Coordinator

Adam Murray 

Role
As the title implies, the SIG Coordinator is responsible for coordinating all the activities of the SIG. The SIG Coordinator is the main contact person for the SIG and acts as a liaison between the JALT Central Office (JCO), the other officers, and the members. The SIG Coordinator also represents the members and officers of the SIG at the Executive Board Meeting (EBM) and is responsible for preparing, organizing, and chairing the Annual General Meeting (AGM) held each year at the conference.

Adam Murray
Adam Murray is a professor at the University of the Ryukyus. He co-authored Health Matters (2009) published by Pearson Longman Kirihara and is now working on the rating of listening materials.

Treasurer

Marcus Grandon  

Role
The Treasurer keeps all financial records and collect and disburse all funds of the Materials Writers SIG. He presents an account of the financial status of the organization at the Materials Writers SIG Annual Meeting and submits regular financial reports to the National SIG Treasurer Liaison. The Treasurer prepares the financial documents for an internal audit to take place after the books have been closed at the end of each calendar year.

Marcus Grandon
I began teaching in Shizuoka Prefecture in 1990, where I still reside and make my living by teaching at local universities. I also work as a producer of multimedia content, and write grassroots materials for the Japanese context.  I have a B.Sc. in Business administration, an M.A. in Humanities, and a post-grad certificate in Online Instruction. Currently, my research focuses on the student use of video-based materials in university classrooms.

Program Chair

Lindsay Wells 

Role
The main task of the Program Chair is to organise the SIG forum at the autumn JALT National Conference. However recently, the number of joint events with JALT chapters is seeing a pleasant rise and the MW-SIG also is involved with the annual Pan-SIG Conference. Beyond these events, the role of the Program Chair may also include promoting a featured speaker at the JALT National Conference.

Lindsay Wells

Lindsay teaches at Mejiro University in Tokyo. She is the co-author of MUST-HAVE English Skills for Global Communication (2018) and Listening Steps (2017), both published by Kinseido, and was the on-air partner for the NHK radio program Business Communication in Simple English in 2016. Recently, she has been focusing on writing, updating, and augmenting materials for both her department’s Core Communication class and her own classroom use.

Publication Chair

Matthew Keighley

Role
The Publication Chair oversees the production of our publication, Between the Keys, which is published three times a year.

Matthew Keighley

Matt is the Representative partner of Square One LLC as well as a teacher at J.F. Oberlin University and Tama University’s School of Global Studies. He is the author of the award-winning blog Marshmallow Sensei, and the mini-ebook Marshmallow-Go. He also spends an inordinate amount of time listening to podcasts on early morning trains. 

Membership Chair

Forrest Nelson

Role
The Membership Chair keeps our membership lists up to date, and keeps the members informed of the happenings of the SIG.

Forrest Nelson
I was born in Pascagoula, Mississippi, USA in 1965. My father was a football coach and my mother was a math teacher. We moved to Laurel, Mississippi when I was 3 which is where I lived until I moved away from home. In 1986-1990, I traveled as a professional musician until I returned to college in 1990. In 1992, I graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi with a BA in Cultural Anthropology. In 1993, my first daughter was born. A year later, I was back in school getting my masters in teaching English as a second language. In 1995 I graduated and moved back to Japan. A year later, my son, Forrest Jr was born. These days, I spend my free time working on my computer, or composing or performing music.

Member-at-Large

Jeanette Dennisson  

Jeanette Dennisson is an associate professor at Tokyo Medical and Dental University. She is currently involved in developing new curricula and materials for Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) courses in undergraduate basic health science program.

Travis Holtzclaw

Travis works at Meiho Jr. & Sr. High School in Tokyo where he teaches conversation and the 21st century course of the Global Studies Program, which includes training critical thinking skills through a problem-based learning approach. His main goal is to "professionalize" the English conversation teaching field through conversation analysis-based materials and activities. He has been developing and implementing a program which trains students to co-construct open-ended conversations in real time, and firmly believes that Japanese students can master daily conversation by the end of junior high.

Diane Nagatomo

Diane Hawley Nagatomo has been living and teaching in Japan since 1979. She is an associate professor at Ochanomizu University and has a PhD in linguistics from Macquarie University. Her research interests include teacher and learner beliefs, teachers’ professional identity, and EFL materials development. Her two academic books, Exploring Japanese University English Teacher’s Professional Identity (2012) and Identity, Gender and Teaching English in Japan (2016) were published by Multilingual Matters. Her most recently coauthored EFL books, Simply Traveling (2015) and Say it Now (2016) were published by Kinseido.