Bruno Vannieu
Alma Publishing
About
Bruno Vannieu has been teaching French at the university level in Japan for over 25 years, including eleven years at Kobe University, where he was honored with the Best Teacher Award on six occasions. His research centers on intercultural communication and language pedagogy. He is the author of Getting Your EFL Students to Speak in Japan and has co-authored numerous French and English language textbooks.Sessions
Panel The Future of Language Teaching: What Still Matters (and Why) more
Sat, Jun 13, 14:05-15:05 Asia/Tokyo
Against the backdrop of social changes, including fewer language majors, increasingly useful AI tools, and the popularity of language learning apps, what will language teaching look like in 5, 10, or 25 years? Four experts provide their predictions and advice from diverse perspectives. Betsy Lavolette predicts that extrinsic motivations, such as travel or work, will no longer drive enrollments. Rather, intrinsic motivations, which cannot be fulfilled by AI tools, will dominate, and our teaching should shift focus to accommodate this. Dennis Koyama argues that AI creates a new baseline for how the value of language learning is measured. Accordingly, assessments must make non-AI competencies visible, with an emphasis on critical thinking and creative rhetorical design, evidenced through communicative agency, mediation, and collaborative competence. Noriko Hanabusa reflects on the traditional role of teachers in the classroom and considers what language educators should focus on to coexist with AI. To promote autonomous learning, teachers should devote more time to designing individualized learning and providing personalized instruction. Bruno Vannieu argues that foreign language learning will stay relevant if we can help students feel that they are exercising their brains and experiencing how languages shape the way humans think.
Poster Presentation Surviving AI - Project-based Communication Teaching more
Sat, Jun 13, 10:20-11:20 Asia/Tokyo
Stephen Richmond, Bukkyo University, and Bruno Vannieu. Alma Publishing In the age of AI, what can motivate our students to study English? It's not obvious, since all the tasks traditionally performed in language classes can now be done in seconds by AI, and students know it. We will show how we can still achieve this in a university communication course by putting students in a situation where they have a powerful human experience, where something obvious “happens.” The human experience in question is to carry out a simple, achievable, and satisfying communication project during each class. It's a bit like building a house each time: they acquire the materials, learn a specific technique, draw up the plans, and then build the house. What kind of project is possible at the beginning of the first year? It is to collaboratively create conversations in the target language during each class. We will show how to do this in practice, at the low-intermediate level (CEFR A2), in CALL classrooms or in standard classrooms.