Nara JALT:OURSHARE & AGM*; Rescheduled for Sunday, October 23rd, 2011

Apologies for any inconvenience this postponement may have caused however due to scheduling conflicts, it has been decided that our popular OURSHARE event will be rescheduled to Sunday, October 23^rd, 2011 from 15:00 to 17:00 at our regular venue: Yumekaze, near Todaiji.  This hands-on, practical event is a fantastic opportunity for our members to share some of their most effective and successful classroom activities, teaching techniques and methodologies with the EFL teaching community at large.  All members are highly encouraged to attend, either as participants or presenters, and contribute to the ever evolving EFL teaching/learning environment.

A call for presenters: Brief proposals for presenters are required to present at the event and should be submitted ASAP or no later than October 3rd to: narajalt@gmail.com or simply fill in the handy submission form located on this post.  Presentations may run anywhere from 10-20 minutes on a topic of your choosing. Come and share YOUR ideas!!

Sample Proposal:

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Presenter’s Name: Jeff Crawford

Association (not required): Nara JALT

Quick guide:

• Key words: C.A.L.L. Autonomy, Input, Output
• Learner English level: Beginner to advanced
• Learner maturity: Elementary school to adult
• Preparation time: Various
• Activity time: Various
• Materials:  This version requires that all students have access to a PC, microphone/headphone set.

Presentation time: 20 minutes

Synopsis:

This presentation will outline a simple C.A.L.L based lesson that requires learners to create a personal narrative with aid of a PC and the internet. This particular lesson’s coup de grace has low proficiency non-English majors intently absorbed in an intensive listening exercise.

Appendices: Available

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*Please note that the Nara JALT Annual General Meeting (AGM) will be held prior to the OURSHARE event from 13:15.  Once again, all members are welcome and encouraged to have their say.  In addition, volunteers are being sort to fill various officer positions for 2012.  Come along and throw your proverbial hat into the ring. We would welcome and appreciate any contribution of efforts in building a bigger, better and stronger Nara JALT chapter.  We sincerely look forward to seeing you there.

As always,be sure to keep an eye on our blog and Facebook page for all the latest news and announcements from Nara JALT.

Name(required)

Email(required)

Nara JALT: OURSHARE Proposal(required)

NARA: February—Lexical bundles in English for Academic Purposes: On the other hand by Averil Coxhead.

Dr. Averil Coxhead specialises in vocabulary learning, with particular focus on English for academic (EAP) and/or specific (ESP) purposes. Many are familiar with her work on the Academic Word List (AWL)—one of the most well tried and tested word-lists available. In this presentation, she focused our attention on lexical bundles, which she defined as ‘three or more words repeated without change,’ for example, on the other hand. Many of the benefits of learning these set phrases seem common sense to us—gains in fluency, more native-like and idiomatic expression, etc. On the other hand…

We were taken on a whirlwind tour of corpus linguistics, and Dr. Coxhead’s own research, and introduced to some of the challenges that arise in using lexical bundles in the classroom. The following is a top-ten list of lexical bundles used in academic English (Byrd & Coxhead, 2010).

1) On the basis of, 2) On the other hand, 3) As a result of, 4) The end of the,  5) At the end of the, 6) The nature of the, 7) At the same time, 8) In terms of the, 9) In the form of, 10) In the absence of

Dr. Coxhead highlighted the structural features and limited frequency of these bundles as limitations for their use in the classroom. For example ‘on the basis of’ occurred 308 times in an academic English corpus of around 3.5 million words. This means that a learner reading 15,625 words of academic text, could expect to meet this—the number one most frequent lexical bundle in the academic corpus—twice. Not great bang for your buck. These bundles, also tend to be functional, discourse markers that get buried in-between long complex clauses and noun-phrases in academic English. She gave the following as an example.

Clyne’s research provides valuable information on the distribution of a large number of these languages in Australia (Clyne, 1985, 1991, Clyne and Kipp,1996). On the basis of his analyses, Clyne also identifies a number of “unequivocally important” factors as relevant in accounting for different rates of language shift in different communities….

Looking at this extract, it is apparent that a learner would be doing rather well if their major hurdle in comprehending these two sentences were the lexical bundle buried in the middle (highlighted in bold). Furthermore, these phrases tend to lack face validity with learners who already know all the words in the set and resent relearning them as a bundle.

Dr. Coxhead’s message was one of caution—there are so many other things going on in language to compete with a learner’s attention. Not least of all, there are other pre-fabricated lexical formulas; such as, frames with slots, collocations, academic formulas and metaphor. Metaphor, Dr. Coxhead pointed out, with particular reference to Frank Boers’ research, can be much more problematic in L2 comprehension. Dr. Coxhead left us with guidelines to approaching lexical bundles in academic English. We should always be wary of learning lists. We need to draw attention to lexical bundles in context, and revisit them in order to provide the repetition necessary for learning. And we can benefit our learners by being explicit about expectations for learning these bundles.

I’d like to conclude this review noting that Averil Coxhead was one of the most dynamic presenters I’ve seen in a long time. She charmed the audience with warmth and wit, and healthy doses of tales from her homeland, New Zealand. If ever you have a chance to see Averil in action, do not miss the opportunity to see yet another great kiwi teacher-scholar.

 

Review by Leigh McDowell

LEXICAL BUNDLES FOR ENGLISH.

