The J'Expat Network provides personal coaching and guidance counselling specifically for English speaking women in Japan. Coach/Guidance Counsellor Sarah Mulvey of the J'Expat Network will provide an introduction to goal setting as well as introduce relaxation techniques for when teachers may feel burnout setting in. Sarah will offer some tools that teachers can use at home to help them create personal and work goals in the semester ahead. For long-term teachers and newcomers as well, this session can be one step towards a more fulfilling teaching life here in Japan. URL: https://sites.google.com/view/jexpat/home

Microsoft has developed its collaboration and communication platform Teams to be targeted toward education as a powerful learning management system. This workshop will begin with sharing how we use Microsoft Teams as educators to make the classroom experience richer, easier, and more efficient for students, teachers, and managers. Communication channels, collaboration spaces, shared notebooks, assignment distribution, and student progress tracking are just some of the features we will cover in this 60-minute workshop.

More effective methods for combating public speaking phobia must be developed, and virtual reality-based exposure to public speech acts may hold advantages over traditional instructional methods alone, allowing students to rehearse speeches in low-anxiety environments in front of simulated audiences. This presentation will explore a study conducted with university students in Japan in which presentation skills and mindfulness training, along with VR-based presentation practice, were combined to attempt a reduction in public speaking anxiety.

This research provides an analysis of the effects of integrating two types of gaming media, board game and smartphone application, of Klaus Teuber’s The Settlers of Catan in a business English class at a private Japanese university. Furthermore, this research also provides suggestions, as supported by qualitative data collected through post-game surveys, as to the most effective applications for both types of gaming media in EFL contexts.

The presenter, who has enjoyed success motivating students using real-time online classroom games like Quizlet Live, recently added another new game to his repertoire called Quizizz, a free online tool for creating quizzes where students can use their mobile devices to compete against each other in the classroom. This session will introduce the Quizizz app, including the classroom Live Game mode as well as how it can be used for out-of-class study.

Making the digital transition, this presentation looks at the impact of introducing digital approaches to learning in place of their analogue equivalents in a content and language integrated learning (CLIL) course using an extensive reading approach. The study compares student progress between students using the standard analogue forms of study and students using a cloud-based equivalent. The implications of the study consider the value of switching to digital forms.