Election of ATJ President and Board Members

Ballots and other materials for the election of three new members of ATJ’s Board of Directors and a new President-Elect were mailed to members in mid-January. If you have not already returned your ballot to the ATJ office in the postpaid envelope provided, please take the time now to do so. Your participation is important for ensuring that the Board continues to represent all members of the Association.

ATJ Events in Conjunction with AAS Conference

ATJ is sponsoring a number of events in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies in San Francisco, April 6-9, 2006. These include the annual general membership meeting, four SIG meetings, and three sponsored or endorsed panels on the schedule of the AAS conference. (The usual full-day ATJ Seminar will not be held this year, as it is being expanded into the two-day International Conference on Japanese Language Education (ICJLE) to be held August 5–6 in New York City. See full information on ICJLE in the center of this issue of the Newsletter and on the web at www.japaneseteaching.org/icjle.) The venue for the AAS conference and associated events will be the San Francisco Marriott Hotel, located in downtown San Francisco.

ATJ’s annual Annual General Membership Meeting will be held Saturday, April 8 from 1:00–2:30 p.m. in Yerba Buena Salon 10 & 11, on the Lower B2 level of the Marriott. Special presentations will include a preview of the International Conference on Japanese Language Education (ICJLE), an update on the Japanese AP (Advanced Placement) program, and reports from several Special Interest Groups. The meeting will also feature news about professional development opportunities and other projects of the Association; remarks from ATJ’s incoming President, Wesley Jacobsen; a special presentation to outgoing Past President Seiichi Makino; an announcement of the results of the annual election of new Board members and a new President-elect; and a selection of door prizes.

Four of ATJ’s Special Interest Groups (SIGs) have scheduled meetings on April 6 and 7 in conjunction with the general membership meeting and the AAS Conference.

• The Japanese as a Heritage Language (JHL) SIG will meet from 1:00–3:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 6, in Pacific Suite I, on the 4th floor of the Marriott. This session, organized and chaired by Masako Douglas, will feature three presentations by graduate students and young faculty members from California State University: Atsuko Atagi (MA student, CSU Long Beach), “Case Study on the Positioning of Japanese Numeric Phrases in JHL Children’s Narratives”; Akiko Kurogi (Faculty, CSU Channel Islands), “Motivational Beliefs among High School Japanese Language Learners in Socio-cultural Perspective”. ATJ members and others with an interest in heritage language education are invited to attend.
• The newly formed Language and Culture SIG will meet from 3:30–5:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 6, in Sierra Suite J on the 5th floor of the Marriott. ATJ members and others with an interest in culture as part of language education are invited to attend this organizing meeting for the SIG. Topics will include the connection between language and culture; cultural instinct (does it exist?); assessment of cultural competency/literacy (is it possible?); cultural discourse (where is it located? does it jeopardize foreign language and culture instruction?); and cultural education (how should it be done?). Moderating the discussion will be SIG coordinator Seiichi Makino.
• The Study Abroad for Advanced Skills (SAFAS) SIG will meet from 1:00–3:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 6, in Sierra Suite I on the 5th floor of the Marriott. ATJ members and others who are interested in the issues of study abroad and the development of advanced-level skills in language through in-country experience and study are welcome to attend this session, which will be moderated by Mari Noda.
• The Classical Japanese (Bungo) SIG will meet Friday evening, April 7, from 7:00–9:00 p.m., in Sierra Suite I, on the 5th floor of the Marriott. The meeting will focus on several approaches to teaching classical Japanese, including a discussion of Haruo Shirane’s new book, Classical Japanese: A Grammar, and a presentation by Edward Kamens of online materials he has developed for his bungo course. The organizers, Stephen Miller and Charlotte Eubanks, welcome the attendance of ATJ members who do not necessarily teach bungo but who might be interested in introducing it into their language program using some of the new materials and textbooks that are now available. Long Beach), “JHL Learners’ Use of Ellipsis in Spoken Japanese Discourse”; Masako Nunn (Faculty,

For further information on any of the SIG meetings, please contact the ATJ office.

ATJ-Sponsored Roundtable: “Getting Out the Words: Publishing for Foreign Language Educators” is ATJ’s sponsored session at this year’s AAS conference. The roundtable will take place from 7:00–9:00 p.m. Thursday, April 6, in Yerba Buena Salon 14 & 15 on the Lower B2 level of the Marriott. The panel of book and journal editors and publishers will review the state of publishing, both in print and online, in the foreign languages field, with a focus on Japanese and other Asian languages, look at the future, and offer advice to teachers and scholars who wish their work to reach the widest possible audience. The panelists are Jill Cheng, Publisher, Cheng & Tsui Company; Kathleen Dillon, Co-Editor of the online refereed Heritage Language Journal; Michael Staley, Editor, Kodansha International; and Suwako Watanabe, Editorial Board member of Foreign Language Annals. The roundtable will be chaired by Timothy Vance, Coordinating Editor of ATJ’s journal Japanese Language and Literature. Please plan on attending this important session for insights, advice, and discussion of issues that affect everyone teaching foreign languages today.

Other Sessions of Interest: Two sessions at the AAS conference have been endorsed by ATJ and should be of special interest to Association members. The panel session “More than a Mushroom Cloud: Strategies for Teaching Hiroshima and Nagasaki” will take place on Friday, April 7, from 1:00–3:00 p.m. in Yerba Buena Salon 10 & 11 on the Lower B2 level of the Marriott. The session will be chaired by Hosea Hirata of Tufts University, and the panelists include Toshiko Yokota, California State University Los Angeles; Marnie Jorenby, Grinnell College; James J. Orr, Bucknell College; and Mark E. Lincicome, College of the Holy Cross. They will discuss strategies for engaging students in the issues of war and remembrance and for teaching and discussing the atomic bombings in literature, language, and social science courses.

The panel session “The Development of Narrative Structure: Japanese as a Heritage Language and as a Foreign Language” will take place on Saturday, April 8, from 8:30–10:30 a.m., in Nob Hill B on the Lower B2 level of the Marriott. The session will be chaired by Masahiko Minami of San Francisco State University, and the panelists include Momoe Saito Fu, Stanford University; Sanae Fukuda, Kobe University; Hiromi Nishida Urayama, University of California at Berkeley; Seiko Kosaka, University of California at Berkeley; and Emi Fujiyama, University of Nevada at Las Vegas. They will bring various points of view to a discussion of narratives and storytelling by students of Japanese as a heritage and as a foreign language.

Conference Information: To make reservations at the San Francisco Marriott, which is located at 55 Fourth St., San Francisco, CA 94103, please phone 415-896-1600 or fax 415-486-8101. Mention the Association for Asian Studies Conference to receive a special room rate. Reservations can also be made online through a link from the AAS website: www.aasianst.org. The AAS website also has information on registering for the Association for Asian Studies Conference, which offers dozens of panel sessions on Japanese culture, history, literature, and language, as well as exhibits by publishers of books on Japan and on the Japanese language. The complete conference program is posted on the AAS website. We encourage all ATJ members to attend the AAS conference.

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-deductible, 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 Yukie Aida, Marilyn Bolles, Lorie Brau, Motoko Ezaki, Sabine Horn, Ryuko Kubota, Shigemitsu Matsui, Pauline Oasay, Mishizu Ohtake, Lawrence Rogers, Cheryl Rudd, and Patricia Thornton. Please consider donating when you next renew your membership, or by mail at any time. For more information, contact the ATJ office.