This presentation is a reflection on my teaching practices—specifically, those I use in a class called “English Conversation for the Humanities” for first year university students. This class (in Japanese, Bunkei eikaiwa) is a core curriculum course for humanities and social science students. By selecting a cultural theme for the course (e.g., time studies, textual analysis, folk cultural studies), I tend to emphasize the “humanities” component over the “conversation” one. Since my background is in Japanese literary and cultural studies, emphasizing the bunkei provides the students with interesting course material as well as increases my motivation as a teacher. Keeping in mind that the ultimate purpose of the course is to improve students’ English language ability, I use a number of approaches that will meet their needs as foreign language learners. The approaches I rely on most are Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), English Medium Instruction (EMI), Integrated Learning, and Active Learning. In this presentation I will share my successes with CLIL, EMI, and Integrated Learning, and my failure with Active Learning! Educators do not always share their failures with each other in public forums, but in so doing I hope to reflect on my teaching practices with colleagues so that we may all progress as educators together.
BIO
Ben has an M.A. in East Asian Language and Literature with a concentration in Japanese literature from the University of Colorado, Boulder. He is currently a lecturer at Akita University, where his course load mainly consists of English for Academic Purposes for 1st and 2nd year students.Ben has been in Japan for 13 years—3 in eastern Hokkaido and 10 in Akita. Before coming to Japan he was a high school teacher at Monsignor Bonner High School, just outside Philadelphia, and a graduate student at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Hey there, I’m Erin Noxon, a public high school teacher in Kyoto. I teach 16 conversational English classes a week. No grammar, no reading, just talking, lots of talking and listening.
While many of my friends around the world were teaching online for the past year, I’ve been in the classroom, face to face teaching active speaking classes since June 1, 2020. When Twitter was exploding as people were fighting about what was causing COVID to spread so rapidly (and some were blaming English and English classes!) we were developing ways to keep talking and having an active class, so as not to stop the learning growth of a year of students, while making sure they were safe.
I’d like to show you in detail how we set up our class safely, what activities we did, how we arranged the physical space, and what we demanded of each other and our students.
I will say that not one of my students became infected, which could have been helped in part by our efforts but also included a lot of luck, I know. So while I can’t claim that running your class in this way will keep everyone from getting sick, I can say that it will help limit the chances of infection! That’s all I can offer.
Please come join us on the 25th. I’ll show you what we did, and we can have a discussion about what we all can do to continue to be safe moving forward.Register in advance for this meeting:https://umuc.zoom.us/…/tJEvfuqtpj0sGdeZQ4xXaVXe…After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Abstract: Let’s Go has the distinction of being the first EFL course book series for children, and of remaining one of the world’s best-selling course books through five editions for nearly 30 years. As co-author, Barbara has seen trends come and go in materials design for young learners, but some fundamentals have withstood the test of time. She will talk about these in terms of guidelines that can help teachers create effective EFL materials, whether for learners in their own classes or for learners in classrooms around the world. Participants will then apply these guidelines in turning content into coursebook pages. Barbara will bring material for participants to work with, but if you have a coursebook you’d like to analyze and perhaps improve based on the guidelines we explore, please bring it along with you to this session. The principles covered will apply to materials for all levels of learners.
Presentations:
Sophie Otsuru-Schieber Oita University
Title : Pictures as speaking prompts for tests
Abstract: To assess speaking skills many options are available: roleplay, individual or group presentations, flashcards or picture description. In this presentation I will argue in favour of the final option: using pictures as speaking prompts. Because picture description tasks represent a real challenge for students who need a framework to display the extent of their language capacities and show some fluency, I will suggest an ideal framework that has worked particularly well for the Pearson Progress Test. The second part of the presentation will offer participants time to do the task themselves, record their performance, assess it, and discuss their performance in small groups. I will conclude with descriptors for 2 levels: CEFR A2/B1 and B2.
Johan Saputra Muljadi – Indian International School of Japan
Title: My tips in presenting culture when teaching
Abstract: 1. Learn new words in students’ mother tongue language. Here’s a fun warm up, I will say random words in a foreign language, please guess what language it is and what does it mean. 2. Don’t be afraid in asking your friends when facts checking. Did you know that in Russia, children study 6 days a week, have 3 months summer break and have accelerated program for gifted children? Did you know that Cairo, the capital city of Egypt is flooded with Iranians, Iraqis and Africans? The tariff is pretty high for those who are crossing the Red Sea which contributes heavily to the Egyptian economy. 3. As teachers, it is important to expand our network. Balance between enjoying your time alone and networking. I have itchy feet so working at different places allow you to meet new colleagues/friends and you can truly expand your teaching horizon. 4. If you have the luxury of money and space, be a collector. I’m a banknote collector and this allows me to be more social. I have over 500 different banknotes and as a Social Studies teacher, this makes my job easier. 5. Kill two birds with one stone, build your brand. Yes, it is important to focus on the students but it is as important to focus on you like what I’m doing now, giving a presentation to an audience. I recommend building your own website and keep a record, and when people can find you, (such as Marek Kiczkowiak), teaching culture becomes more interesting.
Ismat Zarin – University of Asia Pacific, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Title: Teaching EFL Online: Unveiling the Power of Collaborative Adaptation Projects
Abstract: Adaptation of a text is a creative skill which needs critical thinking and sound language skills. Keeping this notion into consideration, this research paper sheds light on the applications of collaborative adaptation projects in the online teaching of EFL (English as a Foreign Language). For the purpose of the study, the teacher researcher designed an adaptation project work for 30 EFL learners in their first-year undergraduate studies at a private university in Bangladesh attending an online semester due to COVID-19. In the project, they had to adapt the video broadcasts of television news into written news reports. After the completion of the group project, the learners filled a semi-structured questionnaire assessed on a Likert scale which focused on their experience in the group project. Apart from that, the subjects were also interviewed online to disseminate information about the experience and the opinions of the subjects with regard to the project. As was found in this study, such a group project provides a lot of space for the students to do collaborative work even while learning online while developing EFL writing skill and develop their critical thinking skills with the help of peers and the instructor.
