The Language Teacher
October 2001
JALT2001 National Four Corners' Tour
Joy Jarman-Walsh
Yasuda Women's Unversity, Hiroshima
Do you sometimes feel your teaching could do with a new perspective, a fresh approach? The JALT Four Corners' Tour is a great way to bring exciting teachers and researchers out to the four corners of Japan in an attempt to benefit teachers in local chapters as well as promote some of the many excellent speakers presenting at the national JALT conference. The Four Corners' Tour is open to any JALT chapter. Interested chapter program chairs should respond to the tour coordinator at the beginning of the year when an announcement of speakers is made.
This year, the tour is going to be very exciting indeed. We are lucky to have three experienced speakers from varied backgrounds, disciplines, and countries.
Don't miss an excellent opportunity to attend a presentation by a well-known speaker practically in your own back yard.
JALT National and each local chapter will be providing for each speaker's honorarium, local travel, and food expenses during their tour. Additionally, there are four organizations who are supporting the tour, and who should be mentioned here and thanked warmly:
Tuttle Publishing is not only funding each speaker's domestic travel, but will also be providing each hosting chapter with great giveaways at each presentation. The Foreign Buyers' Club and the Language Institute of Japan (LIOJ) have been invaluable in their support of the Asian Scholar. And last but not least, the British Council is sponsoring Tessa Woodward's international flight.
The following brief introduction of our three speakers is offered to you in the hope that you will be encouraged to not only join a presentation but also extend the invitation to your friends and coworkers too. Each presentation is free to JALT members and will cost nonmembers between 500 and 1,000 yen.
Tessa Woodward (UK) is a well-known and respected teacher trainer, author of many wonderfully useful resource books, in addition to being a warm, amicable presenter. Professor Woodward has a special talent for cutting the complexities of teaching down to the fundamentals. The ideas she will present and discuss can be easily applied in your own classroom, no matter the age or level of learners. Presentation subject matter will include the practicalities of lesson planning and "stimulus-based" teaching. Tessa will be touring through Tokyo (11/17), Niigata (11/18), Okayama (11/19), and Hiroshima (11/20), before presenting at the JALT National/PAC3 Conference (11/22-25) in Kokura, Kitakyushu.
Anne Burns (Australia) is the Associate Director of the National Centre for English Language Teaching and Research (NCELtr), and Head of the Division of Linguistics and Psychology at Macquarie University in Sydney. Professor Burns was on the Four Corners' Tour last year and was well received by Japanese and native English speaking teachers alike as a presenter with a strong background in action research and discourse analysis. We look forward to her insights on action research, motivation, and teaching speaking and reading on her tour through Chiba (11/17), Gunma (11/18), Nagoya (11/19), and Kumamoto (11/20) where she will give a "super double" presentation with Raul Laborte before presenting in Kokura.
Raul C. Laborte (Philippines) is this year's Asian Scholar. As explained to me, all students in the Philippines refer to their teacher with the honorary "Sir" denoting respect, similar to Japanese students referring to their teachers as sensei. Sir Laborte is a junior and senior high school teacher in Davao City. David McMurray, JALT2001 Conference Program Chair, says "Laborte sparkles when he talks. . .students love him." He is a warm and enthusiastic teacher who has a lot to share from his experiences teaching teenagers in Asia. I am sure there are a lot of parallels participants can draw from his experiences to their experiences with Japanese students. Sir Laborte's tour includes Nagasaki (11/16), Kagoshima (11/17), Miyazaki (11/18), Kumamoto (11/19, 20), and Hiroshima (11/21).
To find out more about each speaker's tour, topics, individual background and research, please refer to the following websites:
Tessa Woodward <www.geocities.com/fourcornersjp/newest.html> <www.geocities.com/fourcornersjp/newest.html>
Anne Burns <www.geocities.com/fourcornersjp/burns.html> <www.geocities.com/fourcornersjp/burns.html>
Raul C. Laborte <www.geocities.com/fourcornersjp/laborte.html> <www.geocities.com/fourcornersjp/laborte.html>
Reported by Joy Jarman-Walsh
2001 National Four Corners' Tour Coordinator
Yasuda Women's University, Hiroshima
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