Speaker: Neil Heffernan, English Education Center, Ehime University
Date/Time: Saturday, May 17th (3:00-4:00 p.m.)
Venue: Kochi Women’s University, Seminar Room, 2nd floor.

Content:
Creating and writing textbooks can be a rewarding experience for professionals who wish to further their development as both EFL teachers and practitioners in Japan. Although writing a textbook can be a long and arduous task, it is a worthwhile experience for teachers who want to contribute to the field in a manner that will benefit other teachers and, of course, the learners in their classrooms. The presenter will show how – through his involvement in the creation of two recent textbooks for Japanese learners – this can be achieved and exactly how the process works. The specifics of finding a suitable publisher to suit your ideas and needs will be discussed, as will the best ways of integrating your ideas into your work for final inclusion in your textbook. The presenter will then go on to outline the results of a recent survey that investigated teachers’ attitudes and actions towards copyright laws when developing and using materials in the EFL classroom. The results of the survey have a direct implication on what materials developers should consider when formulating materials for classroom use.
Profile:
Neil Heffernan is an Associate Professor in the English Education Center at Ehime University. He has taught EFL in Japan for 12 years and his areas of interest include CALL, Testing/Evaluation and Materials Development. Neil is an Editor for the Asian EFL Journal and has published two texts for students: Top-Notch Students: Study Skills for Japanese University Students and Core Perspective: Access to Fundamental Paragraph Writing