ELT Calendar

Saturday, October 27th, 2012

The 16th JLTA Annual Conference (JLTA 2012)
Time: 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Speaker: David Beglar (Temple University, Japan). Call for papers due July 8th
Organization: The Japan Language Testing Association
Location: Kawasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture
Short description: The Japan Language Testing Association (JLTA) invites presentation proposals for its annual conference. We look forward to receiving your proposals related to the conference theme and language testing in general.

(1) Bringing Rasch to the Masses: Test evaluation without statistics; (2) Increase Participation and Decrease Anxiety: Crafts in a Self-access Learning Centre
Time: 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Speaker: Judith Runnels (Hiroshima Bunkyo Women's University)
Organization: Nagasaki Chapter of the Japan Association for Language Teaching
Location: Nagasaki City, Nagasaki Prefecture
Short description: Rasch analysis can be a powerful analytical tool to evaluate pedagogical assessment. During the first part of this month's Nagasaki JALT event, Judith Runnels from Hiroshima Bunkyo Women's University will introduce some basic concepts of Rasch analysis and outline the process of interpreting results of a Rasch WINSTEPS analysis of multiple choice tests.

JALT Share
Time: 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Speaker: David Callaghan, Fred Carruth, Jim George, Mark Brierley, Cheryl Kirchhoff
Organization: Nagano Chapter (formerly the Shinshu Chapter) of the Japan Association for Language Teaching
Location: Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture
Short description: David Callaghan will revisit his JALT Conference (Shinshu JALT's featured speaker in Hamamatsu) presentation: Projects promoting agency in unmotivated students.

TUJ Osaka Distinguished Lecturer Series: Researching Lexis and Reading On-Line
Time: 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Speaker: Tom Cobb (University of Quebec)
Organization: Temple University Japan
Location: Osaka City, Osaka Prefecture
Short description: Almost all voluntary reading now done by young people takes place on an electronic screen. But what do beginning readers, particularly ESL and EFL readers, do while reading on electronic screens? How do they integrate the media of a multimedia document? The multiple texts of a hypertext document? Do they do this the same or differently from native speakers of English? Do they do it with more or less effort than they bring to paper documents? Fortunately, at least in educational contexts, the processing of an electronic document is far from a private experience, and some of these questions can be investigated.

1) Guiding student discussion of graded readers; 2) Demotivation, amotivation or overmotivation? An action research project
Time: 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Speaker: 1) Jason Cox; 2) Peter Burden
Organization: Okayama Chapter of the Japan Association for Language Teaching
Location: Okayama City, Okayama Prefecture
Short description: 1) Guiding student discussion of graded readersJason CoxStudent discussion of graded readers within an ER course can be enhanced with guidance from the teacher.

Best of JALT 2012
Time: 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Speaker: Various Speakers
Organization: Niigata Chapter of the Japan Association for Language Teaching
Location: Niigata City, Niigata Prefecture
Short description: The JALT national conference is being held in Hamamatsu this month (October 12-15) so the following week (October 20) JALT Niigata is going to host our annual Best of JALT event.