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Volume 6, Issue 1 [May, 2010]
 

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Report of 2009 JALT Conference
Geoff Sinha

The 2009 JALT conference ran from November 21st to the 23rd and was held in Shizuoka City, Shizuoka Prefecture. Some fleeting memories from the weekend:

• *Laughter yoga at Marc Helgesen's workshop.
• *Sitting beneath our wonderful LLL SIG sign.
• *People watching (from beneath said sign).
• *Getting lost/getting found in the Granship.

The main event for our SIG was, of course, the LLL Forum detailing the production of a book of Haiku by English teacher Sono Okabayashi's adult students in their community English class. Eiko Watanabe, who illustrated the book, attended the forum with Ms. Okabayashi. Their talk was one of the most interesting and unique of the conference. I was impressed by Ms.Okabayashi's awesome organizational skills, which allowed her to combine computer expertise with her knowledge and enthusiasm for haiku. This effortless synthesis was made manifest when Ms. Okabayashi produced ten pristine color copies of the haiku book—enough copies for everyone present.

Immediately following Ms. Okabayashi's presentation, we held the LLL-SIG Annual General Meeting (AGM). Four people in total were in attendance (a reflection of the busy lives that we lead): Kim Bradford-Watts; Tadashi Ishida; Mr. John Armstrong, who is teaching adult learners while in Japan on a work sabbatical; and myself, Geoff Sinha. The main points covered in the AGM were:

• *Election of officers:
  • Eric Skier, Yoko Wakui, Julia Harper, and Aleda Krause were re-elected to their respective offices as Coordinator, Membership Chair, Publications Chair and Treasurer. Emi Itoi retired from the office of Program Chair. Our thanks go to Emi for her efforts on behalf of the SIG during her term.
• *Geoff Sinha was unanimously elected to the position of LLL-SIG Program Chair.
• *Membership is slowly growing, thanks to the quality of the newsletter, communication with members through the mailing list, and the visibility of the LLL-SIG at conferences and other JALT events at which members make presentations and man the LLL-SIG table.
• *The SIG is on firm financial footing and able to co-sponsor speakers for events such as the upcoming Pan-SIG conference to me held in May in Osaka (details in this newsletter).
• *The SIG will continue to encourage members to share research and teaching experiences via the newsletter and presentations at conferences.
• *The SIG will continue to work closely with the other SIGs and chapters of JALT both by participating in joint events such as conferences, and by co-sponsoring speakers relevant to the interests of SIG members.
• *The LLL-SIG-edited issue of The Language Teacher will be published in the fall of 2010 and our thanks go to Julia for the awesome job she has done in pulling it together.

This was my first JALT conference and I was very fortunate to have the guidance of LLL-SIG members Kim Bradford-Watts and Tadashi Ishida. Overall, my impressions were completely positive. Was it perhaps an exceptionally good year? Surely it's not that much fun every year? Rumor has it that it is! For those of you who have a chance to attend this conference in the future, I highly recommend it.

Geoff at the LLL desk, 2009JALT Conference, Granship, Shizuoka.

Okabayashi-sensei and Eiko Watanabe pose for a picture with the audience following their LLL-Sig Forum presentation at the 2009JALT Conference, Granship, Shizuoka.