Executive Committee election

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:

  1. Organising the yearly JASAL Forum at JALT and other symposia.
  2. Communicating with members and providing support to members developing self-access language learning centres and systems through email communication and the JASAL website.
  3. 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

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3.  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.]
  4.  Call for voting to be sent to all JASAL members by Monday 17th January 2011.
  5. Votes to be cast through the electronic voting system by Monday 31st January 2011.
  6. Members to be informed of the results of the voting by Tuesday 1st February 2011.
  7. 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

Join us at JALT 2010!

Hi Everyone,

Plase come and join our JASAL Forum at JALT 2010!

Title: Self-Access Learning: Thinking Outside the Box
Date: Saturday 20th November
Time: 1715 – 1845
Room: 1209

To be involved in self-access language learning means not only thinking but being outside the box! This forum includes an extended session for six posters followed by two oral presentations in which presenters from different institutions talk about the creative approaches they have taken in developing and researching self-access learning environments and facilities. The poster and oral presentations will be followed by Q&A and a short discussion.

For more information about JALT 2010, http://jalt.org/conference

Report on JASAL Forum

A message from our member, Jo Mynard:

Hello everyone!
I am looking forward to seeing many of you at the JASAL Forum in Nagoya. I was wondering whether anyone would be interested in writing up a report of the event for December 2010 issue of SiSAL Journal (Studies in Self-Access Learning).
Please let me know if you are interested. The report should be less than 2000 words and can be about the event in general, or about your presentation.
Guidelines can be found here http://sisaljournal.org/for-authors/submission-guidelines/
Last year Diego Navarro and I wrote an article based on themes discussed at the 2009 forum which was published in the conference proceedings (http://jalt-publications.org/proceedings/2009/contents.php). We also wrote a report for SiSAL Journal (http://sisaljournal.org/archives/jun10/mynard_navarro/).

See you in Nagoya!

Jo

Welcoming University of Tokushima SAC

Now we have added a new SAC to our list.
Please see their video clip here or under “Self-Access and Advising Links.”

Here is the message from our new member Steve:

Hi JASAL Committee,

I am Steve from the University of Tokushima. From July of 2008, we have
started our own SAC. Gradually we have been getting bigger, and we have
been looking for others to share ideas etc. I had not known about JASAL,
and have stumbled upon in while surfing the net and coming across the
SiSAL Journal. I hope we can join the conversation.
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Steve

SiSAL Journal available online!

Hello JASAL members!

Our member, Jo Mynard let us know that the first issue of SiSAL Journal is now available online!

SiSAL, Studies in Self-Access Learning Journal (ISSN 2185-3762) is a new peer-reviewed, quarterly online journal that features articles, summaries, perspectives, works in progress and reports related to self-access learning and out-of-class support for students. SiSAL Started life as a modest project at Kanda University of International studies in Japan, but due to expressed interest from beyond KUIS, SiSAL will now be launched as an international publication. The first issue (full text) can viewed at http://sisaljournal.orgThe editorial team is now accepting submissions for upcoming issues. The September issue (deadline August 25th) will have the theme of “materials and activities” and the December issue (deadline November 1st) will have the theme “motivation and beliefs”. Please see the website for more details.

Enjoy!

New! “RESOURCES”

We have created a new section on our website called RESOURCES.
Here, with everyone’s help, we would like to build up a bank of resources that can be useful to all of us!

Especially for members who are in the planning stage or who are in the process of establishing a SAC/advising service, others’ experiences can become a great support and a great role model.
Members who are already operating SAC / advising service for a while can learn new ideas from others’ experiences, too.

A great appreciation to Mr. Andre Parsons from Hokkaido University of Education! You can view documents that he actually used in the process of establishing a SAC including SAC survey, SAC floor plan, SAC Assistant responsibilities, and SAC material list.

This Resource section can only grow as a result of our members’ contributions!
All JASAL members will appreciate your contribution!
Contribution can be anything – SAC floor plan, material list, staff roles, software list, presentation documents, photos, reading list for administrators and staff, initial surveys, evaluation surveys, etc!
To share your documents and help build up our resource bank, please contact Hisako Yamashita at hisakoadvisingATgmail.com !

Thank you!

CALL FOR PAPERS: JASAL Forum at the JALT 2010 conference

Time to share your creative ideas!
We are now accepting proposals for the JASAL Forum at the JALT 2010 conference.
JASAL have held Forums at the JALT conferences since 2006, and this year will be our 5th time! 
Please click the link below for details. Deadline is Wednesday, April 7, 2010.

CALL FOR PAPERS: JASAL Forum at the JALT 2010 conference

If you would like to see what our Forums were like, please check out the “Coferences” information on this website.

Subscribe to Receive Updates

Please subscribe to this website so that you will get updates when we have new information.
You can subscribe by clicking  “Receive Updates by E-mail” on the bottom right.
You can also get updates of posts and comments by subscribing to our Discussion Community.
Please go to JASAL Discussion Community and click the “Subscribe” button on the bottom left.

Thank you!!

Send photos, links, descriptions of your Center&Services!

If you have a self-access center, please send us photos/descripitions/link of the center so that we can introduce your center on our website (go to “Self-Access and Advising Links” on our website to see those we have already) .
Photos help our members who are planning to set up a self-access center~ to get some ideas about layout, furniture, materials and more!

Please send the information to Hisako Sugawara at hisako.y.sugawara@gmail.com