JALT Conference in Honor of Professor Fumiko Koide

The Japanese Language Teaching Association in honor of Prof. Fumiko Koide is pleased to announce its 17th Conference, which will take place Saturday, June 28, 2008 on the campus of Tokyo Woman's Christian University. No prior registration is needed. More information: http://subsite.icu.ac.jp/org/koide/.

Through a Title VI grant, the National Heritage Language Resource Center (NHLRC) is conducting a national survey of heritage language learners. This survey, the first of its kind, aims to document the linguistic habits, goals, and attitudes of college-level heritage language students from all languages. The information obtained will inform the design of curricula, materials, and methodologies. A report on the 1,150 responses collected during the 2006-07 academic year is now available. The project researchers are still looking for heritage language students to fill out the survey. If at all possible, students should fill out the survey during class in a computer lab under the supervision of an instructor. This should take no more than 15-20 minutes. The directions to the survey are as follows: Instruct your students to go to www.international.ucla.edu/languages/nhlrc/. (The report is also available here.) In the left-hand column, click on "For the Heritage Language Learner Survey, click here." When you get to the survey page, the password is "hlsurvey." It is not case sensitive.

The Center for Japanese Studies, the National Resource Center-East Asia, and the National Foreign Language Resource Center at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa are pleased to announce a jointly sponsored online publication: "Selected Papers from Pragmatics in the CJK Classroom: the State of the Art" (Dina R. Yoshimi and Haidan Wang, eds.). The publication can be accessed at: http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/CJKProceedings/. This publication presents research results and instructional innovations pertaining to teaching and learning the pragmatics of Chinese (Mandarin), Japanese, and Korean as foreign languages. Topics covered include the development of pragmatic competence by children and college-age students in foreign and second-language settings, pragmatics-focused instruction on the mixed use of speech styles in JFL and KFL classrooms, as well as the explicit instruction of requests and of telling stories of personal experience to lower-level JFL learners, the use of "aizuchi" by intermediate and advanced JFL learners in classroom and office hour settings, cross-linguistic comparisons of the speech act of apology and of leave-taking practices designed to inform CFL instruction for English-speaking learners, and designing pragmatics-focused CHIEFLY instructional activities for business professionals in a China-focused MBA program. Articles in the volume include: "Unlocking the promise of pragmatics," Dina R. Yoshimi, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, "Quantitative and qualitative analyses of students' views on the storytelling project," Yukie Aida, University of Texas at Austin, "Teaching the polite and the deferential speech levels, using media materials: Advanced KFL classroom settings," Andrew Sangpil Byon, University at Albany, State University of New York, "'Love you' doesn't mean 'I love you': Just a way to say goodbye. The nature of leave-taking and its pragmatic applications in Mandarin Chinese," Jin-huei Enya Dai, Monterey Institute of International Studies, "Aizuchi responses in JFL classrooms: Teacher input and learner use," Yukiko Abe Hatasa, Hiroshima University, "Developing understanding of how the desu/masu and plain forms express one's stance," Kazutoh Ishida, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, "Becoming a good conversationalist: Pragmatic development of JFL learners," Tomoko Iwai, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, "The development of pragmatic competence in children learning Japanese as a second language," Kimberly Jones, University of Arizona, "What do JFL learners want to do in Japanese in Japan?: A case study of learners in college-level study abroad programs," Naoko Nemoto, Mount Holyoke College, "JFL learners' pragmatic development and classroom interaction examined from a language socialization perspective," Yumiko Tateyama, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, "The elements of the business Chinese curriculum: A pragmatic approach," Haidan Wang, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, and "Production and perception of apologies: Interlanguage pragmatics of British learners of Mandarin Chinese," Catherine Hua Xiang, University of Bristol.

"Methods of Teaching Less Commonly Taught Languages," an online methods course for postsecondary LCTL instructors, is a fully online course developed in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Language Institute, in collaboration with the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages (NCOLCTL), to provide pre- and in-service instructors of less commonly taught languages (LCTLs) at the postsecondary level with an introduction to language teaching methods. It will be offered as a pilot in fall 2008 and will carry two credits. Enrollment is limited. The course is built around the National Standards for Foreign Language Education, with a framework that responds directly to the particular challenges shared by many instructors working in LCTLs in the United States. It is based on original material authored by the project team (Sally Magnan, Dianna Murphy, Robin Worth, and Erlin Barnard), videotaped interviews with LCTL professionals and students, videotaped exemplars of classroom practices, and readings from professional journals and other works. In this course, you will reflect on your teaching practices and those of others, learn about approaches to language teaching and research in language learning, and apply new ideas and methods to your teaching. This is a project of the National Online Less Commonly Taught Languages Teacher Training Initiative, a collaborative project of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages (www.councilnet.org) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Language Institute (www.languageinstitute.wisc.edu), whose co-directors are Sally Magnan and Antonia Schleicher and whose project coordinator is Dianna Murphy (608/262-1575, diannamurphy@wisc.edu). The fall 2008 instructor will be Professor Sally Sieloff Magnan (608/262-9741, ssmagnan@wisc.edu). It is funded by the U.S. Department of Education International Research and Studies Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Letters and Science. The Language Institute promotes collaboration for research, education, and outreach in world languages, literatures, and cultures. It is an initiative of the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Letters and Science, with substantial support from the Division of International Studies.