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This special event will be an afternoon of three workshop-style presentations with a focus on audience participation and collaboration which will be full of activities and ideas with practical classroom application.
Reading the room: Reacting to challenges when implementing an extensive reading program
Participants in this workshop will be encouraged to identify problems with an Extensive Reading program and propose solutions to these problems. The presenter's own experience with Extensive Reading will be shared. Participants will discuss this and consider ways in which this experience might apply to different Extensive Reading contexts.
Justus Wallen is teaching English at Ritsumeikan Junior High and High School and at Sangyo University. His primary research interests include Extensive Reading and Learner Motivation.
Five fun and effective vocabulary activities
According to Grabe and Nation (2009), initial exposure to a word is fragile and repetition is essential to learn the vocabulary item. This presentation demonstrates five engaging, meaningful and effective vocabulary card activities to help students initially learn and subsequently recycle the most frequent words of English.
Robert Sheridan is an EFL instructor at Otemae University, Osaka Shoin Women's University, and the Osaka Institute of Technology. His research interests include vocabulary acquisition, motivation, and assessment. Laura Markslag is an EFL lecturer at Osaka Gakuin University. She is interested in vocabulary acquisition and assessment, multilingualism and the development of motivating classroom materials.
Energizing activities for the communication classroom
In this workshop participants will try a variety of communication activities that the presenter has used in class to both energize and challenge his students.There will also be opportunities to brainstorm ways in which the activities could be adapted and improved for participants' own teaching context.
Richard Silver of Sussex England, teaches English at Ritsumeikan University and recently presented at JALT National in Tokyo and at TESOL Arabia in Dubai. He is co-coordinator of the JALT Learner Development SIG.