Call for Papers: CAJLE

The Canadian Association for Japanese Language Education (CAJLE) is pleased to announce that its 21st Annual Conference will be held at the Japan Foundation in Toronto on August 15 and 16, 2009 with the theme of "Exploring the Future of Japanese Language Education: Bringing Teachers and Schools Together." This conference will gather together teachers of Japanese language and academics in related fields from institutions around the world to participate in paper presentations, panel discussions, and teacher workshops.

We invite submission of abstracts for paper presentations on topics including, but not limited to, Japanese linguistics, Japanese language pedagogy, Japanese as a heritage language, and innovative teaching techniques. Submissions related to the conference theme are especially welcome. The allocated time for each paper including questions and discussion will be 30 minutes. We also welcome group submissions on a common theme. Presentations may be given in either Japanese or English.

Please email submissions as an attachment, either in .pdf or .doc file formats, with the following information by April 9, 2009 to jotaro.arimori@utoronto.ca (please specify the subject line as "CAJLE 2009"): paper title (in both Japanese and English), one-page abstract (in either Japanese or English), name(s) of the presenter(s) (in both Japanese and English), current affiliation and title (in Japanese and English), and contact information including email address, phone number, and mailing address.

Notification of acceptance will be sent on May 9. Authors of a selected number of papers presented at the conference will be invited after the conference to submit their papers for article-length publication in Volume 11 of the journal CAJLE. Those submissions will undergo a separate reviewing process set by the standards of the journal. Presenters must be members of CAJLE. Membership information: www.cajle.net.

The 23rd Conference of the Japanese Language Teachers Association of New England (JLTANE) and the 14th Conference of the Northeast Council of Teachers of Japanese (NECTJ), with the theme "Advanced Placement (AP) Japanese and articulation Issues," will be held at Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts, from June 20-21, 2009. Keynote speakers are Professor Yasu-Hiko Tohsaku (on AP issues) and Mr. Michael Kluemper (on AP statistics). In anticipating the first administration of the AP Japanese examination in May of 2007, the 2006 Conference of JLTANE and NECTJ at Wesleyan University featured issues relevant to the AP Japanese exam. It was agreed that a follow-up conference should be held three years later at Amherst College. The purpose of this follow-up conference in 2009 will be to discuss and share issues arising from AP courses, the content and the results of AP examinations, the placement of secondary school students at the college level, and other concerns. This one-and-a-half day conference will consist of paper presentations by both secondary school and college educators on June 20 and in-depth discussions on the following morning on the issues raised the previous day with guest speakers in a roundtable format. Presentation abstracts for this conference, panel or individual, should therefore focus on the issues described above. Abstracts should be a maximum five pages (English or Japanese). Panels will be 45 minutes (three participants; Q&A, 15 minutes) or another format; individual presentations will be 30 minutes (Q&A, 10 minutes). Send abstracts to wtawa@amherst.edu by April 10, 2009.

Applications are being accepted for the 61st Japan-America Student Conference. Thirty-six college students from the US will visit four cities in Japan from July 24-August 21, 2009. They will be joined by 36 Japanese students. The 72 students will participate in a series of meetings around this year's theme: "Towards Global Awareness: Everyday Impact through Interactive Empowerment." Cities to be visited are Tokyo, Hakodate, Nagano, and Kyoto. The cost is $3,000, which covers all travel and expenses for the month in Japan. Application deadline is February 21, 2009. Notable former participants include former US Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger and former Prime Minister of Japan Kiichi Miyazawa.

Also, International Student Conferences will be holding a similar conference in Korea: the Second Korea-America Student Conference, "Advancing US-Korea Cooperation on International Affairs," in Seoul, Gwangju, Jeju, Busan from July 12-August 12, 2009. The cost is $3,000, which covers all travel and expenses for the month in Korea. Application deadline is March 6, 2009.

