Annual Conference

On November 13th, at the Fukuoka International Congress Center, the LLL-SIG of JALT will hold a forum entitled “Gearing Up for Change: Late-Career LLL Insights and Inspiration.”

See https://living4now.org/gearing-up-for-change-late-career-lll-2022-novemb... for more details.

General Description:
With an aging demographic of teachers, more and more of us have been on the path toward imminent retirement or have passed that threshold. This forum will feature individuals who have made that transition and will speak about, domestic, and international considerations, financial, social, and psychological preparation and ideas and strategies on staying active in Lifelong Learning well into the retirement years. Audience members will also contribute their experiences insights and plans for the future.

Scheduled for: Sunday, November 13th, 12:30 PM - 2:00 PM (90 minutes)
Room: 407

Questions for Discussion

• What was a challenge preparing for retirement?
• What are some positive or negative aspects of being retired?
• What advice do you have for teachers preparing for retirement?
• How are you keeping busy/active in retirement?
• How does Lifelong Learning fit into your retirement lifestyle?

Moderators: Andrew Reimann & Joseph Dias

Live Speakers:

Greg Strong
Retired Professor at Aoyama Gakuin University
Greg will be discussing his choice of returning to his home country after a long career of teaching in China and Japan… what is lost and what is gained in deciding to return home (in his case to British Columbia). From language program administration to snowshoeing, writing plays, and caring for family members.

Barbara Morrison
Retired Professor at Utsunomiya University
Barbara will discuss her career path and how retirement is just one step on that path. She is trained in Zen Buddhism and has recently written a book on Mindfulness titled Natures Narratives. She currently gives seminars on mindfulness and divides her time between Takao and Thailand.

Prerecorded Speakers

Nena Nikolic-Hosonaka
Kanda University of International Studies & Mama Nena’s English School
Nena will speak about the connections she sees between the young learners she teaches at her language school, Mama Nena’s, and the undergraduate and graduate adult learners she has been teaching at the Kanda University of International Studies, among other universities. Her lifelong learning of languages (currently Chinese), classical guitar, and her newest passion—surfing, demonstrate what the new 70s is all about.

Barry Natusch
Retired Professor at Nihon University, College of Economics
Barry describes the transition into retirement with insights, experiences, and anecdotes. He urges those preparing for retirement to remember that you’re only as good as your last pizza and that we should prepare and plan for different eventualities. His main advice is that community, activity, and identity are key to establishing a post-career lifestyle and easing into a fulfilling retirement.

Diane Nagatomo
Retired Professor at Ochanomizu University
Diane is a long term active JALT member. She will talk about differences in life pre and post retirement, highlighting family, work, finance, and free time. Her first novel, The Butterfly Café, will be published in July 2023!

The CUE SIG is offering a fantastic opportunity for people to pick up advice in short bits on publishing or doing research at the JALT2022 international conference. This “CUE Tips” forum will feature 10 speakers who will each talk for about 5 minutes on a specific point. Once that is done, the floor will be open for questions. Our updated speakers list: · Kathleen Brown · James Bury · Melodie Cook · Nicole Gallagher · Anne Howard · Yuri Imamura · Michael Parrish · Steve Paton · Hisako Yamashita · Kie Yamamoto

Come visit us in room #411.

This time and room number are updated as of 10/15.

Lightning will strike more than twice in this forum! Don’t miss it. Contact Mike Lyons or Glen Hill with questions.

6th CUE SIG ESP Symposium

Join the CUE SIG for Zoom presentations related to English for Specific Purposes.

In addition to poster/slideshow presentations, we have Prof. Helen Basturkmen and Prof. An Cheng providing keynote talks. What's more, the symposium will have its traditional book raffle.

The event will conclude with a 45-minute open floor discussion on diversity, hosted by Emily Choong. Symposium participants will discuss problems and potential solutions to diversity in the EFL community.

2023 JALT Hokkaido Winter Language Teaching Conference "New Directions and New Techniques: Teaching in the New Normal"  (Japanese Below)

This year, JALT Hokkaido, The Performance in Education (PIE) JALT Special Interest Group, and Okinawa JALT are hosting a two-day conference at two locations in Sapporo: Sapporo Cultural Arts Community Center (SCART) on Saturday, February 4th, and Hokkai-Gakuen University on Sunday, February 5th.

PLEASE NOTE: Both Saturday and Sunday will be face-to-face and on-site only. Both days are not online or hybrid style formats. All precautions will be taken according to government and venue regulations to ensure a safe environment. Participants will be informed of those regulations as the conference date approaches and you will be expected to conform to those regulations.

