Saturday, January 10th, 2004
I'm Sorry, I Can't Remember
Speaker: John Fanselow
Time: 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM (18:30 - 20:30)
Description:
Each time a person in a language class responds to a question with
"I'm sorry, I can't remember," the person is implying that language
learning consists mainly of memorizing. In fact, though we need to
memorize some things, much of all learning, including language
learning, requires thinking: processing sounds we hear and
symbols we see. Processing requires us to analyze messages we
see and hear and compare them with our previous knowledge. In
the workshop, techniques will be generated to show how activities in
textbooks that require mainly memorization can be changed to
require some thinking as well. As we use some of the activities
introduced, it is hoped that learners will say, "Let me try. Please
wait a second" after we ask them a question rather than "I'm sorry, I
can't remember."
After the workshop join us for our shinenkai at a local restaurant.
Place: Osaka City Municipal Lifelong Learning Center, on the fifth
floor of Umeda's Dai-2 Building. Tel: 06-6345-5000. http://www.
manabi.city.osaka.jp/
Cost: members free; "One-day members" 1000 yen.
Sunday, February 15th, 2004
Mini-Conference on English Language Teaching
Speaker: Mary Jeannot, James Hunter, Gerald Williams, Jun
Arimoto, Jonathan Aliponga, Rie Sugiura, Ken Tamai
Time: 9:30 AM - 4:30 PM (09:30 - 16:30)
Description:
9:30 Registration
10:00-10:50 Mary Jeannot & James Hunter (Gonzaga Univ.)The
Communication Approach, Seminar 1
11:00-11:50 Gerald Williams (Kansai University of International
Studies) Preparing Students for Making Presentations
Jun Arimoto, Teaching Pronunciation
11:50-13:00 Lunch
13:00-13:50 Jonathan Aliponga (Hakuho Women's College)
"Changing Winds"
Rie Sugiura (Hyogo Univ. of Education) TBA
14:00-14:50 Mary Jeannot & James Hunter (Gonzaga Univ.)
The Communication Approach, seminar 2
15:10-16:30 Ken Tamai (Kobe City Univ. of Foreign Studies)
This event is co-sponsored by the Communication Center at Kansai
University of International Studies. Some presentations will be
conducted in English and others in Japanese.
Place: The Dawn Center, near Temmabashi station
Cost: members free; "One-day members" 1500 yen.
Saturday, March 13th, 2004
DramaWorks Revisited
Speaker: Theo Steckler, DramaWorks
Time: 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM (18:30 - 20:30)
Description:
Theo Steckler, president and founder of DramaWorks, producer of
PopStars, and co-author of Star Taxi and Wonder Kids, will present
a workshop for language teachers at the elementary school, junior
high, high school and university levels. He'll demonstrate
DramaWorks' unique method of providing first rate communicative
language training using performance art as a basis for instruction in
speech, gesture, eye contact, action, pronunciation, and fluency,
leading to an overall performance that is polished, confident, and
charming.
Participants will stage and perform three scenes in English: "The
Look" from Star Taxi, and "New Kid" & "Ghost House" from Wonder
Kids. Authentic language and characters will be introduced in fun-
filled stories replete with songs, rap, and street dance.
Steckler has devoted over thirty years to the arts and the education
and training of young actors. For the Los Angeles school system he
created a special program for high school students working
professionally in television, film, and theater. In Denver, Colorado,
in addition to directing his own interior design business, he created
the speech and theater curriculum for an international school
based on the Waldorf system, an extremely high quality education
for children through art. Steckler has also directed several
community opera productions with international artists featuring
children.
In addition to directing DramaWorks and doing occasional interior
design work, Steckler currently teaches at Kyoto University of Art
and Design, Tezukayama University, and Osaka Gakuin University.
Bring your friends and join us for this guaranteed to be fun-filled
workshop!
Place: Osaka City Municipal Lifelong Learning Center, on the fifth
floor of Umeda's Dai-2 Building, just southeast and across the
street from the Hilton and the Maru building. Tel: 06-6345-5000 http:
//www.manabi.city.osaka.jp/ www.manabi.city.osaka.jp
Cost: members free; "One-day members" 1000 yen..
Saturday, July 10th, 2004
Language Awareness for Language Teaching: How
Etymology Can Help
Speaker: Deryn P. Verity, Ph.D., Professor, Osaka Jogakuin College
Time: 6:00 PM - 8:30 PM (18:00 - 20:30)
Description:
Students carry dictionaries with them all the time now, but teachers
need more resources for giving students a handle on vocabulary
study. Using an etymological perspective, the presenter will offer
some techniques for using metaphor, language history and
dictionary information to support vocabulary study.
