hows” of each.

Eric Kane is a teacher, teacher trainer and author with 20 years of experience. He is the founder and president of ELF Learning, an education company based in Japan which creates music, video and materials for young learners.

Robert Peacock

Effective Teaching Approaches using Four Skills

How can you integrate all four skills into your classes effectively?  Participants are invited to take part in this workshop-style presentation which will explore effective teaching approaches and methods that integrate four skills. During the session, the presenter will illustrate pedagogical principles that promote student language learning and improve proficiency and confidence. A range of highly practical ideas and materials appropriate and effective for secondary classes will be introduced for the participants to employ in their own classrooms. 

As part of this active and engaging workshop, participants will also be asked to reflect on their own teaching situation. Among other questions, they will be asked to consider the students they work with, and the ways that they (as teachers) assess the English abilities of those same students. During the presentation, reference will be made to the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) “Can Do” statements.

Finally, the presenter will provide materials for the audience to take away and which they can use later with their students.

During his time in Japan, Rob Peacock has taught all ages and abilities of students. A full-time Teacher Trainer in the Learning and Assessment team at Oxford University Press, he brings both a classroom-based and ELT management perspective to each his presentations.

July 2013

Reflections on iPad Collaboration in Japanese and Indonesian Contexts

Roger Palmer

Saturday, July 6th, 2013

The talk discusses a study investigating the effects of new technologies on pedagogy, and how reflecting with a colleague acts upon and changes teachers. Journal entries identified the convergence characteristics and ‘affordances’ of the iPad as keys to foregrounding certain behaviour and usage, with important ramifications for teacher identity and technology. 

Roger Palmer is Associate Professor at the Hirao School of Management in Konan University, where he serves as Deputy Director of the Language Programs. He has appeared as a plenary and featured speaker at international conferences around Asia, and has authored and co-authored a number of textbooks including iZone, Pearson Asia’s print-digital series. Roger is also active in JALT, being the Membership Chair for the Teachers Helping Teachers SIG and the Site Chair for JALTCALL 2012.

May 2013

Collocations and Word Lists

Dr. Dongkwang Shin

Saturday, May 25, 2013

In this presentation, two topics will be introduced to the audience. The first topic is collocations. In particular, the speech will include what collocations are, how collocations can be extracted from a corpus, and how collocations can be taught. The second topic is about making one’s own graded word lists. The speech will introduce a method for making word lists, and how to add them to the RANGE program in order to better analyze students’ writing drafts.


Speaker Bio
           

Dongkwang Shin received his PhD under the tutelage of Paul Nation in Applied Linguistics in 2007 from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. His expertise is in vocabulary learning and teaching, corpus linguistics, and language testing. He is currently working for the Korean Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation.

March 2013

KyotoJALT MyShare 2013

Teaching ideas for the new semester

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Kyoto JALT is happy to announce that the popular MyShare event will return at the end of this month. MyShare is an opportunity for teachers to present on a wide range of classroom activities to an audience looking for fresh ideas for the new academic year. MyShare is a flexible style of presentation where teachers can present on anything from single activity to a successful concept.

Presenters

1) How to Keep Students Engaged During Extensive Listening Activities

1:45-2:15 p.m.James Rogers

Kansai Gaidai University

Many consider extensive reading to be a viable method to increase student’s language abilities, but what of extensive listening? This presentation will discuss various methods which help keep students on task during television/film viewing, thus increasing the potential for learning to occur.

2) Method for Reading Class

1:25~3:05 p.m.Kevin Stein

Clark Memorial International High School, Osaka Campus

Students are often fixated on a word-by-word reading when interacting with a text in reading class. This presentation takes participants through a step-by-step process designed to help students build a full, “mental representation of a story,” (Masuhara. H, 2003) in order to engage with it on a deeper level.

3) Dr. Bloom meets Mr. Bean

3:25~3:55 p.m.Daniel J. Mills

Ritsumeikan University

Teachers in Japan need to focus on the use of visual images and shorter presentation formats to gain learners’ attention and hold it. The following presentation will demonstrate how video can be used as prompts to develop communication skills based on Bloom’s Taxonomy.

4) Cubing: Six Sides to a Subject

4:05-4:45 p.m.Michael Sullivan

Nippon Steel & Sumikin-Intercom, Inc.

This presentation will outline a versatile instructional technique called Cubing. This technique, which is linked to Bloom’s Taxonomy and the theory of Multiple Intelligences, allows instructors to both plan different kinds of activities for different types of learners and cover key cognitive skills on a particular topic.

Printable flyer for this event available on our Facebook page.

JANUARY 2013

Dr. Atsushi Iida (Gunma University)

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Dr. Iida will give two talks — a workshop looking at university writing classes, and a presentation discussing the challenges for non-native speakers of English to publish in English language scholarly journals. The second presentation will be of particular interest to the Japanese members of our teaching community.

Writing for communicative purposes: Application of genre-based approaches to ESP courses

In this workshop, the presenter will describe some issues and challenges of second language (L2) writing at the tertiary level in Japan and discuss how writing teachers can use genre-based approaches in the English classroom. Specifically, he will focus on one particular genre – descriptive writing- and demonstrate a lesson for freshman (and sophomore) engineering students.

Writing for academic publication: Challenges for multilingual scholars

This presentation aims to discuss global issues of scholarly writing and to provide a practical guideline for academic publication. The presenter – a teacher and researcher of second language writing – will share his personal experience of publishing in peer-reviewed English journals. He will also describe a case study which investigates issues faced by an NNES researcher in the process of publishing articles in four journals: two international journals based in Asia, and two based in the United States. By examining the editors’ written feedback, the presenter will provide suggestions for how multilingual scholars can overcome potential obstacles to bring their manuscripts to publication.

近年、教育者や研究者の間で、英語で学術論文を出版することが富みに求められている。大学をはじめとする多くの研究機関では、「英語で論文を出版するこ と」が専任職の獲得および昇進の１つの重要な基準となっている,しかしながら、英語を母国語としない研究者にとって、査読審査のある国際学術誌に応募し, 論文が出版に至ることは極めて困難であるのが現状である。出版までの過程の中で、英語を母国語としない研究者はどのような問題に直面しているのであろう か。

本発表の目的は、学術論文を出版するために配慮すべき点を提示し、それらの論文が出版に至る可能性を模索することである。講演者は、自身が学術論文を出版 する際に経験した数々の問題点を紹介し、英語を母国語としない研究者が論文を出版にするにあたり、直面しうる問題にどのように対処していけばよいかを提案 する。Biodata

Atsushi Iida is Assistant Professor in the University Education Center at Gunma University where he has taught first-year and second-year English courses. He was awarded his Ph.D. in English (Composition and TESOL) at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, PA, USA. His research interests include poetry writing in a second language, literature in second language education, scholarly publication in a second language, and English for Specific Purposes (ESP).