Event

ETJ Chiba July Workshop

Sunday, July 16th, 2017, 1:30 PM - 4:30 PM

Speaker: Nicky Sekino

Theme 1: Content-Based Textbooks for Task-Based Learning
Presenter: Nicky Sekino

Bio: Mr. Nicky Sekino is an experienced teacher of English. He began teaching at American universities and Japanese vocational schools in the 1980's. Since then, he has continued teaching and the number of students he has taught now exceeds 2000. His current teaching context is the business world and his students are business people. He has an MA in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) from Teachers College Columbia University.

Outline: Nicky Sekino's students are business people who take his classes in their company's meeting room after they finish their work. He is not the first teacher for the students but is one of many others who had taught before him. When he takes over the class, the students are already weary of textbooks and often want "free conversation." Now, the term "free conversation" means an English lesson with free of charge, but this is not what the students mean. They mean a class with free flows of active conversations. He is happy to comply with the request if his students are capable of talking freely. The reality is, however, far from it and the students will stay silent most of the time if he lets students talk freely.

One idea to prevent this from happening is to give the students tasks. With adequate tasks on hand, the students will engage in active conversations. To the joy of the instructor, there may even be laughter in the class. A secret for this success is task-based learning. Most English textbooks for business purposes are collections of business situations, which are often foreign to the students and they find drills irrelevant. He uses the readily available textbooks and converts content-based drills to task-based drills. So the students will find the drills relevant to their needs. They will usually happily engage in the drills.

Theme 2: Idea Sharing Session
Facilitated by Yuco Kikuchi

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

Cost: ETJ Members: 500 yen
Non-members: 1,000 yen

Venue: 3F, Shin-Koiwa Chiku Center Access: 5 min. walk from Shin-Koiwa on the JR Sobu Line Address: 2-17-1 Shin-Koiwa, Katsushika-ku Phone: 03-3653-7141

Location: Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolis, Japan

Contact ETJ East Tokyo

Yuco Kikuchi

Mobile phone: 070-6400-6464