A review study of submissions to JALT National Conference by Paul Stapleton

1. Paul Stapleton
USING CONFERENCE SUBMISSION
DATA TO UNCOVER BROAD TRENDS IN
LANGUAGE TEACHING: A CASE STUDY
OF ONE CONFERENCE OVER 30 YEARS
© Fariba Chamani, 2015

2. INTRODUCTION
Submissions to conferences provides rich material for
analyzing characteristics and trends within a
conference’s history and that of similar conferences, as
well as the associated field at large.
The present study reviews submissions to a language
teachers’ conference in Japan (JALT National) over 30
years.

3. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The present study aims at exploring:
1. Strands and themes
2. Methodological and topical trends over time
3. Influential researchers
4. Similarities and differences between JALT and
other similar conferences

4. LITERATURE REVIEW
Review studies in language teaching:
1. Research methodology
2. Other areas

5. TABLE 1 A, STUDIES ON RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Studies Topics Findings
1. Stapleton & Collett (2010)
2. Benson, Chik, Huang & Wang
(2009);
Ellis (2005);
Gao, li & Lu (2001);
Lazarton (2000 & 2005);
Megnan (2005)
A review of trends in
research
methodology
A review of
empirical studies
Increase of
empirical studies
Increase in
qualitative
studies

6. TABLE 1B, OTHER REVIEW STUDIES
Topics Studies
Effectiveness of L2 instruction Norris & Ortega (2000)
Effectiveness of written corrective
Feedback
Ferris (2010)
Effects of L2 instruction on
interlanguage pragmatic development Leon & Kaya (2006)

7. RESEARCH PROBLEM
The existing review studies in related literature have
mostly examined journals and there are very few
reviews of conferences while the data from
conferences can indicate trends in research themes
and methodologies in a given field. Thus, there is a
need for doing review studies on conferences. The
present study is an answer to such a need.

8. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1. How do changes in themes and strands in one conference over the past
30 years reflect trends within the field of language teaching?
2. What recent trends appear in the field based on frequency counts of
keywords in the abstract submissions of one conference?
3. How do major language teaching conferences compare with one
another with regard to the present strands on offer and what significance
lies therein?
4. What researchers are most frequently cited, and what does this reveal
about the conference?
5. How can the mining of conference data shed light on the language
teaching profession?

9. METHOD
1. Classifying strands according to themes based on
presentation titles and associated strands from JALT from 1978
to 2010
2. Counting the frequency of keywords in the digital archive of
abstracts from 2003 to 2010 (through using a concordencer)
3. Counting the frequency of most cited researchers in the
abstracts from 2003 to 2010
4. Comparing this conference with other major conferences
with regard to themes and strands

10. RESULTS
1. Themes and strands
2. Keywords
3. Comparison with other major
conferences
4. Researchers

12. CONTINUE

13. SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES IN STRANDS
• “language Skills and Classroom Content” remains with most of its
strands but “Grammar” disappears and Vocabulary has been added.
• Strands of “Classroom Pedagogy” declined in importance and replaced
by “Language and Technology”.
• Two Strands of “Academic/Research” (Applied Linguistics &
Curriculum) disappeared, while 8 more have been added: Bilingualism,
Corpus, Gender Awareness, Global Issues, Learner Development,
Motivation, Pragmatics and Professional Development.
• For “level of Learner”, Teaching Children only remains as Elementary
and Pre-school.
• For “Administration”, two strands conflated to one.

14. SUMMARY OF THEMES & STRANDS
• Two themes of Classroom Pedagogy & Language Skills dominated the content of
presentations (two third) in the early years of conference. However, in 2010
conference, although Speaking and Communication was the most ascribed
strand, the second most popular strand was Teacher Education.
• Likewise, Learner Development and Motivation were the third and sixth most
prevalent strands in 2010; however, these cognitive-oriented strands did not
exist 30 years ago.
• Other notable changes include the advance of writing from the least to the most
popular of the four core skills.
• Testing and Vocabulary received little attention 30 years ago, but in 2010 these
two strands ranked seventh and eighth respectively.

