In this issue:

A REPORT ON THE
2020 CUE
CONFERENCE

THREE FEATURE
ARTICLESCUE CIRCULARISSUE 11JANUARY

2021

News and articles from the JALT College and University Educators Special Interest Group

Sojo University, Kumamoto

Photo by Mark Howarth

A happier new year
Well, 2020 is now behind us and we head into much more hopeful year, with lessons
learned and new skills acquired.
Like everything else, our publication schedule for 2020 was hampered in unforeseeable
ways, and despite repeated efforts to get and keep everything on track, we’re bringing
you this issue very, very late. Our authors have been waiting a long time for their articles
to see the light of day. We thank them for their patience and are pleased to present theirwork.
Crystal Rose-Wainstock, CUE’s publicity officer, along with 2020 CUE Conference cochairs Wendy Gough and Mary Hillis, brings us an account of the SIG’s conference backin September. In our three feature articles, Mary Hillis returns to discuss academicCUE CIRCULAR 1/2021

writing, Jonathan Isaacson gives an account of his journey into podcasting, andChristopher Ott shares how he gets his speaking classes off to a good start.
As always, but especially if you’re new to the Circular, please check our website for an
explanation of what the SIG and this publication are all about. Indeed, read and enjoy thisand our previous issues for an idea of what we like to publish. Submissions are always
open.

Steve Paton, Editor
JALT CUE SIG Publicity Update
The 2020 CUE Conference took place in September, and we wanted to take a look back at
how the first online CUE Conference went. The following thoughts are from the CUE
Conference co-chairs, Wendy Gough and Mary Hillis.
From Wendy:
We were sad to have to cancel the face-to-face conference after the NanKyu chapter
offered to host it at Sojo University in Kumamoto. This was an opportunity for us to reachout to CUE members living outside the central Japan corridor as well as to have a
conference that people might want to bring their families to. Rachel Barrington wasworking with the university to provide space for regular slideshow-based presentations aswell as a new “Showcase Poster” presentation format that CUE's membership chair
Robert Dykes had suggested and was coordinating. The NanKyu chapter was alsoplanning an afternoon tour of Kumamoto Castle for conference attendees.
When we decided to move the conference online, we offered free admission as well as freeunvetted presentation slots to publishers who have regularly supported CUE conferences
over the years to say thank you for supporting the SIG. Overall, the presenters seemed
comfortable with the Zoom format in the sessions I hosted, and they had lively
interactions with the audience members. The YouTube Premier presentations, where thepresenters submitted pre-recorded presentations then made themselves available during
their presentation time for Q & A, also seemed to go well. Gretchen Clark suggested
hosting Zoom sessions for Q & A during the YouTube Premier presentations, which I
hadn't thought of. It was a great idea, and I think it enhanced the presentations nicely.
Overall, the conference was a success due to the willingness of the presenters to try thisnew format and the work of the conference planners Sean Gay (webmaster), Dan
Newbury (programs), Mary Hillis (conference co-chair), and myself.

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From Mary:
Thank you to everyone involved with our first online conference. We had a good turnout
for the event and over 25 concurrent sessions. In the sessions I moderated, there were avariety of interesting topics and the speakers were well-prepared. Plenary talks were given
by Masaki Oda (Tamagawa University) and Jennie Roloff Rothman (Kanda University ofInternational Studies). We would like to thank them for sharing their time and ideas withus, and we are pleased to share that the conference was awarded a Platinum EVE (Equal
Voices in ELT) Award. If you are interested in getting involved, we would like to welcome
new volunteers to help with the next conference, so please get in touch with a CUE officer.
Thank you to everyone who helped make the CUE Conference a success!
---------------------------------------------------The CUE SIG Annual General Meeting took place at the JALT 2020 Online Conference on
Saturday, November 21st. At the meeting, CUE SIG officers presented reports for 2020.
The report was shared in the December 2020 CUE Newsletter. Please contact CUE
Publicity (publicityjaltcue@gmail.com) if you would like access to the report.

