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Showing posts from March, 2012

May 2012 Mini-Conference

全国語学教育学会 DEADLINE FOR REGISTRATION WAS  MAY 10  Very sorry, registration is closed. The Japan Association for Language Teaching JALT Ibaraki Chapter 2012 May Meeting May 12 th Program Session I 14:00 - 15:2 0 - Featured Speaker Presentation David Barker Gifu University Title: What is “English conversation,” and how can it be taught? Almost every teacher in Japan will have some experience of teaching a conversation class. In many cases, the aims of these classes do not extend beyond a general notion of “getting the students talking,” and this is all too often reflected in the very limited results that they achieve. I believe that many conversation classes fail to produce measurable results because the students simply do not have a sufficient command of the language that they need to converse. To use a theatrical metaphor, teaching English conversation to Japanese university students is a bit like trying to teach dramatic skills to actors who don’t know their lines. In this presentatio