Message from the Editor
Dear readers,I have tried to put this letter together several times in as many ways to express mysentiment appropriately. There’s just no other way to do it. Issue 6.3 was supposed
to be out at the end of 2012 or at the very least in early 2013. Here it is, mid-2014.
I apologize deeply to everyone – the authors mostly, and secondly to the CUE
readers – for the enormous delay in getting this to print. The next few issues are
similarly late, but as I write this in June, 2014, they should all be take care ofwithin a month or so.
I can only imagine how people feel about all this. Authors have their schedules
which may cause delays in processing a paper, yes, and we had a few cases of that,but I take full blame for this. Some authors contacted me for reassurance about
their papers being published, because it affected their chances of promotion, anduntil recently all I could do was tell them to write “in press” on the citations. I’msorry to all who suffered.
CUE has had a good reputation for excellence in publishing. Its articles undergohigh quality scrutiny before we agree that it is suitable for readers. Editors ofsome other SIG publications have even looked at OCJ as a sort of “gold standard”
for their own works. I’m terribly embarrassed by this tarnish on our image. One
author wrote, “I understand that all [OCJ staff ] involved are volunteers, though I
would hope for improved professionalism, quality, and punctuality in the future.”
Yes, that’s quite the straightforward fair comment that I (not we) deserve, and I
take that to heart. I pledge not to let anything like this happen again.
CUE members outnumber any other SIG. Most JALT members are college anduniversity educators (the very initials of which make up this SIG’s name), who1

From the Editor

depend on timely and good quality research at their fingertips in order to push
the envelope of language teaching in Japan. OCJ strives to provide them withthat support, and I think we succeed.
At this time I would like to point out that if you look at the inside front cover,
you’ll see the name of a new face that I am very happy to welcome as my assistant
editor, Mr. Gavin Brooks. He also doubles as the journal layout manager (and“triples” as one of the homepage webmasters with Germain Mesureur), but his
additional role will encompass many of my own duties, as you may have seen
described in ads for the position. I look forward not only to having some of theburdens of the job being taken off my shoulders, but also to adding his fresh
outlook on publishing. Whenever we talk about anything, he always seems tohave marvelous ideas to improve upon the process.
It’s time to introduce the long-awaited articles for this issue. Howard Brown
and John Adamson have an excellent feature article “Localizing EAP in Lightof the Rise of English-Medium Instruction at Japanese Universities”. I ran into
Howard at a meeting while their paper was in process, and he corralled me into
providing data on my own university, data which I later saw compiled withothers at a JALT national talk. The growth of English-medium courses in Japanis something to keep an eye on, and these authors have their fingers on the pulse.
Our second feature article is written by Melodie Cook, and even while her paper“Some Expatriate Faculty Members’ Assumptions about University Entranceand Entrance Examinations in Japan” was undergoing editing, I learned about
related publications she was releasing. This topic is a widely discussed one, so get
comfortable as you read this paper and make sure you follow up with her otherones.
Joseph Siegel adds to the issue with a Research Digest contribution entitled“On the Capacity of Action Research in Language Classrooms”. He is a dynamic
speaker as well, and it is no surprise that he has taken on action research as a topic.
We are (or should be) action researchers, if for no other reason than to better
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OnCUE Journal, 6(3), pages 1-4

ourselves as instructors, but more so to make our students better learners. Joe will
explain how that works.
I’m very pleased to see an article in our Opinion and Perspective section. We
don’t get many of these, and it’s a bit of a quandary as to why. We all have
opinions, whether they show up as complaints or ideas for improving the world
around us. Please consider adding your own thoughts about education in Japanby sending us a proposal. Rob Lowe has done that with his paper on “A Questionof Qualifications: Making a Case for TESOL Diplomas”. It seems like everyone I
talk to is either getting a PhD these days or just finishing one up, but what about
these types of qualifications? Read Rob’s article to see his viewpoint, and if you
have a comment or rebuttal, feel free to send it to our section editor. It may get
published in a future issue.
Communicative is a word that we would probably all like to apply to the end
result of our teaching as it relates to students’ abilities. What else are we herefor? Fern Edebohls gives us a review of a book on the topic as it applies to aselect group of students, though. See if you don’t agree with her insights andexperiences about Communicative Activities for EAP by Jenni Guse.
We have four conference reviews to share with you. I don’t consider the latenessof this issue as overly critical when it comes to such reporting. The main
purpose of these reviews is to let newcomers to teaching in Japan know whatsort of gatherings there are and what they are like. Josh Brunotte (a CUE awardrecipient) recaps the 2012 JALT national meeting. On a slightly smaller scale,
we have Jennie Roloff Rothman’s review of the 2012 PanSIG conference. Incomparison to those large events, we move down in size to a one-day CUE-hostedworkshop, as Tanja McCandie tells us what to expect at such an event. Finally,David Campbell takes us outside the country to an international conference
held in Delhi, India, thus complementing the conference review section with afourth type of event we might choose to attend.

3HillOnCUE Journal, 6(3), pages 1-4

In preparing this and the next few issues, if you happen to run into any mistakes,typos, goof-ups, inaccuracies, or anything along those lines, blame me. I’ll takethe heat. My eyes are the last to run over things, and ultimately the journal quality
is mine to bear. Of course, I hope you don’t find too many of these things! Please
sit back and enjoy an issue that I think will captivate you with many wonderful
and insightful topics.
Happy reading.
Glen Hill
OnCUE Journal Editor & CUE Publications Chair4