Teachers College Columbia Graduate Student Showcase
Saturday, 4:10 pm - 6:55 pm, Room 301
(1) Awareness of different expectations in teaching
Minako Kumagai
From its inception, the JET program has sought to improve foreign language education in Japan and to promote internationalization. According to CLAIR, in 2007, the number of ALT participants had reached 5,057, and many EFL educators and learners have welcomed the program. However, the presenter wonders if JTEs and ALTs have truly integrated with each other. She will talk about problems that each might be facing and explore possible solutions for better understanding.
(2) Defining success in a TOEIC-focused class
Hiromi Shigemori
This presentation will report on teaching practices attempted in a three-month university TOEIC course aimed at promoting students' motivation and developing English and test-taking skills for the new version of TOEIC. It will focus on changes in the students' attitudes toward the test, and any EFL learning found in the instruments used: the WILL/SKILL Matrix and students' reflective journals.
(3) Designs for co-speech gestures in EAP presentations
Alfredo A. Ferreira
Research in English for academic purposes (EAP) has benefited from investigations of critical practice and multimodality in academic discourse. The presenter will report on a related, social semiotic study of co-speech gestures in academic presentations by Japanese university students. Speech-gesture coherence is found to be associated with local socio-cultural provenances for body idioms and critical reflection on available designs; mismatched co-speech gestures tend to occur with aims for convergence to a hegemonic "native speaker" model for presenting.
(4) Fostering self-reflection in English reading
Reiko Tanabe, Patrick Fulmer
The presenters will review their ongoing research to build entry-level university students' confidence in authentic English reading through an ever-refining combination of reflective language-learning diaries, weekly reading practice, and invited student review of instructional materials and tasks. Presenters will exemplify their student-shared effort to foster self-reflection in English reading through diary and task familiarization, discovering what strategic reading perceptions in student-teacher diary struggle may suggest, and encouraging student contributions to dismantling conscious strategic reading assumptions.
(5) Content-based global issues and cooperative learning
Yasuko Shimojima
This study examines students' reactions to global issues oriented content-based instruction applying cooperative learning in the Cross Cultural Unders=tanding section of the official English curriculum. Results showed that students perceived global issues as important and learning content in English was advantageous. For cooperative learning, students felt that they needed more discipline and control in the process of pair/group work, and conclusions indicate that the students accepted learning about the world through English and cooperative learning.
(6) Copernicus effect or a strange duet?
Yoko Munezane
This presentation explores the benefits and challenges of using global issues as the content of grammar classes in an exam-oriented high school. The findings overwhelmingly suggest that integrating global issues into grammar classes was effective in terms of enhancing students' global awareness, language proficiency on specific grammar forms, and motivation. The study suggests some ways of re-conceptualizing English grammar education in Japan.
