暑い暑いと言っていた夏も終わり、新学期を迎え、みなさん新たな闘志を燃やしていらっしゃることと思います。

We have been quite busy over the summer planning for the 2006 International Conference on Japanese Language Education, which is scheduled to be held at Columbia University August 5-6, 2006. The call for papers for this conference has been sent out, and it can be found online at www.japaneseteaching.org/icjle/calle.html. The deadline for receipt of abstracts is October 31. Since this conference will replace the ATJ Seminar for 2006, we hope many of you will consider submitting abstracts.

The theme of the conference is "Japanese Language Education: Entering a New Age." This is the first time that such an international conference will be hosted outside Asia, and the Association is working very closely with the National Council of Japanese Language Teachers to organize it. We hope to make the conference a place for both college and pre-college teachers to present research, make new contacts, and conduct dialogues. The conference will also feature all three disciplines of the ATJ (language, linguistics, and literature). The plenary speakers for the conference are Professor Merrill Swain (specialist in Second Language Acquisition at the University of Toronto) and Professor Susan Napier (specialist in Japanese culture and anime studies/theory at the University of Texas at Austin). Invitations have been sent to various Japanese language organizations around the world, including Japan, Korea, Australia, PRC, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Europe, and Mexico. There will also be many invited panels, as well as individual paper/panel presentations. Please go to the conference web site for details: www.japaneseteaching.org/icjle.

The ICJLE committee consists of three officers of ATJ (Naomi McGloin, Wesley Jacobsen, Seiichi Makino), three officers of NCJLT (Shingo Satsutani, Laura Koga, Michael Klumeper), the members of the 2006 ATJ Seminar Committee (Mutsuko Endo-Hudson, Junko Mori, Lindsay Amthor Yotsukura), Haruo Shirane and Fumiko Nazikian from Columbia University, Hiroko Furuyama (ATJ board member), Kazuo Tsuda (NECTJ), and Susan Schmidt (ATJ office). I am very grateful for their enthusiasm and hard work.

I would like to draw your attention to two upcoming conferences. The ACTFL conference (www.actfl.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3581) will be held in Baltimore, November 17-20, 2005. The Japan Foundation is planning to hold the second National Symposium on Japanese Language Education in the US (www.jflalc.org) on November 20 in conjunction with the ACTFL meeting. I hope many of you will take advantage of this opportunity to be informed of what’s happening and to discuss your concerns with other teachers from different regions.

The 2006 annual Association for Asian Studies (AAS) conference will be in San Francisco April 6-9. ATJ will sponsor a roundtable on publishing in the foreign language field, focusing both (a) on the current situation and future prospects for books and journals in the field and (b) on advice for teachers and researchers who wish to find publishers for their work. Judging from the additional proposals that ATJ has endorsed for the AAS conference, it is likely that there will be a number of panels which will be of interest to the ATJ membership. In addition, we are working to see if we can organize several SIG presentations/workshops in lieu of the Seminar. Please look for further information on this in the November issue of the Newsletter.

Best wishes for a productive and successful academic year!