Title: How Listening Skills Can Drive or Inhibit Motivation and SLA
Speaker: Alastair Graham-Marr
6:30 pm start, doors will be open from 6:00pm. Finishing around 8:30pm
Venue: Tenjin: Kurume University Satellite Campus in the ELGALA building, next to Daimaru, near Tenjin Minami station. Use the south-east “Office” entrance.

This event is free for everyone.

Description: Feelings of inadequacy quite obviously negatively impact our students’ decisions to engage with English, both in and out of the classroom. And when students chose not to engage with the language, learning opportunities are lost or kicked down the road. A majority of our students feel that their L2 listening comprehension skills are insufficient, leading to feelings of anxiety, which in turn negatively impact the desire to willingly engage with the language, which if unchecked will continue in a negative cycle. The cause of these L2 listening comprehension difficulties can be found in the huge phonological differences between Japanese and English. Students need to be actively coached and taught these differences, and be encouraged to keep on with a regime of listening practice, that might be quite different from how we might approach, say, extensive reading. This talk will look at both pedagogical approaches and recent research in SLA. Participants are also welcome to contribute to the discussion.

JALT is the Japan Association for Language Teaching, an NPO dedicated to improving language teaching in Japan. Our local chapter’s website is http://fukuokajalt.org