The JALT Vocabulary SIG Symposium
I was lucky enough to be able to attend this year’s JALT Vocabulary SIG Symposium on Saturday in Fukuoka. It was the first time for me to attend the event, and I found it useful enough to put it on my list to attend next year.
The format for the symposium was to have two sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, with a poster session/lunch in between. Each session consisted of four twenty-minute presentations of research followed by comments from a discussant (this year Paul Nation and Yo In’nami served in this role).
Apart from the fact that it was held in Fukoka, which has the most convenient airport (5 minutes by subway from the central train station) and possibly the best ramen in Japan, the symposium had several other things going for it:
- the quality of presentations was high
- having a discussant comment on the research papers gave powerful insight into how to approach research
- having the entire symposium in one room allowed all the participants to have the same experience
- the venue was conveniently located ten minutes by subway from the city centre
- the organization was very smooth, with signs and volunteer guides, coffee sessions, and a well-organized poster session
Basically I was very impressed and recommend future Vocabulary SIG events -hope to see you at one in the future!
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More teaching stuff next week!
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by sendaiben
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Online news site for English learners
Finally, a post about teaching 🙂
I found a nice online news site this week, and have been trying it with some of my classes. I’m going to introduce the site’s functionality, my experience of using it, and then evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of using the site.
Functionality
The News in Levels website features news stories written specially for learners of English. They have three or four versions of each story (from basic or easy to more challenging), along with a video. The stories are interesting and the various difficulty levels are useful.
My experience
I used the site with some junior high school and high school classes. After choosing a story, I had students read level one and answered their questions. They we read level two together. Finally we watched the video. It was a quick and successful lesson with several groups. The site also worked well with individual students.
Good and bad points
Good:
- interesting stories
- good presentation
- texts and video
- a large number of stories on the site
- free
Bad:
- many of the texts have mistakes/typos. Missing words, spelling mistakes, strange phrasing. It would be safest to check everything first, although this could also result in some teaching moments
- the leveling isn’t always great. Sometimes the same sentences are used in two different levels
- prominent advertising throughout the site
Overall
I liked this site very much. I think it has a lot of potential as long as teachers and learners are aware of the shortcomings. Could be a good resource to allow learners to move on to higher-level texts. Worth a look.
If you have any other good websites you can recommend, please leave a comment below 🙂
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by sendaiben
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TED Talk: What will future jobs look like?
Here’s an optimistic TED talk on yesterday’s topic (thanks Tom!).
career expectations jobhunting life in Japan public policy technology
by sendaiben
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A future with no jobs -the most important social issue of our times?
I think the most important scientific issues of our times are climate change, energy sufficiency, and environmental pollution, but I believe that these will be solved by technology within my lifetime.
Recently, I have been reading a lot about a problem that will be caused by technological advances.
I read two books: Race Against the Machine ($3.99 on Kindle) and The Lights in the Tunnel ($3.95 on Kindle). They are both incredibly thought-provoking, and tell the same story: we are approaching a future without jobs.
Technological advances are resulting in more and more jobs being automated. Looking around me here in Japan I have seen petrol stations (self-service), restaurants (order from a touch panel) and supermarkets (self-checkout) directly replace workers with machines.
Amazon has replaced countless shops, and is in the process of automating their warehouses.
The latest thing in education is Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs), allowing one teacher to deliver content to tens of thousands of students.
Foxconn, the company that assembles iPhones in China, is currently replacing it’s workers with robots.
Google’s driverless cars will eliminate taxi drivers, delivery drivers, and eventually driving schools, traffic police, and even street signs.
Increasingly sophisticated computer hardware and software will replace legal researchers, translators, middle managers, medical technicians, surgeons, and other knowledge workers.
So, as technology continues to improve at exponential rates, and human workers for jobs at both the blue- and white-collar levels continue to become surplus to requirements, what are people going to do? Are we going to have societies where 60%+ of the population are on welfare?
It’s terrifying.
I think I’m probably going to be okay, as I work in a public university in Japan (possibly one of the last sectors to face automation). Even so, I would be surprised if my job still existed in 15 years time.
One possible positive to come out of this is that Japan’s extreme demographics may turn out to be a blessing. When there is no need for a workforce, and unemployed people are a drag on society, a falling population could become an advantage.
Am I overreacting? This seems like the issue of our times, as it is going to result in huge changes to our social and economic systems, but it doesn’t seem to be part of public discourse.
I look forward to your comments 🙂