Spring Elections 2020 - Voting Open

Voting is open! The voting period for open JETAASE officer positions runs through March 12, 2020. To submit your vote, please use the voting ballot available via the link in the email you should have recieved.

Election results will be posted in an upcoming newsletter newsletter.

Platforms received:

President:

Ingrid Galinat

Hello Everyone,

Thank you for considering me as your next JETAA SE President. 

Why am I running as your next JETAA SE President? 

It has been 19 year since I left the JET program, yet my passion for the JET Program and for collaborating with other JET Alumni has not wavered. 

I envision a JETAA SE Alumni program that is inclusive to all the states that incorporate the JETAA SE, and to bring positive new changes to our organization. 

My volunteer experience has been extensive in national volunteers committees with members that incorporate the entire United States and Abroad to chairing a volunteer organization locally. 

My passion for the JET Alumni association, with my volunteer experience would be an asset to the organization. 

Bio

Ingrid Galinat has worked in the field of international education for 19 years. Ingrid gives credit to the JET Program for her career trajectory, working with international students and American students that want to study abroad. She was on the JET program in Toyama Prefecture from 2000-2001. In 2019 she co-founded the JET Alabama Sub-chapter, and she co-wrote a proposal and was awarded a grant through the Sasakawa Japanese Peace Foundation USA and USJETAA to present to college students on job opportunities working with Japanese companies in Alabama. Furthermore the grant collaborated with Japan - American Society of Alabama and the Japanese Consulate of Atlanta.  Ingrid lives in Tuscaloosa, Alabama with her husband and three children. 

Secretary:

Sabrina Cramer

Hi! My name is Sabrina and I'd love to be your new secretary! I spent an amazing year in Gunma Prefecture where I worked at an all-girls high school. As a chemist by trade, after returning from Japan, I worked at a biotech startup in Boston. I became active in the NEJETAA community first by attending JETAA events before moving to representing NEJETAA at various events such as the annual JET Q&A at the Boston Children's Museum and JET Pre-Departure Orientation.

Since moving down to North Carolina to pursue my PhD in chemistry in 2018 (go Tar Heels!), I have continued to take an active role in JETAA as a North Carolina Triangle area chapter lead and Social Media Coordinator. I established our Instagram presence, updated our website, led recruitment events, and attended NatCon (the national convention for JETAA) in Chicago where I was able to get a deeper glimpse into how JETAA functions.

I believe I am a great candidate for secretary due to my excellent eye for detail and organization. If elected as secretary, I want to help build a stable membership for this chapter through better planning, structure and organization. I hope to strengthen ties across the entirety of our chapter in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina by finding realistic ways to engage our community. I look forward to working with our chapter to make it the best it can be! 

Education Chair:

Julia Lattarulo

Bio: 

Julia Lattarulo is a seasoned public speaker who enjoys organizing events and networking between communities. She currently volunteers and helps run the social media platform for the Japan American Society of North Carolina. She was on the JET Program from 2018-2019 in Bunkyo-ku Tokyo where she was an active officer of the TJET Event Committee and ran many successful events, such as her Trivia Nights in Shibuya and the 2019 Masquerade Event in Shinjuku. Since being back in the US, Julia has remained an active part of the Japanese community in North Carolina, received her North Carolina Real Estate License, and has become a manager for one of the local swim teams where she develops informational documents for interested parties and instructional lessons for her coaches. 
Julia hopes to bring a streamlined, fun, and informational presentation to any and all JET Program hopefuls. She understands that the E in JET stands for Exchange and has continued to promote greater understanding of cultural events, public affairs, and educational programs between the two countries.

Q&A Session: 
Julia's main goal is to have a well-rounded informational session in any environment, which addresses the educational program, the unique JET experience, and the difficulties of navigating a new culture and a different way of life. The Q&A session serves a purpose to create an exchange of views and information. To do so, Julia envisions a presentation that is open and interactive, where the audience feels engaged in the information at hand. She also thinks that reaching out and asking future JETs to submit questions they may have prior to the informational sessions may be beneficial to see what concerns them the most about traveling to another country. These questions will then be reviewed, made into an FAQ sheet, and discussed at the informational session.
Julia believes that staying positive, active, and approachable are key qualities to any successful program. These are characteristics she feels she embodies and that would contribute to a successful Educational Chair Officer. 

Daily Yomiuri: Japanese government announces increase for JET Programme

According to a Daily Yomiuri article, the Japanese government plans to increase JET Programme participants by 2,300 between 2015 and 2019 with an eye towards eventually increasing the program to 20,000. This seems to be in line with LDP policies announced back in April.

Read an English version of the article over at Jetwit.com!

Plans announced to place ALT's in all primary schools in Japan!

ALTs To Be Placed in All Primary Schools

(Via The Yomiuri Shimbun, JETWit.com)
The government has decided to increase the number of Assistant Language Teachers considerably over a five-year period, starting from the next school year, to strengthen English education at primary schools.

Aiming to create a system in which ALTs will be assigned to all public primary schools by the 2019 school year, the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry, the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry and the Foreign Ministry plan to increase the number of ALTs by about 2,300 over five years as a national project. Combined with ALTs who are hired independently by municipalities, the ministries intend to expand the total number of ALTs to 20,000, or 1.5 times the current level, by the 2019 school year.

The education ministry has decided to lower the starting age for English education from the current fifth year of primary school to the third year by the 2020 school year, and make it an official subject from the fifth year.

Experts have said it is important to secure a sufficient number of native English speakers, and utilize them to enhance the learning environments for students.

About 800 ALTs first came to Japan in 1987 when the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program was launched as a state international exchange project. As of 2002, the number of ALTs had increased to about 5,600, but it began to decrease after that due to financial problems. The current number is about 4,100.

Besides ALTs on the JET Program, about 8,000 ALTs hired independently by municipalities and other organizations have been dispatched to local primary and middle schools across the nation. In some cases, an ALT teaches at several schools.

According to experts, considerable disparity exists among the nation’s 21,000 public primary schools. While some schools have resident ALTs, some schools are visited by an ALT once about every six months.

The government therefore plans to increase the number of ALTs in the JET Program in stages. From the 2020 school year onward, English lessons will increase from the current once a week to three times a week for fifth-grade and sixth-grade students. Third-grade and fourth-grade students will have English lessons once or twice a week, and the education ministry plans to have ALTs frequently instruct students in English classes.

The budget for English education utilizing ALTs is expected to increase from about ¥30 billion this school year to about ¥50 billion a year eventually. The government also plans to launch a subsidy system for supporting municipalities that independently hire ALTs.

ALT

An ALT assists Japanese teachers in teaching foreign languages such as English at primary, middle and high schools. In addition to ALTs who come to Japan on the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program, a state international exchange project, others are directly hired by municipalities or private organizations contracted to dispatch ALTs.

From the 2011 school year, foreign language studies became compulsory for fifth-grade and sixth-grade primary school students. The role of ALTs has expanded to include assisting with pronunciation and listening comprehension.