With the aging of Japan’s population, there is increased awareness that engagement in learning, including language learning, enables an active and healthy life. A national organization is needed to provide resources for those teaching languages to adult learners and students who will one day become adults with, hopefully, a lifelong perspective on language learning. We are that organization.
A growing number of young, middle-aged, and senior adults are eager to study a second language as part of their lifelong learning journey. This trend reflects the understanding that the learning of other languages helps lead to an enriched quality of life. Students are increasingly learning more about the world around them and hope to gain as much as possible from foreign study and travel experiences.
The SIG fosters research, holds forums, issues publications, cooperates with related SIGs, and engages in other activities for those interested in improving the quality of language teaching to adult learners of all ages.
Events
In order to provide a platform for new ideas, we have held forums at the JALT International Conferences and the PanSIG Conferences since the SIG’s foundation in 2005. We always welcome new members to be part of the vetted forums our SIG has offered at these conferences.
In order to recruit new members, we have also sponsored several presentations at the LLL SIG Mini Conferences. The SIG invites those teaching languages to young, middle-aged, and older adults to share information at the LLL SIG Mini Conference every February.
Publications
For all issues of our newsletter, please go to http://hosted.jalt.org/lifelong/publications.html.
We are now collecting articles from veteran teachers for our “Milestones of a Life in Teaching” series. If you are interested in sharing what you have learned as a teacher, please send your article to Tadashi Ishida at papiontadashi@gmail.com. Our newsletter is online so there is no word limit.
Please include what first ignited your interest in teaching, the joys and rewards that have sustained you, the disappointments and setbacks you’ve had to overcome, and serendipitous events that have affected the course of your life and fed into your teaching career, and what is unique about your teaching methods. Also, please add your advice to young teachers in the field.
You can read articles under the same title at
- http://hosted.jalt.org/lifelong/journal/2017a.html
- http://hosted.jalt.org/lifelong/journal/2017b.html
Membership
We are always recruiting new members. We encourage JALT members to select the LLL SIG as the complimentary SIG membership they are offered when buying their yearly membership. For more information on the SIG, please go to https://www.facebook.com/jaltLLL.