Whose Autonomy?

Voices and Agency in Language Learning

Selected Papers from the 2018 Independent Learning Association Conference

September 5 - 8, 2018

Konan Women's University, Kobe, Japan

Edited by Adelia Peña Clavel & Katherine Thornton

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Whose Autonomy? Voice and Agency in Language Learning

Edited by Adelia Peña Clavel & Katherine Thornton

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• Introduction. Autonomy and agency: Voices from within and beyond the classroom. Katherine Thornton & Adelia Peña Clavel

Part 1 - Voices from the classroom

• Chapter 1. Empowering students through X-Word Grammar: Students’ perceptions. Steve Cornwell & Mariko Hirano

• Chapter 2. A quantitative investigation of science and engineering university EFL learners’ language learning autonomy. Suwako Uehara

• Chapter 3. Focus on learning strategies: Is it effective? Paul Collett

• Chapter 4. Facilitating Japanese university students’ autonomous learning in and beyond the English classroom. Daniel G. C. Hougham

Part 2 - Voices from beyond the classroom

• Chapter 5. Community outreach projects as a medium for independent learning. Wendy Gough

• Chapter 6. Building a picture of teletandem experiences to promote the practice. Clair Taylor

• Chapter 7. Model United Nations simulations: Developing learner voices and agency. Lori Zenuk-Nishide, Tom Fast, Craig Smith, & Donna Tatsuki

• Chapter 8. Enhancing the virtual and real-world of a language learner through SNS: Eva’s language learning using Niconico Douga. Yoshio Nakai

• Chapter 9. Academic writing as an individual process — Students’ perceptions of a university academic writing clinic. Robin Lohmann & Christian Ludwig

Part 3 - Voices from teacher/advisor education

• Chapter 10. Building teacher and student relationships in a new teaching context – A reflective approach. Nicole Gallagher

• Chapter 11. Becoming language learning advisors: Exploring teacher autonomy. Adelina Ruiz-Guerrero

• Chapter 12. Promoting continuing professional development in English language teaching. Hideo Kojima

Part 4 - Collaborative Reflections/Voices

• Chapter 13. Scaffolding, metaphors, deep seas and buried treasure: Useful things we learned at ILA. Nick Boyes & Ellen Head

• Chapter 14. Collaborative reflections on ILA2018 conference. Naomi Fujishima & Daniel G. C. Hougham

Part 5 - Student Papers from the “Learners About Learning” JALT LD SIG Student

• Chapter 15. Learners about Learning: highlighting student voices and facilitating communication through a student conference. Katherine Thornton, Ann Flanagan, & Agnes Patko

• Chapter 16. Reading can improve conversation ability. Shouta Susaki

• Chapter 17. My study method for four skills. Yuio Kinomoto

• Chapter 18. Listening to music is studying. Eriko Kikuoka

• Chapter 19. How I study English on the train. Kento Miyoshi

• Chapter 20. Let me be ME. Yuki Azuma

• Chapter 21. My opinion about Japanese education. Yu Tsuchisaki.

• Chapter 22. Contribute to the whole world. Shizuka Seko

Contributors

Nick Boyes is a professor at Meijo University in Nagoya, Japan. He is passionate about helping students develop not only their language skills but also their life skills. His research interests include vocabulary acquisition, Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL), reflective practice, and social and emotional learning (SEL).

Paul Collett is an instructor at Shimonoseki City University. He has an M.Sc. in Psychology from the University of Canterbury, NZ. His research interests include learner cognition and motivation, along with research methodology and epistemology.

Steve Cornwell is a professor and the English Coordinator at Osaka Jogakuin University in Japan. He currently is the writing liaison and coordinate writing classes from first year to fourth year. He rediscovered X-Word grammar after a 30-year hiatus. His research interests include students’ investment in learning English.

Thomas Fast is an Associate Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Notre Dame Seishin University. He is a PhD candidate at Osaka University, researching best practices in global citizenship education. He is also the author of the textbook Impact 4, published by National Geographic Learning.

Ann Flanagan has been teaching at Ritsumeikan Junior and Senior High School in Nagaokakyo, Japan for the past 21 years. She has an MA in TESOL from the School for Inter- national Training. Her research interests include extensive reading, learner development, teacher training and curriculum development.

Naomi Fujishima is a professor at Okayama University, Japan, and teaches general education English courses in the Center for Liberal Arts & Language Education. She has an MA in TESOL from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, California in the USA. Her research interests include learner autonomy, student motivation, and lifelong learning.

Nicole Gallagher is an instructor in the Learning English for Academic Purposes course at Toyo University in Tokyo. She has an MA in TESOL from the University of Birmingham, UK, and her research interests include learner emotion, teacher development, and educational reform.

Wendy M. Gough is currently an associate professor at Bunkyo Gakuin University in Tokyo, Japan. She previously taught general English courses at Tokai University’s campus of Marine Science and Technology. Her research interests include intercultural communication development though authentic experiences in Japan, creating academic writing curriculum, and extensive reading.

Ellen Head has taught EFL at universities in Japan since 2000, and currently works at Miyazaki International College. She is a fan of the classroom as an experimental zone but also tries to find ways to help students to take control of their own learning outside of class. She is interested in applying the principles of action research as a basic approach to a wide range of issues.

Mariko Hirano is an associate professor at Osaka Jogakuin College in Japan. She is currently the grammar liaison and coordinates the first-year students’ grammar classes along with TOEIC prep classes. Her research interests are Japanese American Literature.

Daniel G. C. Hougham is an assistant professor at Hiroshima Jogakuin University in Ja- pan. He has an MA in TESOL from the University of Birmingham, UK. His research interests include learner autonomy, computer-assisted language learning, and extensive reading.

Hideo Kojima is a professor and teacher educator at Bunkyo University in Japan. He obtained his MA in TEFL/TESL and PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Birmingham. His research interests include: teacher education, learner autonomy, teacher autonomy, action research, reflective practice, exploratory practice, CLIL, language policy. He has published on all these topics inside and outside Japan

Robin Lohmann is a writer and teacher of English at the Pädagogische Hochschule in Karlsruhe. She has a particular interest in autobiographical and academic writing.

Christian Ludwig is currently substitute professor for Teaching English as a Foreign Language at the University of Bielefeld, Germany. His teaching and research interests include learner autonomy, digital tools in foreign language learning, and learning with literature. He has been the coordinator of the IATEFL Learner Autonomy Special Interest Group and external consultant for Cornelsen Publishing.

Yoshio Nakai is an Assistant Professor at Doshisha University and promotes collaborative learning in his teaching in order to help learners to be more autonomous. For his PhD re- search, he analyzed learners’ motivation using a modified grounded theory approach. Now he researches autonomy and identity of language learners and users through qualitative narrative approach.

Agnes Patko taught at Japanese universities for six years. Her research interests include learner development, self-directed learning and multicultural communication.

Adelia Peña Clavel is an Associate Professor and the Coordinator of the Self-access centre in the School of Languages Linguistics and Translations (ENALLT) at National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) She is in charge of the Teletandem. She has been working in the field of learner autonomy and advising since 1995. She has co-authored articles related to material design for self-access, learner autonomy and learner training.

Adelina Ruiz-Guerrero is a social psychologist, holds an MA in ELT and is completing her Ph.D. in Education from the University of Nottingham. She is head of the Language Hub, the self-access centre at the Language Department at ITESO, the Jesuit University in Guadalajara.

Craig Smith was the Founding Director of the Community Engagement Center, Founding Chair of the Department of Global Affair. In 2011, he received the JACET award for excellence in teaching. He was co-founder of the Japan University English Model United Nations focusing on peace and community building. Craig, a respected and beloved educator pas- sed away January 3, 2019.

Donna Tatsuki is the director of the Graduate School for English Language Education and Re- search at Kobe City University of Foreign Studies. Selected areas of her research include the teaching of pragmatics, best practices in language teaching materials, the representations of gender/ethnicity in government approved language textbooks, and descriptions of ELF driven multi-party talk-in-interaction in MUN simulations. She has

taught in Canada and Japan.

Clair Taylor is an Associate Professor at Gifu Shotoku Gakuen University, where she manages "Lounge MELT" (a social language learning space). Her research interests include language learning beyond the classroom and the design of learning spaces. She is currently President of the Japan Association for Self-Access Learning (JASAL).

Katherine Thornton is Associate Professor and Director of E-CO self-access centre at Otemon Gakuin University in Osaka, Japan. She has been working in the field of learner autonomy and advising in language learning since 2008,and has edited several collections of papers on self-access learning and advising for Studies in Self-Access Learning (SiSAL) Journal. She was president of the Japan Association for Self-Access Learning (JASAL) from 2011 - 2015 and still serves on its board.

Suwako Uehara is an Associate Professor at the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo, Japan. She is one of the special editors for the OnCUE Special Conference Is- sue and is a member of the Writers’ Peer Support Group. Her research interests include: self-access learning centers, writing centers, 21st-century education, and creativity.

Lori Zenuk-Nishide is vice-director of International Programs at Kobe City University of Foreign Studies and teaches in the Graduate School for English Language Education and Research at Kobe City University of Foreign Studies. She is the co-founder (with Craig Smith) of the Japan University English Model Unite Nations (JUEMUN) and has written extensively about the role of imagined international communities in the development of second language competence.

Student Contributors

Shouta Susaki, Clark Memorial International High School

Yuio Kinomoto, Clark Memorial International High School

Eriko Kikuoka, Clark Memorial International High School

Kento Miyoshi, Clark Memorial International High School

Yuki Azuma, Ritsumeikan High School

Yu Tsuchisaki, Ritsumeikan High School

Shizuka Seko, Ritsumeikan High School

Reviewers

Steve Brown

Steve Cornwell

Nicole Gallagher

Wendy M. Gough

Daniel G. C. Hougham

Yuri Imamura

Christian Ludwig

Jo Mynard

Yuki Ota

Adelia Peña Clavel

Adelina Ruiz-Guerrero

Kevin Stein

Scott Shelton-Strong

Clair Taylor

Katherine Thornton

Joseph Tomei

Suwako Uehara

Hisako Yamashita

Introduction

Autonomy and Agency: Voices from within and beyond the classroom

Katherine Thornton, Otemon Gakuin University

Adelia Peña Clavel, National Autonomous University of Mexico

The 2018 Independent Learning Association Conference, held at Konan Women’s University, Kobe, Japan, in September 2018, brought together autonomy researchers from around the world under the theme Whose Autonomy? Voice and Agency in Language Learning. This collection of papers includes a variety of such voices, from both classroom and non-classroom contexts, including from learners themselves. If, as Sarah Mercer suggests, agency “emerges from the interaction between resources and contexts and the learners’ perceptions and use of them” (2012, p. 43), the teacher’s role in this process can be to facilitate these perceptions, and instill a sense of self-belief in learners, to enable them to act, with more or less autonomy depending on each individual. To do this, a teacher or advisor first has to have a sense of their own agency in the process. By using their agency as educators, many of the authors of these papers have in turn provided opportunities for learners (and, in the case of teacher education, teachers or advisors) to be more actively involved in their own language learning processes, and in doing so exercise their own agency. This collection brings together the voices of teachers, advisors and learners in a series of research papers, collaborative reflections and student papers.

The first part of this collection of articles consists of four papers that explore the development of autonomy of students in the classroom. Steve Cornwell and Mariko Hirano investigate how introducing a new approach to teaching grammar can empower low proficiency learners and increase their self-efficacy. Suwako Uehara tried to find out if students attained a certain level of autonomy through qualitative research using factor analysis. She expected students developed some decision- making strategies. Paul Collett researched if students change some behaviours and applied learning strategies when learning English after having been trained with Styles-Strategies-Based Instruction for a period. Both authors present with us research methodologies that other practitioners can use to explore in their classroom or self-access centre. Daniel G. C. Hougham describes how he trained students with learning strategies for learning vocabulary in the classroom and encourage activities out of it. Later he presents us with qualitative and quantitative research to see the effects of this practice in his students. It is an example for combining activities for the classroom and encourage independent study.

The first three papers in Part 2 all detail projects undertaken to expand learners’ opportunities to use English outside the classroom and contain multiple instances of learners exercising their agency in an interesting variety of contexts, which are not often examined, but form part of the larger picture of a possible learning experiences. Wendy Gough investigates student experiences of a community outreach project which involved interacting and guiding tourists visiting the local area, while Clair Taylor makes a convincing case for the benefits of teletandem schemes where students engage in language exchange over internet video links with students in other countries, in this case Mexico and Japan, by analysing student narratives. These narratives have then been used to promote the scheme to other students. Learner voices, in the form of interview extracts and narratives, are front and centre in both these accounts. Nenuk-Nishide et al explain the United Nations Model Simulation and how they implemented it in the classroom intending to have students of English use their agency and voice as learners of a second language. They found out some interesting aspects in their research such as the qualities of a global citizen and the importance of increasing learners’ awareness about learning strategies. Yoshio Nakai also uses a narrative approach to investigate the autonomous learning practices and L2 social identity development of a Japanese learner from Hong Kong, who used a video game streaming website to learn and improve her Japanese. Her innovative use of the website and the subsequent steps she takes to learn her target language clearly illustrate her sense of agency. Robin Lohmann and Christian Ludwig share findings from a study which investigated students’ experiences of using a Writing Clinic at a German university, which found that the consultations that took place in the Writing Clinic helped learners to become more aware of their own strengths and weaknesses in writing.

The third section focuses on how advisors and teachers exercise agency in teacher education contexts. When achieving autonomy, reflecting on our learning process or in our daily activities is essential. Teachers’ reflection about their teaching process and their surroundings is necessary to improve practice and can help to create a better learning and dynamic environment. Nicole Gallagher shows us the power of it as she analyses some of her own reflections that she made after a transition in terms of teacher identity, gaining a deeper understanding of the humanistic tradition in teaching and building learning communities in the classroom. Adelina Ruiz Guerrero describes how learning advisors at her institution in Mexico have developed their skills by forming a community of practice in which they engaged different professional development activities together, experiencing firsthand some of the kinds of autonomous learning that they support students in undertaking. This project has in turn informed the content and structure of a new blended learning course in language learning advising. Finally, Hideo Kojima explores teacher identity and implications for professional development through the results of a self-evaluation undertaken by teachers who participated in a training course as part of their teaching license renewal programme.

In addition to these research papers, in Part 4 this collection also includes a number of Collaborative Reflections on the conference. Four researchers, Naomi Fujishima and Daniel Hougham, and Ellen Head and Nick Boyes, responded to our Call for Papers and were then paired to each produce a collaborative reflection paper. They wrote individual reflections on their experiences at the conference, which formed the basis of an ongoing reflective dialogue. The final papers in this collection are the result of this dialogue.

In another first for ILA, we are very pleased to be able to include seven student papers from the Learners About Learning student conference in Part 5, which was organised by Japan Associate for Language Teaching (JALT) Learner Development Special Interest Group (LD SIG) Kansai group, as part of the main ILA conference. These students, from two high schools in Kansai, were part of a wider group of high school and university students who presented on their learning experiences and shared their advice for learning. In order to achieve a deeper level of reflection as educators, diversifying the kinds of voices we pay attention to is vital, so we hope you appreciate this different perspective in this collection. We’re sure you’ll enjoy reading them, and hope that future ILA conferences and collections of papers can continue this innovation of featuring student voices.

References

Mercer, S. (2012). The complexity of learner agency. Journal of Applied Language Studies, 6(2), 41–59. Retrieved from http://apples.jyu.fi

Part 1: Voices from the classroom

Chapter 1. Empowering Students through X-Word Grammar: Students’ Perceptions

Steve Cornwell, Osaka Jogakuin University

Mariko Hirano, Osaka Jogakuin University

Abstract

This chapter has two purposes, one, to briefly introduce X-Word Grammar, a system of grammar that uses auxiliary verbs as a starting point to help students apply basic grammar with near 100% accuracy, and two, to describe how very low proficiency students reacted to the system after one semester. To set the context, it first describes the Foundation Program, a program designed as part of a new curriculum at Osaka Jogakuin University to help low proficiency students, who still struggle to use the grammar that they studied in junior and senior high school, improve their grammatical accuracy. The results presented in this chapter indicate that students’ reception of was positive.

The Foundation Program

In April 2016, Osaka Jogakuin University (OJU) revised its four-year university curriculum. Osaka Jogakuin has only one major/department: the Department of International & English Interdisciplinary Studies. All students graduate with a degree in English. The new curriculum consists of three strands: an Advanced Program, a Standard Program and a Foundation Program. The Foundation Program (FP) at OJU began in 2016. FP was designed to support lower English proficiency students and is described in detail in Cline et al. (2016). Increasing English proficiency is especially important at OJU because all the students are majoring in English.

The Foundation Program (FP) has four integrated courses: Foundation Grammar, Foundation Reading, Foundation Writing and Oral Communication. The goals of the FP are to “a) to improve English skills, b) to help students gain confidence, and c) to provide a safe and supportive environment for basic study/ review.” (See Cline et al., 2016.)

FP students have already studied English grammar and many consider that they should have mastered it in junior and senior high school but they still have problems in using it. Foundation Grammar was designed to help make them feel they are able to improve their proficiency if they work hard. It is designed to build a feeling of self-efficacy in regards to English, something that many have lacked. They are eager to master grammar and use it properly as it will help them in all their classes, both Foundation and other English classes: reading, writing, discussion, and content-based classes they will begin in their second year.

To help them do so, a new (to Japan) system of applying grammar was introduced to them called X-Word Grammar. This chapter focuses on the students’ reactions to X-Word Grammar as presented in Foundation Grammar. As Cornwell (2017) points out, the approach of X-Word Grammar helps “students apply grammar to English tasks from day one such as making questions accurately, being able to write so that subjects and verbs are in agreement, editing drafts of their writing, or analyzing how reading texts are organized” (Cornwell, 2017, p. 138). Thus, X-Word Grammar was brought into Foundation Grammar. In Foundation Grammar classes, X-Word activities made up one- third to one -half of each class. The rest of the class time was spent using the textbook Grammar Plus: 15 Unit Edition (Bennett & Komiya, 2016) which focused on complementary grammar points.

In the next section, X-Word Grammar will be introduced briefly along with examples of what X-Word Grammar can cover. The final section of this chapter reports on how students responded to this “new” approach.

X-Word Grammar

X-Word Grammar is a way of teaching grammar based on a system of tagmemic-like analysis called Sector Analysis developed by Robert L. Allen at Teachers College, Columbia University during the early 1970s (Kurland, 2000). Allen developed sector analysis because of his experiences teaching ESL in a high school in Turkey. He felt that traditional grammars, most of which were prescriptive, did not provide a pedagogically useful approach to language (Allen, 1972). His graduate students took sector analysis further and adapted it to meet the needs of classroom language teachers (Livingston, 2002). Thus, X-Word Grammar is the application of the sector analysis to written English in the language classroom (Kunz, n.d.).

X-Word Grammar has been used to teach both grammar and editing of English writing to both learners of English and deaf students. A key point that led to the development of X-Word Grammar is the idea that “English grammars must be easy to teach even to elementary students if they are to be worth a teacher spending time on” (Allen, 1972). Livingston et al. (2018) report that students using X-Word Grammar improved more in three months than students studying traditional grammar. Thus, as far as the FP program described above goes, it is very appealing in that it presents a system with easy-to-apply consistent rules for grammar that has already been studied by students—rules that can be applied with high accuracy. Cornwell (2017) provides an in depth look at the basics of X-Word Grammar. A brief explanation along with an example of lesson content follows.

X-Word Grammar can be covered in 25 lessons (Accessible X-Word, n.d.). The lessons are divided into three areas: 1) X-Words and Verbs (1-10), 2) Noun Boxes (14-20), and 3) Trunks and Clauses (21-25).

Introducing X-Words

Initial lessons introduce the X-Words. X-Words are what are sometimes known as helping verbs or modals. They are organized into four groups and the approach uses activities to have students identify them in sentences and manipulate them to make affirmative statements, yes/no questions, and negative statements. The lessons also show which X-Words go with which verbs; they refer to this as match ups (see Table 1). Table 2 shows the beginning of an exercise students would do to apply their understanding of X-Words.

Table 1. X-Words and verb match up

Note: D-T-N refers to past participle form Vb and BASE refers to the base form of verbs (i.e., eat) ING refers to the ING form of verbs (i.e., eating)

Table 2. An example exercise

Once students are familiar with the X-Words there are several “rules” they can consistently apply, as every sentence has a subject and an X-Word. For example, if a student can identify the X-Word in a sentence, she can also identify the subject which will be everything to the left of the X-Word, be it one word or a longer phrase. If the sentence does not have an X-Word, it is a fragment, which is useful for students to be able to identify when writing in English. (Note: Present tense sentences also have what are referred to as “hidden” X-Words: “do” or “does.”) By moving the X-Word in front of the subject, she can make a question. X-Word “rules” are ones that can be unfailingly applied when students edit their writing, and as such are empowering to students (Cornwell, 2017).

The above examples are intended to help readers better understand what X-Word Grammar covers and how it operates. An entire X-Word textbook along with teacher notes is available online through a creative commons license (Accessible X-Word, n.d.). In addition, Appendix B provides a list of references for teachers interested in learning more about X-Word and/or applying it in their classrooms.

Students’ Reactions to X-Word

The second purpose of this chapter is to reveal how students felt about studying X-Word Grammar and determine whether those feelings changed over the course of one semester of study using the X-Word method. A survey was conducted with 26 first-year students who were in the two classes of the Foundation Program (described earlier) at Osaka Jogakuin University. The survey was administered three times during the semester on May 28, July 2, and July 30, 2018. All students had entered the FP with TOEIC scores under 300. The average upon entry was 245; at the end of the semester they had an average 54-point increase to 309. As students take many English classes (in addition to the four Foundation classes, they also take Integrated Discussion, Integrated Reading, and Phonetics), it should be noted that the increase cannot be attributed to any one class or method, X-Word included.

There were three questions that gathered information about students’ experiences studying grammar in high school, six questions on studying grammar, three questions on taking quizzes, and one open-ended question asking for feedback and comments. The open-ended question is the main focus of this section. The other statements were measured using a 5-point Likert Scale ranging from “not at all” to “very much”. All the survey statements are listed in Appendix A.

Data Analysis and Results

The Likert scale statements were analyzed by conducting t-tests with a Bonferroni correction since there were multiple tests. Those results are shown in Table 3.

Table 3. Results over time

Although the main value of this paper is the comments students made, two of the questions, Q5 and Q6, showed significant differences between the first administration (May 28) and the final administration (July 30). Q5 asked if students can apply X-Word Grammar in other classes; its change over time was significant (p < .004). Q6 asked if students can rewrite affirmative sentences into negative sentences or questions; its change was also significant (p < .01).

The open-ended question, which as mentioned above are the main focus of this study, was analyzed using data analysis procedures as outlined by standard qualitative research texts (Creswell, 1998; Miles & Huberman, 1994; Taylor & Bogdan, 1998). After translating the statements, the data was analyzed for keywords. We did not use a list of keywords generated prior to data collection but instead followed a process recommended by many of the above authors of allowing phrases and sentences to be sorted into categories. Among keywords we found were “understand,” “gradually understand,” “don’t understand,” “useful,” “easy,” “apply in other classes,” “enjoy,” and “happy.” After initial keywords had been generated we grouped similar ones and used them to try to understand students’ reaction to X-Word Grammar. There were not any negative comments about X-Word Grammar although there were six comments (2 each survey) that did not mention X-Word; instead they mentioned students would do their best or they enjoy grammar. Table 4 shows the keywords, number of instances, and sample statements.

Table 4. Number of instances with examples

Students’ Perceptions

By looking at student comments we can see both how they view X-Word, and also how their thinking changed over time. Although the open-ended prompt was “Please write your feedback or comment freely on Foundation Grammar class,” 84% of the comments mentioned X-Word Grammar. Twenty-five different students responded to the surveys. One student only did the second survey. Eight students made comments in the first survey, eleven made comments in the second survey, and nineteen made comments in the third survey. The following convention is used in reporting students’ comments: each student has been assigned a number and each time the statement was made is also assigned a number (May 28: 1, July 2: 2, or July 20: 3). Emphasis has been added based on key words.

General comments can be summarized as showing that some students feel X-Word is easy to understand and helps them either review or learn things they had already studied but not mastered. Two mentioned it covers things that they studied in high school but its usefulness is that it helps them avoid careless mistakes. Four students also stated that they are able to apply it in other classes (such as reading). This is a breakthrough as often grammar class operates in isolation from the other classes.

Over time some of the changes we found were: moving from thinking that X-Word was useful to wishing she had studied it in high school as she thinks she would have understood grammar better (S7), and from wanting to study more to feeling she has become accurate in her grammar use to finally having changed her attitude towards grammar (S16).

Student 7

I thought if I had studied x-word grammar at the high school, I could have understood grammar more easily.

Student 16

S 16, 3, I began to understand what was unclear by studying X-Word Grammar. My attitude to grammar changed after taking this class. X-Word Grammar is fun.

S25 reported using what she learned in her foundation grammar class in other classes. She goes on to give a specific example of how she can now make accurate questions.

Student 25

S 25, 3, Through practice, I began to use X-Word Grammar. I was bad at making question sentences, but I began to understand how to make them.

Four other students also gave specific examples of what they learned, for example,

Student 8

S 8, 3, “I was always uncertain of how to use "did" or "does," but now I understand and solve questions more smoothly compared to before.”

