Connecting Neuroscience with EFL in Japan/Asia
various presenters
Creating bilingual brains in the classroom, from the neuroscience of lesson design through personal construct psychology, effects of music in the classroom, brain food, dyslexic students, infant phoneme acquisition, motivating learners with a Confucian heritage culture and the Zen of language acquisition, there was something for everyone at our three-day conference held at Kitakyushu University. Battling the heat was a challenge but we survived; the occasional spontaneous laughter therapy sessions having a positive and cohesive effect. The essential role of emotion in learning was stressed throughout and impromptu juggling sessions were a part of focusing exercises for teachers and students. Pecha-Kucha presentations included motivating with technology, activities for instilling rhythms of English, narratives for oral development and the relationship between the amygdala and creativity. Presenters from Israel spoke on the special challenges of bringing their widely divergent immigrant population up to an equally high level of English proficiency.
Held together by "power sessions" every morning and afternoon, that included synthesis of our collective insights at the end of each day, the vision of mind, brain and ELT was exhaustively investigated and discussed throughout this conference, with first-time speakers and old hands cooperatively leading about fifty participants through various new and fresh approaches to the ongoing challenge of language teaching.
Link to meeting listing

Next Item Previous Item