Crystal Rose-Wainstock, CUE SIG publicity officer
Note from Glen Hill (former CUE SIG Publications Chair)Thanks to the amazing efforts of the CUE conference organizers, the 2020 online
conference was a great success. What's more, it generated 11 submissions of proceedings
papers to be published in the OnCUE Journal Special Issue later this year. Readers
should keep in mind this opportunity for resume-building opportunities. Not every
submission is accepted, but the articles are usually a bit shorter, which should make any
budding author happy. And, OCJSI looks for reflection articles, too, not just proceedingsof one's presentation. A reflection article is a conference attendee's responses to one ormore of the talks, including a plenary/keynote. Even if you didn't present at a conference,
writing up something can not only add to your resume but also give you a different
approach to developing your writing skills.

Feature articles
All about you and me

4

Mary Hillis

Podcasting as an extensive listening resource

7

Jonathan Isaacson
Starting class with Chit Chat
Christopher Ott
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Feature articles
All about you and me
Mary Hillis, Ritsumeikan
University, Kyoto
Mary Hillis is interested inwriting centers, literature inlanguage teaching, andprofessional development.
maryehillis@gmail.com

Students are often taught to avoid firstand second-person pronouns in academic
writing assignments. While it is notnecessary to completely avoid the use of
personal pronouns in academic writing,students can be taught ways to limit theiruse. To achieve this aim, I propose several
strategies and in-class activities tosupport students’ development.
Strategies
There are four commonly used strategies
to limit personal pronoun usage: utilizing
the “it structure”, substituting common
nouns, using an impersonal pronoun, andciting information and evidence fromsources. Each of these strategies will be
explained, using examples from anassignment where students were asked togive their opinion on a university policy toimplement a common lunch period.
The it structure
The it structure is a method that students
can use to transform sentences. For
example, the sentence “I will write about
why you should eat lunch” could bechanged with the it structure to “It is
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important for students to eat lunch.”
Students can follow the basic pattern totransform or write sentences for theiressay: “it + is + adjective + for … +infinitive” (Hinkel, 2004). However, there
are several points to be aware of whenusing this sentence construction. First,
students should vary their adjective
choice so that the same word is not usedeach time. In addition, students should
not overuse this construction because
beginning a sentence with “It is” shifts theemphasis to the end of the sentence,
making the idea weaker.
Common nouns
The next strategy is to replace a personalpronoun with a common noun. If a
student wrote the sentence, “The common
lunch period is very important for me,”then they should consider which specificgroup of people “me” refers to. In thiscase, the common nouns would be“students and faculty,” so the sentence
could be rewritten as, “The common
lunch period is very important for
students and faculty.” Although thisstrategy is relatively easy to apply,
students should be aware of two common
pitfalls. One is that plural nouns, such as“students” or “people”, should be used
when talking about a situation in general.
Another is that the chosen common noun
should not be overused in the paragraph;in other words, writers should strive for abalance between the common noun (e.g.,
students or people) and thecorresponding pronoun (e.g., them).

