JALT Event

This interactive workshop will have two primary focuses. The first will be to encourage audience members to become legitimate participants in academic publishing by explaining different journal systems, including The Language Teacher, JALT's monthly member publication, the JALT Conference Proceedings, and the Asian EFL Journal family of journals, free access online journals. Attention will be given to where participants could contribute to the different publications by becoming members of their communities of practice, either through volunteering or through authoring papers for publication in the journals.
The second focus of the workshop will be on successful properties of academic discourse. It will include examples from successful papers, changes academic papers have undergone in the process of editing, and the theoretical underpinnings of genre and discourse analysis that help to model the characteristics of successful academic prose.
Participants should gain a better understanding of the systems of academic journals, where they could become participants in those systems, and how they can approach writing articles which have a greater chance of being accepted by academic publications.

An aging society means growing numbers of older individuals who want to learn English. This presents a variety of challenges that differ from the teaching of younger students. However, teaching strategies that take into account how older students learn and their motivations for studying English can produce positive results that are satisfying for both the students and the teacher.

This interactive presentation will begin with a brief overview of some of the more widely-recognized theories and paradigms of intercultural communication. These will serve as a theoretical springboard to examine more prevalent and recurring intercultural workplace differences between Japanese Teachers of English (JTEs) and Assistant English Teachers (AETs) or Assistant Language Teachers (ALTs). The final discussion will focus on the practical issues of information dissemination, privacy, and different conceptions of professional conduct.

Mehran & Yuriko Sabet
"Starting and Managing a Successful Study-Abroad Program"
There is no question that participating in study abroad programs brings language proficiency gains as well as cultural awareness, increased motivation, and improved social interpersonal skills. Starting and managing a short-term, study-abroad program is a time-consuming process that requires total commitment and cooperation on the part of all parties involved. However, when done properly, the positive results can be significant to the institution and students. This presentation looks at the step-by-step process of initiating and managing a study-abroad program as well as discussing measures that should be taken when administrators are faced with difficult, unfortunate, or unpredictable situations while students are overseas.
Who is Mehran Sabet?
I have been in Japan for more than 19 years, and presently work as an associate professor at Seigakuin University. I hold a MBA degree. My current research has been focused on testing, syllabus design, and most recently on study abroad programs. Presently, I am writing a paper on Japanese students studying in America (California). Through my research, I am able to isolate the student's needs, the problems they may face when living abroad, and the issues that they may encounter as individuals. I have also chaperoned students to Australia and America on a number of times and have designed teaching material in order to better prepare students for their oversea stay. Outside of work, there is nothing more enjoyable than a live NFL, NBA, or a soccer match on TV.
Who is Yuriko Sabet?
I am Mehran's wife, and I have been working at Seigakuin University for almost eight years. Currently, I am the acting manager of the International Center. My duties include contacting travel agencies, insurance companies, and language schools (overseas) in order to organize and manage study abroad programs. I also give orientation classes to students before their departure. Another part of my job is to collect data through questionnaires as well as interviewing students. After collecting the data, I analyze the student responses. Most importantly, I manage the day-to-day operations of the office. I hold an MBA degree, and had lived in America for 11 years. Due to my oversea experiences, I am able to relate to the students directly, and in understanding their needs when studying abroad.
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Jun Harada
"Let's Delve into the Minds of "BAD" Students: Alternative TESOL"
In this presentation I will discuss how to deal with students who "hate" English. Just like other teachers, I was tormented by such students who came to class to daydream, sleep or just fool around. Recently however, I started interviewing and private-teaching a bunch of unmotivated students and found their unique characteristics. Their ways of thinking are so different that teaching them seems to be out of the conventional TESOL wisdom which I knew.
First I will describe the "bad" students' mindsets and their learning (or fooling) styles. Then we will discuss if there are any good ways to deal with them. The attendants are welcome to participate in group talks and discussions.
Who is Jun Harada?
After studying TESOL in New York, I taught ESL at a public school in a poverty-stricken area of Bronx. Believe it or not, I was teaching English to Spanish-speaking kids and I am Japanese. After returning to Japan, I taught at alternative schools for high school dropouts. The students there were mostly two types of students: hyperactive or inactive. Now, I teach full-time at Dokkyo Junior and Senior High School, and part-time at Rikkyo University. The students I am teaching now are generally decent, but not too enthusiastic about learning. While in the process of doing my research in SLA, I have a lot to say about my experiences with unmotived students.

This is an interesting and thought provoking alternative model of management
and will cause reflection on current coordinating / management practices and
how we can improve on those to bring the best out of ourselves, our teachers
and hence improve the situation for out students.

