Teacher Seminar in Aomori

I'm writing this in a room of the JAL City Hotel in Aomori City. Aomori City is the capital of Aomori Prefecture which is the north-most prefecture of the main island of Japan. It's before 8:00 a.m. In about a couple of hours I will be talking to 85 public high school English teachers. In 2003 the ministry of education, science, and technology stipulated English proficiency standards for them. Fifteen years have passed since then. Some have not reached any of these standards yet. The purpose of my seminar today is to motivate them to take action to reach one of the standards.

I genuinely believe that all teachers are capable of achieving the goal. The only reason, I presume, that they haven't done so yet is because they have had other priorities, whatever they may be. That the administrative body organizes an event like this to invite the teachers to remind them of the importance of proving their proficiency in terms of some kind of standardized test is enough to let them know that it's a priority.

My approach is three-fold. One, I am going to tell them a story to illustrate that I was once in their shoes. I will do this to connect with the audience.

Two, I am going to make them believe that achieving the goal is doable.

Three, I am going to show them how to do it and make them want to try it by doing a series of activities together which take them from "can't do" to "can do".

My closing message to the audience today is that a teacher making life-long endeavor to improve her English skills is the best role model for her students.

I believe the message will reach their heart.

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.