Seminar Review

Sunday Kuniko was off at work all day, so I took the opportunity to attend a small seminar in Himeji. It was sponsored by Himeji JALT, JALT standing for Japan Association of Language Teachers. I recently became a member in the national organization, and this was a local chapter event that I could attend for free. It was on learning styles of language learners, and how a teacher could use this information to be more effective in the classroom.

They were nice enough to include the timing for the train to the location, so I left a little early to look for some books in a Himeji bookstore before catching the train. After amusing myself in Himeji for a while I went over to the station with 20 minutes to spare until the train left, and found that there was no train running there for the next hour.

It turned out they wrote the wrong time, and so I had to catch a taxi to make it on time. That was a bad way to start, and the meeting itself didn’t go so well either. Other people didn’t show up until well after the start time, and it ended up being only about 10 people. The speaker had a powerpoint presentation and tended to follow it – reading from some notes that he had brought along. He gave us lots of handouts to digest later, because we just didn’t have the time to discuss them at the time. We did do some activities in class, and this was helpful.

I met a couple of people and chatted with them. Most were foreign professors at colleges in the area, and every one of them complained about the crappy working conditions at their school and lack of job security. It was a common theme, and a little disturbing since that is the direction that I am aiming with my career development path.

As it ended up I shared a train with the speaker, Mr. Louis Butto, an American who has lived in Japan for the last 14 years. He had some interesting stories, and we compared how we each arrived in Japan. He seemed like a nice enough guy – maybe we’ll meet up in the future.

So it was a mixed review for the seminar. Kuniko had a party to attend for one of her international students (from Spain) and so I stopped for a yakitori dinner and then came home and warmed up in the kotatsu. It is definitely getting colder lately.

This week should be pretty standard. I’m getting ready to start my new classes next week, so I’ll get started on some pre-reading this week.


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