Hello, and welcome to another monthly edition of JALT Talk, the announcements newsletter of the Japan Association for Language Teaching.
In this issue:
We are working on an improved website at jalt.org. The good news is, you are once again able to renew your membership. The first step is to reset your password by clicking the "Forgot password" link on the sign in page.
Other parts of the new website are still being developed, so in the meantime, please make use of the legacy JALT site for event listings, news, and information: legacy.jalt.org.
Do you know a JALT member who has made important contributions to our field? Be sure to nominate them for one of these awards brought to you by JALT's Awards and Recognition Committee! JALT has awards for teachers and researchers at various stages of their careers:
Any member is welcome to nominate another JALT member for an award--simply complete this form in English or Japanese by 23:59 on Monday, September 8, 2025.
You can see the winners of the 2024 JALT Awards, and read their letters of recommendation.
JALT International Conference NewsJALT2025 will offer supervised and insured on-site childcare for the children of conference attendees. In addition, we will also offer a space for accompanying parents or guardians to supervise their own children, and the venue features private nursing and changing facilities on each floor. If you are interested in receiving more information and pre-registering for childcare, the registration form will have a box you can tick, and you will be contacted within the month before the conference. Please direct any questions to conf-childcare@jalt.org.
JALT2025 conference goods are available on our online print-on-demand shop! T-shirts, hoodies, keychains, hats, stickers, more! Show up in style.
Instead of holding TNT and PD workshops on the Friday of the conference, these workshops will move online, on a different date in the summer (details TBA). JALT2025 will still be a full 3-day conference; the difference is that we will start with a full day of presentations on Friday, October 31, and finish the conference on Sunday, November 2.
JALT receives a number of job advertisements each month. If you're looking for a new position, please check out our job posts on our JALT Publications site: https://jalt-publications.org/tlt/departments/career-development-corner/jobs
JALT Global Englishes SIG welcomes submission to our journal. This is the final call for papers for volume 2 which will be published in 2025. The deadline is 31st May. Please consider publishing with us. 日本語での提出も受付ます。Details here: https://jaltgesig.wordpress.com/journal/
To register for the event: https://forms.gle/7p6kdBwUY48Zw1id6
Our next Listening SIG event will be the JALT Listening SIG Conference on Saturday 28th June. The JALT Listening SIG Conference has been organized together with JALT Tokyo Chapter. The whole day event will showcase some of the latest listening research, teaching, and learning presentations from the field. The conference is scheduled to run from 10am to 4pm with over ten presentations scheduled in two rooms for the entire day. There will be a social to wrap up the conference. We look forward to seeing you in Tokyo on Saturday 28th June!
PanSIG is an annual conference organized by many of the Special Interest Groups (SIGs) of JALT. Information about past PanSIG conferences (including photos, conference handbooks, etc.) can be found in the PanSIG Archive .
Saturday: Johnmarshall Reeve
Professor, Institute for Positive Psychology and Education at the Australian Catholic University
Dr. Johnmarshall Reeve is an educational psychologist. His areas of expertise are autonomy-supportive teaching, teachers' motivating styles, students' agentic engagement, and the neuroscience of intrinsic motivation. [ Read more ]
Sunday: Toshie Agawa
Professor, English Research Lab at Hoshi University in Tokyo
Dr. Toshie Agawa's research specializes in learner motivation, autonomy, engagement, and cooperative/collaborative learning. Recently, her work has focused on how fostering learner autonomy impacts the motivation and engagement of Japanese EFL learners, as well as scaffolding strategies to support learner autonomy in e-learning environments. [ Read more ]
Attend a workshop exploring the conference theme of Agency and Autonomy and get ready for the weekend! Come see what the theme is all about in four featured speaker workshops on Friday evening. Click here for details.
Returning to this year's PanSIG conference, we will be offering a free business portraits and headshots service. [ See the portraits taken at PanSIG 2023! ]
Want to attend but need someone to look after your little one while you pop into some sessions? PanSIG2025 has got you covered at this family-friendly conference. Childcare will be available on Saturday and Sunday for busy parents looking to develop professionally.