Conclusion and Final Comments

It has only been a year since X-Word Grammar was introduced in Foundation Grammar. As seen in students’ feedback, students studying X-Word Grammar begin to feel confident about their grammar knowledge and some are able to apply it to other classes. They see its usefulness and wonder how things might be different if they had studied it earlier. Though some students did mention X-Word covers areas already studied, none complained about any possible redundancy, but rather observed that they were able to review, activate, and apply their knowledge to language they were working with.

As in any study, there are limitations. One is the small sample size. Even though qualitative research is not about generalizability, the small sample size could raise questions about how transferable the results are. In addition the study focused on the open-ended question but students did not make comments each time they filled out the study. Therefore, although we got a sense of changes over time, there are gaps. Finally, the focus of the study was to learn about students’ perceptions of X-Word. An open-ended question asking for general feedback and comments might not have been the best way to do this. In the future, interviews or reflective papers with a prompt about X-Word Grammar might serve to get better data concentrating on the main focus of the study.

We would like to conclude with two thoughts. First, a potential strength of X-Word Grammar is students will develop their own criteria to “be able to grammatically analyze all of their writing” (Cornwell, 2017). Second, X-Word Grammar if applied across a content-based curriculum can be exciting and empowering as Livingston writes:

Take a moment to imagine how X-Word Grammar might look if it were used across the curriculum. I envision content-area teachers talking about key concepts (chunks of information) in their discipline, and, as they are talking, writing key phrase on the board, quickly boxing those phrase that are noun boxes, starting the noun in the box, pointing out the adjectives within. They are boxing subjects and labeling X-Words and verbs for agreement. … With grammar overlaid on content language, with opportunities to understand the grammatical underpinnings of the phrase they need to know for course, in their majors, Deaf students [or EFL students] would surely have an easier time writing in their respective disciplines (2002, p. 76).

References

Accessible X-Word Grammar. (n.d.). https://sites.google.com/site/accessiblexwordgrammar

Allen, R. L. (1972). English grammars and English grammar. New York, NY: Scribners & Sons.

Bennett, A., & Komiya, T. (2016). Grammar plus: 15 unit edition. Tokyo: Nan’un-do Co., Ltd.

Cline, B., Cornwell, S., Fukushima, C., Hirano, M., Johnston, S., McLean, S. Takezawa, Y., & Tojo, K. (2016). Empowering low-English proficiency students: A fresh approach. Osaka Jogakuin Kiyo, 13, 85–105.

Cornwell, S. (2017). Improving writing through X-Word Grammar. Osaka Jogakuin Kiyo, 14, 137–145.

Creswell, J. W. (1998). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five traditions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Press.

Livingston, S. (2002). Working text: Teaching deaf and second-language students to be better writers. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.

Livingston, S., Toce, A., Casey, C., Montoya, F., & Hart, B. R., & O’Flaherty, C. (2018). Effect of X-Word Grammar and traditional grammar instruction on grammatical accuracy. English Language Teaching, 11(3), 117–136.

Kunz, L. (n.d.). X-Word Grammar: Offspring of sector analysis. Retrieved from https://wac.colostate.edu/jbw/v1n3/kunz.pdf

Kurland, D. (2000). How the language really works: The fundamentals of critical reading and effective writing. http://www.criticalreading.com/origins_approach.htm

Miles, M., & Huberman, M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded source. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Press.

Taylor, S., & Bogdan, R. (1998). Introduction to qualitative research methods: A guidebook and resource. New York, NY: John Wiley and Sons.

Appendix A

Grammar Survey

DEMOGRAPHICS 1

I took an English grammar class when I was a high school student.

DEMOGRAPHICS 2

I enjoyed studying English grammar when I was a high school student.

DEMOGRAPHICS 3

I could understand English grammar when I was a high school student.

S1 I think my attitude to learning English grammar changed.

S2 I think I deepened my understanding of English grammar.

S3 I think X-Word Grammar helps me study English grammar.

S4 I can make sentences myself applying X-Word Grammar.

S5 I can apply X-Word Grammar in other classes.

S6 I can transform affirmative sentences into negative sentences or question sentences applying X-Word Grammar. S7 I study before taking a quiz

S8 I don’t feel nervous when taking a quiz

S9 I can understand the instruction when taking a quiz

S10 Please write your feedback or comment freely on Foundation Grammar class

Appendix B

Resources for interested teachers

Accessible X-Word Grammar. (n.d.). https://sites.google.com/site/accessiblexwordgrammar/what-is-x-word-grammar

http://xwordgrammar.pbworks.com/w/page/27376414/Whatis20X-Word20Grammar

An extensive Wiki site with a wide range of resources such as lesson plans, articles, books, and video/prezi presentations.

Lydon, J., Gex, J., & Hart, B. (n.d.). X-Word Grammar for Students of English as a Second Language is an online pdf book that is ready to be used by students. It is part of the What is X-Word Grammar?

http://xwordgrammar.pbworks.com/w/page/7067848/Lydon

Livingston, S. (2002). Working Text: Teaching Deaf and Second-Language Students to be Better Writers. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.

A well-written book that takes the reader through X-Word Grammar by applying it to a draft of an essay as it goes through three separate revisions. The book also has a student workbook (with all the answers in this main text).

Deakins, A. H., Parry, K., & Viscount, R. (1994). The Tapestry Grammar: A Reference for Learners of English. New York: Heinle & Heinle Publishers.

Part of the Tapestry Series edited by Rebecca Oxford and Robin Scarcella, it appears to be a straight reference grammar until you dig deeper and see that it is presenting grammar from an X-Word perspective.

Pires, D., & Khodabakhshi, S. (2015). Grammar Write: An ESL Text-workbook. Middletown, DE: GrammarWorks Publishing.

A textbook for high-intermediate and low-advanced students. It states its goal as helping students become effective language users, not grammar instructors. It explicitly uses X-Word Grammar in its various units.

Allen, R. L., Pompian, R., & Allen, D. (1975). Working Sentences. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company.

One of the original classroom application books for sector analysis. It helps students produce edited English and is construction orientated rather than word-oriented.

Chapter 2. A Quantitative Investigation of Science and Engineering University EFL Learners’ Language Learning Autonomy

Suwako Uehara, The University of Electro-Communications, Japan

Abstract

As part of decision-making and persuasion, expressing two-sided arguments is an important skill to master. In this study, 85 first-year students at a Japanese national university in the Kanto region prepared for a two-sided argument presentation and learned about the evaluation criteria in an academic spoken English course. The learners completed individual presentations on an original two-sided argument, and were evaluated using a grading criterion consisting of nine criteria. Participants then completed a post-test survey on autonomous learning with multiple dimensions. A list of 31-item statements on learner autonomy adapted from the Autonomy Learner Questionnaire (ALQ) (Egel, 2003) was used for this survey. A quantitative analysis using factor analysis was run on a free statistical analysis software using the presentation scores and post-test survey responses. Results showed that learners with higher presentations scores were likely to be more attentive to language learning who try various study methods. While these higher scorers were more likely to be proactive in initiating language learning opportunities such as going to places where English is used, all participants were on average less proactive in initiating such environments in general. Implications are that these learners might benefit from awareness raising and guidance in autonomous learning.

This paper brings to light findings of a quantitative investigation of learner autonomy in university EFL learners’ academic presentations using exploratory factor analysis. In addition to investigating the relationship between learner autonomy and giving academic presentations, this study provides recommended practices for any researcher new to exploratory factor analysis.

In the literature review, learner autonomy will be defined, followed by a brief summary of studies on learner autonomy. Next, studies that utilized Egel’s (2003) Autonomy Learner Questionnaire (ALQ) are described. Then, evaluation criteria for academic presentations are discussed, and the evaluation criteria used for two-sided argument presentations are introduced. Finally, related to quantitative analysis, a brief reference to a free statistics program, called Jeffreys’s Amazing Statistics Program (JASP) is then followed by literature focusing on exploratory factor analysis and the best practices related to population size, number of items, rotation, and number of factors any researcher should consider when conducting a quantitative analysis.

In this study, 85 first-year students at a Japanese national university conducted individual presentations on their chosen topic with requirements to submit three academic papers to support their thesis statement. The instructor evaluated student presentations and then students filled in a survey related to autonomous learning. The survey items that were adapted for this study were based on the ALQ’s. Using the presentation grades, and survey results, this study aims to investigate the following:

1) What are the possible items to measure that can be used to identify subsets of language learner autonomy?

2) How do academic presentation results at university relate to the language learning autonomy of science and engineering students?

Literature Review

Tassinari (2012) defined learner autonomy as “the metacapacity, i.e. the second order capacity, of the learner to take control of their learning process to different extents and in different ways according to the learning situation” (p. 28). The definition was elicited through a critical review of leading academics in the field of learner autonomy, namely Holec (1981), Dickinson (1987), Little (1991), Littlewood (1996, 1999), and Benson (2001). In the same paper, Tassinari (2012) described the dynamic model of learner autonomy. The three dimensions defined in Tassinari (2010) were: cognitive, metacognitive; action oriented; as well as affective and motivational. These were used as a tool for learners to self-assess and evaluate learning competencies. The tool included descriptors of learners’ attitudes, competencies, and behaviors to measure autonomy through self-assessment. The number of descriptors was 118 in total with 33 macro-descriptors (e.g. planning, material selection, task completion, managing own learning etc.) and 85 micro-descriptors (e.g. for planning; I can evaluate my own language competencies, I can analyse my own needs, I can set my own goals etc.). Results showed that “self-assessment and the evaluations of the learners’” in the three dimensions described were “very useful for not only learners but also advisors to reflect and regulate the learning process” (Tassinari, 2012, p. 38).

The ALQ is a list of 44 statements within nine dimensions related to language learning, developed to measure autonomy in learners, and considered reliable based on internal reliability (Cronbach’s α = 0.81) in the Turkish context (Egel, 2003). Dimensions included labels such as: Readiness for Self-Direction, Independent Work in Language Learning, Importance of Class/Teacher, Language Learning Activities Outside the Classroom, Selecting Content, and Assessment and Motivation.

The ALQ (Egel, 2003) was adapted and used in one study to identify the impact of peer- assessment for Iranian learners’ English language proficiency (Gholami, 2016), and in another study related to learner autonomy and academic success for Turkish students in an EFL context (Tilfarlioglu & Ciftci, 2011). Both studies demonstrated learner autonomy had positive effects for EFL learners. In the latter study, it was noted that teachers in Turkey did not consider learner autonomy and self-efficacy to be an important factor in the classroom. Further still, Yumuk (2002) indicated that teaching methods in Turkey do not allow for student autonomy in the classroom. While such quantitative studies have been effective to highlight learner autonomy as an important factor in mastering a second language, there appears to be fewer studies in the Japanese context. The aim in this study therefore is to fill the gap in the research by conducting a statistical analysis using the ALQ as a baseline for statements on learner autonomy, in combination with academic achievement in presentation skills described in the next paragraph.

Uehara and Martinez Noriega (2016) used a grading criterion designed specifically for first-year undergraduate EFL learners who were in an Academic Spoken English course. There were six criteria; two-sided argument, academic reference, language, delivery, time limit, and Q&A session. For this course, the instructors’ intention was to provide feedback to students’ presentations during the class session in which the presentation was delivered. To enable this, the grading criteria were used to provide presentation results and feedback to learners in a timely manner, i.e., directly after the presentation rather than at a later date when presenters were likely to have forgotten smaller details of how the presentation was delivered. Survey results showed students’ satisfaction to be high. Thus, the implementation of the synchronous grading system using the grading criterion was positive.

Best practices in exploratory factor analysis

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) is utilized widely in social science studies. However, it is a challenge to make justified decisions especially for researchers new to quantitative analysis. While principal components and EFA are often competing methods, it is EFA which is often the preferred choice (Costello & Osborne, 2005). In this section, best practices using EFA will be discussed, focusing on a) population size, b) number of items, c) rotation, and d) eigenvalue-greater-than-1

vs spree plot.

For population size, despite studies suggesting ideal ratios (e.g. population size: item) of varying degrees (e.g. 10:1 or less for priori sample size, i.e. “the number of items each subject answered, not how many were kept after analysis” (Costello & Osborne, 2005)), ideal population size can be determined only after “the hypothesis, desired level of power, and assumed population value” is specified (MacCallum, Browne, & Sugawara, 1996).

Related to number of items, item numbers should be “at least 3 to 5 times the number of expected common factors” (Fabrigar, Wegener, MacCallum, & Strahan, 1999, p. 273).

Next, when deciding between orthogonal (varimax) or oblique (direct oblimin) rotation; orthogonal rotations are simple, however, “the restriction of uncorrelated factors imposed can lead to misleading results” (Fabrigar et al., 1999, p. 282), and oblique rotation was recommended as valuable information would be retained if factors are correlated, as it is often the case for studies in social sciences (Costello & Osborne, 2005).

Eigensvalue-greater-than-1 and Scree test (Cattell, 1966) are also a comparative set. The default is to retain all factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.0 in order to determine the number of factors in a dataset, however, this was criticized as being inaccurate, (Fabrigar et al., 1999; Velicer & Jackson, 1990), and a Scree test was recommended to decide on factor number retention (Costello & Osborne, 2005). A spree graph is plotted by calculating the eigenvalue of a correlation matrix and plotting in descending values. The number of datapoints above the point where there is a substantial break in the slope of the spree test graph not including the breakpoint was recommended. That being said, this subjective method can cause disagreement on the interpretation of scree plots (Child, 2006).

Factor loadings represent the relation of a set of observed variables with similar patterns. In simple terms, those variables (or items) that load on the same factor can be represented by a number that indicates the degree of association. A factor loading of an item that is closer to one or minus one is said to have a stronger association to a particular factor than a factor loading closer to zero. Costello and Osborne (2005) and Fabrigar, et al. (1999) indicated issues related to problematic items. Low- or weak-loading (i.e., below certain criteria, such as .40), and/or crossloading (i.e., loading onto more than one factor) might be reasons for removing items in a run even after multiple test runs in different combinations if the data is not “clean” (meaning item loadings may not be above, for example, .40), “item construction, scale design, or the hypothesis itself” (p. 3) may also be a reason for removing items. Finally, in most cases, analyzing the data using multiple methods and carefully examining the resulting items in various cases appears to be a reasonable approach (Fabrigar et al. 1999; Costello & Osborne, 2005).

Methodology

Participants

First-year undergraduate students at a Japanese national university in the Kanto region who study science and engineering at (N = 85 (F = 4, M = 81)) attended a compulsory 15-week Academic Spoken English course in the fall of academic year 2017. The level of English for these students were assumed to be similar to those of the Academic Written English class students from another compulsory course with students from the same academic year. Such students’ writing fluency level measured through 10-minute quick writes on a for and against prompt (E.g. Do you think A is better than B and why?), averaged 120.34 words per minutes across 10 weeks. The Discussion and Conclusion section indicates the flaw in this study in not identifying English students’ level for this particular group in the study.

Learning Environment

From week three to week 12, the learners brainstormed individual two-sided argument topics, learnt about structure of a two-sided argument; 1) what is necessary in an introduction and how to gain audience attention when presenting a two-sided argument, 2) how to develop a thesis statement, arguments for and against, 3) how to find academic evidence to support their arguments, 4) the use of transition phrases, quotations and paraphrasing and 5) how to conclude.

During the course, the students conducted pair and group work to provide peer feedback and practice their presentations, and they also received feedback from the teacher during class time. See Appendix A for details from week one to week 15 of the course. In week 11, participants were informed of the evaluation criteria for a two-sided argument presentation (See Instrument section below and Appendix B) and each learner then delivered individual two-sided argument presentations in week 13 and week 14.

All presentations were evaluated by the instructor during the presentation. The presentations were recorded and viewed at a later date, and evaluation scores were adjusted accordingly if deemed necessary before returning copies of evaluations to students by week 15. In week 15, the learners completed a survey related to autonomous learning (See section on Evaluation criteria below and Appendix C).

Instrument

The evaluation criteria were developed by the author based on previous studies related to evaluating academic presentations (Uehara & Martinez Noriega, 2016; Uehara, 2015). They consist of nine items (1–9 below) across four basic categories (Content, Language, Delivery, and Time). For this study, each student received a score on a descriptive scale range of excellent (extremely capable), great (satisfactory, but with room for improvement), okay (attempted to cover the criteria, but with room for much improvement), and not good (not satisfied at all or missed the criteria completely) to grade the learners’ ability of presenting a two-sided argument. The 15-week course covered a total of seven weeks (week 6 to week 12) of specific instructions for each criterion, in-class and out of class assignments related to two-sided argument presentations, and class time to practice these criteria. Each criterion was worth three points maximum, and the highest possible score was 27. The equal weight for each criterion may not be a realistic representation of a good presentation skill, however, in order to score within a very short timeline, the three-point equal weight scoring system was used as a convenient measure for in-class presentations (See Appendix B).

In this study, survey items (originally from Egel, 2008) with nine dimensions were adapted from Gholami (2016). These were further adapted for the purpose of the two-sided argument presentation requirement of the course described above. The final list of items was condensed to 31 items, and the items that were adapted or newly added for this study are in bold in Appendix C. The items with no notation in the list were used in Gholami (2016). The survey was bilingual, translated and back translated by a professional translator and researcher experienced in survey collection and analysis. Each item was assigned a code. The word preceding each statement indicates the dimension it belongs to and consecutive numbers follow for each item in the dimension shown in Gholami (2016, p. 48). For example, READ1 = First item in “readiness for self-direction”; IMPOR2 = Second item in “importance of class/teacher” and so on. These codes will be relevant when viewing the results of the EFA.

Data Analysis

JASP (JASP Team, 2016) is a free downloadable software for statistical analysis available from jasp-stats.org. It includes a user-friendly interface in order to conduct various standard statistical analyses including ANOCA, ANCOVA, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), Linear Regression and T-Tests among others. JASP, which is accompanied with tutorials, videos and animated GIF-files (https://jasp-stats.org/how-to-use-jasp/) was chosen to encourage any researcher with little statistical knowledge to take their first steps to analyzing their own data quantitatively.

Students were randomly numbered 1 to 85, then presentation evaluation scores and survey results were input in an excel sheet. Seven items required reverse coding. For example, items such as “I search for methods to improve my language skills” is a positive statement towards autonomous learning, however, “My teacher must always guide me in learning English” is a negative statement towards autonomous learning, therefore, if a student responded 1 (don’t agree) for this statement, the reverse code will be 6 on a 6-point likert scale. Reverse coded items are indicated with asterisks in Appendix C. Six cells were missing and were filled with a mean score per item. Next, z-scores are measures of standard deviation. It shows how much a score deviates from the mean in terms of standard deviation. In other words, it converts individual raw scores in a new score showing how it compares to the mean. A simple excel calculation using the following formula, Z score = student total – average total) / standard deviation (total), was used to retrieve Z-scores. One student’s z-score was 3.17, indicating that there was an unusual pattern in responses. This student was removed from the dataset. Four additional outliers based on extremely low presentation scores were also removed from the dataset. The scores were seven, seven, eight, and 10 points out of 27. With five outliers removed from the dataset, this resulted in 80 participants for the data analysis.

In order to determine the factors related to autonomy, an initial run with all 31 items was conducted using Oblimin rotation and eigensvalue-greater-than-1. Then items that did not load were removed. The JASP program was set to highlight only those items loading onto at least one factor with factor loadings above .40, hence, values below these numbers do not show in the table of results and are considered in this case, items that do not load. The remaining items were run again for EFA. Items that did not load were removed, and rerun per individual factor. The results of the factor analysis will show the possible list of items that could measure subsets of autonomy.

Finally, the presentation scores were added per participant (N = 80) and three groups were made based on the closest equal numbers across each group for the total number of points received on the evaluation. As a result, there were 24 participants in the Low scoring group (13–19 points), 26 in the Medium scoring group (19–22 points) and 30 in the High scoring group (23–27) totaling (N = 80). The values in the score indicate the score range. Finally, the data of the items from factors derived from EFA was used as a basis to compare the learner autonomy scores of the three groups (Low, Medium, High).

Results

Exploratory factor analysis was used to find underlying components (or factors) of a set of items. One interpretation of this test is that it shows sets of items, which are thought to be measuring similar constructs. In the 31-item initial run, ASMOT1R, ASMOT4, IMPORT2R, IMPROT4R, IMPOR5, OUTSIDE1, READ1, READ3, READ6 did not load (less than. 40) and these were removed in the next EFA run (See Appendix D.) In the second run, those items that did not load in the first run were removed and rerun. See (Appendix E.) Two factors with more than four items in one factor were present. IMPOR6 did not load. IMPOR3R and READ2 cross-loaded. Next, items that loaded in each factor were re-run without IMPOR6 (See Appendices F and G). Table 1 below shows the final list of those factors identified that can be used to measure subsets of autonomy.

Table 1. Final list of items for Factor 1 and Factor 2

Summary of Results for Research Question 1

RQ1 asked ‘What are the possible items to measure that can be used to identify subsets of language learner autonomy?’ There was a total of 14 items across two possible factors. Factor 1 comprised of 8 items (k = 8) and Factor 2 comprised of 6 items (k = 6). In analyzing the list of items in Factor 1, it appeared to be related to a form of independent language learning (INDEP1-4: at my own will, on my own), challenging language methods (INDEP5-6: trying various methods, search for methods), awareness (READ4: know my weakness), and attentiveness (READ5: listen carefully) in language learning. In combination all items in Factor 1 appeared to be a form of “attentiveness to language learning”. In analyzing the list of items in Factor 2, all items appeared to be related to a form of initiating (to talk, to go, to select, to be involved) and being proactive (like to…, frequently go to… would like to…). In combination, “proactive initiation in language learning opportunities” may be the most fitting concept for this group. Finally, it is important to note that initial item labels no longer carry the initial concept. For example, INDEP and READ are grouped as “attentiveness to language learning”. Additionally, where the initial intention for items labeled OUTSIDE and SELECT were concepts of language learning activities outside the classroom and selecting content, in Factor 2 as a group of items, as a result of this analysis, they now carry the concept of “proactive initiation in language learning opportunities”.

Summary of Results for Research Question 2

RQ2 asked ‘How do academic presentation results at university relate to the language learning autonomy of science and engineering students?’ Table 2 shows the results of learner autonomy (as defined in Table 1) against the average participant’s academic presentation scores per Low, Medium and High group.

Table 2: Presentation score, Factor 1 average score, Factor 2 average score against three groups (Low, Medium and High)

Factor 1 was interpreted as attentiveness to language learning, therefore, according to the table, participants in this study with higher presentation scores appeared to be more attentive to language learning. Factor 2 was interpreted as proactive initiation in language learning opportunities, therefore, according to the table, participants in this study with higher presentation scores were more likely to be proactive in initiating language learning opportunities. However, the average scores are below 3.5 on the Likert-scale for all participants, and therefore, in general, all participants can be said to be less proactive in initiating language learning environments.

Discussion and Conclusion

This study investigated possible items to measure subsets of learner autonomy using exploratory factor analysis. The main findings are as follows. Firstly, EFL learners from a science and engineering university who scored well on academic presentations were likely to be more attentive to language learning. Secondly, higher scorers in academic presentations were more likely to be proactive in initiating language learning opportunities, however, the responses for all participants in the survey were below the average of 3.5 points on a 6-point likert scale.

If the learners are indeed as described, these participants can benefit from more guidance towards autonomous learning. It would also be meaningful to view what mindset these high and low scoring learners have, and to find effective methods to encourage learner autonomy through, for example strategy training, self-assessment, journals, learning diaries, and raising awareness of autonomous learning.

From the perspective of quantitative analysis, despite having selected the ALQ as the items in this study, more consideration was required prior to implementation of the adapted ALQ. Careful consideration in word choice was required when selecting and creating new items for statistical analysis. Some items in Appendix C were double-barreled (e.g. ‘I know my weakness in English and try to improve them.’). One cannot be sure whether the respondent is responding to ‘knowing the weakness in English’, ‘trying to improve them’ or both. Additionally, the ALQ has a category titled ‘Assessment and Motivation’, and this is likely to be interpreted as two different concepts. The results also showed that items grouped together in one factor were from different dimensions (e.g. INDEP and READ, OUTSIDE and SELECT). According to the recommended ratio, a minimum of 3-5 items per participant would have been required for this study; so more participants (93 to 155) and an evenly distributed gender are likely to be required for this test. Further still, out of 31 items, only seven items were reverse coded. It may be necessary to include more reverse coded items in future to ensure significant results. There are still many statistical methods the data should undergo, such as ANOVA to verify a meaningful interpretation of the results.

Future research should first start with a systematic method to measure the level of English for students for the actual group in question. Then, using a refined list of items, a re-run of the statistics with newly developed items with a larger population across a variety of academic majors should be conducted, and based on the literature, to find a closer match between quantitative and qualitative results of learner autonomy.

References

Benson, P. (2001). Teaching and researching autonomy in language learning. Harlow, UK: Pearson.

Cattell, R. B. (1966). The screen test for the number of factors. Multivariate behavioral research, 1(2), 245–276. doi:/10.1207/s15327906mbr0102_10

Child, D. (2006). The essentials for factor analysis (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Continuum.

Costello, A. B., & Osborne, J. W. (2005). Best practices in exploratory factor analysis: Four recommendations for getting the most from your analysis. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 10(7), 1–9.

Dickinson, L. (1987). Self-instruction in language learning. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Egel, İ. P. (2003). The impact of the European Language Portfolio on the learner autonomy of Turkish primary school students, Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Anadolu University, Eskişehir.

Fabrigar, L. R., Wegener, D. T., MacCallum, R. C., & Strahan, E. J. (1999). Evaluating the use of exploratory factor analysis in psychological research. Psychological Methods, 4(3), 272–299. doi:10.1037//1082- 989x.4.3.272

Gholami, H. (2016). Self-assessment and learner autonomy. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 6(1), 46V51. doi:/10.17507/tpls.0601.06

Holec, H. (1981). Autonomy in foreign language learning. Oxford, UK: Pergamon.

