Tag: Japan

  • Music and language in the brain: Ways to use music to facilitate language learning – Amanda Gillis-Furutaka

    • Date: Sunday, February 26 1:30pm
    • Location: Online – Zoom link included when you register for event
    • Cost: JALT Members – Free. Non-member – 500 yen
    • Event Registration is here: https://iwamorifeb26.peatix.com/view

    Outline: Music is found in all cultures worldwide. It is an international language that communicates emotion across other language barriers. Importantly, listening to music involves the whole brain. We will explore how music is processed not only through our ears and auditory cortex, but also through our senses of touch and sight, and how we can recall music through visual and tactile stimuli as well as an audio stimulus. We will experience howinstrumental music activates areas of the brain associated with language. And understand why motor areas of our brain are activated automatically when we hear music, even when we are sitting or lying still. These phenomena explain why using music in a classroom is especially stimulating and conducive to learning. Participants will be invited to share the ways in which they use music in their classrooms and the positive outcomes they have experienced. The presenter will also introduce additional suggestions for using music to stimulate language learning both in the face-to-face classroom and when teaching online.

    Bio: Amanda Gillis-Furutaka is a professor in the Department of English at Kyoto Sangyo University. She has an MA in TESOL from the University of Birmingham and a PhD in music from the University of London Goldsmiths College. She has taught in a variety of countries and researched in a variety of fields but her main interest these days is how to apply the latest findings in brain science to the language classroom. She is currently the Coordinator of the JALT
    Mind, Brain, and Education SIG.

  • Upcoming: Double Presentation: Global English Seminar and What can be done with Corpora – Barry Grossman

    Event Speaker: Barry GrossmanFee for JALT 

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    members: freeFee for non-JALT members: 1000 yen (500 yen for students)
    Contact or Queries: iwatejalt@hotmail.com

    Date and TIme: Sunday, January 28, 2018 – 1:30pm to 4:30pm

    Location: AIINA in Morioka Rm 605 – View Map

    Presentation #1: (45 minutes)

    Title: “Global English Seminar Project: A navigation app for foreign tourists and residents”

    The need for English information in a local community is being met by a university’s ‘Global English Seminar’ class. In order to make visiting the area more convenient for foreign tourists and residents, the seminar class has made a free iPhone app that provides information in English on local tourist spots, businesses and services. The educational and societal goals, methods, results, and challenges of this three-year project will be presented.

    Hands-on Workshop: (90 minutes)

    Title: “What can you do with a corpus?”

    Online corpora have become very user-friendly in the past few years. In this hands-on workshop, we will learn to use the corpus engine at Brigham Young University. The corpus can be beneficial as a language resource for teachers and students, but we will also discuss its use for classroom activities. By the end of the workshop, participants will have the confidence to use a corpus on their own and be able to explore the various functions an online corpus can offer.

    Bio

    Born 1965: Brooklyn, NY

    Academics

    1988: University of Colorado, BA in English Literature

    1991: University of Colorado, MA in Linguistics / TEFL

    2017: University of Birmingham (UK), PhD. in English & Applied Linguistics

    (Thesis in Cognitive Corpus Linguistics)

     

    Employment

    1991: Tokyo, English Language School

    1992: Hirosaki, English Language School

    1993: Hachinohe National Institute of Technology

    1996: Hachinohe University, Lecturer

    2013: Hachinohe Gakuin University, Professor

     

    Besides having published numerous articles on EFL and Linguistics, he has given research presentations in Japan, Canada, Korea, Italy, & The Netherlands.