JALT photo album 64
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Chapter
Report (to be printed in The Language Teacher) Guest speaker: Mamoru "Bobby" Takahashi & Stephen Shucart |
AKITA – May 2013 - Motivating students by talking about novels - Mamoru “Bobby” Takahashi and Stephen Shucart, Akita Prefectural University. Experts say that students read more graded readers (GR) if teachers talk about books with enthusiasm. The presenters described the two main types of stories: character-driven novels and plot-driven novels. In general, the action is focused internally in character-driven novels and externally in plot-driven novels. The first part of the presentation focused on the art of creating believable characters and the second part focused on distinguishing between the several varieties of plot-driven stories in the genre of mystery novels. With many concrete illustrations, the audience learned the different patterns of development in these two types of novels and became better able to guide their students in selecting the proper books in an extensive reading program. |
Reported by Stephen Shucart |
Chapter
Report (to be printed in The Language Teacher) Guest speaker: Rachael Ruegg |
AKITA – June 2013 - Facilitating written feedback on students' writing -- Rachael Ruegg, Akita International University. Teachers of writing often wonder when to give feedback, how to give it, how much to give and how often. In addition to this there are different sources of feedback – Should the teacher give feedback on every assignment? How about peer feedback, is it really useful? For over a one-year period the presenter conducted PhD research with 71 Japanese students. In this presentation the presenter used the results of her research to give advice about how to facilitate written feedback on students' writing. The presentation was attended by several local Japanese High School teachers, so the Q&A period was most informative for the multiple perspectives it afforded. |
Reported by Stephen Shucart |
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