ELT in Japan (ELT-J)

These feature articles and articles in brief are under development for publication in 2010 at the ELT-J Online Magazine : 1. Vocabulary activities ( semantic mapping ) for the conversation class. 2. Vocabulary activities ( semantic mapping ) for the beginning-level writing class. 3. Teaching English /l/ vs. /r/ (applied phonology). 4. Introducing a different sort of audio-visual electronic pronunciation dictionary for FL learning (follows up on the previous article about units of phonology, the 'visually salient articulatory gesture'). 5. Variations of and considerations for the multiple-choice vocabulary question for FL practice and assessment. 6. A look at schema theory and its applications for ELT. 7. A look at ' phonemic awareness ' and ' phonological awareness '--what are they and how might they apply to ELT. 8. Analysis of the issue ' phonics vs. whole language ' from an ELT perspective. 9. An adaptation of 'semantic feature anal

Try free open-source run-anywhere software Why use expensive commercial 'bloatware' (which locks you into an endless cycle of planned obsolescence at your expense) when so much free, open-source software is now available? Much of it even runs on Windows, although much of the software emerged from open source communities and companies that backed open source (at least in some forms). The portable applications, such as Lupo PenSuite and PortableApps will run on the hard drive of your computer (without creating hard-to-uninstall files and registry artifacts), but you can also run them from a portable pen drive or other such memory device (SD card, Memory Stick, attached external hard drive, etc.). There are other products and online services available in addition to the ones listed here, but, except for the last entry on the list ('Other'), I am only including ones that I have downloaded and am using now. It is not just that expensive proprietary software is being

For those of you who read and blogon the Yahoo side of things, there is this: http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/community/eltinjapan/

Why is 'research' in ELT/TEFL/TESOL/AL/SLA so irrelevant? by Charles Jannuzi, University of Fukui, Japan While most of the research in support of and about ELT is produced in academia, most actual language teaching and language learning are done outside academia. Even when FLs get taught at universities, the people who often end up with the teaching duties are not in the sort of university posts that are meant for research. However, I believe the single biggest issue is the institutional approach to science and knowledge which falls under the overwhelming intellectual influences of the past half century. In short, research that is supposed to be in support of ELT is largely irrelevant, invalid and not applicable to teaching and learning because of two academic traditions: structuralism and behaviourism. Structuralism comprises the linguistic framework for much of ELT, and yet structuralism is an historic relic of linguistics. The linguistic 'units' and 'mode

Breaking down the 'theory vs. practice' distinction by Charles Jannuzi, University of Fukui, Japan What separates 'academic theory' from 'effective practice' in language teaching is this: the academic tries to make things explicit in the form of 'airtight' arguments conforming to the requirements and readership expectations of the genres accepted for publication (e.g., the research report). . This means however that the academic presents 'theory' in rather formulaic discourse away from the classroom. Often it is more like theory about theory--meta-theory. Academic discourse is often sold as 'objective science or 'substantiated knowledge', but often it only presents the outward appearance of objectivity (indeed, most science is actually dogmatic arguments supported by selective evidence). Academic prose, even in the form of the 'research report' often presents overgeneralized theories which are uncritically accepted as

ELT in Japan , Issue 1, Feature Article: The Facially Salient Articulatory Gesture as a Basic Unit for Applied Phonology in ELT by Charles Jannuzi, University of Fukui, Japan Introduction This paper summarizes the analysis and interpretation of the results of two electromyographic procedures  in experimental phonology. The results of electromyographic experiments have been interpreted and  analyzed using concepts and theory from linguistics, applied linguistics, and phonology, specifically articulatory  phonology. The first electromyographic procedure on one native speaker of English obtained data on  the consonant sounds of English. The second electromyographic procedure was used to explore the large  vowel system of English. Based on the results of these experiments, we propose a new theory about the basic sub-lexical unit of  speech production and perception. This paper posits a new, discrete, invariant, psychological unit of  phonology that functions below the level of wor

Teaching as a Foreign National at Japanese Universities: Shifting Terms of Institutional Status, Employment, Work Conditions and Related Concerns by Charles Jannuzi, University of Fukui, Japan Introduction The Japanese tertiary system consists of some 1250 national, public, and private four- and two-year institutions. At these degree-awarding universities and colleges, the terms 'foreign lecturer' or 'foreign instructor' refer to any non-Japanese personnel teaching below the status of professor. Most typically though the terms refer to full-time foreign language teachers who are 'native speakers' of the language they teach. The vast majority of these foreign nationals teach English as a foreign language (EFL), but the number teaching other important languages, especially Asian ones, such as Mandarin Chinese, has also risen significantly during the past two decades. The non-Japanese teaching EFL in Japan are often assigned general English classes as pa

Native Writing Systems: Positive Transfer or Interference for EFL Learning? by Charles Jannuzi, University of Fukui, Japan Click on the links below and the page will load as a graphic in your browser. Page 1 of 'Native Writing Systems' Page 2 of 'Native Writing Systems' Page 3 of 'Native Writing Systems' Page 4 of 'Native Writing Systems' See also the previously published article on ' katakana eigo '.  Labels: phonics, whole language, writing systems, native literacy, native language arts, positive transfer, (negative)

Please note that towards the end of the article three classroom activities are explained.  ELT-J Issue Feature Article: Do Japanese EFL students need katakana eigo to learn and to read English? by Charles Jannuzi, University of Fukui, Japan Introduction 'Katakana' is one of two syllabaries used in modern written Japanese; it is largely used to represent non-Chinese loan words, such as the numerous English loan words in Japanese called 'gairaigo'. It is also used in some contexts to stand for native onomatopoeia and other mimetic language, to show emphasis in a written text, to transcribe the readings of Chinese characters in legal documents, to provide a quickly input language for telegraphy, and to represent the popular names of animals and plants in native taxonomy, among other uses. However, katakana also finds widespread use in EFL in Japan in classrooms and materials as 'katakana eigo', which is a syllabic transliteration of English into a form