2003 ATJ Seminar
The 2003 ATJ Seminar was held March 27 at the New York Hilton Hotel. Fifty-three presenters and several hundred attendees packed the four seminar rooms for day-long concurrent sessions on topics related to pedagogy, linguistics, second language acquisition, literature, and heritage language learning and teaching.
Abstracts of all the presentations (including references where possible) are being published separately from the Newsletter this year, as an issue of the Occasional Papers. The Occasional Papers issue will be mailed together with this issue of the Newsletter.
The Seminar's final event, a keynote address by Professor Donald Keene on "My Sixty Years of Learning and Teaching Japanese," drew more than 200 listeners, who filled the chairs and spilled out into the corridor of the ballroom where it took place. Professor Keene talked about his own study of Japanese, which began in 1941, continued during the war years under the auspices of the US military, and moved back and forth among Japan, the U.S., and Europe. Professor Keene's talk, punctuated by gentle humor and reminiscences, bore ample witness to his long and honor-filled career as teacher, translator, and literary critic.
The talk was tape-recorded. Copies of the tape will be made available to any ATJ member who was not able to attend the Seminar or wishes to share it with students. Please send a message to the ATJ office (atj@colorado.edu) if you wish to receive a copy of the tape. A nominal fee will be charged for copying and postage.
The Japan Foundation Los Angeles Language Center generously supported this year's Seminar, providing partial funding for room and equipment rental and an honorarium for Professor Keene. ATJ gratefully acknowledges the Foundation's support.
Abstracts of the Seminar presentations can be found here in PDF format. A PDF version of the ATJ-Sponsored Roundtable "Asian in Situ: Acquiring Language and Culture through Study Abroad," which was held as part of the Association for Asian Studies Conference on March 27, can be found here.
Study Abroad For Advanced Skills (SAFAS) SIG
ATJ is initiating a new Special Interest Group with a focus on Study Abroad For Advanced Skills. The Study Abroad focus is a natural outgrowth of ATJ's longstanding emphasis on study abroad through the Bridging Project, our recent proposal to the US Department of Education for funding to assess the impact of study abroad, and the production of a Post-basic Framework within which study abroad figures prominently. The establishment on various campuses of National Flagship Programs, to be funded by NSEP (National Security Education Program), assumes study abroad to be an integral and necessary component of advanced level development. It is appropriate for ATJ to focus on advanced skills and pursue SA projects in that context.
The SAFAS SIG will focus on advanced levels for a variety of reasons. First, it intentionally narrows interest to those SA programs that are meant to go beyond simply raising awareness about Japan among participants (i.e., tourism-oriented ones). Such programs, even if run as part of "language" programs, have little impact on language and culture development among their participants, even if they serve the important purpose of introducing some people to Japanese studies or allowing elementary-level learners to try using in context the Japanese they have learned.
Second, we envision a particular kind of learner as our target of discussion. By limiting our focus to post-secondary SA programs and their participants, we are approaching those with greater likelihood of a long-term involvement with Japanese culture. Thus, we still cast our net to capture those participants for whom initial exposure has had a significant cultural impact.
Third, by focusing on advanced levels we include those programs that are supposed to help Japanese language teachers improve their proficiency in Japanese. This constitutes an important check on many such programs that are using grant money and will provide important feedback from interested parties in the field for the funding agencies.
Fourth, one of the SAFAS focuses will be formal knowledge (grammar in its widest sense). Studies on Russian suggest that previous knowledge of grammar is a significant predictor in learning in the SA context. Even though the same studies also suggest that learning at the beginning level is greater in SA than in the intermediate to advanced levels, the importance of prior knowledge of SA participants cannot be neglected.
Fifth, it is well known that the surge in Japanese language studies in the 1980s had a profound effect on the number of people studying elementary-level Japanese. But it had an as yet un-measured impact on the number of people with intermediate proficiency levels in Japanese as well. SAFAS aims to investigate what is needed to push those intermediate people to the advanced levels.
As with other SIGs, space will be provided on future ATJ membership forms to indicate interest in this SIG. Interested members are also invited to contact the ATJ office (atj@colorado.edu) to request inclusion on the SIG's roster of members.
ATJ Endowment Is Growing
ATJ has joined the ranks of other non-profit organizations in establishing an endowment fund. Contributions of any amount to this fund, which are tax-dedictible, will help to ensure that the Association can continue to provide services to members in the future. Contributions have recently been made to the Endowment by Tomoko Fujimura, Cheryl K. Rudd, Matsuo Soga, and Kyoko Suzuki. Please consider donating when you next renew your membership, or by mail at any time.
Professional Development SIG Update
SIG Meeting and Seminar, AAS 2003: The SIG Business Meeting was held at 7:00 on Friday, March 28, at the Annual Conference of the Association for Asian Studies in New York.
SIG membership: During its meeting on March 29, the ATJ Board determined that it is necessary be a member of ATJ in order to be a member of an ATJ SIG.
