Professional Development

Originated by Birmingham MA TEFL/TESL students

Cathy is a Japanese Teacher of English, who I first met a community center where we both teach. Her enthusiasm for English and English movies in particular is infectious. Mia-san is Cathy’s friend, who also volunteered to take part in the interview. Mia-san joins an English speaking circle most weeks and works in IT, which has taken him to America.

As a student of Japanese, I was particularly interested in Cathy and Mia-san’s learning experiences, especially those few golden moments when all their hard work and study seemed to “click”, and they realized that they could understand another language. Both of them found songs and music to be the most enjoyable and effective methods for learning.

Listen to their interview by clicking on the links below:

Golden moments I (Cathy)

Golden moments II (Mia-san)

Teaching with movies and speeches

Future goals for learning and teaching

Their findings motivate me to do use movies for learning Japanese and see if it can work as well for me as it has for them. Cathy has transferred this method to her teaching as well. She holds regular Cinema English classes, which are fun, interesting, and can be viewed here: http://www.cinema-english.com/

Geoff Sinha

Biography
Geoff has lived in Japan for nine years, and has taught Junior and Senior high school students and adults, including senior learners. He is a University of Birmingham MA TEFL/TESL graduate and his special interest lies in sociolinguistics; especially in researching attitudes, global English, and in researching lifelong learners.

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