JIAH: PD Organization

Following the Program Development course I was encouraged to speak to other Japanese teachers in my region about starting a professional development group. In our area of the country there is no professional organization for our specialty. The AATJ map shows a void. I am the unofficial secretary of the group because I thought to create a website and Facebook group page. I think it is important to document our activities and is something I learned from the Program Development course as well.

We chose to call ourselves JIAH Japanese Instructors Association of the Heartland. The name is a pun though that means "Well then" and is said at the start or finish of an activity, thus we start and end our quarterly meetings the same way. Currently we have 25 members on our list with roughly 10 who attend each meeting. We have adopted the hybrid method so those from far away can still participate through zoom.

We are currently working with a lawyer to become a non-profit organization in order to be associated with AATJ officially. As of the July 2021 meeting we have invited keynote speakers to guide us in the formation of our group. We want to start a high school summer program as well, so our next speaker will be MAFLT graduate Yoshiko Himata Paris.