These programs are open to all students, regardless of major. Each conference is run by students selected from the prior year—eight from each country. ISC delegates, volunteers, employees, board members, and alumni believe in these core values for its student-run cross-cultural conferences: • The importance of developing mutual understanding and friendship as the path to peace; • the power of an open mind and a willingness to exchange opinions in building a respect for differences; • the unique ability of students, with their idealism, enthusiasm, and vitality, to plan and implement important peace-building events and activities; • the imperative of investing in the present to positively transform the future; • the absolute commitment to integrity, honesty, and frankness. More information: http://iscdc.org.

The second meeting of the International Association of Performing Language will be held March 7-8, 2009, at the University of Victoria. The program is filled with a variety of presentations, workshops, and activities. Early registration is recommended. More information: http://web.uvic.ca/~hnserc/IAPL/.

The Kobe College Corporation-Japan Education Exchange and OMRON Foundation will sponsor their 2009 High School Essay Contest. KCC-JEE is a non-profit organization that has been providing educational and cross-cultural opportunities to people in Japan and the United States since 1920. The contest is open to any high school student, 16 years of age or older by July 1, 2009, who has studied Japanese for at least one year.

Students are asked to write an essay in English, no more than 500 words, about their experience studying Japanese and how studying the language and the culture fits in with their plans for the future. Essays will be judged on content, grammar, and style. The deadline is March 31, 2009.

The winner will receive round-trip airfare, a four-week Japanese language study program at the Kyoto Language School, and with accommodations in a homestay family. Applications and more information: www.kccjee.org.

The 16th Princeton Japanese Pedagogy Forum will take place on the campus of Princeton University on Saturday, May 2–Sunday, May 3, 2009. The PJPF will feature two-day sessions with a focus on various issues related to Japanese language education. The main theme will be: "Learning Japanese and Japanese Culture Through Performing a Drama." "Performance" here encompasses a wide range—role plays, skits, simulations, or dramas. We will invite papers related to the main theme for both pre-college, college level, and heritage Japanese language and culture education. In addition, we will welcome any paper related to Japanese language education in general, including second language acquisition, linguistics, heritage learning, cultural studies, among others.

The keynote speaker will be Professor Oriza Hirata, a noted playwright and professor at Osaka University. His topic will be "A Playwright's View of Natural Japanese" (tentative). He will also give a two-and-a-half-hour workshop on drama on May 3. In addition to Prof. Hirata, Professor Yoshikazu Kawaguchi of Waseda University, Professor Hiroko Noro of University of Victoria, Canada, and Professor Shingo Hashimoto of Gifu University will each give a 30–minute special talk, Prof. Kawaguchi on "Drama in Japanese Education," Prof. Noro on "Using 'Tokyo Notes' (by Prof. Hirata) and its Educational Effects," and Prof. Hashimoto on "How to Teach Phonetics using a Dramatic Approach."

Individual papers should be 20 minutes long with an additional 10 minutes for discussion. An abstract for an individual paper should be no more than 300 words in English or 700 characters in Japanese. Your name should not appear on the abstract. Please submit as an attachment a separate sheet on which you have typed your name in romaji (or in both romaji and kanji if you are Japanese), the title of your paper, your affiliation, and your email address to: Seiichi Makino, smakino@princeton.edu, by March 15, 2009. The announcement of accepted papers will be made around March 30, 2009. Accepted papers will be printed in the Proceedings. The registration fee is $40, $20 for students, and it includes two breakfasts, two lunches, and printed materials. www.princeton.edu/~eastasia/pjpf/.

