Featured Speaker Workshops

日本語

Featured speaker workshops, which are sponsored by our Associate Members, present the best that our profession currently has to offer. Presenters are often either widely published materials developers or scholars running low-volume interactive workshops with a high degree of audience participation. Seating is limited to 40 participants—register early to avoid disappointment. Registration may also be possible throughout the conference if places are still available. (NB. Workshops are charged separately from the conference. See the registration page for details.)

A: Critical thinking made easy: Practical activities for discussion and debate

Charles LeBeau

B: Practical techniques for teaching and researching figurative language in the language classroom

Jeannette Littlemore

C: Shadowing plus: Stepping stones to fluency

John Wiltshier

D: Mind maps for beginners

Miles Craven

E: Putting extensive reading to work in your classroom

Richard Day

F: Chicken soup for the ELT soul

Steve Gershon

G: The dream and reality of classroom activities

Leo Jones

H: Racism in ESL and EFL: Constructing action plans

Ryuko Kubota

I: Using the fundamentals of learning to shape your teaching

Curtis Kelly and Chuck Sandy

J: Why reading should be in oral communication classes

Rob Waring

K: PEP Talk: Pedagogy, Experience, and Portfolio

Ken Wilson

Pre-Conference Featured Speaker Workshops: Thu 22nd Nov 5:30 pm -7:30 pm

A: Critical thinking made easy: Practical activities for discussion and debate

Charles LeBeau

Sponsor: Language Solutions Inc.

More and more high schools and universities in Japan feature discussion and debate of global issues, and other content-based subjects, as part of the curriculum. However, many students – and teachers – are still unfamiliar with the basics of discussion and debate. This practical workshop is especially designed to help those without a background in these areas to improve their students’ discussion and debate techniques. We will look at seven principles of discussion and seven progressive levels of difficulty for discussion activities. In addition, we will break debate down into a series of step-by-step activities for building arguments, presenting arguments, and attacking arguments. This workshop will also suggest ways for combining discussion and debate activities.

Charles LeBeau has been in the ELT classroom for over 25 years. He is currently teaching at three universities and is on the faculty of the Toshiba International Training Center. He is an enthusiastic promoter of critical thinking in the classroom. His main contribution to the field of ELT has been the research, development, and publication of simple models and metaphors that make presentation, debate, and discussion skills accessible to beginners. His first book, Speaking of Speech (1996, Macmillan LanguageHouse) is widely used throughout Japan. To promote critical thinking, he co-founded Language Solutions Inc., a publisher specializing in texts for teachers and students who are without a background in critical thinking. Three Language Solutions texts, Discover Debate (2000), Getting Ready for Speech (2002), and Discussion Process and Principles (2006), are widely used in Japan with separate, localized versions published in Korea, China, and Taiwan. Charles is currently working on a revised version of Speaking of Speech intended to reach a wider, global audience.

B: Practical techniques for teaching and researching figurative language in the language classroom

Jeannette Littlemore

Sponsor: David English House

Metaphor presents a huge challenge for language learners. In this workshop I will look at the use of metaphor by language learners and at ways of teaching metaphor to foreign language learners. I will examine and evaluate several different approaches to researching metaphor in the language classroom and outline the areas in need of further research. I will incorporate a number of hands-on activities to allow participants to apply some of the research techniques and will suggest a number of research projects that could usefully be conducted by teachers and research students. Areas covered will include: classroom-based observation; introspection, interview, and think aloud techniques; discourse analysis; corpus studies; and intervention studies. During the workshop, I will identify a number of key resources and references for those who are interested in conducting their own research into metaphor in the language classroom.

Jeannette Littlemore has been teaching and lecturing in English and Applied Linguistics for 18 years, in Spain, Japan and Belgium, and now at the University of Birmingham. She is particularly interested in the acquisition of figurative language by nonnative speakers of English, and has recently published a book on the subject with Graham Low, entitled Figurative Thinking and Foreign Language Learning (Palgrave MacMillan). Jeannette is currently treasurer of the Researching and Applying Metaphor International Association (RaAM). She has a lively research group of postgraduate students, many of whom are based in Japan and Korea.

C: Shadowing plus: Stepping stones to fluency

John Wiltshier

Sponsor: Pearson Longman

Shadowing is a practical technique for supporting learners. It helps learners “borrow” language from their partners, a stepping-stone to fluency. In this workshop I will: provide a brief summary of research on shadowing and a review of the shadowing techniques that I presented last year at JALT2006; introduce peer-shadowing, combined with summarizing and confirming; and demonstrate the techniques and show videos of Japanese students shadowing in class. Participants will practice all the techniques, will receive a shortlist of easy to shadow extracts from movies and TV, and will take away a lot of new ideas.

