As we enter autumn and the start of another teaching year, we at ATJ look back over the summer with a mixed sense of exhaustion, relief, and satisfaction at having marked an important milestone in the history of Japanese language teaching in this country. I refer to the International Conference on Japanese Language Education (ICJLE) held at Columbia University in New York this past August, co-hosted by ATJ and our high school teaching colleagues in the National Council of Japanese Language Teachers (NCJLT).

For those of you who did not have an opportunity to attend, the conference was by every objective measure a success beyond our greatest ambitions. This was evident above all in the number of participants, swelling beyond our initial expecthattions of around 400 to over 600 when all the last-minute registrants were counted and requiring some hurried last-minute arrangements to secure extra rooms to accommodate the overflow from the plenary auditorium. One of the specific goals of the conference planners was to reach out to all sectors of the Japanese language teaching community in three distinct categories--geographical area, educational level, and academic field. It was gratifying to see widespread participation in all three of these categories: first, in the global perspectives on Japanese language education represented by the panel of international representatives from Asia, Europe, Oceania, and the Americas in one of the plenary sessions; second, in the level of passionate involvement and discussion that dominated the sessions devoted to Japanese language teaching at the elementary through high school levels; and, third, in the wide range of academic fields represented by the almost 300 presenters and panelists at the conference, centering on Japanese pedagogy but including specialists in literature, linguistics, psychology, and other related fields. The plenary speakers--Merrill Swain, Susan Napier, and Yasu-Hiko Tohsaku--delivered presentations that were nothing short of inspirational, even electrifying, in their impact.

In my opening remarks at the conference, I urged everyone attending to take the opportunity either to attend a session in a field they may not consider their own or to strike up an acquaintance with someone from an area or geographical location different from their own. I cannot offer statistics as to the degree to which this goal was realized, but certainly ample opportunity was afforded by the conference for all to reach out beyond the boundaries that have defined their identity in the field so far, and the overarching impression was clearly one that Japanese language education has grown into a larger field than we have tended to think so far.

Space does not permit me to express individually my heartfelt thanks to all those of the ATJ staff, members of the program committee (including both ATJ and NCJTL representatives), and Columbia University students and staff who gave sacrificially of their time to make this conference possible (please see “Many Thanks!” for a listing of names). The level of cooperation and dedication that suffused the intense daily preparations leading up to the conference represented one of those rare convergences of talents and personalities where the whole exceeds the sum of the parts, and being part of the effort was a moving experience for me. I am also grateful to the institutions and foundations that contributed critical financial support for the conference (please see “Many Thanks!” for a list). Although a volume of conference proceedings as such will not be published, abstracts of the conference presentations can be viewed on the ATJ website, and DVD copies of videotapes of the four plenary sessions, together with supplementary printed materials, may be ordered through ATJ (please see ICJLE Plenary Sessions Available on DVD for information). We also anticipate that future issues of our Journal of Japanese Language and Literature will feature articles growing out of presentations made at the conference.

Looking to the future, the next ICJLE conference is slated to take place in South Korea in the summer of 2008. In the nearer term, ATJ will resume, after one year’s hiatus, its hosting of the regular Thursday Seminar in connection with the next annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, which will take place in Boston on March 22-27, 2007.

This academic year will also see the first installment of the Advanced Placement Test in Japanese, another milestone in our field to which we look forward in anticipation of the increased cooperation between college and high school Japanese teaching communities that it is certain to encourage.

I look forward to seeing many of you in Boston in March, and, until then, I wish you a good start to the new academic year.