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CUE
SIGNews
Editorial--Message From the Coordinato

2
3

Heigham & Obermeier:Developing Autonomy: The CUE Co ference
2001ReWewe~

5

the CUE Conference 2002: "Curriculum
Innovation "Conference Calendar

7
8

Features
Kelen:Jou/i al Writing : Some Observations
fror,na Hong Kong High School Classroom

11

Br. dshaw:Objectives Setting in Language
Course Planning

15

Rausch:Gaikokugo Communication in n
Intensive Course Format: Experiential
Leaming at Japanese niversities

8

Hayman:Making F.riends: Authentic L2
Communication fo the First Day ofl Term

Protess11111
D11elopment
Strong:A Toolbox for College EFL Program
Design24

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Cunningham:Observing a visually impaired
instructor : an insightful experience...all lan!JUa!Jeis a lie. Yes I Ean!JUa!Je
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Snyder: Fun Tools for Teachers and Stuclents 29/£e !lround/o s.fioOJour 1nlerlocu/er
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summer
2001:v11um1
9,Issue2

0aCIE

OnCQ:all
torpapers
Aims:To provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of research, ideas and curriculum activities of broad interest to College and University Language Educators.

FeaturesTvnes01AniclesSought:
Professional
Development

APA referenced articles with a focus op.language
education and related issues at tertiary level of
up to 2,000 words

1-2000. words on further education and gaining
employment.
Contac t section editors : Debra Pappier and Mark Weinkle,· toonomads@hotrnail.com

Crltlrllllr 1111111
lrllCIIS- • consideration of issues likely to be per- Opinion
andPerspective
ceived by college and university educators 650 words; longer, coordinated, point-counteras relevant to language teaching in Japan point articles are possible.
• well designed and well reported empiri- Contact section editor Keith Ford,jf6k-ford@asahi-net.or.jp
cal research .
• writing that situates issues within the con. Reviews
text of relevant·
previous work, ------------------reviews of books, textwhile refraining Approximate
Publicadon
Dates:books, videos, presentafrom quoting
tions/workshops, films,
for the sake ofApril 15, July 15, January15
etc. 600 words, 1500
quoting(Deadlines: Feb 25, May 24, Nov 18)
words for scholarly review• thought-proessays.
voking theoretical papers, provided clear Contact section editor: Steven Snyder, snyder@phoenix.ac.jp
practical implications are fore-grounded

CVberpipeline

From
theChalkface

descriptions of websites that might prove usefulfor language teaching and professional development; length depends on how many sites are reviewed

classroom applications, techniques and lessonplans, usually up to 1000 words.
Contact section editor: Andrew Obermeier, andrewo@gol.com

Contact section editor: Steven Snyder, snyder@phoenix .ac .jp

Research
DigestFocus
onlanguage

summaries of research published in university
in-house publications, of broad interest to college and university educators

a column in which the writer may ask/answer
common questions about language that are ofinterest to teachers and learners. 250-600 words

Conference Reports, Eamon Mccafferty, eamon@gol.com
News and AMouncements, Alan Mackenzie, asm@typhoon .co.jp

all other queries to Michael Carroll, carroll@andrew.ac.jp

OfficerContact
lnf1nnad1nfor2001:Feel free to contact board members about your SIG
blClllll'Illanl:
Alan Mackenzie, CUE SIG Coordinator and On CUE Layout: Keisen
University; Riverside Heights 2a, Yaguchi 3-12- 12, Ota-ku, Tokyo 1460093 Tel/Fax: 03-3757-7008 E-mail : <asm@typhoon .co.jp>. Hugh Nicol Membership Chair: Miyazak i Koritsu Daigaku, 1-1-2
Funatsuka, Miyuakiishi 880-8520 Tel: 0985-22-8812 (h) 0985-20..2000,
ext
1306
(w)
Fax:
0985-20-4807(w);
E-mail :<hnicoll@funatsuka.miyazaki-mu.acJp >Steven Snyder, Treasurer: Kyushu Univesity of Health and Welfare;
1714-1 Yoshino-cho, Nobeoka-shi, 882-8508 Tel: 0982-23-5670 E-mail:Michael Carroll, Publications Chair/On CUE Editor: St Andrews University, 1-1 Manabi-No, lzumi-shi, Osaka-fu, 594-1152 Tel/fax: (075) 7813456 ; E-mail: <carroll@andrew .ac.jp>

snyder@phoenix.ac.jp

OnCll ldltlrlll AdVlsarv
Board:

Eamon McCafferty, Program Chair: Tokai University, Shimizu campus; 439-52-201 Utouz.aka, Shimizu-shi, Shizuoka-ken, Japan, 424-0873 ;(h) Tel/Fax: 0543-48-8299; (w) Tel: 0543-48-8299, Fax : 0543-34-9837 ;E-mail : <eamon@gol.com >AndrewObenneicr (From the Chalkface)<andrewo@gol.com>;SusanPhillippoussis<sphilipp@miyazaki-mic.ac.jp>;JosephTomei <jtomei@kumagalru.ac.jp>; Debra Pappier(Opinionand Perspective, ProfessionalDevelopment) <toonomads@hotmail.com>; ~Weinkle (ProfessionalDeveloprnent)<toonomads@hotmail.com>; John Mclaughlin<jmcl@gol.com>; Steven Snyder (Reviews. Cyberpipeline) <snyder@phoenix. ac.jp>

1Sammer2001:v111m1
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OnCUE

Editorial

As usual Steve Snyder's Cyberpipeline gives
us some pointers to some eminently practical
This issue of On CUE, following somewhat sites that will be useful to many CUE members.
belatedly on the heels of the very successful In this issue he describes downloadable software
Developing Autonomy conference last May, for creating self-access materials which can beforms something of a bridge between that used by even the least computer literate teachers.
Finally, Nevitt Reagan reviews Marjorie Vaifs
conference and the 2002 one which is already at
1998high level listening and critical thinking
an advanced planning stage. The issue opens
text,
The
Heart of the Matter.
with a comprehensive review of the 200 I
I wish you pleasant and fruitful reading as
conference by Juanita Heigham and Andrew
youenter the beginning of the second Semester.
Obermeier, followed by three feature articles andIf you find this issue worthwhile please
another in the Professional Development section
rememberthat it is produced entirely bythat clearly show how autonomy and curriculum
change are linked in the CUE discourse as it is voluntary labour. If you'd like to be involved,
therefore, we are more than happy to welcome
developing at the moment.
In the first of the features, Christopher Kelen, you. At the end of this issue there is a list of the
who was unable to get to the mini-conference, various kinds of practical jobs that need doingshows how the simple process of exchanging within CUE.
For On CUE itself, though, the most importantdialogue journals with his students has not only
thing
is your contribution. Our aim is to provide
allowed English to become a meaningful activity,aforum
for the sharing of research and ideas ofbut has also created a situation in which
conscious reflection on their language learning broad interest to university educators. We have
has laid the basis for at least some of them to steadily been attracting more contributions overthe last two years, but still there is room for more.
become truly autonomous learners.
The second and third features both concern If you have a paper that you've written, or an
idea that you would like to develop, pleasecurriculum innovation. Martin Bradshaw
outlines some of the issues that teachers face contact me, Michael Carroll, or any of the section
editors, listed in the call for papers.
when setting objectives for their courses.
In particular if you are a new writer, or unsure
Anthony Rausch then describes how hisofthevalue of your idea, please feel free to talkuniversity has dealt with a specific set ofitoverwith us. We see our role as facilitating
constraints by designing an entirely new program
to give students an intensive experience of using the publication of a wide range of relevant
English as a means of communication, within a material, rather than as primarily gatekeeping.
In other words we'll do our best to work withstructured framework.
youto get your writing into print. We believe
The Professional Development section also
thisapproachmakes for a lively and high quality
concerns curriculum design and development.
journal. In addition we believe it contributes toGreg Strong sets out, from an institutional
perspective, five key issues that are important a dynamic and supportive SIG in which we canall, editors and contributors together, develop as
in implementing
successful curriculum
writers
and researchers. So please keep thoseinnovations. His concluding comments on theimportance of supporting all teachers, and contributions coming in.
involving them in the continuing development
Michael Carroll
and review of curriculum changes, address a
crucial but problematic area in the context ofThis issue does not have an Opinion andmany Japanese universities today.
Perspective
column, but in the next issue a
Our Focus on Language in this issue has Paul
point-counterpoint discussion is planned on
Cunningham ruminating on an inspiringclassroom observation through which he was
the issue of accountability in teaching inable to experience in a new light the roles ofJapanese universities. If you are interested
expectations
and guessing in listening
in contributing to this discussion contact Alancomprehension.
Mackenzie or Keith Ford before October 30th.
2

Summer2001:1111111
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MessageFrom
theCoordinator
Alan Mackenzie, Keisen University

Introduction
can read about how you can contribute to CUE 's
component of this event later in this issue of On
CUE. As in the last two years, we are planning a
conference proceedings to be published · late in
2002.

'Feverish' is the only adjective to describe
our activities this year. We are continuing to offer the best value for money of any organ of JALT
through the hard work of large numbers of SIG
members coming together in a cooperative environment to create environments through which
we can all learn: about college and university
teaching, about TESOL, and about each otheras people. Before I tell you about this year andnext, let me remind of the previous year's accomplishments.

CUE
Publications
The conference fees from these events haveenabled us to publish three books, all of which
are free to CUE members. The conference proceedings, Content in Language Education: Looking at the Future, was distributed at JALT 2000
and posted to anyone who didn't pick it up in
January. Projects From the University Classroom
will be distributed at JALT 2001, and the 2001
conference proceedings, Developing Autonomy,
will be posted to you with the final issue of On
CUE for this year. In the interests of increasing
inter-SIG cooperation, we also hope to distribute Developing Autonomy free to all membersof Teacher Education and Learner Development
SIGs, both of whom made invaluable contributions to the conference. If you do not receive
your copies of these publications, please contact eamon@gol.com and we will post them out
to you.

OnCUE
Last year, we published On CUE ("the bestvalue for money JALT publication I have seen"
according to another JALT publication editor)
three times with articles covering the gamut ofexperiences in CUE, from linguistics, throughonline resources, to classroom techniques for
ESL and personal classroom experiences.

.CUE
Conferences
The years 2000 and 2001 saw two very successful mini-conferences that seemed to capture
the spirit and imagination of both presenters andparticipants. Both Content in Language Education: Looking at the Future and Developing Autonomy were themes that inspired a range ofcontributions. Developing Autonomy is reviewed
in this issue for those that missed it. There isalso a preview of the CUE Conference 2002.

JALT/PAC3
November
22-24,2001
As in the past two years, CUE will have astrong presence at JALT/PAC3. As well as our
Featured speaker, Gillian Wigglesworth, manyof our members have presentations which canbe found on the conference webpage at <http://
members.home.ne.jp/swanson/2001 schedule/
title_subject.html#3>. We will also have a social event and a business meeting. This year, theCUE forum was held at the CALL conference inMay, so we decided not to schedule one for thenational conference this year.

JILTPan-SIG
conlerenceThis is a move forward for SIGs. Three SIGs
(Billingualism, Testing and Evaluation & CUE)
are holding their conferences in the same place(Kyoto Institute of Technology) at the same time
(Saturday May 11th and Sunday 12th 2002). Thisis an attempt to energise the memberships of the
SIGs involved by giving equal billing to all three
SIGs, cutting travel expenses for attendees byholding three events in one place at one time,and giving JALT members value for money withthree mini-conferences for the price of one. You

TheCUE
Featured
Speaker
Gillian Wigglesworth is a senior lecturer inthe Department of Linguistics at Macquarie
University, New South Wales, Australia. She received her PhD in 1993 from La Trobe Univer3

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how instructor/student, and student/student feedback and interaction is negotiated, the access andavailability of library resources and other materials, and the extent to which units are able tomirror the provision of similar training in theon-campus situation.
In this paper, the presenter outlines the practical and pedagogical questions which prospective students should be asking about courses
which offer postgraduate training. Bothcoursework and research courses offered throughdistance education are discussed, and the advantages and disadvantages of the different types ofprograms currently available are evaluated.

sity with a thesis entitled "Investigating children's cognitive and linguistic development
through narrative".
From 1992 to 1994 she worked at the University of Melbourne in the Department of Applied Linguistics and the Language Testing Research Centre, where she focussed particularlyon the development of oral language assessments.
Since 1995 she has been in the Departmentof Linguistics at Macquarie where she is coordinator of the applied linguistics postgraduate
programs. She is also a member of the Adult
Migrant English Program Research Centre research staff. She is currently also working at
the University of Melbourne, and will return
there full time from the beginning of 2002.
Her research interests include first and second language acquisition, language testing andevaluation and bilingualism, using both quantitative and qualitative approaches to data collection and analysis.
Four of her publications can be accessed
through <http:/ /www.ling .mq .edu.au/dbase/person.phtml?oid=19110>. The following is asummary of her presentation at JALT/ PAC3:

CUEAGM
This is your main chance to direct CUE activities. You, the members are the people who(should) decide what CUE does over the next
year or two. Unfortunately, what usually happens is that the executive decides what we aregoing to do. This is not the way we want CUE towork. It kind of annoys us that we are left to
make all the decisions. PLEASE come along andhelp us do the difficult stuff. If you are so inclined, you could also volunteer for a job. Currently, there are a number on offer: publicity officer, website editor, and anyone who wants totake on editorial or proof reading opportunities
in CUE publications.

