2023 Presentations

Teacher Development

SYMPOSIUM
Incorporating Pragmatics into Language
Education: Why and How

Donna TATSUKI
Donna TATSUKI, Ed.D., isProfessor Emerita at Kobe City
University of Foreign Studies. Her
research interests include theteaching of pragmatics, bestpractices in teaching materials,
representations of gender/ethnicity
in government-approved language
textbooks, and descriptions of ELFdriven multi-party talk-in-interaction
in MUN simulations. She is theeditor of more than a dozen books
as well as the JALT Journal andfounded the JALT Pragmatic
Resources Series. She currently
serves as a Scientific Committee
member for New Perspectives: A
Journal of TESOL Italy.

One goal of this talk is to assert that the need for and benefits of teaching
pragmatics within the context of language learning is clear, even though until thepast decade or two, pragmatics has been an underdeveloped area in classroom
practice. Studies have shown that even learners with a high level of grammaticalproficiency will vary widely in their pragmatic competence (Bardovi-Harlig, 2001;
Boxer & Pickering, 1995; Bouton, 1996; Kasper 1997). One reason pragmatics
needs to be directly taught is that input is not readily available or interpretable oreven noticeable (salient) in the natural environment. Furthermore, studies thathave looked at language textbooks and teacher manuals to assess the types
and quality of pragmatic information available have found that textbooks rarely
included much pragmatic information, failed to offer any supplements, and when
they do include pragmatic information have a strong potential to lead topedagogically induced error (Vellenga, 2004; Ji, 2007; Meihami & Khanlarzadeh,2015).
To counter these shortcomings, efforts have been made recently to collect andpublish pedagogical guides and materials for use by language teachers. This
sets the stage for the second portion of the talk. The largest number of teaching
resource topics available fall into the Speech Act Theory category or address theevaluation of pragmatic knowledge and other explicit awareness of appropriate,prescriptive rules of thumb. Thus, large swathes of pragmatic territory remained
under-served until recently. Although steps to remedy this situation have started
to be undertaken (Tatsuki 2016; 2022), there are still serious gaps in coverage.
Teachers might not be able to rely solely on pre-existing materials and therefore
may face the prospect of making their own. The final part of the talk offers
concrete principles and guidelines for L2 pragmatics instructional materials
development that teachers can directly use in their own practice.

Student Learning Differences: Strategies for Success

Alexandra BURKE
Alexandra Burke teaches at four
universities in the Tokai region
and has taught at all levels of theJapanese school system where
she promotes inclusion inteaching methods and classroom
management. She has won
multiple Michele Steele Best of
JALT Chapter awards and Best
Poster awards on the topic ofneurodiversity.

Every mainstream class has about 10% (or more) students with hidden learning
differences: even if the students and their families are unaware of them. Learning
differences such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, ADHD, and dyspraxia do not usuallymean intellectual differences. However, these students may read, write, organize,
and use their time in ways you do not expect. How students experience a class is
up to the teacher. The reality is that language teachers have not been trained in
how to support these students and some struggle with not being able to help
them to succeed. In addition, research has not always included the needs ofatypical learners when exploring questions such as optimum ways and materials
to study effectively.
This presentation will break down some of the myths and the facts about different
kinds of learning differences. For example, studies have shown that the numberof years spent in education has an impact on life expectancy. So, our impact canbe much more than just a 15 week semester and can function as a reset. In
addition to social and health imperatives to increase inclusivity there is also a
legal imperative to act. Japan passed the Reading Barrier Free Act of 2019 toprevent discrimination regarding reading skills, so teachers must aim for barrierfree classrooms.
I will share some practical examples about students with the learning differences
mentioned above and a little about autism and visual differences. You

Pragmatics and Locally-made Corpora: A Toolkit
Taylor MEIZLISH for Teaching Discrete Speech Acts
Taylor Meizlish is an EFL Lecturer
at Nagoya University of Foreign
Studies in Japan. His interest is
taking the insights of Linguistics
and Pragmatics towards practicalapplication in the EFL classroom.

Eriko MISHIMA
Eriko Mishima is a language
instructor, currently teaching at
Chukyo University. She has an
M.Ed. in Cultural Studies from
Ohio University and has beenteaching English for 13 years.
She also has been working on her
MA TESOL at NUFS.

Di MI
Di Mi is a lecturer at Tianjin
Normal University. She holds
M.A. in Applied Linguistics from
Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Her research interests are virtual
exchange and second language
acquisition.

