Four Corners Tour

JALT2010 Four Corners Tour
This year the JALT2010 Four Corners Tour marks the 22nd year of the tour. From Hokkaido to Okinawa, and many points in between, the tour has hosted 52 speakers, including Asian Scholars. According to JALT records, the first Asian Scholar came from China 22 years ago in 1988. The 1995 speakers were also from China and gave presentations in 10 cities throughout Japan. Other tour speakers have included many pillars of the language teaching world and have brought workshops and lectures to JALT chapters and educational institutions. The 1998 tour saw six speakers exploring our four corners in over 20 locations!
This year’s Balsamo Asian Scholar, Om Soryong, arrives in Tokyo pre-conference and will be hosted by Tokyo, Omiya, Niigata, Iwate and Akita Chapters before boarding the shinkansen for Nagoya and the conference. His tour topic is Teaching and learning English in Cambodian high schools: Challenges and prospects.
Post-conference, JALT Junior Plenary Speaker Marianne Nikolov will do a brief tour starting with Gifu Chapter on 23 Nov, Hiroshima Chapter (24/25), Nagasaki Chapter (26), and Kobe Chapter in conjunction with Kobe City University of Foreign Studies (27). Her tour topic will be Maintaining young learners’ motivation.
Rounding out the tour will be JALT2010 plenary speaker Alan Maley. His post-conference visits will include East Shikoku Chapter on 23-24 Nov, Okayama Chapter (25), Shizuoka (26), West Tokyo Chapter (27), Sendai Chapter on (28), and Aichi University, Nagoya (29). Participating chapters will choose from these topics: Helping students to write creatively (workshop), Global English: Impacts, illusions and implications, Where do new ideas come from? and The art and artistry of language teaching.
The Balsamo Asian Scholar and Four Corners Tour speakers are fully funded by donations from JALT chapters and SIGs. This year, a big thank you to Tokyo and West Tokyo Chapters for their largesse in helping to support the 2010 Balsamo Asian Scholar’s visit, Materials Writers SIG for contributing to the Four Corners Tour for Alan Maley, and the Teaching Children SIG for their support of Marianne Nikolov. We hope you will find time to meet our speakers in Nagoya, but if not, find your way to any of the chapter presentations to be given on the post-conference tour. Please contact the chapters directly for details of place and time.