September 20, 2003
Called to order at 9:30 a.m.
In attendance: Pat Wetzel, President, Seiichi Makino, President-Elect, Laurel Rasplica Rodd, Past President; Board members: Phyllis Larson, Wes Jacobsen, Yasuko Ito Watt, Yuki Johnson, Hiroko Furuyama, Ken-ichi Miura, Keiko Schneider, Lawrence Marceau, Sachiko Matsunaga; Tim Vance, Journal Coordinating Editor; Susan Schmidt, ATJ office. Not attending: Chris Thompson, Suwako Watanabe.
Minutes of previous meeting approved. Question raised of whether Minutes of Board meetings should be published in the Newsletter before they are approved at the subsequent Board meeting. Consensus to wait until after approval before publishing.
President’s report (Wetzel): Nihongo Kyoiku Gakkai international symposium was to have been held in August but postponed one year because of SARS.
ATJ proposal in early 2003 to Department of Education (International Research and Studies) for grant to study impact of study abroad on language, culture learning was not approved; it will be revised based on reviewers’ feedback and resubmitted in November.
A new SIG—Study Abroad for Advanced Skills—was created in conjunction with the proposal and with ATJ’s Bridging Project. The SIG is moving ahead, with a listserv and a session at AAS in 2003; funding is being sought for a mini-conference in early 2004 on study abroad and advanced language.
LangNet is a web-based system to create an online database of customized professionally vetted materials for learners and teachers of German, Spanish, Japanese, and other languages; long in the making, it was first organized by the National Foreign Language Center. Once it is up and running, Board members should be asked to look at it and give feedback. Questions: What are other languages doing? What would it cost to keep it updated and current? LangNet site: www.langnet.umd.edu.
JNCL/NCLIS Delegate Assembly and National Legislative Day: JNCL is a national organization that lobbies on Capitol Hill for foreign language and international studies education. Wetzel attended in May 2003 and found it interesting and useful. Any Board member can attend. Makino will also attend in 2004. Larson: Perhaps we should identify legislators who are influential and try to work with them; ask members to write letters/lobby, etc.
President-Elect’s report (Makino): Makino attended the Association of Japanese Teachers in Europe (AJE) meeting in August and found a very active community of Japanese language teachers and scholars. AJE was founded about 30 years ago. About 600 attended the meeting, mostly from Japan and Europe, including linguists and language educators. The organization, headed by Tanaka Kazumi, is attracting many participants from Japan. Discussion: ATJ should form more ties with European scholars. Makino recommended joining European Association for Japanese Studies (EAJS) (dues are reduced for AAS members). There is information on the web at www.eajs.org and a link from the AAS site.
Past President’s report (Rodd): Post-basic Framework draft was finished and mailed out to members. Keiko Schneider was asked to carefully review the technology section. The Framework will be put on-line after feedback is received from members.
NCOLCTL is changing, becoming independent of National Foreign Language Center. The organization has had only organizational members (the Alliance is the organizational member for Japanese), but is discussing the possibility of having individual members. The next conference will be in April 2004, at UW-Madison; meetings will rotate among the National Foreign Language Resource Center host institutions. Rodd recommended that Board members attend this conference if possible.
A literature report is being prepared for the Japan Foundation (Rodd was asked to write about the state of the literature studies field and make recommendations); suggestions are welcomed from literature specialists on the Board
Assessment of Advanced Language Instruction: a project (funded by Japan-US Friendship Commission) to do program assessments of study-abroad programs in Japan and test individual students who were identified as advanced by programs in the US. There were 150 student participants in five programs. Original collaborator was National Foreign Language Center, but NFLC didn’t follow through on data analysis. Makino and Wetzel served on the committee for this project. A professional statistician has been asked to analyze the data: analysis will be combined with the program assessments.
The study abroad programs in Japan fell into five types (Inter University Center type of stand-alone program; hybrid of consortium + Japanese university; private university program; Japanese national university; proprietary language program). These institutions had a very wide range of definitions of advanced learners. Some partial results:
Listening test: 19 of 150 scored at Superior, 70 at Advanced level. Reading test: 30 scored at Superior. Background predictors: age and number of months in Japan on study programs (or other reason); number of years of post-secondary language study–reading; number of years of pre-secondary study–listening. Success defined as achieving Advanced or Superior. The results are preliminary but indicate that study abroad works. The report on the project will be sent to the funders and circulated to the Board.
Membership report: Memberships are up slightly from last year, although members tended to renew later because renewal mailings were sent a bit later for 2003. The total membership as of August 31 is 873. Membership promotions have been done to libraries and to members who have lapsed. Graduate students are good targets for new memberships, but their renewal rate is lover. Credit card payment and a more obvious section on the web site have helped to gain new members. The possibility of renewal on-line in the future, using a secure server, was discussed. Larger organizations do this. International membership promotion was suggested (e.g., European members of EAJS.) The ATJ Seminar attracts new members, but their renewal rate is often low.
Ideas for membership promotion: Community college teachers (through a new SIG, a panel at Seminar, perhaps an introductory membership rate).
Furuyama offered to start a new SIG– CCJE (Community College Japanese Education). Motion by Rodd to establish the new SIG, with Furuyama as chair; Marceau seconded. Motion passed.
It was suggested that the dues structure be reviewed and discussed at the next Board meeting. The last time dues were raised (2000), membership income increased, but the number of members declined and has stayed at the lower level.
