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****** See the pictures!******
pictures of the meetings in 2006
pictures of the meetings in 2005
pictures of the meetings in 2004
pictures of the meetings in 2003
pictures of the meetings in 2002
pictures of the meetings in 2001
pictures of the meetings in 1998-2000
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go to monthly meetings in 2006
go to monthly meetings in 2005
go to monthly meetings in 2004
go to monthly meetings in 2003
go to monthly meetings in 2002
go to monthly meetings in 2001

go to past meetings in 2000
go to past meetings in 1999
go to past meetings in 1998

1) Date: April 22, Saturday
Guest Speaker: Ms. Natsuko Sato who teaches at Seirei
Email of the speaker: natsuko@seirei-wjc.ac.jp
Topic: English learning/teaching through the Internet
Time: 2:00 to 4:00PM
Place: Seirei Tanki Daigaku in Akita

2) Date: May 27, Saturday
Speaker: Dave Ragan of MSU-A
Email of the speaker: ragan@msua.ac.jp
Time: 2:00 to 4:00PM
Place: MSU-A (Minnesota State University Akita)

I will give a workshop, which means the participants will have to do most of the work, on using easy to prepare games and popular songs to help learn English. I will give a brief rationale for using games to teach language. I will not be able to give out blank game boards but can give the address where they can be gotten for cheap or people can make their own using the ones we use in class as models. It should be fun and useful for all who attend. These games can be used at any level and by any age group. If anyone has a favorite game that they find effective in teaching please share it. - Dave Ragan"

3) (co-sponsored by MSU-A)
Date: June 22, Thursday
Guest Speaker: Dr. Kimberly Adams
Topic: Collapsing Classrooms - (gakkyu hokai) - An American View
with Dr. Kimberly Adams

Time: 2:00 to 4:00PM
Place: GH-300, MSU-A (Minnesota State University Akita)
Admission: \1,000 for non-members, \500 for students, Free for JALT
**
Dr. Kimberly Adams: School Psychology Program, College of Education, University of Minnesota Consulting Psychologist - Minneapolis School System

Even though the topic is not closely connected to English learning/teaching, it must attract many since the problem of "gakkyu hokai"or collapsing, dysfunctional classrooms has been a major educational, social one in Japan. Since Dr. Adams will present an American view, the audience might as well compare it to Japanese one, which must be interesting from the viewpoint of cultural differences.

4) Date: June 24, Saturday
Guest Speaker: Albert Evans (MSU-A)
Email of the speaker: al_evans@msua.ac.jp
Time: 2:00 to 4:00PM
Place: GH-300, MSU-A (Minnesota State University Akita)
Admission: \1,000 for non-members, \500 for students, Free for JALT members

Akita JALT June meeting: Albert Evans who has joined MSU-A just recently will make the next presentation

"Using Video in 2nd Language Teaching." A summary demonstration of techniques and discussion of their use. The goal of my presentation is to increase the effectiveness of lessons using video, and to promote the use of this medium to enhance classes. We will focus on "watching" video rather than making a video. My presentation is based on the work of Susan Stempleski and others.

5) Date: July 22
Guest Speaker: Rory Rosszell (Temple University)
Email of the speaker: rory@hpo.net
Time: 2:00 to 4:00PM
Place: GH-300, MSU-A (Minnesota State University Akita)
Admission: \1,000 for non-members, \500 for students, Free for JALT
Topic: Many practical suggestions in the use of graded readers in English classes for Japanese students.

6) Date: August 26, Saturday
Guest Speaker: Dave Ragan of MSU-A
Email of the speaker: ragan@msua.ac.jp
Time: 2:00 to 4:00PM
Place: GH-300, MSU-A (Minnesota State University Akita)
Topic: Learning English based on Brain Science
Admission: \1,000 for non-members, \500 for students, Free for JALT members

7) (co-sponsored by MSU-A)
Date: September 19
Guest Speaker: Inga Sorenson
Email of the speaker: Ingasor@hotmail.com
Time: 2:00 to 4:00PM
Place: GH-300, MSU-A (Minnesota State University Akita)
Admission: \1,000 for non-members, \500 for students, Free for JALT members
Topic: Teaching English in Denmark

Visitors to Denmark often remark on how easy it is to communicate in English. "No problem! Everyone there speaks such great English!" Why is this? Is it always true? Inga Sorenson has been involved in teaching English to adult high school learners in Denmark for many years; she will provide interesting insights on how English teaching developed in Denmark and on its current state. Don't miss it!