Choiceindistanceed1cali11:Praxisti
pedlDIIV
In recent years, there has been a proliferation of distance education courses related topostgraduate TESOL training, and there is no
reason to think that this trend will diminish.
With this choice comes the problem of having
to decide between many different courses, what
they offer, their requirements and the various
modes of delivery they adopt. In this paper, therange of different models of distance education
are examined, and the advantages and disadvantages of these are discussed in relation to
the questions prospective students should beasking about what each particular course has
to offer. These questions can range from thepurely practical to the more pedagogical. In
practical terms, the cost of the course is clearlyan example of an issue which is of paramountimportance to many prospective students. However, there are also important pedagogical concerns which relate to the choice of distanceeducation course. These include, for example,

TheCUE
Jump
Saturday night is CUE-Jump night (prices andnumbers later). This is a great opportunity tosocialize with other CUE members (including
the grandly named 'Executive Committee' who
are nice guys really). We have a limited numberof spaces, so reserve now by e-mailing Eamon
McCafferty (eamon@gol.com). First come, firstserved. Sony, but we cannot go beyond the physical restrictions of the isakaya.

Conclusion
We hope that you find your 1,500 yen andyour conference fees being well spent in CUE.
At the moment, the products you see are the result of a very small group of people who work
very hard to keep CUE going because we think
it is worth the time and effort, is a great professional development activity, and is immensely
satisfying. If you think you can do anything tohelp us out, please get in touch.
4Sammer2001:11111119,
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TheCUE
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2001Reviewed w
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Juanita Heigham, Sugiyama Jogakuen University &Andrew Obermeier, KyotoUniversity of Educ_ation

Introduction
Arriving for CUE's second conference, Developing Autonomy, participants were pleasantly
surprised to find themselves at a resort on the
tip of a peninsula, with Mt. Fuji towering acrossthe bay. Tokai University's Miho Kenshukaikan
was ours for the weekend, and contributed to aretreat-like atmosphere that brought great groupcohesion. Thanks to Eamon McCafferty, Alan
Mackenzie and Masahiko Goshi for their efforts
in organizing the conference, and to the CUE
volunteer helpers and the Tokai student volunteers. The excellent organization of all those involved with the planning was greatly appreciated even if unnoticed at the time - unnoticed
because things went so smoothly. And among
the forty presentations given, there was something to suit everyone's interest since there were.four focus groups: the learner; the teacher; issues and research; and materials and methods.
Discussions among the attendees spilled over
into the lobby, on the beach, over dinner, andeven into the bath.
"Autonomy" proved to be a very difficult
topic to define. Leamer Development, Teacher
Education~ and Materials Writers SIG members
approached the discussion from different angles
as did the three plenary speakers, Andrew Finch,
Alan Mackenzie and Steve Snyder. Each plenary, in one way or another, called on participants to look at their current practice and be prepared to embrace change.

oping independent thinkers and lifelong learners. Additionally, we do not know what knowledge will be useful to our students in the future,so we should not decide what they study; students themselves should make those choices .
Finch asserted that there's no longer use for theindustrial model of education, which producescompetitive devourers of the earth's limited resources. We need to develop a more holistic
model, one that encourages respect, cooperationand lifelong learning.
Alan Mackenzie ("Degrees of freedom:
teacher autonomy, textual constraint, and institutional growth") spoke of the dramatic changes
within universities that now compete to attract
applicants from the shrinking pool of Japaneseyouth. The situation demands that teachers beproactive in their roles. He pointed out that if
we want to encourage learners to be autonomous
we need to look at ourselves and our own learning as teachers. Since learning is predicated onchange, as promoters of learning teachers tooshould be engaging in change, not just within
our classrooms, but within our institutions.
While teachers need to work within the constraints of the context in which we find ourselves,by asking the right questions of the right people,
teachers can be a powerful catalyst for change
and also open opportunities for themselves.
Steve Snyder ("An ethical imperative forlearner choice") asserted that if we believe that
honoring learner autonomy is the best way toteach, teaching in ways that do not are a form ofAndrew Finch ("Autonomy: where are we? malpractice. He described several cases ofleamwhere are we going?") spoke of autonomy as a ers with specific physiological or neurologicalphilosophical ideal, a way of thinking about disabilities, and showed how they had been sucteaching that is drastically different from the cessful against the odds, as a result of their teachcurrently prevalent industrial-based model. He ers making an effort to find ways to overcome
explained that if we want to have a lasting im- their difficulties. These students may have appact on our students, we should focus on <level- peared exceptional, but Snyder claimed that

Featured
Speakers5

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literature
Reviewevery classroom is likely to have a wide rangeof abilities and learning styles. If we can take
into account these differences between students,
in the same way that the teachers he referred tothought carefully about how to set up theirclasses so as to allow equal access for learners
with particular problems, then we will be fostering autonomy in a most practical sense. It is
our ethical imperative to do this.

Andy Barfield's presentation, "Leamer autonomy and the literature review," itself allowed
autonomy to participants. Barfield gave a brief
explanation of multi-colored posters on learnerautonomy, academic literacy, and goal setting hehad placed around the room. In pairs, participants discussed the poster areas they intended
to explore, and formed questions they wanted
answered. Having formulated questions, people
then browsed about in pursuit of answers, concentration somewhat augmented by the classical violin CD played in the background. Then
participants returned to their seats for pair andfmally, a whole-group discussion. This alternative presentation style offered participants achance to actively pursue their specific interests
in a relaxed environment.

TrialsandTribulations
In a presentation titled "Trials and Tribulations: keeping autonomy on-track in the classroom" Greg O'Dowd shared case studies oflearners in "autonomous programs" that had not
succeeded and discussed the reasons for theirfailure. He stressed that a successful autonomous
program depends on a clearly established understanding between students, teachers and administrators about the goals of the program and how
to go about achieving them. Teachers shouldhave well defined roles; we must actively facilitate, advise and counsel students. Additionally,
the program must be transparent so that theteacher can continually monitor the students asthey work, so the students feel supported by thesystem, not abandoned by it.

Individual
learning
Strategies
Heidi Evans and Cynthia Quinn's very wellorganized presentation "Using small group work
to awaken individual learning strategies" provided procedures to guide students to discover,
implement and evaluate learning strategies.
They gave a step-by-step explanation of a model
designed to focus learners on building their own
learning strategies. Their presentation detailed
how imperative it is to help students develop
skills for autonomous learning; they need guidance to understand that they can and should takeresponsibility for their learning. Additionally,
through the model description the role of teachers was strongly highlighted: we are guides, advisors, supporters and counselors - a very integral, active part of their learning.

Discourse
AnalVSls
Michael Carroll ("Autonomous learning
through discourse analysis: What can learners
learn by looking at their own use of language")offered us rationale and means for bringing basic discourse analysis into the language classroom. He explained that through the use of theirown recorded discourse students can come tounderstand that English is not just a school subject or logical problem but an activity related tocommunication. He explained that with Japanese students' educational background, having
them "activate" the language knowledge they
have already acquired through a type of analysis
they are familiar with can lead them to see English as a useful social behavior in which they
can invest themselves. And that can lead themto taking control of their own learning.

However...
On a critical note, during the weekend, someone observed that it was ironic that although theconference theme was on autonomy there waslittle real learner autonomy in evidence in mostof the curricula presented. A number of the presentations clearly demonstrated learner-centeredactivities, but they were not presented as part ofwell-developed autonomous programs. Quite
possibly many teachers have taken only small
steps towards autonomy in their classrooms, but
6summer2001:VIIDDII
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itself a movement in the right direction, even if
our base curriculum is not yet as leaner-centeredas we would like it to be.

we must remember that to promote autonomy
in our students, we as teachers must first be readyfor them to accept it; we must be ready to let goof the wheel (but not get out of the car). Probably our own experiences as learners in the classroom didn't promote autonomy, and as a result,the familiarity we feel in more teacher-centeredenvironments conflicts with what we now believe to be true - that autonomy is critical forthe development of successful life-long learners. Furthermore, we must, as Steve Snyder said,
work toward allowing autonomy to evolve in ourclassrooms by acting on what we know to betrue, one step at a time. Thus letting go of thatwheel from time to time, attempting to create
activities that encourage autonomy, is in and ofConclusion
At the final reflection session, someone described autonomy as simply, "a great conference
topic." She was right. The conference gave us
an opportunity to seriously explore autonomy,
an element of teaching that many of us are struggling to implement into our classrooms. It allowed us to get a better grasp of it and gave us
some new ideas of how to foster it in our students. All in all, this year's CUE conference
achieved just what it set out to do.

...andlooking
Forward
to
theCUE
Conference
2002:"Curriculum
Innovation"-

PanoftheJILTPan-SIG
Conference
atKvotolnstilueofTechnology
Mav11th-12th
2002

e After years of stagnation, tertiary education-a== in Japan has finally started changing. However,there is very little eoordination of change procwithin individual institutions and very litia tleessesinformationexchange between them.

What curriculum innovations has your institution carried out in the last few years?
How is your institution meeting the demandsof the changing economic climate?
How are changes in your institution evaluated?
What were the results of the evaluation?
What course of action was decided on?
What plans are there for changes in yourinstitution?
What ideas do you have that may be interesting to others?
Fifty minute papers, demonstrations, workshops and roundtable discussions from both theoretical and practical perspectives are sought aswell as proposals for a limited number of 110
minute sessions.
We hope that by providing a platform forteachers from colleges and universities at different stages of curriculum development, we will
discover the range of forms of curricular innovation and the outcomes that result.

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This conference aims to explore issues in-veloping solutions to those problems, implementing those changes and evaluating their outcomes.
The scope of the conference includes organisational changes, content changes, philosophical and practical changes and the impact ofchanges on individual students and teachers.
It is also the aim of the conference to offer
practical, hands-on workshops to help participants conceive, plan, and implement their own
curricular innovations.
Presenters should aim to adress the following questions:1Sammer
2001:v,111• 1 9,111112!- ConterenceCDi Calendar
Edited by Alan Mackenzie

Sources:TESOL Worldwide Calendar
http://www.tesol.org/isaffil/calendar/calendarfull.html
The University Of Sydney Language
Center Conference Database
http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/ Arts/departs/
langcent/conframe.html

0ct1ller2001
4-7(North and Central America)
University of Hawaii at ManoAa.
Pacific Second Language Research
Forum (PacSLRF) 2001 Conference,
Honolulu, Hawaii. Contact Jim
Yoshioka, PacSLRF Conference CoChair c/o National Foreign Language
Reso~rce Center, University of Hawaii,
1859 East-West Road # 106, Honolulu,
Hawaii 96822. Tel. 808-956-9424 . Fax
808-956-5983. E-mailpacslrf@hawaii.edu. Web site http://
www.LLL.hawaii.edu/pacslrf.
5-7 (Europe and Eurasia) IATEFL
Hungary. Conference, Nyiregha'za,
Hungary. Contact Tama's Kiss,
Nyiregyha'i:a 4405, Molna'r U. 55,
Hungary. Tel. +36-42-491-971. ~-mailschoolex@mail.matav.hu. Web site
http://iatefl-h.com.
11-14 (North and Central America) Mexico
TESOL (MEXTESOL). Conference, "A
New Millennium: Getting Where We
Want To Be In ELT," Puebla, Mexico.
Contact Carlos Reyes Hernandez,
Escuela De Lenguas Buap, Apartado
Postal #1467, Col. Centro, C.P. 72000,
Puebla, Puebla, Mexico. Tel. +22-2955-00 x 5813. E-mailcareyes56@hotmail.com. Web site
http://www.mextesol.uvmnet.edu.
11-12 (North and Central America) Youth
Change. Workshop, "Breakthroughstrategies to teach and counsel troubled
youth " Portland, Oregon . Contact Ruth
Wells: Youth Change, 275 North Third
Street, Woodburn, Oregon 97071 . Tel.
800-545-5736 . Fax 503-982-7910. Email dwells@youthchg.com . Web site
http://www.youthchg.com .
12-21 (Australia and Asia) SPELT.
Conference, "ELT Methodology andResearch," Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad,
Abbottabad, Hyderabad, Multan,
Pethawar, and Quelta, Pakistan .
Contact Conference Coordinator,
SPELT, 206 New Kausar Square, FrereTown, Clifton, Karachi 75530,
Pakistan . Tel. +92-21-5676307 . Fax+92-21-5676307. E-mailspelt@cyber.net.pk.
12-13 (North and Central America)
Intermountain TESOL. Conference ,Ephraim, Utah. Contact Milton Witt,
2155 Hammond Drive, Taylorsville ,Utah 84118.Tel. 801-253-1600 ext .
439 . Fax 802-253-1687. E-mailmwitt@nierit.com.

