Foreword
A project to commemorate
the 35th anniversary of the Language Institute of Japan
This project actually began as LIOJ's tribute to the MRA Foundation and Asia Center Odawara on an earlier CD-ROM to honor two anniversaries. The year 2002 marked the 50th anniversary of the MRA Foundation of Japan, the foundation that oversees the Language Institute of Japan (LIOJ). The year was also the 40th anniversary of Asia Center Odawara, the building in which LIOJ is located.
In 2003, the project evolved into a commemorative and archival work to celebrate LIOJ's 35th anniversary and the 35th LIOJ Summer Workshop for Teachers of English. Thus, we added more items and information to the LIOJ content from the earlier disk to reflect the depth and diversity of characters and concerns that have been associated with LIOJ for three and a half decades.
LIOJ has changed considerably since it first began operating in the spring of 1968 as an experimental school that prepared college students to study in the US. It has continued to evolve to meet new needs and adapt to changing conditions. Through the years, however, LIOJ has remained a place that offers an opportunity for tremendous personal and professional growth, and, to some, for life-changing experiences. The aim of this project is to tell the story of LIOJ, and stories of the people behind LIOJ.
We asked LIOJ directors to help us track the institute's evolutionary shifts. They discussed the changes at LIOJ during their tenure, while also describing the backdrop of Japan's changing environment during their term. Through their collective insight, we have attempted to answer the question, "How did LIOJ get from where it was in 1968 to where it is today?" Sincere thanks to Bill Harshbarger, Roger Pehlke, Lance Knowles, John Fleischauer, Bob Ruud, Warrick Liang, Don Maybin, and Ken Fujioka for telling this part of the story.
Japanese colleagues who have managed the LIOJ office over the years also offered to share their take on the LIOJ experiment. The essay section includes recollections from the Japanese office manager's perspective. Thank you to Masami Takahashi, Nobu Seto, Miyuki Ohno, and Kazumi Masuda for their continuing assistance to LIOJ.
We also set out to discover what the LIOJ experience has meant to its teachers over the years. To that end, we invited teachers across the "generations" to describe an aspect of their experience here: a memory of LIOJ, Asia Center, Odawara, or Japan. This section shows that although programs have changed with the times, the essential core of LIOJ has remained: a core that its members and partners respond to and recognize as unique among organizations. From the responses, we have compiled a montage of memories that are arranged chronologically by the year the teacher first arrived at LIOJ. Heartfelt thanks to all the teachers who contributed an essay, from Terttu Harker, Tonee Kimura, Bill Crutchfield, and Robin Powers (1968) through Liz Partridge (2003). Special thanks to Bob Hazen who helped conceptualize the montage and put us in touch with teachers from the early days of LIOJ. We're also grateful to everyone who helped us by checking faculty records for accuracy, and/or putting us in touch with LIOJ people.
This commemoration would be incomplete without input from students, participants, and colleagues involved in various LIOJ programs. We deeply appreciate everyone's contribution on what their association with LIOJ has meant to them and would like to acknowledge those who contributed here: Shoko Iizuka, Kiyoshi Ikeda, Junko Mukainakano, Minoru Nanatsumura, and Toshiko Yoshikawa (Workshop); Alan Maley and Barry Tomalin (35th Workshop presenters); Haruo Furukawa and Nobuyuki Wada (Community); Saburo Hatano, Kazunori Morishita, Atsushi Sato, and Saburo Yamazaki (Business); Megumi Katsumata, and Shinji Kayanuma, (International Understanding); Hideaki Hakata (High School); and Teruhiko Takei (Thailand-Japan Exchange). Thanks to Kazumi for planning this section.
To illustrate some of the activities of the school and its teachers over the years, this disk also includes articles about LIOJ from other publications. We're thankful for the quick and courteous permissions to reproduce these articles here, especially to the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT), The Japan Times, and Zaidan Hojin Matsushita Seikei Juku. Some of our former scholars have written about their experiences at the Workshop and we thank our friends at Thailand TESOL, Korea TESOL, the Malaysian English Language Teaching Association (MELTA), and the Far Eastern English Language Teaching Association (FEELTA) for letting us share them.
LIOJ publications are also included: an entire 37 issue set of Cross Currents (published 1972 to 1992); LIOJ's 30th anniversary book, Perspectives on Secondary School EFL Education (1998); and some excerpts from Workshop handbooks. To make the articles in Cross Currents more accessible, complete volume, subject, and alphabetical indexes have been added. Thanks to Stephen Shrader for creating these indexes, which will be a huge help to journal users.
The CD closes with an images section, which features the best photos from all of LIOJ's photo albums. A word about photos: There were probably more photos on file from the past ten years than from the first twenty-five! We did our best to include good photos from every decade at LIOJ, and we have added a photo from everyone who sent one in. Thanks again to Stephen for helping with the photo search. The images section also features copies of some LIOJ brochures from the files.
In closing, we would like to extend our deepest appreciation to Masahide Shibusawa, Executive Director of MRA Japan, for this opportunity to look back at LIOJ over the years and reflect on what it has meant to people who have experienced it. (In true LIOJ fashion, we are not pausing to reflect, but rather doing so as school life marches on at a frantic pace!) We'd also like to thank Keisuke Nakayama, Managing Director of MRA Japan and Director of Asia Center; Kiyoshi Kehara, Member of the MRA Board of Directors and Assistant Director of Asia Center; and Sen Nishiyama, Member of the MRA Board of Directors, for their contributions to this project.
We hope that by clicking around to the images, essays, and articles on this disk, everyone will have some memories of their association with LIOJ triggered-and that most of them will be good!
Thanks to everyone who participated in this project!
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