Tokyo Chapter

(Read the archived description for the Tokyo Chapter)

Tokyo Chapter Events in 2005

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

Saturday, May 14th, 2005

2005 Pan-SIG Conference

Speaker: Curtis Kelly
Time: 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM (Sat., May 14th, 2005)
Fee (JALT members): TBA
Fee (One-Day members): TBA
Prefecture: Tokyo
City: Tokyo
Venue: Tokyo Keizai University at the Kokubunji campus
Description: Adult teaching methods, learning contracts, needs assessment, and learning theories. This event is co-sponsored with West Tokyo chapter, GALE, Pragmatics, Teacher Education, Teaching Children, Teaching Older Learners and Testing & Evaluation SIGs.

Sunday, May 15th, 2005

2005 Pan-SIG Conference

Speaker: Curtis Kelly
Time: 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM (Sun., May 15th, 2005)
Fee (JALT members): TBA
Fee (One-Day members): TBA
Prefecture: Tokyo
City: Tokyo
Venue: Tokyo Keizai University at the Kokubunji campus
Description: Adult teaching methods, learning contracts, needs assessment, and learning theories. This event is co-sponsored with West Tokyo chapter, GALE, Pragmatics, Teacher Education, Teaching Children, Teaching Older Learners and Testing & Evaluation SIGs.

Friday, May 20th, 2005

Language Learning and Identity: From Learner Variables to Co-Construction

Speaker: Gabriele Kasper (University of Hawaii)
Time: 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM (Fri., May 20th, 2005)
Fee (JALT members): free
Fee (One-Day members): 1,000 yen
Prefecture: Tokyo
City: Tokyo
Venue: Temple University Japan Rooms 206/207
Description: The talk by Dr Gabriele Kasper will take a conversation-analytic perspective to examine identity at work in interactions between L2 users and their co-participants. The relationship between L2 learning and learners' identity has been a topical concern in SLA from early on, yet widely differing proposals have been offered to theorize this relationship - and, indeed, the notions of 'identity' and 'L2 learning' themselves. While earlier approaches favored correlational or causal models, the last decade has seen an upsurge of accounts that view language use, learning and identity as mutually constitutive, situated, emergent, and inextricably intertwined with the participation structure of specific activities. The many proposals that subscribe to this understanding have as their common denominator a view of language learning and use as social practice and of identity as something a person does (and does differently in different contexts) rather than something a person 'is' or 'has'. But the various social practice approaches differ considerably in their specific theoretical assumptions and research methodologies, with attendant consequences for their analytical capability to demonstrate rather than merely postulate the link between identity and L2 learning. The talk will take a conversation-analytic perspective to examine identity at work in interactions between L2 users and their co-participants.

Spaces are limited for participation in this seminar. If you are interested in attending please contact Megumi Kawate-Mierzejewska at jaltwesttokyo@yahoo.com

This event is co-sponsored by JALT Tokyo Chapter, JALT West Tokyo Chapter, JALT Pragmatics SIG & Temple University Japan.

Tuesday, July 5th, 2005

Task based language teaching (Session 1 of 3)

Speaker: Zhaohong Han
Time: 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM (Tue., July 5th, 2005)
Fee (JALT members): There is no fee but pre-registration is REQUIRED.

Register at: jalttokyo@yahoo.com
Fee (One-Day members): full members only
Prefecture: Tokyo
City: Tokyo
Venue: Columbia University Teachers College, Suidobashi Campus (Suidobashi Station or Jimbocho Station)
Description: NOTE: This event is a three part mini-course taking place on July 5, 6 and 12.

Second language acquisition research and Communicative Language Teaching have hitherto converged on two basic understandings: A) Learning follows its own course; and B) environmental influences mediated by instruction have little impact on learning unless the former coincides with the latter. A recent pedagogical innovation, task-based language instruction seeks to provide conditions for learning to naturally unfold.

Participants in this workshop will be introduced to task-based language instruction, including its rationale, major parameters for evaluating, designing and sequencing tasks, and ways of implementing tasks in classrooms at various levels.

Wednesday, July 6th, 2005

Task Based Language Teaching Session Two

Speaker: Dr. Zhaohong Han
Time: 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM (Wed., July 6th, 2005)
Fee (JALT members): free
Fee (One-Day members): Members only
Prefecture: Tokyo
City: Tokyo
Venue: Columbia University Teachers College, Suidobashi Campus (Suidobashi Station or Jimbocho Station)
Description: TBA

Friday, September 16th, 2005

I Wanna Blog

Speaker: Scott Lockman
Time: 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM (Fri., September 16th, 2005)
Fee (JALT members): free
Fee (One-Day members): 1,000 yen
Prefecture: Tokyo
City: Tokyo
Venue: Columbia University Teachers College, Suidobashi Campus (Suidobashi Station or Jimbocho Station)
Description: As tools for collaboration and interaction, weblogs (blogs) have attracted much attention for the potential they offer for language teachers and learners. Highly flexible, the use of blogs includes personal online publishing, reflective journaling, and theme- or interest-based community building. At this workshop, you will get a chance to discover and imagine some of the emerging possibilities. Scott Lockman, Membership Chair for the Tokyo Chapter, will introduce you to some exciting no-cost blogging tools, provide examples of some current blogging practices in the EFL/ESL community, and guide you through the process of setting up your own blog. Register early to reserve your place.