John Wiltshier has been a teacher for 17 years, 11 of them in Japan. He has presented nationally and internationally in Europe and the U.S. He has been a guest-presenter at Columbia University Tokyo, an invited speaker on the ETJ Teacher Training Tour across Japan, and a plenary speaker at PANSIG2007. John is co-author of the new edition of English Firsthand Access and Success and currently works as an Associate Professor at Miyagi University.

Post-conference Featured Speaker Workshops: Sun 25nd Nov 3:30 pm -5:30 pm

D: Mind maps for beginners

Miles Craven

Sponsor: Macmillan LanguageHouse

Mind mapping is a useful technique that can be effectively employed with classes of all ages and abilities. This workshop is for teachers who know nothing at all about mind maps, but are keen to learn the basics and explore ways mind maps can help in the language classroom. Participants will prepare their own mind maps and be shown various communicative exercises to use with students across all four main skills.

Miles Craven is an author of English language textbooks. He has worked in English language education for nearly 20 years and specializes in materials for East Asian students. He has a wide range of experience as a teacher, teacher-trainer, examiner, and materials writer. He has lived and worked in many countries around the world, including several years in Japan, and has taught students of all ages and abilities and of many nationalities. He is author and co-author of many publications, including Get Real!, Reading Keys, English Grammar in Use CDROM, and Breakthrough. His research interest is the link between educational experience and achievement among language students in East Asia. He is also Business English Programme Manager at the Møller Centre, Churchill College, University of Cambridge.

E: Putting extensive reading to work in your classroom

Richard Day

Sponsor: Oxford University Press

My purpose in this workshop is to introduce extensive reading (ER) and to provide participants with opportunities to engage in practical ER activities using graded readers. We will begin with two ER activities and discuss the nature of reading and how we learn to read. Next, I will give an overview of ER and how it can be incorporated into participants’ classrooms. Participants will then do a variety of ER activities that can be used in their own classrooms. The workshop will close with a question-and-answer session.

Richard Day is the head of the Department of Second Language Studies at the University of Hawai’i. He was recently a visiting professor at Ubon Rajathanee University, Thailand, and Ha Noi University, Viet Nam. He is the author of numerous articles and books, and has spoken at many international conferences. Richard is the co-author of Cover to Cover (Oxford University Press), co-editor of the journal, Reading in a Foreign Language , and chairman of the Extensive Reading Foundation .

F: Chicken soup for the ELT soul

Steve Gershon

Sponsor: Macmillan LanguageHouse

The Chicken Soup for the Soul books offer a comforting broth of inspirational stories for everyone, from golfers to nurses. But what about for us language teachers, putting in countless classroom hours of PPP and pairwork? Where’s our daily spoonful of Chicken Soup to inspire and affirm. In this workshop I’ll offer a sampling of bite-sized offerings from my own Chicken Soup for the ELT Soul. Then I’ll ask participants to explore and share theirs.

Steven Gershon has a high school teaching qualification from the US and an MA in Applied Linguistics from the UK. He has taught in both countries as well as in France, Iran, China, and Japan. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Language and Literature at Obirin University in Tokyo, where he teaches an undergraduate course in language evaluation and post-graduate courses in curriculum design and materials development. Steve is the co-author of New English Upgrade (Macmillan), Gear Up (Macmillan), Sound Bytes (Pearson), and On the Go/On the Move (Pearson). In addition to his writing projects, he gives teacher-training workshops in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand.

G: The dream and reality of classroom activities

Leo Jones

Sponsor: Cambridge University Press

Even though pairwork or groupwork is an essential and well-established technique these days, we sometimes encounter resistance from students – and things do not always go smoothly. In this workshop I look at some of the difficulties students may have, and suggest ways we can encourage them to enjoy working together and help them to get maximum benefit from working in pairs and in groups.

Leo Jones is the author of numerous well-known and popular texts, and a respected member of the ELT community. Formerly a teacher, he is now a freelance writer and teacher trainer, and lives in Bournemouth on the south coast of England. Among his best-known books are Functions of American English, Great Ideas, and Let’s Talk (all Cambridge University Press). New editions of Let’s Talk 1, 2, and 3 have just been published. The Student-Centered Classroom, a little book of practical advice and teaching tips, will also be out this fall.

H: Racism in ESL and EFL: Constructing action plans

Ryuko Kubota

Sponsor: JALT Global Issues in Language Education SIG

Second or foreign language (2FL) teaching produces contact zones for various racialized groups in the process of interpersonal communication, in using both print and audiovisual materials, and through making or implementing institutional policies. Although racialization and racism have long been underexplored topics of discussion in the field of 2FL education, they have begun to receive scholarly attention in recent publications. In this workshop I will focusing on these important topics, aiming to achieve the following three goals: (1) to explore the meaning of key concepts, including race, ethnicity, culture, racialization, and racism, as well as kinds of racism, the role of Whiteness and Japaneseness, and the intersection between race and nonnative speakerness; (2) to become more aware of how issues of race are manifested in teaching 2FL, by reflecting on and sharing personal experiences; and (3) to make concrete action plans to challenge racism (e.g., in lesson plans, professional activities, or community activities to address racial discrimination).

