AATJ Activities Update
AATJ Activities Update
CAS is home to the national headquarters of the American Association of Teachers of Japanese (AATJ), a professional organization for Japanese language educators. From its office within CAS, AATJ organizes activities for more than 1,500 member teachers and scholars of Japanese language, literature, and linguistics. Those activities include:
- Organizing two annual conferences;
- Publishing the internationally-recognized journal Japanese Language and Literature;
- Administering the Japanese Language Proficiency Test annually to more than 6,000 language learners at 17 test sites around the United States (including one hosted by CAS on the CU-Boulder campus);
- Sponsoring the Japanese national Honor Society for high school and college students;
- Offering professional development opportunities to teachers in the form of online courses and webinars;
- Administering an online National Japanese Exam to more than 2,000 beginning and intermediate students nationwide each year;
- Sponsoring a national New Year鈥檚 card (nengajo) contest for the students of AATJ members; and
- Advocating for the importance of foreign language education at the national and state level.
In January 2018, almost 900 student-created New Year鈥檚 cards were submitted for the Year of the Dog Nengajo contest. Some of the winning cards are published below.
(Winning Year of the Dog Nengajo - University Level, by Azize Altay Harvey of the University of Pittsburgh)
(Sora Walker, Washington Japanese Heritage Center, Maryland)
Susan Schmidt
Executive Director, Association of Teachers of Japanese