ABAX at JALT 2011

Later this afternoon we'll be doing set-up for the JALT (Japan Association for Language Teaching) National Conference in Yoyogi, Tokyo. 

Greatly looking forward to this event - as always. This year with the event being in Tokyo, expect that over 2,000 language teachers will attend. With hundreds of events and presentations scheduled, it's a full weekend for attendees.

ABAX will be displaying in Booth 14, across from our good friends at Language Solutions and the Books Doing Good display (which this year has more books than ever).

New this year will be the Coursebook and Beyond (well, an emergency print version of it) pictured above. Very happy to see this book out there!

Though disappointed that a number of items didn't make it. Teaching in Pursuit of Wow! by Tim Murphey, Fiction in Action: Spellbound by Adam Gray, Business Spotlight 1 by Alastair Graham-Marr et al and Step Into English by Alastair Graham-Marr and Tanja McCandie are all but done but (and this is what counts), not, not quite. If you do drop round, we can show you the almost completed versions of some of these books and everything will be out for early in 2012. Another disappointment is that we won't have an edition of the ABAX Addition newspaper ready for this year's event.

But going back to the plus side, you can see the videos made for the Communication Spotlight series, shot by Todd Rucynski in New York, Tokyo and Hawaii and check out the website and get information on a new company we're going to be working with, englishonline, who are offering use of their online teaching platform free to any teachers up through the end of March.

And we have presentations. On Saturday, November 19th, Alastair Graham-Marr will be presenting on the Intrinsic Motivational Effects of Output from 5.00-6.00 p.m. in Room 311 and Hugh Graham-Marr on Task-Based Narrow Reading from 5.35-6.00 p.m. in Room 308 (Marcos, whose presentation - along with Adam - this really is, will also be here (this much appreciated) to give support as he's not here as originally planned). On Sunday, November 20th, Communication Spotlight author, Alastair Graham-Marr, presents on Teaching Strategies and Skills for Communication from 11.30 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. in Room 307 and Hugh Graham-Marr on The Detective Story As a Way Into Critical Reading from 12.40-1.05 p.m. in Room 103. Tanja McCandie presents onSupplementary Activities Using ABC Cards from 4.55-5.55 in Room 301.

Finally, a word about ELT for Tohoku. All the publishers and distributors involved with this are putting on a Wine and Cheese Event on Sunday, November 20th from 16.30 to 18.30 at the Reception Hall in the International Exchange Building. The minimum donation to attend is ¥3,000 (and you're of course very welcome to give more!). Donations will be used to support children in Tohoku affected by the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011

A great JALT, everyone!

Company Roundup. October 23, 2011

Two new resource titles. It's been a long time since ABAX has published a resource title—indeed the last one was one of our first titles ever, the Dogme-ish Freestanding way, way back in 1998. But this November sees a double-shot. We're greatly looking forward to publishing both Teaching in Pursuit of Wow! 20 years of musings on maximizing learning potential by Tim Murphey and The Coursebook & Beyond: Choosing, Using and Teaching Outside the Text by Fiona Copland and Steve Mann.

Unfortunately these titles will not be out in time for next weekend's MEXTESOL conference in Morelia, Michoacan (where ABAX titles can be seen at the Delti display) but we will have them to show at the JALT Conference in Tokyo which runs from November 18-21st. 

Progress continues on a new Japan website which will be the model for a future abax.net site as well. The new site is scheduled for launch in mid-December.

And if you're in Russia, plans are afoot for an Adam Gray tour, March 10 through 18. Watch this space for more details.

Coffee or Krashen? Coffee, thanks.

At the recently concluded KOTESOL International Conference held at Sookmyung Women's University in Seoul, a colleague of mine elected to miss Krashen’s plenary presentation and have a cup of coffee instead while I chose to attend the plenary. I'm not sure I made the right choice…

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