James Bury
About
James Bury is an associate professor and researcher based in Chiba, Japan. He has a PhD in Education and his research interests include developing communicative competence, enhancing lexical retrieval, and improving students' self-perceptions of ability and levels of confidence when using English.Sessions
Pragmatics Teaching varied discourse moves: theory and method more
Sat, Jul 9, 11:45-12:10 Asia/Tokyo
In classrooms, the majority of interactions are based around typical question and answer structures. While these structures provide students with the opportunity to communicate, they can also lead to short, direct answers and discourse turns that do not encourage students to develop their speech as much as they possibly could, or as naturally. Research has indicated that introducing a range of discourse moves into classroom interactions can encourage students to produce more, both quantitatively and qualitatively (Bury, 2018). However, despite these findings and teacher feedback indicating that further training or guidance on how to effectively incorporate different discourse moves into their classroom language would benefit the fluidity and authenticity of their in-class interactions, previous research has not discussed practical suggestions on how to do this. This presentation aims to address that gap. Firstly, the effect that teachers using ten different discourse moves, including reflective statements, statements of interest, speaker referrals, and referential questions, can have on student output in Japanese universities is analyzed, and then different strategies that can be used in classrooms to make students more aware of the choice of discourse moves available to them and to practice those moves are introduced.
Teacher Development The TD & CUE SIG Forum on Communities of Practice more
Sun, Jul 10, 11:45-13:15 Asia/Tokyo
The TD and CUE SIG will hold their annual joint forum on the topic of Communities of Practice (CoPs). Such communities can be teachers, students, company workers, or otherwise, who form in organic or natural ways. The CoP members hold a common aim or concern for the activities they do and learn how to improve as they interact regularly within the group. Some participants may be more senior in age or experience than others, thus giving way to a learning experience and successful conclusion of their efforts for everyone. The forum speakers are university and professional educators with a specific background as a member or researcher ofCoPs. James Bury will inform us about the positive outcomes achieved as a result of encouraging colleagues at two separate workplaces to interact with research, question their own teaching practices, engage in their own practice-based investigations, and then share their findings with each other. Yoshifumi Fukada will explain how Japanese EFL/ESL learners actively engaged themselves in English-mediated socialization and grew as English users and as persons in a project-based English education program held in Japan and during studying abroad. Daniel Hooper will describe the shared goals, interpersonal relationships, and local repertoire of tools that emerged from a small reflective practice group for university teachers that met regularly to discuss critical incidents they experienced in their working lives and to explore their own professional identity. Barbara Hoskins Sakamoto will talk about the potential of informal online communities to improve teachers' professional and personal lives, sharing specific examples of the meaningful impact observed with teachers in a unique English for Teachers program, and the factors that made positive changes possible.
