26/03/2014
On the 22nd March 2014, the Japan Foundation London, in conjunction with BATJ, held a seminar titled ‘Designing a reading activity based on the JF Standard.’ The instructor at the event was Ms Sono Habuto, a Japanese Language Educational Advisor at the Japanese Cultural Institute, Japan Foundation Cologne, and the seminar was attended by 19 Japanese language teachers. In the first session, Ms Habuto focused on the act of “reading” and what it comprises. She illustrated this with a discussion of ‘schema’, which states that comprehension of text involves pre-existing knowledge on the part of the reader regarding the context in which the written material is presented. Other strategies also used in reading comprehension were also covered. This was followed with some example tasks. In the second session, the participants used various authentic reading materials to create and present their own reading activities, based on the ideas presented in the first session. These activities were divided up into “pre-task activity”, “main- task activity”, “post-task activity” and “recap” sections. Comments from participants included:
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