Saitama JALT is proud to present our next event: Technology and Education in the 21st Century. This event features the research of experienced educators who are also grad students at Temple University Japan (TUJ). This workshop will feature practical applications and current theory including Projectors in the classroom, Google Apps for education, Technology for Young Learners, and Web-based Reading Resources. Featuring Andrew Quentin, Joshua Krill, Nicholas Giordano, and Tyson Rode.

Opening Act by Masanobu Sato, A study of Japanese university students' intuitions behind the use of vision verbs in English. This study explored how Japanese learners of English understand the verbs of perception in English with reference to visual verbs.

Access maps and info here:
http://saitamajalt.weebly.com/access.html

@Sakuragi Kouminkan 5th Floor
2:00-5:00pm

 




Graham Finch (ETJ Saitama)
Tic Tac Toe

In this presentation the audience will see how the presenter piques students' interest into creating a Tic Tac Toe game and then gets them to drill without realizing they are drilling.

Graham has been teaching for more years than he cares to remember. He teaches at his own language school in Saitama. He is also the ALT at an elementary school in Saitama and at a school for children with special needs in Tokyo.

Coco Okuno (ETJ Saitama)
How to plan the Easter event

Last year, the presenter held Easter and Halloween events in collaboration with Patricia Daly Oe, a picture book writer and English teacher. In this presentation, she’ll show what they did at the Easter event, share the ideas of the songs and games for the different age groups.
They’ll have another Easter event this year too.

Coco Okuno majored in Education at an university in Japan. She took the ESL course at Tulane University in New Orleans. She worked for a famous langage school after graduation, and became a director of one of the branch school in Saitama.　She quit her job as she had her first child, then she started her own school at home when her second child was 1 year old. She’s been teaching there for 18 years.

Allison Imamura (Saitama JALT)
Communicative Presentations

This presentation will explore the idea of transforming student presentations into a communicative activity. We will discuss the meaning of “communicative”, introduce the article, A Framework for Assessing the Communicative Potential of Language Learning Activities, which provides guidelines for assessing and transforming activities into communicative activities and finally introduce an example presentation which meets those criteria. 

Florence Valderama (Saitama JALT)
Yes and.............

A learner's motivation is the primary factor influencing both test performance and success in school. If your students are not motivated, they are not going to learn. The repetition of the word "yes" also helps to create a cooperative and friendly atmosphere in the classroom. In this activity, we use a physical passing activity with the phrase, "Yes, and..." to promote inclusion and idea development.

Samuel Flens (Guest of Saitama JALT)
Inclusive learning for young students

I will present strategies for keeping young learners engaged and involved in English conversation lessons, using picture books, and interactive games. This workshop will feature the beloved classic, "The Hungry Hungry Caterpillar."

Bryan Darr (Saitama JALT)
Effective Writing Feedback: Beyond Red Xs and Os

This presentation explains why oral and written grammar correction is at best ineffective, and at worst discouraging, and provides three solutions to aid teachers from JHS to University in their writing units, all usable tomorrow: a praise-centered key for both form and content comments, peer-review writing processes, and a framework for student-teacher conferencing.

Teigan Babcock (AJET, Saitama JALT)
UNESCO Heritage Sites & Presentation Scavenger Hunts

Reflecting on the needs to find realia and relevance for the globally minded classroom, Teigan Babcock will provide a case for using UNESCO world heritage sites for your student's next group report. Widely accessible to the point of existing in some book form at each school sampled, these presentations provide a link to the larger world around us through recognized places in Japan. Oh, and how might we better train our students to pay attention to their peers' work? Let's try a scavenger hunt!

Tyson Rode and Matt Shannon (Saitama JALT)
Live-Coding a teacher's website with Weebly

 Using the freemium page developer Weebly, we will make a custom website appropriate for a teacher. Everything in this workshop will be free, immediately available to use, and will feature a public website, an easy domain address, photo hosting, page navigation, and contact forms. As stated, this event will be a live-coding event, in which all of the site building is done live with the participation of the audience.

Presenters: Todd Berozsky, Tyson Rode, Robert RowlandThree curriculum developers of Saitama City’s Uruoi no Jikan program present next-day-teachable lessons in group presentations. Starting with a blank sheet of paper, we will brainstorm, mind-map, order, divide, practice, present with aides, actively listen, respond with reference to the speaker, and self-assess. Why is it that entire classes of third-year JHS are able to talk about what they would do if they met an alien, or what you should do when you visit Brazil? Find out in this workshop, where learning is doing.

Bios: Todd Berozsky (ALTI, Saitama City BOE), Tyson Rode (AET, Tokorozawa BOE) and Robert Rowland (Head ALTI, Saitama City BOE) have developed the communicative-skills enrichment program known in Japanese as 潤いの時間　(Uruoi no Jikan), also known as ECAD (English Communication Abilities Development), a nationally-backed research program now in its eighth year at Saitama City. In their roles as ALTIs (ALT Instructor), they are responsible for the education of students, teachers, and the public with regards to this special program that enables students to foster relationships with the international community, increase their ability to deduce and understand a situation and its appropriate response, and develop the attitudes and abilities necessary for self expression. They are active in the English teaching community, with significant contributions to the Nakasendo English Conference, JALT, and the Saitama City Educators.

Date: June 9th, 2013
Time: 2:00 – 5:00

 JALT Omiya and ETJ Saitama Joint Event: Each year JALT Omiya and ETJ Saitama come together to share several short presentation workshops.

Miori Shimada: Creating songs with familiar melodies for young learners’ EFL classrooms.