There will be a full lineup of presentations,  a forum education leaders, and publisher displays on Sunday, February 5th, with a networking social get-together on Saturday night. Our keynote speaker, Professor Marc Helgesen will be giving a plenary on what happens when students are happy in the classroom, and how teachers can facilitate this happiness. He will also run a workshop about positivity in the classroom. Not to be missed!

Read below for the PIE SIG information (submissions for Saturday presentations).

Performance in Education (PIE) SIG Conference THEME: “New Directions and New Techniques: Teaching in Performance in Education in the New Normal” This is the theme for the PIE SIG portion of the conference. The PIE SIG is completely responsible for the program and management of the Saturday, February 4th conference (held at SCART) and is responsible for programming and management for one room on Sunday, February 5th at Hokkai-Gakuen University. Conference Fees for each day: JALT Members, JALT Hokkaido Local Members, and students: Free if pre-registered, ¥1,000 if not pre-registered Non-members: ¥1,500 if pre-registered; ¥2,000 if not pre-registered

Pre-register deadline: Saturday, February 4th, 23:59pm

(Deadline to register for Saturday dinner: February 3rd, 23:59pm. Same registration form)

No same day registrations.

Pre-register here!

https://docs.google.com/forms

Schedule here

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JG855AihXdgZXidZLd5EGxTof_ZIO0hc-nfSuD4vCEQ/edit#gid=2994499/d/e/1FAIpQLScymGqCZK6bD08RglR1vzjYEo2U6mFWMiafzoXj_WqS0YxIkg/viewform

(2023年) 第36回全国語学教育学会(JALT)北海道支部研究大会「アフターコロナにおける新しい日常：新しい方向性と新しい技術」

今年度もJALT北海道支部とThe Performance in Education (PIE) JALT Special Interest Group、およびJALT沖縄支部は、札幌市内の2つの会場において2日間の研究大会を合同開催します。2月4日（土）は札幌文化芸術劇場（SCARTS（スカーツ）コート）にて、2月5日（日）は北海学園大学にて開催されます。 【注意】土曜日、日曜日ともに対面式で会場のみでの発表となります。オンラインやハイブリッド形式では行いません。安全な環境を確保するため、政府および会場の規則に準じ予防措置を講じます。大会開催日が近づきましたら詳細をお知らせしますので、全参加者はこれらの規制に従って頂くことになります。

2月5日（日）には、発表や学生ショーケース、教育界のリーダーによるシンポジウム、また出版社の展示など、充実したラインナップが予定されており、土曜日の夜にはネットワーキングのための懇親会が開催されます。 基調講演者である Marc Helgesen 教授は、生徒が教室で幸せなときに何が起こるか、教師がこの幸せをどのように促進できるかについて全体会議を行います。 マーク・ヘレガスン先生が教室で積極性に関するワークショップも開催します。 お見逃しなく！ The Performance in Education (PIE) JALT Special Interest Group研究大会 テーマ：「新しい方向性と新しい技法。ニューノーマルにおける教育現場でのパフォーマンス指導」 これは、本研究大会のPIE SIG部分のテーマです。

PIE SIGは、2月4日（土）の研究大会（SCARTS（スカーツ）コートで開催）のプログラムと運営を担当し、2月5日（日）の北海学園大学での1会場のプログラムと運営を担当します。

各日の参加費 JALT全国会員、JALT北海道支部会員、学生：事前登録者は無料、事前登録なしの場合1,000円 非会員：事前登録者は1,500円、事前登録なしの場合2,000円

事前登録締め切り：2月4日（土）23時59分 (土曜日のディナーの登録期限: 2 月 3 日 23 時 59 分。同じ登録フォーム) 当日登録はありません。

事前登録はこちら！ https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScymGqCZK6bD08RglR1vzjYEo2U6mFW...

スケジュールはこちら https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JG855AihXdgZXidZLd5EGxTof_ZIO0hc...

We are happy to announce this year’s 21st Century Language Teaching Conference! This event is hosted by JALT Okinawa and the Teaching Young Learners SIG, and will be held online on Sunday, October 2nd, 2022, from 15:00 to 19:00 (Tokyo time). The theme of this year’s conference is “Motivating Students: Energizing Teachers”, with a particular focus on young learners. The keynote speaker for the conference is Penny Ur, a very well known teacher who has lectured and published extensively on English-teaching methodology. She will give a talk on “Using learning-rich games with young learners”, as well as a workshop on “Inclusive teaching: Addressing the needs of different students in the English lesson”. In addition, there will be a variety of presentations and workshops by a number of teachers. This conference will be free for JALT Okinawa members and TYL members, and 500 yen for all other JALT members. For non-JALT participants, it will be 1000 yen.

