In This Issue
Articles
In this November issue we are pleased to present three feature articles and a Research Forum. In the first article, Caleb Prichard and Jana Moore examine the amount of program coordination and teacher autonomy that can be found in higher institutions in Japan. In an article considering influences on performance, Chie Ogawa investigates the effect of pretask planning on oral performance. In a Japanese-language article, Keita Kikuchi and Hideki Sakai explore the changes in motivation among Japanese learners of English during secondary school, based on a survey of university students. In the Research Forum, Junichiro Takeno, Ken Tamai, and Shigenobu Takatsuka also consider performance and look at the word length effect in remembering vocabulary.
Reviews
In the first of seven book reviews, John Cross examines a volume that argues for the use of corpus linguistics to better research, analyze, and understand grammar. In the first of a series of reviews in collaboration with the JALT Task-Based Learning SIG, Martin Hawkes tackles Mike Long’s book, Second Language Acquisition and Task-Based Language Teaching. The third review, from Laura MacGregor, explores a volume on the practice and implementation of content and language integrated learning (CLIL) for both subject teachers and language teachers. John Nevara then looks at a book about reflective teaching in higher education. Next, Daniel Tang reviews an edited anthology in which the authors address creativity from a theoretical perspective and provide practical applications for the classroom and curriculum. Another review on the topic of TBL comes from Jennifer Louise Teeter, who covers a title focused on aspects of task-based language learning in teaching writing. Akie Yasunaga closes out this issue with a review of Interlanguage: Forty Years Later in which 10 leading scholars celebrate the enduring contribution of Selinker’s seminal work at the inception of the field of SLA.
Editor’s Message
In my 2nd year as JALT Journal Editor, putting together the November issue has become as much a part of summer as matsuri and fireworks. As you read this in the autumn, spare a thought for me sweltering away in the Miyazaki heat. As usual, I have to thank many people for their help and support. The Associate Editor, Eric Hauser, has jumped right in to take over a lot of responsibilities. Of course we could not put the issue together without Aleda Krause and the production team. Greg Scholdt does a lot of work, sometimes at the last minute, reading quantitative manuscripts. My thanks go as always to the reviewers and the authors who work together through a long review process and many revisions.
Anne McLellan Howard
