Shizuoka JALT:

Developing Discussion Tasks for EFL Classrooms

Date: Sunday, April 26th, 2009 Time: 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM

Speaker: Gregory Strong

Description:
Commercial course books offer discussion material, but often fail to engage students because the topics seek to avoid controversy, and are often of little interest to students. Greg will show you new ways of developing discussion tasks on current events that students care about. The discussion task that Gregory Strong and his colleagues have developed and refined with their students in the English department at Aoyama Gakuin University is the result of more than 8 years experience, testing, and evaluation. The material he will share includes a discussion rating scale and a DVD of sample student discussions. He will also offer a list of online multi-media which include listening modes and transcripts, so that students can use this task for online listening practice as well.

Bio: Gregory Strong is a professor in the English Department at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo where he coordinates its Integrated English Program for some 500 freshmen and sophomore students. He has worked in China on a Canadian foreign aid project as well as in Canada as a teacher, teacher educator, and curriculum writer. He has published widely on education, travel, and literature, including a non-fiction book, Flying Colours: The Toni Onley Story, and in the forthcoming TESOL Classroom series, is the co-editor of Adult Language Learners: Context and Innovation, and a contributor to both Authenticity in the Adult Language Classroom, and Task-Based Learning from which some of his presentation will be drawn.

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

Cost: JALT Members: free
Non-members: 1000 yen

Venue: Shizuoka Kyoiku Kaikan right across from Shin-Shizuoka Centre

Location: Shizuoka City, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan

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Contact Shizuoka JALT

Website: jalt.org/groups/chapters/shizuoka

Gregg McNabb
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