Featured Speaker Workshops

A: The self-directed learning approach and Thai students as active learners
Akara Akaranithi
Sponsor: ThaiTESOL
In the long tradition of Thai culture, children have been obedient and deferential, which has typically implied passive learning. However, consistent with rapid economic and social changes, and following on from the Thai National Curriculum Reform of 1999, there is now a trend towards more self-directed learning. The Experiential English course for 1st-year students at Chulalongkorn University is an example. In groups, learners share computers, use theme-based materials, do assigned tasks, and make a final presentation. In this workshop, we will discuss two groups of students, each from a different faculty, noting how both tend to be more active as learners and find English more interesting in the classroom, while still attaching importance to consulting their teacher about any problems.
Akara Akaranithi has been teaching English for more than 15 years. She received her master’s degree from Mahidol University and her doctoral degree from Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia. Her areas of interest include materials development, learner development, evaluation, and teacher development. She is currently president of ThaiTESOL and an executive member of AsiaTEFL.
B: Teaching foreign language reading fluency
Presenter: Richard Day
Sponsor: Oxford University Press
In this practical, hands-on workshop, we focus on how foreign language instructors can incorporate reading fluency strategies into their reading classes. We begin with a brief discussion on the importance of fluency for effective and efficient reading. Next participants are introduced to and themselves use a variety of reading fluency strategies (in contrast to reading comprehension strategies). They also engage in activities that they may use to teach the reading fluency strategies, and activities designed to increase students’ reading rates.
Richard Day heads the Department of Second Language Studies at the University of Hawaii. He was recently a visiting professor at Ubon Rajathanee University, Thailand, and at Ha Noi University, Viet Nam. He has spoken at many international conferences and is the author of numerous articles and books, including co-authoring Cover to Cover (OUP). He is co-editor of the journal Reading in a Foreign Language and chairman of the Extensive Reading Foundation .
C: Developing intercultural competence: Reexamining the goal and role of language education
Presenter: Alvino Fantini
Sponsor: School for International Training (SIT)
In this workshop, we explore the nature of intercultural competence (ICC) and consider its relevance to second and foreign language teaching. ICC encompasses a complex of abilities, including language proficiency, appropriate behaviors, and interactive strategies, that are all needed together in order to transcend one’s native language-culture and communicate and interact effectively and appropriately with people of other backgrounds. We investigate the multiple dimensions of ICC – definitions, traits, components, developmental levels, and the role of language proficiency in achieving intercultural success. Finally, we address the role of language teachers in developing ICC in their students, as an important aspect of their foreign language learning.
Alvino Fantini holds degrees in anthropology and applied linguistics. He is professor emeritus at the SIT Graduate Institute in Vermont and currently a graduate faculty member at Matsuyama University, Japan. He has been involved in intercultural communication and language education for over 40 years in the USA and abroad and served as an advisory panel member to develop the National Foreign Language Standards for education in the USA. He has conducted significant research and published widely, including Exploring and Assessing Intercultural Competence, Language Acquisition of a Bilingual Child, and New Ways in Teaching Culture. He is a past president of SIETAR International and recipient of its highest award.
D: Raising language awareness by investigating the linguistic landscape
Presenter: Chris Kennedy
Sponsor: David English House
The spread of English as a global language now means that in most urban and many rural areas of the world, English is present in the linguistic landscape. It occurs in coexistence with local languages in various lexical and grammatical forms, for example, in advertisements, and on signs, drink cartons, and food packets, even though such artefacts are designed for a generally non-English-speaking market. In this workshop we will consider examples of these artefacts, and explore reasons why they are present in the linguistic landscape. Participants will then be invited to examine some such artefacts for themselves, to see how and when English is used, how it interacts with the local language, and what this says about local consumer identities. We will then explore together how such investigations might be used in our classrooms to raise the language awareness of our learners.
Chris Kennedy has worked as a teacher, trainer, adviser, and academic in Africa, the Middle East, South-East Asia, and South America. His research and publications focus on language policy, curriculum innovation, and English as global language, with interests also in primary ELT, professional communication, and applied corpus linguistics. He is a past president of IATEFL and is currently Director of the Centre for English Language Studies at the University of Birmingham in the UK.
