APRIL 21st, SUNDAY 1:30 - 4:00
At CREATE Hamamatsu, room #22
Title: School Owners Forum

Panel Discussion, various local school owners in moderated discussion. Q&A time

Abstract: Ever wonder how do you start up a school? Can't decide whether to design a curriculum and materials or purchase them? Interested in information about managing, selling, and buying schools?
These are just a sample of the topics to be discussed with a panel of local area school owners. The panelists represent a wide spectrum of experienced owners from franchise chain schools to small and larger language schools.

The owners frankly and sometimes passionately discussed the ins and outs of running a language school. Most expressed the opinion that keeping client numbers up was a real, full-time challenge, but most seemed to be doing quite well. There were various perspectives regarding promotion, with one or two mostly relying on word of mouth and some flier distribution to others who used fliers quite extensively. All maintained some Internet presence. All in all, from the perspective of this writer, it seemed like running a successful language school was like any other business, operators have to be well informed, forward-thinking and ready to make sacrifices in order to do well.

JUNE 23rd, SUNDAY 1:30 - 4:00
Room 21 Create Hamamatsu
Title: Drama in the EFL Classroom
Staci Ali & John Wolfgang Roberts


This presentation demonstrated the benefits and difficulties of using drama in the Japanese EFL classroom and heorized upon theories of play (game), draw connections on the uses of playfulness and showed how drama utilized that playfulness to hone important communication skills in language learning. The presenters looked at how cultural factors deriving from tradition could inhibit students from actively participating in such educational silliness, and addressed those uncommunicative tendencies. They discussed the pros and cons to both abstract and structured approaches to drama in the EFL classroom via recordings and student feedback.

 October –  Annual General Meeting, October 6th, 2013.

Eri Gemma, Sue Sullivan, Dan Frost and Jon Dujmovich presented the chapter officer reports for the year prior. Elections were then held. Coordinating Committee Positions filled were Treasurer (Gemma), Publicity Coordinator (Gregg McNabb), Programs Coordinator (Frost), Membership Coordinator (Sullivan) and President (Dujmovich). Supporting positions filled were Meetings Reporter (Sullivan). Upcoming events, including the presentation, dinner and retreat with Scott Thornbury (October 30/November 1^st) and the My Share in December, were discussed, as were strategies for best serving the interests of Hamamatsu JALT members.

Reported by Susan Sullivan

HAMAMATSU

Ready or not, here it comes! High school curriculum changes, July 20^th, 2013.

Cory Koby from Sendai Shirayuri Gauken Jr./Sr. High School presented a comprehensive review of the attitudes of English teachers (foreign and Japanese), and Japanese students toward Teaching and Learning English in English (TLEIE). “Course of Study” was introduced in 2009 by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and a main aim was that from 2013, senior high school students develop communicative competence via teaching and learning methods, similar to those outlined in the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). This policy is a shift from grammar-translation methods, and has been met with some trepidation from Japanese students and teachers. Koby empirically illustrated that Japanese teachers and students held either mostly neutral or negative attitudes towards their ability to succeed TLEIE.  Native speakers of English had fewer doubts. Indicative of this lack of confidence was his observation that little changed, bar the language of delivery, in many TLEIE classrooms; that is, communicative skills were not employed. Koby drew the conclusion, among others, that more communication was needed between universities and schools. Teachers are unaware English components of tertiary entrance exams were no longer based solely on grammar-translation. This communication would encourage extrinsic motivation of teachers and students to develop communicative skills. Teachers also needed more support, role models, in-service training, clear guidelines, and training in communicative methodology for TLEIE to succeed. Students need affective support to encourage high expectations of themselves, and to develop self-confidence in their abilities. A fascinating presentation with substantial support material, Koby’s subject is one that will have repercussions into the future.

Summary: This presentation will expand upon the previous presentation by showing how the platform described can be used to access tutorial videos for the purposes of disseminating knowledge, promoting consistency and encouraging leaner autonomy. Examples will be shown, a case study analysed, and practical how-to advice and demonstrations given on how participants can make tutorial videos of their own that apply directly to their own teaching situations.

Mike Stockwell is a the program director at Sugiyama Jogakuen university. He has over 22 years teaching experience in EFL in a variety of contexts. His primary interests are in student motivation and CALL. Matt Smith also teaches at Sugiyama Jogakuen university.

Matt Smith is currently an associate professor at Sugiyama Jogakuen University. His research interests include corpus linguistics - particularly learner corpora, the lexical approach to language description and CALL.

Reported by Susan Sullivan