May for Mental Wellness: Saturday, 30 May, 13:00 online (Google Meet)
“May for Mental Wellness” is a teacher well-being event with the Kyoto Chapter of JALT. This event is to create space for educators to reflect on emotional regulation, mental health, and teaching practices for students who are struggling with mental well-being themselves. Through a series of presentations and discussions, the event aims to support the well-being of teachers while also exploring how educator wellness can impact student learning and classroom communities.
Schedule
| 13:00 | Opening remarks | |
| 13:05 ~ 13:45 | Sam Morris | Language teacher emotion regulation development – Lessons from an online training course |
| 14:05 ~ 14:45 | Samia Haseeb Khan | Connection, Support, and Mental Wellness in Education |
| 15:05 ~ 15:45 | Daniel Orozco | Foreign language classroom anxiety in Japanese students and why it is important for their learning |
| 16:00 | Closing remarks |
Abstracts and Bios
Language teacher emotion regulation development – Lessons from an online training course
Sam Morris – Rikkyo University
In recent years, emotion regulation has been highlighted as a crucial language teacher skill, supporting educators to manage classrooms, engage learners, and deal with the stresses of the profession. However, there are few training opportunities available to support in-service teachers. Here, the presenter will share lessons learned from the implementation of a 12-hour, online emotion regulation training programme that was attended by 13 non-Japanese teachers in Japan. Through the course, the participants learnt about and reflected on four core areas: knowledge about emotions, knowledge about emotion regulation, reflection on experiences, and proactive skill building. Participants were encouraged to deeply consider critical incidents in their past and develop proactive strategies for the future. Data on the effectiveness of the course was collected through 120 structured reflections, and through a series of semi-structured interviews after the course had finished. Using excerpts from the data, the presenter will explore the kind of learning that can be experienced during such a training course, and offer consideration for other teachers, trainers, and institutions for how they might best train teachers in their own contexts.
Sam Morris is an Associate Professor in the Centre for Foreign Language Education and Research at Rikkyo University, Japan. His research explores the affective dimensions of language teaching and learning, and his most recent project has examined how training might be provided to in-sessional teachers on the subject of emotion regulation.
Connection, Support, and Mental Wellness in Education
Samia Haseeb Khan
Educators support students through stress and personal challenges while also managing teaching, pastoral duties, and work place pressures. Drawing on volunteer experience in mental health awareness, this presentation explores how connection and everyday support can strengthen school communities. It highlights simple ways to support colleagues through listening, communication, and small, consistent actions that contribute to teacher well-being and healthier work environments.
Samia Haseeb Khan is a Kansai based University educator with over 1.5 decades of teaching experience. Her research focuses on game-based education and creating fun, engaging lessons. She brings extensive volunteer experience supporting community mental health and wellness.
Foreign language classroom anxiety in Japanese students and why it is important for their learning
Daniel Orozco – Ritsumeikan University
Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety (FLCAS), is a concept coined by Elaine K. Horwitz et al. (1986), that has been considered a huge factor in the performance and participation of EFL students, including Japanese university students. They may often display reluctance to engage in spoken interaction despite having the knowledge and ability to do so. This may suggest a gap between ability and performance with anxiety as a mediator.
There is much research establishing the negative correlation between FLCAS and language achievement, but there are not many studies that examine the impact of classroom-based interventions on reducing this anxiety. This study will examine whether low-stakes speaking avtivities may reduce FLCAS among Japanese university students.
Participants will complete the FLCAS instrument at the middle and end of a semester, alongside measures of willingness to communicate (WTC) and speaking performance. The pedagogical intervention will include scaffolded small-group discussions, pre-task planning, and repeated speaking tasks designed to reduce evaluative pressure while maintaining communicative engagement.
Daniel Orozco is from Miami, Florida, has lived in South Korea for ten years as an English teacher and is now living in Osaka, teaching in Ritsumeikan and Ryukoku Universities. He is proficient in Japanese, Spanish, Korean, and German. He also holds a Bachelors degree in Asian studies and a Master’s degree in TESOL.
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