Event Report, Ibaraki Chapter October 2019

IBARAKI: October— A Glance at English Education in Iran and Turkey by Abdollah Dodangeh. In this presentation, Dodangeh gave us a glimpse of English education in the Middle East, referring to his own experience of learning and teaching the language in Iran and Turkey. In Iran, he recalls English being considered an enemy’s language. In Turkey, he found people’s sentiment toward English to be ambivalent. English is a mandatory subject in junior high school and beyond, but people are also concerned about its influence on the youth. That is, they fear that by learning English, young people will be affected by Western culture, which can result in the loss of their national and cultural identity. Teaching English Pronunciation to Japanese Students in the Era of English as an International Language by Yasushi Sekiya. Early in his presentation, Sekiya pointed out that Japanese instructors of English often feel unqualified to teach English pronunciation because their pronunciation is not “nativelike.” According to Sekiya, this mindset is detrimental to English education in Japan, depriving students of needed opportunities to learn English pronunciation. Sekiya thus proposes a fundamental paradigm shift. Instead of aiming at native-like pronunciation, teachers should strive for “intelligible” pronunciation and encourage their students to hold the same attitude. Sekiya introduced us to a variety of activities that can teach the fundamentals of pronunciation to English learners in Japan. Reported by Naomi Takagi