Job Discussion Forums

[Shimokitazawa]

Anyone going this year?

Most of you poor *beep* are humping it in the eikaiwa or ALT trenches, but it might be well within your interest to go and have a look if you're in the Tokyo area. Talk to some people; network.

The conference is being held at Tsukuba Conference Center in Ibaraki Prefecture this year.

Link: http://jalt.org/conference/jalt2014

[mitsui]

My wife broke a bone in her foot so I can't go.
I have to do more housework and help her out.

I thought networking at JALT did not help much.
Some people are friendly but some are like used car salesmen, just looking out for themselves and stuck up.
I work 4 jobs now and so paying the conference fee seems a bit much, as I won't get my money back, as full-timers will.

Many presentations are useless. Some are decent but it can seem like a crapshoot in finding decent ones.

[RM1983]

Im a bit stretched for cash at the moment cos I paid for my Dip but was thinking I wanted go. The first reply summed up my worries but itd be a good experience I think. Maybe next year

[Shimokitazawa]

Yeah, JALT can be hit and miss. I think a lot of topics get recycled. And yes, if you don't have a research budget it can be an expensive weekend with travel and conference fees. I think non-members pay more at the gate.

They usually have a job posting booth but if you check the JALT website, most of the positions are already advertised there.

I like what they do at TESOL Arabia, universities will actually interview teachers at the conference for positions. It seems that one can actually land a job by attending their conference.

[kzjohn]

I gave up on JALT maybe 8-10 years ago. As above--too big/impersonal, hard to find something decent to listen to, and I think because it's big they're limited in venues that they can choose, tho I'm sure Tsukuba has some good points...

(and I'm FT and would be able to go "free" if I chose to spend the budget on it)

As for talks both there and other places, people seem to push the envelope on something called the "minimally publishable unit"--or in the case of a conference, just enough to get your presentation accepted. Finding something that is both something you're interested in and reasonably full of good content is hard.

As someone who chooses books, the publisher's display and talking to people there always seemed as good as the conference itself.

[mitsui]

The Job Info people are helpful but these days you should have had your interview before the conference. By the end of November there is not much available.

The book sellers, although they want to make money, are decent people to talk to.

Yoyogi is not the Tokyo site anymore, and now it is Tsukuba, which is a bit far out. Tsukuba is the Tokyo area site. It seems they couldn't find anything closer.

[kzjohn]

The other thing is that JALT stuck with their "local branch" model waayyy too long. This has probably changed, but they'd been paying/disbursing membership money to those local branches (and not SIGs) for way too long.

Somehow, and without my input, my local branch got sucked into one that is 90 minutes away ((actually two hours)) (and is now deader than ever before).

That local branch thing is now obviously a dinosaur. They should have recognized it as a dinosaur about 15 years ago. Tho I haven't been a member for some time, I hope they've come around to their senses.

[mitsui]

Are you in Kyushu?
If membership in chapters is low it is talked about at the executive board meeting.
Each chapter needs five officers.
Chapters need to do things regularly otherwise there is talk of folding or re-starting.

For example Chiba has no chapter, so people have to go to Tokyo.

Some rules are dumb. I was in a SIG that folded since four officers quit. I put out two journals in a year but had to have people go to the PAN-SIG as well.

[Shimokitazawa]

I was wondering why JALT would move the venue to Ibaraki. The Yoyogi location was perfect for people flying in to Haneda or coming in on the Shinkansen. I didn't like going out to Shizuoka, either.

[mitsui]

They can't have it there anymore but I forgot the reason.
I did ask about it last year.
I did get a flippant answer from one of the officers.
I thought it was a valid question.

Tsukuba is as close to Tokyo as they could find.
If numbers are down this year, they may have to rethink this, just as
they did after Hamamatsu.

[kzjohn]

[Shimokitazawa]

[fat_chris]

I am not sure if I have this quite right, but I believe there was something to do with the limit of allowable commercial activities at the site in Yoyogi as it's a national monument so in the interest of the vendors, its days were numbered as a JALT site. Once Tsukuba got up and running, then it seemed that that's the place where the conference site would be for Tokyo.

As I was based in Shizuoka-ken, having the conference in Shizuoka (2009) and Nagoya (2010) was nice for me. I once lived in Hamamatsu so I was excited that the conference was held there (2012), but I had already left Japan by then so I didn't attend that one.

I have to echo some of the sentiments above. I went to five consecutive JALT National Conferences (2007-2011). I was excited about the first few and I even got to make my first presentation at the 2009 one in Shizuoka--that was a great feeling. By my fifth conference though (Tokyo 2011), I definitely had a "meh" feeling about it all with a tinge of "been there, done that" thrown in.

Warm regards,
fat_chris

[Jagariko]

Despite teaching in Japan for a long time, I have only been to two conferences.

The first (Hamamatsu 2012) was very interesting and it was hard to decide which presentation to attend (although the venue was too spaced out.) The second (Kobe 2013) was awful. The quality of presentations was dire: I ended up at one that was on L2 writing and they had done some "research" about the numbers of words in student typed as opposed to pencil-written essays. Whoopy-do!

The invited speakers from outside of Japan were very good at Kobe - ie the real academics/practicing linguists - but the Japan-based EFL teachers were dreadful.

I wonder how much it depends on the organisers. The chairs change every year and obviously some are more creative, dynamic and with more international connections than others.

[Maitoshi]

How many of these "dreadful" presentations have you made, mate?