We are very pleased to welcome Keita Kikuchi who is a leading scholar in the study of demotivation in L2 learning. He has published a number of important empirical studies on demotivation among Japanese learners of English (e.g. Kikuchi 2009, Listening to our learners’ voices: What demotivates Japanese high school students? Language Teaching Research 13(4). Sakai and Kikuchi 2009, An analysis of demotivators in the EFL classroom. System 37).

Bio:
Keita Kikuchi is an Associate Professor at Kanagawa University, Japan. He holds an Ed.D. in TESOL from Temple University, Japan, and an MA in ESL from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. His research interests include curriculum development and second language acquisition, especially individual differences.

Description of talk:
In my talk, I will introduce the idea of researching demotivation in English language learning contexts and present findings of studies conducted mainly in Japan. Then, I will discuss the future direction of demotivation studies.

In order to facilitate a fruitful discussion on this topic, I will use examples from my own studies (Kikuchi, 2009; Kikuchi and Sakai, 2009; Sakai and Kikuchi, 2009). By the end of the talk, I hope to have demonstrated that demotivators may vary in different situations. Finally, I would like to encourage a reflective group discussion regarding the variety of demotivators within ELT and within the audience’s own teaching contexts.

Date: December 14, 2013
Time: 5 – 7 PM  (followed by dinner).
Location: University of Kochi (Kochi Women’s University) LL room.
*** This event will be followed by our annual end of the year party. ***