8) Date: September 23, Saturday
Guest Speaker: Coleman South, Assistant Professor ESL, MSU-A
Email of the speaker: south@msua.ac.jp
Time: 2:00 to 4:00PM
Place: GH-300, MSU-A (Minnesota State University Akita)
Admission: \1,000 for non-members, \500 for students, Free for JALT
Topic: Many practical suggestions in the use of graded readers in English:
Using Music: A Fun Way to Enhance Listening Comprehension for Lower-level ESL/EFL Students

This presentation will focus on using various types of popular music to enhance both bottom-up and top-down processing skills. Bottom-up processing includes such things as recognizing phonemes (particularly the "r/l," "th/s/z," and "v/b" sounds for Japanese students), recognizing word boundaries and word reductions (going to = gonna, for example), and the meaning of verb tenses. Top-down processing includes such things as understanding idioms and metaphors from their context, who the lyrics are addressed to, the general idea, and some supporting details. The preliminary listening activities include such things as capturing missing words and sorting scrambled lines, then answering questions based upon the lyrics.

Youthful students in particular enjoy popular music, relate to the sentiments it expresses, and are often happy to discover foreign music that's new to them. This natural interest gives them a great opportunity to improve their language skills as they enjoy music and gives teachers valuable tools to maintain their students' interest. It is clear from much research in the field (as well as common sense) that students who are genuinely interested in materials and activities used in class will acquire language skills more quickly than will students who are not interested. Additionally, popular music is rich in the language used in every day life, so students can begin to see the difference between the often unnatural-sounding language of their textbooks and language as it's actually used. I will give handouts (developed over the past 10 years of using music this way) with some useful guidelines for creating music-listening activities.

9) Date: October 10, Tuesday
Guest Speaker: Dr. Nantarika Chansue, Associate Professor in the Department of Veterinary Science at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
Time: 2:00 to 4:00PM
Place: GH-300, MSU-A (Minnesota State University Akita)
Admission: Free
Topic: careers for women in Thailand

10) Date: November 11, Saturday
Guest Speaker: Pat Darling, Ph.D.
Email of the speaker: pat_darling@hotmail.com
Time: 2:00 to 4:00PM
Place: GH-300, MSU-A (Minnesota State University Akita)
Admission: \1,000 for non-members, \500 for students, Free for JALT members
Topic: HOW TO READ MACBETH IN AN HOUR and Using One Act Plays to Enhance Reading

Spring, 2000, Pat Darling taught the World Theatre course at MSU-A, beginning the semester with a unit on One-Act plays. At our JALT meeting, Dr. Darling will share the plays she collected from around the world (Japanese Kyogen, American, Cuban, French) along with resources from READ magazine.

Every month READ puts out a drama that can be read outloud in the classroom (within a one-hour class period) which gives students success in their reading practice. Everyone has a part, so everyone has to follow along and be ready when their character's voice is called for. With short reading passages of plays, everyone can gets reading practice along with the satisfaction of participating in a drama. READ also contains informative articles and writing exercises.

11) Date: December 9, Saturday
Guest Speaker: Derek Mackrell of Thomson Learning
Time: 2:00 to 4:00PM
Place: GH-300, MSU-A (Minnesota State University Akita)
Admission: Free for all
Our Guest Speaker of the day:
At our 9 December Akita JALT meeting (2:00 p.m. GH 300, MSU-A), Mr. Derek Mackrell of Thomson Learning will talk about the popular Thompson English textbook series, "Expressions", and give an introduction to the texts for "Rethinking America" (These also use CNN videos.)

