Fourth Seminar (2021)
The fourth seminar was held online on December 4th, 2021.
Presentations
Irina Ashmarina (Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO University), Russia)
irina_ashmarina@mail.ru
An English language ‘accommodation’ course on an EMI university programme in Russia
Though English Medium Instruction (EMI) is an increasing phenomenon in universities around the world, scholars and EL practitioners have pointed out numerous difficulties experienced both by administrations, teachers and students (Macaro at al. 2017, Goodman 2014, Belskaya 2020).
MGIMO University was the first to start an EMI programme in Russia, and by now we have had graduates from 30 countries. That means students enrolled come from different backgrounds and have different educational experiences and outcome expectations. For this reason, a course of English for Special Purposes is taught alongside other filed-specific disciplines to accommodate the students’ academic needs.
Overall, the students fall into four basic cagegories in terms of their educational background, mono-, bi- or multilingual environments in their home countries, experience of learning English, all resulting in the use of different language learning strategies. The presenter will describe these basic categories of students and focus on how the ESP course is designed at MGIMO University.
Peter Bannister (University of Dundee, UK)
pbannister001@dundee.ac.uk
The Travel Puzzle: Listen for a Change
Many scholars have often advocated for a radical reimagining of the way L2 listening comprehension is taught in the EFL classroom (Field, 2008; Vandergrift and Goh, 2012; Rost, 2017). Moreover, in light of markedly weaker performance in external examinations in this regard (Cambridge Assessment English, 2018), in the classroom greater emphasis on the facilitation of meaningful learning experiences in which learners have the opportunity to adopt a more active role has been called for (Wallace, 2012).
The Travel Puzzle: Listen for a Change is a short practice paper proposal which details an activity for Young Learners, in which they work in cooperative groups to plan an international school’s visit itinerary interacting with authentic materials via their Chromebooks which are then presented orally to the rest of the class.
The students are then presented with short audio tracks which call into question the viability of their choices, such as a voice message from a teacher informing of a lost passport, a local radio report regarding a traffic jam on the way to the airport, or a voicemail message from a receptionist apologising for the cancellation of the group’s hotel reservation.
The arrival of each audio track will see the cooperative groups listening for detail and changing their initial ideas to find plausible alternatives considering the key information extracted. The activity culminates with a second round of oral presentations of their modified findings together with a group reflection on their shared experiences.
In addition to the activity description, a range of digital educational tools to facilitate listening comprehension instruction can also be remarked upon in the hope of germinating real and actionable impetus amongst like-minded teaching professionals in the audience.
References
Cambridge Assessment English (2018). Grade Statistics 2018. https://www.cambridgeenglish.org/research-and-validation/quality-and-accountability/grade-statistics/2018/
Field, J. (2008). Listening in the Language Classroom. Cambridge University Press.
Rost, M. (2017). Listening in Language Learning. Routledge.
Vandergrift, L. y Goh, C. C. M. (2012). Teaching and Learning Second Language Listening. Routledge.
Wallace, M. P. (2012). Searching for a new approach to listening. Accents Asia, 5(1), 8-22.
Deryk Cameron Bliss & Dagmar Kunst (J.F.Oberlin University, Japan)
t0300079@obirin.ac.jp
Utilizing Positive Psychology in COVID-era Foreign Language Learning classrooms: insights, applications and potential paths forward
Educators are now well into their second year of teaching in a COVID-era world. This is now a learning environment that can shift in a very short period of time from in-class to fully online to somewhere in between (hyflex/hybrid) and back again. Creating and maintaining a positive, supportive and enriching educational experience has become even more of a challenge. What lessons, then, can be drawn from Positive Psychology as teachers strive to balance educational objectives with the rapidly changing realities of today? After a brief overview of the key concepts underpinning positive psychology, the presenters will draw on case studies, their own teaching experiences and semi-structured questionnaire results to illustrate practical applications to foreign language learning classrooms across a variety of situations. It is hoped that this will add more resources to teacher’s pedagogical tool kits as we continue to navigate through these uncertain times.
Keywords: positive psychology, PERMA, Foreign Language Enjoyment (FLE), Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety (FLCA), EMPHATICS, intrinsic/extrinsic motivations.
