Event

Getting Ready for 2020

Sunday, April 22nd, 2018, 1:30 PM - 4:30 PM

Speaker: Alison Nemoto

This is a period of enormous change in Japanese primary education, as English advances to become a subject for the upper grades and a compulsory activity for the middle grades from 2020. After working on the MEXT committee which developed the materials, "We Can!" and "Let's Try!", in this presentation Alison Nemoto will share her ideas about how they should be ideally used in the classroom this year and next. She will also provide feedback on the new curriculum from student teachers who are trying it out in university classes and from children at pilot schools already using the materials.

Bio: B.Ed (Hons), M.A. in TEYL, (Teaching English to Young Learners). Alison is from the UK and trained as a primary school teacher, before coming to Japan on the JET programme in 1989. She has over 20 years of experience teaching in kindergartens, primary schools and junior high schools in the coastal area of Fukushima and worked for a year as the only native teacher in the 16 primary schools in Minamisoma City, Fukushima, directly after the earthquake, Tsunami and nuclear disaster of 2011. Since 2012, she has been as a Specially Appointed Associate Professor at Miyagi University of Education. She teaches English communication, writing and practical teaching skills to undergraduates who will become primary and secondary school teachers of English. Her areas of research are children's opinions on reflective learning activities, active learning methods for Japanese primary English classrooms and the effect of storytelling as a gateway to English learning. She is involved in in-service teacher training at the university and works as an adviser in primary English education to numerous public schools the Tohoku area.

Alison has worked for over ten years with various publishing companies, including Kairyudo and Kumon, on the development of materials for young learners in both public primary and junior high schools, and private language schools. She was appointed as an English curriculum and materials development adviser to the Myanmar Government, helped develop two texbooks and visited Myanmar three times from 2016-2017. She was also appointed as an English curriculum and materials development advisor for MEXT from Dec. 2016 - Dec. 2017, working on the syllabus reform and development of the materials; "Let's Try!" and "We Can!" to be used from April 2018 until the new English primary school curriculum officially begins in 2020. She is programs chair for Sendai JALT and enjoys travelling, art, watching movies and yoga in her spare time.

Organization: Iwate-Aomori Chapter of the Japan Association for Language Teaching (Iwate-Aomori JALT)

Cost: JALT Members: free
Non-members: 1,000 yen

Venue: AIINA (map)

Location: Morioka City, Iwate Prefecture, Japan

Contact Iwate-Aomori JALT

Mary Burkitt

Work phone: 019-663-3132

Jason Hill