OnCUE

12-15 (North and Central America)
ASOCOPI (Asociacion Colombiana deProfesores de Ingles). Conference,"Beyond Language Teaching : Growing
Together," Medellin, Colombia. Contact
Alba Lucia Calad, Cra 61 #9-90, Local
5, Cali, Colombia. Tel. +572-551-5634.
Fax +572-551-5634. E-mailacalad@hotrnail.com . Web site http://
www.asocopi.edu .co.
14-16 (North and Central America) The
California Virtual Campus. Conference,"CVC: 2001 : Online Leaming andHigher Education," Huntington Beach,
California. Web site http://pdc.cvc.edu/
conferences .
18-20 (North and Central America)
Co TESOL (Colorado TESOL). Silver
AMiversary Conference, Longmont,
Colorado. Contact Larry R. Fisher, 63
UCB, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0063.
Tel. 303-938-2584. Fax 303-492-5515.
E-mail fisherl@colorado.edu. Web site
http://www.colorado.edu/iec/cotesol/.
18-20 (North and Central ~erica).
University of the Amencas, Puebla. Fifth
Congress on the Americas, "TES~FL
Research and Practice," Puebla, Mexico.
Contact Liliana Anglada, Area Chair,
Achaval Rodriguez 5000, 1146 Cordoba,
Argentina. E-mail.
langlada@amet.com.ar. Web site http ://www.udlap .mx/congress/ .
18-21 (Europe and Eurasia) Sai~t-Peter.:b~rg
English Language Teachers Assoc1at1on(SPELTA). 8th ESP Anti-Conference, St.
Petersburg, Russia. Contact Tatiana
Ivanova, SPELTA President. E-mailtivanova@ti2705.spb.edu . Web site
http://spelta.spb.ru/anti-conference/start.html.
19-20 (North and Central America)
MIDTESOL. Conference, "Understanding and Using the TESOL Standards,"
Lee's Summit, Missouri. Contact Ron
Long. E-mail rwlong@iland .net. Web
site http://www.midtesol.org.
19-21 (North and Central America) New
York State TESOL (NYS TESOL).
Conference, "Language Testing Matters:
Make it Count!," Rye Brook, New York.
Contact Jee Wha Kim, c/o Teachers
College, Columbia University, 525 WestI 20th Street, Box 66, New York, NewYork 10027. Tel. 212-678-3936. Fax
212-678-3428. E-mailjeewha@yahoo.com. Web site http://
www.nystesol.org .
19-20 (North and Central America)
Michigan TESOL (MITESOL ). Fall
Conference, "ESL: What a difference we
make!," AM Arbor, Michigan. Contact
Maggie Phillips, MITESOL Conference
Coordinator , 2160 Overlook Court, Ann
Arbor, Michigan 48103 . Tel. 734-6653066 . Web site http://wwwmitesol.org.
25-27 (Europe and Eurasia) Expolingua
Portugal. 12th Portugese Fair for
Languages and Culture, Lisbon,
Portugal. Contact SILC, Lda, Rua da
Esperanca, 4-2, 1200-657, Lisboa,
Portugal. Tel. +351-21-396-60-89. Fax+351-21-396-62-23. E-mailinfo@expolingua.pt. Web site http://
www.expolingua .pt.
26-28 (Africa and the Middle East)
Egyptesol. AMual convention and book
exhibition, "Best Practice in TEFL/'
Cairo , Egypt. Contact Deena Borate . Email dboarie@aucegypt.edu E-mail
cdc@gega.net. Web site http://
www.Egyptesol.org.

I26-27 (North and Central America) Ohio
TESOL and Lau Resource Center. Fall
200 I Conference, "Passport to Success,"
Columbus, Ohio. Contact Carolyn Bolin,
OTESOL Fall Conference Chair, 255
South Broadleigh Road, Bexley, Ohio
43209. Tel. 614-239-0188 . E-mailPENGUINTOO@msn .com. Web site
http://willow.cats.ohiou.edu/--otesol/
proposal.htm.
.
26-28 (Europe and Eurasia) New Bulgana
University. Conference , "Speakers of
Smaller Languages in the Big World,"
Sofia, Bulgaria. Contact Dr. Maria
Georgieva, Associate Professor in
English, Head of Department ofMod~mand Applied Linguistics, New Bulganan
University, 65, Shipchenski prohod,
entrance), Sofia, Bulgaria. Tel/Fax+359-2-9712758. E-mailmageorg@nlcv.net. Web site http://
www.nbu.bg.
26(North and Central America) Oregon
TESOL (ORTESOL). Conference,"2001: An ESL Odyssey," Albany,
Oregon . Contact Kathy Akiyama,
Conference Chair . Tel. 503-845-3951. Email kakiyama@mtangel.edu .

Nnemller2001
1-2(North and Central America) Youth
Change. Workshop, "Breakthro ughstrategies to teach and counsel troubled
youth," Seattle, Washington. Contact
Ruth Wells, Youth Change, 275 North
Third Street, Woodburn, Oregon 97071.
Tel. 800-545-5736. Fax 503-982-7910 .
E-mail dwells@youthchg .com. Web site
http://www.youthchg .com.
2-3 (Europe and Eurasia) English Teachers
Association of Switzerland (ETAS). 18th
Annual General Meeting, Buelach ZH,
Switzerland. Contact ETAS Administration, Rue de Hopital 32, CH-1400
Yverdon, Tel.+41(0)24420-3254 . Fax+41 (0)24 420-3257 E-mail admin@etas.ch .
3(North and Central America)
Maryland TESOL. Conference, Arnold,
Maryland. Contact Elii:abeth Holden,
841 W. 35th Street, Baltimore, Maryland
21211. Tel. 301-386-7559 . E-mailholdenek@pg .cc.md.us.
3-4 (North and Central America)
TexTESOLill. Conference, "2001 : An
ESL Odyssey," Austin, Texas. Proposal
Deadline August 15, 2001. Contact
David Schwarzer, University of Texas,
Curriculum and Instruction, S28 528E ,Austin, Texas 78712 . Tel. 512-471-4078.
E-mail sdavid@mail.utexas.edu. Web
site http://www.textesol.org/reg _ion~.
9-11 (Australia and Asia) AILA Sc1ent1fic
Commission on Discourse
Analysis,"Discourses on Discourse : The
Language of Education and Work,"
Sydney, Australia . Proposal Deadline .
August 17, 2001. Contact Renata Atkin,
Centre for Language and Literacy,
University of Technology, Sydney 2007,
Australia. Tel. +61-2-95143853 . Fax+61-2-95143939. E-mailRenata.Atkin@uts .edu .au. Web sitehttp ://www.education .uts.edu/au/centres/
ell/discourses .html.
10-11 (Europe and Eurasia) NetLeam
Solutions. On-line conference, "ELT:
Evolution of Leaming and Teaching ."Proposal Deadline August 17, 2001_.
Contact Eric Baber, NetLeam Soluttons.
E-mail eric@nll .co.uk. Web site http ://www.eltoc .com .

su1111er
2001:v,11• 1 9,1ssu12l • CUE
10(Europe and Eurasia) TESOLScotland. Conference, "TESOL and theClassroom," Glasgow, Scotland. Contact
Robin R. Mackenzie , PO Box 23024,
Edinburg EH3 6WB, Scotland . Tel/Fax+44-131-557-8642. E-mailrobin.mackenzie@ision.co.uk.
10(North and Central America) Indiana
TESOL . Conference, "Facilitating
Academic Language Learning,"
lndianopolis, Indiana . Proposal Deadline
September 28, 2001. Contact Ahmar
Mahboob, Center for English Language
Testing, 313 Memorial Hall,
Bloomington, Indiana 47405. Tel. 812855-6457. E-mail
vicepresident@intesol.org .
15-17 (Europe and Eurasia) Anadolu
University. The 5th International
INGED-Anadolu ELT Conference ,"Teaching and Learning English:
Meeting Challenges, " Ehir, Turkey.
Proposal Deadline August 31, 200 I .
Contact Bahar Canturk. E-mailbcanturk@anadolu.edu.tr.
15-18(North and Central America) National
Council ofTeachers ofEnglish (NCTE).
Annual Convention, "Recreating theClassroom," Baltimore, Maryland.
Contact NCTE, 1111 W. Kenyon Road,
Urbana, Illinois 61801-1096 . Tel. 217328-3870 . Fax 217-278-376 l. E-mailpublic_ info@ncte.org. Web site http ://www.ncte.org .
15-16 (North and Central America) Youth
Change . Workshop, "Breakthroughstrategies to teach and counsel troubled
youth," Salt Lake City, Utah. Contact
Ruth Wells, Youth Change, 275 North
Third Street, Woodburn, Oregon 97071.
Tel. 800-545-5736. Fax 503-982-7910 .
E-mail dwells@youthchg .com . Web site
http://www.youthchg.com.
16-18(Australia and Asia) AMEP ResearchCentre, Macquarie University. AMEP
Conference 2001, "Changing Patterns:
Language and Settlement in the AMEP",
Adelaide, Australia. Contact Linda
Ross, AMEP Research Centre ,NCELTR, Macquarie University , Sydney
NSW, Australia 2109 . Tel. +61-2-98507592. Fax +61-2-9850-7849 . E-maillross@nceltr.mq .edu.au.
16-lB(Australia and Asia) English Teachers'
Association-Republic of China (ETAROC). Conference, "ELT in Taiwan:
Retrospect and Prospect," Taipei,
Taiwan. Contact Leung Yiu-Nam,
Department ofForeign Languages andLiterature , National Tsing Hua
University , 101 Sec. 2, Kuang Fu Road,
Hsinchu, Taiwan 30043. Tel. +866-35742707. Fax +866-3-5718977. E-mailynleung@mx.nthu.edu.tw. Web sitehttp ://helios .fl.nthu.ed u.tw/-ET A/.
16-17(Europeand Eurasia) TESOL France.
Conference, "Bridging the Gap=Theory
and Practice in Second Language
Acquisition," Paris , France. Contact
Marie-Pierre Beaulieu , 7 rue des· Buchettes , 95100 Paris , France. Tel.
+ 331-39826800. E-mailmarianni@wanadoo .fr. Web site http ://tesol-france.org.
16-18(Europe and Eurasia) ICEF GmbH.
Expolingua Berlin 200 I, "International
Fair for Languages and Cultures,"
Berlin, Germany. Contact ICEF GmbH,
Niebuhr Str. 69A , I 0692 Berlin,
Germany. Tel. +49-30-327-61-40. Fax+49-30-324-98-33. E-mail

expolingua@icef.com. Web site http ://www.expolingua.com.
16-17 (North and Central America) Puerto
Rico TESOL. 28th Annual Convention.
"A Rainbow oflntelligences =Uniqueness ," San Juan,
Puerto Rico . Contact Marta Y. Pabellon,
PRTESOL , Calle Canarias 1156, San
Juan, Puerto Rico 009205 . Tel. 787-774982 l. Fax 787-774-9821. E-mailpabellonprtesol@yahoo .com. Web site
http://coqui.lce.org/human/prtesol .htm.
16-28 (North and Central America)
American Council on the Teaching of
Foreign Languages (ACTFL). Annual
conference, Washington, DC . Contact
ACTFL, 6 Executive Plaza, Yonkers,
New York 10701-6801. Tel. 914-9638830 . Fax 914-963-1275. E-mailactflhq@aol.com . Web site http ://www.actfl .org/.
22-25 (Australia and Asia) Japan Association
for Language Teaching . Pan Asian
Conference 3 atJALT 2001, "A
Language Odyssey," Kitakyushu , Japan .
Contact David McMurray , Japan
Association for Language Teaching,
Urban Edge Building, 5F, 1-37-9 Taito,
Taito-ku, Tokyo 110-0016. Tel. +81-33837-1630. Fax +81-3-3837-1631 Emailjalt@gol.com. Web site http://
wwwJalt.org.
22-24 (North and Central America) TESL
Ontario . Conference, "For the Love of
Language," Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Contact TESL Ontario, Suite #405 , 27
Carlton Street, Toronto, Ontario M5B
IL2, Canada . Tel. 416-593-4243 or l800-327-4827 . Fax 416-593-0164. Email office@teslontario.org. Web site
http://www .teslontario.org .
24(Europe and Eurasia) IATEFL Global
Issues SIG. Workshop, "Conversation
Groups/Classes/Circles : Just bla! bla! orcontent-oriented communication?
Methodological concepts, useful ideas,
successful teaching units," Bielefeld,
Germany. Proposal Deadline October l ,200 l. Contact Department of Modern
Languages, Volkshochschule Bielefeld,
Ravensberger Park I, D-33607 ,Bielefeld, Germany . Tel. +49-521/512331. Fax +49-521/51-3431. E-mailwolfgang.ridder@bielefeld .de.
29-30 (North and Central America) Youth
Change . Workshop, "Breakthroughstrategies to teach and counsel troubled
youth," Atlanta, Georgia. Contact Ruth
Wells, Youth Change, 275 North Third
Street, Woodburn, Oregon 97071. Tel.
800-545-5736. Fax 503-982-7910 . Email dwells@youthchg .com. Web site
http://www.youthchg.com.
29-December 2. (North and Central
America) National Multicultural
Institute. Fall Conference , "Building
Personal and Professional Competence
in a Multicultural Society," Washington,
DC. Contact David Chang . Tel. 202483-0700 x223. Fax 202-483-5233. Email npici@nmci .org. Web site http://
www.nmci.org.
30-December 1. (Europe and Eurasia)
TESOL-ITALY. Conference, "Towards
Understanding Pathways AcrossCountries and Cultures," Rome, Italy.
Contact Paolo Coppari, Via Garibaldi,
26, 0 IO13 Cura (Viterbo ), Italy. Tel.
+39-761-482664. Fax +39-6-467427 8.
E-mail c.paolo@thunder.it.