I recommend publishers' presentations to ALL kinds of teachers, at all levels of experience. They are useful! You always learn something new in the way of teaching techniques or curriculum design.

****** See the pictures!******
pictures of the meetings in 2005
pictures of the meetings in 2004
pictures of the meetings in 2003
pictures of the meetings in 2002
pictures of the meetings in 2001
pictures of the meetings in 1998-2000
******************************

1) Saturday, April 24 (2:00-4:00) at MSU-A
Michael Sagliano, Miyazaki International College
Mr. Sagliano will introduce and demonstrate a range of active learning card and board games for both fluency-building English classes and integrated content and language courses. Attendees will actively participate in some of these games. Guidelines for creating and adapting card games will be provided as well as a detailed handout. Questions, comments, and discussion will be encouraged throughout the presentation.
(one-day members \1,000, students \500)

2) Sunday, May 30 (2:00-4:00) at MSUA
Dr. Erika Vora, St. Cloud State University
In our global economy and marketplace, multicultural workforces in organizations have emerged. It is essential that we become culturally literate and develop intercultural communication skills to work and live effectively in our ever-shrinking global village. As we enter the 21st century, communication between people of different cultures is inevitable. However, we have not yet learned to understand, respect, and value those whose backgrounds, beliefs, and world-views are different from our own.

This seminar focuses on building bridges of understanding and sharing between individuals of different cultures. After identifying major elements of culture and communication, major barriers of intercultural communication and ways to overcome each are presented. In addition, Dr. Vora will share her approaches toward learning/ teaching intercultural communication.

Dr. Erika Vora is a professor of communication at St. Cloud State University where she has received several outstanding teaching awards. She has served as director of the International Studies Program in Ingolstadt, Germany, and as co-advisor of the University's International Students Association. Erika received her Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1978 with a major in intercultural and a minor in organizational communication.

She has published extensively on the diffusion of concepts, race and gender relations, conflict management, and effective listening, and has presented over fifty competitive papers at international and national professional conferences. Dr. Vora is a former Fulbright Scholar to Taiwan and President of the Fulbright Association, MN Chapter. She served on the Board of Directors of the Fulbright Association for three years. She is co-founder of the International Listening Association, where she also served as manuscript reviewer and conference organizer. She is also co-founder of the International / Intercultural Division of the Central States Communication Association where she served as chairperson for two years

In addition, she has served on the Board of Directors of the International Communication Association's Intercultural and Developmental Division. Dr. Vora has been a consultant with multinational organizations in the United States, Germany, Taiwan, India, and South Africa. She is currently on a yearlong journey around the world and much sought after speaker on race relations, intercultural communication, and conflict management.
(one-day members \1,000, students \500)

3) Saturday, June 26 (2:00-4:00) at MSUA
Ragan Dave, MSUA
Sorry for not replying sooner. I plan to show a short 20 min video on brain based teaching and learning and then to offer some techniques based on the principles from the video to help students learn vocabulary in particular. We will learn the STAR system Flash cards, mindmapping, highlighting and margin and post it notes, audio tape systems for vocabulary learning and study.

Participates should bring colored pens or pencils, some sort of texts or article that they are involved with at the moment. They also need a portable tape/MD/IC recorder in order to practice some of these techniques. I will have a couple available but to be sure bring your own to use. It is also useful for taping the workshop. It is really necessary if you are interested in conversation and techniques for learning vocabulary from them.
(one-day members \1,000, students \500)

4) Saturday, July 24 (2:00-4:00) at MSUA
Shucart Steve, Akita Kenritsu University
Stephen Shucart will present a two part talk entitled: " Complexity Science And The CALL Classroom". The first part of his talk will be a general overview of Complexity Science and how it can provide a framework for modeling classroom dynamics. The second part of his talk will focus on the application of this framework for the specific design of the CALL program at the new Akita Prefectural University's state-of-the-art CALL Lab with 66 iMac Computers.