Language learners' effective use of language, their communicative competence,
depends not only on accurate grammatical and textual competence, but on theirpragmatic competence (Bachman 1990). Pragmatic competence, a language user’s
ability to use language appropriately in context, is often not acquired unless taught
explicitly, even by advanced learners (Kasper, 1997). In addition, Communicative
Language Teaching (CLT) stipulates that authentic language related to language
activities outside the classroom be used in instruction (Nunan 1991). Corpora-based
pragmatics instruction can address both of these goals. However, though corpora
contain vast amounts of authentic language and are widely available to teachersand students alike, they are not well-suited to teaching speech acts due to theirvolume and lack of context. This study will present the use of a small-scale locallycreated corpus targeted at a particular speech act along with accessible pragmatic
principles guiding its creation for teachers to use or adapt for their own classes.
Explicit pragmatics awareness raising activities and instruction will be provided andthe rationale explained as well as activities to practice these skills in the classroom.
The intent is to make the guiding principles of speech act instruction and materials
creation process transparent, replicable, and practical to implement for any
language teacher wishing to develop their students’ pragmatic competence.

Educational Philosophies of Practicing Teachers
Communication between classmates, and with teachers, has been hindered in
online classes for over two years now, and research suggests that this lack ofopportunities to physically work together has contributed to the students’ social
isolation and poor academic performances. Now that we are transitioning back toface-to-face teaching, supporting students' well-being has become one of theimportant missions for instructors, and encouraging cooperation in class might help
improve the difficult situation. To make the most of what was learned during theonline struggle, the presenter tried to implement cooperative learning activities inclass and investigated its effects on the students’ group cohesion and their
Willingness to Communicate in her action research. The activities were adopted andmodified from the cooperative learning structures introduced by Kagan (2013), andparticipants had several opportunities to do cooperative pair and group work every
week. The results of the questionnaire suggest that the participants’ cohesion grew
after they spent a longer time together in groups compared to short pair work. Mostof them felt that they were more willing to communicate in English in class after
experiencing series of cooperative activities although they were not obligated to
speak English during the group work.

Intercultural Learning through Collaborative
Online International Learning: Challenges forStudents and Teachers
Global communication and exchange demand institutions of higher education todevelop university students with integrated skills that involve both language andintercultural communication abilities. Teachers of second/ foreign languages arethus expected to find various effective ways to integrate intercultural competence
into their language classes. Modern technologies offer ways to promote
development through distance learning and virtual exchange by providing a realcontext and immersed experience for learners of foreign languages. Collaborative
Online International Learning (COIL), a form of virtual exchange, enables students
from different countries and areas to acquire cultural knowledge, language skills,
and intercultural competence. While providing numerous benefits, COIL presents
various challenges and difficulties, such as navigating time differences, learning
new technological instruments, designing a shared syllabus and assignments,
evaluating learner performance. Facing these challenges, meanwhile, teachers
have to shift their identities or roles accordingly. This study will discuss theseshifting roles and identities. Additionally, it will present some challenges
encountered by both students and teachers in previous COIL projects and discuss
some solutions to navigate through these challenges in virtual exchanges.

Native-speakerism and its Effects on JapaneseThomas ENTWISTLE University Students
Thomas Entwistle (MA TESOL /Cambridge DELTA) is an English
language specialist working for
the British Council at Nagoya
University of Foreign studies. His
current interests are phonology,
study abroad, and fostering
autonomous learning.

Matthew PHILBRICK
Matthew Philbrick received a
Master of Arts in TESOL degreefrom the University of Central
Florida in 2016. He has taught innumerous prefectures acrossJapan and currently resides withhis wife and son in Nagoya,
where he teaches at Toyota
Technological Institute.

This presentation aims to highlight Japanese university aged students’ perceptions
on what they understand a so-called ‘native speaker’ of English to be and reveal
how these views may have been shaped. The study was carried out at a private
foreign studies university in central Japan. Participants were asked to provide
written answers to a series of questions relating to native-speakerism,
pronunciation, and their previous pre tertiary education. Written responses werethematically analysed to find interesting and commonly held views, and similar
experiences the recruits have had that shape these perceptions. Analysis showsthat native-speakerism seems to have played a part in shaping the views of study
participants, yet a significant proportion of participants expressed more nuanced
opinions in this area. Furthermore, analysis shows that participants do indeed
perceive English pronunciation to be important to their future careers, studies, andcommunicative ability However, worries around specific elements of pronunciation,and lack of practice at school seem to have negatively impacted participants’
perceptions of their own abilities, echoing results of previous studies. Finally, thispresentation will outline some teaching implications aimed at helping learners
transitioning from high school to higher education, and educators in those contexts.