David Scott Bowyer (Nagoya Gakuin University, Japan)
scottybowyer1@gmail.com
Is language in the brain a Complex Dynamic System?
Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST) has been in use for decades now as a way to model complicated phenomenon with lots of moving parts. Think skyscrapers, river valleys, climate, or even the classroom. All of these things can be modelled using CDST, leading to deeper understanding and better designs. Thanks to the pioneering efforts of Larsen-Freeman (2017) and many others, we’re starting to see CDST being applied to language, providing answers to some of the big questions that have been keeping language researchers up at night (Ellis, 2019; Lowie, 2012). However, there still remains one enormous question: how, exactly, does the brain actually learn languages?
Thanks to recent advancements in brain imaging technologies such as fMRI, neuroscientists are delving deeper than ever before in to the human brain and slowly peeling back the curtain on how it functions (Chai et al., 2016; Weis et al., 2019). The presenter will briefly explain what CDST is and discuss the current evidence for the brain as being a complex dynamic system. This will be followed by practical advice on how to make use of CDST in the classroom in order to provide our students with an optimal learning experience.
Josh Brunotte (Aichi Prefectural University) & Deborah Broadby (Sugiyama Jogakuen University)
JoshBrunotte@gmail.com
debbiebroadby@gmail.com
Interactions between sleep, stress and classroom behaviors in university students
Many students and instructors face challenges in the classroom as a result of poor sleep quality and elevated levels of stress. Understanding these health factors in students may empower educators to make better decisions related to teaching and possible interventions. The internationally recognized Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) were used to investigate these issues among Japanese tertiary-level ELLs and to explore the relationship between sleep and stress in this population. Data gathered from 664 participants indicate that problems with sleep quality exist in this group, and that the majority of participants’ stress levels fell in the moderate to high ranges. A positive correlation between PSQI and PSS scores was found, as poorer sleep quality often predicted higher levels of stress. In this presentation, the presenters will share ideas for classroom and discussion activities, as well as curriculum development for EFL teachers that can help promote more positive health choices among students are explored.
Abigail Capitin-Principe (Nanzan University, Japan)
abieprincipe@gmail.com
Gamification: Using Quizlet Live in ESL Vocabulary Learning
Gamification is adding game mechanics into nongame environments, like a website, online community, learning management system or business’ intranet to increase participation. The goal of gamification is to engage with consumers, employees and partners to inspire collaborate, share and interact. (https://www.biworldwide.com/gamification/what-is-gamification/)
When classes switched online, one my goals was to find a way to motivate students. It was challenging to find a game that would work in an online environment, that would be able to motivate students. Pre-pandemic, I have used different games in my classes, to encourage participation, and cooperation among my students. One of my favorites is using Quizlet Live for vocabulary learning. Recently, I have started using Quizlet Live for my online classes as well. The dynamics have changed, but the end goal, of motivating students, and encouraging them to learn, remains the same.
My presentation will talk about how to use the game function of Quizlet Live in an online class environment.
Geoff Carr (Ashikawa University, Japan)
g.carr@live.asahikawa-u.ac.jp
Paper to Pixels: A Decade of EFL Journal Development
Journal writing is a recognized and much-used tool in language teaching. In the language teaching classroom, it can address multiple needs: target language habituation, student interaction in the target language, provision of authentic materials, facilitation of both peer and instructor review, multimedia communication, multiple study skill integrations, enhancing student motivation, and others. Journaling has been a component of Asahikawa University first-year courses for over a decade and has been developed and refined through three primary and several secondary iterations. This presentation has three distinct foci: the succinct elaboration of the language teaching goals the journaling program seeks to address, the description of the development of the program over time, and the discussion of the various modes, methods, and tools used to facilitate the program.
Steven Charles (Nanzan University, Japan)
sacharlesnag@gmail.com
Peer Review Instruction Through Modelling in EFL Writing
While peer review is well-established in the writing classroom, many students lack the experience and skills to give effective feedback to their peers. Minus proper training, peer review sessions can become frustrating for teachers and
students. This paper tracks a 15-week project conducted at a university in Japan in which second-year students read and gave feedback on three papers from previous classes. The three papers covered the same three topics as the students
in this project were assigned during the term. The students’ assessments and comments were then compared to the teacher’s and discussed in the class in order to improve students’ peer review skills. This form of modelling relied mainly on implicit training as students were not given explicit instruction on how to evaluate the three papers, but rather were given advice after having read the papers.