JASP Team. (2016). JASP (Version 0.7.5.6) [Computer software]. Retrieved from https://jasp-stats.org/

Little, D. (1991). Learner autonomy 1: Definitions, issues and problems. Dublin, Ireland: Authentik.

Littlewood, W. (1996). Autonomy: An anatomy and a framework. System, 24(4), 427–435. doi:/10.1016/ s0346-251x(96)00039-5

Littlewood, W. (1999). Defining and developing autonomy in East Asian contexts. Applied Linguistics, 20(1), 71–94. doi:/10.1093/applin/20.1.71

MacCallum, R. C., Browne, M. W., & Sugawara, H. M. (1996). Power analysis and determination of sample size for covariance structure modeling. Psychological Methods, 1(2), 130–149. doi:/10.1037//1082- 989x.1.2.130

Tassinari, M. G. (2010). Autonomes Fremdsprachenlernen: Komponenten, Kompetenzen, Strategien. Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Peter Lang.

Tassinari, M. G. (2012). Evaluating learner autonomy: A dynamic model with descriptors. Studies in Self- Access Learning Journal, 3(1), 24–40.

Tilfarlioglu, F. Y., & Ciftci, F. S. (2011). Supporting self-efficacy and learner autonomy in relation to academic success in EFL classrooms (a case study). Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 1(10), 1284–1294. doi:10.4304/tpls.1.10.1284-1294

Uehara, S. (2015). Nurturing creativity and presentation skills for science and engineering major EFL classes using ICT. Proceedings of the 19th STEM International Conference: How to develop movie and media materials, Korea Nazarene University, Korea (pp.109–117). The Society for Teaching English through Media (STEM).

Uehara, S., & Martinez Noriega, E. (2016). Trends in EFL technology and educational coding: a case study of an evaluation application developed on LiveCode. JALT CALL Journal, 12(1), 57–58.

Velicer, W. F., & Jackson, D. N. (1990). Component analysis versus common factor analysis: Some issues in selecting an appropriate procedure. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 25(1), 1–28. doi:10.1207/s15327906mbr2501_1

Appendix A

Academic Spoken English Course Outline

Appendix B

Evaluation Form

Appendix C

Survey questions 1

Appendix D

Initial Run with all 31 Items

Appendix E

Second Run with 22 Items

Appendix F

Third Run (for RC1)

Removed IMPORT6 (non-loading item) and conducted a third run for items loaded in RC1from Appendix E.

Third run (for RC2)

Removed IMPORT6 (non-loading item) and conducted a third run for items loaded in RC2 from appendix E.

Chapter 3. Focus on learning strategies: Is it effective?

Paul Collett, Shimonoseki City University

Abstract

This study reports on a small-scale research project aimed at assessing whether a focus on learning strategy instruction had a positive impact on course outcomes for learners of English as a foreign language at a Japanese university. Changes in attitudes to strategy use across three class groups were measured using a version of the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL). The students in each class had received different levels of guidance in strategy use during the course of an academic term. While the class receiving the highest level of explicit strategy instruction registered the largest positive changes in the SILL, they showed little evidence of actual change in learning behaviour or learning outcomes. Possible explanations and implications for the observed outcomes are discussed.

This study reports on a small-scale research project aimed at assessing whether a focus on learning strategy instruction had a positive impact on course outcomes. The research grew out of an ongoing project based around helping learners develop self-regulated learning strategies. For a number of years, students enrolled in the first-year practical English as a foreign language (EFL) course at the institution under study have been provided with a learning portfolio developed to complement the course textbook. The portfolio, based around can-do statements encapsulating course expectations, also contains goal-setting and reflection activities the students are expected to work on in concordance with the course work. The aim here is to help students become more aware of what they need to do to successfully negotiate the course content, and ideally to develop as self-regulated learners (Collett, 2012). However, there was an ongoing issue related to the students in lower-level classes, a number of whom seemed unable to grasp the purpose of the portfolio, and lacked purpose in their approaches to study. It was apparent that helping these students better understand how they could develop as self-regulated learners was a priority if they were to pass the required course. At a basic level, this seemed to necessitate assistance with language learning strategies.

Literature Review

Strategies and Strategy Instruction

An early conceptualisation of strategy use in foreign language learning was introduced by Oxford in 1990. Strategies were initially defined as “specifications, behaviors, steps, or techniques— such as seeking out conversation partners, or giving oneself encouragement to tackle a difficult language task—used by students to enhance their own learning” (Scarcella & Oxford,1992, p. 63, cited in Oxford, 2003). However, this definition has generated much debate regarding the concept of strategies (Plonsky, 2011; Macaro, 2006), including claims that they could be classified under alternative constructs (Tseng, Dörnyei, & Schmitt, 2006). Oxford (2017) has more recently arrived at a new model postulating strategies as behaviours situated in a complex dynamic self-regulatory framework.

Research into strategy instruction has been summarised by Plonsky in a 2011 meta-analysis. Relevant to the present study are findings that higher-level learners seem to benefit more from strategy instruction than lower-proficiency learners. Studies carried out on strategy use in class situations were found to have lower effect sizes than those in laboratory settings. Strategy instruction was also found to be less effective in foreign rather than second-language learning contexts, and was less effective over short-term interventions than longer-term instructional periods.

The SILL

One of the main instruments used to measure strategy use in language learning situations has been Oxford’s Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) (Plonsky, 2011). The version of the test designed for EFL settings consists of 50 questions divided into six sub-scales that aim to measure memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive, affective, and social strategies (Oxford, 2011). Respondents rate their reported strategy use on a five-point scale, that in the original English- Language version of the SILL range from “never or almost never” to “always or almost always”. The SILL has been translated into a number of languages, including a Japanese version used in this particular study which is based on versions from Kato (2008), Kimura (2007), and Sugihashi (2004).

The SILL has faced criticism of weakness in psychometric terms (Oxford, 2011; Dörnyei, 2005). Oxford (2011) defended this on the grounds that with a large enough sample size, and enough categories of measurement, parametric data analysis techniques could justifiably be used to measure outcomes on the survey. Another option to overcome some of the problems here is to avoid parametric statistics due to the multiple problems associated with their use, instead carrying out the data analysis using modern robust statistical techniques (Field & Wilcox, 2017), or to focus on graphical data analysis.

For all the reported weaknesses of the SILL, and the related issues of how to interpret its results, there are few alternatives available to help gain a comprehensive, quantifiable measure of attitudes to strategy use, especially ones available in Japanese. For this study, whilst recognizing that its use does weaken the generalizability of any conclusions drawn, the choice was made to use the SILL due to the relative ease of implementation. There was also the issue of time constraints; administering and analyzing the results of a survey can be done relatively quickly when compared to possible alternatives.

Self-Regulated Learning

Theories of self-regulated learning (SRL) emerged from social and personality psychology in the 1980s. A number of different models and definitions of SRL have been postulated (Boekaerts, Pintrich, & Zeidner, 2000), but the general principles are straightforward. Self-regulated learners are seen as in control of their learning. When engaging in an activity, they plan how they will achieve their goals and put their plans into action in the pursuit of these goals. Once they have attained an outcome, self-regulated learners reflect on the learning outcome in relation to their goals and their actions, using this reflection to guide the next stage of their learning experiences. Thus, SRL involves an ongoing cycle of forethought–action–reflection, with an understanding that it is the goals and the effort to attain these goals that lie at the heart of successful learning.

Learner Beliefs

Related to SRL are the beliefs learners hold about learning; in particular whether they believe that it is possible to improve and master skills through the application of appropriate learning strategies, or that mastering new skills is something that is innate to the learner and not really changeable through effort. These beliefs have been conceptualised as, respectively, growth and fixed mindsets by the social psychologist Carol Dweck and colleagues. Having a growth mindset is seen as a crucial part of being a self-regulated learner (Dweck, 2006).

Within the language learning field, beliefs have traditionally been overlooked or treated as unmeasurable factors to be largely ignored. However, with the move towards a stronger focus on self-processes as key factors in language learning (LL) motivation, there has been a reported increase in the interest of beliefs as an area of valid study (Kalaja, Barcelos, Aro, & Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2016; Kalaja & Barcelos, 2003).

Bown (2009) showed how language learners’ self-beliefs about their agency in learning were related to successful learning outcomes. However, while learners may report certain beliefs about their approaches to learning, the way they go about the actual process can diverge from the reported beliefs (Navarro & Thornton, 2011). Beliefs related to language learning and learner agency may be overridden by social pressures or cultural dialogues regarding languages or the learning process (Bown, 2009; Woods, 2003). Aro (2016, p. 64) suggests “learners can never be particularly “free agents” when they are doing their learning in an institutional setting, because the activities and skills that are valued and that will get them those good grades have been decided beforehand by someone else.” Lantolf and Pavlenko (2001) stress how learner agency is socially and historically constructed: “it is not necessarily the case that all of the people in language classes have the goal of learning the language and the reason for this is because they have different motives for being in the class, because in turn they have different histories” (p. 148), a perspective echoed by Oxford (2017) who argues that “learner strategy use should be considered in light of the sociocultural settings in which the strategies are deployed and the whole web of personal and cultural relationships in that setting” (p. 74).

This also raises the issue of the validity of research findings within some areas of language learning research, wherein learners as respondents to research questions may provide responses based not on their actual beliefs, but rather on “a schema or scripted discourse about the nature of language learning” (Ryan & Mercer, 2012, p. 16).

Method

The subjects for this study were Japanese EFL learners from three separate classes of a first-year university practical English communication class for non-English majors; all classes were taught by the author. The university is located in a provincial region of southwestern Japan. The classes were streamed based on an in-school placement test, ranging from class 1 at top to class 23, with sixteen to eighteen students per class. While no standardised score is available to provide a comparison of English proficiency across classes, many of the students in the lowest-placed class had entered university from local high schools based on a recommendation system, and had minimal high-school level English language education. The students in the higher-level classes tended to be from outside the immediate university region, and had a broader range of experience with English, including time spent living and studying in English-speaking countries.

The three classes were given different levels of in-class guidance on how to use materials designed to help encourage goal-setting and reflection. The lowest-streamed class (A23) was provided with the learning portfolio and this was augmented by in-class guidance on strategy use. This included such things as vocabulary-learning strategies, help-seeking & clarification/confirmation strategies, planning, goal-setting and reflection, and work on pronunciation and intonation. They also were given regular advice and feedback on the use of the learning portfolio. The second group (A2), who served as a control, were given the learning portfolio. While they were expected to complete all parts of the portfolio as part of the course requirements, including the goal-setting and reflection sections, they received no particular guidance or feedback on its use. The third group (A1) were not given a copy of the portfolio, but were required to complete a number of written homework exercises from the portfolio online. No particular strategy instruction or guidance was provided to either of these latter two classes, rather the students worked with the class material and ensured they were familiar with and able to use the target language under study. Assessment of the classes was standardised across the course. As well as exercises included in the learning portfolio to reinforce target language use, students took regular vocabulary tests throughout the course. These were aimed at testing the language covered in the textbook and practised in class. All classes took the same test, with five tests throughout the semester, administered approximately once every two weeks.

Pre- and post-course measures of strategy use were taken in the first and final weeks of the 15-week course using a Japanese-language version of the SILL to record if any changes in reported strategy use were apparent in the classes based on the differing instructional approaches. While student ID numbers were collected on response forms, it was made clear to the students that these would only be used to allow for comparison of the pre- and post-survey data, and that the survey results would be otherwise anonymous. A small number of students failed to answer the survey correctly, leaving a sample of 47; 15 each from the A1 and A23 classes, and 17 from the A2 class.

While the SILL is constituted of 6 sub-scales, only four of these sub-scales will be considered here; namely, the memory-related, cognitive, metacognitive, and social sub-scales. These were the main areas on which strategy instruction focused, and best encapsulate the approach to the instruction of the content in the course itself.

It was hypothesised that the students who received most guidance in use of materials and strategies (A23) would show a greater increase in reported strategy use on the SILL, and more positive changes in learning outcomes and classroom outcomes than the other two classes (A1, A2).

Results

Reliability of the SILL as measured by Cronbach alpha gave high reliability for all scales except “I use flashcards to remember English words” in the pre-test survey (Cronbach α = .75, item α = .8; item-rest correlation (r.drop) = .096). Descriptive statistics for the 4 sub-scales of interest are given in table 1. Due to the non-parametric nature of the sample, the small sample sizes, and the use of an ordinal scale for measuring student responses, the median scores are suggested as a better representation of the data distribution than the means. Graphical representation of the data is provided in figure 1. Individual scores for each student are represented by gray dots, while the median scores are indicated by black bars. As is apparent from both table 1 and figure 1, the greatest reported increase in strategy use was for the A23 class students, with median increases of up to 40%.

To test the variation between the three classes for the survey results, a repeated-measures between-by-within ANOVA was performed on the difference between the survey outcomes for class and test conditions. A robust ANOVA was used due to the small sample size and presence of outliers in the data. The analysis was carried out in the R statistical environment for computing using the function bwtrim from the WRS2 Package (Mair & Wilcox, 2018). This adjusts for outliers that may otherwise negatively influence the outcomes of the data analysis (Field & Wilcox, 2017).

Table 1: Descriptive statistics for SILL results

Figure 1: SILL pretest and posttest ratings

Results are listed in table 2. Statistically significant outcomes at p < 0.05 were found for the class (between) condition in the case of the cognitive and metacognitive scales, and for all scales in the within (i.e. before – after survey) conditions. Based on the descriptive statistics, it is reasonable to conclude the results here can be explained by the variation in the A23 class responses.

Table 2. Robust ANOVA results

This can be checked with M-estimators calculated based on the medians, a robust variation ofmaximum-likelihood estimators (Mair & Wilcox, 2018). These test a null hypothesis of equal difference scores between the groups. Significant interaction effects were found for the metacognitive (pre-post estimates: A1 = -2, A2 = 4, A23 = 6; p = .042) and social (pre-post estimates: A1 = 1, A2 = 5, A23 = 4; p = .03) scales while a group effect was found for the cognitive scale (A1 = 3, A2 = 8, A3 = 11, p < 0.01). For all but the social scale, these show that the main differences are with the A23 group.

Although we do not have a standardized test score by which to measure changes in pre and post-test language proficiency, the results of the regular vocabulary tests can serve as one indication of progress. Table 3 lists the correlations of cumulative proportional changes in the scores of the vocabulary tests with changes in survey responses. On first inspection, the correlations are high for the memory and metacognitive scales in the case of the A23 class. However, a closer look at the data as presented in figure 2 shows that the majority of students in this class recorded negative or zero proportional changes in their test results, while registering positive changes in their responses on the SILL. Individual results for the vocabulary tests are given in figure 3. There were minimal changes in the means (shown by the black bars) for each class over the course of the semester. The grey dots indicate students’ raw scores. Based on these results, it is difficult to conclude that there were any substantial improvements in learning outcomes for any of the classes over the course of the semester, or that the efforts to teach learning strategies were successful.

Table 3: Correlations of vocabulary test changes and SILL changes

Figure 2: Cumulative changes in vocabulary tests by changes in SILL responses

Vocabulary Test Results

Figure 3: Vocabulary test results

Figure 4 presents confidence interval (CI) plots for the vocabulary test outcomes. These show an interval within which one can be relatively confident that the population mean exists for the effect one is testing for; here, 95% CIs (adjusted to account for within-subject variability based on Morey, 2008) for the first and final unit tests. The plots all suggest that any differences in the mean scores between the first and final tests are the result of chance. Furthermore, classroom observations and overall learning outcomes suggest that the reported changes in regards to strategy use were not accompanied by substantive changes in the students’ approaches to the class and the material under study, with an overall course failure rate of 23.5% in A23 compared to a failure rate of zero in classes A1 and A2.

Figure 4: Confidence intervals for vocabulary test results

Discussion

The initial hypothesis that there would be a greater change in the reported strategy use for the A23 class was found to be supported, with little evidence in the data to suggest any major changes in the other two classes. However, this was not accompanied by any measurable improvements in learning outcomes for the A23 class. A number of possible suggestions can be put forward to account for this. One possibility is quite simply that the attempts to instruct students in strategy use failed. Extrapolating from the findings in Plonsky’s (2011) meta-analysis, it is possible that the effort made to promote strategy use may not have had an effect over the short time period of this study. Longer-term and more in-depth guidance and practice may be necessary to ensure learner engagement with, and incorporation of strategies into their learning routines. Another possibility is that the strategy instruction had some influence, but that the students may have been applying strategies superficially.

It may also be that the survey was not measuring what it purports to. This does seem somewhat unlikely, however, as the SILL has been used extensively and validated in a wide range of learning situations over a period of more than 20 years. In this instance, the use of reliability measures (Cronbach Alpha) for the results match those reported for other studies using translated versions of the SILL (Oxford, 2011).

Another possibility is that the students were not answering the survey honestly or correctly, either purposefully or unconsciously due to their beliefs about language learning, and the nature of learner agency in institutional classroom settings. Stressing the importance of certain strategies in instruction may lead learners to state they are using those strategies, when they are not. In other words,respondents to the survey may be answering in ways they have come to believe are the “correct” responses. Beliefs are formed through sociocultural factors, and are dynamic; whilst they (pre)exist independently of our knowledge of them, they can be modified by our behaviours.

Similarly, agency in formal learning environments is defined not only by the learners, but by conditions imposed by the environment, and like belief formation, this is a dialectical process (Kalaja, Barcelos, Aro & Ruohotie- Lyhty, 2016; Mercer, 2016; Bown, 2009; Bandura, 2008; van Lier, 2004; Dufva, 2003; Woods, 2003; Lantolf & Pavlenko, 2001). Learners act in accordance with their beliefs and agency, not necessarily learning because they feel they want to, but rather based on their interpretation of the learning environment. In some contexts all this environment may require is the suggestion that its participants are learning. For learners lacking self-regulation, or knowledge of learning strategies, such as in the lower level class in this study, the goals they set may be to appear as effective learners, reflective of learners with entity rather than incremental self-theories, or fixed mindsets (Dweck & Master, 2008; Dweck, 2006). In these cases, learning outcomes will often be poor as the learners are not willing to move beyond superficial levels of effort that they feel represent what they need to be appearing to achieve. This may not be a deliberate choice on behalf of the students, but rather in itself represents strategies they have assimilated through their educational progress and other experiences to help cope with the demands and expectations placed on them by the educational context.

Conclusion

Given the results found, there is no strong support for the veracity of the hypothesis under consideration. Reported positive changes in strategy use for the group receiving explicit guidance with strategy use do not appear to have resulted in practical changes in approaches to learning. A number of different explanations may help explain the outcomes observed, but it is difficult to draw any firm conclusions without a more nuanced methodological approach. In this respect, it must be acknowledged that the points raised above are somewhat speculative.

Further research is required to try and gain a deeper understanding of student beliefs about their strategy use. A reliance on “traditional” research methodologies may not be appropriate here, but in cases where quantitative research is carried out it is recommended that researchers be aware of the issues surrounding the use of data-analytic techniques, and consider the use of robust alternatives. More generally, moving beyond survey-based research would perhaps offer new insights into student beliefs about their strategy use; one promising alternative is the use of Q methodology (Irie, Ryan, & Mercer, 2018; Stainton Rogers, 1995).

In terms of helping learners to better use learning strategies, as the above discussion positions the antecedents for unsatisfactory learning outcomes as both a dialectic between structural, sociocultural, and individual factors, it allows for a number of entry points to work on implementing reform. While some changes may be beyond the purview of the classroom teacher, there are ways that the teacher can work to help students develop more positive beliefs and strengthen their sense of individual agency. How to recognize when and where efforts at reform are successful remains a challenge.

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Chapter 4. Facilitating Japanese University Students’ Autonomous Learning In and Beyond the English Classroom

Daniel G. C. Hougham, Hiroshima Jogakuin University

Abstract

This study examined the effectiveness of a variety of learner training activities used with 36 Japanese university students to promote learner autonomy in and beyond the classroom. The activities included extensive reading, using word cards, reflection, and online testing. The study focused on investigating how helpful these activities were for students, to what extent they had any effect on students’ autonomous learning, and whether the students’ English proficiency improved. Analyses of quantitative and qualitative data, collected through an end-of-term questionnaire, as well as in-class vocabulary quiz and listening test scores, showed that: (1) many students felt the activities were helpful and that they had a positive effect on various aspects of their autonomous learning, such as increasing motivation and out-of-class study time, and (2) students evaluated their improvement in English proficiency positively. It was clear that these activities have great potential to improve English proficiency and facilitate autonomous learning beyond the classroom.

Learner autonomy has been defined as “the capacity to take control over one’s own learning” (Benson, 2011, p. 123). Autonomous learners are expected to take control over their learning by setting their own learning goals, making plans to achieve those goals, and monitoring their progress. Some of the main methods that have been used to promote autonomous learning include the use of self- access language learning centers (e.g. Gardner & Miller, 1999), computer-assisted language learning courses (e.g. Ying, 2002) and language-learner strategy training (e.g. Yang, 1998). Drawing on my own experience of learning Japanese autonomously, it is reasonable to argue that using a combination of methods such as these will be likely to create optimal conditions leading to favorable learning outcomes and the development of autonomy.

In this paper, it will be argued that training learners to use a variety of language-learning strategies and tools—including guessing from context while doing extensive reading with easy graded readers, creating and using Quizlet word cards, and reflecting on their learning—and giving them ample in-class opportunities to practice will contribute to their development as autonomous learners and increase their opportunities to achieve favorable learning outcomes. The paper is organized as follows. First, relevant literature will be reviewed. Next, the research methods will be described. Then, analyses of the results will be presented and discussed. Finally, the paper concludes with suggestions for future research.

Literature Review

Paul Nation (2013, p. 11) argued that the two most important jobs of the English teacher are (1) to plan a well-balanced variety of learning opportunities and (2) to train learners in the use of effective language-learning strategies to help them become autonomous learners who can manage their own learning independently and effectively. Planning a balance of learning opportunities involves applying Nation’s (2007) principle of “the four strands”, which states that a well-balanced language course consists of four equal strands: (1) meaning-focused input, (2) meaning-focused output, (3) language-focused learning, and (4) fluency development. Each of these strands should get a roughly equal amount of time in the overall course. He argued that extensive reading is the most important activity that fits within the meaning-focused input strand, and ‘guessing from context’ is the most important reading strategy. So, it is arguably worth training students to use the guessing from context strategy and to give them opportunities to apply the strategy through extensive reading activities.

Nation also suggested that, within the language-focused learning strand, using word cards is the most important strategy because many studies have shown that large numbers of words can be learned in a very short time and what has been learned can be remembered for a very long time (Nation, 2001, pp. 296-316). It is therefore well worth spending time on training students to use the word card strategy. Nation (2008, pp. 107-110) described the most important parts of the word card strategy as follows: (1) choosing what words and phrases to put on the cards, (2) going through the cards, (3) repeatedly coming back to the cards, and (4) motivating students to use and keep using the strategy. Smartphones and electronic flashcards were not yet widespread at the time he published this description, so he recommended a number of steps on how to implement such learning, involving making some packs of small cards using ordinary paper, and repeatedly studying the cards at increasingly spaced intervals of time. Although such well-researched guidelines seem very useful, three problems have been pointed out by Browne and Culligan (2008, p. 8-9): (1) “keeping track of the correct time intervals for the review of hundreds of physical cards proved to be too cumbersome and demanding for most learners”, (2) “the physical process of reading thousands of cards to eliminate the known words and concentrate on the unknown words is time-consuming and tedious”, and (3) motivating students to use them and keep using them proved difficult. Many of the weaknesses inherent in using paper cards can be eliminated by using electronic applications.

Furthermore, considering that there is a rich EFL/ESL classroom tradition of using games with a communicative purpose to increase and sustain learner motivation (e.g. Ersoz, 2000; Uberman, 1998) as well as lower the learner’s affective filter (e.g. Krashen 1985), games should be used together with electronic word cards as a way of motivating students to use and keep using the cards. In addition, Eskey (1988) has pointed out that it is not just the size of the vocabulary, but also the ability to rapidly and accurately decode language is especially important for second-language readers. So, it is extremely important to use games and activities that encourage and develop the automatic process of word recognition, such as those described in Warrington (2006), including reading aloud, extensive reading, and word and definition matching.

Therefore, it would be appropriate to use an electronic word card program that offers a variety of such activities and games, the use of which is supported by classroom research. A large and growing body of classroom research in various EFL teaching contexts suggests that Quizlet is effective, user-friendly, and increasingly popular among teachers and students alike (e.g., Barr, 2016; Dizon, 2016; Jackson III, 2015; Lander, 2016; Milliner, 2013; Wolff, 2016). In a recent study in a Japanese university EFL teaching context, for example, Dizon (2016) used Quizlet with a small class of learners and found that students made significant gains on Schmitt, Schmitt, and Clapham’s (2001) Vocabulary Levels Test, evidenced by pre- and post-test scores. Moreover, he conducted a Likert- style questionnaire and found that students’ responses indicated high levels of agreement in terms of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and intention to use Quizlet in the future. Interestingly, Dizon also found that a majority of students spent a considerable amount of time (between 20 and 60 minutes) using Quizlet outside class each week, which is similar to the result reported by Jackson III (2015) whose study in an Emirati teaching context concluded that “[i]n this age of digital natives, paper notecards cannot compete with Quizlet’s digital ones that offer immediate feedback and audio reinforcement in L1 and L2” (p. 10). There is indeed widespread support for the use of Quizlet in and beyond the classroom, even among vocabulary acquisition experts including Paul Nation, as evidenced by the fact that his latest series of vocabulary study books titled “1200 Key English Words” (2018) feature Quizlet as an online study app of choice, prominently displaying the Quizlet logo on the front cover and explaining how to use Quizlet on the first page of each book.

