NPO The Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT) is a non-profit organization that promotes excellence in language learning, teaching, and research by providing opportunities for those involved in language education to meet, share, and collaborate. All language teachers are welcome to attend our events.

DATE: September 23
TIME: 18:00-20:00
VENUE : ACROS Building, 2F, Seminar Room 2
COST: free

Learners need huge amounts of comprehensible input to learn a foreign language. And listening is an easy way to get this. It is commonly observed that students who spend time listening to English outside of class (for example, movies, YouTube, music and so on) do better than those that don’t. However, learners coming from syllable-timed or mora-timed languages (such as Japanese) often lack an ability to comprehend naturally-spoken English. The presenter will demonstrate how listening should be taught to learners from syllable- or mora-timed languages.

Speaker Bio: Alastair Graham-Marr has his Masters in Applied Linguistics. He’s been teaching in Japan for 28 years. He is an Associate Professor at the Tokyo University of Science. In addition, he is an editor at ABAX Ltd, a specialty ELT publisher. He is currently in the third year of a government research grant into the difficulties that many Japanese learners face when listening to naturally-enunciated English.