Grants News:

I. ER SIG 2013 Presenter Grants

The ER SIG is proud to announce the 2013 ER SIG Presenter Grant. This grant is intended to help encourage the presentation of research related to Extensive Reading or Extensive Listening through offsetting costs of attending and presenting at conferences. The ER SIG aims to present grants of up to 20,000 yen to a number of qualified recipients.

To be eligible a recipient must:

• Be attending a national or international conference related to language teaching.
• Be presenting a vetted presentation about ER or EL at this conference.
• Not be receiving funds from home institution to offset costs of attendance.
• Submit an application, including the title and abstract of the accepted presentation, via this link no later than 28 days prior to the conference.
• Send an email to er@jalt.org to confirm your application no later than 28 days prior to the conference.

If you are thinking about applying for an ER Presenter Grant, please keep in mind that the pool of funds is limited and there are numerous conferences throughout the year. Therefore, it is best to apply as soon as possible, even if your proposal has not yet been accepted, than to wait for the deadline for a particular conference, by which point funds may have already been allocated.

For the sake of transparency, below are the additional criteria for evaluation and process which we are using:

I. Criteria:
A. Grant monies still being available.
B. Meeting basic criteria of the announcement.
C. Promotion of Extensive Reading and/or Extensive Listening.
 1. How well do the contents of the proposed presentation appear able to promote ER and/or EL?
 2. How significant an audience is it likely to reach?
 3. How likely is it to present new or useful ideas to this audience?

II. Process:
A. The SIG Coordinator receives applications. The SIG Coordinator evaluates the basic criteria and available funds. If the budget is insufficient for a proposal or proposals meeting the basic criteria, the SIG Coordinator also announces this to other officers. If an application is received but does not pass, the SIG Coordinator announces this to other officers, who may request to see details (oversight). Applications which meet both the A and B criteria are passed on, blinded, for further evaluation.

B. Three officers evaluate each proposal based on C critera, ranking each area 0 to 10. (Officers who know the identity of the applicant through any method will be recused from evaluation.) A proposal which scores a minimum total of 60% (54/90) is eligible for a grant. In the case of multiple proposals for one conference, in principle the proposal with the highest score would be awarded the grant. However, if different sets of officers evaluate different proposals, comparisons of proposals made and discussions may be undertaken by officers to determine which to award or whether to award multiple grants.

C. An officers meeting will be held to confirm any grant award. Approval from a simple majority of officers will be sufficient to award a grant. Once a determination is made regarding awarding a grant or not, the SIG Coordinator will announce the result to the applicant. Granted awards will also be announced on the ER SIG website. If funds are no longer available for any grants, this also will be posted on the ER SIG website.

Grant recipients will be expected to provide a signed receipt for the funds received, which in principle will be presented at the conference by an ER SIG officer in attendance.

II. ER Outreach Grant

As part of its outreach program, the ER SIG offers grants for two library seed endowments, one of up to 50,000 yen for within Japan, and one of up to 30,000 yen for overseas. To be eligible a recipient must demonstrate a need for or benefit of acquiring specific ER materials for their teaching context, a reasonable likelihood of these materials providing ongoing support to reading education and potentially being a seed for a wider establishment of a program, and not currently have access to a budget adequate to purchase the required materials. It is intended that each year at least one recipient for each endowment (the overseas and the domestic) will be selected, provided that SIG funds are adequate and that qualified applications are received.

To be eligible an institution must:
a. Have a project to start an ER program or currently be in the process of starting an ER program
b. Not have access to a department, university or library budget adequate to purchase the required materials
c. Demonstrate a need for the acquisition ER materials (or additional ER materials) in the teaching context
d. Submit an application, including indicating any affiliation and position at the institution(s) where the materials are to be used, and a 1,000 word description of the ER program(s)
e. Have a member designated to write a follow-up report for publication, in English or Japanese, on the implementation of the program within 1 year of receiving the materials.

If you would like to apply or nominate a program, please do so here: Outreach Grant Application