In Japan, several attempts have been made to design and measure the effectiveness of programs that promote autonomous learning using learner training methods at the university level. However, the number of empirical studies in this area is limited. One of the few recent empirical studies, Yabukoshi and Kato (2017) explored the effectiveness of an autonomous learning support program that implemented the following five activities: (1) language learning strategy (LLS) instruction, (2) setting goals, (3) making plans, (4) self-evaluating, and (5) receiving feedback. To assess the effectiveness of their support program, they used a questionnaire, evaluation sheets, and pre- and post-program TOEIC scores, the results of which were encouraging: their students found the five activities helpful, and students’ perceptions of their autonomous learning were overall positive. Furthermore, significant gains on the TOEIC were found. However, they also found that students’ responses to “improving LLS use” were less positive compared with their responses to most other items. The authors noted that this may have been because some students might not have used the strategies effectively, as students were not given opportunities to practice strategy use due to time constraints.

As seen, previous studies have suggested positive effects of autonomous learning programs. However, the number of empirical studies on this topic is limited in Japan and there seems to be a need to focus on providing learner training and giving ample opportunities to practice using some language-learning strategies that have been reported as important in the literature. This study was designed to fill this research gap and it tackled the following research questions (adapted from Yabukoshi & Kato, 2017):

RQ1: Do the activities have any effect on students’ autonomous learning.

RQ2: What kinds of activities are helpful for them?

RQ3: Do students improve their English proficiency?

Methods

Participants and Teaching Context

Two classes of freshmen (N = 36; 20 females and 16 males) in the English Department of a private Japanese university participated in this study. Each class had two compulsory 90-minute classes per week, mainly focused on developing listening, speaking, and reading skills. A textbook and graded readers (a wide variety of which were available in the university library) were used. Students were assessed based on weekly vocabulary quizzes, mid- and end-of-term listening tests, and one final test based on the textbook content. One of their main goals in learning English was to get a high score on these in-class assessments.

Procedure

A variety of learning activities were designed and implemented by the teacher-researcher (the author) at the university in 2017. The following four activities were used to promote autonomous learning in and beyond the classroom: (1) doing extensive reading, (2) using electronic word cards with Quizlet, (3) using reflection/question/plan/goal sheets, and (4) using computer-assisted tests.

During the first week of the initial 8-week term, students were introduced to extensive reading (ER) activities and given a brief tour of the ER area in the university library. Materials were designed and provided by the teacher to give students guidance in selecting suitable books for their individual level to enable them to understand and practice the key reading strategy of “guessing from context”.

These materials included a bilingual checklist for finding suitable books and how to do ER (appendices A-1, A-2), a handout explaining the “Three Golden Rules” (Sakai, 2005) for successful ER (Appendix B), and the ER Foundation’s (2013) 5-finger rule.

A small amount of class time was allocated initially and on an ongoing basis for explicit strategy instruction to help students understand and apply the key reading strategy of guessing from context. This was done by demonstrating the strategy and referring students to the three golden rules and the 5-finger rule. Furthermore, about 10 minutes at the beginning of each class was allocated as silent reading time, when students had opportunities to practice this strategy. They were often reminded to reread and apply the rules and were instructed to keep regular records of their ER using a journal.

Students were also introduced to Quizlet during the first week of classes and were given small amounts of training to create and use Quizlet word cards to study the vocabulary in their textbook. Classes were held in a computer room, so we usually used desktop computers when using Quizlet, but students were also given training to use the Quizlet app on their smartphones. This included two kinds of training:

1. Technical training: How to use the options and controls of Quizlet, especially creating bilingual word cards using “auto-define” and “add image” functions, turning on (and slowing down) the audio, and setting the quiz date in the new Learn mode. Students were also encouraged to use online dictionaries to look up new words when necessary.

2. Strategic training: What Quizlet activities to do to support their goal of getting a high score on the weekly vocab quiz and mid- and end-of-term listening tests. This included using the “Play” function to do shadowing practice using Flashcards with audio, using the “Star” function to focus on studying difficult words, and using the adaptive machine learning algorithm within “Learn” mode.

Students were given time in class to try out various Quizlet activities of their choice, while the teacher monitored and helped. They were also given regular Quizlet homework: Flashcards plus one activity of their choice. The team-based word and definition matching game Quizlet Live was also used approximately once per week to practice and review key vocabulary.

Every week students were given a vocabulary quiz to encourage them to learn the vocabulary and expressions from the textbook. They were also given listening tests at the middle and end of the third term. These quizzes and tests were conducted online using Google Forms in multiple choice format. Google Forms was used because it offers the option of immediate feedback: once a student submits the form, they can receive their score by email immediately and see if they have made any mistakes and, if so, what the correct answers are. An add-on app called Flubaroo was used to enable Google Forms to complete this automatic grading process.

Several minutes at the end of each class was allocated to reflecting in pairs and making notes on what they learned during that day’s lesson, and what their goals, plans, and questions were, using a goal/plan/reflection/sheet (Appendix C). These sheets were collected after each class and read by the teacher-researcher who answered any questions the students wrote on the sheet.

Data Collection

To assess the helpfulness of the learning activities, a questionnaire was designed and used to collect quantitative and qualitative data, and vocabulary quiz scores as well as listening test scores were collected and analyzed at the end of the third 8-week term. The questionnaire was adapted from Yabukoshi and Kato (2016) to examine RQ1 and RQ2 (Table 1 and Appendices D-1, D-2). It consisted of five parts: (1) about the learner, (2) about the class, (3) usefulness of the four activities,(4) students’ autonomous language learning, and (5) students’ open-ended opinions about the class and activities. Following Dornyei and Taguchi’s (2018, p.28) suggestion on Likert-type scale construction, instead of using an odd number of items, an even-numbered six-point Likert-type scale was used in parts one to four, thus eliminating the possibility that some respondents might use the middle category (“neither agree nor disagree”) to avoid making a real choice.

Only parts three to five are reported in this paper. In part three, the four activities (doing ER, using word cards, using goal/plan/reflection sheets, and doing online testing) were assessed on the 6-point Likert-type scale ranging from 6 "very helpful" to 1 "not helpful at all". In part four, eight items were included for measuring students' perceptions of their autonomous learning after doing the activities. Four items asked about (a) clarifying goals (Item D-3), (b) improving LLS use (D-2), (c) monitoring and following plans (D-4), and (d) evaluating improvement in English proficiency (D-6), which were formulated based on Holec (1981). Four items, (e) increasing motivation for learning (D-5), and (f)

Table 1. Contents of the Questionnaire

increasing out-of-class study time (D-1), (g) hoping to learn by doing ER in the future (D-7), and (h) hoping to learn by using Quizlet in the future (D-8), were included because autonomous learning and motivation are closely connected (Ushioda, 2011), so learners should have some outside-class study time doing activities, using tools they feel are useful for successful autonomous learning. These eight items were assessed using a 6-point Likert scale ranging from 6 "very true" to 1 "not at all true". In part five, several open-ended items asked students to write their opinions regarding: (a) good things about the course, (b) things that need improvement, (c) impressions about the English learning activities, and (d) other reflections or comments. The excerpts presented in the Results and Discussion section were translated into English by the teacher-researcher. The questionnaire was conducted anonymously, in the students’ native language (Japanese), using Google Forms by desktop computer during the last class of the third term.

To examine RQ3, students’ progress in English proficiency was measured by the online vocabulary quizzes and listening tests since many noted that their goal was to get a high score on these ongoing assessments.

Results and Discussion

This section reports students’ evaluation of their own autonomous learning, the learning activities conducted, and their progress in English proficiency.

Students’ Evaluation

Tables 2 and 3 show students’ responses to questions regarding the helpfulness of the activities incorporated in the course and their autonomous language learning, respectively. The Cronbach’s α coefficients were .77 for the helpfulness of the learning activity scale and .92 for the autonomous language learning scale.

Table 2. Students’ evaluation of the activities

Note: six-point Likert scale (1 = not helpful at all and 6 = very helpful)

Table 3. Students’ perceptions of their autonomous language learning

Note: six-point Likert scale (1 = not true at all and 6 = very true)

As Table 3 shows, students provided a Likert scale response of 4.6 or higher on a scale of 6 on all items. From these data, it is inferred that students (a) clarified their goals (M = 4.7, SD = 0.9), improved their LLS use (M = 4.6, SD = 1.0), monitored and followed their plans (M = 4.8, SD = 1.0), improved their English ability (M = 4.6, SD = 1.1), increased their motivation (M = 4.9, SD = 1.0), and increased their out-of-class study time (M = 4.6, SD = 1.1). These results also indicate that students would like to learn by doing extensive reading in the future (M = 4.7, SD = 1.1), and would like to study using Quizlet in the future (M = 5.6, SD = 0.5). Students’ responses to the open-ended items provided insights into the positive aspects of the course on some of these items as follows (students’ names are pseudonyms):

Thanks to this class, I acquired the habit of reading books. (Hana)

Since Quizlet enables us to study repeatedly over and over, it is greatly helpful to be able to do it before tests as well as for other tasks. (Tomoko)

As Quizlet [Live] is a team battle, I began to study in advance independently so as to not cause trouble for my team. (Ken)

By writing a reflection sheet every time, it became easier to reflect on what went on that day. (Hayato) It was good that the results of the test came immediately. (Sara)

I am thankful that the results of the test come by email. (Motoki)

As shown in Table 2, students found it helpful to do extensive reading activities (M = 4.8, SD = 1.0) and to use Quizlet in various ways, especially using Quizlet Learn mode (M = 5.6, SD = 0.7) and Quizlet Live game (M = 5.8, SD = 0.4). They also found it helpful to receive immediate feedback after doing online quizzes (M = 5.8, SD = 0.6) and listening tests (M = 5.7, SD = 0.7) via Google Forms.

Although students also found it helpful to use goal/plan/reflection/question sheets (M = 4.6, SD = 1.2), there responses to this item were less positive compared with their responses to the other items. Regarding goal/plan/reflection/question sheets, some students used them quite a lot, while others did not make much use of them. This may have been because of the design of these sheets and the procedure for their use. The sheets were designed to combine the activities of goal-setting, planning, reflecting, and asking questions into one small area on a sheet, which might not have afforded students enough space to do each of these activities. Although the teacher-researcher collected and read each sheet after each class, due to time constraints, it was decided to selectively respond in writing only to those on which the students had written a question or request. It must therefore be admitted that perhaps the use of these sheets was not always effective in stimulating deep reflective processes among students, and opportunities for reflective dialogue were somewhat limited.

Future studies should include more opportunities for learners to be engaged in and supported through reflective dialogue, which can have a powerful effect on learners by helping them to activate deep reflection on learning (Kato, 2012; Kato & Mynard, 2016; Mynard, 2018). Reflection through dialogue with teachers and/or learning advisors is important because it offers possibilities to restructure one’s established assumptions or beliefs which can lead one to develop further (Brockbank & McGill, 2006). It would be appropriate to better prepare learners to become autonomous by doing more “structured awareness raising”, which may involve the following types of overlapping awareness raising (Kato & Mynard, 2016, pp. 242-247): (1) awareness of facilities, roles and resources, (2) awareness of self, and (3) awareness of approaches to learning. Offering these kinds of structured awareness raising within language classes has the advantage of enabling learners to work together and learn from each other, but it would also appear advantageous to offer individual advising sessions such as those described in Yabukoshi and Kato’s study. One efficient way to raise awareness of approaches to learning and help students manage outside-class study would be through supporting them in classes to develop and follow a personalized learning plan such as the one provided in Kato and Mynard (pp. 54-55). Coordinating the use of such plans with Learning Advisors who can offer further support through individual advising sessions would be worth trying. In future studies, it may also be more effective and helpful to give explicit instruction of more strategies, to broaden the range of strategies available to learners, by developing and using some language skill strategies worksheets such as the reading strategy worksheet provided by Thornton (2011). There appears to be a need, though, to develop bilingual versions of these sheets to make them comprehensible for lower-level learners who may need L1 support.

It is also worth mentioning that, although students found it helpful to do ER activities (M = 4.8, SD = 1.0), their responses to this item were less positive compared with their responses to using Quizlet and doing online testing. Regarding ER activities, it was observed that some students appeared to experience a great deal of success and enjoyment doing ER because they found suitable books and followed the three golden rules and the 5-finger rule, while others seemed to struggle to follow these rules and therefore did not enjoy reading as much. Although the teacher- researcher monitored the students’ use of their reading journal by having them keep it open on their desk and quickly looking at it during reading time, it was decided that the journals be collected and assessed only once at the end of each term. It must be admitted that the golden rules were not strictly enforced and it was observed that some students tended to choose books that seemed to be too difficult for their level, thus hampering their opportunities to experience the pleasure of reading. Previous research in a similar Japanese EFL teaching context has shown that the biggest factor for a successful ER component was “reading a great number of very easy books at the beginning stage of ER, which lowered the affective filter and gave learners the joy of reading” (Takase, 2008, p. 119).

Therefore, future studies should use some sort of enforcement and tracking system to ensure that all students are starting to read with simple stories, progressively moving to higher levels, and experiencing the joy of reading. Using a web-based learning management system such as MReader, which has been specially designed to track students’ ER achievements and make the assessment of reading a relatively trouble-free task for teachers (Robb & Kano, 2013; Robb, 2015), would be worth trying. Indeed, MReader has been tried and tested in a large number of Japanese universities where the start with simple stories method has been implemented with much success (e.g. Campbell, Yoshida, Tanimura, Clark, Calman, & Davey, 2015; Koby, 2016).

Another possible reason why some students struggled to experience the joy of reading is that they simply forgot to bring their graded readers to class, so were unable to read appropriate material during reading time. One way to solve this problem is to implement a mobile library where the teacher brings a selection of suitable books to each class. Indeed, research in a similar teaching context found that by bringing the books to class each week, teachers can significantly improve students’ weekly reading consistency and prospects of successful ER (Cheetham, Elliot, Harper & Ito, 2017). In future studies, therefore, it would be advantageous to implement a mobile library that makes level-appropriate books readily accessible and increases the opportunities for students to experience the pleasure of reading and develop their autonomy as learners.

Progress in English Proficiency

The participants in-class weekly quiz scores and listening test scores in September and October during Term 3 were collected and analyzed to answer RQ3. Tables 4 and 5 show the results of these formative assessments.

Table 4. Students’ quiz scores in September and October (N = 36)

Note: maximum possible score on each vocabulary quiz was 7 points.

Table 5. Students’ listening test scores in early and late October

Note: maximum possible score on each listening test was 12 points.

These vocabulary quizzes and listening tests were aimed at testing the language covered in the textbook. All students took the same quizzes and tests. Six quizzes were given throughout the term, approximately once every week. Two listening tests were given, one at the mid-term and one at the end-of-term. The high average scores shown in the tables above could be taken as limited evidence for the students’ very good progress in English. In addition, as discussed in the Students’ Evaluation section, students evaluated their improvement in English proficiency positively (M = 4.6, SD = 1.1) (Table 3). Although it is difficult to conclude that there were any significant improvements in learning outcomes, based on these results, it has been determined by the teacher-researcher that the learning activities conducted have the potential to improve students’ English proficiency.

The key points discussed so far are as follows: To prepare learners to become autonomous, the teacher should plan a well-balanced variety of learning opportunities across the four strands and incorporate a focus on structured awareness raising that provides ample opportunities for reflective dialogue and raising awareness of self, awareness of facilities, roles, and resources, and awareness of approaches to learning, especially learning strategy training.

Limitations of this study include its small number of participants, its short time frame, the lack of a control group, and the lack of standardized measures of language proficiency (e.g. TOEIC). Additionally, other variables (e.g. other English classes the participants were taking during the study) might have affected the results.

Conclusion

This study explored the effectiveness of the use of a variety of learning activities to promote autonomous learning, and several suggestions for improved activities were made. The evidence presented suggests that the learning activities and tools used have very good potential to prepare learners to become autonomous and improve their English proficiency. Suggestions for future research include using the TOEIC and Nation’s Vocabulary Size Test as pre- and post-tests, doing more structured awareness raising using reflective dialogue techniques, using a learning management system such as MReader to track and recognize ER achievements, and implementing a mobile ER library to make a selection of suitable books readily accessible.

Acknowledgement

I thank the anonymous reviewers for the very helpful comments. I am also very grateful to Hiroshima Jogakuin University for the research grant which made my participation at ILA2018 and this research paper possible.

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Appendix A-1

Checklist for Finding Suitable Books for You & How to Do ER (English version)

Appendix A-2

Checklist for Finding Suitable Books for You & How to Do ER (Japanese translation)

本のレベルが自分に合っているかどうかのChecklistと英語多読の進め方

Source: Adapted from Shibata (2016).

Appendix B

The 3 Golden Rules for Extensive Reading 英語多読 3 原則

Source: Adapted from Sakai (2005).

Appendix C

Goal/Plan/Reflection/Question Sheet

Name (氏名): No. (学籍番号) Class (クラス)

My Language-Learning Goals, Plans, Reflections and Questions

Please use this sheet every class. Talk with your friend and then make notes about these questions: What did you learn? What would you like to learn? What was difficult or challenging for you? What are your goals? What are your weekly plans for meeting your goals? Do you have any questions?

(毎回、英語学習に関するゴールや計画、振り返り、質問等を書いてください。）

Note: This sheet was reduced in size to fit on one page in this appendix. The actual size used in the study was A5, double-sided.

Appendix D

Questionnaire (original version in Japanese)

このアンケートは、授業改善の向上を図る目的で実施するものです。学生の皆さんの授業に対する考 え方、感じ方等を聞くことにより、担当教員が授業の改善をしていく資料として役立てるものです。あな たの回答は大変貴重であり、今後の授業のあり方に反映させていただきます。回答内容があなたの成 績評価に影響することは全くありませんので、出来る限り率直に、真剣に答えて下さい。正しい答えや 間違った答えはありませんので，正直に答えてください。また，皆さんの名前が公開されることもありま せん。ご協力をよろしくお願いします。

質問の回答は6段階（1全くそう思わない〜6強くそう思う）評価で、評価してください。

ご協力ありがとうございました。

Appendix E

Questionnaire (Translated version in English)

This purpose of this questionnaire is to improve the class. By listening to the students’ way of thinking and feeling about the class, it is useful as a material for the teacher to improve things. Your responses are very valuable and will be reflected in the future course. Your responses have no effect on your grade evaluation, so answer as frankly and seriously as you can. There are no right or wrong answers, so please answer honestly. Your name will not be disclosed. Your cooperation is appreciated.

Please answer the questions using a 6-point scale, ranging from 1 strongly disagree to 6 strongly agree.

Part 2: Voices from beyond the classroom

Chapter 5. Community Outreach Projects as a Medium for Independent Learning

Wendy M. Gough, Bunkyo Gakuin University, Japan

Abstract

University students studying English as a second language in English speaking countries have reported that volunteering in their community helped them expand their language ability and develop a sense of their second language identity. They also learned to understand nuances of both their native and other cultures through contact with a wide variety of people outside of the formal classroom environment, which promoted cross-cultural understanding (Andrew, 2011; Perren, 2008). The international tourism boom and ever-expanding internationalization in Japan can provide a means for Japanese university students to experience similar benefits through participation in community outreach projects which support the growing English needs in local communities. These projects have two benefits. They provide students with occasions to use English independently outside of the classroom as they interact with people from around the world. The projects also furnish the community where the university is located with English support for internationalization. This paper will discuss case study research that shows how community outreach projects supporting international tourism, professional, and social events in a small Japanese port town helped university students develop intercultural communication skills as they used English in unscripted situations outside of the classroom. Because opportunities to use English outside the classroom are limited in many Asian countries, this research has potential for application across the region.

Developing cross-cultural understanding and critical thinking skills for handling unfamiliar situations in English is a hurdle for Japanese students studying English as a foreign language in Japan because they have few chances to interact with English speakers outside of the classroom (Hashimoto, 2013). Japanese university students are beginning to recognize that gaining competence in English and developing intercultural communication skills are key to becoming members of the international community where English is the lingua franca (Menking, 2015). Students who study abroad in English-speaking countries have occasions to develop these competencies. Unfortunately study abroad programs are expensive, so many students cannot participate in them. To help solve the problem of limited opportunities for using English in Japan, instructors can tap into local resources and promote interaction with people from around the world. This paper reports on case study research that was conducted with members of a university English Club in Japan. It shows how volunteer projects to support the English needs of the community where the university is located helped the students develop intercultural communication skills that taught them how to cope when using English in authentic situations.

Background

The Japanese government has designated the port in Shimizu Ward in Shizuoka City, Shizuoka Prefecture as an international luxury liner hub (The Japan News, 2017), and beginning in 2014, international luxury liners began making increasingly more port calls to this small port town each year. In an effort to show “omotenashi,” or Japanese hospitality, the Shimizu Port Authority and town office provide portside shopping and services for passengers disembarking from the ships. These include souvenir shops, currency exchange, food booths, an information center, free Wi-Fi service, and cultural experiences such as trying tea ceremony or wearing a kimono. Local business groups also provide a shuttle bus service into town, arrange taxi tours, and offer discount tickets into local attractions. In order to facilitate these activities, the town office and port authority rely on local citizens, students from local universities, and other community support organizations to provide volunteer English support services.

When the international luxury liners began making regular port calls at Shimizu Port in 2014, the Tokai University Active Tokai Local Ambassadors (ATLAS) English Club was the first university group to begin volunteering at the portside. At that time, ATLAS English Club students began helping at the information booth, explaining how to connect to the portside Wi-Fi, giving directions to places of interest in the town, and explaining about products for sale at the portside booths. The ATLAS English Club students continue to volunteer at the port and the author, who was one of the ATLAS English Club advisers, helped the students find other volunteer opportunities to support the community’s needs. These include interpreting for professional soccer teams visiting from overseas, arranging exchange events with international students visiting from other parts of Japan, creating unique projects such as an English language map to a local beach that is part of the Mt. Fuji World Cultural Heritage Site, and conducting a student-led tour to the beach. When she was working at the university, the author and her co-adviser helped the students by coordinating the projects with the town office, port authority, and other local groups. They also attended the activities when possible to observe and support the students, but in general the students participated on their own. These activities gave the students a chance to use English to interact in unscripted situations with people from around the world, which exposes them to a variety of communication styles and helps them learn intercultural communication skills.

Intercultural Communication

Developing intercultural communication skills in a second or foreign language involves learning a more nuanced understanding of communication across cultures. This includes understanding how to use vocabulary and grammatical forms in a variety of situations as well as developing an awareness of different culturally connected aspects of communication (Rambo, 2005). Intercultural communication requires noticing, thinking critically, processing input, and then producing language and reacting in ways that are suitable for the situation. It also entails overcoming cultural stereotypes, learning to see the perspectives of others, being open and flexible, and knowing oneself (Xin, 2016). By interacting with people from other cultures using a common language, language learners develop a deeper consciousness of their native culture norms, their world outlook, and how they place themselves in the context of the foreign language culture (Rambo, 2005). They begin to understand the nuances of communication styles between people of different cultural and sociolinguistic backgrounds through interaction and observation. They also learn how to cope when they struggle to communicate effectively. This learning occurs through participation in social activities that help learners understand how to respond and cope with different types of stress in their lives (Anwaruddin, 2012). One way that English language learners can acquire intercultural communication skills is by engaging in direct, authentic contact with English speakers through volunteer activities in the communities where they live.

Volunteering and intercultural communication development

The experiences of English language learners developing intercultural competence by engaging in volunteer and community outreach activities have been studied in English-speaking countries (Andrew, 2011a; 2011b; Perren, 2008). These studies also investigated how learner experiences support post-structural language acquisition theories in which through authentic interaction with English language, learners begin to develop a concept of their future English-speaking selves (Norton, 2013). Perren (2008) and Andrew (2011a; 2011b) studied international students and immigrants studying at university English language programs in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand who participated in volunteer projects in their communities. Perren and Andrew both found that the learners perceived the volunteer activities as helpful for finding a sense of connection with their community, developing English language skills, and beginning to feel a sense of themselves as members of the global English-speaking community.

While observing the ATLAS English Club students who participated in the volunteer English language activities in Japan, the author noticed that these activities had the potential for similar results to the studies conducted by Perren (2008) and Andrew (2011a; 2011b). When volunteering to support local English needs at the port or at other international events, the ATLAS English Club students interacted in English with people from around the world in unscripted situations. Therefore, the author hypothesized that by participating in volunteer activities involving English, students living in a non-English speaking country can develop intercultural communication skills in a similar manner to English language students who participate in volunteer activities in English speaking countries.

The Study

The author conducted case study research to learn about the ATLAS English Club students’ perceptions of their intercultural communication development through participation in the volunteer activities involving English in Shimizu (Gough, 2018). First, the author received institutional review board approval from her university in Japan as well as from the university where she was completing her doctoral studies. The study then took place in the summer and fall of 2017. During this time, four male marine science majors ranging from first to third year at the university participated in portside volunteering, interpreting for a soccer team visiting from Hong Kong, a two-day event with international students visiting from Tokyo, and a two-day international teaching conference. The author gave a flier written in Japanese that explained the aims of the research project and what the volunteer activities entailed to the ATLAS English Club students to solicit participants. The four students who volunteered to be research subjects signed an informed consent form written in Japanese after agreeing to participate. Information was given to the students in Japanese to ensure their understanding of the project and what they were consenting to do. The student participants’ English level was roughly equivalent to the Common European Framework for Languages (CEFR) levels A2 and B2 (Council of Europe). They had varying amounts of international experience before participating, but none had spent a significant amount of time communicating in English with people from a variety of countries, and according to their post volunteering interviews, none had used English outside of school in Japan. One student had spent two years in India as a high school student; one had lived in a rural part of the United States for a year in high school; one had spent three weeks studying in an English program in Hawaii that was affiliated with the university, and another had never been abroad. They participated in volunteer activities between three and five times during the research period.