9

Decem•er
2001(North and Central America) Youth
Change. Workshop , "Breakthr oughstrategies to teach and counsel troubled
youth," Sacramento , California. Contact
Ruth Wells, Youth Change, 275 North
Third Street, Woodburn, Oregon 97071.
Tel. 800-545-5736 . Fax 503-982-7910.
E-mail dwells@youthchg.com. Web site
http://www.youthchg .com.
7-8 (North and Central America)
Kentucky Department of Education and
Kentucky Department for Adult
Education and Literacy. ESL Conference
2001, Louisville, Kentucky. Contact
Annie Rooney French. Tel. 502-5647056. E-mail afrench@kde.state .ky.us.
t3-15(Australia and Asia) International
Language in Education. Conference
200 I, "reflecting on Language in
Education," Hong Kong, SAR. Contact
the Secretariat, Il..EC 200 l, c/o Centre
for Language in Education, The Hong
Kong Institute of Education, 10 Lo Ping
Road, Tai Po, N.T., Hong Kong, SAR.
Tel. +852-2948-8043/8044. Fax +8522948-8042 . E-mail ilec@cle.ied.edu.hk .
Web site http://www.ied .edu.hk/
ilec2001.
6-7

JIIurv2002
3-6(North and Central America)
Linguistic Society of America.
Conference, San Francisco, California.
Contact Margaret Reynolds, LSA, 1325
18th Street, NW, Suite 211, Washington,
DC 20036. Tel. 202-835-1714. Fax 202835-1717. E-mail lsa@lsadc .org. Web
site http://www.lsadc.org.
20-22 (Australia and Asia) AustralianCouncil of TESOL Associations(ACTA). 2002 National Conference,"Learners from Diverse Cultures ,"Stamford Grand, Glenelg, Australia .
Contact Conference Organizer . Tel. +6 l8-8296-9610. Fax +61-8-8296-8188. Email adevents@tpg.com.au. Web sitehttp ://www .tesol.org.au.
23-25 (North and Central America)
Asociacion Costarricense de Profesoresde Ingles (ACPI-TESOL ). Conference,"Globalization and ELT: The Challenge
for Costa Rica," San Jose , Costa Rica.
Contact Elieth Matamores . Tel. +506393-9029. Fax +506-222-5023. E-mailelieth-m@hotmail.com.
28-29 (Europe and Eurasia) TESOL
Ukraine. VIl TESOL Ukraine Conference, Chernihiv, Ukraine . Contact
Svitlana Bobyr, Prospekt zhovtnevoj ,Revolutsiji 159, Apt. 21, Chernihiv,
14057, Ukraine . Tel. +380-462-278812.
Fax +380-462-126364. E-mailchspu@mail.cn.ua .

MIrch2002
14-17 (North and Central America)
California TESOL (CATESOL).
Conference, "Learning with Purpose ,"San Francisco, California. Proposal
Deadline November I, 200 l. Contact
Kathy Sherak, 1472 Alemany Boulevard, San Francisco, California 94112 .
Tel. 415-338-7382. Fax 415-338-1717 .
E-mail ksherak@sfsu.edu. Web site
http://www.catesol.org.
15-17 (Europe and Eurasia) TESOL-SPAIN.
25th National Convention, "Access
Europe: Language as a Common
Currency," Madrid, Spain . Proposal
Deadline October 30, 200 l. Contact

;m

z

"'
ca

'

Sl •• er2001:1111• 1 9, 111112

;
z•

-'
CII

Holly Vass, Convention Coordinator,
CL . San Felipe, 11-2 Ctro. Madrid,
Spain . E-mail holly.vass@wanadoo .es .
Web site http://www.eirelink .com/tesolsp/.
19-23 (North and Central America) National
Association for Bilingual Education(NABE). 31st Annual BilinguaVMultilingual Education Conference,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Contact
NABE, 1030 15th Street, NW, Ste. 470,
Washington, DC 20005-1503 . Tel. 202898-1829 . Fax 202-789-2866. E-mailnabe@nabe .org . Web site http://
www .nabe.org.
20-22 (Africa and the Middle East ) TESOL
Arabia. 8th Annual International
Conference, "Critical Reflection andPractice," Abu Dhabi, United ArabEmirates. Proposal Deadline November
14, 2002. Contact Zafar Syed. E-mailz.syed@mli.ac.ae. Web site http://
tesolarabia.org.
28-30 (Europe and Eurasia) The UniversityofTechnology ofCompiegne . UNTELE
2002 Conference, "Use ofNew
Technologies in Foreign Language
Teaching," Compiegne, France. Contact
Abdi Kazeroni, The University ofTechnology ofCompiegne, BP 60319,
60203 Compiegne Cedex, France . Tel.
+33-3-44-23-52-08. Fax+ 33-3-44-23 52-12. E-mail langues@utc.fr. Web site
http://www.utc.fr/-untele.

Alr112002
6-11 (North and Central America) National
Migrant Education. Conference, St.
Louis, Missouri . Contact National
Migrant Education Conference, PO Box
2132, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70816.
6-9 (North and Central America)
American Association of Applied
Linguistics (AAAL) . Annual conference,
Salt Lake City, Utah. Contact AAAL,PO Box 21686, Eagan, Minnesota
55121-0686 . Tel.612-953-0805.Fax
612-431-8404. E-mailaaaloffice@aaal.org. Web site http://
www.aaal.org.
9-13 (North and Central America) TeachersofEnglish to Speakers of Other
Languages , Inc. (TESOL) . Annual
conference (including pre- andpostconvention institutes, and publisher
and software exhibition), Salt Lake City,
Utah. Contact TESOL, 700 South
Washington St., Ste. 200, Alexandria,
Virginia 22314. Tel. 703-836-0774 . Fax
703-836- 7864. E-mailconventions@tesol.org. Web site http://
www.tesol.org .

Mav2002
11-12 (Asia) JALT (Japan TESOL) Pan SIG
Conference, Kyoto Institute of Technology. Three SIG mini-conferences in one:
College and University Educators on
Curriculum Innovation; Bilingualism
Development Forum and Testing and
Evaluation in the 21 d Century . Contact
Peter Wanner. E-mailpwanner@ipc.kit.ac.jp. Web site http :/fwwwJalt.org/pansig.html
17-19(South America) Venezuela TESOL(VenTESOL). Conference, Margarita,
Venezuela. Contact Natalia McCarthy or
Lucius Daniel. E-mailnatiamccarthy@cantv.net E-mailldaniel@unimet.edu .ve.

OnCUE

1IIe2002

6-9

28-July I. (Australia and Asia) Community
Languages and ESOL (CLESOL) and
TESOL ANZ . Conference, Wellington,
New Zealand. Contact Elizabeth
Morrison , Languages , Massey University of Wellington, Private Box 756,
Wellington, New Zealand. Tel. +64-4801-2794 x 6907 . E-maile.n.morrison@massey .ac.nz. Web site
http://www .tesolanz.org.nz/CLESOL.

December2002

1•1¥2002
1-26 (North and Central America) Penn
State Center for Language Acquisition.
Summe r Institute for Applied Linguistics, State College, Pennsylvania .
Contact James P. Lantolf, Director,
Center for Language Acquisition, The
Pennsylvania State University, 304
Sparks Building, University Park,
Pennsylvania 16802. E-mailconferenceinfo l@outreach.psu.edu. Web
site http://www.outreach.psu.edu/
C%26 Il/ AppliedLinguistics/ .

1111512002
7-11 (Europe) Organization in Discourse II:
The Historical Perspective : Aninternational conference on historical
discourse linguistics , Turku, Finland.
Contact: Web: http://www .utu.fi/hum/
engfiVoid2002.html
4-6 (Europe) Sociolingu istics Symposium
14 Gent, Belgium Web site http ://bank .rug.ac .be/ss 14/
6-9 (North America)American Association
for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) Annual
Conference
Salt Lake City Hilton, Salk Lake City,UT E-mail: aa • loffice@aa • I.org
18 -21 (North America) Northeast Conference
on the Teaching of Foreign Languages(NECTFL) New York Hilton & Towers
NYC . Web site: http://
www.dickinson.edu/nectfl/future .html

September
2002?

(Europe) Conference of University
Teachers of German in Great Britain and
Ireland Meeting Cork, Ireland. Web site:
http://www.swan.ac.uk/gennan/cutg/
futmeet.htm

0ctI11er
2002
JI-November 3. (Europe and Eurasia)
TESOL Euromed. First European
Regional Affiliate Convention,"Convergence and Diversity: English in
the 21st Century," Edinburgh, Scotland.
Proposal Deadline December 31, 200 I.
Contact Robin Mackenzie , Honorary
Secretary, TESOL Scotland , PO Box
23024, Edinburgh EH3 6WB, Scotland,
United Kingdom. Tel./Fax +44-131-5563838 . Web site http ://www.heimdallscot.co.uk/tesoleuromed.

Nnember2002
22-24 (North and Central America)
American Council on the Teaching of
Foreign Languages (ACTFL). Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah. Contact
ACTFL, 6 Executive Plaza, Yonkers,
New York 10701-6801. Tel. 914-9638830. Fax 914-963-1275 . E-mailactflhq@aol.com . Web site http ://www.actfl.org .

10(North America) Annual Conference of
the American Translators Association
Atlanta, Georgia, Hyatt Regency Hotel.
Web site : http://www .atanet.org/
conference/futuresites.htm

16-21 (Asia) AILA 2002- 13th World
Congress of Applied Linguistics :Applied Linguistics in the 21st Century :Opportunities for Innovation andCreativity, Singapore . Website: http ://lisa.tolk.su.se/200 !- .html# 16-21
December 2002 AILAMarch2003
25-29 (North and Central America) TeachersofEnglish to Speakers of Other
Languages, Inc. (TESOL) . Annual
conference (including pre- andpostconvention institutes, and publisher
and software exhibition), Baltimore,
Maryland. Contact TESOL, 700 South
Washington St., Ste. 200, Alexandria,
Virginia 223 I 4. Tel. 703-836-0774 . Fax
703-836-7864 . E-mailconventions@tesol.org . Web site http://
www.tesol.org .

Alr112003
10-13 (North America) Northeast Conference
on the Teaching of Foreign Languages(NECTFL) Omni-Shoreham Hotel,
Washington, DC. Web site : http ://omega .dickinson.edu/prorg/nectfl/
future.html

Nnemller2003
S-8(North America) _American Translators'
Association annual conference
Pointe Hilton South Mountain Resort,
Phoenix, Arizona . Web site : http://lisa.tolk .su.se/200 l-.htrnl#5-8 November
2003ATASlll • lr 2001:VIIU• I 9, 111112

l • CIE..
JournalWriting:
Some
Observations
-...
CD

=

troma Hong
Kong
HighSchool
Classroom
Christopher Kelen,
English Department, University of Macau
TherealilV
PlinciPle:
aiOumalentrv'lJear 'lJr Xe/en ,7/ few year s ayo g drscoveredlha fforerjners lhinh everyllull!J rll Gnyhsh. g m ean
forerjners ' lhouy h ls are rll Gnyh sh bu/ no/ Ill
Ghrllese. Jfa / Jfa / g am so sfupid. g on.(yfound/hr sfacl afew years before . g wonder how
people can /Jud in Gnyhsh. You hnow. g fhrd
rll Ganlonese / / 23uf recenl.(y, g found myself
can /Jud somelhrll!J Ill Gnyhsh. g dr"dno/ fry lolhrd rll Gnyhsh. 23uf g/usf found myself can/Jud somelhrll!J Ill Gnyhsh. Jfa / 7haf's rurle
unbehevable/ / Bel me leflyou somelhrlly .
When g was a primary schoof sludenl g dr"dno/hnow Iha/ whal g ha ve learn / Ill Gnyh"sh lesson
can be used lo lafk lo aforerjner . 'Jhal means gdr"dno/ hnow one of my subj"ecl ~ > Gnyhsh can beusedrll dai.(y /2fe. c5oof course g dr"dno/ hnow ·/he maleria.ls of my Gnyhsh lessons ~ > 'Gnyhsh
words ' can he.Ip me lo communicale wrlh
forerjners . Jfow sfupr"dwas g?

The 'unreality' of English in many foreign
language learning contexts is not difficult to establish. This paper attempts to show how journals can be a means of addressing such issues as
how to make English real, and how to makemeaning matter. The exchange effected bymeans of a journal is one which demands a degree of reflection which could probably only
begin in writing, as Peter Elbow has pointed out.

That is, it could not have begun in the 'realtime ' of a face-to-face interaction. So writing
can be the way into a conversation in whichmeaning really matters because people careabout what they ' re saying. Toby Fulwiler notesthat advocates of journals make just this assumption about the nature of language and learning:"When people care about what they write, theylearn and understand better" (Fulwiler 1987, p.
5).

Trust,
interest
andnuencv
The journal activities described here havebeen run on the basis of the Freudian idea of a
' speaking cure': the idea, crudely transferred,that the (relatively unguided and genericallyunconstrained) production of text by the student
will help, in this case, to develop proficiency.
This author's practice is based on the following
guiding principles.
The first principle is trust. Asking students
to keep a journal implies that we trust them tohave:• something worth saying/writing; something which we are interested in reading
and responding to• the ability to use the English language
competently enough to communicate withus on their own terms• the ability to make their own meaning,
frame their own questions, hold up theirown half of a dialogue (with us).