Stephen Shucart is Associate Professor of English at the Honjo campus of Akita Prefectural University. He presented a paper on Complexity Science at the National JALT Conference in Omiya last year, and wrote a regular column for the CALL N-SIG's journal: C@LLing JAPAN Online entitled 'Complexity Science: CALL @t the Edge of Chaos'.
(one-day members \1,000, students \500)

5) Saturday, August 28 (2:00-4:00) at MSUA
Ms. Natsumi Onaka, the first president of Iwate chapter
Bridging learning and acquisition of a foreign language; Teaching English to little children and high school students are totally different. Is it true? Characteristics of the learners are primarily the same. However, little children "experience" their 1st language, whereas high school students learn "about a foreign language" at school. Languages can be learned and acquired best when they are meaningful and fun. Techniques and materials used for native speakers of English will be introduced in this workshop for your classroom English.
(one-day members \1,000, students \500)

6) Saturday, September 11 (2:00-4:00) at MSU-A
Kensaku Yoshida, Sophia (Jochi) University
English Education in the 21st Century: from Their English to Our English (Implications of the New Study Guidelines for English Education in the 21st Century)

The new study guidelines announced earlier this year will have a great influence on the teaching of English in the junior and senior high schools throughout Japan in several years' time--regardless of whether teachers are aware of this at the present time or not. First of all, it will influence the textbook publishers who will have to follow the guidelines if they want their textbooks to be authorized by the Ministry of Education. Second, the undeniable fact that the number of classroom contact hours will be reduced by an average of 30% for each subject--including English--will eventually force teachers to either cram all the materials they are teaching at the present time into a 30% smaller 'container,' or to find an alternative way to teach English.

What I will do in this presentation is discuss the central content of the new guidelines, present two well-known models of foreign language teaching, and finally, argue for the need to bring about a 'qualitative change' in way teachers think about teaching English.
(one-day members \1,000, students \500)

7) Tuesday, October 5 (7:00-9:00) at MSU-A
Dr. Anna Uhl Chamot, George Washington University Washington, DC (through Four Corners speaker '99).

Thinking about Language Learning

Both teachers and students can benefit from thinking about language learning processes. This presentation will review research on language learning strategies and suggest future directions. Then a metacognitive model of strategic learning will be presented, and suggestions provided for using the model to incorporate learning strategy instruction into the language class.
(Free admission for all)

8) Saturday, November 13 (2:00-4:00) at MSU-A
Professors Beth Edwards, Ed Rummel, MSU-A

The value of poster sessions: They will explain and demonstrate the value of poster sessions in teaching the four skills at a wide variety of levels, which should be useful for all kinds of people.
(one-day members \1,000, students \500)

****** See the pictures!******
pictures of the meetings in 2005
pictures of the meetings in 2004
pictures of the meetings in 2003
pictures of the meetings in 2002
pictures of the meetings in 2001
pictures of the meetings in 1998-2000
******************************

1) on April 25 at MSU-A (Minnesota State University Akita)
Presentation Title: haiku, hanami and English education
Summary: David McMurray explained the relationship between Japanese haiku and international haiku. The presenter, instructing the audience how to make English haiku, encouraged all to make their own works.

Presenter's Name: David McMurray, Fukui Prefectural University
Email: McMurray [mcmurray@fpu.ac.jp]
Address: Kenjojima 4-1-1 Matsuoka-cho, Yoshida-gun, Fukui 910-1195
Office Telephone: 0776-61-4203

2) May 23 at MSU-A
Presentation Title: How to liven up Classes
Summary: Dave Ragan discussed new methods on brain-based learning & teaching in his workshop which high school teachers could use in their classes in order to liven them up.

Presenter's Name: Dave Ragan, ESL Faculty, MSUA
Email: ragan@msua.ac.jp
Office Telephone: 0188-86-5138
Address: MSU-A, 193-2 Okutabikidai, Tsubakigawa, Yuwa-machi, Akita-ken

3) on June 4 at JOINUS in Akita city
Presentation Title: Longman Seminar for Teachers of English to Children; Make a difference - Fresh ideas for teaching children
Summary: Karen Fraser had a workshop on "Hands-on Games for Young Learners" and Reiko Tada, co-author of Our World, discussed how to teach kids under the title: "Globalizing Your Children's Classes".

