Event

ELT and the Science of Happiness

Tuesday, January 15th, 2008, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PM

Speaker: Marc Helgesen

Positive, motivated students -- engaged in what they are studying and with each other -- learn more. As a teacher, you already know that. But how do we facilitate that positive attitude in the classroom? The new field of "positive psychology" offers ideas. Psychology has traditionally focused on mental illness. Positive psychology focuses on mental health: What do happy, successful, mentally healthy people do? TIME magazine has dubbed this "the science of happiness." Language learning is, of course, informed by educational psychology. How can we connect ideas from positive psychology to the classroom? Can these ideas make us more effective teachers? In this session, we'll experiment with tasks that combine positive psychology -- the behaviors of happy, mentally healthy people -- with clear language learning goals.

Organization: Teacher Development Special Interest Group, Japan Association for Language Teaching (Teacher Development SIG of JALT)

Cost: free

Venue: Kanda University of International Studies

Location: Makuhari City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan

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