Data collection

During the research period the students kept journals (Appendix A) where they reflected on their English use previous to and during the volunteering. They wrote about what they did, and reflected on their experiences after each volunteer activity. The author observed and made field notes when the students participated in the activities, then in November 2017 each student participated in a post-volunteering interview (Appendix B) with the author. The interviews were used as a means to get more detailed opinions and reflections from the students. The interviews also served as a means to compare the students’ journals, which were written just after each volunteer experience, with their reflections after the volunteering had been completed. The author’s observation notes were used to compare what the students explained and to gain first hand insight into their interactions with the people they encountered while volunteering. The written journal prompts and interview questions were given to the students in both English and Japanese and the students were instructed to choose which language they felt more comfortable with for writing their journals and conducting the interviews. One student completed his first journal in English then three subsequent journals in Japanese. The other three students wrote all of their journals in Japanese. All four students chose to conduct the interview in English, but one student sometimes code-switched during the interview, using Japanese words or expressions to explain ideas that he couldn’t readily think of in English.

Data Analysis

After the data collection, the author transcribed then translated the journals and interview in which code switching took place with the help of a native Japanese-speaking colleague. Then she began sorting and analyzing the data to look for common themes. The author read the transcribed data and made notes using the comments function in Microsoft Word then looked through the comments and devised preliminary thematic codes based on her initial impressions. Next, data charts were made for each research question. The first sets of charts listed broad themes connected to each research question that emerged from the coded journal and interview data. Coded data segments from each participant’s journals and interview were then entered into separate copies of these charts under the themes that had emerged. The charted data was then analyzed for narrower themes then input into a new set of charts listing the narrower themes in relation to each research question. This set of charts placed data segments from each participant in side-by-side cells and each participant’s data was color coded for easy sorting. Entering the thematic information into this type of comparison chart helped the researcher visualize the similarities and differences between the data collected from the participants (Creswell, 2012).

Results

Three themes emerged from the data analysis: The importance of authentic experiences to learn intercultural communication skills, the power of positive experiences to motivate and understand English as a lingua franca, and perceiving differences in social manners as a means to understand intercultural communication. The first theme, the importance of authentic experiences to learn intercultural communication skills, will be the main focus of this paper. While volunteering, the students observed how people intermingled with each other. They noticed cultural similarities and differences, which helped them reflect on Japanese cultural norms and understand appropriate ways to communicate in different situations. They also learned about cultural differences in language use, which might help them avoid miscommunication when speaking English (Gough, 2018). Along the way, they began to understand how situational nuances affect communication and how people from other cultures interact across gender or status. This helped them learn valuable verbal and nonverbal communication skills that would be difficult to develop in a Japanese classroom where most of their classmates share the same first language and culture.

The importance of authentic experiences

All four students described how the volunteering gave them authentic experiences using English, which they felt was important to their development as participants in the global English- speaking world. In his interview, Student A explained about his experience with the international students. “We went to the Tokai aquarium in Miho and we explained what we are studying. Also, we had dinner with them and talked about their cultures. Even the different cultures and life.” Student A thought the experience was instrumental to his intercultural understanding because despite coming from various parts of the world, some aspects of life were universal. “When I could communicate with them, they are not different from Japanese. Just their nationality is different, but other than that it’s not different to Japanese.” The intercultural communication experience helped him understand that people from around the world have similar basic needs and desires, and that many aspects of life are shared among people with similar status across cultures. He explained that noticing common cultural traits helped him make a connection with the international students and gave him confidence in his ability to communicate in English.

Student B also felt a sense of connection with the people he interacted with. Similar to Student A, talking to international students helped Student B find connections that enabled him to learn intercultural communication through sharing similar experiences. In his journal, Student B wrote, “I could communicate with the international student group and from that experience we can understand university life in different countries.” He found the international students had similar lives to Japanese university students and, as a result had many common topics to talk about, which made him feel more comfortable using English. He said, “It was easy to talk because our age and status are common.” Because the students shared similar social and lifestyle experiences, he could converse easily with them.

Student B also observed cultural differences that surprised him and helped him understand new ways to interact with people. During the activity with international students, the students from European countries naturally divided themselves into mixed gender groups. “It was a good opportunity to find there wasn’t a big wall between male and female students. It maybe is my prejudice, but Japanese people have a big wall between males and females, but I didn’t feel that with them (international students).” As a result, he learned that he should not worry about talking with female acquaintances and that it was fun to participate in activities with them the same way he would with male students. This might be helpful if Student B finds himself in similar situations in the future.

When he volunteered at the teaching conference, Student B also made observations that helped him understand appropriate ways to act in professional settings. He explained his observations about greetings in his interview, “So, they are usually giving a hug or handshake. That’s all. Japanese never do this, so I feel envious…More, they are relationship more closer.” From what he saw when the professors greeted each other, Student B noticed that some professors seemed to be good friends, and thus hugged each other. Others were less acquainted with each other, but still gave a friendly smile and handshake when they greeted each other. He said the professors also shook his hand when he introduced himself as a student volunteer. Student B said he was surprised by the professors’ friendliness toward him because, “Japanese professors don’t do that.” He explained that he felt like they treated him closer to an equal than his Japanese professors do. As a result, Student B found differences in atmosphere from typical Japanese situations where hierarchy plays an important role. Thus, volunteering in different situations helped Student B understand situational norms associated with intercultural communication.

Developing language skills

Student C learned that authentic experiences with English enabled him to see the limitations of his current English ability and understand how to communicate successfully using English. He wrote in his journal that he had a strong command of academic vocabulary, but he did not feel confident explaining everyday things to people using English. Talking to the luxury liner passengers about their countries and teaching them about Japanese culture helped Student C learn that if he used simple expressions he could communicate more effectively than if he tried to use difficult academic words, “So, the customer asked me, ‘What is this?’ So, I explained the Japanese traditional merchants like tea, like handkerchief, like karuta (trump cards).” He said that he did not know how to give detailed explanations because it was not taught in the textbooks his English classes used. As a result, he tried using gestures and simple words to explain things and the people he was talking to could understand him. He said he felt his confidence in using English expanded because the people could understand him when he used simple expressions.

Student D also learned about language use. He said that before his volunteer experience, he did not realize some English expressions seem to be culture-specific. This helped him understand that assuming people from other countries use certain words the same way Japanese people do might result in miscommunication. In his interview he showed surprise that some so-called English expressions used in Japan are not familiar to people from other countries.

For example, sometimes Japanese say like, “salary man” or “office lady”. They (Japanese) sometimes use the wrong word, so they (passengers) are like “what?” There are a lot of words we think are English, but they are Japanese English. When Japanese use it, they say nothing about it, but when some foreigners hear it they say, “What” or “What does it mean?

At the same time, Student D said he was able to notice some casual English expressions that people from Spain, France, or the United States used that he was not familiar with. He said he did not know these expressions because they were not taught in his English classes at school. They could also have been expressions commonly used in other cultures, but not in Japan. Student D said he asked the people he interacted with about the meanings of these words and wrote them down in his notebook. Thus, for Student D, the portside volunteering was an opportunity to learn that people from around the world sometimes have different ways of using English words, and that exposure to authentic English use helped him learn intercultural communication skills. In this way, he learned how to communicate more naturally with people who also had first languages other than English.

Conclusion

The students who participated in this research project explained their satisfaction with the volunteering as a means to learn English as well as to develop intercultural communicative competence. Through unscripted interaction in a variety of situations, they were able to notice strong points and deficiencies in their English and learn coping mechanisms when they had difficulty communicating. Some communication issues resulted because the students were not used to using English outside of the controlled classroom environment. The students also encountered many words that are not taught in English textbooks or that were used differently than what they had been taught. The ability for the students to understand their linguistic deficiencies and develop coping mechanisms was an important takeaway for the students. Sometimes Japanese students are shy about communicating in English due to a lack of confidence in their language skills or feeling like they are being judged. The volunteer experiences enabled the students to realize that they could function in an English-speaking situation despite their language not being perfect. This is an important point that teachers have difficulty teaching in a structured classroom context where learners share the same first language.

In their journals and interviews, the students reflected on the ways Japanese and other cultures are similar and different. They also reflected on differences they noticed in English language use, which as Rambo (2005) explains, is a key element to developing intercultural communication skills. Without opportunities to use English in unscripted situations outside the classroom, students do not have chances to notice and reflect on these nuances of culture and communication. For example, all of the participants described similarities in lifestyle to the international students they met. This helped them make connections with the other students because they shared similar status and life experiences. Likewise, the students who volunteered at the teaching conference noticed differences in communication styles between teachers of different status and compared it to their experiences with Japanese teachers. Firsthand experiences have an impact on students understanding that is difficult to achieve through textbooks.

Overall, this small-scale study showed that the students who volunteered in English-speaking environments inside Japan had similar experiences to the English language students studied by Perren (2008) and Andrew (2011a; 2011b). These findings are important because they show that studying abroad is not the only way that students in non-English speaking countries can learn intercultural communication skills. By finding English speaking opportunities in their home country, students can have real-life experiences with English as a lingua franca and develop intercultural communication skills.

References

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Andrew M. (2011b). ‘The real world’: Lived literacy practices and cultural learning from community placement. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 34(2), 219–235.

Anwaruddin, S. M. (2012). Learner identity in second language education. The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies, 18(2), 13–23.

Council of Europe (n.d.). Common European Framework of Reference for languages: Learning, teaching, assessment. Retrieved from http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/cadre1_en.asp

Creswell, J. W. (2012). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

Gough, W. M. (2018). Student perceptions of intercultural communication through community outreach projects in Japan. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Nova Southeastern University. Fort Lauderdale, FL.

Hashimoto, K. (2013). ‘English-only’, but not a medium-of-instruction policy: the Japanese way of internationalising education for both domestic and overseas students. Current Issues in Language Planning, 14(1), 16–33. doi:10.1080/14664208.2013.789956

Menking, S. (2015) Thai and Japanese university students: Usefulness of English. English Today, 31(2), 51-58. doi10.1017/S0266078415000103

Japan eyes hubs for large cruise ships. (2017, Feb 26). The Japan News http://annx.asianews.network/content/japan-eyes-intl-hubs-large-cruise-ships-40067

Norton, B. (2013). Identity in language learning: Extending the conversation (2nd ed.). Ontario, Canada: Multilingual Matters.

Perren, J. M. (2008). Intercultural language socialization through volunteering: A qualitative study of directive use in nonprofit organizations. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Temple University, Philadelphia, PA.

Rambo, H. H. (2005). The language and culture of identity. Crafting a new self in a second language (Doctoral Dissertation). HKU School of Professional and Continuing Education, Hong Kong.

Xin, S. (2016). How the diversity of values matters in intercultural communication. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 6(9), 1836–1840. doi:10.17507/tpls.06

Appendix A

Journal Questions

(ジャーナル項目)

Journal questions before beginning volunteering (ボランティアを始める前ジャーナル項目)

1. How often do you use English outside of school? What do you use English for?

学校以外ではどのぐらい英語を使いますか？何のために英語を使いますか？

2. What kind of contact have you had with English speakers (inside or outside of school) in the past? Can you explain your experience?

過去に英語話を話す人とどのようにコンタクトがありましたか？説明してください。

Volunteering journal questions (毎回ボランティアの後うでジャーナル項目)

1. Explain your experience today.

今日のボランティアについて経験を説明してください。

What did you do?

今日何をしましたか？

What was easy or difficult for you?

英語を話すとき、簡単なことは何ですか？難しいことはなんですか？

2. How did you feel about your ability to communicate in English today?

英語のコミュニケーション能力についてどのように感じましたか？

3. What did you learn about speaking English in real-life situations?

実際の生活場面で英語を使ってコミュニケーションする事について、あなたは何を学びましたか？

4. What cultural or language similarities or differences did you notice when you spoke with the people?

外国人と話した時、どのような

Appendix B

Interview Questions

(インタビューの項目)

Demographic questions (バックグランドについて)

1. Where are you from in Japan?

出身はどこですか？

2. Can you tell me your major and grade level?

あなたの 専攻は何ですか？大学何年生ですか ?

3. How many years have you studied English in school?

何年間、学校で英語を勉強 してきました か？

4. Have you studied abroad? If so, for how long?

ホームステイ、又は交換留学等で、海外に住んだ 経験が最低一度は ありますか？合計何年滞在 していましたか？

English communication experience (英語コミュニケーションの経験について)

1. Can you explain the English communication have you had with foreign teachers at school?

学校で外国語の先生方とど のような英語コミュニケーションをしましたか？

2. Before participating in the English club activities, did you have a chance to use English outside of school in Japan? Can you explain when and where you used English?

英語サークルの活動に参加する前、日本の学校外で英語を使うチャンスはありましたか？その場合、いつ・どこで英語を 使いましたか？

3. How important do you think it is to have chances to use English outside of the classroom?

学校以外で、英語を使う機会を持つことはあなたにとってどのぐらい大切だと思いますか？

Volunteer interpreting (通訳ボランティアの経験について)

1. Which activities did you participate in?

どういった活動に参加しましたか？

2. What strategies did you use when it was difficult to communicate in English? How did this help you communicate?

英語でコミュニケーションを取るのが難しかったとき、あなたはどうしましたか？それはどのように役立ちましたか？

3. How did you know when you could communicate effectively with foreign people?

外国人と効果的にコミュニケーションができたかどうかはどのように分かりましたか？

4. Please explain how you felt when you could communicate effectively in English.

英語でコミュニケーションが効果的に取れたとき、どのように 感じまし た か？

5. What did you notice about the communication styles of the people you talked to? Did anything surprise you?

外国の方とコミュニケーションをとった時、日本人のコミュニケーションの仕方と何か違いがありましたか？何か驚いたことがありましたか？

6. How did the volunteer experience help you understand similarities or differences in communication styles be- tween Japanese and other cultures?

ボランティア経験により、日本文化と他文化の違いや類似に関する認識はどのように高まりましたか？

7. What did you learn about your ability to communicate in English in real-life situations?

実際の生活場面で英語を使ってコミュニケーションする事について、あなたは何を学びましたか？

8. Before volunteering, what was your image of an English speaker? How has your image changed?

ボランティアをする前に英語を話す人のイメージはどうでしたか？今はどのように変わりましたか？

9. How did the volunteer activities help you imagine your English-speaking self?

ボランティアをした後では英語を話す自分のイメージはどのように変わりましたか？

Chapter 6. Building a Picture of Teletandem Experiences to Promote the Practice

Clair Taylor, Gifu Shotoku Gakuen University

Abstract

Teletandem is a growing practice where a proficient speaker of one language is paired with a proficient speaker of another, with the aim of each helping their partner learn their target language using an application such as Skype. When institutions link to set up tandem partnerships, there are various possible modes and levels of control. In the freest mode, it is difficult for coordinators to have a clear image of what happens in the off-campus, ungraded sessions. It can therefore be difficult to effectively promote and support the practice and to build a culture where students engaging in such autonomous tandem practices becomes the norm.

This study explores the teletandem experiences of five Japanese undergraduate English majors, who paired with students in the United States and Mexico. Students were selected on the basis that they had achieved sustained and meaningful tandem exchanges in this free, voluntary mode. The stories illustrate the affordances of this practice both for building confidence and increasing motivation. By providing a richer picture of what can happen when Japanese undergraduate students are provided with teletandem partners, the findings may help faculty and coordinators to better promote teletandem in their institutions.

In teletandem, a proficient speaker of one language is paired with a proficient speaker of another, and the pair hold regular interactive sessions using Internet telephony (i.e. an application such as Skype), dividing the time equally between the two languages, so that each can help their partner learn their target language (Telles & Vassallo, 2006). Teletandem has demonstrated clear benefits; learners gain from the close one-to-one attention, from the rich linguistic input in a casual register from a same-age peer, and from the reciprocal dynamic (Akiyama, 2015), which fosters reflection, autonomy, strategy-awareness, enjoyment, and opportunities for cultural exchange (Vassallo & Telles, 2006; Peña, 2012, 2015).

Institutional teletandem, in which coordinators from partner institutions set up exchanges between their students, offers a safer, more supported way for students to engage in teletandem than a website where students interact with unvetted strangers (Teletandem Brasil, n.d.). Various modes of institutional teletandem provide different levels of control (Telles, 2015). Teletandem may be integrated with the curriculum, bearing or counting towards course credit, and can take place on campus, during class, with orientation and follow-up activities, or even tasks to complete during the sessions (Mullen, Appel, & Shanklin, 2009). The freest mode allows the learners full autonomy, deciding for themselves where and when to hold their sessions, the length and content of sessions, their preferred application, and ways of working. In these free or “independent tandems” (Peña, 2015), students earn no course credit, participating purely for the gains in language development, cultural knowledge, and friendship that the exchange offers.

Although teletandem is growing in popularity worldwide, it is not well-established in Japan, and many university students and faculty are unfamiliar with the term or the practice. As a faculty member at a Japanese university with no history of teletandem, I set up several voluntary, free (independent) exchanges for students who use our Language Learning Space (or LLS), which students carried out on their devices, in their own time. Informal feedback was encouraging (one student traveled to Mexico to meet his partner, and another came to sign up for a second tandem, having enjoyed her first). This made me decide to promote tandem further, to give more students this opportunity. However, because I did not have a clear, rich picture of the student experience, I struggled to communicate to students and colleagues how free tandem works in practice, and its affordances in our context.

Activities which are not well-established, and / or take place off-campus, where they cannot be observed by faculty or other students, are difficult to promote. Spiering and Erickson (2006), using innovation theory (Rogers, 2003), explain that students are less likely to adopt an activity when they are unaware of the benefits; it seems complex; it does not fit with their norms; they cannot trial it, or they cannot observe it. To make an activity seem less complex, they recommend faculty familiarize themselves with the process so they can explain it to students. To make it observable, they suggest using student advocates, who have inspiring stories. Murphey (2013) takes this approach. For example, he asked his students to telephone classmates in English, but half failed to engage positively. Reading comments in a newsletter from students who enjoyed the task helped some students re-evaluate the activity, see the affordances, and approach it with more enthusiasm:

a good activity, but one in which there was little buy-in from the students, has been valorized by some of their peers, which in turn encourages more students to try the activity and benefit from actual language use outside the classroom (p. 180).

He argues that stories from successful students influence their classmates’ attitudes and behavior. Similarly, Murray (2008) argues that in narrative inquiry, researchers can elicit learner stories not only to deepen their own understanding, but also to share the stories with other learners so that they can draw from the narratives strategies, techniques, and motivation. Thus, in this project, I decided to use a narrative inquiry approach, interviewing five of the Japanese teletandem participants, co- constructing their stories to employ in my efforts to ‘sell’ this unfamiliar activity.

In this paper, I first outline the background to the project, then describe my methods. Next, I share the stories, and finally I report on how I utilized the narratives to better promote and support teletandem within my institution.

Background

I began setting up free (independent) teletandems at Gifu Shotoku Gakuen University, Japan in January 2017. Contacts at two partner universities were established through personal networks; I met our coordinator in Mexico City, Mexico, through an online discussion group, and one of the LLS staff established our contact in Cincinnati, US, through her work at an NPO. Previous experience coordinating tandems had taught me that poor student participation strains relationships with partner universities. Thus, I (with LLS staff) made a decision to approach only suitable candidates (conscientious students with stronger English skills) individually in the LLS, using a poster and a set of guidelines (written in English and Japanese) to explain and promote teletandem, answering any questions. Students take the guidelines home to read, and return to the LLS on a subsequent occasion to sign up, inputting contact details, time availability, interests and preferred application(s) on a spreadsheet. We send the spreadsheet to the university language center in Mexico City, where students are matched, based on this information. For our exchanges with Cincinnati, we receive a list of students (recruited in their Japanese classes), and make matches.

The matching coordinator sends the pair of students an email (carbon-copying the partner university’s coordinator), which asks students to email their partner to arrange their first tandem session, and encourages them to seek support and report on progress by email or in person. The guidelines suggest spending twenty minutes in each language, once a week, for two months. For all participants, the tandems are non-credit bearing, and few students seek assistance once tandems are underway. We started with five students for each partner university, and continued setting up pairs on an ad hoc basis, establishing 15 tandems with each partner university by November 2017, when this research project began. The tandem activity is ongoing.

Methods

I invited students who had reported positive, recent, and sustained tandem exchanges to share their stories, including students of both genders and different English proficiency levels. This purposive sampling provided a diversity of experience which can yield more insights (Murray, 2009) and also stories to share which a range of students could identify with.

The purpose and process of the research was explained to the students orally, and informed consent received. Shun, Hiro and Daisy were interviewed individually; Kana and Nana, as friends, opted for a joint interview. Participants chose the location (my office or the LLS), and the semi- structured interviews were recorded. Participants were first asked to provide biographical information using relaxed, conversational prompts to establish rapport (e.g. “You did study abroad last year, right?”) They were then asked to tell me about their tandem, using prompts such as, “How often did you do tandem?” Next, students were invited to share what they gained from the experience, using questions such as, “How did this experience change you?” Interviews took place in November and December 2017 and lasted 20 to 40 minutes.

Recordings were transcribed immediately after each interview, to include notes (from memory) about gestures and facial expressions. Biographical information was recorded in note form, but other responses were transcribed in full. These transcriptions were coded and annotated, then retold in the third person (using pseudonyms), removing redundant information, as I interpreted the stories through the lens of my professional knowledge and experience. This process allowed deep reflection as I used my words for clarity, quoting the students so that their authentic voices are heard (Murray, 2009). Finally, member checks were carried out to give the participants the opportunity to confirm the content and make changes.

The Stories

Shun’s story

Shun is second-year student with English at A2 level on the CEFR scale and very little experience using English outside the classroom. He has never been overseas, and outside of the university has had interactions with only two non-Japanese people, both connected with his father’s export business. Shun did teletandem once a week, for one hour, with Daniel, a student from Mexico. The tandem started early in August 2017, and was meant to run until the end of September, but the last two sessions were canceled due to the earthquake in Mexico City.

Shun was aware of the guidelines to speak half of the time in each language, but he explained that they were “more flexible” in their approach, sometimes switching between languages every 10 minutes, and sometimes mixing languages to achieve communication. The two talked about their college life, food, and festivals. Culture was their main theme, and Shun learned about monuments and places in Mexico, such as “Oaxaca [City]”. Shun provided this example of the pair’s eagerness to share their cultures: “One day after we finished the talk he sent the menu [recipe] of Tacos. He found the recipe … on YouTube, so he wanted me to make the Tacos so he sent it.” The students did not point out or correct errors, but instead focused on grading their language carefully to accommodate their partner’s needs and modeling correct usage. They also used the Internet, dictionaries, and gestures to overcome communication difficulties. Shun appreciated Daniel’s strengths as a conversation partner, explaining: “When I talked to him I felt he was very kind. He understand my skills, he talks English at my level.”

Shun explained that his family members were also present (in the background) during the sessions, occasionally providing support (such as the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary), and that they shared his regard for Daniel: “They said, ‘Oh he’s a very nice guy.’ My mother says, ‘You can met a good, good man.’” The impact that this warm, positive, personal connection had on Shun was revealed in the way he spoke of the sessions which were canceled. Shun sent messages enquiring about Daniel’s safety, and that of his family, and received replies. He explained: “It’s a good point, we can communicate about something deep, something real, not just practice.” Shun switched to Japanese in the interview to explain that he felt that the communications they had after the earthquake were valuable as he was really using English to express his concerns, and this deepened their bond (“kizuna o fukumereta”).

The tandem experience had a positive effect on Shun’s confidence and motivation. In his words:

I got the skill of communication and pronunciation […] I think I could practice with teletandem so I can hear the English and use English flexibly and search the new words and I […] noticed that I have points that I can’t do very well, my weak points, so I should study more I thought.

Following the tandem, Shun decided he wanted to improve his English, so he increased the range of study methods he used, such as learning words from a vocabulary book he found in a bookstore on a daily basis, and studying from a grammar book which his TOEIC professor had recommended.

Hiro’s Story

Hiro is a second-year student who plans to become an English teacher. His English is B1 level on the CEFR scale. He has been to Canada for two weeks, where he did a homestay and attended a language school on one of the university’s short-term programs. He reported that he has no other overseas travel experience, and no international friends. Prior to attempting teletandem, he had spoken English on the phone only once, to a relative’s wife from Thailand. He did one tandem session with his first partner, a 29-year old master’s student from Mexico with a strong accent. Hiro found he could not understand or communicate smoothly, so he requested a partner change. He sustained a teletandem (June through August, 2017) with his second partner, Juan, an undergraduate student, also Mexican. They spoke once a week, initially for 40 minutes per session. Sessions got longer over time, and ultimately lasted 90 minutes.