E: What really is fun for children studying EFL?
Presenter: Yoko Matsuka
Sponsor: McGraw-Hill Education
How do we compete for the attention and interest of intensely fun-hungry Asian kids against the huge choice of entertainments available to them? If we force them to “study English,” as happens all too often, we work against our own goal. From my own experience, I believe that there are ways to teach English that really are fun for even spoiled-for-choice modern Asian children. In this workshop, I will share 10 specific points with you.
Yoko Matsuka encountered phonics in 1976 while studying for her master’s degree at California State University. Seeing how useful it was for her own children, she decided to bring it back to Japan and founded the Matsuka Phonics Institute in 1979. She has written numerous books, including titles published in Korea and Taiwan. She is an adviser to the NPO J-SHINE (Japan Shogakko Instructors of English), is a research fellow at Tamagawa University, and has assisted or given advice to more than 1,000 Japanese elementary schools.
F: Profiling spoken fluency
Presenter: Michael McCarthy
Sponsor: Cambridge University Press
Fluency is a term which often features in descriptions of levels of spoken proficiency and in assessment targets. However, it is an under-researched notion. Work is underway in the English Profile project (as part of the Common European Framework) to sharpen the notion and to offer concrete evidence of what it means to be fluent. Of the many criteria for fluency, some seem to be central. These include the ability to use a repertoire of chunks, the ability smoothly to link one speaker-turn to the next, and the ability to use a range of small, high-frequency interactive words.
Michael McCarthy has served on the faculties of the University of Nottingham (UK), Pennsylvania State University (USA), and the University of Limerick (Ireland). He is author, co-author, or editor of more than 30 books and more than 70 academic papers. From 1994 to 1998 he was co-editor of Applied Linguistics. He is co director (with Ronald Carter) of the five-million word CANCODE spoken English corpus project, and the one-million word CANBEC spoken business English corpus. He has lectured on language and language teaching in 40 countries and has been actively involved in ELT for 42 years.
G: Using process writing to nurture successful writers
Presenter: Dorothy Zemach
Sponsor: Macmillan LanguageHouse
Do your students regard process writing as a remedial technique designed for struggling writers – or worse, a cruel joke? Are you using the writing process to help your students write the best papers they can with the least amount of stress? In this hands-on workshop, participants proceed through all the stages of the writing process: brainstorming, organizing, drafting, editing, and rewriting, to demonstrate their usefulness as a timesaver for any level of writer (including native-speakers!) We’ll try out a variety of practical and enjoyable classroom activities for each stage, focusing particularly on those that directly address the challenges faced by Japanese learners. For example, we’ll look at activities that teach students to brainstorm creatively, make outlining easier for visually-oriented learners, and set up a peer reviewing process that actually works. Comments from students’ writing journals will show the impact that each stage of the writing process can have on shaping the writer’s experience as well as the final paper.
Dorothy Zemach is an ESL materials writer, editor, and teacher trainer from Eugene, Oregon. She taught for over 18 years in language schools and universities in the USA, Japan, and Morocco. She is a frequent plenary presenter and featured speaker at TESOL and is a founding columnist for TESOL’s Essential Teacher magazine. She is the author or coauthor of over 15 ESL textbooks; those that address writing include Sentence Writing, Paragraph Writing, and College Writing (Macmillan); Writing for the Real World 1 (OUP), and Writers at Work: The Essay (CUP). Current interests include the teaching of writing, EAP, business English, testing, and humor in ESL materials and the profession.
H: Profiling spoken fluency
Presenter: Michael McCarthy
Sponsor: Cambridge University Press
Please refer to the details under F (above), as this is an opportunity to attend the same workshop in an alternative time-slot.
I: Stories: Feeding language learners for life
Presenter: Jennifer Bassett
Sponsor: Oxford University Press
The aim of this workshop is to raise your enthusiasm for stories. Extensive reading experts have been telling you for years about the importance of getting students to read extensively, but where do you stand? Are you a believer, a practitioner, a doubter, a sceptic? All reading identities are welcome. We will read stories, talk about stories, think about stories, pick stories up and shake them, and see what falls out of them. We will lie down with the lamb; we will roar with the lion. We will be serious about helping students achieve successful reading; we will be irreverent about subverting stories for our own agendas. Above all, we will remember what Philip Pullman said: “Stories are written to beguile, to entertain, to amuse, to move, to enchant, to horrify, to delight, to anger, to make us wonder,” and we will explore ways of bringing that uniquely personal experience to learners, to interweave the threads of their language learning with the multicultural tapestries of the world’s stories.
