⬇⬇ Past Events ⬇⬇

ICLE SIG Forum:
IC and Communities of Practice

Thursday, November 19th, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PM; Room 4

• Context: College & University Education

• Content area: Culture (CUL)

• Format: Forum

• Delivery: Live (Zoom)

• Language: English

The world has been coming closer than ever, thereby, creating new communities based on diverse cultures. One of our roles as language teachers should be to build vibrant communities that are based on trust, and willingness to accept beliefs that are different than our own. Embracing this year's theme of "communities of teachers and learners", we discussed some practical ways adopted to reduce or eliminate any barriers that could have hindered a great learning experience.

Presenter(s): Valerie Hansford - Soka University; Eric Hagley - Hosei University

ICLE SIG Annual GENERAL meeting (AGM)

Thursday, November 19th, 7:15 PM - 8:00 PM; Room 4

• Context: Non-teaching Context

• Content area: Culture (CUL)

• Format: SIG AGM

• Delivery: Live (Zoom)

• Language: English

This is the Intercultural Communication in Language Education (ICLE) SIG's annual general meeting. We aim to promote discussion about various approaches to teaching intercultural communication in a foreign language classroom. At this meeting, we reported on our ongoing activities and discussed plans for future activities and publications.

Presenter: Roxana Sandu - University of Tsukuba

The ICLE SIG is co-sponsoring a workshop organized by SIETAR CCM SIG. We hope you are able to join us for this annual retreat and workshop, this year being held in Miyajima! Don't miss this opportunity!

Dates: Saturday May 2nd to Sun May 3rd, 2020 (2 days/1 night)

[It is possible to participate on day 1 only, or stay at the temple the previous and following nights. ]

Location: Daishoin Temple, Miyajima Island, Hiroshima Prefecture

Link for Daishoin Temple: https://daisho-in.com/

For more information click the picture on the left to open and download the PDF file.

ICLE SIG FORUM:
Maximize the Intercultural Learning Process

Adopting this year’s conference theme, we discussed ways to encourage teacher efficacy and increase learner agency in the intercultural classroom. In this forum, the presenters (1) demonstrated how they have stimulated the learning process through intercultural language learning activities in their own teaching settings or (2) discussed the impact they believe they had on their students’ intercultural learning taking into considerations their own intercultural journeys.

Presenter(s): Benthien, Gaby - Shumei University; Ouma, Mei - Meisei University; Salazar, Javier - Kanda Institute of Foreign Languages

ICLE SIG Annual GENERAL meeting (AGM)

• Day: Sunday, November 3rd

• Time: 11:45 AM - 12:30 PM (45 minutes)

• Room: 906

Bringing Culture into the Foreign Language Classroom

Culture permeates every single human act and is both a fascinating and daunting subject to bring into a foreign language classroom. Since the wide acceptance of the ‘language is indivisible from culture’ truism, foreign language teaching has faced the challenge of bringing this seemingly evident into the classroom. In this forum we look at the pedagogical considerations of deconstructing cultural phenomena in a way that can be practically taught to the language learner and how to tackle these challenges by introducing alternative ways to incorporate culture into the language classroom.

JII Learning Circle Event

February 8, 2019
Juntendo University, Tokyo

Time: 19:00-21:00

Location: Juntendo University, Hongo campus (Ochanomizu, Tokyo)

Cost: JII and JALT members: Free (Non-members may attend once for free)

Title: ‘Caught in the loop’: The engagement-resistance cycle in intercultural encounters

Facilitator: Roxana Sandu

Description:There is no doubt that intercultural interactions can cause either engagement or/and resistance in any party involved. Shaules (2017: 69-70) explains that “an encounter with foreignness imposes adaptive demands on learners, which they respond to with more or less acceptance of change, which generates engagement and/or resistance.” In the hope that intercultural communication will be viewed in a more positive way, freshman students at a Japanese university were asked to participate in an online exchange over a period of eight weeks. This exchange offered them the opportunity to connect with English learners from other countries via Internet using English as a lingua franca. The results of pre- and post-questionnaires administered to all Japanese students participating in the exchange, along with the data collected from seven follow-up interviews indicate students’ engagement, as in an overall more positive image towards intercultural communication. On the other hand, some students appeared to be caught in an engagement-resistance loop, showing both engagement and resistance towards this type of interaction either due to anxiety towards foreignness or intolerance to unpredictability and their own lack of communication skills. Participants will be encouraged to share their own experiences and analyze them from an engagement-resistance cycle point of view.

Facilitator Bio: Roxana Sandu (PhD, Tohoku University, Japan) is currently an assistant professor of English at University of Tsukuba. Her main publications are in the field of pragmatics and discourse analysis, but recently her research interests also include raising intercultural awareness in an EFL setting, as well as teaching 21st century skills, such as critical thinking, communication and collaboration.