PUBLISHED! Student Conference Reports from SISAC Conference

JASAL is very happy to announce the publication of the Student Conference Reports from the Student Involvement in Self-Access Centers Conference, held in Nagoya in February 2013.

You can download your copy here:

SISAC Conference Reports

There are 5 reports from students who attended and presented at the conference, along with some contributions from the editor, Vick Ssali, and the organisers. Please feel free to share the Reports with any interested parties.

JASAL and the conference organisers Umida Ashurova & Robert Croker, and editor Vick Ssali, would like to thank all the students for all their hard work in writing their papers.

We hope to be able to announce another student conference soon!

Symposium on Self-Access Learning, October 19

There will be  a free symposium on “Directions in self-access learning” at Kanda University of International Studies in Chiba on Saturday October 19th. The abstracts are now up on the website.

There will be presentations, SALC tours, and opportunities to meet colleagues from other institutions.
Some of the JASAL members will be presenting at the symposium.
Hope to see many of you there! and the next weekend (Sunday, October 27) at JASAL Forum@JALTKobe.

 

Announcing the JASAL Forum at JALT2013, Kobe

The annual JASAL Forum at JALT2013 has now been confirmed, and we have a great line up for you this year

When? Sunday, 27th October, 5:35pm – 7:05pm

Title: Self-access and the lifelong voyage of learning

On the lifelong voyage of learning, the self-access centre is a port where learners can refuel with ideas, restock with learning materials, share stories of their adventures, and chart out new directions for the future. In three presentations and a poster session, contributors will discuss a variety of current issues in self-access related to learner cognition, advising, assessment, space design and curriculum integration.

Information about presenters and abstracts can be found on the 2013 Forum page.

We will provide time for discussion after the presentations, and look forward to seeing many of you there.

JALT Weekend SAC Visit!

JALT Weekend SAC Visit at Konan Women’s University, Kobe

Friday October 25, 2013, 2:40 – 4:10
 
Join us for a tour of e-space, a self-access centre opened in 2011 by the Department of English Language and Culture. Following the tour there will be a brief presentation followed by a Q&A session. 
 
We’ll meet at 2:00 outside the Okamoto Starbucks (between JR Settsu-Motoyama and Hankyu Okamoto stations). At 2:15, we’ll walk over to the school bus station in time to board the 2:30 bus.
 
Organized by the Department of English Language and Culture, Konan Women’s University and the Japan Association of Self-Access Learning.
 
Please confirm your attendance with Dirk MacKenzie (dirk@konan-wu.ac.jp) by Wednesday, October 23.

Call for Papers: SISAC Conference Proceedings

Thank you to everyone who participated in and made the recent Student Involvement in Self Access Centers Conference in Nagoya an astounding success! It was great to see so many students talking passionately about their SACs and exchanging ideas about how to make them even better. We hope to be able to hold similar events in the future. Thanks once again to Risa and her team of students at Sugiyama Jogakuen University for a superb job in organising it all!

In order to spread the word even further and keep the conversation going about student involvement in SACs, we’d like to announce a Call for Papers for a Conference Proceedings.

SiSAC Call for Papers

This conference proceedings will be read by people who couldn’t attend the actual conference, so it’s a great opportunity to share your ideas and suggestions with people all over Japan who are interested in SACs and Learning Centres. We also hope to help authors publish their papers in respected academic journals.

Teachers/advisors/managers: please encourage your students to submit a paper for this volume!

The editors would like to suggest the 3 following kinds of paper for submission:

  1.  a summary of your presentation content
  2.  a conference report, giving details of the different presentations that you saw with some of your reflections
  3.  a reflective report on your experiences at the conference – what you learned and how you would like to change and improve your SAC based on the ideas you got from the conference.

Papers should be around 750 words. The deadline is 6th May, 2013. Please send your submissions to studentconference2013ATgmail.com.

All submissions will be reviewed by the editors before publication.

We look forward to reading your submissions.

Call for Presentations: JASAL Forum at JALT 2013

CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS
for the JASAL Forum at JALT2013, Kobe (October 25-28, 2013)

Self-access and the lifelong voyage of learning
Self-access learning can be a lifelong endeavour, starting at any age, and continuing far beyond graduation from an institution. This process is easily likened to a voyage, with learners going in different directions and progressing at different speeds depending on a variety of environmental factors. The self-access centre can be seen as a port, with learners coming to refuel with ideas, restock with learning materials, share stories of their adventures, and possibly chart out a new direction for the future. Feel free to interpret this year’s JALT theme in any way that is relevant to you and your context.

 We invite submissions on areas including, but not limited to:

  • SAC layout
  • Managing and administrating SACs
  • Materials
  • Learning program design
  • Integrating self-access with curriculum
  • Learner involvement in self-access
  • Self-access learning communities
  • Learning advising/counseling
  • Assessment of self-access learning
  • Evaluating SACs
  • Research design
  • Interaction and collaboration with colleagues and administrators

Continuing on the success of last year’s event, this year’s forum will consist of short presentations followed by a poster session and open forum discussion.

Proposals should include the following:

  • Title
  • Format (poster or presentation)
  • Name(s) of presenter(s) and affiliation(s)
  • JALT membership number of all presenters, (if applicable)
  • 150-200 word abstract
  • 75-word summary which clearly states your topic
  • Equipment you will require

Please submit your proposal to jasalorgATgmail.com by Sun, April 14, 2013. Please note that while the JALT deadline for submissions is April 21, we need time to put together our proposal. If for some reason your presentation cannot be included in the JASAL Forum, we will notify you so you can submit your proposal to the JALT conference as an individual paper before the April 21 deadline.

Please understand that depending on the number and nature of proposals we receive, we may have to ask you to change from a presentation to a poster or vice versa.

For more information on the JALT 2013 conference, please visit: http://jalt.org/conference

Registration for the Student Conference now open!

Happy New Year from the JASAL committee!

The Student Involvement in Self Access Centres Conference is now coming up very soon (1st & 2nd Feb) (more details here). We have around 10 different student presentations for participants to enjoy, and hope that many JASAL members can come to learn from and support students working hard in Self Access Centres around Japan.

If you are planning to attend the conference, please register by completing this 

Conference Registration Form

and sending it to studentconference2013ATgmail.com ASAP. We will also accept onsite registration, but it would help our planning greatly if you could indicate your interest for the different events we will be holding in advance. Registration is free for all students, but, as we are a non-profit conference with very limited funding, we ask for a suggested donation of ¥2000 from professionals attending the conference, to help us cover transportation, food and accommodation costs for student participants who otherwise would not be able to attend.

If you would like to use the onsite accommodation at Nanzan Kenshu Centre, please make sure you return the form by 24th January (sorry about the short notice). Please understand that, due to a limited supply, we cannot promise to be able to meet all requests.

Hope to see many of you in Nagoya in a few weeks!