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.

2012 Oct 28 | Judith Runnels | Rasch for the Masses

This month the Nagasaki JALT Chapter meeting was a Rasch workshop given by Judith Runnels of Hiroshima Bunkyo Women's University.  The title of the lecture was "Rasch for the Masses".  She also spent a small part at the end of the meeting discussing an entirely different topic involving a Self-Access Learning Center that her university commissioned.  The sub-topic was titled "Crafts in a Self-access Learning Centre."  This post serves as the meeting minutes and some notes from the presentation.