PanSIG 2019
PanSIG 2019 will be held at Konan University, CUBE Campus in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, on May 18-19, 2019. Pre-registration is now open.
For any of you who may not be entirely familiar, PanSIG is a large event held annually, featuring JALT’s Special Interest Groups. (SIGs). It is the second largest event in the JALT domestic calendar, after the International Conference which is held in November each year. SIGs are theme-focused groups, so whatever your area of language teaching interest (in addition to literature of course), there will no doubt be something there for you.
Regarding the venue, as we penned prior, Konan ‘Cube’ is in Nishinomiya city, equidistant to Osaka and Kobe.
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Literature in Language Teaching SIG Forum
Sunday, 19th May, 2019 (2.05 pm – 3.30 pm), Room 302
Here is our LiLT SIG Forum abstract:
“A commonly asked question regarding literature in language teaching is: ‘What texts can I use with language students?’ In this year’s PanSIG Literature in Language Teaching (LiLT) Forum, we directly address this important issue. Presenters will introduce and explain specific texts they have used in language classes, their criteria for text selection, and the activities they successfully use in classes. Relevant issues including mixed-level classes, learner autonomy, authenticity and creativity will be discussed, as presenters describe their respective teaching settings, which include Spanish and Japanese as a Foreign Language, in addition to the more often discussed English as a Foreign Language classes. Following this forum participants and attendees are invited to discuss their own experiences and ideas regarding text selection and use. This LILT SIG Forum is friendly and inclusive. We welcome not only LILT SIG members, but also strongly encourage the attendance and active participation of non-members.”
LiLT Forum SIG Speakers at PanSIG:
- Simon Bibby (Kobe Shoin Women’s University)
More details coming soon!
- Paul Hullah (Meiji Gakuin University)
Paul Hullah says: ‘Literary’ language comprises utterance whose components are scrupulously and purposefully selected, pruned, and arranged to express even oldest notions in novel, memorable ways: not only what is expressed, but also how it is expressed is consciously meaningful. Elevated rhetorical confidence/competence augments linguistic empowerment and instils a useful grasp of lexical elegance sorely lacking in most Japanese L2 learners. To demonstrate literary language’s special emotively-affective agency, I teach elective modules centered on British lyric poetry (Mediaeval, Shakespearean, Romantic, Victorian, Modern, and/or contemporary song words: I’ll cite specific examples here) to able, agile-minded English Literature majors. For it ain’t what you say; it’s the way that you say it. And it ain’t what you teach; it’s the way that you teach it. (Really. It is.)
- Iain Maloney (Nagoya University of Foreign Studies)
Iain Maloney teaches creative writing to third-year English majors at NUFS. In this presentation he will focus on The Beach by Alex Garland, Wrong About Japan by Peter Carey and Moshi bokura no kotoba ga uisuki de attanara [If Our Words Were Whisky] by Murakami Haruki and how they can be used to explore different approaches to writing introductory paragraphs in travel writing. He will also discuss the potential effect using contrasting texts may have on student self-confidence.
- Vicky Richings (Kobe Shoin Women’s University)
Vicky Ann Richings will talk about using literature in a Japanese as a Foreign Language setting. This presentation will feature a canonical text, Botchan by Natsume Soseki, the famous Japanese author. She will discuss how using canonical texts can have a positive outcome on students’ interest in reading Japanese literature while enhancing both linguistic and cultural awareness skills.
- Akira Watanabe (University of Yamanashi)
Akira Watanabe will talk about his classes in Todai and Keio, where he teaches Spanish as “hijokin”. He has used some short stories of Gabriel García Márquez, the Spanish version of The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, and also the Spanish version of Yours Sincerely, Giraffe by Megumi Iwasa (Jirafa africana or Boku wa Africa ni sumu Kirin to iimasu). They are basically short (Mango Street is more like a collection of episodes rather than a novel), easy to read (except for some sentences in the García Márquez short stories), and are good to get acquainted with Latin American or Hispanic culture and society. In some cases, I first explain the grammar in first weeks, and then I ask students to read those texts using dictionaries in classroom, as it is sometimes not easy for them to look for the words such as conjugated verbs and adjectives. This might sound a bit awkward, but has pushed them to get used to consulting dictionaries, even more than when they study English or to read some text written in Japanese, and will be an important asset even when they discontinue studying Spanish.