I participated in the Japan Association for Language Education and Technology (LET) National Conference for the first time in two years. That said, I did not participate as a presenter, but as a panelist in the plenary symposium. The venue was Yokohama Science Frontier High School, a municipal high school that provides elite education in science and mathematics. It was quite impressive to learn that their advisors include Nobel laureates like Dr. Koshiba.
In the plenary symposium, “New Forms of Coexistence between Media and Foreign Language Education as Discussed by Young Researchers,” the moderator was Prof. Osamu Takeuchi of Kansai University (LET President), and the panelists were Prof. Goto of Setsunan University, Prof. Araki of Miyazaki Prefectural Nursing University, Prof. Sumi of Kobe University of Commerce, and myself. First, each of us gave a Report on our own research, followed by a discussion among the panelists on how we could collaborate, and finally, we talked about our expectations for LET.
The four panelists were meeting for the first time, and since we were all working on different things, I found the discussion very interesting. Prof. Goto is conducting research on language learning support environments from the perspective of natural language processing and corpora, while Prof. Araki has been conducting practical research on international exchange classes with overseas institutions using electronic bulletin boards from the perspective of nursing education. Prof. Sumi is researching how teaching materials used in CALL are utilized, how their use becomes routine, and how they become transparent tools for learners, using Prof. Bax’s concept of “Normalization” as a keyword. It is profound research. Very interesting. As I have consistently researched social presence, CMC (now called social media, I suppose), and evaluation in my master’s and doctoral studies, I introduced those achievements and the content of my paper accepted by Computers & Education.
Whether we can collaborate is something to think about, given our different backgrounds and positions. It was fun. I was given the role of thinking about how I could collaborate with Prof. Sumi, and since Prof. Sumi has been conducting research on how to examine the improvement of teaching materials using network analysis, I thought that if we could measure the degree of influence of content related to social presence within the statements as a complement to that network analysis, we might be able to understand how teaching materials are perceived and spread as a single learning community.
Regarding expectations for LET, I proposed workshops for promoting joint research and workshops for researcher development. Well, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a workshop. Regarding joint research, I thought it would be good to have a place where people from companies could also participate. I hope to create a place where both corporate personnel and faculty members can talk about what they think, what they consider, and what they find curious on an equal footing, and where research can progress by understanding each other’s positions. I hope that what we did at BEAT will spread. When I joined BEAT, there were Mr. Waki, Mr. Nakano, and Mr. Akiyama from Benesse, and we were on friendly terms, calling each other by name and exchanging ideas. I think that was great. Research management is also important, isn’t it?
For researcher development, I thought it was necessary to learn the basics of research. There are parts of it that I would like to relearn myself. I think we must always keep thinking about it. I believe there are many important things such as selecting research themes, formulating hypotheses, experimental design methods, statistical analysis methods, and how to write papers. If it is educational research, it might be good to have talks on practical research as well. However, this is something that should originally be learned in a laboratory. But the fact that we have to go this far is likely due to the collapse of the apprenticeship system and the increase in the number of graduate students who are working adults (especially those in academic positions) with no time. Even if we say the apprenticeship system has collapsed, there may be advice exchanged between seniors and juniors. However, I thought that there might not even be opportunities for that. This is scary. Perhaps it is time for the academic society to think about human resource development for researchers.
However, I strongly felt a sense of rejuvenation at LET. Prof. Takeuchi was also a very interesting person. I had heard he was the president, so I thought he was quite old, but that is not the case at all. I thought he was a very young professor. The passion for research I felt was wonderful. After all, this is how an academic society should be.
I have attached my presentation materials from the LET symposium. Please use them if they seem useful. Some parts have been revised.

LET_sympo_yamada