JALT Conference Proceedings - JALT1998


Volume: 1998
Date of publication: October 1999

Welcome

We would like to welcome you, the reader, to this volume of papers written by presenters at JALT98. The 24th International JALT Conference, Focus on the Classroom: Interpretations, was held in Omiya, Saitama-ken in November 1998, and featured over 300 presentations. Similar to any other international convention, JALT98 was part ritual and part innovation: familiar in many ways, like an old friend, and enchanting too, like a new friendship. Indeed, we trust that voice of friendship quietly echoes for you through these pages.

Rather than group the papers by content area, or distinguish between practice and theory, we decided to organise the papers by voice. The JALT98 proceedings start with Voices of Experience, which are followed by Voices of Observation, Voices of Interpretation, and, finally, Voices of Experimentation. This creates, we believe, an intriguing mosaic of teacher and learner development processes at work, and captures, we hope, a strong sense of critical reflective practice.

Perhaps, the proceedings from a conference represent a passing consensus. Perhaps, they help naturalise existing trends, too. We cannot be certain. Fortunately, however, we may turn to you, the reader, for assistance. Please enjoy this recording of different voices according to your own needs and interests.

The coeditors: Andrew Barfield, Robert Betts, Joyce Cunningham, Neil Dunn, Haruko Katsura, Kunihiko Kobayashi, Nina Padden, Neil Parry & Mayumi Watanabe