The 5th Annual JALT Pan-SIG Conference was held at the Tokai University College of Marine Science in Shizuoka, Japan on May 13th and 14th, 2006.
The six articles in this collection are a sampling of the varied presentations given that weekend and represent the diverse perspectives of the groups sponsoring this event.
The opening article by Donna Tatsuki focuses on "authenticity". The author distinguishes between authenticity of
language, authenticity of task, and authenticity of situation. After considering degrees of authenticity, characteristics of the speaker,
context, purpose, and the medium of communication, Tatsuki concludes by noting that pragmatic and pedagogic appropriateness should be our
primary consideration in syllabus design.
In the following article, Authentic communication: Whyzit importan' ta teach reduced forms?, James Dean Brown
discusses the importance of teaching connected speech forms. He argues that rather than teaching reduced forms as lexical items, we can
serve students better by showing them the processes underlying reduced forms. Drawing upon examples from his recent book, Brown suggests
how all processes underlying connected speech are rule-based and relatively easy to understand.
The third article by Chiaki Iwai, Carol Rinnert, Tomoyuki Yokoyama, Chiara Zamborlin, and Yoko Nogami summarizes five related
studies that were conducted as part of the Prag-PEACE research project, which investigates intercultural pragmatics and pedagogy. The paper
presents three proposals concerning data collection methods, integration of research findings, and the development of a theoretical framework
to account for the pragmatic problems of native and non-native speakers.
Following this, Carol Rinnert, Yoko Nogami and Chiaki Iwai offer a statistical analysis of the English complaint strategies of
196 Japanese university EFL learners. They compare the students' non-native complaint strategies to those of native speakers of English and
native speakers of Japanese. Complaint strategies are analyzed in terms of three dimensions: components (initiators, complaints and requests),
level of directness, and degree of mitigation.
In Teacher development and assessment literacy, Tim Newfields outlines the concept of assessment literacy and
describes an Angoff rating procedure in which a small panel of testing experts rate the appropriateness of 100 assessment-related items in
terms of three different population groups. Based on those ratings, he then mentions a 70-item assessment literacy test aimed at high
school teachers of foreign languages.
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The final article in this proceedings compares the response of 51 female high school students who took the English listening section of
the 2006 Japanese National Centre Test (J-NCT) with the English listening sections of the Test of English as a Foreign Language Internet
Based Test (TOEFL® iBT). Kristie Sage and Nozomi Tanaka suggest that the TOEFL® iBT is both more integrative and representative
of a range of discourse domains than the J-NCT, and is therefore probably a better indicator of students' English listening ability. Based
on the results of their study, the authors make several proposals for improving the Centre Test.
This volume concludes with a few photos taken at the conference, courtesy of Masahiko Goshi.
We'd like to offer special thanks to a number of persons who made the 2006 Pan-SIG Conference possible. Listed alphabetically, a big
round of applause is due for these individuals who devoted so much time to making the 5th Annual Pan-SIG Conference a success: Scott Berlin,
Andy Boon, Masahiko Goshi, Peter Gray, Tim Greer, Nicholas Gromik, Jeffrey Hubbell, Yuriko Kite, Yuka Onodera, Michiyo Matsuura, Anthony Robins,
Rory Rosszell, Jim Smiley and Peter John Wanner.
- Tim Newfields, Ian Gledall, Megumi Kawate-Mierzejewska, Yvonne Ishida, Mark Chapman, & Peter Ross
2006 Conference Proceedings Co-editors
January 16th, 2007
