Fukuoka JALT

The Call for Presenters is now open for the 2012 Fukuoka JALT Conference and Educational Materials Expo. Click here for more info.

Date: Saturday, May 19th, 2012
Time: 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Speaker: Anne-Marie Tanahashi (Poole Gakuin University, Osaka)

Description: In this presentation, Anne-Marie Tanahashi will talk about the Moodle site she uses and why she likes it. The audience will have a chance to see:

...how she uses Moodle to supplement a sheltered content course she teachings on Britain.
...how students gain easy access through Moodle to more information on the web.
...how students can submit their homework through Moodle (so goodbye to collecting and carrying pieces of paper around!).
...how an instructor can give feedback over Moodle.
Also, the presenter will talk about a Narrow Listening project she set up with some motivated students. It all started with voice-recorders and the burning of CDs, but now has moved to the Moodle site making it accessible to all students at the university.

Cost: JALT Members: free
Non-members: 1,000 yen
Venue: Seinan Community Center (map to the venue). Near Nishijin Subway station.

Date: Saturday, June 23rd, 2012
Time: 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Speaker: Barbara Sakamoto

Description: In this session, Barbara Sakamoto will demonstrate the small ways that she has incorporated technology tools in her classes with young learners. Since she only sees her students for one hour each week, and technology tools can be time eaters (especially when neither the teacher nor the learners are tech savvy), she tends to bring in tools only when she thinks they'll improve on what they're already doing in class. She will explore actual projects that her students have created using Voicethread, Glogster, Xtranormal and blogs, including an overview of the lesson leading up to the project, and how each project enhanced her students' learning experience.

Barb Hoskins Sakamoto is co-author of Let's Go (OUP), one of the world's best-selling English courses for children. An EFL teacher and teacher trainer since 1985, she has conducted workshops throughout Asia, the U.S. and Latin America. Her motto is "Always try new things," so these days, when she's not teaching, writing, or giving workshops, you'll often find her online exploring the potential of social media for professional development. If you'd like to explore with her, you can usually find her on her blog, Teaching Village, her wiki, on Twitter or Facebook, or in Second Life.

Cost: JALT Members: free
Non-members: 1,000 yen
Venue: Seinan Community Center (map to the venue). Near Nishijin Subway station.

Date: Sunday, October 28th, 2012
Time: 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM
Speaker: TBA. Call for papers opens January 5, and closes April 30, 2012.

Description: Over 30 presentations on the theory and practice of teaching and learning languages. Topics include Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL); Linguistics; Classroom Management; and more.

Call for Presenters
Opens: Thursday, January 5th, 2012
Closes: Monday, April 30th, 2012
Please submit all proposals via our website (January 5, 2012 - April 30, 2012)

Bookfair
Visit the Main Hall to see displays of all the latest textbooks, reference books, and classroom materials. Talk to the publishers about your particular requirements and order your sample copies.

Cost: JALT Members: free
Non-members: 1,000 yen
Venue: Venue: Seinan Gakuin University, Building 1, near Nishijin Subway station (map).

Date: Saturday, April 21st, 2012
Time: 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Speaker: Aonghas Crowe

Description: This presentation will cover the current state of the e-book industry, the pluses and minuses of publishing electronically, as well as the nuts and bolts of publishing and promoting your works.

Aonghas Crowe is a writer, blogger, translator, and teacher. He has been working for Fukuoka Jo Gakuin University Junior College since 2011.

Cost: JALT Members: free
Non-members: 1,000 yen
Venue: Seinan Community Center (map to the venue), near Nishijin Subway station.

Date: Friday, March 2nd, 2012
Time: 5:30 PM - 7:00 PM
Speaker: Apple Store Geniuses

Description: This joint JALT / Apple Store Workshop will introduce iCloud. The presenter will demonstrate how iCloud stores, syncs, and shares music, pictures, documents, calendars, apps, contacts and mails across multiple devices.

Spaces are limited to 14 attendees, so please contact Kate early to reserve your spot.

Cost: free for everyone
Venue: The Apple Store, Tenjin

Date: Sunday, February 19th, 2012
Time: 6:45 PM - 9:00 PM
Speaker: (1) Lauren Brumfield; (2) Panel: Todd Beuckens, Paul Collett, Robert Diem, Bill Pellowe

Description: Not many of us are teacher trainers in technology, but many of us have introduced new technology to our colleagues or students. How do we help teachers and students to become more independent users of technology? How to we introduce technology to the wary or uninterested so that the technology is adopted rather than neglected or even rejected? In this event, we hope to shed light on these questions.

In the first half of today's event, we will participate in the IATEFL Learning Technologies SIG's webinar entitled Implementing Information and Communications Technology in an Institution. In the second half of today's event, the panel will each give a short talk relating the webinar content to their own experiences in this area, followed by questions, comments and general discussion. After our event, all participants are invited out to a nearby kebab shop for a social beer.

