Kitakyushu Chapter

(Read the archived description for the Kitakyushu Chapter)

Kitakyushu Chapter Events in 2005

Events archive by year:
2008 [10]; 2007 [13]; 2006 [9]; 2005; 2004 [15]; 2003 [13]; 2002 [13]; 2001 [9];

Saturday, January 8th, 2005

New Year Social Event

Speaker: TBA
Time: 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM (Sat., January 8th, 2005)
Fee (JALT members): free
Fee (One-Day members): 1,000 yen
Prefecture: Fukuoka
City: Kitakyushu
Venue: Kitakyushu International Conference Center, room 31 (a 5-minute walk from the Kokura train station for shinkansen, JR train)
Description: To celebrate the New Year, join Kitakyushu JALT for our annual social event. Details to be confirmed; check the chapter website for further information.

Saturday, February 12th, 2005

Multiple Intelligences Theory and the Second Language Classroom

Speaker: Ronald Schmidt-Fajlik
Time: 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM (Sat., February 12th, 2005)
Fee (JALT members): free
Fee (One-Day members): 1,000 yen
Prefecture: Fukuoka
City: Kitakyushu
Venue: Kitakyushu International Conference Center, room 31 (a 5-minute walk from the Kokura train station for shinkansen, JR train)
Description: Addressing individual differences in the second language classroom is an important factor in lesson planning. Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences may serve as a way to address these differences. The workshop will begin with a description of Gardner's theory. The relevance of his theory to educators will be discussed as well as ways by which students may be assessed using a survey type questionnaire. The workshop will conclude with a description of a variety of language teaching activities which may be used to address individual differences in the second language classroom based on Gardner's theory.

Saturday, March 12th, 2005

My Share: The High-Tech Classroom

Speaker: Hiroshi Otani and others
Time: 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM (Sat., March 12th, 2005)
Fee (JALT members): free
Fee (One-Day members): 1,000 yen
Prefecture: Fukuoka
City: Kitakyushu
Venue: Kitakyushu International Conference Center, room 31 (a 5-minute walk from the Kokura train station for shinkansen, JR train)
Description: The difficulty that teachers of English in EFL environments must face lies in the fact that they are expected to raise the students' English abilities as a whole, including those of some (often many!) students with little motivation to study the language. To compensate for their apparent lack of motivation for English, teachers have often taken advantage of college entrance examinations to push them into English learning. However, there was not even such instrumental motivation in Japanese colleges of technology, or Kosen as they are known in Japanese. I will introduce a couple of web-based vocabulary drills with self-developed databases by a group of Kosen teachers of English. They are still in the stage of pilot studies being conducted at a handful of Kosens, but have received favorable feedback from both the teachers and the learners so far.

Saturday, April 9th, 2005

Ambiguity, Neutralization, and Telling the Truth: A phonetic approach to the teaching of EFL listening comprehension

Speaker: Hiroshi Matsusaka
Time: 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM (Sat., April 9th, 2005)
Fee (JALT members): free
Fee (One-Day members): 1,000 yen
Prefecture: Fukuoka
City: Kitakyushu
Venue: Kitakyushu International Conference Center, room 31 (a 5-minute walk from the Kokura train station for shinkansen, JR train)
Description: One of the factors that make listening comprehension difficult for EFL learners is the discrepancy between a piece of English as it is orthographically represented and the same piece of English as it is phonetically realized. Thus, when we teachers give our students listening comprehension training, we sometimes appear to them to be telling them that a sound is present where there are none, or no sounds are present where there is one, or a sound is present where some other sound is present. My talk will focus on (a) cases of sound change in natural speech, (b) the 'phonetic ambiguity' that may occur as a result of such sound change, and (c) how we can make use of information of this sort to prevent confusion on the part of learners as we teach listening comprehension.

Saturday, May 14th, 2005

My Share: Listening Activities for the High School Classroom

Speaker: Various
Time: 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM (Sat., May 14th, 2005)
Fee (JALT members): free
Fee (One-Day members): 1,000 yen
Prefecture: Fukuoka
City: Kitakyushu
Venue: Kitakyushu International Conference Center, room 31 (a 5-minute walk from the Kokura train station for shinkansen, JR train)
Description: Members discuss the April presentation and share classroom-tested listening activities and strategies. Discussion and activities will focus on (but not be limited to) senior high classrooms.

