Hello. My name is Kris Bayne. I have been living and teaching in Japan for 25 years (!) but I still say I come from Melbourne, Australia. I live in Higashi-Koganei, Tokyo, not far from wonderful Koganei Park (one of best-kept secrets in the Kanto Plain -- magnificent sakura & ume, open air museum, exhausting kids play areas, and a classic car exhibition in autumn). As of April 2008 I teach intercultural communication and also teach and oversee various English skills courses in the Department of English Language and Literature at Seisen University. Prior to that I did seven years at International Christian University after for some fourteen years at a senmon-gakko. Throughout my teaching career in Japan I have been involved in in-house materials production, early on for content-based learning and more recently academic writing. I keep threatening to publish a textbook. I can be reached at krisbayne@gmail.com.
I have three areas of interest that I would like to describe.
For some time I have been looking at and into various aspects of the written instructions or rubrics in EFL materials. I think it is an over-looked area in materials writing, which has always surprised me, seeing that they are always there. Among other things I have found is that students much prefer examples of what to do over sometimes confusing and verbose rubrics. I also have found, though not yet published, that there is no agreement among authors and publishers over the actual target of the rubric. If you are interested here are a few things I have published on rubrics.
"How Students Know What To Do: Learner Access to ELT Textbook Rubrics". Dokkyo University Studies in Foreign Language Teaching. Research Institute of Foreign Language Teaching. Dokkyo University. No.17. 1998. pp. 253-283.
"The Rubrics: Reloaded -Raising Options for How We Frame Learning Tasks." Folio (Journal of the Materials Development Association). MATSDA. 9/2, January 2005. pp. 21-24.
"Are Written Instructions in Learner Materials Always Necessary?" Asia TEFL Journal Vol. 3, No. 3 Autumn, 2006, pp. 1-22
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