Message from Co-Chairpersons of PAAL

The Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics (PAAL) would like to invite you to become a member of our association. The association was established in 1996 and first began as a joint collaboration between Waseda University in Japan and Korea University in Korea.

Japan and Korea are neither broadly separated by geography nor by English education. They share at least one important characteristic: both learn English as a foreign language. English is neither officially used in government nor in educational institutions as a medium of instruction. Moreover, they are both relatively resource-poor nations heavily dependent on international mutual understanding for their well-beings.

The study of language competence is a part of the study of language performance. And as far as English performance is concerned, both Japan and Korea are in the same boat. With this in mind, PAAL (formerly Japan/Korea Association of Applied Linguistics) was organized in July 1996 in order to broaden the scope of related areas of our major concern.

A group of scholars from Japan and Korea gathered together in 1996 to share the benefits of know-how and the results of their researches in the fields of English education and applied linguistics for the future development of their respective research and practice. By exchanging ideas, experiences, and information on resources the quality of English teaching and learning will be enhanced, which will eventually help the public better understand English education.

Since its inception, the association has grown tremendously and now encompasses several other countries. Hence, the original name of the association was changed from the Japan-Korea Association of Applied Linguistics to PAAL.

Currently, the association is comprised of over 300 members and is rapidly expanding. Moreover, the association is deeply involved in CCDL (Cross-Cultural Distince Learning) project.

The association holds an annual conference which takes place in July or August in various host countries. Subsequently, the association publishes a conference proceedings as well as a referred journal in relation to the conference. In addition to this journal volume, the association plans to publish a referred volume of papers according to various themes in applied linguistics. In short, the association will be publishing two volumes per year. Furthermore, the journal is now indexed in Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA) and ERIC. The association is in progress of becoming indexed in other databases as well.

We sincerely hope that you will consider and accept this invitation to become a member of PAAL. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Thank you.
Sincerely yours,

Kyung-Ja PARK Ph.D and Michiko NAKANO, Ph.D
Co-Chairpersons of PAAL