Here I outline the kinds of topics I’m available to present on if your organization is interested in inviting me to your event. An experienced virtual presenter and teacher, I am also available for online presentations or webinars.
There are two categories of presentations I’ve prepared below. Workshops are intended as practical, methodologically oriented sessions where participants are encouraged to work together to address the issues raised by the topics on hand, sharing their localized knowledge of their classroom contexts and how those contexts might influence the classroom methodologies they adopt. These are sessions where I act as a facilitator and share my own ideas as a fellow teacher and interested colleague. Workshops can be from one hour to two hours in length. If you are interested in a half-day or full-day session, I would encourage you to request the combination of presentation and workshop sessions you feel would work best for your organization.
The second category of presentations is more academic in nature, and while discussion is welcome, they are focused around sharing research-based information. The audience is invited to use the presentations to inform their practice and to follow up on the sessions through researching similar issues in their own contexts. Presentations can be between 20 minutes and one hour, depending on your needs.
This is a snapshot of some of the topics I’m interested in exploring with my audiences. If you are interested in other subjects or have a special request, please feel free to contact me.
Workshops
Making a small class atmosphere in big classes
This workshop draws on a variety of teacher development resources to share strategies that have proven effective in managing and engaging classes with large numbers of students. Participants are also encouraged to share their own issues and solutions for dealing with large classes. As Fauzia Shamin shares, decreasing class size is one of the most expensive options for education ministries, and if this is the case, then it’s critical for teachers to proactively develop techniques to effectively function in classes with high student to teacher ratios.
Principles of task-based language teaching
This workshop outlines the principles of task-based language teaching and encourages participants to consider how to apply a task-based teaching methodology in their teaching contexts, taking into account their own localized needs. This practical, classroom-focused workshop should provide participants with tools and ideas they can apply immediately in their classes. Furthermore, it provides the basis for teachers to continue to pursue professional development independently after the workshop is completed through reflection and independent investigation.
Developing and sustaining a peer support group
This workshop explores how participants can approach developing and sustaining a peer support group to mutually assist with teacher development or academic publication. The nature of such groups, what they can offer members, and issues of status and responsibility that need to be addressed in order to make such groups successful will be considered, as will my involvement with the Shinshu Research Support Group and MASH Collaboration, and how those experiences could inform participants’ efforts to develop similar groups.
Presentations
Academic publishing: The people and the process
This interactive presentation encourages audience members to become legitimate participants in academic publishing by explaining journal systems, including The Language Teacher, JALT's member publication; the JALT Conference Proceedings; and the Asian EFL Journal family of journals, free access online journals. Attention is given to where presentation participants can contribute to the different publications by becoming members of their communities of practice, through volunteering or authoring papers for publication. The emphasis is on the people involved in journal communities and the processes that submissions to the journals go through, from initial screening, preliminary review, to final publication decisions. Participants should gain a better understanding of the systems of academic journals and where they could become participants in those systems.
Academic publishing: Issues of access and experiences from the periphery
This presentation shares research into issues of access to the academic dialog for those not based in center countries, such as the US and the UK. The presentation shares some of the difficulties scholars have faced in pursuing publication from Asia, particularly Japan, and considers the strategies they use to overcome obstacles to academic success. After this presentation, attendees should expect to better understand the kinds of issues they may face in pursuing scholarly publication and how others have overcome those issues. The intention of this presentation is to provide audience members tools to begin to establish their niche in the world of academic discourse.
Academic publishing: Preparing papers for publication
This presentation focuses on properties of successful academic discourse, considering the changes papers have undergone during preparation for publication. It includes examples from papers I’ve written and edited, highlighting changes academic papers have undergone through review and editing, as well as the theoretical underpinnings of genre and discourse analysis that help to model the characteristics of successful academic prose. There is also some attention given to issues of access to the academic dialog and the kinds of issues authors may face in seeking publication in journals with varying levels of prestige in the field. Participants should gain a better understanding of how they can approach writing articles that have a greater chance of being accepted by academic publications.