Policies
The ETJ-Coordinators group may occasionally decide on policies within its area of authority as defined in the ‘Management’ section of this website. Policies are established when issues arise that have a fundamental effect on ETJ as a whole. In order to be a part of ETJ, a group/project needs to follow these policies.
1. Promoting and financing regional groups
1.1 – Regional groups are encouraged to promote meetings in as many of the following ways as possible.
• Setting up a registration form, such as a Google form, and sending a welcoming email before a meeting to those who register to attend.
• Sending details of the meeting by email to LTP a few weeks before a meeting.
• Posting to eltcalendar.com so that the post appears on the ETJ website and other websites.
• Creating a public Facebook events page (not connected to a Facebook group) for the meeting and encouraging committee members and others to invite their facebook friends through the events page.
• Posting to the regional group’s Facebook group and other relevant places on social media.
1.2 – Each group meeting can be supported by by a 10,000 yen advertisement on the LTP Facebook page. Groups with accumulated funds will pay for this from these funds. For other groups, this will be paid for from the central fund.
1.3 – Regional group workshops should do everything possible to break even, but it is understood that this is not always possible. A loss at a workshop will be covered first by money the group has accumulated from previous Expos if they have any and then from the central fund. Financial support will be given provided that the following conditions have been met:
• No honorariums or traveling expenses are paid to speakers or organizers.
• There are no excessive expenses apart from basic things like the venue cost.
• All ETJ members pay 500 yen to attend and non-members 1,000 yen to attend.
• The group agrees to listen to the advice of the financial advisory group for future meetings.
1.4 – If a regional ETJ group has a Facebook group, this will be promoted on the LTP Facebook page twice a year (currently 10,000 yen each time) in order to bring in new members to the group, provided that the following conditions are met:
• The group is kept active by the local committee.
• Membership is restricted to people living within reach of the community that the regional group supports.
• The group is being moderated so that it is not being used for commercial purposes.
2. Inactive regional groups
2.1 – If an ETJ regional group does not have a publicly-announced meeting for a year, the coordinator and committee will be considered to have stepped down.
2.2 – When a new group has stepped down Language Teaching Professionals, as the central office for ETJ, is authorized to try and set up a new group.
3. Relationships with publishers and commercial interests
3.1 – The aim is for regional ETJ groups to be educationally pure and focus on the sharing of teaching ideas and on building a local community of teachers. There should be no presentations on commercial materials or services, though some presenters with commercial connections can present on non-commercial topics.
3.2 – Presenters cannot have a strong commercial connection. However, other coordinators, such as Expo coordinators may have a strong commercial connection.
3.3 – Teachers who sell self-developed materials through the Book Service as members of the ‘ETJ Members Group’ are not considered to have a commercial connection, and so can present at regional group meetings, but not on their materials.
3.4 – Teachers who have published materials or who run services for teachers that other ETJ members do not consider to be competitors are not considered to have a strong commercial connection, and so can present at regional group meetings, but not on their materials or services.
3.5 – With the exception of those specified in 3.3 and 3.4, owners, employees, authors, or teachers who give presentations on any scale for publishers or companies that sell services to ETJ members are considered to have a strong commercial connection. If a regional group coordinator is not sure whether a presenter would be considered to have a strong commercial connection or not, it would best to consult with the national office or with other group coordinators through the Messenger group.
3.6 – Publishers and other businesses that wish to advertise to members of ETJ should be encouraged to attend the Expos.
3.7 – If a regional group or another ETJ project would like to organise a special event which publishers can attend, this should be done with the agreement of the national office and the ETJ coordinators group.
4. Policy on presentations at the Expos
4.1 – There are three kinds of presentations at the Expos, ‘Sponsored’, ‘Local’ and ‘Guest’
6.2 – Sponsored presentations are by publishers and other companies that have displays at the Expos. Companies wishing to have a sponsored presentation should apply by e-mail to David@ltprofessionals.com. These presentations are decided on by Language Teaching Professionals as stated in the ‘Management’ section of this website following guidelines established through discussions with potential sponsors and the ETJ Coordinators.
4.3 – Local presentations are decided on by each Expo organising committee. These are for local teachers. A teacher should present at the Expo nearest where they live/work . The aim is to gradually deepen each Expo’s role in the local community and build up grass-roots support and involvement. Local presenters should have no connection with a commercial organisation, particularly with a publisher. The main reason for this is to ensure that all sponsors are treated fairly. After exhausting all avenues for finding local presenters, EXPO organisers can invite presenters from other regions to fill vacant local presentation slots. Applications to make local presentations should be made by e-mail to the regional ETJ group organising the Expo.