Place: Osaka City Municipal Lifelong Learning Center, on the fifth
floor of Umeda's Dai-2 Building, just southeast and across the
street from the Hilton and the Maru building. Tel: 06-6345-5000 http:
//www.manabi.city.osaka.jp/
Cost: members free; "One-day members" 1000 yen / 500 yen for
students..
Thursday, September 23rd, 2004
Teaching Children Conference
Speaker: Tom Merner, Curtis Kelly, Yukie Kawaguchi, Chris Hunt,
Linda Wittig, Yuko Uno, Anthony Torbert, Reiko Tada, Kanae Noda,
and Don Block.
Time: 9:30 AM - 5:00 PM (09:30 - 17:00)
Description:
Join us for this bilingual mini-conference for teachers of children,
bringing together a wide variety of top notch presentations from
across Japan. For complete information and to preregister please
visit www.tcsigjalt.org/events/osaka This event is co-sponsored by
JALT's Osaka Chapter and the Teaching Children SIG with support
from Longman and Oxford publishers. Registration starts at 9:30 a.
m. and the first presentations begin at 10:00.
Place: Osaka City Municipal Lifelong Learning Center, on the fifth
floor of Umeda's Dai-2 Building, convenient from all Umeda area
subway and train stations, very near the Hilton Hotel. For a map
see www.manabi.city.osaka.jp/ Tel: 06-6345-5000
Cost: members 500 yen, or free if pre-registered; "One-day
members" 2500 yen (2000 yen if pre-registered) / 1500 yen (1200
yen if preregistered) for full-time students..
Sunday, October 17th, 2004
A Day Celebrating Learner Development: Work in
Progress
Speaker: Andy Barfield, Mike Nix, Stacy Vye, Yoko Wakui, Eiko
Iwata, Marlen Harrison, Kathi Kitao, Ellen Head, Denise Haugh, Amy
Fenning, Matthew Apple, Larry Metzger, and more!
Time: 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM (10:00 - 17:00)
Description:
Co-sponsored by Osaka Chapter and the Learner Development
SIG, the morning session will feature a panel discussion with
speakers who recently attended the conference on “Autonomy:
Maintaining Control” in Hong Kong and Huangzhou, China. The
afternoon will offer a chance to preview a variety of presentations
before the LD forum at JALT’s national conference in November.
Whether you have been conducting an action research project, are
thinking about starting one, or just want to know more about some
interesting things that others have been doing in their classrooms,
bring your experiences, ideas, and questions for a day of sharing
and learning.
Place: Osaka City Municipal Lifelong Learning Center, on the fifth
floor of Umeda's Dai-2 Building, just southeast and across the
street from the Hilton Hotel. Tel: 06-6345-5000 http://www.manabi.
city.osaka.jp/
Cost: members 200 yen / 100 for student members; "One-day
members" 2000 yen / 1200 yen for full-time students..
Saturday, November 13th, 2004
Support for Narrow Listening Libraries, followed by
Annual Chapter Business Meeting and Officers' Election
Speaker: Brian Caspino, Himeji Dokkyo University
Time: 6:30 PM - 8:45 PM (18:30 - 20:45)
Description:
Learners may feel overwhelmed when encountering uncontrolled
casual conversation for the first time. Narrow Listening, the
repeated listening of native speakers answering a question familiar
and interesting to both speaker and listener, can be a powerful
listening resource for the second language learner from beginning
to highly-advanced stages of language acquisition. Attendees will
be provided with an introduction to the rationale and ideas behind
Narrow Listening. The speaker will also present a recent study of
student reaction to Narrow Listening and some ideas for designing
a Narrow Listening library.
Annual Chapter officers election and business meeting/dinner party
will follow presentation. Come learn about listening and then help
chart our Chapter's course for the coming year.
Place: Osaka City Municipal Lifelong Learning Center, on the fifth
floor of Umeda's Dai-2 Building, just southeast and across the
street from the Hilton Hotel. Tel: 06-6345-5000 http://www.manabi.
city.osaka.jp/
Cost: members free; "One-day members" 1000 yen / 600 yen for
full-time students.
Report:
Support for Narrow Listening Libraries
Speaker: Brian Caspino, Himeji Dokkyo University
Brian Caspino presented some compelling preliminary research on
Narrow Listening Libraries to the very interested members of the
audience at an Osaka JALT Chapter meeting in mid-November.
