APET (Academy for Professional English Trainers)

I taught a 5-hour APET seminar three days in a row. They all carry different titles and are conducted for different purposes. APET (https://goo.gl/6z27xK) is the abbreviation of Academy for Professional English Trainers, and it is the name of the teacher training programs developed by the BizCom Corporation (https://www.bizcom.training/) of which I am a member.

The first one this week, held this past Tuesday, mainly focused on how to improve four English skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Participants focus on effective learning methods, and are encouraged to apply these methods when they teach their students.

The second one, held yesterday, was mainly about teaching methods. The particular focus was on how to make an easy transition from using Japanese to using English as a means of conducting a lesson. The new guideline stipulates that all lessons should be taught in English on the senior high level. The reality is, however, not all are comfortable enough to do so. One reason is that they have had good models shown to them. So in the seminar I demo a model lesson, and show how to make a transition from a traditional approach mainly taught in Japanese, to a new approach using only English.

The third one, which I taught today, centered around the theme of how to manage an English class all in English. I taught a model lesson for five typical classroom activities, and participants practice doing some of them. After the seminar, all teachers are armed with classroom English needed to teach most activities all in English, and they are also confident to teach a couple of them in English in the new semester.

One teacher, who came from Okinawa to take two seminars in a row, yesterday and today, said that she learned so much that she was eager to put into practice what she learned and practiced in the seminars.

I'm scheduled to teach altogether seven 5-hours seminars over a course of three weeks. Five down, and two more to go.

They are held next Thursday and Friday. Once they are done, I have a long-awaited summer vacation!

Meanwhile, I did some body weight muscle and cardio training to reset my motivation for the remaining seminars.