Morning Presentations

10:30 - 11:00 MORNING PRESENTATIONS Presentation Rooms B207-217

10:30 - 11:00 B210 Jim MANSFIELD, Osaka City University

The benefits of education in an international school

This presentation will discuss why some people decide to put their children in a international school rather than a Japanese school. It will discuss the benefits and the issues faced when taking this education route. I will also describe how this choice has affected my child. I will further outline the benefits of being bilingual and the need for more bilingual children in Japan. Then I will relate my personal experienes in the international schoool system. First, why we chose to send our child to international school and the main reasons for choosing the school we did. I will briefly relate our experiences during the five years that my child has been attending international school. And, finally provide practical advice on how other parents could select a school. I will talk about the lnternational school system in general and how we could improve the system for the future. I will also compare the international schools and talk about their differences as well as their similarities.

10:30 - 11:00 B212 Michael GREISAMER, Kobe Gakuin University

Anxiety in the ESL classroom and the impact of training teachers to love their students

This presentation will discuss the topic of anxiety in the ESL classroom and my dissertation proposal. Anxiety is mostly debilitating factor that destroys confidences and demotivates learners. Most research on anxiety has been measured by questionnaires completed by students after the class. What is needed is a more dynamic or real time assessment of the emotion during the actual acquisition process. Then discussing a controversial method called the Pygmalion effect which emphasizes positive expectation to increase overall performance in the classroom.

10:30 - 11:00 B213 Michael Parrish, Kwansei Gakuin University

Kenya MBA

This presentation will provide reflections on the personal experiences and practical implications of pursuing an MBA via distance learning at an African university. It also examines some of the differing cultural assumptions and inter-cultural communication strategies used in Kenya, Japan, and the United States as it relates to the day-to-day realities of university life and administration, to business practices in the three cultures.

10:30 - 11:00 B214 Chieko HAYASHI & Sandra HEALY, Kyoto Institute of Technology

Native Alaskan Oral Traditions and their Educational Importance in Japan

The purpose of this study is to clarify the educational importance of oral traditions or storytelling, based on Native American/First People’s oral cultures and to discuss the possibility of using the method of oral traditions to revitalize local communities in Japan. Recently, “storytelling” has become very popular among business people as an effective presentation strategy to make their message more meaningful. However, Native American’s storytelling is never used merely as a presentation technique. For aboriginal people who had no written-language traditions, stories were the medium in which they transmitted their histories, culture, worldview, and knowledge and skills for survival through successive generations. They regard storytelling as a serious educational task in which storytellers and audience are engaged interactively and as an important opportunity for people to learn essential knowledge and values. In this study, we will introduce the example of the oral traditions of American Indians, especially the Tlingit, Alaska Native, along with their historical and social background, and clarify the educational effect of storytelling for young people. We will then discuss the possibility of using what we have learned to Japanese oral traditions to rejoin divided generations and revitalize local communities.