JALT2024 Kevin Cleary Invited Speaker: Exploring Learner Potential and Educator Possibilities

In this Kevin Cleary Invited Speaker presentation, I would like to explore some of the more interesting facets of second language acquisition including the topics of raising children in a bilingual environment, what it means to be a competent language teacher, to be trilingual, and how to acquire languages. It has taken me a great amount of effort to learn English and Japanese, and this is a powerful tool to remember when I walk into the classroom and teach a language. I would like to reflect on my career as a language learner, language teacher, an educational technology enthusiast, and on my experience more recently advising a secondary school in Japan. Finally, I will discuss ideas on how we can improve the curriculum and teaching strategies to remain competitive in a society with declining demographics.