In Memoriam: Hiroshi Miyaji (1925–2007)

Hiroshi Miyaji, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and C.V. Starr Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and Language at Middlebury College, and President of ATJ 1990–1996, died on May 24, 2007, at his home in Burlington, Vermont, after an illness. He was 82 years old.

Professor Miyaji was born and raised in Japan. He came to the United States for graduate study at Stanford University, where he earned his doctorate in linguistics in 1966. His teaching career began at Stanford and continued at the University of Oregon (1964–66); at the University of Pennsylvania (1967–70); and at Middlebury College, where he was a member of the faculty until 1996 and continued to teach until 2004. He founded the Japanese Language School at Middlebury in 1969 and served as its Director until 1978. He also taught in and administered Japanese language programs at universities and institutions around the world, including the University of Hawaii, the Australian National University, the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies in Tokyo (later Yokohama), Yamaguchi University, and the Associated Kyoto Program at Doshisha University. In 1998 the Japanese government awarded Professor Miyaji the Third Order of Merit with the Order of the Sacred Treasure for his contributions to Japanese language education in the United States.

Miyaji-sensei was known for his sense of humor and for the wide range of his academic and personal interests. During his tenure at ATJ, he expanded the reach of the Association by applying for and obtaining its first grants. He encouraged high school teachers to form ATJ's sister organization, the National Council of Secondary Teachers of Japanese (NCSTJ, now the National Council of Japanese Language Teachers, NCJLT).

Hiroshi Miyaji will be remembered fondly by his colleagues at Middlebury College and by the many Japanese language educators and Asianists around the world who studied with him, worked with him as ATJ Board members, heard him speak about Japanese language education, or met him at ATJ Seminars and AAS Annual Meetings.

ATJ 2008 Seminar Call for Proposals

The Association of Teachers of Japanese (ATJ) 2008 Seminar will take place at the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta, on Thursday, April 3, 2008, in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS). The Seminar will feature a full day of concurrent sessions on various issues related to Japanese language and literature.

Proposals are invited from all ATJ members for individual papers and panels. A proposal must be in one of the following areas: 1) linguistics, 2) literature, 3) pedagogy, or 4) second language acquisition. ATJ also welcomes session proposals from the ATJ Special Interest Groups (SIGs). Individual papers are 20 minutes long with an additional 5 minutes for discussion. Organized panels are 100 minutes long and are limited to four active participants (four paper presenters, or three presenters with one discussant). An abstract for an individual paper should be no more than 300 words in English or 700 characters in Japanese. For organized panels, a maximum 300-word or 700-character abstract is required from each participant, in addition to a maximum 300-word or 700-character abstract for the panel itself. The submission deadline is Friday, October 26, 2007.

Abstracts should be submitted online at www.aatj.org/atjseminar2008.html. Questions regarding submission should be addressed to Paul Warnick, Seminar Committee Chair, at paul_warnick@byu.edu. For technical support, contact atj@colorado.edu.

Nominations for Board and President-Elect Positions

The Nominating Committee of the ATJ Board will propose a slate of candidates for election to the positions of President-Elect and three Board members of ATJ, to serve three-year terms from spring 2008 to spring 2011. If you would like to suggest candidates for these positions, please send their names, email addresses, and brief profiles to the ATJ office (atj@colorado.edu) or to the chair of the Nominating Committee, Janet Ikeda (ikedaj@wlu.edu).

SAFAS SIG Report from 2007 AAS (Boston)

The SAFAS (Study Abroad for Advanced Skills) SIG began about five years ago. Through the exchange of information via informal discussions and presentations, we first attempted to grasp the general landscape of where the field is as far as study abroad for advanced skills is concerned. In the 2006 meeting at AAS, the group felt that we could work toward some common goals as a SIG. One of these was to conduct collaborative research to examine students' experiences of contact with home stay members, friends, and other study abroad participants, as well as the process of socialization of study abroad participants, especially at the higher levels. Another was to expand an inventory of in-culture activities for students to engage in while on study abroad.

This year, we were fortunate to have special presentations by two people with extensive experience in internship programs in China. Eric Shepherd (OSU) and Xiaobin Jian (College of William and Mary), both with extensive experience as resident instructors/trainers, talked at the SIG meeting about their pre-internship orientation and internship programs, respectively. The pre-internship orientation centers around bilingual and bicultural classes in which both American learners of Chinese and Chinese learners of English acquire competence through role plays. The internship program that Jian described had a number of design features to integrate study abroad participants into the community. Participants become integrated gradually through guided interaction, at first through community service proposal development, then later on through service implementhattion. The insights provided at this meeting have the potential to be extremely useful in designing advanced-level study abroad programs in Japan.

Mari Noda, SIG Chair

New Special Interest Group: Japanese for Specific Purposes

A new Special Interest Group with a focus on Japanese for Specific Purposes (JSP) has been created. JSP can be broadly interpreted; it is a Japanese language course integrated with any specialized area, such as business, science, politics, international relations, and so on. The goal of this group is to support teachers of JSP by fostering a network among teachers and offering academic activities to share and learn about various issues relating to teaching JSP. The activities will include (but are not limited to) creating a homepage on the ATJ website (including members mailing lists, information, and announcements) and offering a session on JSP at the ATJ seminar. Anyone who is teaching and/or interested in teaching JSP is welcome. If you are interested in joining the SIG, please contact Tomoko Takami at the University of Pennsylvania (ttakami@sas.upenn.edu).

Special Issue of Japanese Language and Literature: Japanese Pedagogy

Editors: Seiichi Makino and Mutsuko Endo Hudson. This special issue of Japanese Language and Literature will highlight various approaches to Japanese pedagogy. We welcome manuscripts that are research-based as well as those which are reports of applications of SLA theories and pedagogical frameworks in the classroom. Publication is scheduled for Fall 2008. The topics include, but are not restricted to, the teaching of language skills (i.e., listening, speaking, reading, writing, culture and an integration thereof), grammar, pragmatics/discourse, pronunciation, kanji and other scripts, computer-enhanced language teaching, teaching with films or songs, and incorporating literature in a language class. A manuscript submitted for consideration should be no more than 25 double-spaced pages using a 12-point font throughout. It must be written in English, though sample materials may be written in Japanese. Please also submit a short abstract or summary (maximum 250 words). Style and format should follow the Chicago Manual of Style, with all notes at the end of the manuscript. Send copy by email attachment to atj@colorado.edu or four hard copies by January 10, 2008 to: Association of Teachers of Japanese, 279 UCB, Humanities 240, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0279.

Japanese Language and Literature Issue 41:1 Replacement Copies

A few members have reported that their copies of the most recent issue of ATJ's journal Japanese Language and Literature (April 2007; 41:1) had a group of pages in reverse order. In these copies, the order of pages 47 through 62 is reversed: the page after 46 is 63, then 62, and so on until page 47, which is followed by page 64. All the pages are there, but not in the correct order. Only a small number of copies appear to be affected by this mistake in binding at the printing plant. If your copy is one of those that is misprinted, please let the office know (atj@colorado.edu), and we will send you a replacement copy..

ATJ Membership Renewal

You should by now have received a membership renewal letter and form. Remember that you can now renew online: www.aatj.org/membership.html. Please consider taking out a 5- or 10-year membership this time: it saves money and means that you will not have to remember to renew next year. It also sends the message that you support your profession!

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 Sumako Kimizuka (in a bequest) and Yoko McClain (in memory of Hiroshi Miyaji). Please consider donating when you next renew your membership, or by mail at any time. For more information, contact the ATJ office.