It is simply a fact that most of the time you
can't find the right words till you know exactly what you are saying,but you can't know
exactly what you are saying until you findthe right words . The consequence is that you
must start by writing the wrong meanings in
the wrong words, but keep writing till you
get the right meanings in the right words.
Only at the end will you know what you aresaying. (Elbow, 1973, p. 26)

It also means that we wish students to trust
us: to keep their secrets and not to embarrassthem. It implies the confidence of interlocutors
in each other, their good faith for one another.
Journal writing means taking a student seriously as someone capable of communicating in
the target language , someone worth communicating with , someone with something to say.
11

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Sammer2001:11111119,ISSUI2Perhaps one only achieves that status throughpractice. But perhaps one only achieves the featof having something worthwhile to say by being
given credit for having something to say, by having it expected of one . That's where generic expectations can help the student into a culture.
The letter form and familiar, respectful style ofa 'classic' journal entry fits that heuristic bill. It
assumes - and is a means of fostering - mutual
trust.
The second principle is interest. Asking students to keep a journal implies that we are interested in what they have to say; hopefully interested enough to respond. By committing ourselves to the sort of relationship implied by thejournal we make ourselves open to students: theirideas, their interests, their feedback.
The third principle is valuing fluency. In ajournal one uses the words one has for one's own
purposes or for purposes which one makes one's
own. It is on this principle that we may think ofa journal between native teacher and non-native
student as 'real' communication. Unlike themany and varied accuracy-focused tasks forwhich students pick up pens, the point of thejournal is to write what you want to mean; tolearn what you want to mean and to learn to mean
through the process of making meaning.

on several issues, offer a poem for criticism, ask
a question about grammar , give some examplesof sentences (wanting to know whether they are
faulty or not). The student is learning some useful lessons about the different register demandsof different genres and possibly about how to
get between them. Some teachers and students
find this disconcerting. But it's better to be confused than to be stuck.

Compulsion
andtrequencv
Should journal writing be compulsory? Compulsion seems counter to the spirit of the exercise. But what if, in the absence of any cultureof voluntarism, non-compulsory and non-assessable tasks do not happen? How will new tasks
and genres be introduced to students?
There is a great deal of variation in the levelof interest which the journal inspires, especially
initially when the student has little past experience to relate it to. The student who demands
direct examination relevance of every exercise
will be puzzled by the whole idea. Evolving realcommunication from a homework task demanded by the teacher requires firstly having thetask become a habit and secondly letting that
habit fulfil some personally useful function forthe student. A certain amount of staring at theblank page may be involved in getting that process started.
In practice , requiring it less than once a week
will make the journal a difficult habit to establish. Being part of your week or your day encourages the kind of autonomous habit for which
the journal should provide practice: regularly andindependently making meaning in the target language. In terms of feedback, a quick turnaroundon the part of the teacher is essential in maintaining the students' feeling that it is they whoare controlling the journal agenda. Students
should have their book with them most of thetime. Otherwise the journal takes on an institutional ambience and the work associated with it
becomes a chore: something done for the school.

Whodirects
theiournal?
To function as a self-directed , self-motivated ,student-centered activity, in principle , students
should decide the topics, frame the questions andthe general discursive patterns of the interaction.
They should decide how much and what sort ofinteraction there should be. They should write
the instructions to the reader of their journal.
The result of a general instruction along theselines is that some students write to imaginary
friends (particularly common among those familiar with Ann Frank 's diary), some students
practise essay writing or speech writing, somestudents write stories or poems and some students try all of these out. Most do attempt toenter into a conversation-in-writing with theteacher, even if they digress into various othergenres along the way.
Shifting between genres is a strong sign thatthe task actually means something to the student.
One type of text is not enough to encompass thekinds of conversation they wish to have with theteacher. A single journal entry may seek advice

Forwhoseeves?
The privacy and fluency focus of the journal
make it an aberrant text production type in a
Hong Kong high school. In the normal courseof events all students' work is available to thescrutiny of, not only the class teacher, but everyone higher than the teacher in the chain of12Sl •• er2001:1111• 1 9, 111112

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command. In some teaching contexts the marking of writing is uniformly conducted on a punitive error-based scheme (deduct two marks forevery error from a notionally perfect score).
Such a system is anathema to fluency practice.
Why write over a word limit when every word
over is potentially two marks deducted? Conversely journal writing is anathema to themindset behind the accuracy-focused marking
scheme: a type of writing focused on meaning,
fluency and the student's agenda. In journal writing the teacher does not exercise the kind of control which an accuracy-based scheme assumes.
Privacy is thus empowering.

inauyuralion of I.be borrny lessons . !li 's ru.rfe
lerrrble. Oomelimes g,jj concenlrale on my no/es
and drop down some ma1n pOinls. 23ul when gfind/ha/ mos/ of my classmales are lhin.krny of
any of.her lknys ( daycfreaminy) g cannol
concenlrale anymore. 'J£en g,ff {eef i£al lessons
are borrny because g do no/ concenlrale.

The foreign teacher gains an impression of
how the school and classroom feel to the student. This classroom does not feel like any kindof a paradise to me. It's a very bland, cramped
and regimented space.

Adialogic
tool
The journal as a negotiated and dialogic tool

NewpersonalilV:
different
realilV for student-teacher communication is potentially
Leaming to express a different personality anda different reality are important steps on the pathto 'belief' in the utility of an idiom and that belief may serve as an intrinsic motivation evenfor people who cannot be convinced of that kindof motive. Hong Kong has plenty of opportunities for entry into the 'other' world of the English language: newspapers, radio, television, legal and bureaucratic systems operating bilingually, etc. And yet the English language seems
to have a set of impersonal (even bureaucratic)
associations which tend to keep the learner atarm's length. Probably one of the most successful means to the end of reifying the English language is the adoption (widespread and often
voluntary) of English names, at least for the
English classroom. The journal can be seen as alogical next step in the development of an English language personality. Deciding how to write
means deciding who to be.
Some students write in great detail about their
daily routines. In these cases, personality
emerges (in the new language) from the need to
identify themselves, to claim habits and routines
as their own:
g usually ye/ up al 7 o 'cfoc.k in I.be morniny .
Jfoweuer g do no/ usually wan/ lo wde up
immedialely . 'J£erefore g usually ye/ up al 7. JOo 'c/oc.k in I.be morniny.

This may be the result of guessing what an
appropriate first task would be, but still opinions often shine through a haze of compulsory
and routine activity, routinely accounted. The
analysis of the characteristics of the learning
environment is sometimes acute:'J£e slarl of 1£e firs/ lesson represenls I.bean instrument for three related types of feedback:ongoing needs analysis, course evaluation andcultural adjustment. The journal assists student
and teacher in tailoring their language, demeanour and the curriculum they share to the specificneeds of their interaction and its particular situating factors. From the teacher's point of viewthe journal provides the students' most valuable
language input. It is of diagnostic value although
it will demonstrate a lesser degree of accuracy
than students are capable of in more structured
and language focused tasks. As the students''free-est' writing it places an onus on self-expression. Because it is free the value of this writing from the teacher's point of view is mainly infinding out who the students are in terms of culture and in terms of personality.
Because of the perpetual feedback loop it
entails, the journal contains a mechanism for finetuning itself both to its participants and to their
institutional/ environmental setting.

Anongoingteedbacll
process
The value of the journal exercise is as part ofan ongoing feedback process. By means of thejournal, an unbroken cycle leads from needs
analysis to course evaluation and makes thesepart of the regular business of learning and student-teacher interactivity. Constant compulsory
conferencing trains the student in the skill of
setting her or his own agendas as a learner, it
gives that meta-heuristic task momentum.
In the Hong Kong high school classroom writing always tends to be accuracy-focused (speaking conversely always tends to be fluencyfocussed). Students need practice at various
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Journal writing has the function of offering avenue for self-expression in a context where
there generally are few such opportunities. The
teacher should therefore expect to be, at leastoccasionally, on the receiving end of a tirade
about problems, pressures and lacks to which
the student feels subject. When this happens it
is quite possible that the problem has not beencommunicated to anyone else. The journal hascome to provide a vehicle for the expression of
personality not available by other means. Doing something in English which could not bedone by any other means is a breakthrough forstudents who did not know that English 'could
be used in daily life'.
Not every student will avail herself ofcounseling opportunities via the journal. But
those who do achieve something in English
which couldn't have been achieved in the mothertongue. They receive the advice of a different
culture. That kind of achievement places the student squarely on the road to autonomy: she hasgone into the other culture and found there what
she needed. She has, along that road, given theforeign teacher a pastoral care role in the school,something which would otherwise have beendifficult for him to achieve .

points on the continuum from fluency to accu-= racy in both writing and speaking. AssociatingCD

a particular skill with fluency or with accuracy
unbalances a student's growth towards proficiency. Some students use their journals to express their ambivalence about such learning
methods.
B el me fell you one sad l.hin!J. &J.£eng !lei ba ck
my com_posdion from you g always feel
fru slraled. :J.£e com_posilion alway s consisls offols of mi s/des . gndeed g fell sad (bu/no/ loo.horrible). 2Jul g usually dono/ know .how locorrecl I.he mis/des . g feel I.ha/ your sf_yfeof
wnlin!J is <iI/ferenlftom focal Gn!Jhs.h leac.hers(v ery di/ferenl ). g I.hid g sh/I cannol ada_pl
7/ ndII wiiJ be very <iIJficuflfor me (or us) loc.han!Je. 23 ul g beheve I.ha/ lime can c.han!Je
everyl.hin!J.

A student formulating these sentiments andideas into any essay genre would inevitably
eliminate the ambivalence, correctly assumingthat such confusion would be unhelpful on themark front. But expressing ambivalence andworking out what one feels through writing aids
personal development, the development of theteacher-student relationship and the developmentof fluency in writing. In this entry, the journal isserving the function of a bridge from writing tospeech: a bridge into fluency. Feedback which
would not happen in person is possible on paper.

Reflection& mkingmeaningmane,
The journal relies on and fosters the self-consciousness of the learner and the reality of communication in the target language. Getting students to talk or write about what English means
to them, what uses it has for them, how they
manage to make or fail to make meaning bymeans of it, may seem a little warm and fuzzy
for the hard-nosed, efficiency-minded language
teacher . In fact it is wise not to underestimate
the value of conscious reflection on one's efforts
as a learner. If that kind of conscious reflection
makes the target language real to its apprentices,
if it helps them draw the line between what they
say themselves and what they have merely beentaught to say, then it will be of great value tothem as long-term language learners. It will havepressed them in the direction of autonomy. And
it will have been a very significant motivating
tool in the relationship between teacher and student.

Awritingcure
The 'therapeutic' function of extensive, selfmotivated writing (self-expression promoted for
its own sake and in its own right), coincides
nicely with a communicative or task-based language learning agenda. It does so not only interms of providing fluency practice which is otherwise lacking, but also in establishing between
student and teacher-as-interlocutor a wider rangeof possible roles. The teacher becomes, interalia, the student's listener-advisor. This is a wayof not necessarily breaking down the teacher'sbureaucratic persona but of placing another personality alongside it, allowing the student another way to be with the teacher, such that moregenres and registers of discourse are practised.
Extending the range of practice is an important
step in the series of simulations and approximations of the real which mark the road to authentic language use.

Reterences:
Elbow, P. (1973). Writing without teachers. NY:
Oxford University Press.
Fulwiler, T. (Ed.) (1987). Thejournal book. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton and Cook.

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its for the objective setting process may often
be too hastily dismissed. Arguably, for some students - those, for example, learning a new language for purely academic reasons or who are
by nature highly analytic learners - this approach may be the appropriate one. In fact, inthe early stages of the curriculum process - thatis, before the commencement of classes and prior
to teacher/learner objectives negotiation- few
alternatives to this approach may exist. Though
based purely on linguistic/grammatical competency, such 'traditional-approach' objectives may
provide the teacher/curriculum planner with essential organizational 'hooks' on which can be'hung' the language functions, tasks, and genreand competency-based activities appropriate to
the learners' needs and level of development. In
fine, they can be devices that can help provide
cohesion for the planning and content of thecourse.
Present academic literature is rife with terminology for describing different approaches inorientation toward teacher/student interaction:authoritarian, democratic, subject-centred,
teacher-centred, 'negotiated', dogmatic, learnercentred, 'collaborative' and the like. Such terms
tend to find their way to one or the other end of
a continuum, with student-centred and teachercentred respectively defining the extremes. Invariably, at the centre of any discussion concerning these approaches is the issue of course objectives, for as the door closes on the last day ofclasses all teachers are confronted with the selfsame question: Was the class a success? And any
teacher, who is responsible to his or her students,
must hold the notion of success to a standard or
criteria based in large part on student need.
Clearly, the asking of this question implies that
objectives have, in some form, been prespecified.
But what should the objective(s) of a courseof study be? The most obvious - though none
too informative - answer to this question is tofacilitate the learning process (though the use of
the term 'facilitate' already presumes an ideology of sorts). If we in fact begin with student
needs, these needs must then be defined. And,
to be sure, they are wide ranging. They can be
linguistic/grammatical, functional and, no lessimportant, psychological - whether language
specific or not. Ideally, the teacher/plannershould attempt to tailor course objectives to themultifarious needs of each student. In practice,
however, most teachers become proficient timemanagers who learn to allocate their resources
to those areas of most productive return. The

result is that some student needs tend not to be
fulfilled.
So where does this leave the teacher as he or
she mulls over course objectives before the commencement of a new class? Before dealing withthis question, let me look for a moment at theissue of variability within classes.
Clearly, no class is made up of like-mindedstudents. Much has been written about the factthat different students learn in different ways.
Some students, for example, respond to subjective feedback, while others require concrete objective indices of achievement. For some learners attaining objective goals is an importantsource of motivation; for others it is not.
Teaching Japanese students here in Japan, I
am often chagrined at the thought that much ofwhat is being learned is for the sake of obtaining
a desired test score. Yet, I have noted, nonetheless, in some of these test-oriented students a
diligence that is lacking among those who have ·not set themselves specific goals. Negotiatingwith such means-ends students often proves anunrewarding endeavour: they expect to beteacher-led and established goals preset. Clearly,
motivation differs, as do students.
A crucial question, therefore, informing thespecification of objectives is whether teachers
and learners should aspire to be equal partners
in the process of objectives negotiation. Inherent in the notion of equality is the presumptionthat students are in fact aware of their needs as
language learners; it presumes that they are awareof both the short-term goals of their learning andits long-term significance.
Counter to such 'aware' learners are learners
who, despite having achieved a certain fluency
in the language, nevertheless have fossilized inaccuracies that severely hinder effective communication. Reasons for such poor linguistic performance are doubtless many. Yet one has towonder whether this is the result of a lack of
guidance from teachers who allowed the shortterm wants and 'needs' of their learners to compromise long term linguistic proficiency.
To assume that no, or at least a very loose setof, curriculum objectives need to be defined is
to ignore the fact that stages in language development do in fact exist. Around what structures
do teachers organize course materials if no objectives corresponding to language level areprespecified? Various alternatives to the linguistic/grammatical competency approach have beensuggested, among them that course content beorganized around specific tasks, genre or Ian16