15. FIGURE 1, SUBMISSION BY STRAND, 1970-80

16. FIGURE 2, SUBMISSION BY STRAND, 2010

17. TABLE 2, KEYWORDS
Keyword 2003 2010 Percentage increase
Data
Reliability
Research
Quantitative
Pilot
Qualitative
questionnaire
78
6
182
5
0
13
30
174
25
408
21
19
60
68
198
370
199
373
-
410
202

18. COMPARISON WITH OTHER CONFERENCES
• JALT is compared with four other major conferences: AAAL, AILA,
IATEEL & TESOL.
• The strands were categorized based on AILA classification of themes.
• In most cases, the strands in other 3 conferences mapped either
identically or closely onto AILA’s.
• Table 3 shows considerable convergence among the four conferences,
with many strands either overlapping in name or in kind.

21. 4. RESEARCHERS
• Figure 3 shows the frequency counts of most cited
researchers in presentation abstracts over an eight-year
period starting in 2003.
• Table 4 reveals the specialty of each researcher who was
cited at least once in each of the 8 years.

22. FIGURE 3, NUMBER OF AUTHOR CITATION OVER TIME

23. TABLE 4, SPECIALTIES OF MOST CITED RESEARCHERS
Researchers Specialty area
Nation, P.
Vygotsky, L.
Dornyei, Z.
Ellis, R.
Krashen, S.
Swain, M
Richards, J.
Gardner, R.C.
Day, R.
Laufer, B.
Nunan, D.
Skehan, P.
Vocabulary acquisiton
Sociocultural theory
Motivation
SLA (second language acquisition)
SLA
Sociocultural issues
SLA
Motivation
Extensive reading
Vocabulary acquisition
Learner-centered curriculum
Task-based methods

24. DISCUSSION: THEMES & STRANDS
• The changes in themes and strands over time can show the
patterns and suggest reasons behind some of the trends.
• Language Skills and Classroom Content was the theme with the
most strands both at the early and most recent JALT
conferences. However, changes in the strands within this theme
reflect movements and beliefs within the field.
• Example 1: Appearance of vocabulary coupling with the
disappearing of Grammar shows a shift in traditional beliefs in
language teaching.
• Example 2: Disappearance of strands associated with Classroom
Pedagogy shows the growing eclecticism among teachers in post-
method era because they are aware one size does not fit all.

25. DISCUSSION: KEYWORDS
• Keyword frequency can show if presentations were
moving in any particular direction.
• Frequency counts shows a trend towards more formally
investigation of teaching practices over the 8 years. This is
in line with the results of other studies that reveals a focus
on research studies (Magnan, 2005).
• Example: Increased Frequency of the word “Qualitative”.

26. DISCUSSION: COMPARISON WITH OTHER CONFERENCES
• Comparisons between the conferences show striking
similarities, e.g. going beyond Language Pedagogy and paying
more attention to the themes like Language in Society .
• On the other hand, each conference has its own unique strands,
e.g. Study Abroad in JALT and Dogma in IATEFL.

27. DISCUSSION: RESEARCHERS
• The dozen most-cited researchers represent a healthy cross-section of themes
and sub-areas within language teaching.
• One of the sub-themes that ranked highly was vocabulary acquisition
represented in the top dozen by Paul Nation and Batia Laufer. Clearly,
vocabulary acquisition has struck a chord among JALT presenters.
• It is interesting to note that some of the top-dozen-cited researchers have made
frequent visits to the JALT National conference as plenary and keynote
speakers.

28. CONCLUSION
• This articles has focused on trends and characteristics of a given
conference. Through the review and synthesis of large amounts of data,
the nature of one conference has been summarized and made more
meaningful.
• This process shows that what is buried in conference archives has the
potential, when synthesized, to bring perspective not only to trends
within an individual conference, but also to broad directions within a
field.
• Such studies can help organizers better understand where their
conference stands in comparison to other similar ones so they can
better position their offerings, such as themes and strands, in
accordance with their own aims as well as the perceived needs of
potential presenters.

29. THANK YOU