Author Archives: TDSIGAdmin

CUE & TD SIG Forum @ PanSIG2023

Many tertiary-level English teachers in Japan have educational backgrounds in fields other than TESOL, and transition to teaching subjects in a seemingly abated manner. Whether one comes from the social or “hard” sciences, math or technology, arts and humanities, or business and professional studies, the landscape of the education field continues to shift our pathways. Recent movement towards task-based language teaching, EMI, and CLIL is becoming more commonplace, and English educators are tasked with teaching a vast range of special topics outside their original expertise. As a result, many teachers find themselves teaching in subject areas such as political science, sociology, global studies, journalism/news analysis, and more. As the contrasts between our educational roots and ‘current’ positions become remarkably plain to see, we ought to stop and reflect on the directions we have moved in and anticipate moving in the future.

This panel, co-sponsored by College and University Educators (CUE) and Teacher Development (TD), will introduce four experienced tertiary English teachers from various educational backgrounds who will discuss how they have met these challenges in their careers and provide a number of practical suggestions for teachers. Speakers will outline their teaching contexts and describe the challenges they face. Presentations will be followed by Q&A and two open-choice breakout group sessions between each of the panelists and the audience.

One presenter in our join forum is Marc Waterfield. Marc will share how the foundation of his teaching approach, which was formed in the Karate-do dojo, developed in the public and private school systems in Japan, and influenced by his post-graduate studies, provided him with the tools necessary to ground his teaching methods and approaches within recognized academic frameworks.

Another presenter is Devon Arthurson. Devon will be sharing how her background in community development and community studies helps her tailor lessons and provide support according to student needs. Using community development theories, Devon aims to create a learning space that is safe and allows students to develop their skills.

Date: Sunday May 14th
Time: 14:05 – 15:35
Room: S501

TD SIG Webinar: Neuroscience Application in the EFL Classroom

Please check our Facebook or Twitter to register for the event.

Session overview: Neuroeducation is a relatively new field that emerged in the 90s. Education is a social activity in which we all share a brain with almost identical functions. Thus, knowing who we are teaching and how our most important organ works is a fundamental part of teaching that should not be overlooked. Reframing, reflecting, and questioning the way we teach is the key in this 21st century full of rapid changes.

The session will start by introducing neuroscience and how it is related to language teaching. Then, we will look into the brain’s main features, the theory of the three brains, and the importance of considering them all in learning. We will further explore the relationship between neural networks and learning and the main happy neurotransmitters all teachers must know to trigger their release. We will also learn how to apply these concepts to practical tasks for our language classes.

Biography: Roxana Areán is a graduate English Teacher and a Literay, Scientific and Technical Translator (Cultural Inglesa de Buenos Aires) with a Master’s degree in Audiovisual translation from the University of Cadiz, Spain. She’s also a certified Neurolanguage Coach® (Efficient Language Coaching, UK) and holds a Diploma in English Phonetics and Phonology from UNLZ (Buenos Aires, Argentina). She has worked in several institutions teaching all ages and levels but has been teaching mostly adults and young adults lately. She is the founder and coordinator of Dream On ELC; an online academy which has been designing and delivering online courses and Webinars for more than 6 years now.

TD SIG Forum & AGM @ JALT2022 Conference

The JALT2022 Conference will take place face-to-face in Fukuoka City from Friday, November 11 to Monday, November 14. Conference registration and payment is now open on the conference website.

The TD SIG will be holding a forum titled “Students’ Aiding Teacher Development” on Saturday November 12th (12:45-14:15) in Room 407.

The forum will be coordinated by one of the SIG’s Program Chairs, Ross Sampson, and the presenters will be: Kent HillNick KasparekKathryn YamagishiJon PrevattEwen MacDonald, and Adrianne Verla Uchida.

The following is a description of the forum:

With people positively influencing each other in every walk of life, it is understandable that within a language classroom, students can and do positively impact their teachers in direct and indirect ways all the time. When shared, these stories of how students have aided teacher development can be fascinating to hear and can have important lessons for educators. We are looking for presenters to share their stories of how they have been impacted by their learners in a way that has aided their own development.

