Ibaraki Chapter June Meeting
Ibaraki Chapter June Meeting
Date and Time:
Saturday, 24 June 2017 - 2:00pm - 5:00pmSpeaker:
Roxana Sandu, University of TsukubaVenue: Tsukuba Gakuin University (Meeting Room 2)
Azuma 3-1 Tsukuba-shiTitle: Educate for the future: Fostering 21st Century Skills in the English Language Classroom
By: Roxana Sandu, University of Tsukuba
2. Business Meeting (16:20 - 17:00)
Presentation Summary:
Living in an increasingly globalized and digitized world, students nowadays should be educated in order to meet the expectations of tomorrow’s job market. Therefore, education, including foreign language education, should prepare students for the unpredictable future that lies ahead of them. The purpose of this talk is threefold. The first is to introduce some of the frameworks for 21st century skills, while focusing on the importance of teaching not only the 4Cs (communication, critical thinking, collaboration and creativity) of 21st Century Learning (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2007), but also cultural awareness in the English language classroom. The second one is to provide specific examples as in classroom activities that might help students develop each of these skills. And lastly, students’ feedback on this teaching approach will be discussed. This study will report on three advanced English integrated skills courses and two intermediate Intercultural Communication courses in which this approach was used throughout the academic year 2016-2017. Results show a great discrepancy among students’ answers, as some have reported improvement and some have not. On one hand, some limitations of the course design and the semi-implicit teaching method could be at fault. On the other hand, the presenter can only assume the fact that individual and cultural differences are to blame for such discrepancies. In the end, suggestions to improve this kind of teaching approach in the future will be offered and its implications will be discussed.
Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (2011). P21 common core toolkit: A Guide to aligning the common core state standards with the framework for 21st century skills. Retrieved from http:// www.p21.org/storage/documents/P21CommonCoreToolkit.pdf
Roxana Sandu (PhD, Tohoku University, Japan) is currently an assistant professor of English at University of Tsukuba. Her main publications are in the field of pragmatics and discourse analysis, but recently her research interests also include teaching 21st century skills, such as critical thinking, communication and collaboration, as well as intercultural communication and understanding in an EFL setting.
Doors open at 13:30. No Pre-registration necessary!
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JALT Ibaraki chapter meetings are open to all interested in learning and teaching languages. Abstracts for the presentations and access information for the venue, as well further information for future events are available on the chapter website.
http://ibarakijalt.blogspot.jp/
Also at: JALT National Event Calendar: http://jalt.org/events/ibaraki-chapter/17-06-24
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Guide to Location:
Link to meeting location