Speaker: Keiko Sakui and Neil Cowie
Research on student motivation often assumes that students are either motivated or not motivated; but this can cover up complex and evolving reasons for student behaviour. The two presenters critically examine their students’ classroom behaviour from alternative perspectives to motivation including resistance, identity and imagined communities. Key patterns of student behaviour, the influence of social and cultural factors in explaining them, and implications for teaching and teacher development are outlined.
Keiko Sakui is Associate Professor at Kobe Shoin Women’s University, Japan. She teaches EFL classes as well as teacher education courses, and is Director of the Foreign Language Education Centre. She has several publications in journals such as System, ELT Journal, and JALT Journal. Her most recent publication is on student resistance in Japanese universities in Narratives of learning and teaching EFL (2008) published by Palgrave Macmillan. Her research interests are teacher and learner beliefs, classroom management, and critical pedagogy.
Neil Cowie has been an English teacher in the Foreign Language Education Centre of Okayama University in Japan since 2004. Prior to that he taught in various universities, language schools and businesses in Japan and the UK. He has a Doctorate in Education from Exeter University and a Master’s Degree in Teaching English for Specific Purposes from Aston University, UK. His research interests include collaborative teacher development, student resistance, and exploring the connections between emotion and language learning and teaching.
Date and Time: Saturday, 14 February 2009 3:00pm – 4:00pm
Location: Kochi University, Room 136
Fee for JALT members: Free
Fee for one-day members: 500 yen