Using Krashen and Dupuy's model of 'narrow listening' (listening
repeatedly to brief answers to a small set of interesting questions
as supplied by several different speakers), Brian created a set of
listening materials and asked a group of volunteer subjects to rate
their helpfulness in improving listening comprehension. According
to his results, 100% of the students found Narrow Listening to be
helpful or very helpful in improving listening comprehension.
Variations in student appreciation seemed to correlate strongly with
TOEIC scores (higher and lower-level scoring students found the
materials to be more useful than students with mid-range scores).
A lively discussion and some suggestions for extending and
adapting the model followed his presentation.
Report by:Deryn P. Verity, Ph.D. Professor, Osaka Jogakuin
College
Report:
Thanks to everyone involved, we had an eventful JALT meeting on
Saturday, Novermber 13th. The evening began with Brian Caspino
adding to our knowledge of listening comprehension in his
presentation and argument for Narrow Listening, a technique
originally developed by Stephen Krashen. It`s a rather simple, but
effective tool where students are asked to generate topics and
questions that are of interest to them. They then go out and record
native speakers answering their questions. These tapes provide
material for the repeated listening of naturally spoken
conversation. This is great for listening comprehension,
pronunciation, and developing confidence in the target language.
The meeting continued over dinner and drinks at Asian Kitchen.
I`m sure I don`t just speak for myself when I say just as much
valuable information was shared over dinner as at the actual
meeting. We also voted on our 2004-2005 Osaka Executive
Committee. Here are the results:
Bob Sanderson (President)
Marlen Harrison (Treasurer)
Brian Caspino (Program Chair)
Cameron Romney (Membership Chair)
Steve Silsbee (Publicity Chair)
Kurt Hartje (Website Editor & Refreshments Chair)
Pam Wolpoff (Recording Secretary)
Anne-Marie Tanahashi, Steve Cornwell, and Deryn Verity
(Members at Large)
A special thanks to those members who have agreed to serve as
Chapter Officers. Together we will make this an exciting year to
come. I`m looking forward to seeing everyone and MORE at our
next Osaka meeting.
Report by: Pam Wolpoff
Friday, November 19th, 2004
National Conference Committee national (Nara
Prefecture) (Photos here)
30th annual JALT International Conference (day 1 of 4)
Speaker: Various speakers
Time: 4:00 PM - 9:00 PM (16:00 - 21:00)
Description:
The theme of the 30th annual JALT International Conference is
Language Learning for Life. The focus is on creating an awareness
of what enhances students' interest and skills in a foreign language
for a lifetime. See the JALT Conference website http://jalt.
org/jalt2004 for full details.
Place: Tezukayama University, Nara
Cost: members See the Conference website; "One-day members"
See the JALT Conference website http://jalt.org/jalt2004 for full
details).
Sunday, December 12th, 2004
Osaka Chapter Bonenkai
Time: 6:30 PM - 9:30 PM (18:30 - 21:30)
We'll meet for dinner and drinks at "Oven Oven", a cozy little Italian
place in a classic early twentieth century building in the heart of
Umeda's modern skyscrapers. Meet our energetic new chapter
officers, share stories from the recent national conference in Nara,
and reflect on (or commiserate over!) the year gone by while
enjoying some of the fabulous but very reasonably priced cuisine
that Osaka is famous for!
"Oven Oven" Ristorante Italiano is located just around the corner
from the Outback Grill by exit 10 of Nishi-Umeda station. It's very
close to JR Osaka station as well.
Individual dishes are 500 to 1000 yen, dinner courses are 1300 to
3000 yen, and drinks cost 300 to 600 yen.
Report by Pam Wolpoff, recording secretary.
Seasons Greetings to everyone! It's amazing that another year has
come and gone so quickly. Osaka JALT wrapped up the year with
a Bonenkai at Oven Oven. It was a huge turnout with over 30 of
our Osaka members showing up. Now that's the way to party I must
say. If you have not had the opportunity of dining at Oven Oven
yet, it's a quaint little Italian restaurant tucked away in Osaka. The
food and company were absolutely delicious.
Now it would not be a meeting without fabulous, engaging
conversation. We began our meeting brainstorming a list of topics
for next year's lineup. These include Computer Assisted Language
Learning (CALL), the Silent Way, Teaching Children, Technology
seminars (For those of us that are computer challenged) just to
name a few.
We have a very exciting year planned and cannot wait to see
everyone there. We hope to include something for everyone. Our
warmest wishes for a wonderful holiday season and a happy new
year!