Materials Shared for IE Teacher Orientation 2024

Teachers may wish to review ideas that were circulated during last year’s IE Orientation at this link: https://aogaku-daku.org/2023-orientation/.

These were ideas, activities, tasks, and suggestions offered by teachers in the lead up to the 2024 IE Teacher’s Orientation. 

IDEAS FOR CORE

Mary Nobuoka, an IE Core teacher, recommends using Sonia Millet’s speed reading exercises from Paul Nation’s website: https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/lals/resources/paul-nations-resources/speed-reading-and-listening-fluency (which features other great resources as well). Speed reading takes about 7 minutes of class time and helps students see their progress as their reading speed scores increase over the term!

This doc is a chart which students fill in with their reading speeds as they do speed (timed) reading exercises at intervals throughout the semester. 

https://aogaku-daku.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Speed-Reading-64-wpm-chart.docx

Brian Damm has contributed (in Doc and PDF formats) forms that can be used by students when they prepare their Media Discussion Reports:

https://aogaku-daku.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Core-Media-Discussion-Report.pdf

https://aogaku-daku.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Core-Media-Discussion-Report.docx

IDEAS FOR IE III WRITING 

Tim Gutierrez presents at the IE Orientation on the topic of “Teacher Generated Writing for Teaching Writing Feedback.” Here is the handout to refer to for that presentation: https://aogaku-daku.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Teacher-Generated-Writing-for-Teaching-Writing-Feedback.pdf .

SHOWCASE OF IE SEMINARS

Yoko Munezane who has been teaching an IE Seminar on Positive Psychology has generously shared a handout showing how her students take a survey to become familiar with and to determine their character strengths before they embark on writing a “character strengths” journal, reflecting on their emotions and feelings ignited through their daily activities. Here is the handout: https://aogaku-daku.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Positive-Psychology-Seminar-Y-Munezane.pdf.

In a video he created for the IE Program Vimeo Showcase, Jacob Schnickel describes his IE Seminar A, THE ENTREPRENEURIAL MIND.

Here is a summary of the content of that seminar:

You know the names Sony, Netflix, Airbnb, but have you ever been curious about the origins of these companies? In this seminar we will learn about the founders of some of the world’s most recognizable brands as well as some lesser-known ones. Through books and podcasts, we will explore seemingly impossible dreams, garage experiments, and the unique personal philosophies that lead to the innovations we now take for granted. You will develop language competency through conversation, presentations, reading, writing and listening on the topic of building businesses and designing products. And, throughout this seminar, we will be looking for practical strategies that we might apply in our own lives in an effort to become more productive, effective, and successful.

Sebastian Brooke created this video for the IE Program Vimeo Showcase that describes his IE Seminar “IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION AND REPRESENTATION—MEDIA AND SOCIETY” .

Here is a summary of that seminar:

In this course students will explore the ways in which identities are constructed, with a particular focus on how the following concepts affect our identity: Language, Nation, Education, Gender, Media, Economics, Societies, Cultures and Subcultures. This course will involve regular readings from a course textbook, as well as an exploration of online materials that relate to identity formation at individual, national, and global levels. Students will be regularly involved in discussions about these topics as group leaders and participants. By the end of the course students will have also learned skills of analysis through an “Identity and Media Project.”

At the IE Orientation on April 6, 2024, Rob Russell, Kevin Kamermans, Forrest Nelson, and Catherine Takasugi will describe their IE Seminars and how they were developed. To see descriptions of each of them go to https://aogaku-daku.org/2024/04/01/ie-teachers-orientation-2024/ and scroll to the bottom of the document there. 

FAREWELL SPEECH

A teacher who served in the IE Program for most of its history, Deborah Bollinger, speaks about what led her to teaching, how she came to be an advocate for career planning and the work of our Career Center, and what the Integrated English Program has meant to her [19 Jan 2024]:

Over the years she has made numerous contributions to the program, including being a catalyst for the development of a plagiarism policy and the design of a curriculum more resistant to plagiarism. [Video credits to Blair Thomson.] 

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IE Teachers’ Orientation 2024

Thank you for your patience in waiting for the schedule for the IE Orientation and 31st Annual Faculty Development Symposium on University English Teaching. It will take place on April 6, 2024 in Rooms 15305, 15306, and 15308 (all in Building 15…Goucher Hall), from 9:15 AM. It will have a great line-up of stimulating talks and opportunities for teachers to network with their colleagues and exchange teaching materials and ideas.

