LLTI list, greetings, I am (a little too) excited to announce that I will be teaching a new distance learning Japanese course for the University of Alabama at Birmingham starting this fall semester on August 17, 2010. Some of you may know me from Irasshai, the Japanese course I made for Georgia Public Broadcasting. This new program we're calling Tim Sensei's NihongoCast, the stage name for Japanese 101, the online version. One of the most exciting things about this for me is that the course is a collaborative effort between our Departments of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Communication Studies, and Theatre, and everyone involved is as crazy committed to it as I. Although NihongoCast is a university-credit course, high school students are also welcome. We can't promise that Japanese will be easy, but we can promise that it will be fun. One of the differences with Irasshai is that NihongoCast will be live and interactive through Skype. Voice interaction with me and my on-camera troupe, plus weekly off-camera interaction will require students to commit to a set schedule in a way that contradicts some of the anytime-anywhere rationale for distance learning, but ensures that students are speaking the language. If you have students in your institution interested in Japanese, anything you can do to facilitate their participation in this course is most appreciated. In this first semester of the course offering, enrollment is capped at 50 students. For more information, visit www.uab.edu/foreignlang/nihongocast/index.htm. Thank you for your interest. Tim Cook <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Timothy M. Cook, PhD Distance Learning Japanese Instructor Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures University of Alabama at Birmingham Mailing Address HB 407 1530 3rd Ave S Birmingham, AL 35294-1260 Physical Address Humanities Bldg., Room 413A 900 13th St. S. Phone: (205) 934-4961 Cell: (205) 790-2794 Fax: (205) 975-5484 E-mail: [log in to unmask] http://homepage.uab.edu/timcook <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> #9391 Japanese