Jennifer Bassett has been a teacher, teacher trainer, editor, and materials writer, and has taught in England, Greece, Spain, and Portugal. She is the Series Editor of the Oxford Bookworms Library, a series of graded readers with over 200 titles, and has written more than 20 original and retold stories for the series, including The Phantom of the Opera, One-Way Ticket, The President’s Murderer, and William Shakespeare. Two of her adaptations, Rabbit-Proof Fence and Love Among the Haystacks, have won Language Learner Literature Awards, and three of her other titles have been finalists for the Awards. She has recently created a new sub-series called Bookworms World Stories, short stories written in English from around the world. She is also series co-adviser with H. G. Widdowson of the Oxford Bookworms Collection, volumes of unadapted short stories for advanced learners.
J: Relating culture to the teaching of communication strategies
Presenter: Alastair Graham-Marr
Sponsor: ABAX Ltd.
Teachers often encounter students who, with a limited understanding of an L2 grammar, are able to communicate effectively, while others with a developed understanding have difficulty communicating. An important factor contributing to communicative success is the use of strategies to overcome linguistic deficits and enhance a speaker’s message. Although there is some disagreement about the value of explicitly teaching students to use such strategies, research done with Asian students suggests that strategies should be a part of communicative language curricula. This paper reviews some of the research to date and makes the case that culture is a factor in the propensity to use strategies amongst learners with an emerging L2 proficiency.
Alastair Graham-Marr has been teaching in Japan for 19 years and has taught at a number of universities in the Kanto area. He currently teaches at the Foreign Language Center at Tokai University. In addition to curriculum development, his research interests include the use of L2 strategies by learners and how their L1 culture affects their use; the effects of language output on L2 acquisition; and how noticing, or explicit teaching, enhances L2 acquisition. He has written or edited a number of textbooks used in many countries around the world.
K: Evaluating programs and projects in ELT
CANCELLED
Presenter: Jake Kimball
Sponsor: KOTESOL
Many factors influence program evaluations: teachers, learners, institutional climates, governments, parents, mass media, unions, budgets, cultures, political or personal agendas, and time constraints. Headline-grabbing ELT projects are now typical in South Korea – including vigorous promotion of English immersion and piloting English classes in early elementary school. Are these projects effective? In this hands-on workshop, we will consider the dynamics of program evaluation and the interrelationships between stakeholders. Participants will then develop evaluations for use within their own contexts, while considering how to design evaluations that provide data for the purpose of external accountability as well as formative development.
Jake Kimball has been teaching in Korea for over a decade, logging over 20,000 classroom hours while dividing his time between the classroom and the staffroom. He is very active in Korea TESOL, editing publications and facilitating the Young Learners & Teens Special Interest Group. He also serves as a Research Committee member and Web Content Manager for the Elementary Education Interest Section of TESOL. His professional interests include program evaluation, curriculum issues, and early literacy. He is co-author of TOPS (Pearson Longman), a new 6-level course book series aimed at primary school students.
L: Brain-based learning and the active approach
Presenters: Curtis Kelly and Chuck Sandy
Sponsor: Cengage Learning K.K.
Almost daily, brain studies, technological advances, and research in psychology are giving us a better picture of how learning occurs. In concordance with this burst of research, a growing movement called “brain-compatible teaching” offers insights into why we need to develop teaching practices and materials that focus less on language and more on how people learn languages. In this paper, the authors discuss the roles of deep processing and emotion in learning, and their implications for the language classroom.
Curtis Kelly is an expert in adult learning and ELT pedagogies. He has coauthored 17 books, including Writing from Within (CUP), and the forthcoming Active Skills for Communication (Cengage).Chuck Sandy is a well-known ELT author, essayist, and poet who has coauthored Passages, Connect (CUP), and the much anticipated Active Skills for Communication (Cengage).