First workshop:
An Interactive Task-based Activity for Elementary Schools
Students in elementary public schools are often taught
route memorization of words and expressions in English and
spend little time in real interactive activities. These
students have English activities (lessons), where they
are frequently taught to respond with structured responses.
Language is dynamic and students answers should not be
predetermined. These English activities should be
interactive, where the students are able to answer
questions freely. It is important for the students to
practice interactive tasks where they can improve their
speaking ability and review the material that they were
previously taught.
This presentation will provide an example of an interactive
task-based activity, which also doubles as an ice-breaking
and/or group building activity in which the students to
work together using their imagination and creativity to
complete the tasks.
Darryl Sumida is
currently employed as a Native English Teacher (NET) and an
Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) with the Saitama City
Board of Education. He attained his BA in TESL from the
University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Second workshop:
Helping students discover and use their personal vocabulary
banks.
It s generally underestimated by Japanese teachers of
English (JTE) of how much English vocabulary their students
have acquired during English classes in elementary schools
and from daily exposure from various media sources. Quite
often, students entering junior high schools are unaware
that they possess a personal vocabulary bank consisting of
nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs that is waiting and
ready to be used. The problem is, many students have never
been taught how to use much of the English vocabulary they
have been exposed to in elementary school English classes
outside the grammatical context of
I like & Many
students cannot describe or give reasons why they like, or
dislike certain things even though they may posses the
lexical items to do so. During this presentation, two
activities will be presented, in which the participants
will participate in, that have been used to help students
realize how many English lexical items that they do know,
and how to begin to use them in a or meaningful way to
describe things. A short questions and answer session will
follow the activity section of this presentation and an
opportunity to share our thoughts and ideas that are
relevant to the topic. The activities that will be
presented can be modified to fit any classroom setting and
to any level. All teachers of English are welcomed to
participate in this presentation regardless of the level of
English they teach, or the experience that they possess.
Richard
Bales is an
English instructor with Tokyo Kasei University and has
gained vast teaching experience as an instructor with an
intensive English programme at the University of Manitoba
(Canada), an assistant language teacher (ALT) with the
Iwatsuki City Board of Education, and more recently as a
native English teacher (NET) with a newly developed English
conversation programme with Saitama City. He attained a
certificate in TESOL from the University of Manitoba
(Canada) and is currently completing his MA in TEFL/TESL
from the University of Birmingham (UK).
Third workshop:
Towards
Effective Writing Prompts
Existing
English curriculum for junior high school students in
contemporary Japan may be considered lacking in the area of
extemporaneous or compositional writing. Contributing
factors to this are varied, but the element of social
expectations may be remedied through relatively simple
transformations of existing narrative structures and by
borrowing conventional plot devices from outside the
classroom. Displacement of the assumed "right" response
into areas of vagueness or previously unconventional areas
may have the effect of challenging more skilled students to
re-assess their abilities, but also to reduce expectations
of among less skilled students and thus reduce typical
competitive and goal-oriented pressures.
Matt
Shannon is a
talented and engaging native English teacher (NET) with the
Saitama City Board of Education and currently English
communication classes at junior high and elementary
schools.
Matt will present his idea and discuss the results that he
observed from his students writing. Participants will also
take art in a brief writing activity using Matt s idea,
followed by questions and answers, and discussions.