• Embracing Folk Culture through English Language Courses – Ben Grafström

    Date – January 30

    Time – 2:00pm – 4:00pm

    Venus – Online – Zoom Link TBA

    Event Page – https://www.facebook.com/events/323838102984391

    Ben Grafström (Akita University)

    Abstract

    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.

  • TILES 2021 – Using L1 in the Classroom

    TILES2021 Call for Proposals

    Date: Sunday, September 26

    Time: 13:30 – 17:00

    Place: Hirosaki Gakuin University & Online

    Submission Materials:

    (1) Abstract: 100-200 words describing your intended presentation (in English or Japanese).

    (2) Presenter Bio: Up to 100 words describing yourself and your current teaching situation (in English or Japanese). Submit to Vikki Williams: w_vikki@auhw.ac.jpSubmission Deadline: Friday, July 16Presentations should be between 20 – 30 minutes, followed by a 10-minute Q & A session.

    We welcome presentations in either English or Japanese; however, it would be appreciated if important information was available in both languages.

    Presentations should include one or some of the following:

    • Describe the presenter’s own research.

    • Describe the presenter’s own classroom experience.

    • Give practical examples or ideas for classroom use.

    TILES2021

    発表者募集日日：9月26日(日)

    時間：13:30~17:00

    場所：弘前学院大学およびオンライン

    提出書類：

    (1) 概要：発表予定の内容について、英語100-200語。日本語300-400字。

    (2) 発表者のバイオグラフィー ：発表者自身と発表者の現在の教育活動状況について、英語100語以内。日本語200字以内。提出先：ウイリアムズ・ヴィッキー（w_vikki@auhw.ac.jp）

    提出締切：7月16日（金）

    発表時間：20-30分（＋質疑応答10分間）

    英語と日本語いずれかによる発表でかまいませんが、重要な内容は両言語で伝わるようにしていただければ幸いです。

    発表の内容に以下のことを含めてもらえれば幸いです：

    • 発表者の研究について

    • 発表者の教育現場での経験について

    • 教室で使える実践的なことについて

  • Speaking in the New Normal 2

    Still time to register and join us!!

    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.