Conferences
PA Training Seminars (June & October)
PA Training Seminars are held in Tokyo twice each year. During the two day conference, both Japanese and JET participant PAs receive counselling training and advice from professional mental health specialists.
CLAIR hopes that the training that PAs receive during this seminar will help them to more confidently and effectively handle the responsibilities and duties of a PA. The duties of a PA can vary widely, and the PA Training Seminar provides lectures and workshops on topics that will be of the most use to the PA.
PAs are also able to interact and learn from other PAs around the country, thus strengthening the fundamental structure of the JET Programme support system.
Prefectural ALT Mid-Year Seminars (August - January)
The seminars generally last for two or three days, and the content is decided at the prefectural level based on guidelines set by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT).
Two of the main goals of the ALT Mid-year seminars are to facilitate communication between ALTs and JTEs and to improve the quality of team-teaching. These meetings are a valuable opportunity for ALTs and JTEs to attend workshops together and openly share their opinions with each other.
Each year, CLAIR staff attend ALT Mid-year seminars across the country to observe and offer their feedback. They also provide participants with the most up-to-date announcements from CLAIR and run question and answer sessions. For more information about the schedule and content of the ALT Mid-year seminar in your area, please contact your Prefectural Advisor (PA).
The CIR Mid-Year Conference (November - December)
The CIR Mid-Year Conference is a three-day conference held each autumn for all CIRs. Participation in the conference is mandatory.
The Mid-Year Conference is aimed at providing practical work-related skills and information that will help the JET participants in their everyday jobs. This information is provided through a combination of workshops and seminars by both business professionals and veteran CIRs participants.
Translation / Interpretation Seminar
The purpose of the seminar is to help JETs acquire the basic skills necessary for translating and interpreting. The course is open to a limited number of recontracting JETs, who are chosen by a qualifying exam.
This course is designed to help participants learn to translate Japanese newspapers/magazine articles and interpret both ordinary and intellectual conversations with little trouble. Participants will learn particular expressions and useful grammar structures in each lesson, and will practice interpreting with the audio materials. Participants are expected to already possess Japanese language skills equivalent to Level 2/N2 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (that is, they should be able to easily understand ordinary conversations, understand slightly high-level grammar, read over 1,000 kanji, and have a vocabulary of at least 6,000 words).
Linguistics & Pedagogy Seminar
The purpose of the seminar is to help JETs acquire the fundamentals of how to teach Japanese as a foreign language. The course is open to a limited number of recontracting JETs, who are chosen by a qualifying exam.
At the seminar, participants will have the opportunity to learn “How to teach Japanese”. First, participants will attend lectures on teaching Japanese then they will make a model lesson plan and present that to their classmates. Professional Japanese teachers will give instruction on preparing a lesson and will rate the participant.
The Conference for Returning JETs 
The Conference for Returning JETs (CRJ) is held in the Tokyo region in February/March each year. Through the CRJ, CLAIR hopes to provide essential support to JETs who will be completing their tenure on the Programme after at least two years, and are faced with the sometimes daunting and difficult task of returning home.
The CRJ is unique in that it offers JET Programme participants who are finishing on the programme a chance to speak first-hand with other former JETs who have now returned to their home countries and re-entered the working world there. CLAIR invites working professionals, many of whom are former JET Programme participants themselves, to come and speak about fields that hold the most interest for returning JETs. There is also a CLAIR/AJET-sponsored information fair with useful resources for JETs returning home.
Additionally, the CRJ takes a look at some of the intangible aspects of preparing for post-JET life, such as how to say farewell to Japan and ways to address and deal with "reverse culture shock". Unlike other conferences for JET Programme participants, attendance at the Conference for Returning JETs is optional. Thus, travel expenses to and from the conference, as well as accommodation and other fees, are borne by the participant.
Tokyo Orientation Assistant Planning Meeting
JETs who are recontracting may apply to be a TOA and assist with presenting AJET workshops at Tokyo Orientation, assist with guiding new JET participants at Narita Airport or the orientation venue, attending Embassy Welcome Events, accompanying new JET participants to their host prefectures/designated cities, answering questions etc. The TOA planning meeting is held prior to Tokyo Orientation to help prepare everything for Tokyo Orientation.