Teaching Staff
Program Directors
Yasushi Sekiya
Founding Director
Specially Appointed Professor, Kanda University of International Studies
Greetings from the MA TESOL Program of Kanda University of International Studies! Our program focuses on developing English language teachers as up-to-date, active professionals who are able to make decisions about teaching that help their students become successful users of English. We emphasize the practice of classroom teaching across the curriculum of the program. We believe that reflective teaching practices are the foundation of professional expertise. Our program also stresses interaction and collaboration, with teachers working together on assignments and projects as part of their professional development. We strive for the KUIS MA TESOL Program to be the shared home of a supportive community of teachers who help each other improve English language education in Japan. In no other program will teachers receive the same level of input about teaching, opportunities to practice (and explore in their practice), and helpful feedback from a supportive community of fellow teachers.
External Consultants
Kensaku Yoshida
Professor Emeritus, Sophia University
English education in Japan is presently facing major challenges, such as the lowering of the age at which English is taught in elementary school, overhaul of university entrance exams, pros and cons of teaching English through English, the setting of educational objectives in the form of CAN-DO statements, etc. Despite the significance and amount of issues lying before us, there are still very few Japanese teachers of English who are capable of coping with them. Being conducted in English, the TESOL program of Kanda University of International Studies offers the opportunity to not only Japanese teachers of English but also foreign teachers teaching in Japan to acquire the professional knowledge necessary to contribute to the solving of these issues.
Rod Ellis
Professor, University of Auckland
Good TESOL programs reflect the interface between theory and practice in their curriculum. Such an interface is essential for developing expertise in teaching English as a second/ foreign language. In this respect the Kanda University of International Studies¨ TESOL program is exemplary. It provides a wide-ranging set of required and elective courses that address all the major areas of TESOL and does so by demonstrating the theoretical underpinnings of good practice while also providing opportunities for students to draw on their own experience of teaching or learning English and to develop their teaching skills.
My own contribution to the program reflects this theory-practice interface. I teach an elective course on task-based language teaching (TBLT). My interest in TBLT derives from my conviction that how we teach English a second/foreign language has to accord with how learners learn it. TBLT reflects this by emphasizing meaning-making in conjunction with a focus on linguistic form. It aims to develop the interactional and linguistic competence that all learners need to become effective communicators in English as a second language. Such an approach is especially important in the Japanese context where there are few opportunities to use English communicatively outside of the classroom.
Past and Current Teaching Staff
NAME | AFFILIATION & RANK | |
1 | Dwight Atkinson | Professor, University of Arizona |
2 | Donna M. Brinton | Lecturer, University of California |
3 | Charles Browne Researchmap | Professor, Meiji Gakuin University |
4 | Rod Ellis | Professor, Curtin University |
5 | John F. Fanselow | Professor Emeritus, Columbia University Teachers College |
6 | Thomas S.C. Farrell | Professor, Brock University |
7 | Gavin Furukawa | Associate Professor, Sophia University |
8 | Gregory Paul Glasgow Researchmap | Associate Professor, KUIS |
9 | Chris Carl Hale Researchmap | Associate Professor, Akita International University |
10 | John Hedgcock | Professor Emeritus, Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey |
11 | Noriko Ishihara Researchmap | Professor, Hosei University |
12 | Yasuko Ito Researchmap | Professor, KUIS |
13 | Daniel O. Jackson Researchmap | Professor, KUIS |
14 | Satoko Kato Researchmap | Associate Professor, KUIS |
15 | Masaki Kobayashi Researchmap | Professor, KUIS |
16 | Aya Matsuda | Professor, Arizona State University |
17 | Paul Kei Matsuda | Professor, Arizona State University |
18 | Tim Murphey Researchmap | Visiting Professor, KUIS |
19 | Jo Mynard Researchmap | Professor, KUIS |
20 | Gordon Myskow Researchmap | Associate Professor, KUIS |
21 | Nena Nikolic | Lecturer, KUIS |
22 | Siwon Park Researchmap | Professor, KUIS |
23 | Hayo Reinders | Professor, Unitec Institute of Technology |
24 | Yasushi Sekiya Researchmap | Professor, KUIS |
25 | William Snyder Researchmap | Lecturer, KUIS |
26 | Makiko Tanaka Researchmap | Professor, KUIS |
27 | Scott Thornbury | Associate Professor, The New School |
28 | Hisako Yamashita | Associate Professor, Kobe Shoin Women's University |
29 | Kensaku Yoshida | Professor Emeritus, Sophia University |
30 | Paul R. Underwood | Professor, Toyo Eiwa University |