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Impersonal pronouns
The third strategy is to utilize theimpersonal pronoun “one”. If a student
wrote, “You can eat lunch every day” thesentence could easily be changed to “Onecan eat lunch every day.” For student
assignments, “one” has a formal tone andtherefore should be used sparingly. If
students do still choose the impersonalpronoun, then it is important toremember that “one” is singular, so
subject-verb agreement should bechecked.
Citing information
Unlike the previous strategies, the final
strategy of citing information fromsources requires more than restructuring
the sentence; students need to not only
find appropriate information but also
document it correctly. For example, if a
student wrote, “If I don’t have time to eat
lunch, then I can’t do my best on
assignments and tests”, then the student
can be encouraged to research
information instead of using personal
examples for support. The student could
search for the negative effects of noteating lunch. With this information, thestudent can write a new sentence, such as“Skipping meals leads to a lack ofessential nutrients that causes yourenergy and concentration to drop
(Weintraub, 2017).” Students must
paraphrase and cite source ideas properlyin their assignments.
Classroom activities
To raise student awareness of the use of
personal pronouns in academic writing,teachers can include classroom activities
at various stages of the writing process.
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Classroom activities for noticing personalpronouns, examining writing strategies,
transforming sentences, and peerreviewing classmates’ drafts are outlined
below.
The first activity is to have students notice
the personal pronouns in a model
paragraph by highlighting all the firstand second-person pronouns they read.
After finding these, students can discuss
the following questions: Are personalpronouns used in the model paragraph?
How were they used? Why were they used
or not used?
The second activity is to have students
identify the strategy used in a specificsentence. Students should read a list of
sample sentences and identify which of
the four strategies (it structure, common
nouns, impersonal pronouns, cite asource) has been used in each one.
The third activity is a paragraph-length
fill-in-the-blank activity. For this activity,
the teacher prepares a paragraph but
removes three to four sentences in which
the strategies are used and places thesesentences in a list. Students read theparagraph, choose the correct sentencefrom the list, and insert it into the correct
position in the paragraph. In this way,
students can see strategies in use at theparagraph level and see how they canwork together.
The next activity is transforming
sentences. Students can change asentence with a first-person pronoun to asentence using a common noun,
impersonal pronoun, or it structure. This
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can be done orally as a pair activity or
written as an individual activity.
The final activity is a self- or peer-review
activity. For this, students answer key
questions about their partner’s
paragraph: Does the writer use personalpronouns? Does the writer use personal
stories and experiences, or informationfrom sources for support? What can thewriter do to improve this assignment?
Conclusion
Many students have learned never toinclude personal pronouns in academic
paragraphs and essays. As writing
conventions continue to change andstudents write for different audiences andpurposes, choosing an appropriate voice
and employing a variety of sentence
structures are becoming increasingly
important skills. Four strategies foravoiding personal pronouns include “itstructure,” common nouns, impersonalpronoun, or citing information fromsources. These writing skills can be honed
through classroom activities which
encourage students to notice and practicethese strategies.
References
Hinkel, E. (2004). Teaching academic
ESL writing: Practical techniques invocabulary and grammar. Routledge.
Weintraub, L. (2017, September 19).
Nutrition: Tired of afternoon fatigue? Try
these to turn it around. Daily News. Los
Angeles Daily News. https://www.dailynews.com/2017/09/19/
nutrition-tired-of-afternoon-fatigue-trythese-to-turn-it-around/
Note: This article is based on apresentation delivered at the JALT 2019
Conference in Nagoya.

Submit an article!
What’s happening in your teaching?
What obstacles have you overcome, and how?
What ideas or opinions do you have that others might be interested to read?
What have you read, heard, or seen recently that’s changed your approach toteaching, either in or out of the classroom?
CUE Circular aims to publish quality, interesting, practical articles about the day-today nature of teaching in our sector.

w w w .j a l t c u e .o rg /c u e c i rc u l a r
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Podcasting as anextensive listening
resource
Jonathan Isaacson, Tohoku
Fukushi University
Jonathan Isaacson has beenteaching in Japan for over 15
years. He is interested intechnology in the classroom.
j-isaacson@tfu-mail.tfu.ac.jp

The benefits of extensive reading (ER) for
language learners are well known andhard to deny, which is why I incorporate
ER into my classes. However, I havealways found one serious drawback. Thatis the matter of students who are not avid
readers in their first language. How can I
expect students without positive L1
reading habits and all the strategies thatcome with those habits to develop goodreading habits in their second language?
One of the central tenets of ER, as
highlighted by Thornbury (2006), is “themore leisurely reading of longer texts,
primarily for pleasure” (p. 191, emphasis
added). If students do not enjoy readingin their L1, reading in L2 will almost
certainly not be a pleasurable experience.
To combat this, I allow my students theoption of doing either ER or extensive
listening (EL) to fulfill their homework
requirements. With ER, it is simple formy students to find materials; my school
has a fair selection of graded readersavailable both online and in our library.
For listening, students are much more on

