Event

ETJ Tokyo Workshop

Sunday, January 18th, 2015, 2:30 PM - 5:00 PM

Speaker: (1) Olga Marina; (2) Terry Yearley

(1) Teaching speaking through communication mobility strategies and critical thinking
Olga Marina

This workshop introduces participants to Communication Mobility (CM) that helps students to use heir language resources for effective speaking at any level of language proficiency. Together we will try our hands on a series of easy, not time consuming, speaking activities that provide students with the right amount of challenge at every step. With these activities students have an opportunity to learn how to use CM strategies and elements of critical thinking while speaking English. Participants will receive handouts describing techniques, worksheets and cards for the task. The workshop proceeds in three steps: hands on activities involving all workshop attendees, then general discussion, followed by the introduction of the CM principles.

Intended audience: Language school, high school and university teachers, language exam preparation instructors.

Biography: Olga Marina is as an Associate Professor with the National Research University HSE FL Department and a Visiting Professor at MEd Programs as well as a Cambridge oral examiner. She has written on a number of ELT issues.

(2) Strategies for Speaking
Terry Yearley

One problem students may have with speaking exercises is that, given the topic, they cannot think of anything useful to say about it. In this presentation I will describe a simple template that students can follow, and which with a little practice, will enable them to quickly and easily construct a short monolog. This template consists of:

1. pairing a familiar topic with a controlling idea to make a topic sentence, then
2. identifying three supporting ideas, and finally
3. explaining each idea with the use of details.

This template is useful for building fluency, developing critical thinking, and responding to the first two tasks in the Speaking section of the TOEFL iBT.

Biography: Terry Yearley teaches at Keio Senior High School in Hiyoshi, and is the Program Officer for ETJ Tokyo.

Organization: ETJ Tokyo (English Teachers in Japan) (ETJ Tokyo)

Cost: free

Venue: 22F, Shinagawa Intercity Tower A, 2-15-1 Konan, Minato-ku, Tokyo. 3 minutes on foot from the Konan Exit of Shinagawa Station (Yamanote Line, Keihin Kyuko Line)

Location: Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolis, Japan

Contact ETJ Tokyo

Ellie Kumagai and Chinny Mbakwe