The Language Teacher
October 2000
In Search of Ever-Better Programs
Margaret Orleans
We in the Kitakyushu Chapter have been blessed with members willing to share the fruits of their experience and research at our monthly meetings. Likewise, those who have seen a good speaker elsewhere are quick to pass on their recommendations. However, at the rate of twelve to fifteen meetings per year, even these generous sources at times threaten to dry up, and so, we are always on the lookout for inventive formats for our meetings and ways in which to encourage new speakers to step forth.
Some of the successful alternatives to the staple lecture or workshop format have included My Share, Ask the Experts, and Polishing Presentation Skills. While there are those who appreciate a theory- or research-based lecture, most of our members are looking for practical tips they can put to immediate use, and they are likely to find these at a My Share meeting. In fact, My Share meetings have proved so popular (perhaps because each of the presenters brings his/her own cheering section?) that we include at least one in each year's schedule. At such a meeting, four to six speakers each spend ten to twenty minutes on a stated theme. Themes we have tried include Christmas activities, first-day activities, creative evaluation options, games, hands-on trial of one's favorite educational software, and the best thing one learned at a conference that year. Coming later this year is a meeting on favorite teacher resources. Because the individual presentations are so short, this format provides a good chance for a novice to get his/her feet wet before trying a full-length solo presentation.
Our two-part Ask the Experts program was the result of observations that the Japanese and non-Japanese teachers of English knew little about what occurred in the others' classrooms. A panel of four teachers, representing as wide a spectrum of teaching situations as possible, responded to questions submitted beforehand and from the floor at two successive monthly meetings. Actually, the meeting was entitled Ask a Native, and in the first month "native" was defined as a native of Japan. Questions ranged from actual classroom procedures and class sizes to how the teachers themselves continued to improve their language skills. The second month's natives were native speakers of English, and again they dealt with far-ranging questions. At both meetings, attendance was above average and discussion even more lively than usual. We feel that our goal of making the chapter more cohesive was achieved.
Another recent success consisted of a two-part format, Polishing Your Presentation. Feeling the responsibility to nourish more potential speakers among our membership, two members who are veteran presenters set up an afternoon workshop to teach PowerPoint and speaking skills. Those attending were expected to bring along a planned presentation, including some sort of visual material. They received individual help and a chance to rehearse before the regular meeting that evening, where they presented a twenty-minute excerpt of what they had prepared. These mini-presentations were so well received that by popular demand two of them have been scheduled for a full-length meeting next year.
As yet untested is our planned Overseas Study Fair, in which we hope to bring together embassy/consulate staff, experienced teachers, and potential students for a mixture of booths and lectures to answer students' questions about study opportunities abroad.
Not every innovative format has been so successful. One seemingly good idea (a session at which teachers wishing to make audio or video tapes could draw on a body of native and non native speaking talent and produce the recordings in a language lab) attracted only a dozen participants, but the smallness of the audience may also have been attributable to the weather or the location.
One approach to programming, which has had overall good results, is to work in collaboration with the larger community to share speakers, audiences, publicity, and facilities. In particular, we try each year to provide an interesting half-day program as part of our city's International Week. For the past few years we have used the ongoing theme of Multicultural Families and engaged the support of an organization of volunteer interpreters to bring individual speakers and panel presentations before a wider audience than normally attend JALT meetings.
Of course one can always invite in big-name speakers from afar. For our chapter this has been possible through the cost sharing that takes place in Kyushu Tours. These island-wide tours have brought us speakers like Charles LeBeau, Laura MacGregor, and Jill Robbins. With or without underwriting from corporate sponsors, these speakers sweep through Kyushu, making presentations at four or five chapters within a week to ten days.
For further information, please contact: Margaret Orleans; <tomnpeg@interlink.or.jp>; t/f: 093-8717706.
All materials on this site are copyright © by JALT and their respective authors.
For more information on JALT, visit the JALT National Website