Event
HomeTechDay +Plus 2014 mini-conference (co-sponsored by Osaka and Kobe JALT)
Sunday, October 5th, 2014, 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Speaker: Various. Plenary Charles Browne (Meiji Gakuin University)
Tech Day Plus is one of our best-loved events of the year. Our goal is to share ideas on a wide range of topics, both tech-related and non-tech alike. Our "Tech" presentations will be in fully equipped computer labs, while our "Plus" (non-tech) presentations will be in regular classrooms. This year's Tech Day Plus will again be held at Otemae University's Itami campus, co-sponsored by Osaka and Kobe Chapters of JALT.
Plenary
A New General Service List: Words and Online Tools for EFL Success
Dr. Charles Browne
The New General Service List (NGSL) is a list of core vocabulary words for EFL learners and is a major update of West's (1953) GSL. Based on a carefully selected 273 million word sample from the Cambridge English corpus, the 2800+ words of the NGSL offer an amazing 92% coverage of most texts of general English. This presentation will give a brief background on the list and project before moving on to introducing a large and growing number of free online resources that are available to help you teach, learn, analyze or create teaching materials based on the NGSL. One of the underlying messages of this presentation is the need for applied research to utilize and take advantage of online resources in order to help teachers, researchers and learners to benefit from that research.
Dr. Charles Browne is Professor of Applied Linguistics & TESOL, Director of the EFL Teacher-Training Program at Meiji Gakuin University. He is a specialist in Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition and Extensive Reading, especially as they apply to online learning environments, and has written dozens of research articles, books, and textbooks over his 29 years in Japan. In addition to his recent work in creating two important new corpus-based word lists for second language learners known as the New General Service List (NGSL) and the New Academic Word List (NAWL), he has also helped to create a wide variety of research-based language learning and analysis software such as the OGTE (Online Graded Text Editor), ER-Central, EnglishCentral, WordEngine, V-Check, and GoFluent, and works hard to share this knowledge with teachers, researchers and software developers through countless presentations, seminars and hand-on workshops.
Call for papers due Sept. 20
Presentations can be in English, Japanese, or any language you like. Teachers and students of all kinds are welcome and encouraged to submit proposals for any kind of presentation including group presentations, workshops, posters, round-table discussions, you name it. Space and time permitting, we'll do our best to fit you in. The deadline for submissions is September 20 via tinyurl.com/TDPsub.
Otemae University's Itami campus is just 75 meters from Inano station on the Hankyu line or 5 minutes walk from JR Inadera station on the Takarazuka line.
5:00 - 7:00 pm: dinner party at a nearby restaurant for those interested. Photos and details of past years' Tech Day Plus events are available online.
Organization: Osaka Chapter of the Japan Association for Language Teaching (Osaka JALT)
Cost: JALT Members: 1000 yen (500 yen for K-12 teachers and those 65+, free for students)
Non-members: 2,000 yen (1,000 yen for K-12 teachers and those 65+, 500 yen for students)
Venue: Otemae University - Itami campus, very near Hankyu Inano and JR Inadera stations (map)
Location: Itami City, Osaka Prefecture, Japan
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