Using tablets, laptops or paper, presenters will share experiences through 6-minute speed-slide presentations with time allotted evenly to each slide, followed by short Q&A periods, and concluding with a wider discussion. Each presentation will be given several times to multiple audiences so that attendees and provided a range of topics, with the goal of providing all of those in attendance at least one valuable takeaway.

Prior to the forum, the TD SIG Annual General Meeting will be held from 12:10-12:35 in the same room. 

SIG Officers will report on the recent activities of the group, and share information and news about the SIG’s events, membership, and publications. Ideas about the SIG’s future will also be discussed, and officers for the year ahead confirmed. A call for volunteers for officer positions will be made in a separate email.

We hope to see you at the conference!

JALT TD SIG Teacher Journeys 2022

The TD SIG’s annual Teacher Journeys conference, a practitioner-focused event blending research with reflective self-examination and learning from peers, will be held online on Sunday October 30th.

The conference will include both traditional and flipped presentation formats, and will utilise a novel online environment for socialising.

Please visit this page to find the following:

  • Links to prerecorded presentations (indicated by an exclamation mark). These should be watched in advance before the live session on the conference day.
     
  • The schedule and presentation information for the conference day.
     
  • A big red button to join the online conference venue. Please visit the venue in advance to create an account and confirm it is working smoothly on your device.

On the conference day:

  • The conference organizers will be online from 9:20 to meet and greet all the presenters and attendees and provide technical support if necessary.
     
  • The conference will officially start at 9:50 with a short speech by the organizers and the presentations will commence at 10:00am.

Teacher Journeys Conference 2022 – Call For Proposals

In language education in Japan and around the world, almost every teacher’s career path takes the form of a unique and eventful journey. We often take this for granted, but it is exactly these journeys, these narratives of teacher identity formation, that enrich our profession and serve our students. Since 2011, the Teacher Journeys conference has been the venue for educators of all backgrounds and teaching contexts across Japan to share and reflect on such stories.

This year, we are looking for presentations that fall broadly under the theme of teacher development. Personal narratives that highlight professional change and the path to it are welcome. Descriptions of the professional change, what prompted it, what informed it, what the results of it were: all of these in any combination should make for a presentation suitable for the conference. Please see the previous submissions here and here to get a better idea of what we are looking for and, perhaps, for some inspiration.

We envision this conference not only as an opportunity for viewers to learn from the presenters’ stories but also, and more importantly, to share their own. We hope to achieve this goal by a) employing a flipped format for some of our presentations and b) by utilizing a novel online environment for socializing.

Learn more about the conference by visiting the pages for presenters and attendees. If you have a story worth sharing, please consider contributing to this year’s conference! The deadline for proposal submissions is June 30th July 31st.

Click on the image below to go to the conference website.

PanSIG 2022 Forum with CUE SIG

The PanSIG 2022 conference will take place face-to-face from July 8th to 10th 2022 at the University of Nagano.

The TD SIG is delighted to be facilitating a forum with the College and University Educators (CUE) SIG on the theme of Communities of Practice (CoPs) on Sunday July 10th (11:45 – 13:15).

CoPs can be teachers, students, company workers, or otherwise, who form in organic or natural ways. The CoP members hold a common aim or concern for the activities they do and learn how to improve as they interact regularly within the group. Some participants may be more senior in age or experience than others, thus giving way to a learning experience and successful conclusion of their efforts for everyone. The forum speakers are university and professional educators with a specific background as a member or researcher of CoPs.

James Bury will inform us about the positive outcomes achieved as a result of encouraging colleagues at two separate workplaces to interact with research, question their own teaching practices, engage in their own practice-based investigations, and then share their findings with each other.

Yoshifumi Fukada will explain how Japanese EFL/ESL learners actively engaged themselves in English-mediated socialization and grew as English users and as persons in a project-based English education program held in Japan and during studying abroad.

Daniel Hooper will describe the shared goals, interpersonal relationships, and local repertoire of tools that emerged from a small reflective practice group for university teachers that met regularly to discuss critical incidents they experienced in their working lives and to explore their own professional identity.

