Events http://conf.posterous.com Conferences, Seminars, Webinars on education, linguistics, language learning/teaching, e-learning, m-learning posterous.com Thu, 15 Sep 2011 13:48:00 -0700 Asia TEFL 2011 - The influence of L1 syntactic patterns on Japanese EFL learners’ interlanguage grammar http://conf.posterous.com/asia-tefl-2011-the-influence-of-l1-syntactic http://conf.posterous.com/asia-tefl-2011-the-influence-of-l1-syntactic

Call for Presentations

  • Theme: Teaching English in a Changing Asia : Challenges and Directions
  • Dates: July 27-29, 2011
  • Venue: Hotel Seoul KyoYuk MunHwa HoeKwan, Seoul, Korea

Subtopics

  • Approaches and Methodologies 
  • Curriculum 
  • Distance Education 
  • Education / Language Policy 
  • International / Intercultural Communication 
  • Second Language Acquisition 
  • Materials Writing and Design 
  • Multiple Intelligences and Learning Styles 
  • Teacher Education 
  • Teaching Young Learners 
  • Testing, Assessment, and Evaluation 
  • The Use of IT in Language Teaching 
  • Using Local Literatures in English or Translations for Teaching English

The abstract must not exceed 250 words, while the bio-data must not exceed 60 words. 

Deadline for Proposal Submission: February 10, 2011

(January 03, 2011 at  7:00 PM)

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Proposal Abstract (Yamauchi & Uchida) 

The influence of L1 syntactic patterns on Japanese EFL learners’ interlanguage grammar

The influence of L1 syntactic patterns on Japanese EFL learners’ Interlanguage grammar This presentation is a part of our 4-year research study (2010-2013, supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research: 22520573) that aims to (i) identify and describe major features of Japanese EFL learners’ interlanguage grammar at an earlier stage in development, focusing primarily on errors possibly influenced by the L1 syntax, and (ii) develop a practicable way for language teachers to progressively build learner corpus using data from their own classes.

During the 2010 fall semester, the authors set up several writing tasks for their classes using Moodle, and the students performed the tasks online outside of the classroom. The focus of this presentation is on common errors that have been identified so far in the students’ writing that strongly suggest the influence of Japanese syntactic patterns, including: (a) mapping a topic-comment construction in Japanese to a subject-predicate construction, which is likely to be linked to the use of a be-verb like Japanese topic marker wa; (b) omission of refernce to known information, where zero anaphora is expected in Japanese; and (c) confusion of predicate-argument relations, especially with psychological predicates.

The observation and analysis of the initial set of learners’ writing data suggest that seemingly diffferent grammatical errors may be derived from a common feature of interlanguage grammar. A further elaborated short list of such interlangauge features will help the teacher to effectively promote learners’ noticing of their problems and restructuring their interlanguage grammars.

20110612_10_osaka_4AsiaTEFL0725.pdf Download this file

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Sun, 12 Jun 2011 15:10:00 -0700 The Asian Conference on Language Learning - June 10-12 2011, Osaka Japan http://conf.posterous.com/the-asian-conference-on-language-learning-jun http://conf.posterous.com/the-asian-conference-on-language-learning-jun
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CONFERENCE THEME: "Connecting Theory and Practice"

Call For Papers: The abstract submissions deadline is April 1, 2011

The Asian Conference on Language Learning 2011 will be held alongside the Asian Conference on Technology in the Classroom. Registrants for either conference will allow attendees the option of attending sessions in the other.

(Originally Posted on February 03, 2011 at 11:00 AM)

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Abstract 

Detecting the influence of L1 syntactic patterns on Japanese EFL learners’ Interlanguage grammar

Yamauchi, Uchida & Kojima

In this presentation, the authors discuss findings from their ongoing study (2010-2013, supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research: 22520573) that aims to (i) identify and describe major features of Japanese EFL learners’ interlanguage grammar at an earlier stage in development, focusing primarily on errors possibly influenced by the L1 syntax, and (ii) develop a practicable way for language teachers to progressively build learner corpora using data from their own classes.

During the 2010 fall semester, the authors set up several writing tasks for their classes using Moodle forums, which provided a secure environment within which students could experiment with online interactive English activities. The students’ forum posts were assembled into a learner corpus, for which purpose a tool is currently being developed to convert a Moodle xml file into a standard spreadsheet format.

The focus of this presentation is on common errors that have been identified so far in the students’ writing that strongly suggest the influence of Japanese syntactic patterns, including: (a) mapping a topic-comment construction in Japanese to a subject-predicate construction, as in the use of a be-verb in place of the Japanese topic marker wa; (b) omission of reference to known information, where no anaphora are normally used in Japanese; and (c) confusion of predicate-argument relations, especially with psychological predicates.

The observation and analysis of the initial set of learners’ writing data suggest that seemingly different grammatical errors may be derived from a common feature of interlanguage grammar. A further elaborated short list of such interlanguage features will be developed for teachers to help learners to notice problems and to restructure their interlanguage grammars.

 

Presentation Slides

20110612_osaka_ACLL_Yamauchi_Uchida_Kojima.pdf Download this file

 

Updated on June 13, 2011

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Sun, 12 Jun 2011 15:00:00 -0700 JALT CALL 2011, June 3 - 5 at Kurume University http://conf.posterous.com/jalt-call-2011 http://conf.posterous.com/jalt-call-2011
Jaltcall2011
Check out this website I found at jaltcall.org

The 2011 JALT CALL SIG Conference will be held on June 3 - 5 at Kurume University, Mii Campus, in Fukuoka.

