Miyazaki Chapter

(Read the archived description for the Miyazaki Chapter)

Miyazaki Chapter Events in 2007

Events archive by year:
2008 [2]; 2007; 2006 [3]; 2005 [6]; 2004 [8]; 2003 [2]; 2002 [4]; 2001 [6];

Saturday, April 21st, 2007

Sing Your Life: Effectively Using Pop Lyrics in EFL

Speaker: Paul Hullah (Associate Professor, Miyazaki University)
Time: 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM (Sat., April 21st, 2007)
Fee (JALT members): free
Fee (One-Day members): free
Prefecture: Miyazaki
City: Miyazaki
Venue: Miyazaki Municipal University Rm. #310
Description: The presenter offers research findings suggesting that, though pop music forms L2 learners' 'most frequent meaningful exposure to English' outside the classroom, this resource is inappropriately presented in popular contemporary tertiary level EFL coursebooks. Recommendations will be made as to how lyrics might more effectively be 'personlized' and utilized to promote self-expression, as participants tackle some original lyric-based activities developed by the presenter. Comments and criticisms regarding the proposed innovative approach are invited.

Saturday, June 23rd, 2007

The Center Shiken: A New Perspective

Speaker: Mike Guest
Time: 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM (Sat., June 23rd, 2007)
Fee (JALT members): free
Fee (One-Day members): free
Prefecture: Miyazaki
City: Miyazaki
Venue: Miyazaki Municipal University Rm. #310
Description: The University Entrance Center Examination (widely known as the Center Shiken) is a common topic among English educators in Japan. This standardized, nationwide test is probably the most notorious part of Japan's education system. Since high schools often gear their entire curriculum towards success on this test, it is often offered as the justification for a focus upon grammar translation at the secondary level. As a result, it has been criticized as being a main contributor to the perversion of English education in Japan.

But are such perceptions of the exam accurate? The presenter has recently analyzed the 2004 and 2006 versions of the exam and compared them to a 1981 version. In this presentation, Mike Guest will give an overview of the role and function of the exam itself, as well as recent Education Ministry statements regarding the the entrance exam system. The presenter will then provide interesting examples and conclusions from his research, shedding some light on recent positive qualities of the Center Shiken, and will also demonstrate how these could have a positive backwash on high school English pedagogy in general.

Mike Guest is Associate Professor of English at the Medical Faculty at the University of Miyazaki. He is also a regular columnist on EFL in the Daily Yomiuri newspaper and has published and presented on EFL matters widely.

Saturday, July 14th, 2007

Promoting a Holistic Approach to Speaking in the Classroom

Speaker: Simon Capper (Professor, The Japanese Red Cross Hiroshima College of Nursing)
Time: 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM (Sat., July 14th, 2007)
Fee (JALT members): free
Fee (One-Day members): free
Prefecture: Miyazaki
City: Miyazaki
Venue: Miyazaki Municipal University Rm. #310
Description: Many Language learners (and teachers) have a tendency to overly focus on linguistic features, at the expense of the paralinguistic and nonverbal aspects of communication. Similarly, language teaching materials often fail to acknowledge the importance of these crucial channels. This workshop will demonstrate materials and activities that raise awareness of these important features. Participants will be invited to share their own teaching and learning experiences, activities and ideas.

Saturday, October 13th, 2007

Actually Teaching Listening: Moving Beyond Practice to Actual Teaching

Speaker: Alastair Graham-Marr (Faculty Member of Tokai University, and editor for ABAX Ltd, a specialty ELT publisher)
Time: 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM (Sat., October 13th, 2007)
Fee (JALT members): free
Fee (One-Day members): free
Prefecture: Miyazaki
City: Miyazaki
Venue: Miyazaki Municipal University, Room 310 (3F)
Description: To effectively teach listening, teachers need to focus on both 'bottom up' decoding skills and 'top down' predictive skills. Accepted in theory this is often not practiced in classrooms. To teach the bottom-up skills we need to give students an understanding and working knowledge of natural, connected speech: its elisions and liaisons, its weak forms and reductions. For the top-down, students need to be encouraged to use background and situational information to help them make more accurate predictions about coming discourse in a given situation. This is in line with much recent research which suggests that classes need to have some focus on language form but do so within a communicative framework. This presentation seeks to explore how these points can be incorporated into our language classrooms.

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