JALT2020 Featured Speakers

Avril Haye Matsui
Christian Jones
Beniko Mason
Theron Muller and Colin Skeates
Jill Murray

Avril Haye Matsui

Sponsored by JALT Gender Awareness in Language Education SIG
The Changing Face of ELT: Black Women in ELT
Sunday, Nov 22, 12:50 PM – 1:50 PM
This presentation focuses on the experiences of female English language teachers (ELT) from the African continent and of the African Diaspora (Black women) who currently reside in Japan. Using the narrative inquiry methodology (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) to explore her participants’ stories, along with auto-ethnography, the researcher will discuss how and if perceptions of gender, race and racial stereotyping impact upon their participation in professional Communities of Practice as described by Wenger (2002).
Additional Presentation: Blending Cultural Awareness and Social Activism
Saturday, Nov 21, 5:55 PM – 6:20 PM

The movement of people across borders means that Japanese communities are changing. However, if attitudes towards gender and cultural diversity do not also change communities may become breeding grounds for intolerance and discrimination. This workshop will explore how teachers can help foster attitudes of openness and acceptance of cultural difference and be agents of social change through blending social activism and cultural awareness in our pedagogy. Participants will leave with practical ideas for classroom use.

Avril Haye Matsui’s research is focused on the interconnected areas of gendered and racial discrimination, and increasing awareness of social justice. Her Ph.D. research explores the professional identity development and experiences of women of the African Diaspora, who work and reside in Japan. Ms. Matsui is dedicated to raising students’ awareness of social justice, especially in the areas of gender and racial discrimination. Her work in this area includes creating practical lessons to help students identify the prejudices and negative stereotypes they may have towards those that are different from them. She provides a safe and supportive environment for students to discuss taboo subjects of racism and gender and encourages students to see different perspectives. The creation of supportive communities of women is both an integral part of Ms. Matsui’s research and long-term goal for the development of stronger communities. In 2014, she co-founded the Black women in Japan Friendship and Support Group (BWIJ) which now has almost 3,000 members. She also chairs the committee to organize the Black Women in Japan annual conventions. In 2018 she founded the Nagoya Women’s Empowerment Circle, a group that empowers women to realize their goals in all areas of their lives and holds regular workshops for around 20 people. She also participates in workshops in the community which work to bridge the gap between the Japanese and foreign communities. In addition, she is an active member of the following groups; Creating Connections, a group that supports diversity and multiculturalism in Japan and the Association of Foreign Wives of Japanese (AFWJ) which provides support for women who are married in Japan.

Christian Jones

Sponsored by JALT Literature in Language Teaching SIG
Literary Texts: Access, Activity and Awareness
Saturday, Nov 21, 4:45 PM – 5:45 PM

This workshop will illustrate an Access, Activity and Awareness methodology (Jones and Carter, 2012) and show how we can apply this method to any piece of literature. This interactive workshop will demonstrate that literary texts are rich in both spoken and written language by asking participants to work directly with a range of sample texts. It will also show that such texts can develop student engagement and language awareness at different levels and age groups.
Additional Presentation: Dramatised Literature & Spoken Language Awareness
Sunday, Nov 22, 5:55 PM – 6:20 PM

Recent developments in corpus-informed materials (e.g. McCarthy and McCarten, 2018), have greatly improved the dialogues learners encounter in textbooks but many can be unnatural. As a result, there is a need for more realistic and motivating models of speech. Dramatised literature offers one such model. This presentation reports on research using an example of such literature (the BBC show Sherlock) and explore how it can be used to motivate learners and develop spoken language awareness.

Christian Jones is a Senior Lecturer of English at the University of Liverpool, UK, where he is the academic lead for postgraduate taught programs in the School of the Arts. His previous experience as an ELT professional has seen him working in China, Japan and Thailand. During his 25 years working internationally, he taught general English, business English, exam classes, classes for young learners, and has undertaken materials and course development and teacher training. He holds the Cambridge CTEFLA and DTEFLA qualifications alongside an MA and PhD from the University of Nottingham. Dr Jones’ main research interests are related to spoken language and include work on spoken corpora, lexis and lexico-grammar, classroom applications of corpus data and instructed second language acquisition. Dr Jones has been a plenary speaker in the UK and an invited speaker in Ireland and the UK. He has presented at conferences around the world.

Beniko Mason

Sponsored by JALT Kobe Chapter
Introduction to Story Listening and GSSR
Saturday, Nov 21, 10:45 AM – 11:45 AM

The Story-Listening/Guided Self-Selected Reading Program is a complete program for EFL/ESL students; the goal being to bring beginners to high intermediate/low advanced in 3 to 4 years. SL/GSSR provides substantial amount of optimal input, thus causing language acquisition. This workshop will introduce and promote discussion on the SL delivery method and the positive evidence of a SL/GSSR program on reading, writing, vocabulary acquisition, and TOEFL and TOEIC.