The pair discovered shared interests, such as Marvel comics. They both became interested in their partner’s culture; Hiro enjoyed answering questions about kanji characters and Pokemon, and after hearing about a cactus steak, used a web search engine to find out about more about edible cacti and tequila production. The students developed methods to help their partner’s language development. Hiro corrected mistakes as they occurred, so that he could understand what Juan wanted to say. Juan “fixed” grammar errors after the conversation ended: “He almost never stopped me while I was talking. He repeated what I said so I could know that he understood.” They also used pictures and dictionaries to achieve communication. This successful pairing resulted in positive regard and reduced anxiety levels: “He is always with a smile, I don’t know why […] when I talk with him he listened closely, and then after I speak English he always talked with a smile, so it was a relief, he is kind.” Following the tandem, the pair have kept in touch using the LINE application. When Juan came to Japan in September 2017, they went to a public bath, and ate sushi together. Hiro met Juan for breakfast, and drove him to his dormitory, and the pair have plans to meet again.

Hiro shared two things which were especially powerful. First, he explained that he overcame initial difficulty understanding Juan’s (non-native) accent, appreciating this chance to become accustomed to a new variety of English, noting: “English has different shapes, like a lingua franca.” Second, Hiro revealed that Juan acted as a role model to him:

Our skill level is similar, but he talks a lot, because he didn’t afraid of making a mistake […] before I did this I’m afraid of using English, I always read or listened or wrote English, but doing this I thought I need to speak English and not be afraid of making mistakes, so I changed my mind, my idea of using English.

Hiro was inspired to become more proactive and confident.

Nana’s and Kana’s stories

Nana and Kana are both second-year students and good friends. Kana’s English is at B1 on the CEFR scale Kana’s is at B1/B2 level. Both have the same amount of overseas experience; a two-week study trip (Nana in Australia, and Kana, Canada) then a six-month period of study abroad in Canada, with a short trip to the US during that period. Both had experience speaking in English on the phone or voice applications, including long conversations, though this was their first tandem attempt.

Nana started her teletandem with Jon, a student in Cincinnati in October, 2017, and did it once a week on a set day, finishing at the Christmas vacation (the planned ending). They typically talked for two hours, although the length of the session varied week by week. Mostly, Nana did teletandem at home, but sometimes she called Jon from the university campus, and spoke with friends in the background. Kana spoke with her tandem partner Liz (who was, by chance, Jon’s girlfriend) once a week, every Friday morning, from October until Christmas, 2017, for 30 to 60 minutes each time. Both described their partners as “kind” and “patient.”

Nana and Kana’s tandem sessions consisted mostly of casual conversations, talking about their hobbies, pets, and weekend activities, but they also discussed what was happening in the news, such as threats from North Korea. The Japanese students acted as cultural informants, with Nana speaking about her views on war, and Kana on gender issues in Japan, providing data, which their tandem partners used in assignments.

Both Nana and Kana asked their tandem partners about aspects of English they were curious about. One example Nana gave was the difference between until and till. In Kana’s case, she asked her partner to explain the meaning of ‘as if’ and give examples of usage. Kana also received useful information from her partner about photography, explaining: “I like taking photos and her big brother is a photographer, so I asked him for recommendations about which camera to buy.”

For both Nana and Kana, the tandem experience led to increase in motivation. In Nana’s case, frustration with self-expression made her resolve to study harder: “I become try to study English more, now my English skill is not enough, still not high, I can’t say what I want to say. It doesn’t come out.” In Kana’s case, praise from Liz caused her to feel more enthusiasm for communicating in English: “[Liz] said, ‘Oh your English is good!’ so I got confidence!” Following the tandem, the four students kept in touch, and made plans to meet when Jon and Liz visit Japan. Kana explained: “We are going to meet in Nagoya and go drinking. I’m so excited!”

Daisy’s story

Daisy is Brazilian-Japanese so she speaks fluent Portuguese in addition to the Japanese which she has received the majority of her education in. Her English is B2 level on the CEFR scale. In high school she went to Vietnam for two weeks, where she met some students who she kept in touch with on Facebook for a year. Daisy later spent 10 months studying at a language school in Canada, where she made friends from Taiwan and the Philippines, who often provide feedback on her assignments. She also has many Brazilian friends in Japan. In all, Daisy had had many opportunities to develop her language skills and intercultural competencies prior to starting this tandem exchange.

At the time of interview, Daisy had sustained tandem with her undergraduate partner (Bill) in Cincinnati for four months, and they had no plans to stop. They video chat on Messenger every Monday, and talk for about two hours. Daisy explained that “the time passes so fast” that they do not notice how long they have spoken for. Between video chats, the pair send text messages to schedule sessions. Daisy sometimes asks questions in her messages about English, and Bill sends recommendations for books to read and videos to watch.

The sessions are based on “free talking” and the pair switch between English and Japanese as the topics change or to aid understanding. Daisy reports that subject matter ranges from “the economy, or government, to what kind of food you like” and that the conversations are “spontaneous, fun”. Daisy uses the sessions to better understand the content of her American Studies courses:

He talked about how the USA decides the president. I learned that in American Studies but I didn’t learn the specifics, so I wanted to know, and he was teaching me so after he talks I try to say it one more time in my own words, like: ‘People decide the electoral college then they vote for the president, right’ and he will say either atteiru [correct] or mmm? chigau, chigau [that’s not right].

Teaching moments arise contingently from the conversation: “we pick up some phrases.” New language is modeled and drilled: “after that he repeats the phrases, for example, ‘I’m glad to see you, I’m glad to see him, I’m glad to see her.’” The pair have developed a wide range of strategies to help their partner notice errors and master new structures. Daisy feigns non-comprehension to elicit self-correction (“so I pretend: ‘Huh?’ and give him a hint”). They focus on pronunciation, and Daisy demonstrates how Bill exaggerates word stress to draw attention to the mistake. They also provide explicit explanations for mistakes. Daisy gives an example: “[He told me that] you shouldn’t say, ‘He’s a gay’—you have to say, ‘He’s gay’, [if you say ‘He’s a gay’] it’s like you are dividing him, or disrespecting him.” They are tenacious in their teaching:

We are very friendly, but we always correct each other when we don’t understand and he tries to explain, and he writes sentences and says maybe you can understand by reading, then I say it in Japanese, then I say in my words, “So you mean like […]?” so we make a story to explain ourselves.

Over time, in this way, the pair have become attuned to each other’s needs and feelings. Daisy explains:

His face was like this [making a confused face], after he says “ahhh” [she changes her expression] it means he understand what I say. I become very happy when I see that. It means, yes he understands [she beams]. I think he can understand my face.

This close rapport and deep attention has led to the two developing deep trust. Daisy values Bill’s perspectives on the issues she faces in her life:

I open my mind more. In university I have many people […] I can talk to […], but I just talk in the classroom, I didn’t talk with them friendly, one by one. But talking with him I could have an idea of what I wanna do in the future. He is older than me and […] like with job hunting, […] if I talk to him about it, he always says something that people who is near, close to me don’t say. When I listen that, I just open more.

Tandem activity continues to strengthen her sense of self-efficacy: “I believe in my English more, because, I am talking to him and he can understand what I say - with the wrong grammar, he can understand, he understands what I say.” Daisy expresses gratitude, feeling she owes the current state of her English skills to Bill:

I’m lucky to have him as my tandem partner […] He is very kind. I cannot say thank you enough to him, because I am having a very good experience. Because if I don’t have him, maybe my English would … [she makes a downward gesture].

The close, personal attention continues to provide Daisy with language development and personal support.

Outcomes

These stories illuminate how teletandem can benefit a range of students. They show that in free teletandem, learners at my university may focus on informal conversation, and are concerned more with meaning than form, valuing cultural learning, social bonds, and diversity. The stories also illustrate how tandem partners can serve as near-peer role models and mentors, influencing beliefs about language, self-efficacy, and attitudes to error, and acting as a stimulus for learning more and discovering areas of opportunity (similar findings to Peña, 2012). In short, the stories show tandem can have a real impact on participants’ learning trajectories.

Some details provided in the interviews highlighted potential hazards with this tandem mode. Several participants mentioned that they spent longer communicating in English than in Japanese, violating the core tandem principle of reciprocity. Two failed to give consistent error correction or feedback. While these factors did not cause any discord, they suggested that reciprocity and feedback could be emphasized more in the initial promotion/orientation sessions. Consequently, in April 2018 changes were made. The original three-page A4-size guidance document (including these points) was reformatted into an illustrated, color leaflet which students are more likely to refer to. A website (http://www.ha.shotoku.ac.jp/~taylor/teletandem.html) was created, including a slideshow explaining reciprocity, and the leaflets in digital form. These materials facilitate teletandem support in the LLS, helping us to explain good practices (e.g. careful time-keeping).

These stories enabled me to communicate persuasively in oral interactions with students in classes and in the LSS, and also with colleagues, as I retold abridged versions of them throughout 2018. This helped us establish two more partner universities, and sustain the number of students taking part (27 new tandems in 2018). This communication also led the university’s PR team to make a promotional video (Gifu Shotoku Gakuen, 2018) about teletandem, which facilitates further awareness-raising of the practice. Consequently, the Foreign Language Department Dean requested an increase in the budget allocated for staff to coordinate tandems in 2019, and for teletandem to be included in the upcoming brochure and in formal orientation sessions which prospective students attend during Open Campus events. This promotion is likely to lead to further take-up among our students, and I hope that this research helps others promote teletandem at their institutions.

References

Akiyama, Y. (2015). Task-based investigation of learner perceptions: Affordances of video-based eTandem learning. In E. Dixon & M. Thomas (Eds.), Researching language learner interaction online: From social media to MOOCs. CALICO Monograph Series (Vol. 13) (pp. 149–170). San Marcos, TX: Calico.

Gifu Shotoku Gakuen (2018, September 19). Gaikokujin no Pa-tona-. [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.shotoku.jp/tv/university/2018/09/112355post-99.php

Mullen, T., Appel, C., & Shanklin, T. (2009). Skype-based tandem learning and Web 2.0. In M. Thomas (Ed.), Handbook of research on Web 2.0 and second language learning (pp. 101–118). Hearch, NY: Information Science Reference.

Murphey, T. (2013). Adapting ways for meaningful action. In J. Arnold & T. Murphey (Eds.), Meaningful action: Earl Stevick’s influence on language teaching (pp. 172–189). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Murray, G. (2008). Pop culture and language learning: Learners’ stories informing EFL. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 2(1), 2–17. doi:10.1080/17501220802158792

Murray, G. (2009). Narrative inquiry. In J. Heigham & R. A. Croker (Eds.), Qualitative research in applied linguistics (pp. 45-65). London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

Peña, M. A. (2015, November). Teletandem: From learners’ strategies to autonomy. Paper presented at JALT2015: The 41st Annual International Conference on Language Teaching and Learning & Educational Materials Exhibition in Shizuoka, Japan.

Peña, M. A. (2012). El chat y la autonomía de los aprendientes de inglés de la mediateca del CELE-UNAM. Un estudio de caso [Chat and the autonomy of the English learners of the CELE-UNAM media library: A case study]. Lenguas en Aprendizaje Autodirigido Revista Electrónica de la Mediateca del CELE- UNAM 4(1) 1–31. <http://cad.cele.unam.mx/leaa/cnt/ano04/num01/0401a03.pdf>

Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations (5th ed.). New York, NY: Free Press.

Spiering, K., & Erickson, S. (2006). Study abroad as innovation: Applying the diffusion model to international education. International Education Journal 7(3), 314–322.

Teletandem Brasil. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.teletandembrasil.org/modes-of-teletandem.html

Telles, J. A. (2015). Learning foreign languages in teletandem: Resources and strategies. D.E.L.T.A., 31(3), 603–632. doi:10.1590/0102-4450226475643730772

Telles, J. A., & Vassallo, A. (2006). Foreign language learning in-tandem: Teletandem as an alternative proposal in CALLT. The ESPecialist, 27(2), 189–212.

Vassallo, A., & Telles, J. A. (2006). Foreign language learning in-tandem: theoretical principles and research perspectives. The ESPecialist, 27(1), 83–118. Retrieved from: http://www.corpuslg.org/journals/the_ especialist/issues/27_1_2006/artigo5_Vassalo&Telles.pdf

Chapter 7. Model United Nations Simulations: Developing Learner Voices and Agency

Lori Zenuk-Nishide, Kobe City University of Foreign Studies

Tom Fast, Notre Dame Seishin University

Craig Smith, Kyoto University of Foreign Studies

Donna Tatsuki, Kobe City University of Foreign Studies

Abstract

In this paper, four authors will explore how Model United Nations (MUN) simulations develop learner voices and agency from four different perspectives: 1) Development of self through a community of practice; The L2-using self develops through participation in a community of practice while preparing and during MUN simulations. Through collective decision-making in a MUN community, meaningful knowledge is created and the basis of a globally oriented L2-using self is born. 2) MUN as Training for Global Citizenship; Corporations and government organizations demand “global human resources.” This research compares national and international global competency models and demonstrates how MUN is ideal training for young people who wish to become informed, engaged and caring global citizens. 3) Empowering student-led independent learning; A MUN conference’s success depends on an evolving combination of teacher-mediated facilitation, independent student research, and student-led collaborative discussion, debate, and proposal writing. The balance gradually shifts away from teacher intervention to autonomous student leadership supported by critical teacher observation. 4) Problems encountered in Native Speaker-ELF (English Lingua Franca) interactions; The serious shortcomings of native speakers when communicating with ELF speakers during MUN simulations are reported. Suggestions for native speaker sensitivity training and ELF-user strategy building to cope with native speaker communication problems will ensure that all participants have a voice. This omnibus paper encompasses relevant ILA (Independent Learning Association) themes such as identity, critical thinking, curriculum design, learner training, teacher/ learning advisor autonomy.

Model United Nations (MUN) simulations is a simulation format in which student-delegates role-play as ambassadors or other types of country representatives. Through this intense role-play, students learn first hand about how diplomacy unfolds and have a close up view of international relations. MUN events can last as little as one or two hours or continue for as long as several days.

MUN simulations address learner competencies such as personal development and the building of a broad and advanced knowledge base, which are crucial for learners’ future lives as active citizens who make change by taking an active role in democratic societies. In this paper, four authors will explore how MUN simulations develop learner voices and agency from four different perspectives:

1) Development of self through a community of practice, 2) MUN as Training for Global Citizenship,

3) Empowering student-led independent learning, and 4) Problems encountered in Native Speaker- ELF interactions.

Creating L2-Using Self through a Community of Practice

Through collective decision-making in a MUN community of practice, personally meaningful knowledge is created and the basis of a future possible global self is born. But, what is a community of practice, you may ask?

Within the framework of a social theory of learning (Wenger, 1998), a community of practice (CoP) is made up of a group of actors belonging to the same organization, who work and support each other. Possible actors in MUN’s CoP can be mapped into the preparation and simulation phases, with some participating in one or both. In the preparation phase, there will always be student delegates and a head delegate. There may be faculty advisors, mentors (experienced former delegates who meet with delegates outside of class), class assistants or tutors (experienced former delegates who support the delegates in/outside of class) and administrators. At the simulation, there may be the following actors besides delegates from one group; delegates and faculty from many groups, directors, chairs, volunteers, conference administrators, guest speakers, journalists, videographers and other experts. MUN is an activity that allows for the addition of diverse groups of actors to join the community. According to Wenger, central to CoP is the development of individual and social learning through shared meaningful knowledge, experiences, perspectives and resources. Tatsuki (2017a) postulated that MUN is a community of practice as it follows Wenger’s criteria of mutual engagement, a negotiated joint enterprise, and a shared repertoire.

The first, “mutual engagement” is the shared passion of the group members. In MUN communities we see Lave and Wenger’s (1991) reproduction and transformation that refers to the community reproducing itself, by taking in new members and always being transformed by the new members. Wenger (1998, p. 149) stated that we define ourselves “by the way we experience ourselves through participation as well as by the ways we and others reify ourselves”. Since 1990 I have been a faculty advisor to 55 MUN groups and there has only been one student who did not want to remain in the group. In the beginning, students join because they have this global imagined self and their passion and learning grow the more they participate in the community. One of our students who represented Ecuador at NMUN New York in her reflection stated:

We were given the chance to use negotiating skills in a real-life environment. As we worked to get an in-depth knowledge of Ecuador’s foreign policy and specific interests, we were led to question our take on foreign relations: trying to envision the UN from the perspective of a country belonging to a different continent was certainly one of the high points of the preparation of the conference. Also meeting with so many students from different countries and discovering we share a common belief in the values of dialogue and discussion contributed to make this experience valuable.

The second, “negotiated joint enterprise” is when members of the community “interact regularly” (Wenger, 1998, p. 77). The community develops its coherence through the negotiation of the joint enterprise. In MUN, there are three stages of interaction: through preparation, the simulation, and reflection. The preparation phase can take place in class and outside of class. In class, for example at Kobe City University of Foreign Studies, there is research guidance, procedural training, explaining and interacting. Outside of class there is research, writing position papers, developing policies, making speeches, and interacting with mentors and faculty. At the conference, delegates meet and lobby and make speeches for the agenda they want with committee members. Once the agenda has been decided, they share their policy ideas to first find a working group in order to negotiate and co- write a working paper in the form of a draft resolution.

Once a draft has been completed, it is submitted many times to the Dias (experts who direct and chair the meeting) for critiquing and revision with the possibility of merging with other papers that are similar. Next, students have to get support to submit their working paper as a draft resolution from other committee members. Once working papers have been accepted as draft resolutions, amendment can be made and then the draft resolutions are voted on to possibly be accepted as a resolution. At the end of each day, there are debriefing sessions with faculty to share what happened in committee, what they were able to do, and their challenges and strategy for the next day. Once the simulation is over there can be written, interactive group reflection and time given to celebrate learning.

It is important in the reflection phase to plan for future imagined selves. MUN simulations can last from five to 24 hours, in one day or a few days. MUNs can be done in class with a minimum of 15 students with one committee to over 3000 students with 23 committees, like NMUN (National Model United Nations) in New York. Almost all MUN simulations are autonomous and student-led unless there are serious time limits or other constraints.

Shared repertoire is a crucial aspect of the “practice” that community members engage in (Wenger, 1998, p. 82). The shared repertoire includes the resources that the community creates for negotiating meaning. In MUN this includes the United Nations body that will be simulated and the agendas outlined in background guide(s), country backgrounds, position papers and policy making, rules of procedure, speech-making, and resolution and amendment templates.

MUN: Training for Global Citizenship

For the last fifteen years, I have been preparing groups of students for Model United Nations conferences in Japan and overseas. Initially I saw the MUN as an opportunity for students to practice English. But the Model UN can be a vehicle for much greater learning. Now I see it as a tool for training global citizens.

What is a global citizen?

According to the International Baccalaureate (IB), which has been dedicated to educating global citizens for over forty years:

An internationally minded person [i.e. global citizen] is open-minded about the common humanity of all people and accepts and respects other cultures and beliefs. The internationally-minded person takes action through discussion and collaboration to help build a better and peaceful world. (IBO, n.d.)

The IB Learner Profile is a framework which encourages students to be: inquirers; knowledgeable; thinkers; communicators; principled; open-minded; caring; risk-takers; balanced; and reflective (IBO, 2018).

How does the MUN prepare students to be global citizens?

If we take the IB Learner Profile and use it as a model of global competencies, we can see how some might be developed through the Model UN experience. The following traits are defined by the IB and then juxtaposed with the Model UN experience:

• According to the IB, a knowledgeable student “develops and uses conceptual learning, exploring knowledge across a range of disciplines. They engage with issues that have local and global significance (IBO, 2018). MUN delegates must: Become familiar with the United Nations; know country they are assigned to represent; and explore a global issue in depth.

• Thinkers, “use critical and creative thinking skills to analyze and take responsible action on complex problems. They exercise initiative in making reasoned, ethical decisions” (IBO, n.d.). MUN participants must think critically about the causes and effects of global problems. Then they must think of creative solutions that are reasoned and ethical from the cultural and geopolitical standpoint of their UN member nation, which may be different from their own opinion.

• Communicators “express ourselves confidently and creatively in more than one language and in many ways. They collaborate effectively, listening carefully to the perspectives of other individuals and groups” (IBO, n.d.). MUN delegates must communicate via prepared and impromptu speeches, formal discussions and informal conversations, entirely in English. Delegates collaborate on research, discussions, even resolution writing.

• Risk Takers “approach uncertainty with forethought and determination; they work independently and cooperatively to explore new ideas and innovative strategies. They are resourceful and resilient in the face of challenges and change” (IBO, n.d.). On average 80% of their preparation for the Model UN is conducted independently (Zenuk-Nishide, 2018). The act of joining a Model UN is a perfect example of risk-taking. Students must dive into foreign language discussions. And they must be resourceful and resilient in order to thrive in a Model UN environment.

While not all ten Learner Profile traits are listed above, we can get an idea of how closely the Model UN correlates with the development of global citizens. But can it transform them into open- minded and caring individuals? In a recent survey I conducted on post-model UN participants at the Tsukuba University TEMUN 2018 (Tsukuba English Model United Nations) I asked questions with specific regard to caring and open-mindedness. The electronic survey was sent to approximately fifty

students from several different universities (roughly half the participants). Twenty-four responded anonymously, although not all questions were completed.

Table 1. Model UN global competency E-survey results for “Open-minded” (n= 22)

Table 2. Model UN global competency E-survey results for “Caring” (n=22~23)

From the data reported, we can see that participants feel that the Model UN does help them become transformative global citizens: On average 90% of survey respondents agreed that the Model UN made them more open-minded; and on average almost 80% even agreed that it helped them become more caring. Students’ comments attest to the rigor involved, as well as the need for critical thinking, communication and collaboration, and hint at a growing interest in the outside world.

Empowering Student-led Independent Learning

A MUN conference success depends on an evolving combination of teacher-mediated facilitation, independent student research, and student-led collaborative discussion, debate, and proposal writing. The balance gradually shifts away from teacher intervention to autonomous student leader leadership supported by critical teacher observation.

First, consider the various forms of autonomous learning that are afforded to students in a MUN context:

1) Students develop the capacity to control the flow of formal meetings by using the rules of parliamentary procedure,

2) Students take leadership to chair the meeting (class or event),

3) Students become experts on the topic for their country and share their expertise with others,

4) Student delegates make their own strategic plans and establish goals for the meeting, and

5) Students engage in the cooperative creation of resolutions and action plans.

The skills developed by students as a result of their participation include: a) articulation of the rules of procedure using the agreed upon formulaic speech conventions, b) negotiation for conflict/ cooperation/consensus building, c) practice in persuasive speech/argumentation, d) opportunities to develop academic writing through the composition of position papers/resolutions, e) honing of research skills, and f) extensive exercising of reading skills in a range of contexts (research, editing/revision).

There are three empowerment phases in a MUN simulation experience. Pre-event empowerment is achieved within a flipped learning framework where students are assigned tasks for outside the class involving research, encounters with new knowledge and mentoring, the products of which are brought back for use in a structured activity in class. This cycle is repeated a number of times before the actual MUN event in which the student integrates and utilizes all knowledge and skills collected and developed in the pre-MUN phase. Post-MUN involves a period of reflection and debriefing.

Relevant research from several fields supports the use of MUN simulations to enhance language learning and to assist in the development of learner autonomy.

As mentioned earlier, MUN is a community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger 1998) and as such, prepares students to operate within a world of negotiations, formal meeting settings and formalized documentation formats. Participation outcomes from MUN are well described within the frameworks of imagined communities (Norton 2000, 2001) and the enhanced L2 and vision of ideal self (Yashima, 2007, 2009; Yashima et. al, 2004; Yashima & Zenuk-Nishide, 2008, Zenuk- Nishide & Tatsuki, 2011). Increased Self-efficacy (Bandura 1994, 1995, Zenuk-Nishide et al,2011) and increased communicative competence ability have also been observable results of MUN participation (Tatsuki, 2009; Zenuk-Nishide, 2009; Zenuk-Nishide & Paul, 2012).

Problematizing Native Speaker/ELF-User Interactions

MUN simulations and ELF interactions can both be considered communities of practice since they embody Wenger’s (1998) three criteria—mutual engagement, a negotiated joint enterprise, and a shared repertoire. As has been noted in previous research (Tatsuki, 2017b; 2018) merely speaking English as an L1 offers no guarantee of an ability to interact successfully with a wide variety of interlocutors; there are many varieties of English, many of which are mutually incomprehensible (Ur, 2010) and similarly, native speakers of these many varieties of English frequently display serious shortcomings when communicating with users of ELF (Litzenberg, 2013). The development of native speaker sensitivity training and ELF-user strategy building to cope with native speaker communication problems are among the suggestions offered here to ensure that all participants experience agency and have a voice.

In order to verify the nature of native-speaker induced communication problems, self-report observations of ELF-speaking MUN delegates from Japan and Germany at three different MUN events were collected through a checklist and open-ended questionnaire (See Tatsuki, 2018 for the questionnaire sample). The checklist items probed possible trouble spots in: conversation management (Q1a, Q1b), cultural knowledge (Q1c, Q1g), manner of delivery (Q1d, Q1e), and lexical knowledge (Q1f, Q1h) as well as providing space for open-ended reporting of specific difficulties in communication (Q2).

Based on the results of the checklist, almost all of the delegates indicated that they had experienced communication/comprehension difficulties when interacting with non-ELF (English native) speakers. Only two delegates claimed to have never encountered comprehension problems related to those items. The most frequently cited problem areas related to manner of delivery and lexical knowledge. More than two thirds of the German respondents claimed that “a Native Speaker used idioms/expressions that were unfamiliar to me” making both categories problematic to approximately half of all respondents. A solid 50% of all respondents agreed that, “a native speaker used vocabulary words that I had not heard before” (Tatsuki, 2018). The problem areas highlighted in this research indicate that certain native speakers may possess poor skills of accommodation, which can be defined as the “process by which speakers adjust their communicative behavior to that of their interlocutors in order to facilitate communication” (Cogo, 2010, p. 254). Therefore, the previous calls for and recognition of the need for training in accommodation directed at native speakers of English have been validated (Skapinker, 2016; Frendo, 2016) by the findings in this study. Based on these results, if one were looking for instructional targets, vocabulary, speech rate and idiom use would be promising starting points, followed by cultural knowledge, humor and dealing with interruptions.

