Have you ever wondered about all the nameless worker bees toiling behind
this and other sections of your monthly Language Teacher columns?
What truly goes on in the "hive" each month, and who is the queen.
. .er king bee?
Well, the King bee (Malcolm Swanson) in all his wisdom has decided that
we should all line up at attention at the door of the hive and hum. . .er
describe our columns to you, our readers. Command performance? Right, Sire
Malcolm! This month's profile, then, will acquaint you a little with these
behind-the-scenes activities. You may even feel like joining us on the staff,
and we would welcome you warmly.
So, let's get on with it! Amy Hawley and Sugino Toshiko, editors of the
column JALT News, are buzzing so loudly and enthusiastically that
we'd better start with them. JALT News summarizes important news
happening at the National level. Between flights to the main flower garden
located in the Central Office, Amy paused to say that she wants to increase
readers' awareness of what officers are doing at the National Level. She
stated that she has come up with a lot of good ideas from reading all the
reports, and that some chapters have even voluntarily started sending them
honey. . .er minutes, as well as exciting information about the events happening
in their chapters. Amy believes that this is a great chance to meet a lot
of interesting people in a variety of areas in JALT, and she is really enjoying
working on this column.
Wearing two hats, Daniel McIntyre decided to become editor of the occasional
columns Education Innovations and Creative Course Design partly
to compensate for his chequered past, and to contribute to humankind. He
took time off from cleaning out his cell in the hive (his wife is about
to arrive back from her business trip to the Philippines) to report in for
duty. In the column Educational Innovations, papers are welcomed
which inform readers about developments in the organization of foreign language
education at all levels and in neighbouring countries as well, where conditions
confronting teachers and learners may be similar. Descriptions and evaluations
of interesting/insightful developments at the institutional level, whether
departmental, faculty, or whole institution are sought, as opposed to individual
teacher-focussed developments in classroom teaching. Contributors are invited
to write about interesting innovations related to new curricula/courses,
extracurricular activities, or institutional organization. In his second
column, Creative Course Design, Daniel wants to inform readers of
the variety of new, stimulating courses being taught in the context of Japanese
institutions. He is also soliciting descriptions of creative designs and
syllabuses being used successfully on subjects the teaching community are
already familiar with. It is Daniel's hope that the readers will share insights
and be aware of the possible benefits that will inevitably come their way.
In another part of the TLT hive, Katharine Isbell and Oda Masaki
ceased their diligence to tell us a little about their column Book Reviews.
Katharine and Masaki's column provides information to TLT readers
on useful teaching materials, in order to help them decide which materials
are worth spending their hard-earned money on. They both stated that reviewing
a book for the TLT is an excellent, thought-provoking writing activity,
and hope more reviewers will volunteer after reading this. And contributors
take heart! They are willing to work extensively with the reviewer. I see
commander-in-chief Malcolm fairly beaming in their direction at all the
hard work and energy they have put into this column.
Net Nuggets has editor Larry Davies scurrying about the hive in
an effort to keep up with all the rapid changes on the Internet. For most
readers, it may be difficult sometimes to keep abreast of the latest technical
and pedagogical developments in using the Internet for language teaching,
but Larry is there to inform us. He invites interesting submissions on useful
sites from teachers at all levels. In addition, this helpful column directs
teachers to language learning resources available on the Internet for a
general language learning and teaching audience, and we thank Larry for
helping out those of us who are less in the know.
In the SIG corner of the TLT hive, you can usually find Robert Long,
JALT2000 Conference Programme Co-Chair, and editor of the Special Interest
Group News column. He'll be labouring away to forage out articles from
our various JALT SIGs to better inform readers of issues and problems in
research and professional ideas. Robert admires and is inspired by the dedication
of the many people involved in the SIGs and cannot help but have more interest
in his own career, especially when he encounters the commitment these same
people have month after month.
Sandra Smith, Oishi Harumi and Scott Gardner are editors of the column
My Share, a forum for teachers to describe classroom lesson plans
that have worked well. My Share, editors insist, is much more than
a simple exchange of "hints for harried teachers." It demonstrates
some quite thoughtful applications of the very theories and proposals found
in the feature article section at the front of the journal. The editors
hope to solicit more contributions from teachers of young people for, they
say, even games for the smallest children, as long as they are original,
are grounded in research and can benefit language educators and learners.
Good work, Sandra, Scott and Harumi!
Not only is Brian Cullen one of the hardworking proofreaders for the
TLT but he and Saito Makiko are also editors of the Bulletin Board
column which posts announcements of upcoming JALT events, conferences, call
for papers and so on. Sporting a delightful Irish accent when reached by
phone at his cell, Brian supports supreme commander Malcolm in his effort
towards more personalization for the TLT and less focus on the "academic"
standards of research journals. Brian thinks that the TLT is a great
forum that needs to reach out to the teachers' base that exists in Japan
and prove each month that it is relevant to their professional lives. He
marvels at all the work carried on in the TLT community over email
(accepting submissions, editing, proofreading, and sending the finished
product off to the printers) without ever coming face to face, and he is
proud to be part of that special team spirit.
Bettina Begole and Natsue Duggan run the Job Information Center/Positions
column, but they are quick to point out that the column, which provides
information on jobs, is only the tip of the iceberg and the smallest part
of what they do. We will see Bettina again in the JIC room on the conference
site of JALT2000 in Shizuoka on November 3-5. In the JIC room, you can find
information on available positions. Interested people can come to look for
new employment, submit their C.V.s and sometimes, be interviewed on the
spot by perspective employers. In addition, Bettina maintains a monthly
email update for all those who wish to receive further information on employment
developments. In the TLT JIC column, Bettina and her partner try
to screen ads which may discriminate against age, gender, and nationality.