Ryuko Kubota is a professor in the School of Education and the Department of Asian Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research interests include culture and politics in 2FL teaching, multicultural education, 2FL writing, and critical pedagogies. Her articles have appeared in such journals as Canadian Modern Language Review, College ESL, Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, English Journal, Japanese Journal of Second Language Writing, TESOL Quarterly, Written Communication, and World Englishes.

I: Using the fundamentals of learning to shape your teaching

Curtis Kelly and Chuck Sandy

Sponsor: Cengage Learning

Almost daily, brain studies, technological advances, and research in psychology are giving us a better picture of how learning occurs. In concordance with this burst of research, a growing movement called brain-compatible teaching offers insights into why we need to develop teaching practices and materials that focus less on language and more on how people learn languages. So, what language teaching methods and approaches are brain-compatible? How can the fundamentals of learning be used to shape the fundamentals of teaching and how can these be translated into best practice and effective materials? In this very interactive workshop, we will introduce concepts, provide hands-on activities to link theory to practice, and lead participants through the process of rethinking and redesigning traditional language teaching materials so that they better fit the fundamentals of learning and teaching. Copious handouts and a bibliography of readings will be provided.

Curtis Kelly is co-author of the Writing from Within series (Cambridge), Significant Scribbles (Longman), and the forthcoming Active Skills for Communication series (Thomson). He has a doctorate in adult education and is a professor at Osaka Gakuin University. In addition to being a Ministry of Education research grant recipient and SelHi advisor, he has made over 200 presentations at conferences in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the US. His areas of expertise include adult education, student psychology, learning theory, storytelling, EFL writing, and Web usability.

Chuck Sandy is an internationally known ELT materials writer, teacher trainer, essayist and poet who has worked on several components of the Interchange series, coauthored the Passages and Connect series (Cambridge University Press), and has most recently been working on the forthcoming Active Skills for Communication series (Thomson). He is a frequent presenter at conferences around the world, where he passionately speaks about the joys of engaging students in project work, the need for materials, and practices that promote critical thinking, and the importance of methodologies, materials and practices that reach and teach the whole learner.

J: Why reading should be in oral communication classes

Rob Waring

Sponsor: Cengage Learning

In this workshop, I will put forward the idea that there are many benefits to be enjoyed from adding an extensive reading component to oral communication classes. One such benefit is that the students have something structured to talk about: the story itself provides a structure for speech and a framework for discussion – the students can ask and answer questions about the story and maybe even debate some of the story’s issues. However, lower-proficiency learners will need considerable support from useful sentence heads and conversation gambits. I will also discuss Reading Circles, in which each student plays a particular, structured role within the discussion, such as discussion leader, organizer, or culture collector (Furr, 2007).

Rob Waring is Associate Professor at Notre Dame Seishin University in Okayama, Japan. He is an acknowledged expert in extensive reading and second language vocabulary acquisition. He has published over 40 articles and has lectured in 15 countries on second and foreign language acquisition. He has recently published the Foundations Reading Library for teenagers with Thomson ELT. He is a board member of the Extensive Reading Foundation. He was Co-chair of JALT2005.

K: PEP Talk: Pedagogy, Experience, and Portfolio

Ken Wilson

Sponsor: Oxford University Press

Pedagogy relates to your initial teacher training and the methodological ideas and activities that you learn there; experience is what you get from classroom work; portfolio relates to the ideas that you collect from other sources – colleagues, books and conferences, for example. Visiting speakers at conferences can’t do anything to change the pedagogy you were trained to use, and we have no control over your classroom experience. In this session, however, I hope to add at least 10 new ideas to your portfolio. They should all provide enjoyable and memorable classroom events, and you should be able to insert any of them seamlessly into your lessons without changing the overall direction of the work that you do.

Ken Wilson trains teachers all over the world and is a prolific author of ELT materials with more than twenty titles to his name. His latest course material is Smart Choice (Oxford University Press). Ken's first ELT publication was a collection of songs called Mister Monday, which was released when he was 23, making him at the time the youngest-ever published ELT author. Since then, he has written and recorded more than 150 ELT songs, published as albums or as integral parts of course material. He has also written more than 100 ELT radio and television programs, including 50 radio scripts for the Follow Me series, 30 Look Ahead TV scripts, and a series of plays called Drama First. Ken was one of the authors of the New Standard English course for China, more than a hundred million copies of which are now in use.