Event report Ibaraki Chapter March 27, 2021

IBARAKI: March  As the new school year is fast approaching, we gathered online and listened to the following two inspiring presentations. Improving Student Confidence and Language Output Using a TBLT Textbook by Jenny Numadate. In this presentation, Numadate shared her experience of using a textbook called On Task Book 1, designed for task-based language teaching (TBLT). In covering each unit, she made sure that the class followed the standard TBLT cycle consisting of (1) pre-task, (2) task preparation, (3) task, and (4) post-task, in which students did most of the talk. After each unit, students also made a “one-minute speech” and kept track of the words per minute, number of pauses, and non-linguistic features like fillers. Their fluency oscillated according to the topic. However, the student survey revealed that many students felt that their overall English skills and confidence developed significantly over the year.  Digital educational tools for online lessons by Naoko Ochiai. Last year, as her classes went online, Ochiai used various digital educational tools to enrich her students’ learning experience, and her classes ended successfully. Hence, in this presentation, she offered a detailed explanation of what she used and how she used them. She began with explainer video creators named simpleshow and Powtoon, handy tools for self-introduction and course explanation. Next came Quizlet and Kahoot!, which are for checking students’ grammar and vocabulary comprehension. Aiseesoft Screen Recorder is a ripping software program for capturing a segment of a video or a movie. Finally, Voice Memos is a versatile voice-recording application for storing, sharing, and adding recordings to other programs. Ochiai concluded that these digital tools could offer our students a fruitful learning experience, even in an online setting. Reported by Naomi Takagi