Additional Presentation: Story-Listening Fails Without Optimal Input
Monday, Nov 23, 11:55 AM – 12:20 PM

Despite the initial expectation for obtaining a similar vocabulary acquisition rate from Story-Listening Method with Japanese adult students, the results of this study instead suggested what should not be done with Story-Listening instruction. This study has shown what we need to be careful about when we give a Story-Listening lesson, and also suggests that when optimal input is not present, it is difficult to produce optimal result.

Beniko Mason is one of the few experts in our field who has divided her career equally between theory and application. Her publications over the last thirty years have been dedicated to testing innovative approaches to language teaching, as well as testing the theories underlying them, both as formal experiments and in the classroom. She is responsible for introducing innovations such as Story-Listening and Guided Self-Selected Reading. Her publications have appeared in many professional journals, including System, the RELC Journal, the TESOL Quartery, and ITL: Review of Applied Linguistics. She has demonstrated her methods and has presented her findings in professional conferences in the United States, France, Turkey, Taiwan, China, Korea, Russia, Laos, Cambodia, Germany, and Japan. Her publications appear in journals throughout the world and can be found at beniko-mason.net.

Theron Muller & Colin Skeates
 
Sponsored by Yokohama JALT Chapter
Using Community to Strengthen Qualitative Research
Monday, Nov 23, 9:30 AM – 10:30 AM

In this workshop, participants will be led through the qualitative research process of a recently completed project using critical discourse analysis to analyze higher education job advertisements (Muller and Skeates, 2020). Discussion topics will include how the project was conceived, decisions regarding methodology, the coding process, and how collaboration strengthened the research. We will conclude with a practical discussion of how workshop participants can plan and execute their own qualitative research projects.

Additional Presentation: Critical Discourse Analysis of Job Advertisements
Sunday, Nov 22, 11:55 AM – 12:20 PM

This research explores tensions arising from the internationalization of higher education through analyzing language teaching and applied linguistics job advertisements. Using discourse analysis we examine job advertisements across institutions with attention to how institutions represent themselves and the work they solicit. The current study, by examining job advertisements from Anglophone countries and Japan-based institutions in English, English and Japanese, and Japanese, clarifies similarities and differences in institutional and job position representations across national communities.

Theron Muller has been active in promoting teacher research from within and outside JALT since 2005. His PhD investigated the writing for publication experiences of Japan-based language teacher authors. He has presented on this topic and others related to English as a foreign language education at international and domestic conferences, including as invited plenary speaker. He is active with JALT Publications, most recently as Coeditor of The Language Teacher. He is Coeditor of two books with Palgrave Macmillan. His research has been published in international journals such as Writing and Pedagogy and the Asian EFL Journal, as well as in a number of Japan domestic journals and edited book projects. He was last a Featured Speaker at JALT2011.

Colin Skeates has been active in JALT for about 15 years, often presenting at the national and prefectural level. He was Yokohama JALT Chapter President from 2008 to 2012. For his MA he investigated the use of video journals in language learning. He has most recently co-published his first article in Spanish on the use of different kinds of reflection students underwent while keeping a video journal. He has also published articles regarding teaching ESP/EAP courses. This would be his first time to be a Featured Speaker.

Jill Murray

Sponsored by Macquarie University
Teaching Senior Learners
Sunday, Nov 22, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM

As the population ages, and more becomes known about the benefits of late-life language study, the number of senior language learners continues to increase. However, teacher education programs generally provide very little input on the opportunities and challenges of teaching languages to people aged over 60. This workshop explores the social and cultural construction of age, the stereotypes faced by older learners, and suggests ways teachers can tailor learning activities to maximise motivation and involvement.

Additional Presentation: Learning After 60: Cognitive and Social Benefits
Saturday, Nov 21, 11:55 AM – 12:200 PM

People over the age of 60 are the fastest growing age-group world-wide, with age-related declines in cognitive abilities projected to have major social and economic implications. Bilingualism has been shown to protect against cognitive decline, and it has been argued that foreign language training late in life can also be beneficial to cognitive function. This workshop reviews the current evidence, exploring opportunities and practical implications for the teachers of older learners.

Jill Murray is a language teacher, teacher educator and academic. She lectures in the Department of Linguistics at Macquarie University and is a member of the Multilingualism Research Centre. Her areas of interest include context-sensitive teaching methodology, intercultural competence and heritage language maintenance. She has published broadly in ELT – including language assessment, teaching and learning of pragmatics and language for the professional workplace. Her work has appeared in Language Testing, Intercultural Pragmatics and the TESL-EJ. Her current research involves the experiences of older learners and their teachers, and the implications for appropriate methodology.