Steven Herder: Driving Students to Reflect

Main Venue ARTHUR

Livestream

World Clock Sun 7am GMT, 8am London, 9am Paris, 4pm Tokyo, 3am New York

Google Drive offers excellent opportunities for mobile and/or online computer sharing of documents between students and teachers. This presentation will introduce a new system of reflective data driven feedback for first-year EFL university students as they endeavour to improve not only their overall English ability but also their TOEFL iBT scores before embarking on a year-long study abroad program. This system uses a fluency first approach to address the previous six years that Japanese students have focused almost exclusively on accuracy. The presenter believes that highlighting improvements in fluency builds student self-confidence and fosters motivation to further address either accuracy or complexity issues in language development.

Steven Herder has been teaching within the Japanese EFL context since 1989. Having over 20 years teaching experience at the elementary and secondary school level, he is currently an assistant professor in the International Studies department at Doshisha Women's College of Liberal Arts. He is also extremely active in professional development within the ELT community. He co-founded MASH Collaboration in 2007, an online community devoted to professional development through collaboration. He is an avid user of Skype and can often be heard saying, "Collaboration creates just the right amount of tension to get lots done." He also spends time editing numerous articles, academic volumes and proceedings, and leading teacher training seminars for various companies throughout Japan. Steven works from the perspective that, "being a teacher means a never-ending commitment to learning". Steven is Program Director for International Teacher Development Institute, and one of the authors of iTDi’s Teacher Development course.