Unfortunately, due to the uncertain weather conditions, it has been decided to cancel this evening's meeting. We will try and reschedule for later in the year.

For our July meeting we will be holding a number of short (15-minute) presentations with a focus on classroom practices. The lineup is as follows:

Using Total Physical Response in the College Classroom
Steven Apotheker - Seinan Gakuin University
Total Physical Response (TPR) in foreign language education is considered to be best suited for beginners. While games like Simon Says or Touch are simple ways to teach action verbs or vocabulary for objects found around the classroom, TPR is rarely used beyond the beginner level. This presentation will introduce three ways that TPR can be used to provide hints to intermediate students to help them self-correct common mistakes and omissions. I will demonstrate the hand gestures that I use for pronouns and be-verbs, prepositions of place, and common mistakes such as omitted articles and particles.
Steven Apotheker is an Assistant Professor at Seinan Gakuin University in Fukuoka, Japan. He graduated with an MA from Kyushu University and the University of Michigan.

Report on PanSIG Kyoto
Markus Yong - Kyushu Kyoritsu University
In this presentation I will provide an overview of what I'd learnt from attending several presentations during the PanSIG conference held on the 13th of May. This will then be followed by a discussion of how these insights could be applied to the classroom.
Markus Yong has been teaching English in Japan since 2006. He started as an ALT and has taught at a number of universities in the Kitakyushu region including Kyushu Kyoritsu University where he is currently full-time. His research interests have involved gamification, task based language learning, international cultural exchanges and AI assisted language learning.

Increasing Student Interaction in an EFL Classroom
Andrew Zitzmann - Seinan Jo Gakuin University
A common challenge in the language classroom is getting students to interact with each other. This presentation will initially examine some of the transitional causes for poor student interaction and look at the benefits of increased interaction for both the student and the teacher. It will also offer some practical and easy-to-apply solutions that will make the class more active and effective.
Andrew Zitzmann has been teaching in the Kitakyushu area since 1992. His interests are in student satisfaction and educational transitions.

We are currently planning to hold our summer social event after the presentations, so please check back for more details closer to the date.

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