Barbara Hoskins Sakamoto will talk about the potential of informal online communities to improve teachers’ professional and personal lives, sharing specific examples of the meaningful impact observed with teachers in a unique English for Teachers program, and the factors that made positive changes possible.

TD SIG Call for Members-at-Large

Looking for an Extra Incentive or Boost for your Resume?

We are opening up the opportunity for any interested TD SIG members to expand their horizons by becoming a Member-at-Large, specifically to assist us by being Proposal Reviewers for our upcoming Teacher Journeys 2022 Conference

As Member-at-Large, you can get a glimpse into how we plan, discuss, and work as a team via our Basecamp platform, and be involved in the discussion. And if you decide you’d like to step up for other event-related roles when needed, you can enjoy some of the perks that come with it.

This chance certainly enhances our well-being while also putting a shine on our resumes. So, what could be better than that?

If you hope to join our always evolving and dynamic team, please reach out to us with a short message expressing your interest at jalt.td.sig@gmail.com.

Our team is comprised of officers and members-at-large with diverse backgrounds, skills and interests. With the understanding that our jobs and families are first priority, TD SIG expanded its Officer List so that each volunteer has about the same consumable proportion of work each year. That’s why we have multiple program chairs, publications chairs, and members-at-large – and why things get done so well.

We are eager to meet and work with you!

TD SIG Forum @ JALT2022 – Call for Proposals

The Teacher Development SIG will be facilitating a forum on “Students’ Aiding Teacher Development” at the JALT2022 International Conference in Fukuoka.

With people positively influencing each other in every walk of life, it is understandable that within a language classroom, students can and do positively impact their teachers in direct and indirect ways all the time. When shared, these stories of how students have aided teacher development can be fascinating to hear and can have important lessons for educators. We invite presenters to share their own reflections on this fascinating area of education.

In the forum, tablets, laptops or paper will be used to share experiences of creating communities through PechaKucha-like sessions. Presenters will give 5 minute presentations, followed by short Q&A periods. Each presentation will be given several times to multiple audiences so that attendees are provided a range of topics. This is in accordance with our goal of ensuring all of those in attendance at least one valuable takeaway from their development aided by students.

The deadline for proposals is Wednesday, May 11th. Click here for the proposal submission form.

PanSIG 2022 Forum with CUE SIG

The PanSIG 2022 conference will take place face-to-face from July 8th to 10th 2022 at the University of Nagano.

The TD SIG is delighted to be facilitating a forum with the College and University Educators (CUE) SIG on the theme of ‘Communities of Practice’.

Please watch this space for information on the forum details including the invited speakers, session format, and the date/time.

 

ETD Fall 2022 Issue: Call for Papers

As always, for the Fall 2022 issue of Explorations in Teacher Development, we invite any scholarship dealing with phenomena related to teacher development. We welcome articles using quantitative or qualitative data as well as theory. We hope the ETD journal can be an excellent opportunity to find a new insight to broaden perspective and have an academic discussion with the other scholars.

One suggested line of research that could be especially edifying might relate to teacher development in the post-COVID era. Since early 2020, we have faced the significant influence
of the COVID-19 pandemic. In general, schools and universities have continuously faced
challenges to provide good-quality education under this situation. In particular, we lost many
chances to have “interaction” in a face-to-face manner, which has long seemed essential for rich
language education. Despite these difficulties, the accelerated development of information and
communication technology (ICT) has opened new possibilities for improving language
education. As a result, the expectations students have for their teachers could be shifting, and
what teachers want to realise through their teaching practice is likely undergoing a similar
transformation.

Now is an opportune time to discuss how to prepare for language education in the post-COVID
era and to conceptualize the altered role of language teachers. We hope that contributors will be inspired to submit articles that reflect teaching experiences under COVID and offer insightful
educational implications for the post-COVID situation.

Please use the submission guidelines here as a starting point for your explorations in teacher
development through writing for the journal:

Fall 2022 Issue Projected Schedule:
  • First submissions: 5/9
  • First reviews and revisions: 5/16-5/30
  • Second reviews and revisions: 6/6-6/30
  • Proofreading: 7/1-7/15
  • Publication: 7/15-7/31