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guage functions. However, these alternatives andthe linguistic competency approach need not be
opposed. On the contrary, the selection of specific materials from these alternatives can, I believe, be greatly informed by linguistic/grammatical objectives; that is, targeted linguisticcompetencies can serve to guide teachers in theselection of appropriately graded materials. Thus
those linguistic/ grammatical features that havebeen targeted can serve as the 'hooks' aroundwhich to organize materials and direct students'
needs. Though tasks, genre and language functions would still serve as the basis for the content of the course, decisions concerning whichtasks, genre and language functions to include
in the curriculum would be informed by predetermined grammatical objectives.
The success of a linguistic/grammatical approach of this sort would require that two conditions be met. First, it requires that those grammatical structures informing the selection ofcourse materials be truly appropriate to the students' level of development. This means that only
those needs that correspond to the particular
structures of the learners' level would be addressed; needs ill-suited to the level would bepostponed until the learner has reached the corresponding stage of development. Second, itwould require that no strict timetable for achieving specific linguistic competencies be preestablished; students would progress to higher levelsof competency at an individualized rate, and not
at a rate predetermined by the objectives. This
would require an ongoing process of evaluation
to determine learner progress and to direct therefinement and modification of course objectives.
As a workable model, a linguistic/grammatical approach to the specification of objectives
must be flexible. Objectives cannot be predetermined as fixed entities in the traditional sense,but must be thought of as constituting a malleable framework around which activities, tasks,
language functions and the like are organized.
By definition, an objective is a limiting idea.
Likewise, the notion of a developmental stage is
a prohibitive one, excluding those elements of
the language that reside in the stages above it. A
developmental stage modifies and refines thelanguage by specifying which linguistic competencies are to be included in it. Entrance to thenext stage is barred in part by the constraints oftime. Specific predetermined elements of thelanguage must be assimilated by the learner before his or her present stage can be left behind.

Thus constrained, the process of assimilation
cannot be hurried. Part of the process the learnercan control consciously; part of it proceeds subconsciously at its own pace. Thus, the exigencies of time oppose any approach that attempts
to establish a timetable for language acquisition.
And it is these constraints which demand thatany approach to objectives specification be aflexible one.
A flexible approach to the specification of
objectives must also extend to the role of theteacher in the curriculum process. The fact that
all classes are composed of learners with a wide
range of needs and objectives makes the role ofany teacher a multifaceted one. Besides linguistic needs, learners have psychological needs thatmust be addressed. Therefore, a large portionof a teacher's responsibility is caring for aclasses' psychological well-being. Traditionally,
this has included attempts at instilling classmorale, creating an atmosphere conducive tolearning and bolstering the confidence of individual learners. Failure to address the psychological needs of a class can often be found rooted
in various inappropriate teaching ideologies andwrongheaded agendas regarding teacher/learnerinteraction. Objectives that are too rigidly applied may be particularly culpable. When imposed by a teacher overly concerned with end
products, the most well-intentioned objectives
can suffocate the spirit of a class and tum thecurriculum into a dictator of sorts, well removed
from the needs of those it is there to serve. On
this point the learner-centred approach points
in the right direction: the ideal class leader isthe one who can instill a sense of cooperationand involvement in those in his or her charge
through a process of joint negotiation and consultation. Product and process are inseparable.
Learners must trust that their teacher is awareof their needs and is, therefore, making curriculum decisions based on those needs for theirshort-term and long-term benefit. Trust, however, is not necessarily a given, and can, ofcourse, be awarded for all the wrong reasons.
But it is ensured when learners, through theirown input into the planning process, feel that
their various linguistic, psychological as well associal needs as members of a new small classcommunity are being met. This is the basis ofany democratic assembly. Yet, having said this,not all opinions deserve equal weight; some aresimply better informed than others. Respecting
opinions and embracing them are very different
matters. Ultimately, the teacher those must de11-......-..
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cide which to embrace, through recourse to his
or her own experience and training. Likewise,
decisions regarding the refinement and modification of objectives, and which learner needs toaddress, fall upon the teacher. The idea thatteachers and learners are equal partners in negotiation, though perhaps acceding to politicalcorrectness, potentially sacrifices the guiding
solicitude that should be the outgrowth of ateacher's training and experience. This is not,however, to make the teacher an authoritariantaskmaster. On the contrary, one's knowledge
and training must be both directive and accom-

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modating. Perhaps if Plato's captain had been alittle more sensitive to the needs of his crew,
more willing to share the secrets of the stars andto listen to what the winds were telling them, hewouldn't have found himself alone in a lifeboat

aefenfnl~tg
sea.

Tyler, R. (1949). Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction. New York: Harcourt
Brace.
Nunan, David (1996). The Learner-Centred Curriculum. Cambridge University Press

Gaik11kug11Communication
inan
Intensive
CourseFormat:Experiential
learning
atJapanese Anthony Rausch
Departmentof English,
UniversitiesHirosalaUniversity,
Factdtyof Education
Introduction
This paper is a case study of an intensive
Gaikokugo (Foreign Language) Communication
course conducted in the Faculty of Education at
Hirosaki University in August, 2000 for all of
the 180 first-year faculty students. The course
was organized in response to the requirement by
the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports, andCulture that all teaching license recipients have
two credits in Gaikokugo Communication,
which the faculty interpreted as English communication.

ThelntensiVe
CourseConrad found little evidence supporting suchassertions. On the contrary:
1. Leaming which occurs in a close sequenceof sessions has been found to contributeto deep concentration and undivided intentionality. Negative interference due toconcurrent class scheduling (several
classes in varied subjects over a period oftime), can be detrimental to learning,whereas positive interference, in which
previously learned material positively interferes with current learning, contributes
to retention.

Intensive courses are defined by Scott andConrad (1991) as those offered in time-compressed formats, and include such variations assummer sessions, interim sessions, foreign language training programs and weekend colleges.
Intensive courses have been criticized for sacrificing the breadth of subject material, disregarding academic standards to accommodate time
constraints, and obliging students to 'cram' information at the expense of genuine learning.
However, on the basis of a review of roughly
100 studies on intensive courses, Scott and2. Leaming outcomes were found to be equal
between traditional and intensive-course
formats overall, and much higher in language-related courses. The studies thatconsidered long-term retention also
showed retention rates for intensive formats comparable to traditional formats.
3. Students have cited the convenience andefficiency, the opportunity for concentrated and uninterrupted study, and the inherent motivation as positive elements of11

Sl ••• r 2881:1111• 1 9,111112

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intensive courses. This, even though faculty do not perceive great differences instudent performance in intensive formats.
Faculty also mention fatigue, inability tocover equivalent amounts of material, andexcessive preparation time as impediments
to intensive courses (see Scott and Conrad,
1991).

l

ThellllensiVe
Gaikllkll!/IIC•munication
CourseatHirosali

UniversilV

The intensive Gaikokugo Communication
course in the Faculty of Education at Hirosaki
University consisted of three ninety-minuteclasses per day held over one five-day week (22.5class-hours). The course accounted for the twocredit gaikokugo communication requirementsof 180 pre-service education majors. Two fulltime faculty members coordinated and six prefectural assistant language teachers (ALTs)
served as instructors. The course consisted ofthree content components (Cross-cultural Understanding (excluded in this paper), Listening andSpeaking, and Presentation - Written and Oral;
one ninety-minute class in each component everyday). The 180 students were split into six classesof thirty; the six ALTs worked in pairs alternating between two groups for the Listening andSpeaking and the Presentation components.

Courseobiectives
andmaterials,

The objectives for the Listening and Speaking component and the Presentation component
were primarily communicative, with the aim ofallowing participants to put to use a limited rangeof structures they already knew in an intensive
experience of 'real' communication. There wasan explicit focus on reviewing these structuresto lay the groundwork for this communicative
experience. The program was developed by thecoordinators using published materials and provided to students the first day. Instructors wereasked to have students form groups and group
work was encouraged.

past CNN news broadcasts. Previewing exercises
included reading, vocabulary, and structure exercises, followed by viewing exercises. The listening activities required about 20 minutes of
the ninety-minute Listening and Speaking component.
The speaking activities were organized on athree-step approach consisting of introductionof the grammar point (with examples), practicethrough controlled exercises, and use based on
individual responses to prompts. The progression was from Present, Past, Future, Wh-Questions, Quantifiers, Articles, Gerunds and Infinitives to Modals.

2.Presemauan
c1m11nem
The materials in the Presentation component
included activities in both written and spoken
forms. The first activity for each day consistedof completing a one to two-sentence summaryof the video news broadcast watched in the Listening and Speaking component. Following thiswere specific writing and presentation activities
as follows:
Day One: personal information and personal preferences and self-introduction slogans
Day Two: the paragraph: topic sentence andirrelevant information orally introduce Hirosaki University (information provided) orally introduce a place you know well(hometown, a store, etc.)
Day Three: business letters; personal lettersorally brainstorming word connections
Day Four: informative writing: a newspaper
articleDay Five: informative writing: introducing
your school from keywords tooral presentation
The activities included examples and guidedpractice followed by free activities with the content left to the student. Presentations were undertaken within each of the aforementioned
thirty-member student groups.

1. listening
and11eakin1
c1m1anem

Student
feedback

The listening activities were based on the
CNN Master Course: ACCESS program(Melrose, 1996), which uses short segments ofStudents were asked to qualitatively evaluate the course overall (in Japanese). The com19-...I!
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ments can be categorized as relating to (a) course
content, (b) class atmosphere, and (c) effect.

4Dc,•rsec,ment:
Students found the content to be interestingand enjoyable. Some placed the material at an
upper middle school level but felt that a review
at this level was beneficial. Some alluded to thedifficulty of the Listening component. Some requested more pre-activity explanation and error
correction, with several going as far as to say
they wanted instruction in Japanese. The mostcommon call for change in content was for morepractical or topical speaking exercises.

Class
lbnlSlhlre:
The teacher was clearly the dominant factor
in making the experience meaningful for the student. Commonly used words for both class andteacher included fun , interesting, good atmosphere, friendly ; one student found the teacher
dynamic, another used the term powerful (author's translations). An important bonding
seemed to take place as the references to thesensei as my teacher''happiness of having-were numerous. Students found the group aspect
to be valuable, although suggestions included
keeping the same groups for the entire week,
using a better way of assigning group members,or letting students choose their own groups.

C11rseeffect:Students referred to an increase in confidence
in using English, an increase in motivation to
study English, and a widening of their world.
The combinative experience of having contact
with a native speaker while dealing with thestress of the immersion element of the weeklong course with a native speaker was seen as
important. Many students referred to their initial unease over having a completely English
classroom environment giving way as they 'got
used to it.'Allfeedback
Post-course feedback from the participating
ALTs was also requested. The feedback revealed
positive evaluation for the listening activities and

IICIEmaterials, negative evaluation for the speaking
activities and materials, and very positive evaluation for the presentation activities and materials. Specifically, ALTs noted that the majorityof the students had an understanding of thegrammar and its use and that many of the activities were suited more for writing than for
speaking. ALTs pointed out the value of having
a variety of objectives to be addressed in thepresentation component and how the activities
provided a means for every student to write
something different and then compare theirwork with others.

Discussion
andImplications
Although not addressed in this paper, the organizational obstacles at the faculty, committee, and administrative levels were significant.
These included the interpretation of the Ministry of Education's gaikokugo as English by thefaculty, the scheduling of the course during thesummer break, and recruitment and compensation of the participating ALTs. Also important
to note is the fact that the 180 students took thecourse as a compulsory requirement for obtaining a teaching license in either elementary education or a junior or senior high school subject
other than English.

learning
Obiectives
andthelearning
Outcomes
In terms of true gaikokugo communication,
the ideal intensive course necessitates a shift
from a teacher-centered approach in the traditional manner of a teacher providing information to a student-centered approach in which student learning is an outcome of participation andexperience. The course objectives and pedagogical approach in such a participatory-experiential approach must be clearly delineated, andgiven the inherent time-constraints , organizedexclusively toward that end. Many materials areorganised such that the open-ended activities
which give scope for real communicative action on the part of the student are given little
prominence, typically added on at the end. The
program's emphasis on the progression to these
activities, and the proportion of time allowed
to them differentiates it from such materials. Indeed there are few materials available which211• l 9, ISSII2
SU• lllr 2001:VIIU

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in the target language is a significant student 'input,' but with proper prefacing, this can berecontextualized for the student as positive stress.
Scott (1994) specifically pointed towards thebenefits of students consciously perceiving thehigh-quality attributes of intensive courses, as
an important contribution to the power of theexperience. A pre-class briefing for students , inJapanese, on the nature of the experience of an
intensive foreign language communicative
course conducted wholly in the target language
will undoubtedly reduce, or refocus, the stressof the experience.

lend themselves to such an approach, particularly in an intensive format.
Likewise, the course requirements and grading criteria must be adjusted to focus on the element of experiencing in the class, as measured
by participation in the communicative interaction. This leads to use of a Pass-Fail standard
based on attendance and participation, with thecourse structured toward interaction to the degree that attendance in effect equals participation.
The crux comes as we, as curriculum designers and course instructors , are forced to strike abalance between abandoning rigorous course
structure to maximize student participation andexperience and replacing the standard measuresof performance with recognition of participationon the one hand, while ensuring course unifonnity and consistency and course content accountability on the other.