The Japanese Studies Association of Australia (JSAA) is delighted to host JSAA-ICJLE 2009, a joint conference for the JSAA conference and the International Conference on Japanese Language Education (ICJLE) in Sydney. The conference will be opened in the evening of July 13th, 2009 at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and research presentations and discussions will be held from July 14th to 16th at the University of New South Wales, with the conference dinner on the evening of July 15th in the historic MacLaurin Hall at the University of Sydney. JSAA-ICJLE 2009 follows not only the 15th Biennial Japanese Studies conference held in Canberra in 2007 but also the 1998 International Symposium in Tokyo on Japanese Language Teaching and subsequent ICJLE conferences in Seoul (2000), Beijing (2002), Tokyo (2004), New York (2006) and Pusan (2008). Given the prominence of Australia in Japanese language education in the world, it is timely to welcome ICJLE for the first time to the Oceania region.

JSAA-ICJLE2009 features research and discussion in various disciplines of Japanese language and studies. The main theme of the conference will be "Bridging the Gap between the Japanese Language and Japanese Studies." The conference aims to provide a forum where Japanese language and studies academics and educators from around the world can meet and share ideas beyond and across their disciplines. The conference will highlight issues that will be of interest across education levels - primary, secondary and tertiary - and disciplines - language, linguistics, literature, sociology, culture, education, history, politics, economics, law, to name but a few. It will provide a forum where researchers and practitioners alike can present their research findings and new pedagogical ideas.

Plenary addresses at the conference will be presented by Professor Joseph Lo Bianco (The University of Melbourne), the most prominent Australian scholar in language education and policies, and other top scholars. In addition, there will be a series of panels featuring various themes, individual paper presentations, postgraduate workshops, poster sessions, exhibitions and more. Conference home page: http://jsaa-icjle2009.arts.unsw.edu.au/en/index.html (English); http://jsaa-icjle2009.arts.unsw.edu.au/jp/index.html (Japanese).

In order to better serve American students who wish to learn Chinese, Japanese, and Korean in East Asia, the National East Asian Languages Resource Center at Ohio State University has developed an online database called "Orient Yourself: Online Catalog of Study Abroad Opportunities in East Asia," located at:
http://nealrc.osu.edu/StudyInEast Asia/search.cfm.

Search functions have recently been updated in several ways:

• includes language programs for international students offered by accredited institutions in China, Japan, and Korea;

• directs URL links to the English page of the program websites;

• offers advanced search functions, e.g. the users can search for a specific program type (language/ degree/exchange program), the duration and the beginning time of the program, and lodging options (home stay/dormitory/off-campus/stay with native students in a dormitory);

• offers useful links such as "currency exchange" and travel guide.

User suggestions and comments are most welcome. Please feel free to contact eastasia@osu.edu with inquiries or comments.

This acclaimed documentary on the design, construction, and maintenance of a Japanese-style garden is now available on a DVD that also includes a lecture/slide presentation by the garden's designer, David Slawson. In his 45-minute lecture, Slawson explains the fundamental principles of Japanese garden design and shows the application of those principles in a wide variety of gardens. The DVD has been favorably reviewed by the editor of the Journal of Japanese Gardening (see below) and has received a warm reception from those who have purchased it. For more information on the contents of the DVD visit www.callingpaul.com. Order from the producer's website - www.CallingPaul.com - or directly from the Carleton College Bookstore website - www.collegebookstore.org/carleton ($29.95 + postage).

Review of the video from the Journal of Japanese Gardening (July/August 2005), used with permission"

"One of the best managed public Japanese gardens anywhere (including Japan) is located on the campus of Carleton College, in Northfield, Minnesota. Carleton's Japanese garden is called "The Garden of Quiet Listening." It is a beautiful and humble garden that provides a nurturing place to relax and unwind. The Carleton garden has recently released a new video that examines the process of Japanese gardening. In Full Circle presents the Japanese-style garden as a continuously-evolving work of art - a painting that is never finished. The video examines themes such as where to find inspiration, how to create a garden, and how to guide your garden's development over the years. In Full Circle uses The Garden of Quiet Listening as a case study, documenting how that particular garden developed and sharing lessons that were learned along the way. But this video explores themes and techniques that could be applied ... anywhere, including the Japanese garden in your own backyard."