The Latest News in ELT

July 2008

Nunan Talks!
World-renowned linguist David Nunan talks with Russell Willis about his best-selling book "Go For It!", his work at Anaheim University, whether starting to learn English as young child makes a difference and about his involvement in the new Magical Lab project from Malaysia.

Visit: David Nunan Interview (July 24, 2008 )

JALT Announces Candidates
This just in from the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT):

Candidates for the 2008 JALT National election:

Candidate for the Office of NPO JALT President
- Caroline Lloyd
- Peter Wanner

Candidate for the Office of NPO JALT Vice-President
- Cynthia Keith

Candidate for the Office of NPO JALT Auditor
- Tadashi Ishida

Candidate for the Office of NPO JALT Director of Membership
- Nathan Furuya
- Nicolas Gromik

Candidate for the Office of NPO JALT Director of Program
- Philip McCasland

Candidate for the Office of NPO JALT Director of Public Relations
- Emi Itoi
- Rieko Matsuoka

Candidate for the Office of NPO JALT Director of Records
- Aleda Krause

Candidate for the Office of NPO JALT Director of Treasury
- Kevin Cleary

Full candidate statements as well as the election ballot will be available in the August TLT. Best of luck to all candidates in the upcoming election. Timothy Gutierrez 2008 JALT National Election Committee Chair

Visit: JALT (July 22, 2008 )

Kenny Hong
Kenny Hong, a well-known figure in the ELT community in Japan, was found dead at his home late last week. Kenny was 33 and is survived by his wife Ikumi whom he married in 2006.

Kenny lived in Japan for about 10 years and was involved in the ELT industry for much of that time. He began his career with eigoTown.com as a consultant and then worked on the development of the eigoTown.com website. He later became Multimedia/Web Developer and Project Manager at TCI which later became Solid Networks. During that time, Kenny developed and managed various industry websites, including the suite of local OUP Japan sites, one of which, OUP Readers, was award winning. Kenny joined Oxford University Press full time in January 2008.

Paul Riley, managing director of OUP Japan said "Kenny was a great colleague and a good friend to all that knew him. We will miss Kenny very much and I encourage you to spare a few thoughts and prayers for him and his family." (July 17, 2008 )

English Learners Still Uneasy Over NOVA Collapse
An informal poll by eigoTown.com of its users suggests that nearly half feel uneasy about studying at English conversations schools due to the collapse of NOVA.

The poll, conducted during June reveals that 28% of respondents felt that they "are uneasy" about studying at "eikaiwa" and 20% have decided to "study by themselves". 48% of respondents felt that "nothing has changed". Comments by users who felt uneasy about eikaiwa included "I will choose a school that charges me each month”, and “I am too shocked by the collapse to go to an English school”.

Visit: eigoTown.com Poll(in Japanese). (July 13, 2008 )

Mingoville Launches English Education Site for Kids
Mingoville Corporation has launched a new online English education site for Japanese children called ”Mingoville”. The site is free and aimed at 6 to 13-year-old children. The program originated in Denmark and has over 100 questions and exercises with which which members can learn English whilst studying everyday themes.

Mingoville is used by 30% of elementary schools in Denmark and has 120,000 users in over 100 countries.

Read:Press Release (in Japanese)

Visit: Mingoville (July 09, 2008 )

Professional English Corpus Released by PERC
The Professional English Research Consortium (PERC) has made available online its corpus of professional English along with a set of analytical tools for teachers and researchers.

The PERC Corpus consists of 17,000,000 words from 22 professional fields including medicine, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, electronics and computer engineering.

The corpus is open to the public for free until the end of June 2009. It can be accessed in both English and Japanese.

Read: Press Release (in Japanese)

Visit: The PERC Corpus (July 07, 2008 )

Yano Releases English Industry Market Report
Yano Research Institute has released the latest edition of its market report on the English industry in Japan. The report is entitled “Gogaku Business Tettei Chosa” and includes an overview of market trends and more detailed information on key companies in the industry. The report is intended managers and marketers involved in the English-business and related industries. The report costs 115,000 yen, is in Japanese and can only be bought directly from Yano's Web site.

Visit: Yano Research Institute (July 03, 2008 )

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