Personal Finance Instruction in the EFL Classroom
Content-based language instruction has become increasingly popular in EFL
classrooms in recent years. One exciting avenue of such instruction in the context
of teaching in Japan is the topic of personal finance, which is a subject that many
Japanese students show great interest in, yet many teachers in Japan are
reluctant to teach about it. This presentation will outline a reading course based on
the topic of personal finance that I have been teaching at my university sincespring 2021, which covers the topics of earning, spending & saving, credit cards,
investing, housing, cryptocurrency, and retirement. This presentation will cover theoverall approach to the course, the justification for teaching the course, a generalsummary of each of the topics covered in the class, and the preliminary results
based on qualitative and quantitative feedback provided by participants in thecourse.

The Correlation Between Language Learning
Naoya SHIBATA Motivation and Writing Motivation
Naoya Shibata is a full-time EFL
lecturer at the Centre for
Language Education andDevelopment, Nagoya Universityof Foreign Studies. His researchinterests include second language
writing, materials development,
content and language integrated
learning, and global awareness.

As motivation is perceived as one of the most important variables to affectlanguage learning outcomes, many researchers have examined the correlation
between motivation and language learning outcomes in various fields, including
second language writing. Motivation can be classified into various types, including
integrative and instrumental motivations. Furthermore, the degree of motivation
can depend on learners’ learning objectives and activities. Interestingly, in order toobserve the correlation between motivation types and second language writing
achievement, some (e.g., Nasihah & Cahyono, 2017) explore language learning
motivation whilst others (e.g., Ng et al., 2021) investigate writing motivation.
However, little research examines the correlation between language learning
motivation and writing motivation. Therefore, this study aims to address thisresearch issue. This quantitative research study was conducted with 250
Japanese EFL learners and utilised two six-Likert scale questionnaires. One
questionnaire was adopted from Dörnyei and Taguchi (2010) to examine language
learning motivation, and the other was from Graham et al. (2022) to explore
writing motivation. For data analysis, Kendall’s tau correlation coefficient was
executed. Based on the results, this presentation attempts to consider whether
both motivation types can be appropriate to use in future second language writing
research studies.

Robert PRIMEAU
Robert is a lecturer at Mie
University in Tsu city. He holds an
MA in TESOL from Nagoya
University of Foreign Studies. His
teaching interests include
communication strategies, criticalthinking, and linguistics.

Practical Second Language Classroom Activities
Sometimes as teachers we forget how difficult it was to learn a second language.
It can be helpful to remember by going back to the beginning of our language
learning journey. How do children acquire language? Is it through exhaustive
vocabulary drills and complicated grammar lessons? Usually not. Children usuallyacquire language quickly and without effort or formal teaching through interaction not only with their parents and other adults, but also with their peers (Wells &Bridges, 1981). Therefore, interaction can be seen as a dependable way to learn
and teach a second language. This workshop will demonstrate some interactive
teaching activities and other interactive techniques that can be easily implemented
in the classroom for beginner students. The activities will be explained in English
but performed in French to give the impression of learning a second language
again. The three activities that will be presented in the workshop are a TPR
demonstration, Linguacuisine, and Treasure/Scavenger Hunt. TPR means Total
Physical Response and is a way of teaching language that uses both verbal
communication and physical body movement. TPR helps (in person or online)
teachers better connect with students and boost their ability to learn new words
and master meanings quickly. Following this we will look at how a simple cooking
recipe in a foreign language can be fun, practical, and immediately rewarding.
Finally, the treasure hunt activity will demonstrate how teamwork can makelanguage learning fun and cooperative.

Using music in English to develop pronunciation
Mie GOTOH and listening skills among Japanese EFL learners
Mie Gotoh is a full-time EFL
lecturer at Chukyo University. She
holds an MA in English Educationfrom Nanzan University. Her
research and teaching interests
are in developing students'
listening and pronunciation skills.

Mizuka TSUKAMOTO
Mizuka Tsukamoto has been
involved in English education atuniversities in Japan for over ten
years. Her research interests
include learner/teacher autonomy,
teacher education anddevelopment, and teachers’
professional lives.