Ana Maria Flores (Nanzan University, Japan)
flores@nanzan-u.ac.jp
Online Task-based English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Education
The use of technology-mediated task-based language education (TBLT) online is now more than ever imperative as the sudden disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has unpredictably redefined the educational institutions' approaches and methodologies. Online language education has become a reality for many foreign language programs that have been precipitously compelled to remote teaching. Therefore, as language classrooms are now being redefined, further knowledge of how to set learners up to do online task-based studies to achieve their language learning goals must be part of teachers' professional development. There are multiple academic resources written on tasks, technology, task-based language courses online, and the availability of multimedia input resources like YouTube videos, Netflix movies, newscasts, and podcasts and free online reading materials. Still, there remains few, if none, methodological guidelines for how to do TBLT online that promotes productive language output, scaffolds the kind of interaction that facilitates and motivates language learning, and gives feedback, which are crucial to develop foreign language skills (Gass, 1997; Long,1981; Swain, 1995; Swain and Watanabe, 2013). This article will do a literature review of Task-based Language Teaching (TLBT) principles and give two examples of lesson plans that demonstrate the Willis (1996, 2012) task-based methodology framework for synchronous and video-based online teaching and learning.
Michael Free (Kangwon National University, South Korea)
michaelfree63@gmail.com
No Sage, Shared Stage: Developing Learner Agency and Autonomy in a Korean Language and Culture Classroom
This semester I was asked to teach a class entitled “Korean language and culture through film and media.” This is a new course in a program that is in its early stages of development, and so was an exciting opportunity. The nature of the course, coupled with the fact I am neither Korean nor am I a qualified Korean language teacher, made designing the course particularly challenging. Some of these were quite specific to the context, e.g. in what sense would I ‘teach’ the course (Would I be a facilitator? Co-explorer? Guide?)? While there is an interesting discussion to be had here, it is so specific to this course that it is unlikely to be of use to many teachers. On the other hand, I also had the aim of structuring the course to provide opportunities to develop the agency and autonomy of my students. These are complex topics that have been the subject of much discussion, and I believe that sharing my approach could possibly benefit teachers with similar concerns.
This presentation will address those aspects of the course set up to develop students’ agency and autonomy; what worked, what didn’t, and what needs (or might need) to be changed in future iterations. After providing working definitions of ‘agency’ and ‘autonomy’, I will give a brief description of the specific, somewhat unusual context of the course. In the main section of the presentation, I’ll detail what I’ve done with respect to encouraging the development of both the agency and autonomy of the course participants. This will focus on discussions of choice boards, portfolios, and inquiry-based projects. There will be time for questions and discussion following the presentation.
Maha Hassan (Teaching ESL HUB, Egypt)
maha_teacherprofessional@yahoo.com
A New Outlook for Assessment
Since the lockdown many teachers have been wondering about the best ways to assess their students through the four language skills. Teachers tried many tools and got lost in the maze.
Many trainers and organizations are asking teachers to achieve specific goals by applying unique pedagogical innovations. Through the experience gained during lockdown with teaching Business English, I’d like to help teachers with technological tools that would help them assess their students’ work more effectively.
In my Presentation, I will use the new CEFR Companion Volume to show teachers how to use it for student assessment. I will also show the teachers practically five online tools like Vooks, Wordwall, Beta.... etc. that can help them do assessment for the four language skills as successfully as possible.
