In This Issue
Articles
We are pleased to bring you three feature articles in this issue. The first, by Tim Ashwell, explores the timing of form-focused instruction, an issue that has practical pedagogical value for instructors. His study compares a procedure in which form-focused instruction is integrated into a task with a procedure in which form-focused instruction closely follows a task. The second article, by James A. Elwood and Naoko Monoi, is a validation of the International Posture-Child instrument, which measures the international posture of children. In the third, a Japanese-language article, Yusuke Okada describes how a university English instructor gives a warning about classroom participation to a student.
Reviews
The November 2015 issue presents seven book reviews of interest to teachers, researchers, and program administrators in Japan and beyond. The first review is from Michael Carroll, who looks at an edited volume on fluency across the four skills, drawn from Asian contexts. The next review is the first in a series with the goal of getting more people discussing academic and professional development titles and talking about writing for publication, with support from the JALT Learning Development SIG. Roderick E. Mitcham, in collaboration with Ellen Head, reviews empirical work led by Zoltán Dӧrnyei that investigated Complex Dynamic Systems Theory in applied linguistics. In the next review, W. L. Quint Oga-Baldwin examines experimental research methods in language learning from a title of the same name. The fourth review comes from Jacob Schnickel, who highlights many of the questions posed in the first edition of the interdisciplinary title, Language Teaching Insights from Other Fields: Sports, Arts, Design and More, edited by Christopher Stillwell. Aaron C. Sponseller covers a Routledge title on the free statistical software program R, and its use in small-scale language teaching and learning research. Freelance teacher trainers in Myanmar, Aye Mar Thet and Myat Thinzar Tun, contribute their review of a resource for teaching young learners. Closing out this issue, Natsumi Wakamoto lends his expertise to assess Carol Griffiths’ work on the definitions of and controversies around strategy use in language learning.
From the Editor
I understand that some journal issues are put together very smoothly, with everything happening according to set deadlines. I hope to have one such issue at some point, but this one certainly was not it. There was a great deal of frantic last-minute work, and at least one author and one reviewer probably never want to see my name in their inboxes again. However, as always, it was very invigorating to see everyone pull together to get the issue together on time. The amount of work that our reviewers do for JALT Journal is truly amazing, and once again I am very grateful to them. I also want to express my appreciation to our consulting editor, Greg Sholdt, and our production editor Aleda Krause. Without them and the production team, this journal would be impossible to produce. Lastly, my thanks go to the authors who chose to submit to JALT Journal and go through the long editorial process. Although there are days when I feel overwhelmed with submissions, it is thanks to the authors that we are able to bring quality research to you.
Anne McLellan Howard
