Shizuoka JALT:

Getting Back to Basics in English Language Teaching

Date: Sunday, June 27th, 2010 Time: 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM

Speaker: David Barker, BTB Press

Description:
The history of English Language Teaching has been characterized by a stream of ever-changing fashions and trends. In most cases, proponents of new methodologies have urged teachers and learners to abandon all their old tools and techniques and embrace the new dogma, and all too often teachers have been willing to follow unquestioningly. One example of this is the way that many highly effective teaching metholodogies have fallen out of favour in recent years because they are no longer deemed to be sufficiently 'communicative'. This is often in spite of the fact that a wealth of research evidence exists to show that many of them are, in fact, highly beneficial for learners.

In this presentation, David Barker will argue that an obsession with 'communicative ' activities and educational materials can be detrimental to both teachers and learners. He will present a number of what he considers to be 'basic principles' of language learning, and discuss how these can be applied to classroom methodology. In particular, Barker will focus on the development of language education materials, and he will introduce four books that demonstrate how these principles can be applied in practice.

BIO: David Barker is from North Wales in the United Kingdom. He has been teaching English for 18 years, and he has taught in the UK, Singapore, New Zealand, and Japan. He has the RSA Certificate and Diploma in TEFLA, an MA in applied linguistics, and a PhD in English language education. He has worked full-time at three Japanese universities, and part-time at three more, and he has also taught in several Japanese junior high and high schools. He is the author of seven books and various magazine and newspaper columns for Japanese learners of English.

Organization: Shizuoka Chapter of the Japan Association for Language Teaching (Shizuoka JALT)

Cost: JALT Members: free
Non-members: 1000 yen

Venue: Kyouiku Kaikan (across from Shin-Shizuoka) in the basement (5-minute walk north from JR station) http://www6.ocn.ne.jp/~s-kyoiku/

Location: Shizuoka City, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan

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Contact Shizuoka JALT

Website: jalt.org/groups/chapters/shizuoka

Gregg McNabb
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