Kitakyushu Chapter

(Read the archived description for the Kitakyushu Chapter)

Kitakyushu Chapter Events in 2006

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

Saturday, February 4th, 2006

Electronic Dictionary Workshop

Speaker: Takashi Inomori
Time: 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM (Sat., February 4th, 2006)
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: Electronic Dictionaries are getting more and more popular among high school students as well as university students. In some schools more than 80 per cent of the students are e-dictionary users. But do they and their English teachers really know how to use the dictionaries? How much do they know about their useful functions, which are not available in paper dictionaries? Takashi Inomori, who has given workshops for high school English teachers on how to make full use of electronic dictionaries throughout Kyushu and Okinawa, will show you what amazing learning and teaching tools they can be in your classroom. The participants will be asked to bring their own electronic dictionaries. They will have a chance to use Casio’s latest model during the workshop, whether or not they have their own e-dictionary.

Saturday, March 11th, 2006

Can IT Solve Age-Old Teaching Problems?

Speaker: Mark Cowan
Time: 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM (Sat., March 11th, 2006)
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: How are teachers evaluated for their classroom performance? Does lesson preparation really matter? Can't I just wing it? How are students' abilities evaluated? Do 1 to 5 or Poor to Excellent scale systems have any meaning? Do teachers really evaluate students against a standard benchmark or are they really comparing students against other students in class?

The presenter will demonstrate two information systems that can provide answers to these questions, but raise many more.

E-LessonPlanner (www.e-lessonplan.com) is an online lesson planning system that emails a teacher's lesson plan to his students before their lesson. After the lesson it sends the lesson record and students' attendance to the school's administrator.

E-valuator (http://www.e-lessonplan.com/e-valuator01_en.htm) is a system for evaluating students' language ability. The teacher makes a written evaluation in English and a Japanese copy in emailed to the student. The evaluations cover 7 different learning areas at three different levels.

Saturday, April 8th, 2006

Preliminary Report on Linguistic Readiness of Japanese Students Studying at an American University / Frivolity in the Classroom

Speaker: L. Dennis Woolbright, Kazuko Nishioka, and Yuji Hayashi / Malcolm Swanson
Time: 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM (Sat., April 8th, 2006)
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: About 150,000 Japanese students take the TOEFL test every year, which is about 20 per cent of the total test-takers in the world. Educational Testing Service (ETS) has announced that a new-generation on-line Test of English as Foreign Language iBT(TOEFL) will come into operation in 2006 in Japan. A significant change in the test is that it will be an Internet based test with a mandatory speaking and writing component. The new test will examine comprehensive abilities in listening, reading, writing and speaking. The reason for this change is that many university professors complained that a high score on the TOEFL test did not necessarily mean that a student was academically prepared for university studies. This study looks at the strengths and perceived weaknesses of Japanese students studying at a private American university. Eight students and eight native English instructors were interviewed for this study using two questionnaires. A gap was noticed between students and teachers perceptions of areas of weaknesses and strengths in Japanese learners.

Presenters L. Dennis Woolbright, Kazuko Nishioka, and Yuji Hayashi all teach at Seinan Jo Gakuin University in the Humanities Department where they have been formulating this research for the last three years.

Frivolity in the Classroom

Sometimes it's good to break away from formal studies and do something fun. Better still if that activity involves a bit of learning! In this short workshop, we'll look at creating simple animation movies using a laptop computer and a digital video camera. After a brief explanation and a demonstration of movies created by students, attendees will have an opportunity to create short movies themselves. Finally, we will discuss how these techniques could be used in a language-learning classroom.

Malcolm Swanson teaches at Seinan Jo Gakuin University in Kitakyushu.

Saturday, May 20th, 2006

Strategies to Help Students Communicate Now

Speaker: Roger Palmer
Time: 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM (Sat., May 20th, 2006)
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: Instructors continually face learners who have years of formal instruction in English yet still struggle to get their message across. This presentation focuses on the need for students to make use of the English they know in the here-and-now. It will show how Roger Palmer's new coursebook Communicate Now makes explicit use of communication strategies which rapidly improve the students' ability to use language.

