We are very excited to have Cameron Romney to Saitama JALT for a presentation dealing with teacher-made ELT materials. Cameron has presented on topics related to material design at conferences across the globe and he is bringing his expertise to us in April. No matter what level of students you are teaching or the teaching context you are in, if you are creating materials for your students to use or learn from, you NEED to be at this presentation. The full abstract for the presentation can be found below:
From curriculum to handout: Considerations for teacher-made ELT materials
To some extent, all teachers are materials writers. For some, it is just an occasional review worksheet or a homework assignment. For others, their self-made materials are the bulk of their coursework; most teachers of course, fall somewhere in between. Making great materials presents a number of challenges for teacher-writers in two main areas: coming up with the content of the materials and the actual materials themselves. This workshop seeks to address some of these challenges to help teacher-writers produce the best materials they can.
The first half of the workshop will discuss two aspects related to the content of teaching materials. First participants will learn about a systematic approach developed by the presenter for creating supplementary handouts to compliment commercially published textbooks. Next, participants will explore Japanese copyright law as it applies to adapting authentic language sources for self-made materials. After a short break the second half of the workshop will focus on making handouts; specifically by exploring ways that visual design is part of the materials creation process.
Participants should come away from the workshop with a greater understanding of some of the challenges involved in making their own materials and with concrete suggestions, in the form of best practices, to improve their own materials.
Presenter Bio:
Cameron Romney has taught ESL/EFL in both the United States and Japan for the last 20 years. He holds an MA in Applied Linguistics from the University of Colorado at Denver and a graduate certificate in Instructional Design from the University of Wisconsin Stout. His primary research interest is how the visual elements of language learning materials contribute to, or detract from, learning. Currently, he is an assistant professor in the Global Communications Faculty of Doshisha University in Kyoto.