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their own. Of course, I make lists ofrecommendations, primarily podcasts andYouTube channels aimed at ESL/EFL
students. For some students, theserecommendations are sufficient; students
can find materials that are both levelappropriate and interesting.
Unfortunately, this is not always the casefor everyone.
This situation of having students who are
not readers and who cannot find listening
samples that are both level-appropriate
and interesting led me to the idea ofcreating my own podcasts for students.
Podcasts are still a growing medium, withnew shows and services seemingly
available daily. This includes content fromwithin the TESOL world.
So why jump on the bandwagon as ateacher? For me, there were two reasonsfor creating an original podcast: one formyself and one for my students. The
personal reason for making a podcast isquite simple. I enjoy podcasts. They are
an easy way to entertain and educate
myself about pretty much any topic one
can think of. This idea ties into thestudent-centric reason I created the
podcast series. Because I find podcasts tobe such a useful tool for personal
education, it stands to reason thatstudents might find them useful as well.
And, rather than stopping at simply giving
them a list of recommended podcasts fortheir EL, I thought that creating podcasts
specifically for them would make the
podcasts more engaging. According to a
podcast listening survey done in the US,
the number one reason given by 75% of
respondents for lack of interest in
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podcasts was that “podcasts just aren’t foryou” (Edison Research, 2019). Of course,
a survey of the general public in the US
isn’t completely applicable to Japanese
university students, but human nature isuniversal enough to assume that similarreasoning would be present in at least a
noticeable number of my students.
Therefore, it was my belief that, given theoption of podcasts made by their teacher,tailored specifically for them, people’s
feeling of detachment from podcasts
could be lessened at least somewhat.
Once the decision had been made tocreate podcasts for students, the issue ofwhat topics to cover arose. As statedpreviously, I am attempting to makepodcasts more personal for students. As
such, I found that the two most common
themes that emerged through 50 episodes
were (a) personal information about
myself, and (b) comparisons between
Japan and other cultures, primarily theUS, where I am from. While it has notbeen a conscious decision to focus on
these two themes, they both seem logicaland relevant for materials aimed at amonocultural student body. While notevery student is curious about the detailsof their teachers’ lives—in fact, themajority of students probably don’t reallycare all that much about their teachers’
personal lives—familiarity with thesubject of a discussion makes it more
relatable. Cultural comparisons abound in
textbooks and all manner of language
teaching materials for obvious reasons.
Additionally, creating my own podcasts
allows me to finely tailor the topics to suit
students’ specific interests or to focus on

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subjects that we have talked about or willtalk about in class.
Creating my own podcasts has also
allowed me to track student engagement
as well, in a limited sense, thanks to theanalytics provided by the podcast hosting
service. While the response from students
hasn’t been overwhelming, those whohave engaged with the podcasts I havecreated have reacted positively, based on
their ER/EL homework submissions.
Of course, there are areas to improve andhopefully increase student engagement.
One method, which I already employ, isproviding students with a feedback form.
If students have a topic they would likeme to discuss, they can submit an online
form requesting an episode about it.
While the initial response was slow, withrepeated reminders and promotion of thisoption, student engagement has
improved, and students are regularly
making requests for topics they areinterested in. A further, future
improvement is to categorize episodes
roughly based on the language level used.
I try my best to not use too many lowfrequency words, even providing someJapanese support for certain vocabulary.
However, I attempt to use language that is
as authentic and “normal” as possible.
Depending on the topic, difficulty canvary quite widely. Ideally, episodes should
be labelled as easy, moderate, anddifficult to help students select episodes
appropriate to their level.
While the initial response was somewhat
muted, through continued promotion of
the podcast as a resource they can have8

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some direction over, student engagement
has begun to improve. Creating thesematerials has been a learning experience,
and with more time and effort, I believe I
can improve my podcast even more, withmy students in mind, and create
something that will engage students on amore personal level than other EL
resources available to them.