They would like to receive ads that include more job openings for nonnative
professional language teachers of English. They want to encourage institutions
to submit ads for teachers of Chinese, French, German, Spanish and other
languages.
Oh yes, and let us not forget Tom Merner, in charge of publicizing monthly
meetings and other related events such as mini-conferences, book fairs,
chapter retreats, and so on in the Chapter Meetings column. These
timely announcements help to attract attendees to our chapter gatherings
and increase interest among non-JALT members in participating in chapter
events. Born and raised in Japan, Tom is completely bilingual, and for this
reason is committed to increasing the amount of Japanese in the announcements,
as it may be the first contact some Chapter people have with local members
from their area. However, he confesses that the column is still far from
achieving this goal. Tom feels that this first bit of Japanese directs the
attention of first-timers and may trigger in them sufficient interest and
courage to even attend a meeting. Tom hates long announcements that cause
him to burn the midnight oil, especially after deadlines. He reminds overly
enthusiastic programme chairs (those with a tendency to drone on) that the
maximum length for chapter announcements is sixty words.
Diane Pelyk and Nagano Yoshiko edit the Chapter Reports column
and wait each month for showerings of nectar from the chapters, telling
the rest of our readers what is happening in each local area. They invite
reports in either Japanese or English. Conference Calendar, edited
by Lynne Roecklein and Kakutani Tomoko, keeps everyone informed of conferences
around the world and their calls for submissions. And Recently Received,
compiled by Angela Ota, offers would-be-reviewers choices of course books,
supplementary texts, or teacher's references to try out and evaluate for
the Book Reviews column.
But wait a minute,
Mariko, we haven't mentioned our own column yet, A Chapter in Your Life.
Two years ago, Andy Barfield came up with the great title and since that
time, special mention goes to Ruth McCreery of The Word Works who has been
marvellous at making borders and increasing the visual appeal. In the beginning,
it certainly wasn't easy to find willing "victims," as we had
no proven track record and were unknown, but lately, chapters and SIGs are
approaching us with ideas and stories. We've had lots of adventures and
in the process, we've learned heaps. I was even called a pedantic bug bear
at one point while I was learning to edit. Our column has grown from a focus
on the chapters, the grassroots of JALT, to include special SIG reports
and now and then, submissions of a special nature. We now invite all chapters
and SIGs, big and small, to write 800-word reports about their memorable
activities, venues, members, challenges they have met and so on. It is a
good way for all to share their creative solutions and build bridges in
order to network with each other. I also hasten to say that I have the greatest
partner in the world. Just when I'm on the point of going cross-eyed from
working with our contributors to edit and polish their reports, Mariko quietly,
capably takes over and does all the formatting and finishing touches that
TLT demands. It's not such a scramble anymore, thank goodness, and
we look forward to the variation each month brings us.
Deep in the hive, you'll find another group quietly working away under
the paternal gaze of our Assistant Editor, Paul Lewis. These people patiently
and professionally proof our work each month, ensuring that TLT is
able to maintain the high standards it does. It is from this pool of proofing
staff that we draw our new column editors. At the end of the editing chain,
the ever alert Aleda Krause is ready and waiting to pounce on anything we've
overlooked, before sending it off to Ruth and her Word Works team. (See
The Word Works story for more on what they do.)
And finally, it would "bee" very unfair of us not to mention
Malcolm Swanson; a scholar, techie, gentleman and our noble TLT leader
who has just taken over the responsibility of directing the hive. Head bee-nimble
minded, full of vision and plans-we support you Malcolm and applaud the
many ideas you want to implement in the months to come. May our magazine
prosper under your guidance. And last, but not least, our thanks to all
the "workers" for their dedication, drive, and determination to
put out interesting and varied columns while balancing the needs of school,
family, and friends. Oh yes and naruhodo, we salute you, our readers,
and thank you for your support, positive feedback, and assistance.
A Word about The Word Works
After all the work everyone else has put into TLT, it's hard to
imagine what could be left for us, your friendly neighborhood Word Works,
to do. But there's always more than enough to keep us hopping.
In principle, our contribution is to develop a basic template for the
magazine -- a design that works, given the nature of TLT and the
budget available -- and then format the articles, which arrive at the end
of the month for the front half and on the fifth for the back, and pour
them into the layout template. When everything is roughly in the layout,
we generate the pdf files from which the proofreaders now work and zip them
off by email. (Considering that until we started working on TLT,
the layout was physically cut and pasted, by the way, I think we're pretty
amazingly high tech.)
By then, it's the tenth of the month. A few days later, with the keen-eyed
proofreaders' comments in hand, we start correcting the errors that managed
to slip past the first set of proofreaders. We also start tweaking the layout,
to make it smoother, more consistent, and, somehow or other, divisible by
four when the advertising pages are added.
When that magic number has been achieved, we generate pdfs again and
throw them at the editor. If the editorial arithmetic agrees with ours and
no one discovers a missing article or other cause for hysteria, then we
tidy up the layout yet again, produce the table of contents, stare at it
a little more, then, usually on the seventeenth, print and call the takkyubin
man, before the bloom goes off.
Executing the design, and making continuing refinements in it, is satisfying,
but it's the points where things go wrong that make working on TLT
exciting. The occasional virus arriving with a TLT file, styles conflicts
that trash PageMaker, an article that has mysteriously lost all spaces between
words, a photograph with ink across a Very Important Person's face: TLT
gives us endless opportunities to demonstrate our coping skills.
A certain amount of creative satisfaction, the occasional adrenaline
hit of crisis successfully contained: that would be enough to make working
on TLT gratifying. But we also gain from being part of a dedicated
team contributing so much energy to sustaining and improving the magazine-not
for fame or fortune, but to help other language teachers. Editors, proofreaders,
contributors: you are all amazing.
Ruth McCreery