JALT Event

Recent work on listening has attempted to shift the emphasis to alternative approaches which place more focus on the learner perspective, with instructional procedures focused on what goes on during the process of listening. We can then diagnose a specific area in need of more explicit teaching attention. This presentation will suggest practical ways to use authentic spoken texts for teaching listening. A range of visually supported authentic materials will be presented including brief streams of natural English provided by well-known actors in response to interview questions and selected dialogues from television sitcoms. After providing a brief rationale for using authentic materials, the presentation will highlight the need for increased focus on the bottom-up processing of language required for effective listening. The presentation will describe how the listening materials are used to help learners deal with the many problematic features of natural spoken language.

Join us with the whole family for a children-friendly Christmas party! Santa is coming, and there will be fun and games for the kids, led by the talented Karen Ricks, and Christmas music for all. This is a potluck event, so please bring some food, snacks and/or drinks to share.

David Gann and Mehran Sabet will present on how they produced a podcast from their university. Their talk will detail how they first conceptualized the podcast; on what basis they drafted the material; how they produced the program; how they followed up later in class to assess learner comprehension and finally new directions and future plans.

Dr. Alcazar, who will be a featured speaker at the JALT National Conference this year, will give a special talk in Hiroshima about 3 topics related to the English education in the Philippines and in Japan: The Teachers Helping Teachers program, The Asian Youth Forum, and Contextual Learning Theory.

If you cannot make it to November's JALT National Conference in Shizuoka, here is your chance to see 4 presentations which will be featured there. Laurie Thain will speak about Rhythm, Music and Young Learners. Jeremy Boston will explain about Focused Tasks and Syntactic Priming. Bill Moore will show how DIY (Do-It-Yourself) television quiz shows can be effectively used for language learning. Finally, Simon Capper will lead a short workshop dealing with the power of Lateral Thinking Puzzles.

The presenter, the 2009 Balsamo Asian Scholar, will kick off her participation in the Four Corners Tour by discussing these theories with regard to her own language learning (English and Japanese) as well as her work advocating for better English language teaching in her native Philippines.
This will be followed by two short presentations by local speakers.

Linda Ohama will screen and lead a discussion about her highly regarded documentary film, Obachan's Garden. The film is a very moving and personal reflection, recounting the life of Murakami-san (Obaachan) who was one of more than 6,000 Japanese women who arrived on Canada's shores between 1908 and 1924 as picture brides. Ohama personalizes the film experience to the fullest by opening the floor to a Q&A following the screening.

Songs are frequently used in English Language Teaching classrooms all over the world and are a part of a multitude of young learner language programmes. This presentation aims to look at why songs can be considered valuable pedagogical tools. Then, using several classic and original songs for children, the presentation aims to explore how songs can be used most effectively.
Neil Millington is a lecturer at APU Ritsumeikan University where he teaches Fundamental and Intermediate English classes. His teaching interests include Task-Based-Learning and Teaching Young Learners.

This combined seminar and workshop examines a series of issues in EFL education from two diverse perspectives: the Japanese and Cambodian classrooms. In Japan, most EFL teachers have virtually unlimited resources available to them. However, the overuse of,if not overdependence on, these resources sometimes distract teachers from the fundamental elements of EFL teaching. For Cambodian teachers, there is almost never more than a whiteboard,a marker, and an outdated, copied textbook to use in the classroom. Because of this, basic EFL teaching principles come into stark contrast. Based on this premise, the speakers will examine a number of fundamental features of classroom teaching and lesson/curriculum planning,as well as taking a look at how some of these concerns have been addressed both in Japan and Cambodian: in other words, how can teachers get “back to basics” in the classroom. Following this is a series of workshop activities designed to focus on specific issues related to these two teaching paradigms. The participants will be able to discuss the use of different materials and resource development, as well as design communicative tasks in a number of different work-related scenarios.
*Barnaby Ralph* is a graduate of the Universities of Queensland and New England and currently teaches at Aoyama Gakuin University. As well as having worked extensively in rural Australia, this year, for the first time, he participated in a teacher-training program in Cambodia, and is already preparing for his next extended visit.
*Nicole Takeda* develops curriculum resources and teaches at Meiji Gakuin University. A graduate of the American University of Paris and Sheffield University, she is also extremely active in Cambodia, where her NGO, the Bayon English Academy, delivers both lessons to children and training for aspiring teachers.
Doors open at 1:00 pm and the discussion begins at 1:30. We should finish no later than 3:30, though officers will stay later. Shizuoka Kyouiku Kaikan is located on Miyuki Dori, the main street going directly North from Shizuoka Station, and is located right across from Shin-Shizuoka Centre, facing the outside moat of Sumpu-park. It is a 5-7 minute walk North from Shizuoka Station, and there are maps of the area in the underground crossing area between the station and the downtown core.

For our eighth meeting of the year, three experienced Nagasaki area ALTs will share accounts on the reasons they chose to come to Japan. They will each talk about why they personally chose Japan as a country to live and work in. Then, they will share their views on the JET programme and the implementation of English at the elementary school level. Finally, they will keep you actively involved by taking you through examples of interactive games and activities they believe are suitably pitched for this level. All welcome!
* 次回：2009年10月17日（土）14:00-16:00
* 場所：出島交流会館4F
* 発表者：カイ・ペンス、メガン・オコネル、ウォレン・アレン
（全員、長崎県内ALT)
* 演題：「小学校英語教育と英語新カリキュラム導入」
* 参加費：会員・学生—無料　非会員—Y1000.
「非会員が初めての人を連れてきた場合はそれぞれ500円でOK」
P.S. Next meetings, more information to come soon: 11/18 (Wed.) featuring our national Four Corners/Asian Scholar guest presenter; and a year end party sometime in December.
Also, about elections for next year...if you are a JALT member or would like to become one, please consider joining our local chapter executive in 2010. We will have our annual elections in mid-November, prior to the JALT2009 Conference in Shizuoka (which runs from 11/21-23.)
If you would like more information about the executive posts, please feel free to contact any one of us in the next few weeks through the individual Facebook addresses listed on the Group officers' side of the website page there, thank you!