NEAR Language Education Conference 2022 is co-sponsored by JALT Niigata and GILE SIG. It aims to bring together language teaching and topics related to environments. Both the environment outside the classroom, and the one within. This conference will provide a space for discussion and collaboration for anyone who is interested in improving their teaching environment, or the environment we live in.

This year's conference is fully online. To register, visit https://near2022.edzil.la/.

Plenary Session: Christopher Graham

Title: English Language Teaching and Climate Change. What’s the connection, what’s happening across our global community and what can I do?

The climate emergency is a global catastrophe that involves us all, and the international English language teaching community is no exception. This talk will commence by looking at the interface between the climate crisis and ELT in terms of both the negative impacts of some of our behaviours on the environment, and the opportunities we have to integrate climate change education into our lessons. It will continue by focussing on some examples around the world of how ELT practitioners are engaging with the crisis, and will end by suggesting some guidelines you can use to approach the topics in your classes and across your institution.

About the plenary speaker

Christopher Graham holds a degree in Politics from Warwick university, a Cambridge DELTA and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He is a freelance English language teaching consultant, teacher educator and author based in the UK. He has worked in the field since 1981 in over 30 countries for the British Council, ministries of education and international publishers.

He was one of the founders of ELT Footprint, a 2020 ELTons Award winner, and is currently working on research, materials writing and media activities around ELT and climate change for the British Council as part of the Climate Action in Language Education project. He has recently published books for teachers around 21 st Century Skills and ELT and Climate Change.

On behalf of the JALT Conference Planning Team, and broader JALT community, I am delighted to announce that we will be returning to a face-to-face conference in Fukuoka City, Japan for JALT2022. Recently, the renowned linguist Larry Selinker quoted the Talmud on his social media page when he posted the following: "Much I have learned from my teachers, even more I have learned from my colleagues, but from my students I have learned more than anyone else" (Ta'anit 7a). All of us who are language teachers will find ourselves quietly nodding in agreement as we think about the enduring truth of this statement. Even as students learn much from us during our language lessons, if we are open, intentional, and inquisitive, we find equally that our learners become our teachers. They help us to improve as we develop new practices and insights for teaching them and others later on. This idea is reflected in this year’s conference theme: Learning from Students, Educating Teachers—Research and Practice. During this conference, participants will be able to share classroom research on what they have learned from their learners, and in doing so, enrich all of us in the common goal of improving our students' second language learning experience. If you are a learner planning to attend, you will find a community open to your experiences and insights. By evoking the word "experience," this implies that our pursuit takes place not within a closed circle, but also with administrators, publishers, and others who have chosen to partner with us in promoting language acquisition education.

They are also invited to share what they have learned so that together, we can make a lasting impact in our language learners' lives. To those ends, I hope that you'll make the journey to Fukuoka and share your experiences, research, and informed insights. As you prepare, here are some questions for reflecting not only on what you might have to share, but also what you might wish to explore:

• What was one of the most interesting things I learned this year as a language teacher?
• What is one of the biggest problems I have constantly faced in my current teaching environment?
• What have I done in response?
• What worked? What hasn't worked?
• What are the things that students do in my classes that help me to develop as a language teacher?
• What is one aspect of my teaching that I would like to improve?
• To what degree does what I do in the class match with what I believe is a teacher?
• In what way can my classroom research help improve the practices of other language teachers?

Many more questions of this sort could be asked, but even from this small sample, I think you will begin to see that the answers you have—as well as a realization that you may not have many answers, help form a foundational bridge-building with others that will lead to new discoveries. Your openness to searching for new answers to old question will help make your experience at JALT 2022 an even more meaningful one.

We will have a number of streams during this conference that will embody the spirit of this year's theme. Among these will be:

• Presentations and workshops for equipping you to conduct solid qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods research.
• Sessions based on classroom research offering practical ideas, useful advice, and informed insights for how to enhance the effectiveness of your language lessons.
• Showcase presentations from students—both graduate and undergraduate—aimed at including their voices and lived experience to our expanding conversation on how to improve the quality of language acquisition education in Japan and beyond.

One last, but very important point, as in years past, we will be offering three fee-waiver scholarships. These will cover the cost of registration for JALT2022. Full details will be on available here once the schedule has been determined. Bookmark the JALT site so you can easily keep up to date with announcements for the conference, subscribe to our newsletter, and follow us on social media.

As can be seen symbolically in this year's logo, JALT2022 is your chance to come together with other dynamic colleagues, and together share ideas, findings, and insights that might have once started out as a bit "fuzzy," but which during our shared discourse and interactions, become a clear contribution to the lives of others. You are important, and as a professional teaching community, we need each other. Join us for JALT2022 in Fukuoka!

Keep the first Sunday in December free for the Annual Conference for the JALT Nara Chapter! The theme of the conference is simply Nara JALT, and the program showcases the work of our own chapter members.