Miyake (2004) describes the challenges that Japanese learners and other“syllable-timed” L1 learners have with English pronunciation because it is a“stress-timed” language due to its rhythmic beat that regardless of the syllables in
between will move from stress to stress. While L2 learners often have a highmotivation to improve their pronunciation to sound like “native-speakers” (Bai &Yuan, 2019; Timmis, 2002; Tokumoto & Shibata, 2011; Uchida & Sugimoto,2019), Koike (2016) and Madzo (2021) describe the lack of attention English
teachers have toward teaching pronunciation. This presentation will introduce
activities aimed at improving pronunciation and listening through the use of musicin English. Additionally, the presenter will share some results of a small-scale
study of Japanese university students’ attitudes towards English pronunciationand listening through participating in these activities.

An Inquiry into the Way We Teach
This session will review the unexpected journey of the presenter’s career in ELT at
Japanese universities. As her experience as an EFL instructor expanded, shebecame to understand that proceeding in a career with no particular background in
ELT and teaching on the basis of “apprenticeship of observation” (Lortie, 1975;
2002) may not be sufficient. Starting with a brief reflection on the presenter’s
untutored beginning to the current situation in teaching and doing research, shewill elaborate on how her understanding of teaching changed and how she
developed an interest in becoming a researcher in the field, and developing
subsequent interest in researching language teachers’ professional lives, including
the effectiveness of formal ELT training. This will be followed by sharing stories of
how some other EFL instructors entered the field and how they teach their classes
and what may have influenced their teaching. The presenter hopes that thissession will remind and provide an opportunity for the participants of how and why
they teach in the way they teach.

Kevin OTTOSONKevin Ottoson is a lecturer within
the Department of British andAmerican Studies at Nagoya
University of Foreign Studies. He
holds an EdD in Educational
Leadership from the University of
New England. His researchinterests include interculturalcompetence, study abroad, andvirtual exchange.

Berke ALP
Being raised in a bilingual
environment, Berke Alp has
always been fascinated bylanguages and different cultures.
She has a BA in translation andinterpretation and an MA in Mediaand Communication. She iscurrently working at Nagoya
University of Foreign Studies as afull-time lecturer and planning on
doing research in linguistics.

Frameworks for Teaching Culture and CriticalThinking in the Language Classroom
The push for Japanese institutions of higher education to internationalize theircurriculum and foster global jinzai (global human resources) is evident throughrecent different government initiatives (CAMPUS Asia, Global 30 Project, Top
Global University Japan). While private universities largely see the efforts tointernationalize the curriculum as the responsibility of mobility programs like study
abroad (Yonezawa, et al., 2009), the COVID-19 pandemic has prevented many
students from participating in these internationalization efforts. As a result,internationalization at home efforts through virtual exchange programs, like COIL,
have increased in popularity. While virtual exchanges are more inclusive by letting
all students participate in international exchanges, not all language teachers areable to facilitate a virtual exchange in their language classrooms. This
presentation aims to present several different frameworks (Moran’s (2001)
Cultural Elements Framework and Cultural Knowings Framework, and Risager &Svarstad’s (2020) Cycle Model of Intercultural Learning) for teaching culture andlanguage in the classroom to internationalize their courses through fostering the
linguistic skills and intercultural competence that the Council on Promotion of
Human Resource Globalization Development (2012) describe as global jinzai.

Linguistic Relativity Implications for Second
Language Acquisition
This presentation will framework Sapir-Whorf's Linguistic Relativity hypothesis(Whorf, 1956) and show examples from a cross-linguistic perspective. The notionthat the language(s) we speak shapes how we think, and act has received
attention from various academic fields. While most of the research into linguistic
relativity focuses mainly on monolingual speakers, the effects of language
relativity on second language acquisition (SLA) have gained more popularity inrecent years (Bylund and Athanasopoulos, 2014). In this presentation, I will
investigate the role of linguistic relativity in SLA, with an analysis of the linguistic
and cultural elements of the Japanese language. I will report on English as asecond language (ESL) students’ usage of agency (Fausey, et al., 2010) and
explore in-depth the influence of this element in L2 speakers’ second language
cognition. Understanding languages and culture's effect on our thought processes
and worldwide perceptions will help lecturers improve how we interact,
communicate, and, most importantly, better understand our students.