Conclusion
The intensive course should be seen as more
an experiential than a learning endeavor for students. Although not suited for introduction of
new material,an intensive gaikokugo
communiation course can provide both an 'intensive' review of previously learned material
and an 'intensive' experience in using English
in a true-life communicative situation. This casestudy is instructive in pointing out how the elements of course materials and teacher can maximize the potential for student participation andexperience in an intensive gaikokugo communication course.

FacunvandStudent
Input

r
,\

Given the focus on the communicative experience of the course as outlined above, the input
expected from all participants takes on new dimensions. The coordinating faculty are expected
to create a curriculum which guides the overall
experience for both student and teacher, providing the necessary experiential prompts for the
student while allowing the teacher to step awayfrom concerns of teaching and grading. The
materials provided for the course must be universally transparent, such that both participating teachers and students can easily understandboth the target structures and the learning
prompts. The participating teachers are expected
to establish a dynamic tone to the class, organize students into groups, help them in their initial efforts to participate, and then monitor theclass, intervening when necessary to ensure ameaningful experience for all students.
The question of student input is more problematic, as such elements are a recursive function of what we as coordinators and instructors
lead them to contribute. Students should be informed that the focus of the course is on participation and that a pass grade will be guaranteed
for students who do participate. The stress experienced by students in an intensive foreign language communicative course conducted wholly

References
Scott, P.A. and Conrad, C. F. (1991 ). A Critiqueof Intensive Courses and an Agenda for
Research. Division of Summer Sessions andInter-College Programs. Dissertation: Un i versity of Wisconsin-Madison.
Scott, P.A. (1994). A Comparative Study of Students' Learning Experiences in Intensive andSemester-Length Courses and of the Attributes of High-Quality Intensive andSemesterCourse Learning Experiences. Proceedings of the North American Associationof Summer Sessions.
Melrose, C. (1996) . Master Course with CNN
International: Access .Tokyo: SIMUL Press.
Edited by Keith Ford and Michael Carroll

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Searching for an activity that would stimulate first year university/college students while
introducing them to communicative methods oflearning English, I realised that what they weremost interested in was each other. This led tothe development of an authentic speaking activity called "Making Friends", which I have usedsuccessfully for the past six or seven years with
beginning and pre-intermediate level students.
The activity is based on a list of thirty simple
questions (see appendix), using familiar topics
and vocabulary that the students are likely tohave learned in high school English classes. The
question list starts with basic questions, such as"What's your name?" and "How many brothers
and sisters do you have?" and moves onto asking about high school, sports, music and pets.
All the questions can be answered in one sentence, using familiar lexis and grammatical structures. This allows students to relax while experiencing, possibly for the first time, being taught
by a native speaker in an English-only classroom.
First, students read the questions on the handout aloud. Group reading is useful in this instancebecause it allows them to vocalise English words,
which many will not have done since their lasthigh school English lesson a month or more before. Also, it ensures that each question has beenread in advance of the pair work. I usually readthe numbers and have the students read the questions to keep everyone going at a brisk pace, butwhen they hesitate to speak I make it a 'listen
and repeat' session, increasing the confidenceof low level learners.
Next , I explain that there is also a challenge
attached to this activity. I show the students mytimer 1 , and tell them that they have ten minutes
to ask and answer all the questions , including
writing down a "short answer " for each of theirpartner's responses. I model the meaning of"short answer" by asking the whole class one of
the questions, (for example, "Where do you
live?") and writing both a short answer("Yokohama") and long answer ("I live in
Yokohama") on the blackboard. I assure student's co-operation by asking them, "Do you
think you can write 30 short answers?" Invariably their answer is "yes," and the activity becomes a game.
As soon as I shout, "Go!" (and start my timer)
the students begin talking, working down the list,
asking their partner , " What's your name?","Where do you live?", and writing the answers
as fast as they can. I make sure they are alternating rather than one person asking all thirty questions and changing over. When the timer buzzes
at the end of the ten minutes I yell, "Stop!" andtell everyone who completed five questions to
put up their hands, then those who did ten, andso on until no more hands go up. I start with avery low number so all the students have achance to put up their hands and experience a
feeling of achievement. I ask them to find a newpartner (by themselves this time, which sometimes takes a few minutes). The question-andanswer process is repeated, but the time limit
goes down. Of course the students are able toask and answer faster the second time, and also
enjoy themselves more. The third time througheveryone is an expert, at least with the first fifteen questions.
Having a time limit encourages the students
to activate language schemata intuitively, rather
than agonizing over the correct form for eachanswer. Another advantage of this "challenge"is that it allows for expansion of the lesson planso that the students are able to practice the structures and vocabulary several times with the samematerial and still keep the authenticity of purpose .

22Sl •• er2011:1111• 1 9, IISII2IICIEHow the class proceeds from this point depends on which skills the teacher wants to emphasise. For speaking and listening practice, students can get into groups of four after the third
question-and-answer round, and each introduce
the person they just interviewed. For a focus onreading and writing, students can write an introduction of their last partner, and then either readtheir paragraphs aloud in a small group, or exchange papers. Or the activity can be closed after a few rounds of the oral pair-work.
One advantage of this activity is that the students are all sufficiently engaged so that theteacher can walk around the classroom unobtrusively, noting the language level and other important factors about her new class. The firsttime I tried this activity with a class I found that
one or two of the questions were not clear. This
turned out to have a positive effect, and gave thestudents a reason for interacting with me when I
was in their part of the room.
My experience of first English lesson, firstyear university students is that they are shy creatures, dying to make friends with more of theirclassmates than the one or two with whom they
have managed to connect. This activity not only
gives them a taste of real English communication, but also allows them to meet new people,
thereby setting an interactive, student-centered
tone for future lessons.

9. How many people are there in your family?

Appendix

29. What's your favourite food?

10. Who are they?
11. What high school did you go to?
12. What was your favourite subject?
13. Who was your favourite teacher?
14. Who was your best friend in high school?
15. How long have you known him/her?
16. What sports do you like?
17. How often do you play?
18. Which baseball/soccer team do you support?
19. What kind of music do you like?
20. How many CDs do you have?
21. Do you play a musical instrument?
22. Do you have any pets?
23. What are their names?
24. What's your favourite place to visit in Japan?
25. How many times have you been there?
26. Have you ever been abroad?
27. What kind of movies do you like?
28. How often do you rent a video?

30. When was the last time you ate it?

1. What's your name?
2. How old are you?

Note

3. When's your birthday?

1

I have found an ordinary kitchen timer tobe an invaluable teaching aid. Students very
quickly become accustomed to stopping what
they are doing when they hear the ring, which isa great voice-saver.

4. Where do you live?
5. How did you get here today?
6. How long did it take?
7. What's the name of your nearest station?
8. What line is that on?

From
theCllalkface
7o submd classroom apphcal.ions, /ec.hmrues and lesson plans , up lo 1000 words ,conlac/ sec/ion e<hlor: Jlnckew

23

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This short piece seeks to establish some fundamental components of EFL program designand development. It is based on the Integrated
English (IE) Program for freshmen andsophmore students and 45 full-time and part-timeteachers in the English Department of Aoyama
Gakuin University. Drawing upon our eight-year
experience, these components consist of
1. departmental and institutional support forchange ,2. placement and streaming of students ,3. program objectives and teacher goals,
4. feedback, evaluation and assessment,
5. ongoing teacher support and curriculum
rev1s1on.

I.su11on
torChange
Before any curricular innovation, there
must be institutional support . Most EFL educators working in Japan operate within the constraints of an existing English , Business , Law,or Communications department and are not free
to implement a systematic curriculum development process according to the principles of EFL
teaching. This situation is closer to the idea of'stakeholders' in a curriculum as once describedby Connelly, Irvine, and Enns (1980). The program evolves through the interaction of suchstakeholders as teachers , students, and administrators , especially those within the university
bureaucracy .
In our case, we needed the assistance of key
members of our 36-member department , including the chairman , and a number of senior professors, and a planning committe e to establish
the need for new courses . It was at that pointthat I was hired , my job description including

program administration and course writing in lieu
of supervising or editing student theses.
To achieve these things, we held extensive,
often exhausting meetings with other university
officials during the early years of the program.
Limiting class size was obviously a financial issue because the university was required to hire
additional part-time teachers.
To our surprise , there was strong resistanceagainst ranking classes because it appeared todiscriminate against the weaker students. We
had to convince the university administration of
the feasibility of our plans as well as their legitimacy. Ultimately, we were able to negotiate threedifferent classes, to some degree accommodating the advanced and returnee students, and thosestudents with lesser language ability. The benefits were that it became easier for teachers toplan for their classes; better students were not
be held back by weaker ones; nor were weaker
students intimidated by better ones.

II.Placement
otStudents
As for placement and streaming of students,
there are numerous possibilities . As Brown notes
in Language Testing in Japan, the best choice isto develop a criterion-referenced test where thequestions are based upon program criteria andgoals specific to the institution , and its students(Brown and Yamashita, 1985, p. 18). The entrance exam employed at a Japanese university
might be used, except that the results are usually
kept confidential. One of our program's shortcomings is that we never developed a placement
test to assess our students in terms of our program criteria - for example , by assessing theirspeaking and discussion skills. Instead , we haverelied upon off-the-shelf placement tests fromthe English Language Centre of the Universityof Michigan , and the norm-referenced Institu-

24

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tional Placement Test from Educational Testing
Services.

111.
ProgramObiectives
andGoals
The development of program objectives andthe articulation of teacher goals is an on-goingprocess. In the best situations, part-time teachers are included. Emphasizing the dynamic
nature of curriculum development, Stufflebeam
described the curriculum development process
through the CIPP model: context, input, process, product, and evaluation (Stufflebeam, 1971).
To a large extent, this is a consideration of product or learning outcomes, the experiential process, and the learning context.
In an ideal situation, the development of alanguage program takes place after a formal andthorough needs analysis and the subsequent development of goals and objectives for the program. However, this is not how events usuallytranspire. As Brown observes in The Elementsof Language Curriculum, "it's often the case thatneeds analysis , the formation of goals and objectives, articulation of tests, and delivery of instruction are all going on at the same time"(Brown , 1995, p. 217). Furthermore , as the needsof the students and the English Departmentchange over time, the curriculum development.
.
1songomg.
In our case, we only had six months to develop guidelines, a plan, and materials; therefore, some of our decisions have been modified,even abandoned, over time. We chose a source
text that offered functional language, structured
dialogues , and grammar lessons and a reader that
presented various types of texts such as shortnewspaper and magazine articles , editorials , andessays. Employing a thematic system of organization , in the first of the three IE levels , a student learned the vocabulary and grammaticalstructures suitable to discussing pop culture , urban issues , food and health, and travel.
At present , teachers supplement these corematerials with their choice of tapes, videos, andother teaching resources drawn from a resource
library maintained by the English Department.
New teachers are given a program guide . Gradedsamples of student written work and rated
videotapes of student discussions are also pro-vided . Because teacher participation is so important , we organize an annual orientation forpart-time teachers where we present curriculum
revisions, share classroom strategies, and set
goals for the coming year.
The most recent development in the IE Program has been in the direction of task-basedlearning where the learner's role is to analyze
and attend to language use and structure in linewith his or her preferred learning style, aptitude,and motivation. On this basis, we have introduced the task of participating in a small group
discussion. In another course, Academic Skills,
students have the task of learning how to takenotes during a lecture.

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IV.Program
ObJectives
andGoals
Feedback, evaluation, and student assessme nt
constitute the remaining section of this article .
Feedback to teachers in our program consists ofanonymous student evaluations that are done at
the end of each term. Questions on the form
relate to tasks and activities in the program suchas participating in a small group discussion, andwriting a journal. The evaluation form was developed and modified over a number of meetings with part-time teachers. The evaluation
forms are reviewed by the program coordinator.
The IE Program hired an external reviewer ,Alister Cumming of the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education to sit on some of our classes ,and to review our curricular materials. Two research MAs have been based on testing andevaluating the students and their classes. The
full-time teachers involved in the program havemaintained a fairly extensive involvement in research and presentations on the program at JALTand TESOL , where possible, in joint presentations with part-time teachers.

TeacherSUPPOn&ClllieulllmRevisio
Finally, an EFL Language Program shouldhave room for teacher support and ongoing curriculum revision. Generally, the curriculum
should incorporate new technologies such as theInternet, as well as current language teaching
methodology. From our experience , teacher support should include easy access to materials, tocomputers and Internet accounts , and to the pur-

25

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chase of texts and videos for teachers' use . We
also provide office space , and lockers.
From personal experience, socializing with
part-time teachers should not be overlooked because it is vital in an effective program. This
includes forming relationships where part-timeteachers feel secure enough to criticize parts ofthe program and suggest alternative approaches.
Furthermore, the orientation and meetings
throughout the year help us generate new ideas,
review and modify our curriculum. "Involve all
the participants in the process of curriculum development," wrote Brown in The Elements of aLanguage Curriculum, and "remember thatmuch more can be accomplished through discussion and compromise than through dictatedpolicy decisions and inflexibility" (1995, p. 190).

