What I'm Doing Now
- I wrapping up my first semester as a lecturer at Kinjo Gakuin University in Nagoya, Japan having started this past April. I am very excited to have this opportunity, and am working on my 4 classes this semester: Pedagogical English Grammar, Communication F, Communication G, and Cross-cultural Analysis. It is always a lot of work to make classes from scratch, but the students are fun and I am finally acclimating. The semester was challenging adjusting to a new culture and having to build the classes from scratch, but everybody seems to have survived and I am looking forward to the second semester!
- I finished my first research paper this May and submitted it for publishing! The title is rather long, "The Effect of a Mobile Classroom on Student Motivation and Confidence in Second Language Learning on Peace Boat." Please let me know if you are interested!
- I finished a 104 voyage around the world on Peace Boat on November 24, 2017! It was truly a unique experience where I got to see 22 different ports in 19 countries, learn from guest speakers on board, and meet some truly unique people on board. Great experience, though I still have a lot of processing to do.
- Currently I am reading The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi, arguably one of the greatest swordsmen in Japanese history. The book is essentially a guide to fencing, but there are deeper musings about philosophy in the book as well which has bee interesting to contemplate. The need to evolve and adjust to the opponent is a very applicable point to life, but how we evolve and train our mind to react depends on us.
- I will be attending several academic conferences this summer, the LET conference about education and technology in Osaka and JACET (Japan Association of College English Teachers) in Sendai at the end of August. Very excited to hear about work in the field, and starting to think about own research plans as well.
Updated July 2018
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