The theme will be Building Learning Environments

Proposal submission : February 15

 

Proposal Abstract 

(Yamauchi & Uchida) 

Overcoming Barriers to Student Engagement in Using English Online

Japanese university students not majoring in English have few opportunities to use English outside of the classroom. In this study, online learning environments have been used to compensate for this disadvantage of EFL contexts. The authors chose Moodle forums, which provided a secure platform for students to experiment with online interactive English activities, such as discussions, sharing work, and posting comments. Also, one of the authors connected one of the classes to the Moodle network, which allowed students to roam into associated classes. These scenarios will be described in more detail in the presentation.

 

Before commencing our pilot studies, it was anticipated from a literature review and previous university classroom observations (Yamauchi 2009; Stout 2010; Kikuchi & Otsuka 2008; Kiyota 2008; and Maeda 2009) that most students had limited computer experience (vis-à-vis cellphones), some had negative feelings about learning or using English, some were reluctant to engage in dialogue, and classrooms provided limited access to ICT. These observed attributes were thought to inhibit participation in online activities outside of the classroom.


This presentation summarizes three case studies using Moodle for out-of-class activities, and presents student performance data and feedback to discuss the relationship between the above limitations and the motivation of students to participate. In brief, features of learning technology, characteristics of instructional settings, appropriateness of student skill sets, attitudes toward language, and dispositions toward dialogic interaction may be implicated in student behavior. Based on these findings, suggestions will be made to overcome the above limitations and increase student engagement.  (249)

 

(Posted on January 29, 2011)

 

Presentation Slides

20110605_kurume_JALTCALL_Yamauchi_Uchida.pdf Download this file

(Updated on June 13, 2011)

 

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Mon, 14 Feb 2011 22:16:00 -0800 Moodle Moot Japan 2011 - 2月22日~23日 http://conf.posterous.com/moodle-moot-japan-2011 http://conf.posterous.com/moodle-moot-japan-2011
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via moodlejapan.org
第3回 Moodleの教育者と開発者による研修会
2011年 2月22日(09:30-17:30)~23日(09:00-16:00)
高知工科大学
発表:英語を「使いながら学ぶ」ためのForum活用 
非英語専攻の日本人大学生の多くは授業外で英語を使う機会をほとんどもたない。週1回、授業で英語を勉強するだけでは、英語力向上だけでなく、英語を「伝達手段」として認識することも難しい。この状況を改善するために、MoodleのForum を含めオンラインでの英語使用機会の提供は非常に有望である。また、発表で取り上げるように、Forum の利用により、間違いを恐れて中間言語使用をためらう学生たちに、個々の間違いを訂正することなくFocus on Form を促すフィードバックが容易になる。
Forum 中心のMoodleコースの作成自体は容易であるが、普通教室での授業における課外活動にForumを利用する場合には、Moodle利用法の周知とForum活動の設計の面などで工夫が必要である。本発表では、これらの工夫の実践例として、Forum を利用した英語活動を充実させるためのスキル(オンライン辞書・ハイパーリンク・画像などの利用も含む)の段階的な導入、授業と連携させたForum活動例(授業前の協同予習・授業後の発展学習)、Moodle Networkを利用した学校間交流プロジェクトについて報告する。
Moodle Forums for helping students learn English by using it
Many non-English majors in Japanese universities have few opportunities to use English outside of the classroom. It is difficult for those who only study English once a week in class to improve their English, or even to recognize it as a means of communication. To make up for this disadvantage in the EFL environment, it can be quite helpful to provide opportunities to use English online, including discussions using Moodle forums. Using discussion forums also allows the teacher to easily give focus-on-form oriented feedback without correcting every error they make.
Although it's fairly easy to set up a Moodle course to mainly provide forum activities, if the F2F class meets in a traditional classroom and not all students regularly use a computer at home, some considerations are necessary regarding how to familiarize students with using Moodle and how to design forum activities. This presentation reports some of the author’s attempts to facilitate and encourage students to use Moodle forums outside of the class, including a step-by-step introduction to skills that will help them communicate in English online, forum activities directly related to in-class activities, and an intercollege project using Moodle Network.

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Mon, 03 Jan 2011 01:59:00 -0800 Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities http://conf.posterous.com/hawaii-international-conference-on-arts-and-h http://conf.posterous.com/hawaii-international-conference-on-arts-and-h
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  • The main goal: to provide an opportunity for academicians and professionals from various arts and humanities related fields from all over the world to come together and learn from each other. 
  • An additional goal: to provide a place for academicians and professionals with cross-disciplinary interests related to arts and humanities to meet and interact with members inside and outside their own particular disciplines. 

 

I'm presenting at this conference with my co-researcher: “DETECTING JAPANESE SYNTACTIC TRAITS IN LOWER-LEVEL LEARNERS' WRITTEN ENGLISH PRODUCTION” (Uchida & Yamauchi 2011).

presentation_20110109.mov Watch on Posterous

Abstract: 

Grammatical transfer has long been considered one of the major factors behind errors in learners’ interlanguages. In most cases discussed in the literature, however, the learners in question are at upper intermediate or advanced levels and the analyses tend to be focused on the differences between their production and that of native speakers. In the context of teaching English at middle-level colleges and universities in Japan, where the average proficiency level of students is considerably lower, a different approach to grammatical errors may be more appropriate.

So far in our project, pilot studies have suggested that learners at lower levels of proficiency predominantly rely on the grammar of their native language (i.e., Japanese), rather than only occasionally having recourse to it. In this presentation, we will show how particular types of ungrammatical structures repeatedly occur in such students’ written production, as a result of direct misapplication of Japanese syntactic rules. These include thematization, omission of reference to known information, and free word order, which are all characteristic of Japanese syntax.

As a preliminary to describing and explaining these error patterns in a more precise way, we are collecting more samples of learner language, through the use of Moodle modules such as “forums” and “assignments”. How we are organizing these activities and collecting data will be described.

 

 

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