Program 1 (Chapter presenters) (12:15~14:55)
1) Title: Highlights of JALT2008
Presenter: Joyce Cunningham
2) Title: Google as Home Base
Presenter; Dan Waldhoff >
3) Title: JALT '08 Conference Reports
Presenter: John Racine
4) Title to be announced
Presenter: Machi Okumura (Title to be announced)
5) Title: Translation-Transliteration-Summary of Japanese Domain Specific Texts Presenter: Jeroen Bode
Jeroen Bode has been working since 2005 for Tsukuba University as a lecturer.
From 2007 he started also as an independent official translator of Japanese.
His translation work led him to redirect his attention to applied language
skills during the process of translating. He received his M.A. in Japanese
language and culture in 1996 from Leiden University in the Netherlands.
6) Title: Drama and Language Education,
Presenter: Samuel Nfor
7) Title: Extensive Reading and the Effect of Shadowing,
Presenters: Takayuki Nakanishi and Atsuko Ueda
8) Title: Effective Use of Information Technology in College EFL Courses: Preliminary report
Presenter: Mariko Miyao
9) Title: What I Learned at JALT '08/Sign Language in the Classroom
Presenter: Martin Pauly
Program 2 (by Steve Brown) (15:00~16:00)
Title: JALT: History, Relations with Domestic & International Organizations, Challenges
Program 3: Business 16:00~17:00
**Bonenkai/Hanashiai will be held at a nearby restaurant after the meeting. **

If you teach children, then this mini-conference will be perfect for you! You will get lots of ideas from the innovative presentations as well as from the other teachers you will be sure to meet there. There will also be book displays and teaching materials for sale. Check http://jalt.org/events for details. For more information, call 082-224-3816 (JALT Hiroshima chapter).

Language educators often speak of using techniques and activities appropriate for each stage of language learning. However,
when it comes to incorporating cultural elements into the language lessons, there is usually very little consideration given to the learners' developmental stage of intercultural learning. In this workshop the presenter will demonstrate and discuss how to incorporate culture-based activities into the language classroom according to the learners' intercultural developmental stage and other factors. The presenter will provide opportunities to experiment with ideas and present activities that can be immediately applied to the classroom.

It is generally believed that in EFL contexts like we have in Japan, film or video is a significant source of input for our learners. But how valid are our assumptions? Hasn’t there been a generally uncritical acceptance of these assumptions? What has been missing, however, are studies to see in what ways film and media materials faithfully reflect the ordinary language used in natural conversations in the “real world” and in what ways they might deviate,-if ever so slightly. This presentation will summarize some of the findings of a 4-year project to assemble and analyze a teacher-selected film dialogue corpus as well as look at some of the teaching materials that evolved from the project.
Donna Tatsuki is a Professor at Kobe City University of Foreign Studies, where she teaches graduate courses in English Integrated Skills and Research in English-Language Education. She holds a Bachelor of Music and a Bachelor of Education, both from the University of Toronto, and an M.Ed. and an Ed.D, both from Temple University in Japan. Donna’s research interests include critical discourse analysis and textbook analysis; intercultural comparisons of complaint behavior; and pragmatic corpus analysis and critical research into film and video use in language teaching. She is a member of and regular presenter at TESOL, IPrA, IATEFL, FEELTA, AILA, and AAAL. She was Associate Editor and later Editor of the JALT Journal and served as Director of Records for JALT for 3 years. Among her scholarly publications are numerous articles (in international journals such as System, Journal of Pragmatics and Urban Review) and an edited collection in 2005 titled Pragmatics in Language Learning, Theory, and Practice (Tokyo: JALT). She is currently co-editing (with Noel Houck) 2 volumes on Teaching Pragmatics in the new TESOL Classroom Practice series.

Developing rubrics for learner and peer assessment
A grading Rubric is a scoring guide designed to identify general and/or specific skills, strengths, and weaknesses in a student’s task or assignment. In this presentation, I will discuss instructor developed assessment rubrics but will focus on student-developed rubrics as an effective tool for building awareness of what they must do to meet their established goals for success in a given task and through guided self-discovery and self-correction. The use of rubrics as an aid to individual or group learning can also aid in peer evaluations. This allows learners to see what others consider success which in turn, can foster intrinsic motivation through friendly competition as well as mutual support for success due to shared experiences. Indeed, involving learners in establishing the specific criteria needed for a task’s achievement goals enhances their understanding of what success is in any given task. The second part of this presentation will be a hands-on workshop where the participants create their own peer centered rubric for a chosen task. Open discussion is needed to develop a peer centered rubric. As such, participants will be encouraged to experience their development in a manner akin to what their students experience.