Okinawa JALT:

Pathways to the world

Date: Saturday, May 19th, 2012 Time: 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Speaker: Rika Kojima

Description:
In the past twenty years, Academic English classes have shifted their focus more towards communicative learning. This often means standard ESL methodology with a focus on academic vocabulary. However, this is not enough to prepare students for the realities of university life and their future careers. Critical thinking and presentation skills are 2 key academic skills that are essential for academic success, but teachers are rarely allocated enough time or resources to teach these effectively. This workshop will not only demonstrate how to incorporate the development of critical thinking and presentation skills into Academic English lessons, but will provide participants with fun, motivating ideas & resources to increase their students' chances of success. This presentation is especially useful for senior high school and university teachers as well as university students who plan to teach in the future. Participants will find themselves involved in interactive group and pair work and the presentation as a whole will focus on:

1. What critical thinking is and its importance.
2. How teachers can include more critical thinking into their classes.
3. Challenges of presentations.
4. A look at how the Pathways materials prepare students for academic success through critical thinking and presentation skills.

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

Cost: JALT Members: free
Non-members: 1,000 yen

Venue: Okinawa Christian University

Location: Nishihara City, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan

Contact Okinawa JALT

Website: http://okijalt.org/