4.4 – Guest presentations are by presenters that local teachers usually have no chance to see. A guest presenter is normally decided on by the Expo organising committee and is funded by the regional group(s). ‘Guest’ presenters, in contrast to local presenters, are normally from another area of Japan. There should be a maximum number of two guest speakers at an Expo so that the number of presentation slots available for local presentations is not affected too much. It is possible under some circumstances for regional Expo committees to invite a guest speaker who has a connection with a publisher. If a proposed guest speaker does have a connection with a publisher, the regional Expo coordinators should get the approval of the members of the ETJ-Coordinators group before inviting the speaker. The coordinators will consider whether the invitation will be considered fair by other sponsors, and may check with sponsors.
5. Bookselling at the Expos
5.1 – With two exceptions, The Language Teaching Professionals book service will be the only bookseller at the Expos, and book sales at the Expos will go through the Language Teaching Professionals book service.
5.2 – One exception will be small local dedicated booksellers, who will be able to have displays and sell. Another is independent publishers who don’t have distributors and do things completely by themselves, who will also be able to sell from displays. Other major booksellers who are direct competitors of the Language Teaching Professionals book service will not be able to take part.
5.3 – It is understood that this policy may need to be relaxed if an Expo is run jointly with another organization.
5.3 – The Language Teaching Professionals book service will continue to be the only bookseller at ETJ events such as the Expos provided that the book service only gives discounts to ETJ members and continues to make it possible for ETJ members to sell materials through the site without paying any commission.
6. Expo coordinators
6.1 – The Expos are run by an Expo coordinators group consisting of a national Expo coordinator, currently David Paul, a deputy national Expo coordinator, currently Ryan Hagglund, and coordinators for each Expo.
6.2 – Each Expo can have up to three coordinators who become members of the ETJ Coordinators group if they are not already members. These coordinator are chosen by the national Expo coordinator in consultation with the other local Expo coordinators.
6.3 – The Expo coordinators group can decide on policies relating to the Expos provided that these policies don’t contradict ones decided on by the coordinators as a whole and are not in areas that are the responsibility of Language Teaching Professionals.
6.4 – Oxford University Press is the ‘Expo Patron’ and have preferential treatment at the Expos. This is because the Expos wouldn’t have been possible without the extensive financial and marketing support of Oxford University Press in the early years.
7. ETJ Job Service
7.1 – Independent school owners who are ETJ members will be able to post jobs to the ‘ETJ Job Service’ Facebook group. Peter Lackner of ‘Jobs in Japan’ will run this group and will be a coordinator of ETJ provided that this group is kept active.
7.2 – If the ‘ETJ Job Service’ Facebook group is kept active, the ‘ETJ Job Service’ run by ‘Jobs in Japan’ will be the only display at the Expos related to employment, and staff will give advice to employers and job seekers through presentations and at the display.
8. Who can vote on ETJ policies
8.1 – The following are members of the ETJ coordinators group can vote on ETJ policies and guidelines:
• Up to two representatives of each active ETJ regional group.
• Up to two national advisors of ETJ regional groups.
• Up to three representatives of each Expo.
• The national Expo coordinator and deputy national Expo coordinator.
• Up to two representatives of Language Teaching Professionals (ETJ national office) and Oxford University Press (Expo patron).
• The ETJ website coordinator.
• The representative of the ETJ Job Service.
• The coordinators of the ETJ Second-Hand Shop Facebook groups
• FETJ has a group of 10 voting ETJ Coordinators who are appointed by the FETJ National Executive. \
• Nobody can have more than one vote.
9. Financial policies
9.1 – All Expo door money from February 2019 should go to a central fund. This money should then be used to support groups through a simple system according to their activity and need. More active groups will get more support and less active groups will get less support.
9.2 – This central fund would be administered by LTP as the central office of ETJ following policies established by the ETJ coordinators. LTP would make an annual financial report on this fund to the coordinators.
9.3 – A financial advisory group will be established to handle applications for financial support by regional groups. These applications will be assessed based on policies decided on by the coordinators as a whole. The following will be eligible to be members of the advisory group if they wish to be:
• Coordinators of groups that have had at least three local meetings over the last year
• The main coordinator of each Expo unless he/she is already a member of the group
• One administrator of LTP
9.4 – Some regional groups have accumulated money from past Expos. Groups that have had 3 meetings over the previous year can keep all of their accumulated money. Other groups can keep up to 100,000 yen provided that they have at least three meetings between April 2019 and March 2020. Any money in excess of 100,000 should be paid to the central fund in April 2019 or used for specific purposes decided on by the financial advisory committee.
9.5 – The financial advisory group may occasionally approve miscellaneous ETJ expenses.
10. National Administration
10.1 – Language Teaching Professionals, run by David Paul, is the national office for ETJ.
10.2 – Ryan Hagglund will act as a deputy for David Paul. The aim being for Ryan Hagglund’s ‘MY Education’ to become the national office for ETJ at some point in future when David Paul steps down.