References
Edison Research. (2019, April 5). The
podcast consumer. Edison Research.
https://www.edisonresearch.com/thepodcast-consumer-2019/
Thornbury, S. (2006). An A-Z of ELT: A
dictionary of terms and concepts.
Macmillan.

Starting class with Chit
Chat
Christopher Ott, Sojo
University
Chris Ott is a senior assistantprofessor at Sojo. His researchinterests include student
motivation and teacher
feedback.
christopherott@hotmail.com

Start a lesson by getting students engaged
and piquing their interest, and that lesson
may have a good chance of being
successful and well-received. That samelesson, however, if taught without firststirring student interest, may not achieve
the class objectives as successfully. In my
experience, getting class started on theright foot by setting an engaging andmotivating tone can pay dividends
throughout the lesson. In this piece, I
offer an approach to beginning a classthat raises student interest and prepares
them to actively participate. Thus tobegin, I’ll attempt to pique your interest.
“Do you like ˈmɒnəʊpəʊli?”, was aquestion that my university Spanish
teacher once asked, with a grin on his
face, to begin his class. His goal with thequestion was to emphasize theimportance of word stress in languages.
(For those like myself that aren’t
confident in their International Phonetic
Alphabet reading skills, ˈmɒnəʊ ispronounced with the stress on the firstsyllable, as in the phrase “mano amano”). He was off to a good start as noone in the class could understand what he