Saturday, June 25th, 2005

Engaging Learners in Their Own Learning with a Drama Approach

Speaker: Steve Brown
Time: 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM (Sat., June 25th, 2005)
Fee (JALT members): free
Fee (One-Day members): 1,000 yen
Prefecture: Fukuoka
City: Kitakyushu
Venue: Kitakyushu International Conference Center, room 31 (a 5-minute walk from the Kokura train station for shinkansen, JR train)
Description: Drama in the language classroom is often thought of as just a series of 'techniques' or 'fun activities' aimed to get students actively using the language. Either that, or 'putting on a play'. But at its most rewarding, it is an approach to learning which seeks to actively engage learners in the learning process and encourages them to work together as a group, sharing the responsibility for their own learning. In this presentation, Steve Brown suggests how drama might be used in the classroom as a wider-ranging approach. He'll link his presentation to recent developments and practices in the area of learner autonomy. Participants should expect to be actively engaged and have fun! The presentation will be followed by an Open Microphone session, with a chance to ask questions, suggest ideas and share concerns, complaints and opinions with JALT's current National President.

Saturday, July 9th, 2005

Helping Exchange Students Respond to Intercultural Conflicts and Dilemmas

Speaker: Bob Long
Time: 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM (Sat., July 9th, 2005)
Fee (JALT members): free
Fee (One-Day members): 1,000 yen
Prefecture: Fukuoka
City: Kitakyushu
Venue: Kitakyushu International Conference Center, room 31 (a 5-minute walk from the Kokura train station for shinkansen, JR train)
Description: Going abroad for Japanese exchange students is often fun, but it may not be uncommon for students to encounter difficult situations. Unfortunately, most English language programs provide little instruction and guidance about conflicts or problematic situations. This presentation will review sixteen dilemmas were identified based on previous data gathered from 8 years of student exchanges between a national university in Kyushu, and with a university located in Virginia. A survey and a series of related discourse completion tasks were constructed involving three kinds of conflicts and three kinds of dilemmas—epistemic conflicts, obligation dilemmas, and prohibition dilemmas. Teachers will evaluate each situation and write down how they would have responded to the demands, questions, and comments of each speaker. The student ratings and responses will then be shown for comparison. Discussion will center on the pragmalinguistic and sociolinguistic failure that occurred in these L2 contexts. Discussion will focus on two areas: (a) the fours criteria for intercultural conflict competence, and (b) specific recommendations concerning potential problematic situations that exchange students might have and how they could better respond to them.

Sunday, July 24th, 2005

Laugh and Learn / All Together Now!

Speaker: Linda Witting / Chris Hunt
Time: 2:00 PM - 4:30 PM (Sun., July 24th, 2005)
Fee (JALT members): free
Fee (One-Day members): 1,000 yen
Prefecture: Fukuoka
City: Kitakyushu
Venue: Kitakyushu International Conference Center, room 31 (a 5-minute walk from the Kokura train station for shinkansen, JR train)
Description: Enjoying English
Kitakyushu JALT will present an afternoon of workshops designed primarily for teachers of children, to help them make the learning of English a joyful experience for their students.

Laugh and Learn
Smiley the Clown (Linda) will do balloon sculptures, juggling, illusions, flying handkerchief mice, and more. This method will inspire teachers to use their hobbies and interests to share English in a fun way.
Linda Wittig is the author of the "Yes, I Can" column for the TLC professional newsletter of the Teaching Children Special Interest Group. Her interests include making paper airplanes, origami, spinning tops, and drawing Disney characters. She is taking Yamaha Electone, Suzuki Violin, and swimming lessons. Through her music and swimming lessons she also learns Japanese in a fun way.

All Together Now!
Come and find out about non-competitive games for language learning! Games are not inherently competitive and once you get used to co-operative and non-competitive ways of playing games, you start feeling unsettled when you see lesson plans using competitive games. With lots of practical activities this workshop seeks to show how competition is unnecessary. Come and experience the difference!
Chris Hunt has been working with children in Japan for over ten years. He avoids using the word "teach" as he believes in facilitating learning through non-teaching. Chris is very interested in games, co-operative learning and unschooling. His eclectic Wise Hat website can be found at http://www.wisehat.com/index.php. He also edits the quarterly newsletter of the Teaching Children Special Interest Group: "Teachers Learning With Children"

Saturday, September 10th, 2005

Examining Friends: Using Genre Analysis to analyze TV Scripts

Speaker: Raymond Stubbes
Time: 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM (Sat., September 10th, 2005)
Fee (JALT members): free
Fee (One-Day members): 1,000 yen
Prefecture: Fukuoka
City: Kitakyushu
Venue: Kitakyushu International Conference Center, room 31 (a 5-minute walk from the Kokura train station for shinkansen, JR train)
Description: Interested in livening up your lessons by bringing TV programs such as Friends into your classroom? Curious about Genre Analysis and what it has to offer you as a language teacher? Want to learn about another useful and free text analysis resource available on the Internet? In this presentation, Raymond Stubbe will briefly review the concept of Genre Analysis, then demonstrate how practically any piece of text, Friends TV scripts in this instance, can be lexically analyzed using the free internet site www.lextutor.ca. Participants will also learn how to create CLOZE passage listening exercises using the website, and one will be presented and tested while viewing an actual episode.