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2024 Academic Year Schedule (English Version)

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2024 Academic Year Calendar

Here is an English version of the academic calendar: https://www.aoyama.ac.jp/en/campuslife/academic_calendar.html

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2023 IE Program Orientation for Teachers

The final version of the 2023 IE Orientation (for teachers) program is here! Apologies for the delay. It took longer this year for everything to coalesce than in previous years. The event will take place this coming Saturday, April 1st from 10 AM but we encourage you to be there by 9:45 AM. It will be a semi-flipped format this time in that some of the presentations will be made available to you through a Vimeo Video Showcase at https://vimeo.com/showcase/9361953  [Ask J. Dias for the password] in advance. You are asked to view the short videos before the orientation as they will serve as springboards for discussion. Note that at the IE Orientation Deborah Bollinger will speak about the importance of career guidance for students and she would like to share a flyer for an upcoming career-related guidance session for 2nd year students and a file on “Job Hunting Activities for New Graduates (update).”

You’ll notice in the attached program that we added a “materials exchange” among IE teachers to the final block of the program. It is hoped that all teachers in the program will actively contribute to this session. It is a way for you to share some of the content or tasks that you personally have developed for use in your IE Program classes with others in the program.

New teachers to the program can feel free to share what they’ve found useful in their previous teaching settings and which they think may be applicable to the IE Program. [Since new teachers do not necessarily understand, at this point, what the levels IE I, II, and III mean in practice, they may note on the materials they contribute CEFR levels A2, B1, B2, or C1, and add the IE course they think the materials would be relevant for.

This is how it the Materials Exchange will work…

The materials exchange session will involve teachers sharing an activity, task, rubric (or variation on existing ones) relevant to IE Core, Writing, Active Listening, Academic Skills, or Academic Writing. Materials that are used in individual IE Seminars or in communications classes (such as Media or Performance Studies) that may be adapted for use in IE classes would also be highly welcome. I have included an example handout that I intend to share (language of poetry). To provide context, please add these labels to the top of the handout, as I have done: 

___________________________________

Context used: 

Level: 

Possible application:

___________________________________

For example:

Context used: IE Seminar on Food Culture (Students were asked to analyze a food-themed poem and apply as many of the poetic terms as possible when discussing it.)

Level: Perhaps better suited to the IE III level

Possible application: Since many of the literary concepts used to analyze and discuss poetry are the same as those used for prose (e.g., perspective, irony, metaphor, motif) it is possible to illustrate them through discussions of poems that correspond to the IE themes.

___________________________________

Handouts to be used for the Materials Exchange Session can be emailed to me with “Sharing” in the subject field no later than this Friday (March 31st), if possible. Attachments in PDF and Word formats would be appreciated. We will have TAs print out the documents for the participants in advance of the session so that everyone can leave with a packet of useful materials. They will be made available to those unable to attend the IE Orientation as well. Teachers contributing the materials might say a few words about them during the session. I think this will be a valuable new format to add to orientations going forward. [Note: Those unable to be present at the orientation can still feel free to contribute materials].

We will be informing you as more videos that will be used in the “flipped” part of the session are added to the Vimeo Showcase: Integrated English Program Tutorials.

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Schedule for 2023 Academic Year

2023 ACADEMIC SCHEDULE in ENGLISH: https://www.aoyama.ac.jp/en/campuslife/academic_calendar.html

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New Format for IE Orientation for Teachers’ Orientation

We held our 2022 IE Program Teachers’ Orientation / 29th Annual Faculty Development Symposium on University English Teaching on Saturday, April 3rd as a HyFlex event with roughly half of the 35 attendees participating in person and the others through Zoom.

The format of the orientation was unique in that 13 veteran instructors were asked to prepare, in advance, videos in which they introduced key aspects of the IE courses they were teaching. Before the day of the orientation, all teachers in the program were asked to watch the videos so they would be prepared to comment on them and give feedback at the orientation itself. We called this the first IE “Flipped” Orientation.

Thanks to the cooperation of the dedicated teachers who spent their precious time sharing their expertise with colleagues through video–and the teachers who conscientiously watched the videos and attended the orientation–the event could be a great success.

The videos provided wonderful springboards and prompts for discussion and the further sharing of experiences and teaching techniques.


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Schedules for 2022 Academic Year

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Successful IE Teachers’ Orientation

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IE Teachers’ Orientation and 28th Annual Faculty Development Symposium on University English Teaching

For the last 28 years, the Integrated English Program (under the auspices of Aoyama Gakuin University’s English Department) has held annual faculty development events for new and continuing teachers in early April. The program’s coordinators, senior teachers, and those newer to the program, share the responsibility of presenting on panels and giving workshops. It has been a way for teachers to share their expertise while gaining knowledge and inspiration from their peers.

This year’s IE Orientation for teachers will features talks by 15 speakers on topics related to issues in online teaching, drama in the classroom, and how to get the most out of discussion, reading, and writing activities.

Click here to see the full schedule in PDF format.

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