JALT Ibaraki Chapter February Meeting

1:00 - 2:20:
Title: Learners' Lives as Curriculum: Using Student-Created Texts in the Language Classroom
By Yasue Kawamorita and Tom Edwards

2:40 - 4:00
Title: Fluency? Fluency. Fluency!
Practical and Theoretical Approaches to Fluency Development
By Peter Parise and Anne Takata

4:10 - 5:00
Chapter Business Meeting - All participants are invited to attend.

Febraury Meeting

*
Program I: 13:00 - 14:00 - Featured Speaker Presentation
by: Charles Browne, Meiji Gakuin University
Title: A Brief Introduction to Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition

This session will introduce participants to the basic "facts" and statistics of second language vocabulary acquisition including the importance of learning high frequency vocabulary, research on the specific problems Japanese learners of English face with regard to vocabulary learning and its relation to reading skills development.

Program II: 14:15 - 15:15 - Featured Speaker Presentation
by: Clair Taylor, Toyo Gakuen University
Title: Building vocabulary study habits with unmotivated students

L1 – L2 flashcard applications designed to manage vocabulary learning and review are extremely powerful tools for language learners (Nation, 2001; Spiri, 2008; Nakata, 2008). However, without support from their teacher, students may not take advantage of these resources. This paper will report on an action research project, which aimed to encourage students at a private Japanese university to study vocabulary regularly outside of class using the free Web 2.0 application Smart.fm.

Program III: 15:30 - 16:30 - Featured Speaker Presentation
by: Charles Browne, Meiji Gakuin University
Title: An Even Briefer Introduction to Online Resources for Vocab and Reading

This session will quickly introduce participants a wide range of online resources which can be used for analyzing, researching, teaching and creating classroom materials related to vocabulary acquisition, including several that were developed by the presenter.