SIG mission statement: Although the mission of the Professional Development SIG is stated on the SIG web page, we realize there are various interests among the members. We may need to redefine the mission of the SIG and create sub-groups after finishing a member survey.
2001 Occasional Papers to be expanded and published in Japan: 日本語教育 学会 (Nihongo Kyouiku Gakkai: NKG) has translated the ATJ Occasional Papers entitled "Education and Professional Development for Japanese Language Teachers" (ed. Y.-H. Tohsaku and Susan Schmidt, Spring 2001) into Japanese and will publish it in May. New papers on NBPTS, INTASC, and NBPTS were added to this new Japanese volume.
NBPTS: The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (www.nbpts.org) administers a program of performance-based standards for accomplished teachers. Only one Japanese teacher signed up for certification for the first year (2002-2003). The NBPTS board met in late February and decided to offer Japanese certification, on a staggered schedule, on either a two- or three-year cycle. However, NBPTS made a decision that they will go ahead with the Japanese certification during 2003-2004 if at least 50 teachers apply before December 31, 2003, and all of them complete their portfolio entries before April 15, 2004. Those who are interested are encouraged to: 1) consider becoming an assessor in the summer 2003 and 2) apply for the certification. (Start preparing a portfolio even before applying for the certification process.) The SIG is planning to offer support for developing a portfolio and preparing for test-center exercises through its website.
INTASC and NCATE: INTASC is currently soliciting comments on its Foreign Language Standards draft and NCATE is looking for reviewers. More information about them and links to download relevant documents are available on the SIG web site.
Publications: The next issue of Professional Development News (e-newsletter) will feature articles on technology. Two presentations from the March Seminar will be included as well as reports from last year's NIME summer institute. The Spring 2003 issue of "Breeze," the biannual newsletter of the Japan Foundation Los Angeles Office & Language Center, included articles on various issues on professional development and teacher standards. The issue is also downloadable in PDF format from the Japan Foundation web site (www.jflalc.org). The next issue of "Breeze" will feature articles on NBPTS certification.
Future SIG Activities and Meeting: The next business meeting will take place during the ACTFL Annual Convention in Philadelphia in November. It is hoped that the SIG mailing list, JPD-L, will be used to promote discussions among SIG members. SIG activities will be posted on the SIG website periodically. SIG members are needed to organize panels on professional development at next year's ATJ Seminar.
SIG Seminar Presentations AAS 2003: The business meeting was followed by three presentations. 1) "?Benkyookai': Professional Development Opportunity Online," Keiko Schneider (Albuquerque TVI Community College, New Mexico); 2) "On Teaching Prosody: From a Pilot Study on Japanese Teachers' and Non-teachers' Perception of Learners' Pronunciation," Mieko Kawai (University of Arizona); 3. "日本語教育に於 けるITリタレシイの向上〜全米のITの現状と教員養成の展望, " Yasuhiro Omoto (University of California, Berkeley), Keiko Schneider (Albuquerque TVI Community College, New Mexico), Miyuki Fukai (Indiana University, Bloomington). Presentations #1 and #3 will become a part of the next e-newsletter, and the slide presentation of #2 will be published online on the Professional Development SIG section of the ATJ website.
The Status of NBPTS Japanese Certification
The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) (www.nbpts.org), founded in 1987, set standards for accomplished teachers and created a voluntary system to assess and certify teachers who meet these standards. The standards, representing a consensus of teachers, teacher educators, and professional organizations in a given teaching field, articulate the critical skills and knowledge that distinguish effective teaching in their field. The National Board approved standards for teachers of World Languages Other than English (WLOE), paving the way for teachers in this field to engage in a rigorous professional development process leading to a National Board Certificate. In April 2002, National Board Certification became available for teachers of Latin and Japanese, in addition to Spanish, French, and German.
Only one Japanese teacher signed up for certification for the first year. Due to this low demand, NBPTS was considering shelving or retiring Japanese certification completely. On behalf of the Japanese field, a letter was sent to NBPTS signed by Laurel Rodd, Pat Wetzel, Motoko Tabuse (NCJLT President), Susan Schmidt (Alliance Exec. Dir.), and Y.-H. Tohsaku, requesting that the Japanese certification be continued. The NBPTS board met in late February and decided to offer, on a staggered schedule, certificates with low candidate demand. Depending upon candidate demand, certain certificates will be available on a two- or three-year cycle. ("NBPTS Board Adopts New Resolutions at February Board Meeting: Low Demand Certificates are Among Items Addressed." www.nbpts.org/news/article.cfm?id= 265).
Despite the decision to offer the certification on a staggered schedule, NBPTS made an exception for the Japanese certificate by starting the process for the 2003-2004 cycle. Those who are interested in the World Languages Other than English for Early Adolescence through Young Adulthood: ages 11-18+ (EAYA/WLOE) certificates are encouraged to: 1) consider becoming an assessor in summer 2003 (please refer to SIG web page reference at www.colorado.edu/ealld/atj/SIG/prodev/standards/nbpts/assessors03.html) and 2) start preparing a portfolio even before applying for certification. All necessary information, including application procedures, and portfolio entry samples, is available on the NBPTS site (www.nbpts.org). Since it takes between 200 to 400 hours to complete a portfolio, teachers should apply early, even before October.
