ELT in Japan (ELT-J)

Truespel - the English Based Phonetic Notation – for ESL Tom Zurinskas Truespel phonetic notation was created in 1986 to answer the following question: What would be the best way to design a phonetic notation based on the sounds and most typical spellings of English?  After all, if English is the lingua franca of the world, shouldn't an accessible approach to phonetics (for ESL and EFL learning ) be based on it as well? As a human factors specialist at the time, I found that pronunciation guides were not standardized nor computer-friendly, not even for copy/paste. Moreover, academic notations such as the International Phonetic Association (IPA) system (often called 'the IPA ') were not English or computer- friendly, using a mix of languages and codes (such as exotic symbols) to spell sounds.   Because of this, phonetics is not taught to children in the US, which impacts, for example, the learning of phonemic and phonological awareness, key correlates to reading devel...

Time we can do nothing about (except note its passing). However, the 50th post is a self-fulfilling prophecy, as this will be and is the 50th post to the ELT-J blog. We thought we would take another look at what has been one of our most popular pieces so far (published in issue 1 of the ELT J online magazine, made available at this blog). ----------------------------------------------------- Ten Reasons Why English Learning in Japan Fails Charles Jannuzi, University of Fukui, Japan Introduction It is hoped that the ten reasons explained here are comprehensive enough to encompass most of the important factors involved in making an analysis such as this. In summary form, the ten MAIN reasons are the following: 1. Japan is linguistically and culturally self-sufficient--so most Japanese do not have a pressing need to learn or use English (English is a FOREIGN language), nor is English used much for social or communication purposes in Japan--certainly not between Japanese. 2. Ja...

  ELT-J Issue #1 (December 2009) Issue #1 online Issue #1 readable as googledocs and downloadable as .pdf Issue #1 bonus article as googledoc and downloadable as .pdf (Can Native Literacy Practices Impact EFL Learning? The Example of Japan ) ELT-J Issue #2 (March 2010) Issue #2 online Issue #2 readable as googledocs and downloadable as .pdf

ELT-J Issue #2 (March 2010) I. Folder of three .pdfs that can be viewed as GoogleDocs or downloaded as .pdf II. As separate articles: A. Devising Multiple-choice Questions, Quizzes and Tests B. Semantic Mapping Activities for the Speaking Class C. Semantic Mapping Activities for the Writing Class

The entire issue will be made available in .pdf that you can download and view in Adobe Acrobat Reader later this month (March 2010).

ELT in Japan Issue 2 (March 2010) Contents (1)  Devising multiple-choice questions, quizzes and tests (2)  Semantic mapping activities for the speaking class (3)  Semantic mapping activities for the writing class --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Devising Multiple-choice Questions, Quizzes and Tests Charles Jannuzi, University of Fukui, Japan Introduction Chances are that, if you teach EFL at a tertiary level in Japan (and other parts of developed E. Asia), your students are most familiar with relatively 'conservative' types of assessment tasks. The orientation of the teaching, the classroom, and the students is to take a given stretch of L2 (English) and asked to deal with it in terms of what it could mean if re-encoded into the L1 (standard forms of Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, etc.). This orientation even plays out in language test...