Undoubtedly, the communicative burden to ensure mutual comprehensibility needs to be shared by all participants in any interaction. To this end, “native speakers need to become more aware of international business English: to modify their own language, to stop viewing these simplifications as sub-standard forms of English and to realize that they are missing out on an efficient communication tool” (Bartlett & Johnson, 1998, p. 6). Furthermore, “whether native or nonnative, communicators need to learn or be taught to listen, make situational adjustments, and use sociopragmatic, situational potential to jointly create meanings and operational cultures” (Charles, 2006, cited in Charles, 2007, p. 279).

Understandably, strategy use for encouraging mutual comprehensibility may be influenced by the speaker’s own cultural values, so native speakers engaging in negotiations with ELF users should likely be trained or sensitized towards employing these kinds of strategies. Frendo (2016) suggests offering classes to train native speakers and non-native speakers together. Tatsuki (2018) enumerates specific areas of concern that could be fruitful with regard to the sensitivity retraining of native speaker participants in MUN simulations and specifies areas for training in the order of frequency or complaint: 1) speech rate (too fast or too slow), 2) idioms, and 3) vocabulary—noting that many of the recommendations are adapted from a list prepared by Halsdorf (2013).

The study reported on here, focused on the sources of comprehension and communication difficulties experienced by ELF users during MUN events. Although the difficulties they encountered were due to the lack of accommodation strategies performed by native speaker interlocutors, these problematic behaviors may be largely unconscious. Thus, there is definitely a role for awareness raising and communication training in this group. It is incumbent upon all MUN participants to learn to appreciate that communicating effectively is one important goal of the event and doing so through mutual respect and cooperation should absolutely be the way.

Conclusion

It is our hope that these four perspectives will not only offer a glimpse into the value of doing Model UN simulations for language learning, they will also convince more instructors to consider including them in their language programs. Young people are our future and from among them will emerge tomorrow’s leaders. MUN simulations provide a unique opportunity for them to meet other globally mindful people, develop their skills, lift their voices and recognize their rightful claim to agency.

References

Bartlett, C., and Johnson, C. (1998). Is Business English a pidgin? Language and Intercultural Training, 16(1), 4–6.

Charles, M. (2007). Language matters in global communication: Article based on ORA Lecture, October 2006. Journal of Business Communication, 44 (3), 250–282.

Cogo, A. (2010). Accommodating difference in ELF conversations: A study of pragmatic strategies. In A. Mauranen & E.Ranta (Eds.), English as a lingua franca: Studies and findings.(pp. 254–273). Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Frendo, E. (2016). Training native speakers to accommodate - part of our job? The language of negotiations [Blog]. https://2.bp.blogspot.com/7BoA352p9c/VzLyiHarNzI/AAAAAAAABCk/6GSVTeCpSbommAdQb- 6c7HkvyaBzP8rgACLcB/s1600/ the%2Blanguage%2Bof%2Bnegotiations.png

Halsdorf, M. (2013). English con Matt. [blog]. Retrieved from https://englishconmatt.com/2013/02/12/global-englishawareness-raising-for-native-speakers/

International education. (s. f.). Retrieved from International Baccalaureate® website: http://www.ibo.org/

Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Litzenberg, J. (2013). An investigation of pre-service English language teacher attitudes towards varieties of English in interaction. Dissertation, Georgia State University.

Norton, B. (2000). Identity and language learning: Gender, ethnicity, and educational change. London, UK: Longman/Pearson Education.

Norton, B. (2001). Non-participation, imagined communities and the language classroom. In M. Breen (Ed.), Learner contributions to language learning: New directions in research (pp. 159–171). London, UK: Longman.

Skapinker, M. (2016). Native English speakers must learn how they come across. Financial Times [online]. Retrieved from https://www.ft.com/ content/26692848-f59b-11e5-96db-fc683b5e52db

Tatsuki, D. (2017a). EFL in Model United Nations When East meets West. Lingue e Linguaggi, 24, 73–86. doi:10.1285/i22390359v24p73

Tatsuki, D. (2017b). Improving the interaction of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) users and native speakers of English. In Zenuk-Nishide, L., & Tatsuki, D. (Eds.), NMUN 2016: Stakeholder perspectives on learning processes and outcomes. Journal of Research Institute, 57. Kobe, Japan: Kobe Gaidai.

Tatsuki, D. (2018). ELF in MUN Negotiations: Problematizing the native speaker. In Tatsuki, D. & Zenuk- Nishide, L. Global negotiation: Perspectives on teaching and learning. Journal of Research Institute, 58, Kobe, Japan: Kobe Gaidai.

Ur, P. (2010). English as a Lingua Franca: A teacher’s perspective. Cadernos de Letras (UFRJ) n. 27 – dez. Retrieved from http://www.letras.ufrj.br/anglo_germanicas/cadernos/numeros/122010/textos/ cl301220100penny.pdf

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Yashima, T. (2002). Willingness to communicate in L2: The Japanese EFL context. The Modern Language Journal, 86, 54–66.

Yashima, T. (2007. 10). Autonomy and willingness to communicate: The Development of an English-using ideal self. An invited talk at 3rd International Conference of the Independent Learning Association, Kanda University of International Studies, Chiba, Japan.

Yashima, T. (2009). International posture and the ideal L2 self in the Japanese EFL Context. In Dörnyei, Z. and Ushioda, E. (Eds.). Motivation, language identity and the L2 self (pp.144–163). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Yashima, T., Zenuk-Nishide, L. & Shimizu, K. (2004). Influence of attitudes and affect on willingness to communicate and L2 communication. Language Learning, 54, 119–152.

Yashima, T., & Zenuk-Nishide, L. (2008). The impact of learning contexts on proficiency, attitudes, and L2 communication: Creating an imagined international community. System, 36, 566–585.

Zenuk-Nishide, L. (2018, December). A MUN community of practice for the creation of an L2-using self. GEIC, Tsukuba.

Chapter 8. Enhancing the virtual and real world of a language learner through SNS: Eva’s language learning using video sharing site called Niconico Douga

Yoshio Nakai, Doshisha University

Abstract

This research explores how learner autonomy emerges through social interaction using an analysis of the language learning history of a Japanese language learner from Hong Kong, Eva. van Lier (2004) defines learner autonomy in Bakhtin’s dialogic sense as appropriated having authorship of one’s own voice that speaks one’s words and being emotionally connected to one’s actions and speech. Moreover, Autonomy is socially produced, but appropriated and made one’s own voices. Further, acquiring the voice (Bakhtin, 1986) leads to the construction of a social identity (Riley, 2007) in the community, regardless of one’s language proficiency (Nakai, 2017). In this research, I used Language Learning Histories (LLH: Murphey et al., 2004) to reveal details of the learning process and the construction of social identities. Through interviews, Eva and I wrote her language learning history and I analyzed her learning, learner autonomy, and social identities. Her language learning story shows that her autonomous learning is promoted in order to realize her ideal L2 selves, which are shaped through interaction on social networking sites and face-to-face interaction. Moreover, her story shows that her autonomous learning is boosted by learner autonomy as socially-constructed agency emerging through social interaction. As a learner, she can also be seen as a socially constructed complex system (Sade, 2014) forming learning purposes and identities to adapt autonomously to the social environment. In this paper, through her learning story, I will elaborate on the nature of learning as the acquisition of voices and social identities and how learner autonomy is embodied in the social context.

Recently, the environment around learning languages has dynamically changed with the rapid development of science and technology. Multimedia technology and digital devices have spread, and different possibilities and varieties of language learning and teaching have emerged. This has also brought many opportunities to contact foreign languages through digital devices regardless of the distance from the country where the language is used. Especially, apps and social networking sites (SNS) enable us to learn foreign languages in our own home and facilitate the growth of language learners all over the world. In the context of learning Japanese as a second language, the number of learners is increasing more and more, thanks to the development of technology. They learn Japanese through watching anime, dramas and movies on the Internet. Some of them learn through playing video games or finding language exchange partners from all over the world on apps or SNS.

Thus, multimedia technology plays a significant role in providing opportunities to learn languages. This paper will explore language learning through a Japanese SNS called ‘Niconico Douga’. Niconico Douga is a video hosting platform where we can share the videos and stream live on the web. The videos on Niconico Douga are animation, streams of people playing games, cosplay, Vocaloid songs, movies, dramas and music. This paper will focus on Eva (pseudonym), a Japanese language learner from Hong Kong who has been learning Japanese independently through Niconico Douga. After graduating from her high school in Hong Kong, she entered a university in Taiwan to study Japanese language then she came to Japan as an exchange student and stayed one year. Now she has gone back to Taiwan to finish her bachelor’s degree. This paper will investigate her language learning experiences to reveal how she has learned Japanese autonomously with Niconico Douga.

Previous Research

This research was conducted based on the following studies. The first one is the previous research of Eva’s learning through Niconico Douga as a community of practice. An analysis of her learning using Niconico Douga revealed that the site functions as a virtual self-access learning space offering resources for learning Japanese (Nakai, 2018b). She acquired Japanese expressions used in broadcasting live videos of playing computer games by participating in the community of practice of special interest groups for playing digital games.

Digital natives (Plensky, 2001) like Eva who have been brought up in the digital age can exercise their learner autonomy to learn language by accessing various resources on the web (Nunan & Richard, 2015). This learner autonomy can be related to the capacity for intentional use in the context of a range of interacting resources toward learning goals (Palfreyman, 2014) because they need to choose necessary information from the abundant information available on the Internet.

When it comes to Japanese language learning through SNS, Nakai (2016) shows how Facebook, which is one of SNSs, allows learners to explore the boundaries and possibilities of a learning space. Using Facebook in self-directed sessions in language classes can offer ‘entry points (Gardner, 1991)’ that help learners to engage in learning (Chik & Breidbach, 2014). The learning activities using Facebook can connect learners’ past experiences, their future self-image as a L2 user and present emotions into the second language context. Facebook bridges the gap between the classroom and learners’ real lives and develops learning stemming from their real lives. Learning through Facebook enables learners to authorize their own actions and words, which was defined as autonomy by van Lier (2004), through realizing their ideal L2 self. One of the key concepts in this study is “L2 Motivational Self System” (Dörnyei, 2009) which regulates learners’ motivation. This system is composed of ideal L2 self, ought-to L2 self, and learning experiences potentially related to these L2 selves. The Ideal L2 self is a future self-image which generates a learner’s motivation by reducing the gap between the actual L2 selves and ideal L2 selves, which act as future self- guides (Dörnyei, 2009, p. 11). The Ought-to L2 Self is constructed in the social context, such as expectations of others around language learners.

Another key concept is the idea of authorizing one’s own words relating to social identity. To have authorship of ones’ own actions and words used in a community to which a L2 learner and user wants to belong, leads to the construction of social identity to become a member of this community (Nakai, 2018a). This research indicates the social dimensions of an autonomous language learner and his/her learning. In order to gain a deeper understanding of this, Sade (2014) proposed the idea of human being as a Complex Adaptive System. A Complex Adaptive System is a non-linear, dynamic and ever-evolving system. The shape of the whole system will change to adapt to any small changes which occur in the system. Quoting Bakhtin’s theory, Sade discusses that human beings appropriate their own voice from the discursive society they belong to and contribute to changes in the discursive society through their social practices. This means that “the social context and the human being are mutually constituted” (Sade, 2014: 159), therefore, a language learner can be considered an “individual as a complex system. In short, to grasp language learning, we need to approach it with a view to the social dimensions of learning and the learner. In light of these studies, this research investigated how Niconico Douga has developed and expanded Eva’s language learning and her life.

Research Context

Given that it has been shown that self-directed learning using Facebook facilitated the emergence of learners’ self and real lives in the L2 world, how learning Japanese through Niconico Douga relates to the L2 self and the real world is worthy of investigation. The main research questions were:

• How has Eva promoted self-directed learning through Niconico Douga?

• How has she acquired a voice leading to the construction of her social identity?

• How has Niconico Douga made the connection between a virtual world and her real life?

I used a Language Learning History (LLH: Murphey et al., 2004) to reveal Eva’s language learning experiences. To write her LLH, I interviewed Eva twice in 2016, on 8th July (for 65min.) and 22nd July (for 48 min.), audio-recording and transcribing each interview. In the first interview, we explored her learning experiences to understand how she promoted self-directed learning and constructed her L2 self through Niconico Douga. In the second interview, we rewrote her LLH that I had written after the first interview and interpreted her experience.

Eva’s Language Learning History

Her experiences are divided broadly into three parts. The first part is about starting to learn Japanese by herself in Hong Kong, the second part is about learning Japanese at university in Taiwan, the third part is learning at a university in Japan as an exchange student.

The reason why she started learning Japanese

She talked about the reason why she started learning in the following way:

“I wanted to follow my close friend who started going to a language school to learn Japanese. But my parents couldn’t afford to send me to language school, so I started learning Japanese using Niconico Douga after memorizing Japanese hiragana characters and studying simple grammar and particles.”

“I was watching Niconico Douga just to kill time. I started watching Niconico Douga because I traced back the original version of one song I happened to like then I found it was from Niconico Douga.”

At that time, she started watching Niconico Douga and tracked back to the original of one song she happened to like then she found it was from Niconico Douga. Then she started using Niconico Douga for learning Japanese to challenge her friend after memorizing Japanese hiragana characters and studying simple grammars and particles.

Her usage of Niconico Douga for learning Japanese

Learning Japanese through Niconico Douga consisted of 3 parts: contents, Google Translate and live streaming. According to her experience, she learns Japanese by watching Let’s Play videos, which show how to play games, with Google Translate. and, as a productive activity, she also streams let’s play videos live. She sees the contents of videos as learning materials and live streaming as language practice. When it comes to learning, she categorizes Let’s Play video into 3 levels (Figure. 1). Action games like Super Mario are good for beginners, because the Japanese spoken in the video is easy. In action games, they use short words, onomatopoeia, and lots of verbs such as ochita (fell) or screaming when Mario falls into a pit or hits the mushroom. Moreover, there is less explanation, as the storyline of action games is simple. On the other hand, roleplaying game videos were categorized as intermediate or advanced level. The storyline of a roleplaying game is more complicated than an action game, and there is a lot of explanation of items. The more complicated a roleplaying game gets, the higher the level becomes.

Table 1. Contents: learning materials

Her usage of Niconico Douga for learning Japanese

Figure. 1 is a screenshot of a Let’s Play video. As this shows, there are listeners’ comments running on the screen. While she watches the video, Eva tries to understand what is going on by reading the comments. and if she can’t understand, she uses Google Translate or guesses the meaning from the Chinese characters and the situation.

Figure 1: A screenshot of live streaming of playing a game

How to do live streaming in Japanese

She not only learned Japanese passively but also spoke Japanese through live-streaming. Firstly, she found a model of live streaming: her favourite user in Taiwan.

“I watched live streaming firstly on the Taiwanese blog where he introduced Japanese live streaming videos. I found some movies so fun and began to check what the streamer said and what comments listeners left. The most interesting to me is his live streaming video. I always check how he did in the video and imitate his way to talk. He is my teacher.”

She imitated the way he spoke on his video then stream let’s play a game live as he did.

“I just said “What is this?” or “What can I do with this?”. I could only say simple and short sentences with several words. Some of the listeners left comments and I sometimes found ‘Awful’ among them. If so, I changed the streaming time, for example at 2 am. At midnight, there are fewer listeners who watch my streaming video. And men seem to be more generous than women. They gave me kind comments and they are so helpful for me.”

After finishing live streaming, she reflected on her performance considering the comments and feedback which listeners gave her on streaming or chatting. She got many comments about her pronunciations and expressions, so she thought she needed to speak with good pronunciation and intonation to make herself understood by listeners. The self-image of speaking correctly seemed to act as her ought-to self. In this way, she reflected on her performance, and practiced pronunciation. But when she felt stressed by listeners, she changed her live streaming time to avoid getting many critical comments from listeners. Through live streaming she exercised her learner autonomy to take control of the learning process including practice, evaluating, and adjustment.

Attending a university in Taiwan

This is her second stage of learning Japanese. After graduating from a high school in Hong Kong, she decided to go to study at a university in Taiwan, because she wanted to learn Japanese in the environment where her role model of live streaming lives. In addition, Niconico Douga is more popular among Taiwanese who can speak Japanese. In Taiwan, she experienced formal learning in Japanese language classes at a university for the first time, and here she developed a self-image as a Japanese user who can speak with proper grammar and vocabulary and thought this was also important to communicate with others. This turned into her ought-to self (Dornyei, 2009) during learning in Taiwan.

Visiting Japan as an exchange student at a university in Kyoto

The latest stage of her learning is studying at a university in Japan for a year. When she was in Taiwan, she had a chance to talk with one exchange student from Japan at her university.

“I had no chance to talk with Japanese people in Hong Kong. But I happened to meet Japanese girl as an overseas student and chat with her in Taiwan, and it was really fun for me to communicate face-to-face. Then I want to have opportunities to speak Japanese more.”

This was her first time to use Japanese in real communication and this motivated her to go to Japan to study Japanese and to interact with Japanese people face-to-face and build relationships with Japanese who have the same interests, such as playing video games. This was why she came to Japan, and at university in Japan she became a member of the Computer Graphics Club and worked hard as an illustrator. During her stay in Japan, she sometimes went to a big event to meet popular idols from Niconico Douga and made some Japanese friends there, building real relationships with Japanese with the same interests.

“The Japanese I speak is still not correct. I need to acquire the proper use of grammar and vocabulary at a university. It doesn’t have anything to do with computer graphics, but I found a new place where I can make use of my Japanese proficiency. I want to be an illustrator and manage my own site in Japanese and Chinese.”

While staying in Japan, she found a new ideal L2 self: a computer graphic illustrator who is active in the field of computer graphics using Japanese and Chinese. But she still thought she needed to use proper grammar and vocabulary the same way as she thought in Taiwan. From her words in our interview, the formal language education she took in Taiwan and Japan seems to have had a great impact on her beliefs of language learning, maintaining her ought-to self of a grammatically and pragmatically correct language user.

Discussion

I will examine Eva’s LLH from the perspectives of L2 selves, social identity, and Complex Adaptive Systems. As Eva’s LLH shows, Niconico Douga functions as a virtual self-access learning centre not only to offer learning resources but also expand her real L2 life. Niconico Douga has led to the construction of social identities as an L2 user of Japanese by bringing her ideal L2 self as a live- streamer of playing games and an illustrator, and ought to self which is a grammatically, phonetically, and pragmatically ‘proper’ Japanese user.

While learning in Hong Kong, she found an ideal L2 self who was a live streamer in Taiwan. She imitated his way to speak Japanese in live streaming. By doing this, she could acquire the voice needed to communicate with listeners, leading to the construction of her social identity through full participation in the community of practice of live streaming. This participation was supported by her listeners who gave her their comments to evaluate her Japanese language. She reflected on listeners’ reactions and brushed up her Japanese when live streaming. This ideal L2 self and her family’s economic circumstances made her choose to go to university in Taiwan. After going to Taiwan, the experience of talking with one Japanese student led her to study in Japan as an exchange student where she found a new ideal L2 self of being an illustrator. Her ideal L2 self which was first born in Niconico Douga changed its shape according to the social context around her.

Realizing her ideal L2 self was achieved by participating in the community of Niconico Douga, the society of the computer graphics club and interacting with people with the same interests. This led her to acquire a social identity in the community or society she wanted to belong to. From her experience, her learner autonomy was socially constructed and at the same time, it promoted her autonomous behaviour and actions as a social agent. Her socially constructed agency broadened her world using Japanese as a second language from the Internet world to the real L1 and L2 world. However, while in Hong Kong, her ought-to self as a Japanese user who can use proper pronunciation and intonation of Japanese language emerged. This ought-to self was strongly affected by listeners and the formal education she received at university. She evaluated her own Japanese from the listeners’ feedback and the formal learning in Japanese language class at a university where she was asked to acquire correct Japanese. She has acquired her own voice through realizing her ideal L2 self which she had found in her surrounding context, and ought-to self which people around her imposed on her: that of a ‘proper’ Japanese user.

As explained above, Eva learned autonomously through realizing her L2 selves and constructing her social identities as an L2 user of Japanese. In this process, she has chosen from the possible options in her context. In the beginning, she wanted to follow one of her friends who had started learning at Japanese language school. However, unfortunately her family couldn’t afford to send her language school, so she chose to use Niconico Douga for learning because she happened to have a keen interest in Vocaloid songs and games streamed in Niconico Douga. There obviously was a constraint on going to language school but she made good use of the affordances provided by Niconico Douga to learn Japanese voluntarily. Moreover, one Taiwanese game streamer of whom she was a big fan happened to act as her role model of a streamer using Japanese, and this encounter brought her to Taiwan to learn Japanese at a university. In Taiwan, her experience of authentic communication with a Japanese student moved her to study abroad in Japan. Her process of learning Japanese is inseparably related to the social context she belongs to and is being reformed to adapt to her social context. She has resiliently made reasonable choices to develop her learning with the complex influence of different factors in her social context.

In other words, her L2 self has been constructed through this process under the mutual influence between her L2 self and the social context. As Sade (2014) points out, Eva’s LLH shows her as a non-linear, dynamic and ever-evolving Complex Adaptive System.

Conclusion

In conclusion, from this research Eva the language learner can be construed as a complex structure (Sade, 2014) which is socially and historically evolving by acquiring voice which in turn leads to the construction of social identities as ideal L2 selves through interaction with the various factors in the learner’s social context. As the result shows that Eva’s ought to self was strongly influenced by formal education, those who support learners need to know that they might have a strong impact on learners and need to support them in reforming their L2 selves through helping them to acquire a social identity, belong to a community, and experience real learning in the real world. By doing this, learners can form their own purpose for learning leading to lifelong learning, just like Eva has done.

Acknowledgement

I would like to express the deepest appreciation to Eva and the ILA organising committee. This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers 17K02874.

References

Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays. Translated by Vern W. McGee. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

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Chapter 9. Academic Writing as an Individual Process— Students’ Perceptions of a University Academic Writing Clinic

Robin Lohman, University of Karlsruhe, Germany

Christian Ludwig, University of Bielefeld, Germany

Abstract

This article reports on students’ experiences with establishing a writing clinic for students of English at the University of Education Karlsruhe in Germany. The writing clinic was set-up as a part of the university’s Language Learning Center (LLC) and provided students with individual one-to-one writing support sessions with a tutor. The main aim of the clinic was to support students in doing their academic writing assignments which they had to complete as part of their studies. Data sources include a pre- and post-intervention questionnaire with 32 students responding before and 36 participants after the intervention. The survey was conducted to gain an insight into the students’ perceptions of their own writing skills, their experiences with the clinic, and their expectations towards a writing clinic. The results of the survey will be used to personalize the advice on how to improve students’ academic writing skills and to make sure that the writing clinic’s program matches their needs even more in the future. The survey indicates that while many students were not initially aware of their strengths and weaknesses in the area of academic writing, personalized consultations helped them to better understand these needs and supported them in gaining confidence in their ability to write in academic English.

Learning to write in the foreign language is a challenge for students at all levels. This is particularly true for academic writing which is not one skill but many which is “not likely to develop automatically without intervention through practice, and consequently writing needs special attention in the classroom” (Gabel & Schmidt, 2017, p.190, see also Melouk, 2013; Ramya & Pongoodi, 2017). Producing an effective piece of academic work requires both creative insight and technical know-how and for this reason is often perceived as an overwhelming task for students (see Gabel & Schmidt, 2017). With this need in mind, a one-semester trial academic writing clinic was established as a part of the Language Learning Center (LLC) at the University of Education Karlsruhe in Germany. The term ‘writing clinic’ was selected to emphasize the attention given to individual writing problems and their correction. Students enrolled in a seminar on academic writing in English were encouraged to visit the writing clinic to obtain personal guidance on their self-defined areas of need. The feedback received at the writing clinic served as extra support for students in the processes of writing an academic paper as a seminar assignment. It is important to note that most of the students participating in the study were English language learners in their 2nd to 6th semester.

True to the complexity of its subject, the objectives of the present study are multidimensional. Firstly it aims to identify the specific concerns students have in relation to their academic writing skills. These include both the specific definition of personal areas of need as well as emotional perceptions related to levels of security in academic writing. A further goal is to identify students’ perceptions of the writing clinic. By placing our results in the on-going discussion of this complex topic, we hope to contribute both insight and practical considerations for the development of effective intervention strategies supporting individual needs in academic writing.

