The JALT97 Conference in Hamamatsu is only one month away, and the September and October issues of The Language Teacher contain a lot of useful information regarding the conference in addition to what you will find in the JALT97 column edited by Peggy Rule. This month we are running articles by presenters of the Featured Speaker Workshops which occur on October 9th (see the Preconference Handbook which came with the July issue for registration information).
Although we won't always have the luxury of doing so, the features this month all center around the theme of the second article in the Second Language Acquisition series. This month's article by Bill Acton takes a fresh look at how speaking is taught and gives some practical ideas for teaching speaking through music. Supplementing this is an article by Mark Freiermuth which examines when and how to correct errors in the classroom. In addition, we offer an article by Tunku Mohani Tunku Mohtar and Marohaini Yusoff which focuses on the interaction between teacher and students, presents some reasons for the lack of participation among students in the classroom, and then discusses possible strategies for engaging students in classroom discourse. Finally, we have a review by David J. Woodfield of a seminar presented at Temple University last February by Merrill Swain on her current research and thoughts regarding output and encouraging dialog.
Finally, I'd like to briefly comment on two related issues and questions which came up in the last couple months. The first was a chat with an attendee of the CALL N-SIG CALL Conference at Chubu who thought that only JALT members may contribute articles to The Language Teacher. This is untrue! While we of course would encourage people to join JALT, anyone can submit articles for consideration for publication. In addition to features, there a number of possibilities listed under "Submissions" on page 3 of TLT. Someone on one of the JALT Internet discussion lists lamented that some areas do not seem to be covered as well in TLT. My response then, which I'd like to share with you here, is that while all the editors are making a concerted effort to encourage people with varied interests to submit articles to fill "holes" in our coverage, we are of course eager for suggestions on topics--especially if the person making suggestions is willing to write an article or can also suggest someone who might be willing to do so. Please feel free to contact any of the editors listed on the masthead either with ideas, offers to submit articles, or even just to see whether we are interested in your topic. Also, please visit us at the publications booth at JALT97. I'm looking forward to seeing you there. It looks like it's going to be an excellent conference.
- Steve McGuire, Editor