Presenter's Name: Karen Fraser, Longman's product manager for children's materials
Office Telephone: 03-3266-0404
Address: Gyokuroen Bldg. 1-13-19 Sekiguchi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo

Additional Presenters' names: Reiko Tada
Email: tadaco@alpha-web.or.jp
Office Telephone: 0798-33-4496
Address: 1-30 Kagura-machi, Nishinomiya

4) on June 14 at MSU-A
Presentation Title: What is effective Language Testing?
Summary: Dr. J.D. Brown spoke on general principles of language testing.

Presenter's Name: Dr. J.D. Brown, Hawaii University

5) on June 27 at MSU-A
Presentation Title: Group Discussions on How to liven up Classes
Summary: Participants were divided into small groups. Each group discussed problems and difficulties English teachers face in teaching English. Later each table moderator made the report for further discussion.

6) on July 25 at MSU-A
Presentation Title: Making English Classes Communicative: Display vs. Referential Activities
Summary: Prof. Kensaku Yoshida talked about the characteristics of the Communicative Approach and suggested some practical ways in which they might be implemented in the classroom by introducing the display/referential dichotomy and suggested ways in which both types of activities could complement each other.

Presenter's Name: Prof. Kensaku Yoshida, Sophia University
Email: [yosida-k@hoffman.cc.sophia.ac.jp]

7) on August 29 at Akita University
Presentation Title: Second-Language Learning and Acquisition
Summary: JALT Akita and JACET Tohoku co-sponsored three presentations on various issues of second-language learning and acquisition.

The first Presenter's Name: Naoko Taguchi, MSU-A
Presentation title: An investigation of the Perceived Listening Strategy Use between Effective and Ineffective ESL listeners
Email: naoko@msua.ac.jp

The second Presenters' name: Masako Sasaki, Iryo Tandai of Akita University
Presentation Title: Precis Writing in the Process of Listening Comprehension Activity

The third Presenters' name: Helen Korengold, MSU-A
Presentation Title: Using Case Studies on Different Culture
Email: helenk@msua.ac.jp

8) on September 26 at MSU-A
Presentation Title: Panel Discussion by Father Nissel and Six Students
Summary: Nissel, who taught at Sophia (Jochi) University for over 4 decades, discussed successful English teaching in Japan. He was joined by six 53-year-old Japanese panelists (all Nissel's students) all bilingual and in different occupations. They discussed different cultures and English learning, etc.

Key Note Speaker's Name: Father John Nissel

The other panelists' names: Yoshikiyo Arai, Tsugihiro Kojima, Yasuo Yaezawa, Ichiro Osada, Koichi Arita, Takeshi Suzuki

9) on October 18 at MSU-A
Presentation Title: How to improve reading and writing skills
Summary: Dr. Kirby Record talked about how to improve students' reading and writing skills in a class. He emphasized on the clever use of schema each learner has already acquired about a particular topic. He also showed how to use video animation.

Presenter's Name: Dr. Kirby Record, Showa Women's University
Email: <peace@swu.ac.jp>
Office Telephone: 03-3411-5111

10) on November 7 at MSU-A
Presentation Title: The use of L1 in English Teaching
Summary: The use of L1 in English teaching is often dogged by controversy in Japan. Is English to be taught in English or Japanese? Dr. Pillay will discuss this interesting question through her own experiences, exploring and analyzing the views of Malaysian students and teachers.
Presenter's Name: Dr. Hannah Pillay (4 Corner Tour)

****** See the pictures!******
pictures of the meetings in 2006
pictures of the meetings in 2005
pictures of the meetings in 2004
pictures of the meetings in 2003
pictures of the meetings in 2002
pictures of the meetings in 2001
pictures of the meetings in 1998-2000
******************************

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