Location: Keio University, Hiyoshi Campus.

On 15th March, Yokohama JALT will be holding one of our regular MyShare events.

My Share sessions are short presentations (15–20 minutes) where teachers can share practical classroom ideas, tools, and techniques that other educators can use right away. It’s a friendly, supportive space to exchange ideas, connect with colleagues, and spark new inspiration. After the event, presenters and participants often continue discussions at a local cafe or bar.

Presentations

Malcolm Prentice – Paragraph Lengths for Academic Writing
Malcolm Prentice is a lecturer at Rikkyo University’s Center for Foreign Language Education with extensive international teaching experience and research interests in teacher education and student corpora.
This presentation offers practical guidance teachers can share with students about appropriate paragraph lengths in academic writing. Drawing on the British Academic Written English (BAWE) corpus, it highlights how paragraph length varies across disciplines and genres and provides useful insights for students preparing for academic study abroad.

Connie Yoshioka – Four-Skills First Introductions: Building Communicative Confidence from Day One
Connie Yoshioka is a lecturer at Tokyo Woman’s Christian University who specializes in communicative, student-centered language teaching.
This presentation introduces a highly-adaptable first-day activity that immediately engages students in reading, writing, speaking, and listening before student reflection and community building. Participants will learn a flexible classroom activity that builds interaction, lowers anxiety, and helps establish a communicative classroom culture from the start of the semester.

Rebecca Funabashi – Using Mentimeter Interactive Presentations to Kick Off the New Semester
Rebecca Funabashi teaches English at Yokohama City University and focuses on integrating technology into the language classroom.
This presentation demonstrates how the interactive tool Mentimeter can be used to increase student engagement through polls, quizzes, and word clouds. Participants will take part and explore practical ways to use the platform for needs analysis and interaction during the first class of a new semester.

Manfred Cannegieter – Cultivating Trust in the ESL Classroom: Emotional Investment and Start-of-Term Success
Manfred Cannegieter has been teaching English in Japan since 1993 across primary, secondary, and university contexts and frequently shares practical classroom strategies with teachers.
This presentation explores simple strategies for building trust and emotional connection during the first lessons of a course. Participants will experience a practical trust-building activity and consider ways to create supportive classroom environments that encourage participation and communicative confidence.

Tanya Erdelyi – Using AI to Create Graded Readings
Tanya Erdelyi is an Associate Professor at Chuo University whose research interests include vocabulary learning, motivation, and academic writing.
This presentation demonstrates how AI tools can help teachers efficiently create graded reading materials that match students’ language levels. It will show how authentic texts can be adapted while maintaining key ideas, making reading materials more accessible and effective for language learners.

Michael Phillips – A Simplified and Effective Rubric and Class Feedback System
Michael Phillips is a long-time JALT member and educator with interests in business English pedagogy, task-based learning, and reflective teaching practice.
This presentation introduces a simplified rubric and feedback system designed to save teachers time while increasing how effectively students engage with feedback. Practical examples and the rationale behind the approach will be shared to demonstrate how evaluation can become a more efficient and meaningful process.

Suprateek Chatterjee – Beyond the Prompt: Using Generative AI to Support Vocabulary Learning in the ESL Classroom
Suprateek Chatterjee teaches academic English and digital literacy in Japan and previously worked as a culture journalist and editor in Mumbai.
This presentation demonstrates practical classroom activities that integrate generative AI tools such as ChatGPT into vocabulary learning tasks. It will also discuss student responses, challenges encountered, and strategies for guiding learners to use AI tools critically and effectively.

The event will be held at Keio University, Hiyoshi, Raiosha Building 2F, a 2 minutes walk from Hiyoshi Station (Map Below):