This event will have three presentations. Doors open at 12:45.
1:00-1:40 Douglas Meyer - Job-Hunting Workshop
The present-day language teacher needs much more than a university degree and a winning smile. Drawing on his own experiences and those of participants in this interactive workshop, he'll offer tips and ample resources to help sharpen your skills and improve your chances of landing the job you're looking for.
Doug Meyer has been teaching EFL in Korea and Japan since 1995, currently at Momoyama Gakuin High School in Osaka. He recently completed his MA in the Temple University Linguistics program. He is Publicity Chair for Osaka JALT and Coordinator of JALT's Job Information Center.
1:50-2:50 Matt Smith - Words, Types and Patterns: an Investigation
This presentation suggests an approach to grammar that does not rely on syntactic trees or exhaustive categorisation of parts of speech and clauses. Instead, using only the most simple coding, words are analysed by their behaviours and the patterns that they typically create. By applying this approach, words can be categorised into 'families' for a more organic and authentic description of language. Participants will engage in concordancing tasks with genuine corpus texts to investigate and evaluate this approach.
The presentation will include a brief description of how this approach is being applied to the analysis of the Chubu PASEO Learner Corpus.
Matt Smith received his MA in Applied Linguistics from the University of Birmingham. He has been teaching in Japan for nine years, currently at Chubu University in Aichi prefecture in both the Humanities department and in the Preparation for Academic Study in English Overseas (PASEO) programme. His areas of interest include the lexical approach to language description, written discourse analysis, and the study of super corpora and learner corpora for better informed teaching practices.
3:10-4:50 Gerald Williams, Jonathon Aliponga, Jonathan Watkins, Craig Gamble, Michael Wilkins, and Eugene Vakhnenko - Integrating Part-time Instructors in a Coordinated Curriculum
English courses are compulsory at university. After six years of required English courses, it is unsurprising if unsuccessful students show a lack of interest in English upon entering university. Part-time instructors are often given little direction and support to determine what to teach and how to positively affect students' overall English learning. This seminar will introduce a coordinated program with a focus on, first, structures that aim at improving student English level and, second, the role of part-time instructors. The presenters will do a short introduction on each segment, followed by discussion from the participants. The segments will include using English, dealing with homework, and socializing, among other things.
Gerald Williams is Chair of the Department of English Education at Kansai University of International Studies, Amagasaki, Hyogo.
Jonathan Aliponga is Program Coordinator in the Department of English Education at KUIS.
Jonathan Watkins, Craig Gamble, Michael Wilkins, and Eugene Vakhnenko
are part-time lecturers in the Department of English Education at KUIS.
5:30-7:30 Dinner, drinks, and further discussion will follow the presentations at Satoyama dining restaurant http://r.gnavi.co.jp/k593000/ on the 17th floor of the Terminal Building (near Hankyu Umeda station). All you can eat dinner buffet is 2,480 yen, and with all you can drink add 1,050 yen. If you're unable to attend the afternoon sessions but would like to join us at the restaurant, please contact us before Sunday 10/25 at osakajalt@yahoo.com so we can reserve you a seat.
