This event will be held on Sunday, October 22nd from 2pm-5pm at Holly Creative Space, less than a 1-minute walk from the east exit of Urawa Station.

We have a great presentation lined up as we welcome Patrizia M. J. Hayashi and our very own treasurer, Tyson Rode, who will be presenting for us this weekend.

Shaping Global Standards to Meet Local Needs: A Workshop

This workshop will present techniques for adopting a global framework of language learning standards to meet the needs of local educational institutions. The presenters will provide an example of how they successfully implemented a CEFR-based curriculum using the Global Scale of English (GSE) developed by Pearson to align with EIKEN targets. Workshop participants will use materials provided by the presenters and gain experience with elements of backward design by selecting learning objectives for various contexts.

Annual General Meeting (AGM) and Officer Elections

​After the presentation, we will hold our Annual General Meeting (AGM) where we discuss the state of the chapter as well as hold officer elections for our executive board. Those who are elected will take over their positions following the close of our international conference in November. If you are interested in becoming an officer and helping to lead our great organization, please attend and put your name forward! The positions up for a vote our President, Vice President, Membership Chair, Publicity Chair, Program Chair, and Treasurer. Please reach out to me at president.saitamajalt@gmail.com if you have any questions about what any of the positions entails. We need as many of our current members to attend the AGM as possible, so please join us for this very important event.

As always, we plan to go out for some food and drinks following the event, so we hope you will set aside time to join us for some post-presentation socializing. 

This event will be held on Sunday, June 11th from 2pm-5pm at Rental Space Holly, less than a 1-minute walk from the east exit of Urawa Station.

We are fortunate to have a number of presenters coming from the Gunma chapter of JALT, who kindly hosted our presenters from Saitama last month, joining us to present on a wide variety of topics. Below you will find the abstracts for each presentation, which will be between 20-25 minutes in length including time for questions.

Harry Meyer presents "A Short Workshop for Intercultural Relations"
 
As the world is becoming more globalized, the importance of intercultural education in Japan continues to increase. This very short workshop will focus on something that most of us take for granted - personal space. We will start with an examination of our own personal space, followed by a look at personal space in different cultures, and finish with a discussion. The goals of the presentation are to:

• make participants aware of various cultural perspectives regarding personal space.
• make participants aware that foreigners are not one monolithic block, but are culturally diverse and may seem strange to each other.
• make Japanese aware that their own behavior may be strange to people of other cultures.
• have participants consider the importance of their own use of space in the classroom and its impact in intercultural.

Yoko Kamo presents "Using Kobanashi in a Beginner Level English Classroom"

This is a report of a short project to use kobanashi in a beginner level English class of 6th grade students. Kobanashi, are short jokes that rakugo performers tell to warm up the audience before launching the main story of rakugo. Performing kobanashi in English could be one of the excellent ways to learn English regardless of age. This presentation will explain its educational effects by showing students' performance movies as well as some kobanashi stories.

Daniel Hooper presents "Self-access Learning in ​eikaiwa: Attitudes, Reflections, and Challenges"

This presentation is based upon two recent studies concerned with the need for and viability of self-access language learning among adult students in the under-researched private English conversation school (eikaiwa) sector. Language learning in eikaiwa schools is unique within Japanese ELT in many ways and, therefore, any instructor needs to be aware of these context-specific affordances, constraints and ideological hurdles if they are to create realistic and sustainable provisions for self-access learning that will engage students. This presentation will address potential contextual constraints, highlight relevant findings, and present practical ideas for teachers interested in promoting self-study in eikaiwa schools.

Yoko Miyazaki presents "An Activity Exploiting L1"

I believe students’ L1 can be positively integrated into teaching methodology for lower-level adult classes in Japan, where often more than 90% of students share the same L1.  I would like to share an activity which utilizes L1, or Japanese, to help learners establish the linkages between pragmatic functions expressed in L1 and those in L2.  The learners are encouraged to grasp the meanings of the English sentences and by chunking them and applying equivalent Japanese to them.  They are also encouraged to be aware of the form of the English sentences through repeating and shadowing exercises.

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​*After the event, we will have a social gathering at a nearby location (TBD). We would love for all presenters and attendees to join us, so if you can set some time aside for food and drinks following the event, please plan to do so.

This event will be held on Sunday, April 16th from 1:00 - 4:00 p.m. at Rental Space Holly, less than a 1-minute walk from the east exit of Urawa Station.

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:

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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.