JALT Event

For our third meeting of the year, we welcome back a noted local teacher, translator, and writer. Burke-Gaffney will discuss how the English language became the ‘lingua franca’ in the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement, 1859-1941. This special guest presenter will speak about the British and American communities in Nagasaki and the various English-language newspapers, consular reports and various private documents.
Canadian-born Burke-Gaffney - an ex-Buddhist monk who resided in Kyoto for many years - was appointed International Advisor to Nagasaki City in 1985, has since written numerous books, and was awarded the Nagasaki Prefecture Citizens Award in 1992. He currently works in the Human Environment Faculty, Nagasaki Institute of Applied Science.
For updated information, please check our websites at http://jalt.org/groups/Nagasaki and http://www.kyushuelt.com/jalt/nagasaki.html or look for our Nagasaki JALT and Friends Facebook Group, or simply sign up for our monthly e-mail newsletter at http://www.kyushuelt.com/jalt/nagamail.php3
All welcome!

The best advice we can get from experts on language teaching is that we should try to make our learners into autonomous (self-driven, independent) learners. In this mode, they are to choose their own avenues of learning, measure their progress against their goals, and motivate themselves to persevere.
To what extent is it realistic to expect adolescents to take control of their own learning? Evidence of two types suggests that adolescents may be reluctant or even unable to take this responsibility. First, circumstantial evidence of the conventional organization of secondary schools shows that students are typically guided and herded rather than given their heads. Second, neurological evidence of the developmental pattern of the pre-frontal cortex (the part of the brain that sets goals, looks to the consequences of actions, and guides behavior toward goals) suggests that adolescents have limited ability to govern their own behavior.
Shall we, then, hoot the experts off the stage when they try to recommend autonomy for adolescents? Not completely, perhaps. The experts would benefit from a degree of humbling, but we need to examine realistic circumstances under which autonomous motivation can be encouraged in adolescents. To do so will require some re-thinking of how we can teach them, and how we can best position them to take advantage of whatever autonomy they can muster.
*Special thanks to the Hamamatsu chapter for co-hosting this presentation.

Every teacher has certain principles, be they based on theory or developed through teaching/learning experiences, which shape their classroom decisions. The presenter will introduce the teaching/learning principles she believes are crucial for oral communication courses and will discuss how they were incorporated into the oral communication textbook Impact Conversation 1 & 2 (Pearson Longman) and how she applies them in her own classes.
Kristen Sullivan is a lecturer at Shimonoseki City University where she teaches Academic English, TOEFL, Composition and Oral Communication. She is co-author of the oral communication textbook Impact Conversation published by Pearson Longman.

Co-sponsored by Amnesty International, Democrats Abroad-Kansai, and others, and with introduction and discussion led by Arudou Debito (blogger www.debito.org, Japan Times columnist, and author of Japanese Only and Handbook for Newcomers),
"Sour Strawberries" is a 60-min. film on migrant workers, human rights, exploitation and discrimination in Japan. It tells the story of two Nikkei-Jin workers from Peru and Brazil and three Chinese participants of the International Training Program. It also features interviews with former Vice-Minister of Justice Kono Taro, Upper House Member Tsurunen Marutei, Union-Leader Torii Ippei, Arudo Debito, Keidanren represenative Inoue Hiroshi and the German political scientist and Japan expert Dr. Gabriele Vogt.
Shot in March 2008 by a German-Japanese film crew in Tokyo. The movie shows migrants fighting for their rights as workers and citizens. The people concerned are always at the center of interest. While describing their situation, they are the protagonists of the movie.
See the trailer here: http://www.vimeo.com/2276295
Subtitles in English and Japanese. 500 yen optional donation
日独合作のドキュメンタリー映画である。日本で自らの権利のために戦う外国人労働者の姿を描いた本作品では、当事者たちの感じたことが中心に位置づけられ、彼ら自身が主人公となって自らの状況を語っている。

What is the role and meaning of affect in second language acquisition (SLA)? Language practitioners have tackled this important question by exploring various affective factors, such as language anxiety, second language (L2) motivation, and the neurobiological mechanism. Nevertheless, serious discussions of the integral component of affect, emotions, have been rarity. This scholarly attitude reflects particular assumptions to conceive affect and learning, which can be characterized as individualistic, cognitive, dichotomous, and product-oriented.
While acknowledging the contribution made by the previous research paradigm, I propose a complementary perspective that calls for more substantial attention to the wide range of emotions in language learning. I take a particular view that emotions are not just a learner's inner, private workings that merely filter cognitive functioning. Rather, emotions--in any forms--can mediate development, especially when learning is considered a fundamentally interpersonal transaction.
By presenting actual data from a study, I illustrate how a group of learners discursively manifested, shared, and co-constructed their emotional attitudes toward their group work and how such emotional intersubjectivity pushed the group, in their knowledge co-construction, to challenge assigned tasks and materials. Finally, implications of the proposed perspective will be considered.
Biostatements:
Yasuhiro Imai is Lecturer at the Centre for the Teaching of Foreign Languages in General Education of Sophia University. His interests include emotions in second language learning, collaborative learning, and discourse analysis. He has taught EFL to Japanese university students.

What are the best ways to teach culture in the college classroom? A panel of all-stars will answer this question! The four main speakers, who are teachers in the Hiroshima area, will each propose ideas for about 15 minutes. And then there will be a 40-minute panel discussion with ample time for questions from the audience.
For more information, call: 082-224-3816 (JALT Hiroshima chapter)

Conference held on Saturday and Sunday, May 23rd and 24th, 2009 at Toyo Gakuen University, Nagareyama Campus, in Chiba. This conference is co-sponsored by College and University Educators (CUE), Extensive Reading (ER), Gender Awareness in Language Education (GALE), Life Long Language Learning (LLL), Materials Writers (MW), Other Language Educators (OLE), Pragmatics (PRAG), Study Abroad (SA) and Testing and Evaluation (TEVAL) Special Interest Groups, together with the CALL SIG and the West Tokyo and Yokohama Chapters of the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT).
Pre-registration deadline March 15, 2009.

There are verifiable physiological differences that prove that boys and girls hear and process sounds and language input differently. Should these gender differences in hearing require us to teach boys and girls differently, and should they affect our expectations regarding L2 language learning outcomes? Some people think so. The presenter will try to separate the facts from fiction.

In a workshop setting, the presenters will explore topics that stimulated the best writing from their high school students and analyze the factors that characterize the best topics, illustrating their findings with examples of student writing and comparing them with the results of a simple student survey. Participants should bring along some successful topics to share.
Margaret Orleans has been teaching English in Asia for over twenty years. Itsumi Ohmura loves drama and hopes to teach it in English. She has taught in both public and private secondary schools in Japan. The two of them team-taught an Advanced Writing course at Meiji Gakuen.

The Harvard Graduate School of Education focuses on connecting the mind, brain, and education (MBE). It is an exciting, highly relevant field of study for educators. Robert Murphy, a Harvard MBE Institute certificate recipient, will introduce a few of the major points of Harvard's MBE and make them relevant for EFL teachers in Japan.
Robert Murphy is a university instructor, school owner and local TV/ radio personality. He has been living in Japan for over 22 years.