Hello All,

Here is a summary of what happened at the April 14, 2012 Akita-JALT meeting.

AKITA: April – Interwoven Stories Told by High School JTEs and ALTs by Takaaki Hiratsuka. Japan has used team teaching by JTEs and ALTs in daily English lessons through the JET programme for more than two decades. The issue of teachers’ as well as students’ perceptions of their participation in this programme has begun to attract attention. This presentation shared stories from a four-month research project that took place at two Akita high schools. The presentation started with a survey of the literature then moved on to a video of actual team teaching in a Japanese high school. The research project is part of a PhD dissertation that the presenter is conducting at the University of Auckland. Local Akita JET ALTs, and JTEs were present at the meeting, so a quite informative discussion took place during the Q&A session.

Reported by Stephen Shucart

Here are some pictures from the event:

Taka describing the method to his dissertation madness

At this phase of the program Taka gave us a group task to complete that involved organizing some data transcripts

Akita JET ALTs collaborate and work as a team to place the transcripts in some kind of order.

A diverse group of educators – ALTs, JTEs, and a university professor work together to solve sequential riddle