51st Annual NPO Japan Association for Language Teaching International Conference and Educational Materials Exhibition. This year, NPO JALT turns 50 years old as an organization! (See the JALT2024 Handbook to get a taste of what our conference has to offer!)
JALT2025
LanguageS: Learning, Teaching, Assessing
– JALT 50 Years –
Challenges and Perspectives
“What a title!”, many may think. “Does it indeed need three parts?" Please take your time to read it carefully and digest. JALT is in the middle. Without this volunteer group and the dedication of the many, many, many teachers involved, this wonderful anniversary would not happening: JALT in its Golden 50th, the 51st conference, TLT (The Language Teacher), the Post-Conference Proceedings, Chapters, SIGs, events, meetings, sharing, discussing and so forth. JALT is fostering and mediating processes and interactions between teachers, learners, topics, research, groups, and organizations. There have always been challenging times where differing perspectives are stated, but eventually we develop, evolve, adapt, even change. Similar is the role of teachers. They are mediating in the classroom, between learning and assessing, between textbooks and the classroom, between curriculum and the students. JALT creates a space where all this can be shared in a collaborative and friendly atmosphere so as to foster excellency for novice and mature teachers as educators and/or researchers thus reaching the theme of JALT2025.
Reading the acronym of JALT carefully, we see a “J” for being based in Japan; for language teachers in Japan. Yet, the “L” is often read as English, which Claire Kramsch pointed out in 2014. But which English? Well, American English, Canadian English, British English, Australian English, Singapore English, Global Englishes, World Englishes, International English, English as a Lingua Franca, the list can go on. English is without any question the most taught language on this planet. Before it there was Greek and then Latin. And in JALT, we have Spanish, French, German, Korean, Chinese, and Japanese. The line up of the words is important and has an inherent message - the perspectives of language learning, language teaching, language assessing, for languageS, for JALT, for collaboration.
Looking forward to the next many years, I see JALT prospering and growing older with a vibrant young teaching community in Japan reaching out to Asia. Many of the young teachers have a polyglot background, their heritage language being different from the language they teach, i.e. English being different from the language of the country they live and work in. Bilingualism, Multilingualism, Plurilingualism, Translanguaging, LOTE, culture, interculture, there are many aspects to be considered.
This is not new at all. It was envisioned in the very beginning of JALT and can be found in the JALT Newsletter (what later became The Language Teacher) in Volume 4, Issue 1 (1980, January 1st, https://jalt-publications.org/tlt/issues/1980-01_4.1). On page 3 of Volume 4, you can read in an interview with the at-the-time President of JALT, Thomas N. Robb:
Question: Inside JALT there are actually many different kinds of members. What do you see the organization doing to cater to their individual needs?
Answer: […] Also in our general programming, we try to keep as good a balance as possible between the various aspects of language teaching, so that there are a number of programs each year directly relevant to each member’s needs. Additionally, Doug Tomlinson, our new Vice-President, is attempting to set up SIGs for the members teaching languages other than English--in particular, French, German, Spanish and Chinese, I believe.
In 2025 we will complete the first quarter of the 21st century, the target for the SDGs has 5 more years left to go, among the skills the 4 Cs (Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, Creative Thinking), and various approaches are being challenged by the digital and artificial impacts in all fields of Learning, Teaching and Assessing. The 51st international conference of JALT to be held in Tokyo at the Yoyogi National Olympic Youth Center, offers a splendid occasion to share, discuss and look forward together.
Be well and stay safe.
Sincerely,
Gabriela Schmidt
Conference Chair
JALT2025 - Tokyo