There are a number of scholarships and rewards offered at state, district, and private levels. Various states and local school districts have recognized the value of National Board Certification by offering salary increases, bonuses, and other incentives. Special loans to cover the cost of the certification process are available for National Education Association (NEA) and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) members. Please refer to the Scholarships and Rewards section of NBPTS web site (www.nbpts.org/candidates/guide/3_schlsp.html). For complete information about the NBPTS certification, please visit their web site at www.nbpts.org or call at 1-800-22TEACH.
The ATJ Professional Development SIG is planning to offer support for developing a portfolio and preparing for test-center exercises through its web site (www.colorado.edu/ealld/atj/SIG/prodev/index.html). If you have any questions about NBPTS Japanese certification, please write to Y.-H. Tohsaku at ytohsaku@ucsd.edu.
ATJ Journal Now Available Online
ATJ is pleased to announce that back issues of its journal, beginning with the first issue published in 1965, are now available on-line through the JSTOR digital archive. Through a special arrangement with JSTOR we are offering ATJ members access to the back issues online. Members will be able to browse and conduct full-text searches of all issues of the Journal, from its original inception as The Journal-Newsletter in 1965, excluding the three most recent years.
In 2001, the Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese was renamed Japanese Language and Literature. The volumes under the current title will become available online through JSTOR in 2005. For participation information, which will be by password-protected access, please contact ATJ member services.
If your institution's library is a subscriber to JSTOR's Language & Literature group of journals, you will be able to access the JATJ archives immediately through your library's on-line catalog, along with 46 other journals that are included in the collection.
JSTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization whose mission is to create a trusted archive of scholarly journals and to increase access to those journals as widely as possible. Information regarding JSTOR is available at www.jstor.org. The most recent journal collection, Language & Literature, of which JATJ is a part, is a compendium of 47 titles spanning the literary cultures of many nations, including Japan, China, Germany, Egypt, and the U.S. The Language & Literature Collection adds 1.4 million new pages to JSTOR's electronic archive of important scholarly journals, bringing the total number of pages in the archive to over 11 million.
The Language & Literature Collection was developed in conjunction with the Modern Language Association (MLA), through a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The MLA assembled a group of specialists to aid in the selection process. The resulting collection offers valuable insight into linguistics, comparative literature, and literary history, theory, analysis, and scholarship, and it is representative of the diversity of scholarship in these fields. Through this collection, scholars will be able to research topics such as Arab Cinematics in Alif, find essays reviewing the major scholarship in Romantic and Victorian literature in SEL, and learn about the literary traditions of Argentina in Hispania. In over 100 years of PMLA and over 70 years of New England Quarterly, scholars will be able to trace the history of literary studies and investigate the intersections between history and literature. Many of the journals in the collection are multidisciplinary in nature.
With the release of the Language & Literature Collection, JSTOR introduced a new enhanced language feature. Some articles in this collection contain content in non-Roman, non-ASCII alphabets, such as Japanese and Chinese. Users are now able to choose whether to view the citations for this content in the original alphabet or in a transliterated format.
The Language & Literature Collection expands upon 13 language and literature titles that are already available to JSTOR participants through the Arts & Sciences I Collection; 34 of the titles are completely new to the JSTOR archive. (A complete list of titles is available at www.jstor.org/about/langlit.list.html.) To date, over 250 libraries are participating in Language & Literature. JSTOR now contains the back runs of 275 journals and is available at nearly 1,500 libraries in 70 countries.
Journal Invites Submissions
Japanese Language and Literature, the ATJ's newly renamed journal, seeks articles in the fields of literature, linguistics, and pedagogy. Literature articles are particularly needed. The journal is refereed, and back issues are now on-line through the JSTOR archive (see preceding article), which will bring the JLL to even greater prominence in the field. Please submit your work to the appropriate editor (see page 20 for a list of editors); encourage new faculty members and graduate students to submit their research.
News of the Alliance
The Alliance of Association of Teachers of Japanese (AATJ) is developing a web-based Japanese language teacher training program (JOINT=Japanese Online Instruction Network for Teachers). Ten volunteers are being sought to start this project with a prototype course this fall. The topic of the course is "Creating and delivering an effective web lesson." The course will be entirely conducted online (email and web pages). Participants need to have a reliable Internet connection and need to be committed to completing the course. Course activities will include effective web search, information literacy, effective lesson plan and development, how to use web lessons in your classroom, etc. The course will last approximately three months. If you are interested in participating this prototype project, or if you have any questions, contact Y.-H. Tohsaku at ytohsaku@ucsd.edu for an application form and more detailed information on minimum requirements. The deadline for receipt of applications is July 30, 2003. All applicants will receive a questionnaire, based on which the participants will be selected. The results will be made available before the end of August.