Jennifer Igawa (Meiji Gakuin University, Japan)
igawaj@eco.meijigakuin.ac.jp
Predicting the Past - A Counterintuitive Approach to Using Literature in the EFL Classroom
In this presentation, I will present a counterintuitive approach to the use of literature in the EFL classroom. Literature is a great tool for eliciting discussion. Because students exchange their interpretations and opinions of the story, there are no “wrong” answers. This creates a less stressful environment, as the pressure students often feel to provide correct answers is reduced. There are, however, better reasons for interpretations and opinions. Students’ reasoning and critical thinking skills can be improved by using references to the text as well as their own personal experience and prior knowledge to support their interpretations and opinions. In addition to practicing these skills after completing a text, these skills can be practiced in the middle by giving students only part of a text and asking them to predict what happens next. In this presentation, I will introduce a text I have used to work backwards through a text. Instead of predicting the effect of an event in a text, they predict the cause. This different approach to reading a text is often new for students and therefore stimulating, if not challenging.
David Kluge (Nanzan University, Japan)
klugenanzan@gmail.com
Four Quick and Easy Debate Formats
This presentation will introduce four easy and quick formats for conducting debates in your classes:
1. Abbreviated Lincoln-Douglas Debate
2. Role-Play Debate
3. Tag-Team Debate
4. Inner Circle-Outer Circle Debate
The presenter will first define debate and the few basic debate terms that one needs to know to conduct debates, such as policy, proposition, affirmative/pro, negative/con, constructive speech, rebuttal speech, and cross-examination. The presenter will then describe each of the four formats and explain the steps for conducting a debate using that particular format. Next, the presenter will provide a list of resources for teachers who want to include debate in their classes. The presentation will end with time for questions and comments.
Chris Lear (Nanzan University, Japan)
lear@nanzan-u.ac.jp
Introducing Culture through the News
This presentation aims to introduce one activity that was used in an elective culture course for English majors. Finding ways to effectively develop language skills while introducing culture is vital to our profession. By using authentic materials, students are able to experience more than just classroom-related L2. Using local news sources gives students a chance to explore what life is like in another area, what daily issues might be important to locals, and even how national issues might affect the local regions. After introducing the news sources from the regions that will be discussed in class, students had to create weekly journal entries about articles they read. Students were then tasked to share and discuss their findings in small groups in order to complete their journal entry. Finally, students were required to complete a short writing project summarizing their journal.
Raul Rodríguez Clavero (Radical English, Chile)
director@radicalenglish.org
You can do it too! Building Community through Collaborative Materials Development.
Particularly since 2020, it became a somehow global issue that the teacher-students relationship was one of the major factors that was negatively affected by the aggressive transition towards online learning, which keeps taking place in several different countries worldwide.
This presentation will summarize some key aspects of my practical experience building and strengthening relationships with my teenage students in an online English institute in Chile during the last two years. The main focus will be on how empowering the learners to be an active part of the development of the pedagogical materials that will be used during the class actually has strengthened our relationship, built better rapport, increased their motivation and attrition, and also helped them feel safer and more confident when using the target language.
Despite being implemented in a setting of individual classes and very small groups (up to five students), and having all the flexibility to design and decide all the curriculum to be used in each course, I believe this experience can be useful for teachers in many different contexts, especially those looking to connect on a deeper level with their learners, empower their identities, and just have a good time together in class.
Christopher Samuell (Hannan University, Japan)
samuellchris@gmail.com
Using Authentic Reading Materials in the Japanese EFL Classroom
This paper outlines the benefits of using authentic reading materials in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom settings. It begins by discussing the importance of the text selection process, before moving on to how schema theory can be of great value in the successful exploitation of authentic reading materials. It also provides a number of activities that may be used in conjunction with authentic reading materials, as well as justifications for each activity, and instructions for teachers on how to use each activity. The authors posit that the use of authentic reading materials can lead to increased learner motivation, by facilitating successful learning experiences with materials designed for native speakers. The authenticity of the materials also provides students with the opportunity to interact with varieties of English that they may not encounter in traditional textbooks or EFL materials.
Brent Simmonds (Nanzan University, Japan)
Simmonds.brent@yahoo.com
Incorporating the Climate Crisis into our Classrooms
This presentation will demonstrate how to integrate the climate crisis into our classrooms, in unobtrusive way which increases student motivation and increases language development.The climate crisis is probably the biggest challenge the world has ever faced and will greatly impact our students lives in the short and long term.
Teaching about the environment may at first appear to be a daunting and depressing prospect but can be not only a rewarding experience but an opportunity for teachers to learn from their students, who can provide innovative solutions.
