Okayama JALT:

ELT teaching: A disadvantaged profession in Japanese tertiary education?

Date: Saturday, May 19th, 2007 Time: 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Speaker: Peter Burden, Okayama Shoka University

Description:
Japanese tertiary education has entered an epoch-making phase where the shrinkage of the number of college-age students and the decline in the market for academic personnel has resulted in an audit culture expressed through cross-curricular end-of-semester faculty evaluation. Despite universality of access, the centrality of entrance exams still exerts 'washback' in the Japanese high school educational culture. As the tenets of CLT competence used in university are not in concert with the contextual situations of high school, conflict between students' 'experience' and university ELT teachers' 'intentions' lead to culturally determined expectations where teachers may not live up to the students' image of 'good teaching.' This study sought insight from two classes of university freshmen into their beliefs about how English should be taught, and how these beliefs impacted on responses to student evaluation of teaching surveys (SETs). ELT professionals may be disadvantaged and so teacher and learner expectations must be matched to learners' real experiences rather than received understandings. This study will suggest ways to make fairer, more trustworthy evaluations which could then be used to encourage teacher growth.

Please note that this one-hour presentation is one of two presentations between 3:00 and 5:00 today. The entrance fee for non-JALT members is 500 yen, whether you attend one or both of today's presentations.

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

Cost: JALT Members: free
Non-members: 500 yen for the day.

Venue: Sankaku A Bldg. 2F near Omotecho in Okayama City

Location: Okayama City, Okayama Prefecture, Japan

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Contact Okayama JALT

Website: sites.google.com/site/okayamajalt/

Scott Gardner
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