Lesley Ito
BIG BOW English Lab
Lesley Ito is a well-known teacher, teacher trainer, school owner (BIG BOW English Lab), and award-winning materials writer based in Nagoya. She has taught in Japan for over twenty-five years, won “Best of JALT” in 2011, and has presented professionally throughout Japan, and at the ER World Congress in Dubai, UAE. Winner of the 2015 LLL Award in the Young Learner Category, her ELT writing credits include teacher’s guides, workbooks, graded readers, and e-books, as well as other materials.
Sessions
Moving Beyond McEnglish: Recognizing Eikaiwa as a Legitimate Professional Community
In this forum, former and current eikaiwa teachers come together to share and discuss their perspectives on private English conversation (eikaiwa) schools and their position within the larger professional community of Japanese ELT. In response to negative stereotypes of the eikaiwa industry prevalent in the English teaching field and society at large, the forum participants will discuss the complex nature of eikaiwa and its legitimate role within English education in Japan. This forum is sponsored by the School Owners SIG.
Seeing Your Lesson From the Students’ Side
Teachers of young learners are often focused on getting through their daily lesson plan, but how often do they think about how their students see the lesson? If teachers scaffold the lesson to pique students’ natural curiosity, personalize the content to aid understanding, and not only model what to do, but also show the students that they can accomplish language tasks, the classes will go more smoothly, leaving the teacher and students feeling more satisfied.