Features

• Small class size
• Interactive classes
• Individualized instruction and feedback
• An active extracurricular schedule
• Computer and Internet facilities
• International and multi-cultural environment,with more than half of the students from outside Japan
• Residential campus
• Scenic mountainous surroundings in a rural setting

Goals

• Develop English language skills for academic needs
• Develop oral communication skills in and outside of the classroom
• Develop cross-cultural awareness inside and outside the classes
• Make use of self-access learning materials
• Develop leadership and organizational skills
• Participate in an "English only environment"

Basic Facts

Mohammed Ahmed
Mohammed Ahmed comes from Bangladesh. After receiving his M.A. (linguistics/EFL) and Ph.D. (concentration in applied linguistics) degrees in the U.S.A., he joined the International University of Japan in 1988. He has been teaching at IUJ since then. He has also taught ESL/EFL courses in the U.S., Bangladesh, and Sweden. His research interests include Vygotskian psycholinguictics, task-based course design, and non-native varieties of English. At IUJ, he also conducts teacher-training workshops for high school English language teachers. In his spare time, he likes listening to music, gardening, driving around the countryside, and hiking.

Anthony Crooks
Anthony (Tony) Crooks was born in Melbourne, Australia. He holds a B.Ed., Grad. Dip. TESOL, MA TESOL, and is currently pursuing his doctorate in Education through Deakin University in Australia, in which he is exploring the professional identity of native speaker teachers of English in Japan. He has taught ESL in his home country at institutions including Swinburne University of Technology, and has also been involved in EFL in Thailand, South Korea, and, for the past ten years, Japan. He has recently joined IUJ, previously having worked in Sendai in the Sendai Board of Education and then later Miyagi University of Education. In his spare time he enjoys computing, music and movies, and traveling.

Christopher Murphy
Chris Murphy comes from New York, NY. He has a BA in Communication Arts with a minor in East Asian Studies from Villanova University. He completed his M.A. in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESOL) at Columbia University, Teachers College in 2004. He has taught English in New York City and Japan. He also has volunteer English teaching experience in India and Indonesia. His academic interests include Second Language Acquisition, Critical Discourse Analysis, Sociolinguistics, and Language Policy/Planning. In his free time, he enjoys traveling, writing short fiction, and the outdoors.

Richard Smith
Richard Smith grew up in London, but left the UK twenty years ago in search of a career as a language teacher. He obtained an MA in Social and Political Science from Cambridge University and worked for a period in London as a sociological field researcher, before changing his career track. He joined IUJ in 1990 after spending several years teaching company courses in Tokyo. His current research interests are productive vocabulary knowledge development and the impact of World Englishes on international English instruction. In his spare time he would like to walk in the mountains, watch movies and go cycling, and during the IEP he actually does some of them.

Gretchen Jude
Gretchen Jude was born and raised in Boise, Idaho, USA. At 17, she moved to Philadelphia to attend Bryn Mawr College, then returned to her hometown to study TESOL at Boise State University. Soon after receiving her M.A., Gretchen moved to Tokyo, where she lived for eight years, teaching at Asia University, Tokyo Metropolitan University and Tsuda College. In 2005, she returned to Boise to teach ESL, write for the local weekly newspaper, and pursue her interests in music and theater. Gretchen currently lives in the beautiful San Francisco Bay Area. She loves to hike, swim, cook and watch classic Japanese films.

Michael Krapin
Michael Krapin comes from New York. He received an M.A. in Journalism from New York University, but later switched to a teaching career. He has since specialized in teaching English for academic and special purposes in the U.S., Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, Brazil, Montenegro, and Bulgaria. Michael is currently affiliated with Pace University in New York. In his spare time, he loves to hike, bike, and hunt mushrooms.

Kathleen McCartan
Kathy McCartan was born and raised in New York State. She earned her BS in Political Science at the United States Naval Academy and served as a US Naval officer for 8 years. After leaving the Navy and then serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer teacher in Chad, Kathy graduated from the University of South Florida with her MA in Applied Linguistics and began her career as a language instructor. Her most recent work has been with the Educational Testing Service TOEIC Speaking examination. In her free time she loves to read, watch movies, cook, take long walks and bicycle.

Corey Muench
Corey Muench is originally from Missouri and grew up in a small town on the Mississippi River. He completed a BA in French and was a student at the University of Savoie in Chambery, France. He received a dual MA in French linguistics and TESOL from Indiana University. After teaching French, ESL, and applied linguistics for nearly a decade at Indiana University and briefly in Paris, France, he immigrated to Vancouver, Canada where he is currently teaching ESL at Capilano College. Corey’s specializations include English pronunciation instruction and academic writing instruction. He has presented and published several papers in these areas. In a rare moment of spare time, Corey enjoys reading anything, but he is especially interested in the fields of architecture, geography, and of course, languages.

Jeremy Sanders
Jeremy Sanders comes from the village of Castle Combe in the west of England. He started his academic career as a research chemist and has a PhD in inorganic chemistry. When suitable jobs in this field proved scarce, he decided to develop his language interests by training as an English-language teacher, and went on to gain a Cambridge University DELTA and an MA in linguistics from Durham University. He taught a variety of general English and EAP courses for over 7 years at the Northern University of Malaysia, and more recently has been teaching and developing ESAP and linguistics courses at the University of Bath, UK. His linguistic interests evolve around teaching EAP to business and science students, as well as various aspects of syntax, SLA and language change. He is a keen naturalist and in his spare time his pursuits encompass bird-watching, hiking and the cultivation of orchids and insectivorous plants. He also enjoys swimming and cycling, and learning about Oriental culture.

Robert Schoenfeld
Bob Schoenfeld, born and raised in Poughkeepsie, New York, graduated from Arizona State University with a BA in History. After graduation, he taught in Toyama, Japan as part of the JET Program. He then taught ESL in a self-contained classroom in a NYC elementary school, while he earned an ME in ESL from Mercy College. For the past five years, he has taught ESL in the English Language Institute at the University of Pittsburgh where he earned a second Masters degree in Linguistics. In addition to his interests in morphology and phonology, his academic pursuits have expanded to include the acquisition and pronunciation of non-academic English. In his spare time, Bob enjoys reading, listening to music, playing rugby and the occasional good cigar.

Christian Stuart
Christian Stuart was born in the San Francisco Bay Area. Upon receiving his undergraduate degree in English from a small college in Nebraska (a state in the middle of the U.S.), he went to South Korea to teach English. After this, he worked as a technical writer in several corporate settings back in the U.S., including an auditing firm and a law firm. Realizing he loved teaching English, though, he went to the University of Washington in Seattle where he earned his M.A. degree in TESOL. While there, he also taught in the university痴 ESL Center. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in English at the same university, with emphasis on second language writing. In his free time, he enjoys reading, studying languages, hiking, and watching major league baseball games.

Yvert de Souza
Yvert de Souza is from a mixed background. Born in Uganda of Goan-Indian parentage, he was raised in London. He has taught in Portugal, the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom and has taught ESOL, EFL and EAP. He has been working as an ESOL lecturer and CELTA teacher-trainer in a college in London for the past six years. In addition to the DELTA, Yvert has obtained an MA in English Language Teaching. His main interests are language testing and materials design. He is a test writer, examiner for different examining boards and writes and revises materials for several UK publishers. He enjoys travelling, watching films and football.