Fukuoka Chapter

Fukuoka JALT usually holds meetings on Saturday evenings in Tenjin. Our meetings are most often followed by a dinner social at a nearby restaurant. Pre-registration is usually not required for our presentations, but we do encourage you to fill in our sign-in/sign-up sheets before seeing our presentations and attending our dinners. Note: our dinners usually require a reservation, so early sign-up is often necessary.

FUKUOKA JALT SEPTEMBER EVENT
Date: September 4, 2010 (Saturday)
Time: 3:30 - 5:30
Location: Fukuoka Jo Gakuin Satellite Campus
http://www.fukuokajalt.org/map.html

Beyond knowing words: Assessing the quality of vocabulary knowledge
Speaker: John Read
One of the basic goals for second language learners is to increase the number of words they know, and we now have good measures of vocabulary size, such as Paul Nation’s Vocabulary Size Test. However, it is also important for learners to develop the quality, or depth, of their vocabulary knowledge. This talk will consider various approaches to testing vocabulary depth, including the speaker’s own word associates format, which has been investigated in a variety of educational contexts over the last 20 years, along with other word association measures. Another perspective on vocabulary depth is knowledge of multi-word lexical units, or collocations, and there will be some discussion of how that kind of knowledge can be assessed.

Presenter Bio
John Read is an associate professor in the Department of Applied Language Studies and Linguistics at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and was Head of Department from 2007 to 2010. He has taught applied linguistics, TESOL and EAP at institutions in New Zealand, the United States and Singapore. His main research interests are in assessing second language vocabulary and the testing of English for academic and professional purposes. He is the author of Assessing vocabulary (Cambridge, 2000) and was co-editor of Language Testing from 2002 to 2006. He is currently Vice-President of the International Language Testing Association and will serve as President in 2011-12.

Fee for JALT members: Free
Fee for one-day members: 1000 yen

FUKUOKA JALT OCTOBER EVENT
English Teaching and Research Conference
August 29, 2010 by Fukuoka Chapter
Date and Time:
Saturday, 2 October 2010 - 10:00am - 5:00pm
Speaker:
Gregory Sholdt and Nicholas Bovee

The main purpose of this conference is to begin an academic dialogue between teachers and researchers interested in improving the quality of their work in preparation for the fall conference season. Presentations will be symposium style, with two presentations on related topics for 20 minutes each followed by a 15-minute roundtable discussion led by a moderator. A full day of presentations from teachers and researchers from Japan and abroad.

Plenary Workshops:

Moodle for Language Teachers
Nicholas Bovee
Kyushu Sangyo University
Moodle is a free learning management system (LMS) used by many teachers to extend classroom activities and traditional pen-and-paper assignments. Moodle can also be a useful management tool for teachers in charge of large classes, or a large number of classes. This 90 minute workshop is geared toward the novice user who has had little or no prior experience with Moodle. Only a basic knowledge of computers is required (using a Web browser, saving files, creating folders, etc.). The presenter will explain in clear, jargon-free language. By the end of the workshop, participants will know how to create and maintain a fully-functional Moodle site, and learn about publications and free materials that will help them learn more about Moodle on their own.

An Introduction to Quantitative Methods for Classroom-Based Research
Gregory Sholdt
Kobe University
Getting started in action or classroom-based research can be a bewildering endeavor. The goal of this workshop is to provide novice teacher-researchers with a simple and versatile quantitative research design template that can be easily implemented in most language classroom settings. Participants will complete a set of worksheets that outline a clear research plan from research question to data analysis, run a sample data set through an on-line statistical analysis program, and leave the workshop with an easy-to-follow research plan tailored to their personal interests.

Location:
Kyushu Sangyo University
Guide to Location:
Link to meeting location
Fee for JALT members:
1000 yen
Fee for one-day members:
2,000 yen

Our core group of officers are:

• President: Jack Brajcich
• Membership Chair: Jane Harland
• Program Chair: Quint Oga-Baldwin
• Publicity Chair: Miki Tokunaga
• Treasurer: Miho Tani

Other Fukuoka JALT Chapter Officers are:

• Kazuko Sako, Assistant Membership Chair
• Aaron Gibson, eNewsletter Editor
• J. Lake, Assistant Program Chair