This presentation will argue that it is possible to incorporate the climate crisis into every topic in our textbooks, whilst avoiding climate anxiety which is affecting many students around the world. The university campus provides real life examples of adjustments that need to be made as well as offering the students to reconnect with nature and provides an invaluable opportunity to examine how climate change is affecting their lives.
Sandra Monica Sturla (Instituto Superior Docente y Técnico N° 35, Argentina)
audeo.online@gmail.com
Around Argentina in 30 days. Bringing Verne into the 3rd millennium
Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days is one of the novels first-year students read for the subject Written Discourse I of the Teacher Training Course in English at ISDFyT 35, a teaching training college in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Getting students to read has become an increasingly challenging task, but it is even more challenging when the reading material is not contemporary literature. We aim to encourage students to read and analyse the material and then produce their own written works. In order to do that, we designed a transmedia project based on the novel. Students would bring Verne into the 3rd millennium and to our country, Argentina.
The project included the use of ICT resources as well as the use of the target language. As a final task, students had to simulate a trip around the country and use social media and a traveller's blog to reenact Phileas Fogg´s adventures in a different place and time. They would relate their experiences, post photos and videos and interact with others via Twitter daily (https://twitter.com/30Argentina?s=20). Also, they had to write an article about each location they were supposed to visit. The whole class took part in the project as well as their friends and unknown people who followed their trip on Twitter.
Cristina Tat & Sean Gay (Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan)
cristinatat@kwansei.ac.jp
SeanEKPG@gmail.com
Social and Academic Impacts of CoViD19 - related Emergency Remote Teaching on Japanese University Students
This study will detail how a university in Western Japan has implemented its English for Academic Purposes (EAP) program during the onset of CoViD-19. In the spring semester of 2020, after a 2 week delay, all courses within the school’s EAP program were offered in an online asynchronous format. The course coordinators were tasked with consolidating the materials originally designed for face-to-face,14 week courses, for a 12 week asynchronous online semester, and with uploading the modified course materials to the university’s Learning Management System (LMS). Twenty one students participated in semi-open interviews to determine the social and academic impacts of this CoViD-19 Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) approach. The lessons learned from this experience will be discussed in terms of future curriculum design and implementation in a post-CoViD world. There are a wide variety of lessons that were salient. The role of the classroom as a social institution was very prominent; however, awareness of cognitive burdens and strategies to mitigate them may be more valuable for teachers. The lessons learned during this period of ERT can help teachers moving forward.
Andrew Tidmarsh (Nanzan University, Japan)
tidmarsh@nanzan-u.ac.jp
Building Critical Thinking Skills through Materials Design
Discussion courses in Japanese universities give students the opportunity to have thoughts about serious societal issues and express those thoughts in English. For teachers, it can be exciting to free students to develop language skills covering an extensive range of topics. However, two stumbling blocks may arise.
First, commercially available textbooks for discussion classes may focus on outdated or cliched topics, which fail to capture the attention of students and teachers alike. Second, textbooks may forget about, or merely pay lip service to the development of critical thinking skills, focusing instead on vocabulary building, reading comprehension and even listening tasks. To address these problems, it may be necessary for teachers to design their own materials.
This presentation will give a start to finish account of creating a course designed to encourage critical thinking. We will look at what it means to think critically. We will examine how the overall course structure is of crucial importance. We will discuss identifying students’ needs and choosing suitable topics, before taking a look at some individual tasks created for learners.
Joseph Tomei (Kumamoto Gakuen University) & John Hozack
tomeiter@gmail.com
johnhozackteacher@gmail.com
Stepping outside the Classroom with Online Interview Exchanges
A particular weak spot within Japanese university education has been the inability to observe and be observed by peer teachers. Beyond the questions of pride, scheduling and organizational issues make it difficult to invite peers into your class. However with the pandemic, new possibilities have opened up and in this presentation we will discuss one of them, which is the exchange of student interviews by teachers. While for the initial attempt, one teacher graciously agreed to interview the second author’s students regarding their compositions, we would suggest that this format might make for a meaningful class exchange as well as opportunities for mentoring and opportunities for research to both novice and veteran practitioners.