Administrative issues – The Japan Association for Self-Access Learning

The field of self-access in Japan is a diverse one, with centres set in a variety of contexts serving a variety of communities, and new centres of all shapes and sizes popping up all the time.

One of our central missions at JASAL is to facilitate communication between centres. To this end, we have created the Japan Self-Access Centre Registry. Our goal is to have an entry for every self-access centre in the country. We need to know what centres are out there, and we need to be able to contact each other to share information and resources, conduct research, etc. We have a lot to learn from each other.

The registry is a Google Docs spreadsheet with a Google Docs form linked to it. Form entries are automatically added to the spreadsheet, which is sorted alphabetically by the second column, “School Name in English”. Both documents are publicly accessible. We have kept the registry quite simple to ensure ease of use.

Please click here to add your centre to the registry!

Click here to view the Japan Self-Access Centre Registry!

We invite anyone connected to a self-access centre in Japan (JASAL member or not) to make an entry for their centre.

Any feedback on the registry is welcome anytime. Please e-mail jasalorg@gmail.com or any of the Executive Committee members.

We are calling for nominations for the positions of President and Vice President of JASAL to be made by Friday 14th January 2011 (see ‘Election procedure’ below). Both Garold Murray (President) and Lucy Cooker (Vice President) are standing down as they have served their term of five years. Many thanks to Garold and Lucy for their work in developing JASAL between 2005 and 2010.

Eligibility to nominate All members of JASAL are eligible to nominate a candidate. Criteria for nominees Nominees should be members of JASAL. Nominees should be able to demonstrate a commitment to the field of self-access language learning in Japan through their research, teaching, conference presentations and/or publications. Nominees must be able to dedicate time and energy to building the association, strengthening links between members, and leading the association’s activities.

Roles of President and Vice President In the past, the responsibilities of the President and Vice President have included the following:

Organising the yearly JASAL Forum at JALT and other symposia.
Communicating with members and providing support to members developing self-access language learning centres and systems through email communication and the JASAL website.
Promoting JASAL and recruiting members. Currently, selected tasks (e.g. the design and maintenance of the website and maintenance and expansion of the membership database) have been delegated to other JASAL Executive Committee members.

Term of President/Vice President The President/Vice President can serve for two non-consecutive five year terms.

Election procedure

If you are interested in nominating someone for the position of JASAL President or Vice President, first contact them to make sure they are willing to stand. If they agree, then email your nomination to jasalorg@gmail.com by Friday 14th January 2011.
Nominees should submit their self-introductions to jasalorg@gmail.com by Sunday 16th January. These should include a brief biodata (so that we know who you are and where you work, and what you have done in the self-access language learning field) and say how you see JASAL developing and how you plan to contribute to JASAL (i.e. “Why should you vote for me?”). Max 250 words.
Nominees’ information to be posted to the JASAL website by Monday 17th January. [If there is only one nominee for each post at this point, the nominees will be elected unopposed. In the case of two or more nominees for either post, we proceed to Step 4.]
Call for voting to be sent to all JASAL members by Monday 17th January 2011.
Votes to be cast through the electronic voting system by Monday 31st January 2011.
Members to be informed of the results of the voting by Tuesday 1st February 2011.
Names of the President and Vice President for 2011 – 2016 to be posted on the JASAL website by Wednesday 2nd February 2011.

Webmaster In addition to the elected positions of President and Vice President, JASAL is looking for a dedicated Webmaster, with experience of using WordPress. The Webmaster is a non-elected, voluntary position. The main duties of the Webmaster are to update the JASAL site (https://jasalorg.wordpress.com/) as and when required (usually around once per month). If you are interested in volunteering for this post, please contact Lucy Cooker at lucycooker@gmail.com

We look forward to your nominations coming in.

JASAL Executive Committee
Garold Murray
Lucy Cooker
Hisako Yamashita