JALT Conference

I got up early (well, 7am) this morning to go to the JALT Conference and see my friend Kelly do a presentation on art and creativity in the classroom. It was a very cool presentation - we made gargoyles out of air dry clay. I loved the little goodie bags that Kelly had prepared for each participant - including air dry clay in black and white and little aluminum balls for the body and head for the gargoyle - all presented in a white paper bag with a gargoyle sticker on it. Very professional and very cool.

There were five participants and we had a good time creating our own individual gargoyles in the 1 hour session.



Afterwards, we walked around the publishers' hall and talked to Perceptia Press - two very genki guys (Paul and Brian) - about their books "Octopus Activities" and "Scraps". The first is a speaking book that includes rip-out questions for students to use in class - they each get a question / topic to research in the class and report back on their findings. The book has cool pull-out question strips which look really tactile and fun.



The other book was "Scraps" a gorgeously presented book that includes scrapbooking pages that can be ripped out at the end of the course and put together to make a personal autobiography for the student. I would love to try this with some Eigo or Communication students next year and I think it would have been ideal for Susan's classes where she had students make their own scrapbooks. She said the students were very enthusiastic but that she got a little burnt out thinking of ideas for each week - this book would definitely solve that problem as it includes listening exercises with interviews with real people, pair-talk activities, useful vocabulary, a scrapbook page for each topic, presentations, readings and crosswords.


What I love most about small publishers in Japan, like Perceptia Press and others, is that their books are aimed at the Japanese market and involve and address issues that interest Japanese students. One reason I really dislike using the Interchange series (which is what we are required to use for Eigo classes at Meisei) is that it is not aimed at this market and the tasks included are generally not inherently motivating - it assumes a level of interest and motivation on the the student that is just not there and also avoids the fact that these students are false beginners - many of whom have not had a successful or positive experience with previous English classes, so repeating the same old pattern (as Interchange does) is not efficient or effective. The dumbed-down approach (for example, explicit teaching of BE-verb patterns) treats the student like they don't know anything, and just hasn't worked in my classes (although, I must admit, I have little experience teaching such students, so my teaching is also at fault, I believe). Anyway, enough of the incoherent rant and back to JALT.

Another book that Perceptia Press introduced us to (which they don't actually publish themselves) is "Common English Errors" for Japanese learners. We talked to the author, David, and his idea was for students to buy the book as a reference, then all teachers could refer students to it when they met a specific problem in their writing or speaking - this way the teacher wouldn't have to explain the same thing a million times, the student would be empowered to do their own "research" (at least, to find the entry in the book by themselves) and would also be able to read a Japanese explanation. The book includes practice, workbook-type, exercises at the back which really helps it stand out from a basic grammar reference. It would be great for developing learner autonomy, but I think teachers at Meisei aren't really organised enough as a group to carry out the process properly. Ah well.



I also had a quick talk with Compass Publishing Japan about books for my students who have to do the TOEIC test. They recommended "Very Easy TOEIC" so I ordered a sample. At about 2300 yen for the book and CDs, it could be a good required text for our second year students.