Saturday, June 10th, 2006

Using podcasts - even without an iPod!

Speaker: Bill Pellowe
Time: 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM (Sat., June 10th, 2006)
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 presentation is on podcasts, the latest online trend. After listening to some podcast audio files, the presenter shows how you can use them with students (even if you don't have an iPod). Also, discover the advantages of using an iPod in the classroom. The presenter demonstrates how to integrate the iPod into your writing, reading and speaking lessons, using an iPod to show photo slideshows and videos. The presenter shows how you can get your iPod to do this, too.

Saturday, July 8th, 2006

Putting Reading and Listening Online

Speaker: Ken Gibson and Gordon Luster
Time: 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM (Sat., July 8th, 2006)
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: Our students of English face a tremendous obstacle. When they leave our classrooms, it's Japan out there. They find very little access to understandable written or spoken English in their environment. Without access, they can't practice. Without practice, they can't improve. Without improvement, they give up. The answer is to provide easy, interesting, cheap, convenient access. Lots of it.

Saturday, September 9th, 2006

Immersion and Immediate Conversation Techniques

Speaker: Lynda Batty
Time: 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM (Sat., September 9th, 2006)
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: It is fascinating to watch bilingual children transfer from one language to another so easily and fluently. From birth the children are regularly exposed to a wealth of fascinating information in both languages. They are spoken to as often as possible but are not expected to respond by using perfect grammar. They are corrected by example rather than being told they are using incorrect grammatical structures. They are totally immersed in the language. Do they understand everything spoken to them? Of course not! Through this regular immersion in language they acquire the skills to be able to communicate the spoken words fluently. Even though the skills of reading and writing are not seemingly acquired as easily, amazingly, the spoken words simply flow!!

Does the reverse work equally as efficiently? Do students who learn a grammatical and written approach to language acquire good speaking skills? Research shows this is not the case.

In this presentation, the immersion and immediate conversation techniques being used at Seinan Junior and Senior High Schools to encourage students to become more confident speakers, will be discussed. Of course cultural issues have to be considered, but hopefully some excellent results will be shown. Some of the resources used will be displayed, some video clips will be shown and examples of the careful but creative planning will be given.

Saturday, October 14th, 2006

Kitakyushu- International Week featuring Two Bilingual Events

Speaker: Various
Time: 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM (Sat., October 14th, 2006)
Fee (JALT members): free
Fee (One-Day members): free
Prefecture: Fukuoka
City: Kitakyushu
Venue: International Conference Room, Kitakyushu International Association, Yahata
Description: BLAST! Holly Thompson, co-founder of English Blast (www.englishblast.com) will present a workshop for parents of bilingual children. She will demonstrate the cooperative, parent- taught program of enrichment education designed to provide bilingual, intercultural children in Japan

"The Kingdom of Tonga, the Friendly Islands", will be presented by FUNAKI Kaitu'u, International Programs Coordinator for APU, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University along with other Oceanic participants from New Zealand and Australia. This will be a program of culture and music from the region by some very talented natives of the area including a real “Haka"!

Saturday, December 9th, 2006

Wine, Juice, and Cheese Evening

Speaker: All Welcome
Time: 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM (Sat., December 9th, 2006)
Fee (JALT members): free
Fee (One-Day members): free
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: Join us for a relaxing social evening to celebrate the end of yet another successful year in Kitakyushu JALT. Refreshments and nibbles will be provided while we reminisce on 2006 and plan for the year ahead. A nice chance to meet the chapter officers—old and new! For those wanting more vocal exercise, we're planning carol singing in Kokura Station afterwards (singers can share the tips)! All members are welcome. Introduce a non-member friend at no charge.

Find Events

By chapter or SIG
By month
By prefecture

Front page