The 7th Extensive Reading World Congress, hosted by the Extensive Reading Foundation and the JALT ER SIG, will be held this September 5-9 in Sapporo. Discount tickets are only available until tomorrow, April 30. If you're presenting, your deadline to register is also tomorrow https://erwc7.edzil.la/ . If you've not yet got a hotel reservation, those are selling out very fast, too!
For a full list of all of JALT's publications (including SIGs, chapters, and conferences), please see https://legacy.jalt.org/main/publications
While our website is undergoing updates, some events can be found on the legacy site (https://legacy.jalt.org/events). Events with a URL attached to them below were sent to me especially for this newsletter. Be sure to also check the website of your local chapter or favorite SIG for upcoming events.
JALT Zoom for Professional Development (ZPD)
Networking event: Tuesday, April 29 (8:00 PM-9:00 PM)
Online online https://go.jalt.org/zpdrsvp
Fukuoka Chapter: Saturday, May 10 (5:00 PM-8:00 PM)
(1) David Paul: Building up students' ability to discuss a wide range of topics (2) Call for Submissions: Fukuoka JALT My Share
Speakers: (1) David Paul; (2) MyShare speakers TBA
Hybrid (in person and online) https://www.fukuokajalt.org
Ibaraki Chapter: Sunday, May 11 (10:00 AM-4:00 PM)
JALT Ibaraki Chapter Presentation
Speakers: Chiyuki Yanase, Abdollah Dodangeh, Deborah Grow
In person only https://www.ibarakijalt.org/
Yokohama Chapter: 11 May 2025 (1:00pm)
CLIL with Alastair Graham Marr (Hybrid Event)
PanSIG 2025: May 16-18
https://pansig.org/
Matsuyama Chapter: 17 May (2:00pm)
A Novel Approach To Presentation Classes- Increasing Opportunities For Feedback While Reducing Anxiety Through The Utilization Of Mathematically Perfect Group Mixing
Kitakyushu Chapter: Saturday, May 17 (6:00 PM-8:00 PM)
Interactional Competence Development in English as a Foreign Language
Speaker: Hanh Nguyen
Hybrid (in person and online) https://kitakyushu.jalt.org/schedule/upcoming-events/interactional-competence-development-in-english-as-a-foreign-language
Akita Chapter: 18 May (2:00pm)
May 2025 Presentation: Deciphering Underlying Sentiment: Visualizing Covert Propensities Using Text Mining Methods
Nagoya & Gifu Chapter: Saturday, May 24 (6:30 PM-7:30 PM)
Digital language learning strategies: A look at how our students are using tech outside of class and what we can learn from it
Speaker: Joseph C. Wood
In person only
Hiroshima Chapter: 24 May (3:00pm)
Teachers with Disabilities in Japan: Living with ALS and Perspectives on Inclusion
Materials Writers SIG: 24 May (7:30pm)
GRAPE Jr. 2025: Graded Readers Authorship and Publication Experience
Online: https://sites.google.com/jalt.org/mwsig/events/2025-grape-jr
Kyoto Chapter: 25 May (1:00pm)
Community Spotlight – Anthony Walsh, 25 May @ 13:00 via Google Meet (online)
Pragmatics SIG: 30 May (7:00pm-8:00pm)
The long-term effects of pragmatics strategy instruction: E-mail requests and Chinese EFL learners
The HAAL 2025 conference welcomes proposals in all areas of applied linguistics. While there is no specific conference theme, we are particularly interested in innovative and rigorous topics that demonstrate strong methodological and/or theoretical approaches. Additionally, we encourage postgraduate students who are nearing completion of their theses to submit proposals as well.
That's all for this month. You can subscribe and / or access back issues here. Alternatively, if you'd rather not receive more information from JALT, you can unsubscribe here: https://hosted.jalt.org/membermail/unsubscribe-success.php?c=213
Best regards,
Bill Pellowe
JALT Director of Public Relations
pr@jalt.org
https://jalt.org