Andrew O’BrienWinter break is fast approaching and we could all use a chance to unwind and socialize a little. Why not meet up with West Tokyo JALT friends and throw in a friendly dose of professional development as well. If you have a research or teaching topic that you’d like to discuss and get feedback […]

Robert CrokerThe 2018 JALT National Conference will be held in late November in Shizuoka. This workshop will help you prepare your proposal for JALT and will also be useful for submitting to other conferences. The proposal process, the different types of presentations, the evaluation criteria, and ways to write strong proposals are explained, looking at […]

Rab PatersonDesign thinking is the term used to describe the creative process designers use when working on products (of any kind) that will be used by others. As such they need to take into consideration a range of issues outwith the actual parameters of the product being made. This process then has a lot of […]

Melody ElliottEVENT DESCRIPTION Language instructors often teach at a variety of institutions over their careers and must face being “the new teacher” at each one. Each school presents unique challenges in terms of the courses, students, and administrative work, and they offer varying degrees of support to both full-time and part-time instructors. In this workshop, Melody […]

Chiyuki Yanase and Patricia Daly OeChiyuki Yanase will open the workshop by discussing how to facilitate and set up an effective Extensive Reading program for young learners using graded readers as well as picture books within various institutional contexts from small classrooms to large ones. Participants will then be invited to experience interactive shared reading […]

Andy BoonIn this presentation, Dr. Andrew Boon will outline his experience of implementing ER programs at Japanese universities. He will describe an ER course that he designed and delivered. Various ER activities that can be used to supplement a more traditional reading course will also be examined. Finally, he will describe his journey from ER […]

TBACall for Presenters Do you have an interesting teaching or research idea that you would like to share? West Tokyo JALT is looking for 4 members to present ideas at our upcoming My Share roundtable event. This event is an excellent opportunity for chapter members to gain resume-building experience, discuss their work in a casual […]

Matthew Taylor In this presentation/workshop, which is sponsored by Cengage, the immense task of teaching advanced academic writing in English, specifically, research paper writing, to learners who may or may not be prepared for it will be addressed. The presenter proposes that the “process approach” is best for tackling this complex and multi-faceted endeavor, but […]

Jason Pratt and othersAre you planning to attend the International JALT conference in Shizuoka on November 23-26 and want to talk about presentations and workshops that you want to see? Are you interested in meeting some new friends in the West Tokyo language teaching community? Why not join us for a light dinner and discussion […]

Gerome RothmanThis talk will begin by giving a brief background about the use of temporary labor contracts to set up an examination about a unique problem facing language educators in the corporate and university sector – the so-called five-year rule/ten-year rule. This rule purports to provide a method for temporary labor contracts to become converted […]

Dr. Charles BrowneDr. Charles Browne and his colleagues have now co-published 5 different open-source, corpus-derived word lists as part of a component-based approach to help meet the needs of general and special-purpose second language learners of English. The first half of this presentation will introduce and explain the effectiveness of combining our New General Service […]

Jamie Taylor, Wendy M. Gough, Greg Gagnon, Daniel BeckRefining Your Professional Skills: Creating Effective Abstracts, Posters, and Slides This professional development event hosted by West Tokyo JALT and sponsored by Tokyo JALT, the JALT CUE SIG, and JALT Teacher Development (TD) SIG will help you prepare for the upcoming conference season by helping you learn […]

NAWest Tokyo JALT would like to invite our members, friends, family, and pets and join our spring social event. This will be a picnic/potluck, so bring some food and drinks to share and your own utensils. Activities and prizes will also be planned for our fun day in the sun. Please RSVP here. https://goo.gl/forms/oNXxzdb5TlHFyXsA2 ** […]

Ruth Iida As teachers, how often are we ourselves inspired by the songs we teach our students? Many standard “classroom classics” not only have very little to offer EFL students, but they bore us as well. This presentation is about choosing well-written motivational songs that contain rich vocabulary and a variety of grammar patterns. Come […]

Stephen Pihlaja West Tokyo JALT will hold a BBQ and our Annual General Meeting (AGM) where current officers will give reports about their duties in 2019 and the new officer lineup will be announced. We are also pleased to announce that Stephen Pihlaja will give a talk on metaphor and religion in the ESOL classroom […]

Jennifer Yphantides Although it appears as if there has been an increase in students with mental disorders such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHS) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (A SD), the higher numbers are due to more recognition and better diagnostic tools (Rogers & Dawson, 2010; Silberman, 2015). Numerous teachers, including in the EFL context […]

Tim Gutierrez, Marcel Van Amelsvoort, Anna Husson Isozaki, Richard John Walker, Andrew Reimann, Welcome you to the first meeting of the X-Reading User’s Group. The purpose of the meeting is to share ideas for how X-Reading can be used in the foreign language classroom. A secondary purpose is to form a community of user educators […]

Alison K. Hasegawa (Nemoto)West Tokyo JALT regrets to announce that the farewell party for our President and good friend Jason Pratt has been cancelled due to the venue deciding to close until later in March. As of this time we are still planning to hold our April 25 event with Tanja McCandie and Kazumi Kato […]

Mary Nobuka and other West Tokyo JALT membersHello everyone, Unfortunately, we’ve had to change our April speakers due to these trying times. There has been much discussion about platforms and dealing with issues related to emergency online teaching. We would like to offer West Tokyo JALT members a chance to learn about and share some […]

Tim Andrewartha, Chhayankdhar Singh Rathore, and E Von WonWest Tokyo JALT annually hosts an event previewing the JALT National Conference. At this event, members of the West Tokyo chapter of JALT give their presentations early in order to have a practice run and get final feedback from members. This session also allows those unable to […]

Dr. Kevin BrowneIn any speaking class for any language, assessing abilities and progress is of vital importance. In classes where grades are assigned, the challenge is to administer effective assessments. Preceding the coronavirus pandemic, designing and implementing such tests was already challenging enough. Now, as universities and many other educational institutions throughout Japan have gone […]

Jennie Roloff RothmanThis talk will begin with a very brief literature review on professional development before focusing on how Drago-Severson’s (2009) learning oriented leadership model of adult learning can be used to implement teacher professional development that respond to both teacher and institutional needs. The talk will first cover activities provided to foster collaboration, promote […]

Jackson Koon Yet Lee, Toyo University, Jason Pratt, Yamanashi Prefectural UniversityDate and time: April 17, 2021, 14:00 Venue: Zoom https://zoom.us/j/91507292612?pwd=d09xOVdVWXZGZDAzWFpiNVB3Q1U2QT09 Meeting ID: 915 0729 2612 Passcode: S7J1dw Presenter 1: Fostering a Comfortable Online Classroom Environment Jackson Koon Yat Lee Abstract: Being in an unfamiliar or unexpected environment can be tremendously stress-inducing. Such is the case […]

Dr. Noriko IshiharaIn this interactive workshop, we will first discuss through an activity what linguistic politeness is and why it is important for effective intercultural communication in a second language. Instruction on these topics can be complicated for an international language (e.g., English) when we consider how diversified it has become in today’s globalization. Through […]

There is an impact that culture has on language learning, and it might be difficult to notice. Using Western methods of teaching and classroom management could affect learning quality for student development. The presenter completed a case study several years ago regarding teacher acknowledgment of cultural interference. In this presentation, the results of this case […]