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Jagariko
Joined: 14 Oct 2013
Posts: 40
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 Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2015 3:53 am Post subject: |
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That's easy: none!
I have made some quite good ones though!
Seriously, that Kobe one was so bad. It was a case of flicking through the schedule and seeing that there was hardly anything that I wanted to see or from which I could learn anything.
The overseas presenters were very good though. It was interesting research rather than the "The effect of changing from notebook to loose-leaf on L2 writing: a longitudinal study of first year non-English majors in a Japanese technical college" type being churned out by some ELT teachers who mistakenly think they are scholars. |
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fat_chris
Joined: 10 Sep 2003
Posts: 3198
Location: Beijing
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| Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2015 5:56 am Post subject: |
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| Jagariko wrote: |
| The overseas presenters were very good though. It was interesting research rather than the "The effect of changing from notebook to loose-leaf on L2 writing: a longitudinal study of first year non-English majors in a Japanese technical college" type being churned out by some ELT teachers who mistakenly think they are scholars. |
In my five years in Japan and in the JALT circles, I met plenty of foreigners who were very nice and who were actually doing noteworthy and interesting things in the field of TESOL in Japan. I am particularly fond of the work of David Barker in Gifu and Robert Croker in Nagoya to name just a few names. There are many others as well.
However, I also met plenty of foreigners who thought they were the bees' knees just because they had a university position and had been living in Japan for several years, never mind that they weren't really doing anything of note and their presentations were nothing special.
Socially, these foreigners had the dreadful habit of talking a lot about themselves (they talked a lot, but they didn't say much), but when it came time to listen to someone else talk about a context that they were unfamiliar with, they couldn't bear to be quiet for a few minutes. Nauseating.
As I said, I met plenty of great foreigners in the JALT circles and I met plenty of arrogant ones too. Quite frankly, the latter ones were my only real beef with my five years in Japan, which...really has nothing to do with Japan itself.
"The effect of changing from notebook to loose-leaf on L2 writing: a longitudinal study of first year non-English majors in a Japanese technical college" 
 Good grief! I never would have gone to such a presentation.
Warm regards,
fat_chris |
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Maitoshi
Joined: 04 May 2014
Posts: 718
Location: 何処でも
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| Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2015 7:56 am Post subject: |
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Good for you on making some worthy presentations! I've seen a few that were an abysmal waste of time, too. I usually chalk some of it up to the publish or perish nature of academia. In a lot of ways, publishing does seem to take precedence over quality instruction, so the pressure to produce "research" is quite high, even if research isn't your main strength.
The thing I dislike, even more than terrible presentations, are those who complain about the quality of the research and presentations, but don't bother to do research or present. If you are already working towards improving the quality of research in the field, complain away! I'm bit of a silent complainer myself 
Sometimes it is hard to find a presentation worth going to, but other times the description looks quite promising, then winds up being a big disappointment. |
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