jalt46

AKITA JALT meetings in 2008
picture album page 1 - the 1st meeting of 2008
(pictures of the June meeting below)
May

Description: Lesley Ito, owner of BIG BOW English Lab in Nagoya will present a simple and easy-to-use "Pie Chart" system for consistently creating high quality, balanced lesson plans and for keeping a manageable record of what has been taught throughout the year. Teachers who use the "Pie Chart" system will be able to easily create a curriculum that incorporates all four skills and school owners who employ teachers will be able to maintain high quality control in all classes.

Guest speaker: Lesley Ito
Date: May 24th, 2008
Title: Lesson Planning: As Easy As Pie!
Time: 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Place: AIU (Akita International University)
Room: B-103

11 people attended.

Chapter Report
(to be printed in The Language Teacher)
Guest speaker: Lesley Ito

AKITA – June 2008 Lesson Planning: As Easy As Pie! - Lesley Ito. Ms. Ito, owner of BIG BOW English Lab in Nagoya, presented a simple and easy-to-use "Pie Chart" system for consistently creating high quality, balanced lesson plans. Her “Pie-Chart” system is a method for controlling the timing of the various components of the lessons, and different charts were elucidated for various fluency levels and types of students, ranging from pre-school to adults. She also showed a simple method for keeping a manageable record of what has been taught throughout the year. Teachers who use the "Pie Chart" system should be able to easily create a curriculum that incorporates all four skills and school owners who employ teachers will be able to maintain a higher quality and level of control in all classes without interfering with teacher independence.

Reported by Stephen Shucart

AKITA JALT meetings in 2008
picture album page 1 - the 2nd meeting of 2008
(pictures of the May meeting above)
June

Guest speaker: Mark Neufeld
Date: June 21st, 2008
Title: Debate and Structured Discussions in the EFL Classroom
Time: 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Place: AIU (Akita International University)
Room: B-103

10 people attended.

Chapter Report
(to be printed in The Language Teacher)
Guest speaker: Mark Neufeld

Akita: June - Debate and Structured Discussions in the EFL Classroom by Mark Neufeld. For the first half of his presentation he explained "parliamentary" style debate, as he had used it in his classes. For him, this yielded less than favorable results. The students were having trouble with the rigidity and demands of debate, not to mention they weren't having any real conversation. To counter this Mark devised a class structure based on "structured discussions." The students are given an essay to deconstruct, all the while building arguments so they can defend there pro or con positions. At the end of the deconstruction exercise the students engage a partner in a 10 to 15 minute conversation. This was much more successful in that it got all the students involved, it worked well with mixed class, and in Mark's own words, "It has so much support built-in," the students couldn't help but succeed. The students performed admirably. We closed the meeting with a quick test run of the structured discussion format. It was what Mark had presented – constructive, filled with input and output, supportive, and most of all – fun.

Reported by Wayne Malcolm

more pictures
go to JALT photo album 47

go to pictures of the meetings in 2007
go to pictures of the meetings in 2006
go to pictures of the meetings in 2005
go to pictures of the meetings in 2004
go to pictures of the meetings in 2003
go to pictures of the meetings in 2002
go to pictures of the meetings in 2001
go to pictures of the past meetings (1998 - 2000)
Akita JALT

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