JALTCALL is a special interest group (SIG) of the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT) for teachers and researchers who share an interest in digital technology and language learning. We hold a major conference in Japan every year (usually in June), plus workshops and forums at various other times. We also publish referred research articles through our Scopus Q1 ranked publication JALT CALL Journal, as well as work-in-progress research and a wider variety of articles in our new publication, JALT CALL Trends. Membership in JALT or JALTCALL is not required for attending our events or submitting to our publications, however we encourage interested participants to consider membership. You may wish to join our Facebook Group.
Officers
President – Robert Swier
Treasurer – Michael Phillips
Membership Chair – Sammy Woldeab
Program Chair – Geoff Carr
Publications Chair – Michael Hofmeyr
Publicity Chair – Bradley Irwin
Journal Editor – Nobue Tanaka-Ellis
Web Administrator – Luc Gougeon
Japanese Language Coordinator – Natsuho Mizoguchi
PanSIG Liaison – Brian Gallagher
Member at Large – Paul Daniels, Robert Remmerswaal, James York, Robert Dykes
Our History
This SIG (originally called the N-SIG) was formed in the 1990s. If you’d like to know a little more about how we began, read these messages from our co-founders.
Kazunori Nozawa, Co-founder and the first Chair
Since many members were interested in the field of CALL, we were very enthusiastic to form an N-SIG to share information and ideas. After a year-long effort, a petition of its official formation was sent and CALL N-SIG was officially approved at the ExCom in January 1993 and started its active involvement and contribution. Special thanks go to Kenji Kitao, Bob Shaw, Steve McGuire, Shuji Ozeki and other former officers who were always supportive and helped a lot from the beginning.
David Kluge, Co-founder, first Program Chair and the Second Chair
Japan, the land of technology, was slow in joining the CALL revolution, pretty much just entering it in 1990 or so. In 1992 Kazunori Nozawa, professor at Toyohashi University of Technology, saw the need for a network to help people who are interested in CALL to share their knowledge, experience, problems, and questions. He unflaggingly worked to collect 50 members so that the CALL group could be officially recognized as a JALT entity in 1993. In our first year we put out several newsletters and held a conference on computers and composition. In our second year we put out some more excellent newsletters, published the proceedings of the conference, held a software fair, participated in several regional conferences, and most exciting, we started our own Internet list for EFL in Japan, JALTCALL. In our third year we put out some excellent newsletters, held a software fair, provided 3 days of excellent CALL programming at JALT’s international conference, JALT95, and at regional conferences, and started our electronic journal, JALTCALL-EJ. In the meantime, we grew from 50 members in 1993 to about 250 members in the beginning of 1996.