Remembering Kobe - Taisei's childhood visit

When I was younger, we sometimes went to Kobe, in Hyogo in Kansai (central Japan). It is an excitingcity.

We went there by my father's car. It took four hours.

Kobe is different now. In the past, there were nice cafes. Now, there isn't the cafe.

Kobe today is a popular city to live and work. I still want to go to Kobe someday.

Posted for Taisei

They stand on the right!

Host City: Kobe

Where is the mythical line in Japan where people stop standing on the left on escalators? Kobe is very much right hand territory! Quite off-putting when you are used to a certain way of doing things…

The Kobe Crew

Main event today was sending Damian back to the hotel, as the tickets for England vs USA would be quite helpful getting onto the stadium! After that, we caught up with tractor fans from Suffolk in the Harbour Tavern & suddenly flipped back into Rugby World Cup mood. Loud boos from most of the customers when “Born in the USA” was played; raucous rendition of “Wonderwall” restored order! Eventually chatted with a really interesting ex-Royal Engineer & Falklands vet propping up the bar. A fair number of Wales & Scotland shirts in evidence.

Meeting Argentina

Stunning display of ineptitude by the local boys in blue, citing “danger” but causing chaos & confusion by blocking taxis from unloading at the ground. Truly dumb. Equally stupid is the lack of big screens anywhere, and the queues for the toilets and beer which would have you miss half the game. 

Spidey - a secret England fan!

We enjoyed a powerful running game from England, in the overheated stadium which was awfully humid, “Sweet Chariots” boomed around the place whenever the opposition perked up with their only song!

In-Conference Professional Development - PANSIG

Back-pedalling a couple of weeks to tell you about a very exciting afternoon I enjoyed (though working very hard) in Kobe at the recent JALT PANSIG Conference held there.

It has often struck me how many of 'my' (Cambridge) Speaking Examiners attend the various workshops & conferences I sometimes manage to get to - without being surprised; they are operating in our natural recruiting zone and showing an interest in professional development. Ideally then, make it an extra-worthwhile weekend for everyone and have something tangible to take home.

So what did we do? Prior to the Conference, announced that there would be an opportunity for teachers to attend a full speaking examiner training workshop, with a discount if attending the Conference already - or a discount to attend the rest of the day at the Conference if signing up for the training. Good deal either way!

We received very positive interest and had the session fully booked in no time at all; online pre-training meant we could start at speed with everyone on the same page...my job really a matter of fine-tuning interpretations of instructions and delivery of materials. You would have thought that reading out a few questions from a script would be easy. Usually, it would be, and you do not have to be an experienced teacher to be able to do that. However, add in the pressure of two (sometimes) three nervous/expectant/shy/chatty/non-native speakers hanging on your every word, plus the need to give each a 'fair' turn, plus manage the timing of the tasks, plus pay attention to responses and body language, plus remember what to do next? Not so easy. And with Conference providing us with a roomful of dummy candidates to actually practice on in real time, a lot of pressure. Speaking Examiners have to rise to the challenge and appreciate the necessity of delivering a standard test each & every time. For me, this impacts on the test-takers perception of the test more than anything else they do on test day. They will not remember the questions, but they will remember how they felt in the speaking test.

Job satisfaction for me in examiner training comes with recruits managing to control the above calmly.

Which is at odds with the expectations of recruits, who want to know 'what the scores are' from the start! When we do eventually get to the assessment phase, recruits get excited to see the actual criteria, and then there's a good deal of head scratching as few have assessed with benchmarked criteria before - and very few with 'Can Do' in mind. Invariably recruits begin by noticing 'mistakes', 'errors', and 'can't do', and picking on accents they are not familiar with etc. It takes 'a few goes' looking at different samples of speaking for the group to come around - and it needs to be the group, in the same scoring ballpark, for the lesson to have sunk in. And this is where teachers can stretch their experienced legs and share/discuss/argue/negotiate around interpretation of the criteria v what they saw/heard - and explain all of that couched (only) in the terms written down in front of them. Bye bye 'funny accent' and 'can't do the present perfect simple' etc!

And then the satisfaction of 'nailing' scores when final marks are collected, and the reassurance that there is a lot more support hereon in for all our successful new SEs - in this case 14 people catching the train home glowing with a very real sense of achievement from their weekend to reflect on & put into practice. Well done the PANSIG Cadre!



Need to thanks a couple of people for pushing this unique initiative through - an idea I have had in mind for a couple of years, but needed implementers like Jon Dujmovich and Mark Brierley. Overall, I should thank the PANSIG organisers for seeing the win-win, Tim Pritchard for his 'can do' attitude, and the volunteers who were thrust into practice speaking tests. This event would not have happened without the support of Cambridge English Language Assessment in Japan, specifically Tomoe Aoyama.

Check out Luna's special offer at the JALT PANSIG Conference next month

We do not think this has been done/offered before - while attending a Conference be eligible to join an examiner...
Posted by Luna International: JP004 on Monday, April 20, 2015

Kyoto - Examiner Training

A dozen of the nation's finest EFL teachers gathered in Kyoto today to participate in Cambridge ESOL Oral Examiner (OE) training.

Today's attendees had already been tasked with a certain amount of pre-training which meant we were able to get cracking at a decent pace. I have found that providing recruits with as much info as possible beforehand saves a lot of aggro on the day, as examiners have a lot to process/manage/do, and digesting a 50+ page booklet at the same time has proved to be too much in the past. I love Dropbox!

We gathered from Okayama, Osaka, Nagoya, Matsumoto (our Tana) as well as locals based in Kyoto & Shiga.In all  would say there was over 150 years of English teaching experience in the room; quite a lot of experienced examiners (other levels) too. Great to see motivated and capable teachers pushing themselves professionally and being open to guidance/a bit of tweaking even with all that experience. It is rare that we teachers are challenged to justify our opinions and have a common framework with which to discuss student/candidate performances.Very few teachers (in Japan) are experienced enough/qualified to deliver & assess these levels (CEFR B2/C1).

Personally it was great to see OEs I have previously trained at other levels (YLE, KET, PET) in three different cities (Okayama, Kobe, Nagoya) get down to business very much "on the same page". I was even happier to hear myself quoted as OEs collaborated during the day on rubric delivery (interlocuting) & assessment. I find it very rewarding personally to see & hear teachers/trainers I respect 're-tweeting' my suggestions/sharing their experiences moulded in consistent "Cambridge-speak".

I tried a few new things before & during this session, which I hope added value. I have given up reading commentaries to the room; the 'mana from heaven' approach falls on barren ground too often :)  Today I asked trainees to assess performances alone & then discuss their scores together, before giving them commentaries without scores to fine tune their ideas against the analytical criteria. This stops everyone arguing with me! At the end of the day, here is Cambridge's mark. "Move your scoring to this benchmark!"

Tomorrow the Himalaya of EFL - CPE... The absolute pinnacle of a student's ambitions. Very rare air at this level.