JACET 2010 in Sendai

September has been going by so fast that I haven't had time to write up much at all.

JACET 2010 at Miyagi U. in Sendai was a lot of fun:

1. Presented! in Japanese for the first time, my classroom activity report on 「Critical Academic Discussions (CADs): 批判的思考とスピーキング力を伸ばす学生主導タスクの試み」 ("CADs: A student-centered task for developing critical thinking and speaking skills"). This is about the new type of speaking task I tried in the Advanced Academic Speaking class at ICU. Basically, it is a 15 minute mix of argumentative, presentation, debate, and discussion and enhances traditional "present and discuss" activities by building in an element of "critical questions" like debate. My ICU students liked the flow of activity a lot, so I decided to share it with other college teachers in Japan. I showed some video clips and explained how it flows, and what students liked and disliked about it. This academic year, I plan to try it again and gather more data on how students improve their confidence and ability to interact with critical question and answer to dissect arguments and suggest in a constructive, polite and friendly way. The paper is forthcoming...

2. Steered--Did my duty as a member of the Convention Steering Committee for JACET 2010, mainly contributing to the creation of the convention program and other documents like the call for papers along the way. It is nice to be involved in an academic organization committee, working together with people from different universities and exchange ideas with them. The only problem is that this type of volunteer work can tend to snowball...and I hope I can keep the amount of work reasonable by drawing in new recruits to share the work with me. Anyone interested?

3. Picked up some new ideas--My colleague Masuko did a very nice symposium presentation on how her students did critical analysis and reflection on language learning materials, and developed their autonomy as language learners (and future teachers) in the process. I also learned a lot from a workshop by Dr. Asakawa et al on integrating global studies and social activism into language classes. The plenary by Dr. Simon Borg on teacher autonomy was a nice overview of how to examine our own beliefs as teachers, but I personally wished that it had been a workshop style. Met some old and new friends at various parties along the way and am looking forward to seeing them again in Fukuoka September 2011.

4. Enjoyed the city of Sendai--If you are looking for out-of-this-earth beef tongue barbecue, Rikyu is a solid choice for lunch or dinner with stores conveniently located here and there around downtown Sendai. We were already satisfied with Rikyu's "芯たん" which is amazing, but decided to explore the ultimate beef tongue. The true champion, according to rankings on word-of-mouth site TabeLog, and confirmed by my own amateur tasting, was a hideout known as Tsuruno. The flavor defies words. The seafood such as oysters were good too, but the beef tongue, as tataki and as yaki was amazing.


I'll be looking forward to going back to Sendai.