Abstract:  The presentation is to discuss how to create effective songs for children’s EFL classrooms using familiar melodies such as London Bridge. The presenter will introduce simple question songs and picture books using those melodies. The audience will then have a short time to explore creating easy songs for their own classrooms towards the end.

Bio: Miori Shimada has been teaching English to different groups of learners at various schools and institutions for fifteen years. For these seven years she has also taught at several universities in Tokyo and Saitama and had a strong interest in teacher education.

Saori Kaji: Easy activities for Kids

Abstract: In this presentation the audience will be shown several ideas to help children concentrate on the task at hand. Flash card tower, Sit like a Ninja and How to talk about Japan through characters are ideas that she believes will be useful to a wide variety of teachers.

Bio: Saori has been teaching for the last 7 years at home to children of assorted ages. She is a member of a chain franchise that specialises in teaching English to children.

Tyson Rode: 必要性•実用性 Integrating content and language through presentations in the EFL context.

Abstract: In this presentation, the audience will hear an argument for content-based presentations and how they instill a sense of necessity and practicality for students in the classroom. The presenter will also give examples of content-based presentations.

Bio: Tyson Rode has been teaching English in Japan since 2004. Some of his research interests include: academic writing, bilingualism, and content-based language instruction.

Fumie Kakuchi: Changing [Eikaiwa] in ES Today

Abstract: In this short presentation the audience and presenter will consider the benefits of the recently implemented Foreign Language Activities. Also key points for meeting the goals of the course of study will be discussed.

Bio: Fumie Kakuchi is a Japanese Assistant Teacher for Saitama City. There she teaches a 35 hour per year program for 5th and 6th grade students. She has worked in one of the city’s model schools for the last three years. Her other experience includes teaching private lessons and working for ‘cram’ schools. Her interests include teacher training and curriculum development.


John Mangan: Making effective yet simple lesson plans and materials that adapt to your needs

Abstract: In Saitama City there is an Engish conversation program for 5th-9th grade with a city-wide curriculum. However 3rd and 4th graders now also have up to 10 lessons a year, with no existing curriculum or plans made for those lessons. This presentation covers how a solution for this was decided and how to adapt it to both English and Japanese with linkage to the alread existing program for upper grade levels.

Bio: John Mangan is a ALT instructor in City for the past 4 years. This has included both Elementary and Junior High schools of every grade level. During this time he worked at 4 model schools – 3 elementary and 1 junior high. His other experience includes teaching corporate business English, private high schools, ‘cram’ school lessons and various private students.

John Finucane 2:05-2:25
Interview Drills
This activity can be used to supplement your text book, at various levels, to make your lessons more communicative. Interview drills can also be used as a springboard to help students to become effective debaters.

John Finucane is a fourth year participant on the JET program. He works as an ALT instructor for Saitama City Board of Education. He is also the President of Saitama City Educators, a teaching organisation based in Saitama City. He currently edits the Journal of Saitama City Educators, a new publication. His interests are debating and critical thinking. He is based in Saitama City.

Carl Bloomfield 2:25-2:45
'What are Heavy?' An ice breaking and rapport building activity
This activity can be used, at various levels, with a new class. The activity helps students practice classroom English. It also helps to build rapport by asking students to work with each other and the teacher to complete an activity in a personal but collaborative way.

Carl Bloomfield is a graphic designer, Step Eiken examiner and junior high school ALT working for the Saitama City Board of Education. He is the Online Chair of Saitama City Educators, a teaching organisation based in Saitama City. He currently co-edits the Journal of Saitama City Educators, a new publication. His interests are CALL, preparation for Step Eiken and IPA. He is based in Saitama City.

Matt Shannon 2:45-3:05
Game Show
This experience-based lesson demonstrates successful elements of contemporary and previous game shows, and how they might best be applied for content retention. Game-related issues such as problem creation, problem selection and scoring, and participant-response dynamics are specifically addressed through examples; a review of studies in cognitive science makes the case for testing as a means of effective content retention.

Matt Shannon is as fifth year teacher for the Saitama City Board of Education, now serving an Assistant Language Teacher Instructor. He is an active member of the Saitama City Educators, and serves as Public Relations chair. Matt greatly enjoys cooking, gardening, and the life sciences. He is based in Saitama.

Dave Magnusson 3:30-3:50
What is a webquest?
A webquest is an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web. Dave Magnusson will show you some webquests.

Dave Magnusson is an Assistant Professor at Meikai University (Chiba Prefecture) and a freelance J-E translator. His interests are in computer-assisted language teaching, media English, international business, translation, and interpretation.

Tyson Rode and Ivan Botev 3:50-4:10
Making English Communication Delicious!
There is one thing that all junior high school students hunger for - school lunch. Two activities will be presented that show how to make English communication class more delicious by collaborating with the school nutritionist.

Tyson Rode is an ALT Instructor for the Saitama City Board of Education. He is now in his fifth year of teaching Saitama City’s English Communication Abilities Development (ECAD) Program and is also a Saturday School teacher at Columbia International School. Tyson is serving as Treasurer for the Saitama City Educators and is a co-editor of the Journal of Saitama City Educators. His research interests include: teacher motivation, content-based instruction, and integrated studies.

Ivan Botev is a full-time instructor in the Saitama City’s English Communication Abilities Development (ECAD) Program in municipal elementary and junior high schools as well as an assistant teacher in the compulsory and elective English classes in junior high school. He currently serves as PR Chair for the JALT Omiya Chapter and also as Membership Chair for the Saitama City Educators. He has been teaching ESL/EFL for over six years now. His current interests include immersion and multilingualism.