In CUE

Relerences
Brown, J. D. (1995). The elements of a language
curriculum. Boston: Heinle & Heinle.
Brown, J.D., Yamashita, S. 0. (Ed .) (1995) .
Language testing in Japan. Tokyo: The Japan Association of Language Teachers.
Connelly, F. M., Irvine, F. G., Enns, R. J. (1980).
Stakeholders in Curriculum. In K. Connelly,
A. Dukacz & F. Quinlan (Eds.)Curriculum
planning/or the classroom. Toronto: Ontario
Teachers Federation and the Ontario Institutefor Studies in Education.
Stuffiebeam, D. (1971). Educational evaluationand decision-making. Itasca, Ill: Peacock.

26

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-CD

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Mr. Kato arrived at school 10-15 minutes
before his 9:00 class. I spoke with him briefly
and walked to class with him shortly after thebell rang. After putting his backpack andportable tape recorder on the podium, Mr. Kato
addressed the class in Japanese in a strong, clear
voice. While he was speaking to the class, he
was pulling papers out of his backpack to returnto the students. He appeared poised andconfident.
Moving into English, Mr. Kato greeted theclass and proceeded to call the roll, punching
his note cards to indicate if students were present.
If a student responded in Japanese, Mr. Kato
asked that the student please respond by saying'here' , 'present' or 'yes' . All students
cooperated. This procedure took a bit of time,
but Mr . Kato seemed determined to record each
student's attendance. The verbal process that
he used established a control-like dialog withthe students, albeit formulaic . The students werequiet. Mr. Kato was clearly in control.
After taking the attendance, Mr. Kato said,"Let 's get started!" He began to explain thelistening script from the assigned passage. All
students appeared to be alert and listened to him
without disruption. Mr. Kato gave the following
advice to the students: (1) that they might checkthe script to see how words and phrases were
written, (2) that they might refer to their notes
and compare them to the script, and (3) that theymight want to practice reading the script aloudin an effort to improve their pronunciation. Mr.
Kato then reiterated the above in Japanese,perhaps to insure that all of the students
understood. (This was one of the few times that
he was to use Japanese in class.) He thenswitched back into English and asked if there
were any questions.
Students arriving late would go directly up to
the podium and announce their arrival. Mr. Kato

recorded their presence without interrupting theclass for very long.
Mr. Kato advised the students to read thescript as he played the tape. (The tape andvolume had been preset before coming to class.)
The one (and only) student who had been playing
with his cell phone put it down and didn't foolwith it for the remainder of the time that I wasin the classroom. Mr. Kato stopped the tape atthe end of the passage and (somehow) rewound
it to the beginning.
Mr. Kato began to review the homework fromthe previous week. He spoke to the students (stillin English)
about the importanceof
expectations- and building expectations whenit comes to listening comprehension. He spoke
about the difference between informal andformal discourse and pointed to words or
language usage that might serve as hints. He
also mentioned the importance of guessing as a(cognitive) strategy.
Mr . Kato proceeded to call upon students toanswer questions.
Each of the students
responded in English . With each new question ,Mr . Kato would explain the choices and would
strategize with the students in an effort to choose
the best answer. He continued to point out words
and phrases that might help the students
determine the most appropriate
choice.
Throughout this somewhat slow moving, butvery thorough process, all students appeared to
be alert and listening attentively. I left theclassroom at 9:45.
It was a privilege and a learning experienceto observe Mr. Kato teach. I was impressed by
the way he managed to take attendance , to revise
the attendance list and to call upon students
throughout the class. It reminded me of how I
take this mechanical chore for granted. With aphoto seating chart, I can take attendance
visually and update it throughout class without
interruption. Mr. Kato had little choice but to21

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do this aurally. The only prop that he had tosupport his (audio) memory was the Braillepunch card that he used. Relying so wholly upon
what he hears, he must have developed a keen
memory for hearing.
Speaking of memory, I found it remarkablethat Mr. Kato could keep the entire lesson in his
mind, including such things as the content of thelong listening passage, the multiple choicequestions and the answers. He was quite able torecall these at will. While he did from time totime resort to notes in Braille, he left me
wondering just how long he spends preparing
each lesson.
I also wondered what a challenge it must be
to be able to capture students' attention with only
your voice. And to use your voice as the solemessenger of your thoughts. The discourse of
Mr. Kato's class was almost telephone-like inthat everyone had to pay clear attention to what
was said. (Some teachers might argue that audio
tapes encourage this type of listening more than
the richer environment of video tapes.) Again,
this was something that I had not consideredseriously before.
Relying upon this (listening) channel socompletely, inadvertently slowed the pace ofclass, as did Mr. Kato's methodical and thoroughstyle of teaching. Nonetheless, he managed tokeep the students' attention and to get throughthe lesson.
It would appear that Mr. Kato follows thesame advice he gave his students. Expectations
are an important part of listening, one that isoften overlooked in class. Expectations createa structure or framework for listening, one which
can be revised but which always serves as a base.
Guessing is another strategy that is frequently
left underdeveloped in listening classes, yet it
can be so important. It establishes an active
approach to listening, one in which the listenerplays a vital role. Perhaps the methodical andmeticulous approach that Mr. Kato made use ofreflect his own cognitive strategies for listening,for facilitating memory and for teaching.
Acknowledgement: I wish to express mygratitude to Mr. Kato for allowing me to observe
his classroom and leave his room with a senseof enlightenment.
Commenls may be adressedlo'J>auf Cunniny.ham< cunniny£@rill_yo. ac.jp >21Sa• m•r2881:1111m19,Ina, 2l • CIE

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Steve Snyder, Kyushu University of Health and Welfare
effective and fun. DHTML? The 'D stands for'Dynamic,' and DHTML refers to Web Pages
which have scripted effects. In the case of thematching activity, the student can drag answers
from a right-hand column to the appropriate
location. When answers are checked, the incorrect items are sent back to the right-handcolumn for a second try. For the DHTML pages
HotPotatoes:
Han-Baked
Software you
must use a version 4 or higher browser andhttp://web.uvic.ca/hrd/hotpot/
be sure that JavaScript is enabled, but thatshould not present much of a problem.
Hot Potatoes is a suite of authorware proThe pages themselves • are, well, pretty
grams that allow you to quickly create HTMLstraightforward. It is possible to modify themand DHTML activity pages. The software isand if you are really ambitious you can even"free of charge to non-profit educational users
have Half-Baked Software make you a custom
who make their pages available on the web."program. Small changes can be made, but you
Free is good. The various software tools takehave to deal with the code. On the other hand,up about 9 MB, which is also pretty good. The
Hot Potatoes lets you and your students quickly
files you create and the HTML pages are also
create pages that would otherwise require adreasonably small: files usually vary from 3 K tovanced scripting knowledge. This speed and
8 K; Web pages vary from 8 K to 20 K. Thereease make these programs particularly usefulare both Mac and PC versions, and downloading
for specific needs, like a personal list of words.
from the web site is very simple. There are six
If you use computer-based displays in yoursoftware programs in the suite, each one creclasses, Hot Potatoes can help to create mateates a different kind of activity. All activities
rials for contests and games as well. But theseare self-scored; that is, as someone does the task
are alternative uses, the primary purpose for'the score is automatically computed. You canthese programs is authoring web pages, and they
make a multiple-choice cloze, jumbled senprovide a quick and easy way of creating ontences, crossword puzzles, matching and orderline materials for your students. It is possible
ing exercises. Also, it is so easy to use that someto drop-in a CGI script that will send the scores
students could create their own activities.
to you by email, but you have to provide theThe beauty of creating HTML pages is that
scripts.
the activities are cross-platform and can be put
on a web site. The compressed size of the pages
That was a fairly conventional program. In
also means that you can put them on a floppy
contrast, the next program is anything but condisc. This is exactly what I did for a student
ventional.
who wanted to practice Greek and Latin roots.
In this case we made some matching activities,some cross-word puzzles and some close activities. The matching activities were created in
DHTML and we found that form was the mostAt the recent CUE Conference dedicated to
Developing Autonomy a topic which often cameup in discussion was where to find some easy tolearn and easy to use software for both teachersand students. Here are a couple sites out you
may want to check out.

29

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http://www.haptek.com

CD

Virtual Friend (current version is 2.08) is atalking animation program that is very easy touse. Though it was not intended as a learning orteaching tool, it has great potential for this purpose. In the current state of development the
program lets you create scripts for disembodied
heads that talk. Not only do the heads talk, they
can be programmed to move, to morph into othershapes and change looks! Admittedly, very bizarre stuff, but many students find it fascinating
and there lies much of its potential as a tool.
Recently the web site has been upgraded andincludes a homepage builder and JavaScript
demos. To use any of the online capabilities youneed to download the VirtualFriend 3 plug-in. If
you experience a problem with the automatic
download, you can also save the vf35042.exe file
to your desktop and then execute the file there-remember to be on-line when you do this as therest of the program is downloaded at that time.
So once you have the viewer/plug in you can thencheck out the demos. There are currently 3
demos.
The first demo is called "welcome" and it lets
you play with the different textures and morphs.
You can make the head talk by writing text in
the input box and hitting enter. Sometimes a background change some other problem occurs, but
you get the idea of the program. The actual program is on a CD-ROM that you have to order.
The program itself is much more powerful than
the web site illustrates and you can create lasting scripts. I have experimented with creating avariety of effects with these animations, including web pages, and they work pretty well. But
be warned-playing with this program will eat
your time! A couple of shy students didn't want
to give a report in front of the class, so I had
them write the script with a VirtualFriend. Thereis also a VirtualFriend chat room you can use.
The second demo is a greeting card that talks,similar to other on-line cards. The page takes awhile to load, so make sure you have a fast connection and a bit of time.
The third demo is building a web page--allyou do here is follow the template and then it

.a

u=-

provides you with the html code for making a
page. If you are skilled at HTML you can create
all kinds of effects from this simple script. As
long as someone at the other end has the viewer/plugin, you could use this on a web page, send it
as an attachment, or link it through another program. There is even a small SKD kit that you
can use. It is fun, time consuming, and definitely a gimmick, but it can be used in creative
ways. If you see some potential, then let me
recommend that you buy the CD-ROM and startexperimenting with it.

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OnCUE

TheHeartol theManer:HighIntermediate
listening,Speaking,andCriti·cal
Thinking
Marjorie Vai. Boston: Heinle & Heinle Publishers, 1998. Pp. ix+ 174. ¥2,780.
ISBN 0-8384- 7857-3.

Reviewed by Nevitt Reagan, Kansai Gaidai University
The Heart of the Matter is a rare gem forteachers lucky enough to work with advancedlevel students - an innovative speaking/listening text which thoroughly explores high-interest
topics from several perspectives.
The book contains nine thematic units: Anxiety and self-confidence; The Blues; Entrepreneurship; Stereotyping; Art in the context of history; Multiple intelligences; Crime fiction andfilm; The changing nature of work; and Dream
analysis. For young Japanese students, most ofthese will provide fresh and stimulating ideas,such as the American 'self-help' ethos, the genuine possibility of creating one's own business,and different ways of being 'smart.'Three extensive listening activities form thecore of each unit. Let's take Unit 4, "Us and
Them: Creating the Other," as an example of how
successive activities add depth to each theme.
The first activity, "Expert Opinion," provides aslightly formal 3-4 minute survey of the general
topic by an expert or academic specialist (e.g.,
an education professor's mini-lecture on the origins of stereotyping) . The second activity, "Personal Perspective ," consists of a lengthier discussion, often by practitioners in the field (e.g.,
two ESL teachers consider male/female differences in communication styles and problem-solving strategies). The third activity, "Other Voices,"
involves an even longer open-ended interview
or conversation with non-experts (e.g., three people delineate characteristics of the Democraticand Republican parties in the United States).
This clearly-designed , coherent format has
several strengths. First, it allows several perspectives to emerge as it expands the scope of eachtheme. Also, the second and third listening activities recycle thematic vocabulary in new contexts. In addition , the natural, unscripted recordings, each featuring a different speaker, provide
valuable models of several varieties of spoken
English, from low-intermediate ESL to fluent L2
to educated L 1 speakers.

The three listening activities pose challenging yet manageable tasks. Listening One focuses
first on the general topic and then on specificinformation from the mini-lecture. Listening
Two involves note-taking, vocabulary learning,and preliminary discussions. Listening Three
requires extended personal reactions to the interviews or conversations.
The fourth and final activity (either a video
or a mini-project) of each unit supplies the crucial consolidation of ideas and vocabulary. For
example, Unit 2, "Legacy of the Blues," finisheswith a short film about a blues musician whoplays in the New York subways; Unit 3, "Food:Business & Pleasure," requires students to interview a self-employed person and then create
simulated plans for businesses based on theirown interests.
Unfortunately, the terrible sound and picture
quality of most of the accompanying video segments render them practically unusable. This istruly disappointing since the video contains
some of the book's most creative and engaging
material (e.g., Unit 1: the televised "Horatio
Alger Awards Ceremony," which presents three
poignant success stories; or Unit 5: a Japanesefilm student's intensely personal exploration of
the conflict between tradition and modernization).
Additionally, despite the "high-intermediate"label, teachers in Japan should reserve this text
for advanced students. It was definitely designed
for the ESL (not EFL) market. The longer listening activities were not at all easy for my firstyear university students (TOEFL 450-520), mostof whom had spent at least one year of highschool abroad.
The author claims "The Heart of the Matter provides the richest and most varied collection of listening materials available" (p. vii).
After having used it successfully with highlymotivated Japanese university students, I agree- heartily.

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