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was saying, even though he repeated thequestion multiple times. Then the teacher
asked the question again, but this timewith the stress on the correct syllable: “Do
you like məˈnɒp(ə)li?” With this simple
class warm-up, I was thoroughly
entertained and would never forget theimportance of syllable stress, even whentalking about a common, popular board
game that everyone knows (Monopoly).
How to start class is a question allteachers are faced with. One way is to leadwith a warm-up activity designed with theaim of getting students engaged and readyto learn. My Spanish teacher did just that.
His class warm-up routine was to regale
us with language-related stories, such as
the one above, or anecdotes drawn fromhis time spent in Spain and Mexico. I
think he was onto something as two
decades later I still remember much ofwhat I learned at the beginning of those
Spanish lessons. What was it that madehis class warm-ups so memorable? Itseems to me that he was palpablyinterested in what he had to tell us. What
he had to say was not only interesting but
also a novel glimpse into the world of
Spanish into which we were journeying.
Now, years later, I find myself starting myown university language classes in asimilar manner and enjoying a similarlevel of success.
Chit Chat is what I have termed the 10-15
minute warm-up activity that I begin myclasses with. To start the activity, several
questions relating to a topical subject,
topical to me and/or the students, areprojected onto the whiteboard. Student
comprehension of the questions is
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checked, and if necessary, example
answers are given. Then in pairs, students
take turns asking each other the questions
on the board. This is followed by me
sharing with the students a personal story
that relates to the question(s). It is a
simple format, but it has been very
effective in getting lessons started on theright foot, with students looking
interested and engaged. It sounds simple
enough, but there are three ingredientsthat I feel are crucial for the Chit Chatcomponent to succeed.
Perhaps the most essential element for
Chit Chat to succeed is for the teacher tohave an interesting story or anecdote thatthey are eager to share with the class: it isthe enthusiasm that drives the activity. An
example of a successful anecdote is one I
told about binge-watching TV shows.
There was a TV show I had recently
discovered, and I had been bingewatching it on a nightly basis. I was
excited to share the experience, as well as
the language necessary to discuss it. To
start the class, the following questions
were written on the board:
1. Have you ever binge-watched a TVshow?
2. Have you ever spent a whole day
watching a tv show?
3. What is the most addictive tv show
you have ever watched?
After students had asked each other thequestions, I dove into my story relating to
the questions. In an unforced,
enthusiastic, and often humorous manner
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I spoke of binge-watching this show, thesleepless nights, and how the show was
the most addictive show I’d ever watched.
The energy and interest I had in the topic
appeared to keep most of the students
focused and engaged in what I had tosay.
In addition to a general enthusiasm for
the Chit Chat topic, the activity benefits
by having a sense of mystery surrounding
the questions. Students should feelp u z z l e d a n d w o n d e r w h e re t h e s equestions are leading and what story will
follow them up. In one Chit Chat session,
students were given the following
questions to ask classmates:
1. What’s your favorite smell?
2. Are there any smells that you really
don’t like? What?
3. D o y o u l i k e t h e s m e l l o f__________?
As Chit Chit is prefaced by no otheractivities, students should find it strange
to start a class by talking about the topic
of smell. However, by the time this Chit
Chat was conducted, students werealready aware that questions would
connect to a topical story that I had. And,
I hoped, while they were talking about
smells, they were wondering what kind ofstory related to smells I would present
them with. In the case of this Chit Chat, I
jumped into an excited talk on thefragrance of kinmokusei tree flowers, andhow, since they were currently in bloom, I
was in heaven and constantly outside
smelling the kinmokusei tree in my yard.
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Below are some other Chit Chats that I
have done in class that worked quite well.
1. Do you have a favorite bottled greentea?
2. If you are thirsty, which would you
rather drink, green tea or oolong tea?
3. What is the strangest vending
machine drink you’ve ever had?
4. What is the worst vending machine
drink you’ve had?
(This Chit Chat was followed up by metalking about a black bean tea I’dpurchased from a vending machine theprevious week, how it was the worst
vending machine drink I’d ever had, andhow the variety of healthy drinks inJapanese vending machines is surprising
for an American. I also spoke on how you
can’t buy green tea from vending
machines in the US.)
1. How often do you rent movies?
2. What is the last movie you rented?
3. Do you use Netflix?
4. Do you think Tsutaya will ever go out
of business?
(After this Chit Chat, I told students abouta DVD I’d rented the other day, how
happy I am that Japan still has a national
video rental chain, and how most video
rental stores have closed in the US,
though you can now rent movies fromvending machines.)
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1. Will you spend Christmas Eve andChristmas Day with your family?
2. Will you get presents from yourparents?
3. For you, what is the smell of
Christmas?

CUE Circular
Issue #11, January 2021
A publication of the JALT College andUniversity Educators Special Interest GroupISSN 2432-5570
All rights re se rve dw w w .j a l t c u e .o rg /c u e c i rc u l a r

4. Does Christmas make you sad?
(This Chit Chat was done before
Christmas, and I told students how
Christmas in Japan makes me sadbecause Christmas, as I know it, is afamily holiday, but my family is in the US.
I also explained that I am sad because I
can’t enjoy the smell of Christmas, which
for me is the smell of a real Christmas tree
in the house.)

EditorSteve Paton

Assistant Editors

Dion Clingwall
Mark Howarth

Proofreading

Mary Hillis
Ryan Richardson
Glen Hill

The final key to making Chit Chat a
success is to have it free of pressure. In
these warmups, students are not required
to remember the language that appears in
the questions, they are not tested on it,
and participation in Chit Chat is notreflected in their grades. This adds to thefun factor of the warm-up. Students arefree to focus on enjoying the conversationand learning interesting details from theirfellow students and the teacher.
Chit Chat has been a fantastic way to start
my classes. Most students actively
participate in the activity. It appears towake them up, get them excited aboutclass, and make them more engaged in
the class. Provided a teacher has stories
they’d like to share with their students, I
believe this is a good option for beginning
an English class.
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