For access information for Columbia University, visit www.tc-japan.edu (click "location"). Participants will be admitted on a first-come first-served basis. To register please e-mail membership@jalt-tokyo.iplusone.org (use the subject heading blog).

Monday, September 26th, 2005

DEUCE: a system design for evaluating ESL

Speaker: Dr. George Weir
Time: 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM (Mon., September 26th, 2005)
Fee (JALT members): free
Fee (One-Day members): 1,000 yen
Prefecture: Tokyo
City: Tokyo
Venue: International Student Center, Tokyo Medical Dental University
Description: This talk describes work in progress to apply a Web-based facility for evaluating differing criteria for English language competence. The proposed system, Discriminated Evaluation of User�s Competence with English (DEUCE), addresses the problem of evaluating individual criteria for competence in English as a Second Language (ESL). We describe the rationale, design and application of DEUCE and outline its potential as a discriminator or ESL competence criteria.

About the speaker

Dr George R S Weir

Education:

Dr. Weir studied Philosophy as an undergraduate at

Glasgow University and as a postgraduate at Edinburgh University. He studied BITS at Strathclyde University before becoming a postdoctoral researcher in Computer Science. Subsequently appointed as a lecturer in CS.

NOTE: Please register as early as possible so that we may book the most appropriate facility. Send pre-registration requests to: yama@tmd.ac.jp

Wednesday, October 12th, 2005

Student Beliefs About Causes of Their Failure

Speaker: Chamreoun KOUN
Time: 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM (Wed., October 12th, 2005)
Fee (JALT members): free
Fee (One-Day members): 1,000 yen
Prefecture: Tokyo
City: Tokyo
Venue: Columbia University Teachers College, Suidobashi Campus (Suidobashi Station or Jimbocho Station)
Description: Failure in English language learning is universal and it seems to be a

serious issue for students of English and in English education as a whole.However, little attention has been paid to investigating the real causes of their failure.

This presentation will report on the findings of a small-scale research study conducted with adult students aged 18 to 25 about their perceived causes (attributions) of their failure in studying English at a private language school in Cambodia. The instrument used for collecting the data was a "semi-structured interview". The data analysis wasbased on the interpretive method paradigm and the common categories of attributions:ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck (Weiner, 1979). The results indicated that those students ascribed both external and internal dimensions of attributions to their failure.

For the external dimension, the common attributions were task difficulty, teaching, and school administration/management, while ability and effort were the most commonly reported for the internal dimension. Learning environment/pressure, family, motivation, and anxiety were found in the study. The findings suggest that these attributions are believed to have a very strong relationship with the students expectations, motivation, and affective domains for their future success in learning English. The results also suggest implications for teachers to cope with the students� attributions to enhance their motivation and expectancies for future success.

Biodata

Chamroeun KOUN has a Bachelor�s Degree in TEFL from the Institute of Foreign Languages (IFL), Royal University of Phnom Penh, and a Masters in Applied Linguistics from King Mongkut�s University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT), Thailand. He has several years of experience

in teaching EFLstudents in Cambodia and Thailand, plus some

experience as a teacher trainer for the TEFL1 Training Program at Spencer

International, Chichester College,based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and Bangkok, Thailand.

Currently, he is working as the Professional Development Manager and teacher of English at the Australian Centre for Education, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Tuesday, November 29th, 2005

Conversation analysis applied to the JSL classroom

Speaker: Dr. Gabriele Kasper,University of Hawaii

Dr. Aug Nishizaka,Meiji Gakuin University
Time: 5:30 PM - 8:30 PM (Tue., November 29th, 2005)
Fee (JALT members): free
Fee (One-Day members): free
Prefecture: Tokyo
City: Tokyo
Venue: At Lecture Hall No. 1 in the Medical Hospital of Tokyo Medical and Dental University

(Please get in from the Emergency Entrance of the Medical Hospital). The map will be posted soon.
Description: Dr. Kasper will talk about the most current CA theory and Dr. Nishizaka will show us how to analyze JSL classroom discourse using CA.

This meeting is co-sponsored by JALT Pragmatics SIG and the MEXT Research Group "Research study in developing Japanese classroom corpus"

Find Events

By chapter or SIG
By month
By prefecture

Front page