2013 December 14 | Joe Tomei | Surveys in the Classroom

Joe discussing surveys
in the classroom

In the second half of our December chapter meeting, Mr. Joseph Tomei of Kumamoto Gakuen University discussed the use of surveys as an integrated component for language acquisition and practice. This post will cover some of the ideas that were covered during the second talk.

2013 December 14 | Joe Tomei | Music in the Classroom

During December's meeting, the Nagasaki JALT faithful were fortunate to have two very interesting lectures given by Mr. Joseph Tomei of Kumamoto Gakuen University.

Joe is a specialist in using music for building listening skills through various cloze activities.  Also, our presenter discussed the use of surveys as an integrated component for language acquisition and practice.

Lastly, Joe is promoting the PanSIG 2014 conference which enables the JALT Special Interest Groups to meet at the same location for the purposes of SIG promotion and membership. The theme of this year's conference will be "Sustainability; Making Teaching and Learning Last" and will be held in May of 2014. There are more details in the 2nd post for this monthly meeting (click here).

Included in this meeting report are some notes and thoughts from those presentations as well as some chapter news and announcements. Comments are welcome!

2013 November 16 | Robinson Fritz | Using Intercultural Theories for ALTs and JTEs...

November 16th brought about our Nagasaki JALT monthly meeting and a chance for some educational development at the hands of Robinson Fritz, Associate Professor at Nagasaki University in the Faculty of Economics. Rob has been on staff at N.U. since this past April and specializes in Intercultural Theories and Communication. His presentation focused on Using Intercultural Theories for ALTs and JTEs to Successfully Understand Each Other.

At the time of his presentation, Rob is a candidate for Ph.D in Intercultural Communication at the University of Sheffield in the U.K. His research has taken him into an area that, although widely studied in Europe appears to be little studied here in Japan.

2013 Jul 20 | Terry Fellner | Teaching Effective Academic Presentation Skills to Low-level English Speakers

Terry Fellner presents on
teaching academic presentation
skills to low-level L2 learners.

Teaching Effective Academic Presentation Skills to Low-Level English Speakers.

Terry Fellner, Saga University

In the second part of our JALT meeting in July, Terry discussed the very successful program he has been teaching for a few years at his university. The theme of the course is "Effective Academic Presentation Skills" and the target is for low-level English speakers.

2013 Jul 20 | Terry Fellner | Language Learning Motivation

Terry Fellner of Saga University

Our July meeting in Nagasaki brought Terry Fellner from Saga University to deliver two very interesting and insightful presentations. The first presentation focused on Language Learning Motivation in Japan and highlighted a new research publication (titled the same) co-authored by Mr. Fellner and Dexter Da Silva from Keisen University.

In his presentation, Terry gave us a broad stroke overview of some of the more interesting points in his research on L2 learner motivation which is one of the most recent publications in the motivational research field from Japan. According to Terry, much of the learner motivational studies with respect to language acquisition are coming out of Japan in recent times.

The following post has some of the notes I took during his lecture.

2013 Jun 8 | Luc Roberge | Foreign Language Anxiety and EFL Physical Education

Luc Roberge from
Nagasaki Junior College

The June 2013 Nagasaki JALT meeting was held in Sasebo City at the University of Nagasaki Sasebo Campus. Our speaker this month was Mr. Luc Roberge of Nagasaki Junior College and his lecture was on Foreign Language Anxiety and EFL Physical Education.

Luc presented his thesis/dissertation from his recently completed masters program at the University of Birmingham. The topic was a very challenging one since it deals with not only aspects of psychology and personality types, but also second language acquisition and the difficulties students face.