The Team

Nicholas J. Wilson – Founder, Event Coordinator, and Presenter
Nicholas J. Wilson is an elementary and junior high school English teacher and curriculum developer fostering students’ digital literacy through foreign language education. He is a Level 1 & 2 Google Certified Educator and Level 1 Adobe Creative Educator in charge of supporting the professional development of English and Japanese teachers as a mentor, area leader, and member of the local board of education’s Digital Transformation Committee. He is also an active JALT officer involved in planning, promoting, and coordinating regional events and national conferences, and the founder and organizer of ALT Agorà, a series of monthly webinars designed for assistant language teachers, part of the ALT Training Online grassroots initiative.

Miguel Mision – Zoom & Web Master, Breakout Rooms Coordinator
Miguel did his undergraduate in engineering and international studies with a major in Japanese at the University of Technology, Sydney. Once upon a time he was an engineer and worked for Toshiba Corp in Australia. He came to Japan in 2009 and worked as an ALT teaching all levels from kindergarten to high school to corporate. Miguel has an MA in Education majoring in TESOL with the University of Wollongong. His research interests include both Computer and Mobile Assisted Language Learning.

Alex Crockett – Event Coordinator & Presenter
Alex studied Computational Physics at the Pennsylvania State University, where his experience working in science outreach programs led him to pursue a career in teaching. After working as an ALT for 5 years, he is currently a JHS and SHS teacher at a private high school in Japan and holds a CELTA teaching certification. His professional interests include using games, drama, debate, and public speaking for learning, as well as integrating technology with education.

Kelsey Halbach – Programs & Outreach
Kelsey studied at the University of Regina (Canada) where she received her B.A. Hons. in philosophy and B.A. in Japanese. In addition to her degrees, she is a certified TESOL/TESL/TEFL teacher with a specialization in teaching Business English and IELTS & TOEFL Preparation. She began her teaching career as a personal tutor and has been an ALT since 2018. Her academic interests include ethics, epistemology, and philosophy of education.

Jara Villanueva-Frio – Social Media Manager
Jara Villanueva-Frio studied Food Technology at the University of the Philippines Los Baños and worked as a quality assurance analyst for a food manufacturing company for two years. She started her career as an online ESL tutor and taught online for more than six years before coming to Japan in 2019 through the JET Programme. Currently, she is in her 4th year of teaching at a senior high school in Nara. She is also a TESOL-certified teacher and holds a TESOL Trainer’s Certificate. Her interests include task-based language teaching, game-based learning, and digital realia. 

Elizabeth Scally – Behind-the-scenes Ninja Consultant
Elizabeth Scally started teaching ESL in Canada in 1994 primarily to new Canadians and refugees. Since then, she’s been a JET Program ALT, program coordinator for municipal boards of education in Japan, and teacher at private high schools. Her focus is on composition and process writing.

Bryce Harris – Behind-the-scenes Ninja Consultant
I’m an Australian and have been teaching in Japan since 2008. I have worked extensively in private elementary schools, public and private junior high schools, and private senior high schools. I have experience ranging from 1st grade elementary (across multiple subjects) through to graduating senior high school classes. My focus has always been to engage students of any and every level in the joy of learning and to help them overcome any particular difficulties that they may encounter – whether through frustration due to incomprehensibility of lessons or boredom induced by having to deal with lessons pitched way below their mental and linguistic competence.

Nathaniel Reed – Visionary, Founder of ALT Training Online (ALTTO)
Nathaniel Reed has been teaching English in Japan since 2009. In 2015 he completed his MA in Applied Linguistics, writing his dissertation on the roles of ALTs. During this research, he started to understand how deep the unclear objectives of ALTs are, and at the same time an appreciation of how much potential ALTs have to improve educational quality and learner lives. He embarked on a journey to bring ALTs together and collaborate constructively. This graduate course and people he met, with similar interests, gave birth to the ALT Training Online idea. Along the way of putting the ALT online training course together, he has met the finest educators in Japan specializing in language education in Japan – and convinced everyone to help create an open-access training for us all. Together with these people, the course, website, guest blogs, resources, Facebook group etc. have just been growing and growing. Hundreds of ALTs have been involved in various ways to date (I hope you get involved too).

Chelanna White – Ninja Backup Presenter & Consultant
Chelanna is a former JET Programme participant and current instructor at Reitaku University. She is also the Program Chair Liaison for JALT. She lives in Tokyo with two feline roommates named Coco and Wyatt.