Concerning SIGs, the question was raised of whether to discontinue a SIG if it has not been active (no meetings, no listserv, no sponsorship of panels at Seminar, etc.). The Classroom Materials SIG has not been active for several years, so it will be deleted from the list of SIGs on the next membership form.
The question of support for developing local and regional organizations was discussed. It was suggested that the Alliance should convince the Japan Foundation to support local/regional organizations, as well as support professional development grants and projects.
Financial report: The financial situation of the Association is good. Membership income, however, is sufficient to cover only the expenses of publications, the Seminar, and basic membership services. Office expenses and salaries are paid by grants to conduct specific projects –notably the Bridging Project, which has been funded for 7 years by the Japan-US Friendship Commission. Contributions to the Endowment total a little less than $2,000 at this point. These contributions are in the money market account. $450 was contributed to the Endowment this year.
Newsletter/website report: Discussion of whether to publish the newsletter in paper or PDF version, on-line. Suggestion that it be easier to navigate to the Journal section of the website from the home page. An index of all Journal articles is being added to the website this fall.
Journal report: The Fall 2003 issue will be a special issue in memory of Marian Ury (edited by Haruo Shirane). The Spring 2004 issue will be a regular issue, and another special issue will be published in Fall 2004. It’s necessary to have regular issues because of the dissertation abstracts, which are piling up. Submissions are needed in linguistics and pedagogy.
Nominations committee report (Matsunaga): Suggestions for nominees will be solicited from the membership by email. The list of candidates will be ready by December 1.
Seminar committee report (Johnson): Deadline for RFP will be October 31; rooms for the Seminar must be requested by December from AAS. Discussion: should there be special slots on the program for graduate students? Next year’s Seminar Committee will consider it. Rooms for meetings of all SIGs on Friday night at AAS will be reserved. Presenters will be asked to help pay expenses of renting AV equipment (LCD projectors are particularly expensive). Last year Japan Foundation helped to pay for equipment, but that was a one-time grant.
SIG reports:
SAFAS SIG will hold a meeting at ACTFL.
Professional Development SIG’s top priority is the NBPTS certification program for Japanese. The SIG will propose a panel for the ATJ Seminar at AAS in the spring. The e-newsletter will be published in October. An on-line (JOINT) course on web-based instruction is scheduled to begin in October.
Heritage Language SIG will sponsor a conference for hoshuukou teachers and administrators in October (with funding from Japan Foundation, AAS NEAC). The SIG sponsored two panels at the NCOLCTL conference in spring 2003, and has an active listserv.
Bridging Project report (Schmidt): The next deadline for applications is October 3. Up to 40 students will be funded for spring 2004. For the Fall 2003 cycle, the project received 400 applications. Board members were encouraged to serve on the selection committee, which involves reading 30-40 applications.
Alliance report (Schmidt): The Alliance is funded by grant from the Japan-US Friendship Commission. The purpose is working for both ATJ and NCJLT administratively, speaking for the field as a whole, and developing programs for professional development. This year the Alliance collaborated with and assisted the heritage teachers’ conference and awarded small individual professional development grants. Application will be submitted to Department of Education (Fulbright Hays Group Projects Abroad program) for funding for a summer language and technology institute in Japan in 2004 in collaboration with the Japan Foundation– Urawa.
Funding is needed for the small professional development grants. Schmidt asked ATJ and NCJLT to contribute to the program. Rodd moved that $5,000 be contributed to the Alliance small grants program; Makino seconded. Motion passed, with stipulation that the funds be leveraged or matched by other organizations.
Old Business: Board Handbook. Two new items were suggested to be included in the Board Handbook: a list of other organizations with which ATJ is affiliated (national); a timeline or history of the organization, including all presidents and their terms in office. The history could be based on the archives at Middlebury College; it was suggested that Miyaji (past president) be asked to help.
SIG policy: It was suggested that a notice be placed on the website that if a SIG is inactive for more than one year, it will be discontinued.
New Business:
1. AAS 2004. It was agreed that ATJH should continue to have a booth in the exhibit hall (cost is about $2000, including rental and staffing). SIG meeting rooms will be reserved for all active SIGs. Board members were asked to think about a speaker for the annual membership meeting on Saturday afternoon.
2. Fundraising ideas. The idea of a small registration fee for the Seminar was discussed. Next year’s Seminar committee will consider this.
3. Year of Languages participation. ACTFL is asking all organizations to participate in activities around 2005 as Year of Languages. Rodd moved that ATJ endorse the Year of Languages; Watt seconded. Motion passed. Seminar committed asked to consider making this a part of the 2005 Seminar program.
4. Survey of members. Makino asked Board members to write their own comments about what ATJ does well and what could be better. The entire membership will be surveyed in December/January and the results discussed at the next Board meeting.
5. Princeton Japanese Pedagogy Forum. Princeton Japanese Pedagogy Workshop (11-year history) has become the Japanese Pedagogy Forum. In 2004 the Forum will be held August 21-22, jointly with 3rd International J-OPI Conference. Makino asked whether ATJ would endorse the Forum (not financially but as official endorsement). Watt moved to endorse; Marceau seconded. Motion passed.
6. Going electronic. The possibility of electronic voting and conducting other activities on-line was discussed. Schmidt and Schneider will investigate further and report at the next meeting.
Adjourned at 4:15 p.m.