The Language Teacher - Issue 23.1; January 1999


Volume: 23
Issue No. 1
Date of publication: January 1999
Download PDF of complete issue:

Since last year, nearly all of the work of editing, compiling, and proofreading TLT has been transferred from phone, fax, and postal mail to e-mail. As a result of these efforts, we been able to cut production costs significantly and we hope, produce a more professional looking, cutting edge publication.

Thanks to the work of our staff translators and editors (see their names on page 3), we have also been able to provide readers with articles, news, and information in both English and Japanese. To continue this trend, the more bilingual support we can get from contributors and volunteers, the more we can provide you. We welcome, and urge you to contribute announcements, reports, opinion pieces, and letters in Japanese as well as in English. Help TLT continue to be a cutting edge publication with your contributions.

Our web page, faithfully maintained by Bob Gettings, offers a regular sampling of TLT's pages to online readers and potential subscribers. If you haven't paid it a visit, you'll be impressed when you do. Find it at: <http://langue.hyper.chubu.ac.jp/jalt/pub/tlt>. TLT online is another reason for readers to be proud of TLT as a cutting edge publication.

Our first issue of 1999 opens with an interview by Nathan Edwards of J. R. Martin, a leading researcher in the field of register and genre theory and its practical applications to teacher training and curriculum design. Martin shares his views on functional grammar in the classroom. The next article, by Padraic Frehan, discusses the roles of background knowledge and prediction skills in improving reading skills. Phillip Markley and John Herbert introduce their work with Local Area Networks (LANs), in which entire writing classes take part in real-time conferences.

In response to concerns over the misuse of questionnaires in research being conducted by classroom teachers and others in Japan, Dale T. Griffee has contributed an article which introduces basic procedures for constructing questionnaires that are in at least some ways valid and reliable.

Kyoko Yamada presents her high school English language classroom curriculum which addresses illegal drug issues in Japan and abroad.

Carol Browning, Kawagishi Masako, and Seto Haruko introduce their year-long university course which examines the cultures of ten cultures. They present a number of activities they use in class and include a list of the materials they have found to be successful.

Our Japanese language feature article this month by Umeda Hajime reports the results of a research study of Japanese students in regular academic programs at American universities and their attitudes toward their studies.

Finally, Stephen Ryan reports on the 1998 TESOL Russia--Far East International Conference, held in September in Khabarovsk, Russia.

Next month, we bring you a special issue of TLT on the topic of World Citizenship, guest edited by Michael Higgins.

Laura MacGregor, Editor

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