All participants will be able to follow along with the webinar on a large screen and overhead projector. Participants who have laptops or mobile devices can also log on while sitting in the audience, which means that they can individually take part in the text chat window at the same time.

Click here for more information on the IATEFL webinar.

Cost: JALT Members: free
Non-members: free for non-JALT members
Venue: Seinan Community Center, 1st floor auditorium (map).

Date: Saturday, February 18th, 2012
Time: 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Speakers:  Paul Collett (Shimonoseki City University), Kristen Sullivan (Shimonoseki City University)

Description: Helping our students to develop as self-regulated learners able to successfully engage with learning tasks involves helping them to acquire certain skills, strategies and approaches that they can apply both in and out of the classroom. This is important both for contributing to positive academic outcomes, and for building and sustaining motivation. One way to achieve this is to introduce resources that make explicit to students what they are expected to learn in a course, and the processes they can use to facilitate and assess their progress. Based on their experiences, the presenters will lead participants through the steps involved in developing one such resource. The model to be considered, a study progress guide, incorporates can-do statements to help students and teachers clearly understand curriculum goals and requirements, along with goal-setting and self-reflective processes aimed at building awareness, and encouraging implementation, of (meta-)cognitive knowledge and strategies seen as necessary for self-regulated learning.

After a brief conceptual overview and introduction to the study progress guide, we will work with a text to identify key components that can be transformed into can-do statements, an activity replicable with any classroom material. Consideration will also be given to how other materials and activities can be incorporated into the guide to deal with differing learning situations and learner needs.

Paul Collett has been teaching at the university-level in Japan for a number of years. His current research interests relate to the psychology of the language learner and social factors influencing self-regulation.

Kristen Sullivan is a lecturer at Shimonoseki City University and co-writer of Impact Conversation 1 & 2. She is interested in the teaching, learning and assessment of speaking, as well as interactions between language learner identity and language use.

Cost: JALT Members: free
Non-members: 1,000 yen
Venue: Seinan Community Center (map to the venue), near Nishijin Subway station.

Date: Saturday, January 21st, 2012
Time: 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Speakers: Robert Chartrand, Rob Cochrane, Darcy DeLint, Aaron Hahn, Trevor Holster, Bill Pellowe, Tim Pritchard, Alonzo Williams

Description: Come and see how other teachers are compiling their new curricula for the coming school year. Here is an opportunity for teachers to exchange ideas and advice on all aspects of curriculum design and implementation. 

The session will be comprised of a series of short presentations, about 5-10 minutes each, followed by time for questions and discussions. Afterwards, let's continue the discussion over beer and food nearby!

The speakers are listed below in alphabetical order:

Assigning homework to university students

Robert Chartrand

Should we give homework to our students? What are some homework exercises that are useful for our students? Robert will show real examples of different kinds of homework that he has assigned to students in a variety of courses, and discuss why some of the activities were successful or not, and how to minimize the time spent by teachers to check the homework.

Class website/blogs

Rob Cochrane
Class websites and blogs can be used to help students become more responsible for their learning as well as extending language learning beyond the classroom. The pros and cons of using websites and blogs will be discussed and a list of resources for beginners will be presented.

Student generated listening and quiz set
 or 
Getting content and audience first

Darcy DeLint
A set of student-centered activities designed to practice writing, presenting, question construction, listening and note taking. Students often pay little attention to other students' presentations and all too often those presentations are targeted at the teacher, laden with display language and hence, not audience centered. This activity set, based on the Task-based cycle, is effective and getting students engaged in each other's work and focused on both content and audience.

Gender roles

Aaron Hahn

A two-session lesson for high school students (adaptable for older students) that uses the students' lives and future plans to help students indirectly explore gender difference. It focuses on listening, but also includes speaking and reading practice. The lesson plan also demonstrates a simple way for students to shape the content of future classes (student-centered learning).

Diary Review Discussions
Trevor Holster, Fukuoka Women's University

Trevor will demonstrate using diary review discussions as a source of meaningful pushed output and comprehensible input in communication classes. These tasks are suitable for levels from false beginner to advanced and work especially well in mixed level classes.

Answer Paddles
Bill Pellowe, Kinki University

Bill will demonstrate a very quick and easy way to keep students paying attention, and to gauge students' understanding.

Learn about your students as they learn to converse

Tim Pritchard

Tim will describe two methods he has used to help get to know his students over the course of a year, and one activity which helps them get motivated to speak and actually hold a conversation. This is through the use of a cunningly annotated class photo, weekly two-way feedback using name cards and a weekly topical 'find someone who' activity, respectively.

Engaging students through interactive speaking activities

Alonzo Williams

Alonzo will share one or two classroom activities that he uses to get students up and speaking.

Cost: JALT Members: free
Non-members: 1,000 yen
Venue: Seinan Community Center (map to the venue). Near Nishijin Subway station.