Lexical bundles for English: On the other hand

International guest speaker: Dr. Averil Coxhead Victoria University of Wellington ·

 Date: Friday, February 25th ·

Time: 18:00–19:30, followed by post-presentation dinner ·

Place: Yumekaze, Nara (Close to the entrance of Todaiji) · Access: http://www.yume-kaze.com/site/access/index.html · Cost: JALT Members: FREE Visitors: 500yen, payable at the door

 

 What are lexical bundles and why might they be useful to teachers and learners of English? In this talk, Dr. Coxhead will look at research into lexical bundles in written academic English and how these bundles behave in different academic disciplines. She will also examine the opportunities and challenges of bringing lexical bundles into language classrooms.

 Averil Coxhead is a Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at Victoria University of Wellington. She is the author of Essentials of Teaching Academic Vocabulary (Heinle, 2006) and An Academic Word List. Averil has taught in New Zealand, England, Estonia, Hungary, and Romania. Her research interests include second language vocabulary work such as corpus-based analysis of the phraseology and common collocations of the AWL, science-specific vocabulary for English for Academic Purposes (EAP), and vocabulary in writing.

Many of you may be attending Averil’s weekend seminar the following day at TUJ, however this is an exclusive opportunity for you to join a small group, in a picturesque setting near the famous Todaiji Temple in Nara, in intellectual discussion with a world-renowned vocabulary expert. We also strongly encourage you to take advantage of this rare opportunity to relax and enjoy a traditional Japanese dinner with Dr. Coxhead along with fellow colleagues after the presentation at a lovely establishment located within the Yumecaze complex , where the conversation will continue. As seats for the dinner are limited, we kindly ask you to RSVP as soon as possible to narajalt@gmail.com

Regards Luke Rigano

Nara JALT, Publicity.

Harold Palmer in Japan: A Lesson from History

Our very own Leigh Mcdowell and Yoko Yasu will be talking to us about Harold Palmer and his  work in the teaching of English in Japan.

Catch them with us first before they take this great talk to the national conference.

Title:
Harold Palmer in Japan: A Lesson from History
Description:
Eighty-eight years ago, Harold E. Palmer—a language educator widely renowned for his creativity and expertise—was invited to Japan as Linguistic Advisor to the Ministry of Education. For fourteen years, Palmer worked tirelessly in Tokyo creating a wealth of language learning tools and techniques that would help Japanese reform their English language teaching.
Come and hear the story of this great man’s attempts to improve English language teaching in Japan in the 1920–30s. This is a story of success and failure; an episode in history from which we can all draw inspiration and learn something about what it means to teach English here in Japan.
Speakers:
Leigh McDowell
Leigh McDowell has been teaching and learning in Japan for over ten years now. He currently teaches scientific writing and presentation at Japan’s top ranked national university, the Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST). After coming across the work of Harold E. Palmer in the Master’s in TESOL Program at Temple University, Leigh was inspired to research more and share with others the story of this great figure in the history of English language teaching.
Yoko Yaku
Yoko Yaku teaches English at the Osaka Pprefectural Matsubara Senior High School. She has also recently completed her Master‘s in TESOL from Temple University, Japan. Yoko is convinced that her English would be much better now if she had been taught in junior high school with Palmer’s methodology instead of the traditional Japanese way of teaching English. In this presentation, Yoko will share her reasons for that conviction.
Date: October 17th (Sun)
Time: 15:00–17:00
Location: Nara, Yumekaze http://www.yume-kaze.com/site/access/index.html
See you there!

May 16th My Share. Jeff Crawford.

Jeff Crawford et al, has now been changed to Jeff Crawford Flies Solo ( without a net).

SCAFFOLDING OUTPUT ACTIVITIES FOR GREATER LEARNER INDEPENDENCE.

‘Et al’ are unfortunately unavailable at this time and we appreciate our very own Jeff Crawford stepping up for a solo performance.

 SUNDAY MAY 16th 2010.
at YUMEKAZE HIROBA NARA
from 2pm-4pm.

Our very own Jeff Crawford, currently gainfully employed at Tezukayama, Kwansei
Gakkuin University and Shoin Women’s University, will demostrate for us how he
scaffolds activities from lower to higher levels, creating greater learner
confidence and autonomy in output.

He feels that employing devices such as game based activities distracts learners
from the typical face threatening exercises commonly found in most text books.
He will be happy to share activities and welcomes, nay desires,
instructor-participant feedback in the true spirit of MYSHARE.

This promises to be one of those presentations that has something to offer
everyone regardless of your current teaching situation.

Please join us for the inaugural meeting at our wonderful new meeting room, at
YUMEKAZE HIROBA, conveniently situated in the heart of Nara.

If coming by car, free parking is available.
If coming by train, take the Kintetsu Nara Line to Nara station, walk alongside
the park towards Todaiji ( well signposted), YUMEKAZE HIROBA is on the left hand
side, just before the top of the lane leading to Todaiji. ( Where all the rickshaws hang out)

For further directions/information please email me at,
oneworld.catriona@gmail.com.

Thanks, hope to see you all there,
 

 

May 16th My Share. Presenters Invited.

Nara JALT would like to invite educators to submit proposals for our May 16 My
Share event.
May’s topic is “your favorite, effective, output activities”.
Presenters will be asked to demonstrate and discuss their activity for about 20
to 30 minutes.
In the spirit of My Share, presenters must be willing to share their
intellectual property for their activity.
Please contact us if you are interested and we will send you the proposal
format.
As the potential for redundancy in activities is high, we would like candidates
to submit a simple proposal via our format for an informal review.

This is an ideal opportunity for anyone who has an effective output idea to
showcase.
Our new meeting room at YUMEKAZE HIROBA by Nara Park offers a professional yet
friendly atmosphere, where like minded people can come together to share ideas
and goals with mutual respect.

Interested paries please contact.
Jeff Crawford at jeffcrawfordlincs@gmail.com

Many thanks.

Nara JALT