Thursday, October 13th, 2005

Simply Read: Developing a reading habit in your learners (JALT 4 Corners Tour)

Speaker: Clyde Fowle
Time: 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM (Thu., October 13th, 2005)
Fee (JALT members): free
Fee (One-Day members): 1,000 yen
Prefecture: Fukuoka
City: Kitakyushu
Venue: Kokura Higashi Shinozaki Church (Get off the monorail at Katano Station. Walk toward Kokura station on the west side of the street, until you come to the first traffic light. Turn left. The venue is at the end of the first block, on the right.)
Description: This workshop will look at some of the advantages of incorporating extended reading into language learning programmes. The rational for encouraging students to read extensively will be discussed and the session will consider the practicalities of introducing and managing an extensive reading programme. Participants will have the opportunity to evaluate some readers and try out a range of 'authentic' classroom activities that can be used to accompany readers.

Participants will leave with an overview of the key factors to consider when introducing extended reading into a language programme and practical ideas of how to exploit readers with their learners.

Saturday, October 15th, 2005

Vocabulary Acquisition through Storytelling

Speaker: Beniko Mason
Time: 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM (Sat., October 15th, 2005)
Fee (JALT members): free
Fee (One-Day members): free
Prefecture: Fukuoka
City: Kitakyushu
Venue: International Conference Room, Kitakyushu International Association, Yahata
Description: Studies show that EFL learners need to possess at least 3000 word families (Nation, 1990) to be able to read an unsimplified text. Low intermediate EFL learners at a junior college in Japan must gain at least 700 words per year to reach that goal in two years. Using explicit learning strategies they learned 200 to 260 words per year in their secondary schools. Although it has been argued that implicit strategies are inefficient, listening to stories (a comprehensible input based approach) has been suggested as an effective method for increasing vocabulary size. This presentation will demonstrate an effective method to introduce 20 to 25 words to EFL learners in one lesson. An investigation shows that the acquisition rate using the storytelling method is as efficient as that seen in children acquiring English as a first language. Furthermore, this method is cost effective, as no textbook is necessary for learners.

Beniko Mason has been investigating the efficacy and efficiency of comprehension-based methods since 1985. She has published several studies on the use of extensive reading in the EFL class, and her recent focus is the use of storytelling.

NOTE: This presentation will be held at the International Conference Room, Kitakyushu International Association, Yahata as part of Kitakyushu International Week.

Saturday, November 12th, 2005

Extensive Reading Activities

Speaker: Ronan Brown
Time: 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM (Sat., November 12th, 2005)
Fee (JALT members): free
Fee (One-Day members): 1,000 yen
Prefecture: Fukuoka
City: Kitakyushu
Venue: Kitakyushu International Conference Center, room 31 (a 5-minute walk from the Kokura train station for shinkansen, JR train)
Description: This workshop aims to place extensive reading at the center of the language teaching program by presenting a broad range of classroom activities and tasks that draw on students' reading experiences for further language development in reading, writing and speaking skills classes. Ronan Brown will give practical advice on implementing an effective extensive-reading program and integrating it into the overall language curriculum. This presentation will be useful for junior high school teachers through to instructors at the university level wishing to exploit the cross-curricular language learning benefits of this powerful form of instruction.

Saturday, December 10th, 2005

Managing Students' On-line Learning with MOODLE

Speaker: Nigel Stott and Malcolm Swanson
Time: 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM (Sat., December 10th, 2005)
Fee (JALT members): free
Fee (One-Day members): 1,000 yen
Prefecture: Fukuoka
City: Kitakyushu
Venue: Kitakyushu International Conference Center, room 31 (a 5-minute walk from the Kokura train station for shinkansen, JR train)
Description: If you would like to set up an e-learning course for your students, then you might like to consider using the course management system MOODLE.

This open source software package allows you to create on-line courses that include self-checking quizzes, assignments, discussion forums, writing journals, surveys, lessons, resources, and so on. The teacher has complete control over the content and presentation, but the interface is relatively easy to use. The MOODLE system is being used by educators in a wide variety of institutions around the world, not just in language teaching but in all subjects, with all ages of students, in both distance-learning situations and as a supplement to face-to-face classes.

In this presentation, Nigel and Malcolm will demonstrate some of the features of MOODLE using their own on-line courses. They will describe their own experiences of running MOODLE courses and show the kinds of things it is possible to achieve with the system.

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