Helping Students Develop Skills for Better Presentations:Using the 20x20 Format for Presentation Training

Pecha-Kucha 20x20 ("20x20" below) is a presentation format that requires thepresenter to deliver a highly visual presentation using 20 slides, each shown forexactly 20 seconds. The slides advance automatically with a timer and thespeaker must present within these constraints. Since its inception in Tokyo in2003, the format has been growing in popularity worldwide. 20x20 assignmentswere given to students in EAP classes at International Christian University inTokyo and students in the engineering faculty of Tokyo University ofAgriculture and Technology. Surveys following the 20x20 presentationsrevealed that students responded very positively. Almost all students agreed thatthe 20x20 format was enjoyable and useful because it requires them to focustheir points, forces them to practice more, and helps the audience to stayengaged. In contrast, students felt that some of the main drawbacks were thehigher degree of pressure to practice enough to be able to present smoothlyunder the time constraints and the inflexibility of the format. We report how weintegrated 20x20 in four different presentation projects and explain how 20x20can be used to help students develop skills for more effective oral presentations

Designing a Program-Wide Self-Assessment System for Academic Speaking: Preliminary Results and Issues

In 2008, 15 instructors of the Academic Speaking (ASP) courseat International Christian University (ICU) collaborated oncreating and piloting a new self-assessment system to helpapproximately 520 first year students at ICU analyze and setgoals for improving their own academic speaking. Theassessment was based an audio or video recording of a three tofour minute speaking sample of each student expressing anopinion on an issue and then leading a short discussion.Following the recording, each student submitted a self-analysisof his or her own speaking including a typed transcript and a listof self-identified speaking difficulties and improvement goals.This paper presents the rationale, design, and results of thepiloted assessment system and then discusses issues and needsfor improvement

The 2007 Mitaka Primary School Eigo Katsudo Teacher Training Seminar

This paper describes and discusses a three-day in-service teachertraining seminar that the authors conducted twice in August 2007for 60 primary school teachers of the city of Mitaka in Tokyo.The focus of the seminar was on how to teach eigo katsudo, orprimary school English activities, which have been arequirement for all grades in all public primary schools in Mitakacity since 2006. Following an overview of the current situationof eigo katsudo in Japan and Mitaka, the process of preparingand conducting the seminar will be described based on theobservations made by the instructors and questionnairescollected from the participants. Finally, considerations forimprovement of future seminars will be discussed

Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Video-Recording Based Self-Assessment System for Academic Speaking

Building on an academic speaking self-assessment system piloted in the previousyear (see Christianson & Hoskins, 2008), coordinators and instructors in the 2009Academic Speaking course in the English Language Program at InternationalChristian University in Tokyo, Japan implemented several improvements includingthe use of video, recording groups of students rather than individuals, and theaddition of a peer review activity for students to view the videos together andexchange comments. Approximately 460 first-year students participated in the self-assessment process which consisted of recording a four minute video of a groupdiscussion, watching it with peers, and doing a self-analysis that included creating atranscript of the recording, identifying strong and weak areas of speaking, settinggoals and writing out practice plans for further improvement. This paper outlinesthe rationale and design of the video-based self-assessment system for academicspeaking, summarizes student and instructor survey results, and discusses severalissues related to improving the self-assessment system

"Some Tutorials Were Only Scarily" Students\u27 Perceptions of Teacher-Learner Conferences Within a Japanese University ELP Program

In the English Language Program (ELP) at International Christian University (ICU),teacher-learner conferences called “tutorials” for reading and writing classes are animportant part of the current ELP curriculum. Tutorial hours are built intoinstructors’ schedules and the average student attends 16 to 18 conferences ofapproximately 15 minutes each during the first year. This paper reports the resultsof a recent survey conducted for the purpose of evaluating and improving theeffectiveness of the tutorial system at ICU. Responses were received from 81students and more than 90% of respondents indicated they felt tutorials were usefulfor improving their reading and writing skills. However, at the same time, manyissues emerged as well, including 1) the need to explain tutorial systems andpolicies to students more effectively, 2) the need to reduce student anxiety towardtutorials, possibly by flexibly using group tutorials and Japanese language in somecases, and 3) the need to improve the integration of tutorials into the long-termdevelopment of students as autonomous life-long readers and writers. Based on ananalysis of the survey results, some ideas for improving the effectiveness ofteacher-learner conferences at ICU and other college ELP programs are proposed

Delay and poor diagnosis of Down syndrome in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: A retrospective review of postnatal cytogenetic testing

Background. Down syndrome (DS) is the most common chromosomal disorder in newborns. Until 20 years ago DS was considered rare in black African children in South Africa (SA). Lack of awareness of DS on the part of medical staff in SA, and difficulty in diagnosing it, appear to persist.Objectives. To establish an epidemiological profile of DS and investigate the ability of clinicians in KwaZulu-Natal Province (KZN), SA, to make accurate clinical diagnoses of DS.Methods. Records at the South African National Blood Service cytogenetic laboratory in Pinetown, KZN, were examined for all tests for clinically suspected DS undertaken during January 2009 - December 2013 and all cytogenetically proven DS test results. Age at diagnosis, the hospital from where the test was sent and type of chromosomal pattern for each confirmed DS test result were recorded.Results. Of a total of 1 578 tests requested, 875 confirmed DS, indicating that clinicians correctly clinically diagnosed DS 55.4% of the time. The average age of cytogenetic diagnosis of DS was 1 year and 20 days. The minimum population prevalence of DS was 0.8/1 000.Conclusions. The diagnosis of DS is a challenge in KZN, potentiating missed opportunities for early intervention. The relatively low population prevalence of DS may be attributable to a lack of confirmatory cytogenetic tests or missed clinical diagnoses. It may also be attributable to a high mortality rate for children with DS in the province