9:45–10:00 Opening Address
10:00–10:45 Andy Sowter—The Reality of Climate Change Education
11:00–11:45 Hiroyo Nakagawa—Enhancing False Beginners’ Writing Skills Through Collaborative Tasks
12:00–12:45 Hiroya Matsumoto—Deliberate Practice in SLA
12:45–14:00 Lunch break
14:00–14:45 Jack Bower—Suggestions for Using Digital Gamification to Increase Learner Engagement
15:00–15:45 John Carle—The English Gym Series
16:00–16:45 Kathy Yamane—Tasks for Cultivating Inferencing Skills in Adult Language Learners
16:45–17:00 Closing Remarks

Six reasons to get excited about Nara JALT 2022 (plus one):
1. Location
The Nara Women’s University is a pleasant stroll from both Kintetsu Nara and JR Nara stations. And don’t be surprised if you meet some deer on your way into the campus.

2. Large lecture hall
A 300 m2 large lecture hall provides ample room for all chapter members to come together in a safely social-distanced setting.

3. Full day program
Three presentation slots in the morning session and three in the afternoon with plenty of time in between to relax, be social and enjoy a full day out in Nara.

4. Free for JALT members
It’s rare to be able to attend a conference for free but as a membership-based organisation, members can fully capitalise on membership.

5. Chapter member priority
Showcasing the work of Nara Chapter members. Whether it is research- or classroom-based, Nara chapter members can get excited about what is happening in education near them.

6. In-person event
This event will be held in person so we can all reconnect after three long years.

6.1 Online Option 
 For those unable to attend the event in person, is online option via Zoom is available (see Pre-registration below).

Pre-registration: https://forms.gle/Hmspomx5HD4vnwRa7
Onsite attendance: While registration on the day is possible, pre-registration is preferred to ease crowding, etc. Please use the link above to access the pre-registration form.
Online attendance: Pre-registration is required. The link to the event meeting on Zoom will be sent early on the morning of the event. Please use the link above to access the pre-registration form.

The School Owners' SIG will hold their annual conference on June 19th. After the conference the SO SIG will hold its Annual General Meeting and new officers will be announced.

The mini-conference will take place online on June 19, Sunday from 10:15 am - 5:00 pm-ish. We have four great presentations lined up and then will be trying something new this year - breakout rooms where members can casually discuss topics that interest them most. The day will wrap up with the AGM meeting to introduce new officers and discuss what the SIG will do in the year ahead. We hope to see you there!
We will use the same online platform as last year for this mini-conference. Please sign up at https://sosig2022.edzil.la/ The mini-conference is FREE for SO SIG members (who are also JALT members). Admission for JALT members is ¥2,500 and ¥3,500 for attendees who are neither JALT members or SO SIG members.
Lesley Ito, May 2022

The Okinawa chapter of the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT) is pleased to announce open registration and a call for papers for Summer Symposium 2022. OkiJALT’s Summer Symposium is an annual event that has been held since 2017. We invite teachers and researchers from around the world to share their work related to second language learning. As such, we are looking for research-focused and teaching-focused presentations and short workshop demonstrations.

The theme for Summer Symposium 2022 is “Learner Identity in the EFL Classroom: Whose English Is It Anyway?”. The roles of language and identity are highly complex, especially in an environment such as the classroom, where local and global power dynamics can greatly affect learning and teaching. In addition, as we attempt to veer away from the colonial roots of English language teaching, more questions emerge about what English, or which Englishes, we should focus on to help our students learn. We welcome proposals from anyone interested in exploring the connections between these phenomena. Full papers will be considered for post-conference publication.

Interested attendees and presenters should complete and submit the Registration form found at: https://forms.gle/NkUpjmwzpfcuELgb9

Presenters should submit their proposal by 31 July 2022. Non-presenting attendees should complete registration by 17 August 2022. Payment for both presenters and non-presenting attendees should also be completed by 17 August 2022.

Thank you, and we look forward to seeing you at OkiJALT’s Summer Symposium 2022!

Details of Summer Symposium 2022:
• Date & Time: 21 August 2022; 10:00-17:00 Japan Standard Time (JST)
• Theme: Learner Identity in the EFL Classroom: Whose English Is It Anyway?
• Location: Online (Zoom)
• Proposal/abstract length: 150-200 words
• Presentations: 20-minute research or teaching presentations; 30-minute workshop demonstrations
• Conference Fee: Free for current undergraduate and postgraduate students; ¥1500 for JALT members and JALT sister organization members (both presenters and attendees); ¥2500 for non-JALT members (both presenters and attendees)
• Registration Link: https://forms.gle/NkUpjmwzpfcuELgb9