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On May 21st, Bill will give a Captur presentation at the Pan-SIG conference in Matsumoto city, Nagano prefecture.

To quote from the Pan-SIG website:

The annual Pan-SIG conference is a collaborative effort of the Special Interest Groups (SIGs) within the Japan Association of Language Teaching (JALT). In essence, the two-day conference is held for SIG members to present and attend presentations that are directly related to a “special interest” as well as the theme of that year’s conference. The Pan-SIG conference is often well attended and, next to the National Conference, represents the largest event held by the members of JALT with presenters and attendees not only Japan-based but also from various countries around the world.

Bill's talk is one of many presentations during the two-day conference. It's going to be a great weekend full of interesting presentations and workshops.

Title: Active participation through student response systems

Time: 5:45 PM - 6:25 PM

Abstract:

Too often, students' motivation to listen closely decreases after answering the teacher's question, confident of not being called on again soon. We teachers assume that we are talking to the entire class, thus providing them all with some valuable input, but input is only valuable to those who attend to it. We can encourage and motivate students to stay focused in the classroom through student response systems (SRS) that require all students to respond simultaneously. Research on SRS in classrooms goes back over 20 years, but mainly in physics and math classes. SRS improve student concentration, and encourage a more active engagement with the material. The presenters developed a low-tech SRS using simple, 2-sided answer paddles that they have been using in their regular EFL classes for the past two years. Learn how to adapt existing materials, create new activities, and get feedback on how well students understand the material.

Note: Originally, we thought Paul was going to be able to make it to this conference, too, but he can't attend, so Bill will be doing this solo. Paul joins Bill 011-05-28-nagasaki-jalt.html" title="Nagasaki JALT Captur event">the next week, though, in Nagasaki.