Writing Centers — Theoretical background and current research

The high number of writing centers which have been established at many universities around the world emphasizes the fact that writing remains an important medium for student learning as well as an indispensable goal of learning. However, students often feel overwhelmed by the demands of academic writing, especially without explicit teacher support. These challenges have been discussed in a cornucopia of publications on students’ problems with all phases of the writing process, from structuring a text to comprising the final product (see, e.g. Carvalho, 2008; Russell, Parker, Street & Donahue, 2009; Barbeiro, Pereira & Carvalho, 2015). For these and other reasons, students often show a negative attitude towards academic writing, instead of seeing its potential as a tool for self-directed or even autonomous learning. This is partly due to the fact that developing students’ writing skills is often a challenging endeavor as writing in one’s own, let alone in the foreign language, is a multifaceted task which involves complex cognitive processes, namely planning, translating and reviewing (Flower & Hayes, 1981; Hayes, 1996). In addition, the focus of writing has moved away from the final product to the process of writing, emphasizing that writing is a creative, multi-step activity which “prescribes multiple iterations that include peer and instructor feedback on several drafts” (Hegelheimer & Lee, 2012, p.287). From a pedagogical perspective, the product approach to writing has been gradually replaced by collaborative approaches which acknowledge that consciously writing together with other individuals is an important skill (see, for example, Williams, 2003), not least in the age of digital media (see, for example, Gabel & Schmidt, 2017 for further discussion). This view of writing as a process-oriented and collaborative endeavor also changes the nature of writing support students need during the writing process. Ideally, the teacher moderates the students’ individual as well as collaborative writing attempts and supports students in developing strategies for the various stages of the writing process including generating, drafting, and refining ideas. Closely related to this, North (1984) argues that a writing centre ‘represents the marriage of what are arguably the two most powerful contemporary perspectives on teaching writing: first, that writing is most usefully viewed as a process; and second, that writing curricula need to be student-centered’ (p.438).

The fact that the term ‘writing center’ is used for most of these centers may imply that they all want the same. In her seminal article, “Whose Idea of a Writing Center is This, Anyway?”, Jeanne Simpson, however, argues quite rightly that depending on the involved stakeholders, such as students, administrators, or teaching staff, the purpose(s) of a writing centre may differ greatly. Particularly for students, the term ‘writing center’ may be misleading as they may expect it to offer personalised, detailing services (cf. Simpson, 2010, p.1). The services offered in writing centers over the years has changed as much as the research conducted in writing centers. While in the early years publications on writing centers focused on rather pragmatic issues such as the theoretical framework of and for writing centers as well as issues like how to open and run a centre, the focus than shifted to documenting and sharing best practice examples. More recently, there has been an increasing interest in empirical — both qualitative and quantitative — research on the effectiveness of writing centers, investigating the students’ needs as well as the effectiveness of individual (online) consultation sessions either replacing or complementing traditional class sessions. The guiding principles of most university writing centers is to guide students through the process of writing from the first ideas to the final draft, also including language issues such as punctuation and grammar.

The Karlsruhe writing clinic was born out of the need for additional, individual help with the many facets of academic writing. The authors of this study are experienced teachers of academic writing and have observed that students need more support in developing the skills required than can be achieved in class alone. Further, the problems which arise are individual and require personal attention. The newly established university Language Learning Center seemed the perfect context to initiate this support. To this aim a co-operation was created between the first author and a trained writing consultant who offered individual tutoring sessions to students.

Methodology

The main aim of our research was twofold: to learn more about the students’ awareness of their own academic writing abilities and investigate the students’ perceptions of the individual consultations sessions (Winder, Kathpalia & Koo, 2016, pp. 323-339). Participants were undergraduate English language learners who attended the course ‘Academic Writing’ during the summer semester 2018 at the University of Education Karlsruhe. In this seminar, students are taken through the various steps necessary in producing an original piece of academic writing including: finding resources and appropriate referencing, structuring material and formulating research questions or thesis statements, writing in appropriate academic register, all aspects of paragraph writing and constructing introductions and conclusions. The students were at different stages of their studies (9 students from the 6th semester, 12 students from the 4th semester, and 8 students from the 2nd semester with 3 students not providing an answer). The students were not required to identify their English level according to the Common European Framework and participation was purely voluntary. One semester of data was examined for the purpose of identifying trends in writing center usage and assessing how these have fulfilled the stated objectives of the center at the time it was founded.

In preparation for their participation in the writing clinic students filled out a pre-intervention questionnaire in English. The questionnaire was specifically designed for the current research and included the following items: a quantitative self-evaluation of general confidence in writing academic English, qualified with personal statements; an overview of the types of resources used to help with academic writing; levels of perceived help needed in specific areas of academic writing including: formulation of a thesis statement or research question, correct referencing, structuring content, writing in academic register, paragraph writing as well as writing introductions and conclusions – the same aspects also covered in the course. Finally students were asked to what extent they believed the writing clinic would be able to assist them in the challenges they faced in writing.

This information along with a piece of writing was then taken to an individual consultation in which the tutor specifically addressed the student’s defined needs. Depending on the students’ need of support, they could book up to three sessions with their assigned tutor. Each session lasted for 20 minutes or longer. During the first consultation session, the tutor interviewed the student in order to identify their needs at any stage of their writing project and discussed some of the answers from the assessment sheet in more detail. In addition, the students were encouraged to bring a piece of writing in order to identity areas needing revision.

Following the intervention a post-questionnaire was completed evaluating the help offered by the clinic as well as determining changes in perception related to levels of confidence in academic writing. A further item collected information concerning which additional resources were used to help with the development of their academic writing skills. Initially designed as a pilot program to help English students with their seminar assignments, the study’s goal is to define and expand personalized academic writing support to students of other subjects writing papers in English. These future visions should include both human and online resources tailored to meet individual needs. A copy of both the pre and post-questionnaires can be found in the appendix.

Results

The first part of the pre-intervention questionnaire inquired about the participants’ confidence in their academic writing skills. The results indicate that most participants had no clear opinion about their writing skills with the majority of students (53%) stating that they had neutral feelings towards their writing abilities in English. Of the students who had an opinion about their confidence, 28% said they were not confident and only 19% had confidence in their ability to write academically in English.

Closely related to the first question, students were then asked to specify why they were confident or not confident with their academic writing abilities. The ensuing table (Table 1) displays an overview of problem areas enumerated by the students. As multiple answers were possible, the majority of the students mentioned more than one problem area. The results indicate that the areas perceived as problematic by the students vary greatly, ranging from mere formatting issues to more fundamental writing problems such as a lack of (academic) vocabulary or even a perceived general lack of academic writing skills.

Table 1: Participants’ anticipated problems with composing an academic text

Six of the 32 students stated that they already had experience in academic writing due to their studies abroad or papers previously written in English. There was only one student, however, who felt confident enough to complete the writing task due to her semester abroad where she “did a lot of academic writing […] and got good grades (in Oxford)” (A9). In contrast to this, the student identified as bilingual (English/German) believed that her academic register was not sufficient to complete the required writing assignment. Another student stated that although she was confident of her overall language competence, academic writing posed a particular challenge. Also, she hinted at the importance of collaborative writing and/or teacher support as she assumed that she was not always able to identify her own mistakes.

A18: I am confident in my English and can mostly spot non-academic writing but am sure I do not always spot the mistakes I make in my own writing because I know what I meant.

Student A4 stated that her L1’s (German) written language tended to use more complex sentence structures. Therefore, she feared negative language transfer which would most likely impede performance.

A4: Never wrote an academic paper, working in German syntax in more complex sentences, sometimes not formal/ objective enough

The second section of the pre-intervention questionnaire investigated the students’ perceptions of the level of support they believed they needed for the specific aspects of academic writing covered in class (Table 2) with multiple answers collected.

Table 2: Participants’ perceptions of support needed in specific areas of academic writing

While some students were confident in their writing abilities, others felt they needed support or even extensive support in specific areas, and still others were not sure of the level of support they needed in these areas. Interesting here is the high level of neutral responses and the fact that despite this insecurity, 84% of the students reported that they thought the writing clinic would be able to help them with the challenges they faced in academic writing. In the post-questionnaire students were asked to evaluate their experience with the writing clinic. More specifically, they were asked if they were more confident in their academic writing abilities after visiting the writing clinic. 55% of the students reported that they were in fact more confident in their abilities after visiting the writing clinic. Table 3 summarizes the participants’ statements related to the specific help they received in the writing clinic.

Table 3: Participants’ Statements Related to Specific Areas of Help Received in the Writing Clinic

About one fifth of the students explicitly mentioned that they particularly valued the additional time for personal and individual feedback from the tutor as well the opportunity to discuss individual questions which was not always possible in a classroom context to “ask what’s important just for your own academic writing” (B29). Moreover, one student emphasized that it was important for her to receive feedback in a one-to-one session from someone who was not actively involved in the actual course as this offered a “third pair of eyes from someone who is not included in the actual process and who takes a step back while having the theoretical background knowledge” (B36). Of particular interest in the post-questionnaire is the fact that 69% of the students who participated in the writing clinic said that it helped them to better understand the challenges they faced in academic writing. Taking into account the high numbers of neutral answers previously given concerning levels of confidence and specific abilities, this result shows that perhaps the strongest effect of the writing clinic was in improving self-awareness and metacognition in the area of academic writing, helping them become more effective and, more importantly, more autonomous.

Conclusion

The aim of the current study was to evaluate students’ level of confidence and perceptions related to their own strengths and weaknesses in academic writing as well as their expectations for and experiences with individualized support given in a writing clinic context. The results emphasize that academic writing is both a process-oriented and a multifaceted skill and indicate that personalized support is an effective intervention to help students with both vague fears and concrete needs related to academic writing. Although many students were initially insecure or even unaware of their abilities to write English academically, they gained both confidence and self-awareness after visiting the writing clinic. Providing individual tutor sessions for students who attend an academic writing class, however, requires a great deal of organisation and, mostly due to institutional constraints, can only be offered to a limited extent. Therefore, we plan to complement the one-to-one sessions by online resources geared towards the problem areas mentioned by the participants both in the pre- and post-questionnaire in the near future. We hope to use the results of the present pilot study to further develop the Karlsruhe Writing Clinic and to expand help for students as they continue to develop their academic writing skills.

References

Barbeiro, L. F., Pereira, L. A., & Carvalho, J. B. (2015). Writing at Portuguese universities: students’ perceptions and practices. Journal of Academic Writing, 5(1), 74–85

Carvalho, J. B. (2008) Acquiring, elaborating and expressing knowledge – a study with Portuguese university students. Zeitschrift Schreiben,

Flower, L., & Hayes, J. R. (1981). A cognitive process theory of writing. College Composition and Communication 32, 365–387.

Gabel, S., & Schmidt, T. (2017). Collaborative writing with writing pads in the foreign language classroom – chances and limitations. In C. Ludwig & K. Van de Poel (Eds.), Collaborative learning and new media – insights into an evolving field. (pp.189–212), Frankfurt: Germany: Peter Lang Verlag.

Hayes, J. R. (1996). A new framework for understanding cognition and affect in writing. In C. M. Levy, & S. Ransdell (Eds.), The science of writing. Theories, methods, individual differences, and applications (pp. 1–27). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Hegelheimer, V., & Lee, J. (2012). The role of technology in teaching and researching writing. In M. Thomas, H. Reinders, & M. Warschauer (Eds.), Contemporary computer-assisted language learning (pp. 287–301). London, UK: Bloomsbury.

Melouk, M. (2013). Some practical implications to students writing failure. Journal of Literature, Culture/Media Studies, 9(10), 213–221.

North, S. (1984). The idea of a writing centre. College English, 46(5), 433–446.

Ramya, D., & Pongoodi, O.T. (2017). Writing – a complex skill. International Journal of English Language & Literature V/X, 779–784.

Russell, D., Lea, M., Parker, J., Street, B., & Donahue, T. (2009). Exploring notions of genre in “academic literacies” and “writing across the curriculum”: Approaches across countries and contexts. In C. Bazerman, A. Bonini, & D. Figueiredo (Eds.), Genre in a changing world (pp. 395–423). Fort Collins, CO: The WAC Clearinghouse and Parlor Press.

Simpson, J. (2010). Whose idea of a writing center is this, anyway?. The Writing Lab Newsletter, 35(1), 1–4.

Williams, J. D. (2003). Preparing to teach writing: Research, theory, and practice. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Winder, R., Kathpalia S., & Koo, S. (2016). Writing centre tutoring sessions: addressing students’ concerns. Educational Studies, 42(4), 323–339. https://doi.org/10.1080/03055698.2016.1193476

Appendix A

Pre-intervention questionnaire

We would like to learn more about how you perceive your ability to write English academically. We would also like to identify the areas you feel you need support in and which resources would be most helpful towards this aim.

Appendix B

Post-intervention questionnaire

Part 3 - Voices from teacher/advisor education

Chapter 10. Building Teacher and Student Relationships in a New Teaching Context – A Reflective Approach

Nicole Gallagher, Toyo University, Japan

Abstract

When beginning to work in a new teaching context, it is difficult to imagine not only how the curriculum and teaching practice will fit together, but also who the learners will be, how they will interact with one another, and how the relationship between the teacher and learners will form. Reflective practice provides a means for teachers to analyze their own teaching context as it exists presently (Farrell, 2018). As a result, reflective practice presents a particularly attractive model of inquiry for novice teachers or teachers finding themselves in new settings or roles. In April 2018, I started working in a new educational setting, and took on a new role as an instructor in an academic English course. This paper will explore some reflections of how I oriented myself to a new teaching environment from a reflective practice paradigm. Topics that will be examined include teacher identity construction, the humanistic tradition of teaching, and developing an approach to fostering effective learning communities in each classroom. I argue that taking a reflective stance helps teachers to become more attentive to both individual needs of learners and the social dynamic of the group, and in turn can help create a more holistic, and open learning environment.

Transitioning into a new language teaching context will present a teacher with challenges related to an unfamiliar local educational culture. Elements where change might be seen in this new setting include student backgrounds and motivations, colleagues, facilities, curriculum aims, and institutional culture, but may encompass many more other areas, and some may be less obvious or apparent at first. Inevitably, moving from one context to another will force teachers to reconsider aspects of their teaching and identity in the new position, and it can even be expected that a teacher’s identity will undergo reinvention. At the same time, new relationships with the learners in their classroom will need to be developed. One strategy for effectively adapting to the change and its demands on a teacher transitioning between contexts is to engage in reflective practice. Farrell (2018) argues that reflective practice is a tool for teachers to shine a light on their own teaching as they exist presently. In this paper I will share the process of self-evaluation that I went through after joining a new university English program. I will present several factors that I considered when I adopted a reflective practice model of inquiry, such as a transforming teacher identity and developing community in the class. Then I will discuss the reflective practice that I engaged in during the first semester. I argue that reflection cannot only help teachers figure out what they should do in the classroom, but it can also help them become more sensitive to the local context and more attuned to the learners. In turn, this increased awareness of the learners helps them to fine tune their teaching and enhance the learning experience.

Reasons to Teach

It has been noted that many teachers have humanistic commitments to the profession. When asked why they teach, it is likely that many teachers will answer that they aim to have a positive impact on students and their learning trajectory (Pinner, 2018). While not all teachers may place a high value on this aspect of their pedagogical work, many do consider these aspects of their work to some degree. Care, and taking into account social and affective elements of the classroom are part of the teaching profession. The relational aspect of teachers - how they express themselves, how they communicate with students, how they cultivate spaces for students to explore their own identity in learning - are key aspects of what a teacher does in the classroom. When I reflect back to April 2018, when I was preparing to start a new teaching position, many of my concerns were connected to relational and emotional aspects of teaching. I often thought about what would be the most effective ways to interact and communicate with the students. I knew I had to select classroom materials and meet curriculum objectives. However, I was also aware that once I organized the class flow, that this would produce a certain atmosphere and tone, which would have an effect on student learning. Furthermore, I knew that I was responsible for how I formed relationships with the students in the classes. These concerns led me to want to be proactive within my own work to make changes to my teaching which seemed appropriate to meet these humanistic goals of teaching.

Different Teacher Identities

Transitions between educational contexts inevitably lead to shifts in a teacher’s identity. Pinner (2018) noted that there is no one teacher identity, but that each person has multiple teacher identities, and each person is involved in an ongoing identity construction. Coming from an environment where I was teaching a compulsory undergraduate course with a highly structured curriculum, to another where the university course required a substantial amount of involvement in ongoing curriculum development, and which is taught to highly motivated students, I knew that I would need to be someone different in the classroom. I expected that my relationship to the students would change, and I knew I would have to consider and make some decisions on how I wanted to relate to the students in the class. At the same time, I wanted to ensure the students were benefiting from the learning experience in that first semester as much as they could. As a result, I wanted to be continually aware of how I was involved in developing a positive learning community for the students. I knew that this would involve myself in a personal way where I would need to reevaluate both who I should and want to be in the classroom. While this is arguably a constant process of finding our identity in any teaching context, moving between contexts requires a more overt reflection process. Recognizing that this would be a necessary process in starting the new position, I wanted to engage more actively in a process of reflection that would help steer me through this period of transition.

Community Building in the Classroom

In April 2018, I started teaching in the Learning English for Academic Purposes (LEAP) program at Toyo University in Tokyo. It is an intensive academic English language course for students aspiring to study abroad course, which requires that the students take twice the number of classes than on a typical credit course. The LEAP program is open to all undergraduate students and aims to help raise students’ TOEFL IBT scores so that they are eligible for study abroad courses organized through Toyo University. In anticipation of starting my classes, I considered that establishing a productive learning community would be a beneficial part of the course. Considering the position of the teacher as the facilitator of the course, the teacher can make a significant impact in shaping the classroom community culture that forms in a given class. While the students and course may be established from the outset, how a learning community develops will be dependent on the teacher in varying degrees since teachers can manage, plan, intervene or redirect the flow of a class in various ways. For instance, by making decisions before and during a class the teacher can alter the flow of a class. At the same time, in order for a teacher to interact with the learners purposefully and to circumvent hierarchical power structures of teacher and student relationships that can be potentially damaging in a learner-centred classroom, teachers will need to become aware of how their interactions affect the students in the classroom (Hooks, 2003). The self-awareness of teacher-student relations that seem necessary to understand how to shape and participate in the learning community, could be approached through developing a process of self-reflection.

Reflective Practice in Action

Reflective language teaching, as opposed to more traditional top-down forms of professional development proposes a model of improving teacher behaviour through heightening their awareness of their own teaching. Rather than trying to take in and synthesize research or professional development models learnt at a seminar or in a book, the practice of reflective language teaching engages the teacher in coming up with practical solutions for their own teaching context (Farrell, 2018). The act of reflection offers a teacher a process to help guide his or herself in becoming more familiar of their local context, which can lead them to better decision making about classroom practice. Farrell (2018) points out that awareness is essential to effective decision-making as teachers can only respond and evaluate aspects of her classroom of which she is aware. Consequently, reflective language teaching is an ongoing classroom inquiry model that empowers the teacher to make better decisions through reflection.

I thought this form of inquiry would be useful for several reasons as I acculturated to my new teaching position. First, I knew that I would be engaged with some emotional aspects of teaching. As I do often associate strong emotions with my work in the classroom, I knew that a process that encouraged me to be reflective, both in and outside of the classroom, would be a constructive way for me to process these emotions in a positive way. While Farrell (2018) notes that reflective practice (RP) can lead teachers to “critically reflect on all aspects of their work” (p. 9), he also acknowledges that reflection can be a cathartic process and can lead to heightened confidence (Farrell, 2018). From my own experience using RP in the past, it seems that reflection leads to a potentially constructive meditation on the emotions of felt experience. As these feelings are tied up with my own humanistic conception of teaching, I know that I will need to address and reflect on them in some way. Second, as my identity goes through construction in relation to the learners in the class, I will want to take stock on what works well, and how I might deal with more challenging aspects of the classroom. Lastly, reflection seemed critical to address the ongoing adjustments inherent in developing rapport and relationships with the learners in my class. For instance, as I get to know the individuals that are taking the course, I can consider how to relate to them. As these relationships seem entangled with other individuals in the classroom context, reflective inquiry can help me to make sense of these relationships as they unfold

In order to develop a process of dealing with this new classroom setting, I started to take notes during and after class to document how the classes were going. I would write down my impressions, things I thought went well, and anything that could be characterized as a puzzle (rather than a problem). Allwright (2005) describes puzzles as things that we do not understand but give us pause. This notion seems particularly useful in the context of reflective practice, as it reformulates challenging classroom scenarios as events that teachers may be able to either approach differently, or think of differently. In a typical class, teachers often make routine decisions based on expected responses in a class. Farrell describes this as a kind of tacit response and is characterized by a knowing-in-action (Schön, 1983). These actions are almost spontaneous and used readily in the classroom. However, when things happen in the class that are unexpected, this may surprise the teacher, and how they respond (or do not respond) may lead to some puzzle for the teacher after the class. When a teacher thinks about how to react to the new unexpected situation while in class, this is reflection-in-action (Farrell, 2018).

After class, I would reflect on how I interacted with the students, and whether the students were engaging well with learning within the classroom. Some of this would be internal reflection and processing, and once I had developed my own thinking around it, or wanted to air out my thoughts in hopes of gaining more clarity, I would often talk with a few of my colleagues about my classroom. Sometimes I would try to come to an understanding of what happened, but often I was also considering how to adapt my approach for future classes. For me, spontaneous, spoken dialogue is personally one of the most effective ways for me to progress my thoughts, and devise some future plans. Farrell (2018) refers to these stages as reflection-on-action, which describes the reflection we do on what has happened in the class, and reflection-for-action, which describes the reflection we do to guide future action and is proactive in nature (p. 6). As well, as a way to maximize reflection while teaching, I also took a reflective stance in the classroom. Rather than react or act in a given situation out of impulse, I would stand back and try to reflect on what was going on. This seemed particularly important for myself in the new teaching environment as I had not yet built up some routine responses in the new classroom setting, and so through giving some time for reflection, I was trying to develop my own critical awareness of the class. For instance, in each of my classes in the first semester, I observed all of the students seemed quite unique with their own needs. This came out through how they interacted to me, to others, or to classroom activities and assignments. In the first semester, I wanted to understand how best to support these diverse learners, and what might be good responses for the different students and their unique needs.

Reflections of Teaching in this New Context

Understanding learners

At the beginning of the semester, I did not have a clear understanding of what kind of class atmosphere would form or how relationships would develop in the classroom. However, I wanted to create an open and approachable environment, while trying to be attentive to student reaction and behaviour. While it is often common in teaching to characterize a particular group context by its group characteristics, the more I took note of the learners and their particular styles of communication, personality, and background, I derived an appreciation for the diversity of individual learners within the classroom. A reflective process in the class that I found particularly useful was during classroom activities, I would try to observe student interaction without being intrusive. While developing a better understanding and awareness of the students and their relationship patterns, I would reflect on how I might adjust teaching or class activities to improve communication and address any issues that might arise.

In addition, many of the students are intrinsically motivated to improve their English, or talk about issues outside of Japan due to their interest in study abroad, language, or foreign culture. Ushioda (2011) points out that learners should be understood as not only students, but persons-in- context, learners who learn not only in your classroom but individuals who bring into the classroom a wide variety of identities from other areas of life. While they are students in the LEAP program, it is important to be aware that the students have complex identities with only a part being of these being exposed in the class. Through open communication both during and after classes, I tried to create an environment where students feel they can be relaxed and be themselves. It seems that if students can open up, the class may become a more meaningful learning experience for them, and a place where they can reflect on their life and identity more deeply.

Personalizing the classroom through openness

As teachers may feel satisfaction in teaching or helping students grow, showing a willingness to be open about other parts of one’s identity may help students to communicate what seems to be an important aspect in improving the learning experience. While teachers begin with their situational identity, in this case of teaching in the LEAP course, this is only one narrow aspect or side of one’s identity. We may have a professional teaching persona but it is preferable if this persona takes into account other aspects of our identity. For example, I often talk about my experiences or lifestyle, but do not share so much about my opinions on classroom topics. How the teacher crafts their identity in the classroom is in many ways a personal decision, and one that can benefit from some reflection and through experience in the classroom. Of course, there are limits on what a particular teacher may want to disclose in the classroom, but there are also advantages to sharing more of our personal life in the classroom. Ushioda (2011) argues that student motivation increases from classrooms where the teacher personalizes the classroom. Hooks (2003) discusses the importance of breaking down barriers of power, and instilling a culture of openness with a willingness to be open yourself, to tell personal stories, and warns against crafting a too “professional” persona in the classroom. In fact, having a more expansive identity in the classroom lends itself to a more open and relaxed environment for the students to communicate freely. This seems to be an important characteristic in fostering a natural community in the classroom.

Teacher and learner identity are inextricably linked

Finally, interacting with the students in my class was shaping my own identity as a teacher. As students are involved in identity construction while learning, teachers are also having their sense of self undergo development. This process has been described as transindividuation the idea that individuals are developing, or becoming who they are, in relation to others (Stiegler, 2010). Consequently, identity formation is ultimately done in a community, or social context, and this is the basis of social transformation. I find this an interesting idea to reflect on since across my classes, each has its own feel and social dynamic depending on the members in the group, and in turn, I feel my character and identity shifting within those environments. In one of my larger classes, I had a positively friendly and sociable group that fed off of my positive energy, while I fed off of theirs. In another class, some of the students were shier, and so class activities sometimes proceeded a little more tentatively. I often found myself trying to take on a more encouraging persona. With each group of students, I feel myself becoming slightly different, and in each class, I can also grow as an individual. Through engaging in reflection, I become increasingly aware of this dynamic interplay between relationships and identity in the classroom.

Concluding Reflections

Since transitioning into a new teaching position earlier this year, I have deepened my appreciation for the transformative role of reflection in the teaching and learning process. While recognizing that each classroom will present something new, and will be composed of a new group of individuals with diverse backgrounds and learning needs, I know that building awareness will always help me develop the tools necessary to guide these learners in the course. Now nearing the end of the second semester of the first year, I feel the relationships and social space I have helped build together with the various groups of distinct learners is paying off. Some students approach me outside of the class and share things about themselves, and ask me things about myself. Through developing these relationships, I hope that they will feel more inspired in their own learning, and will find the spark to push forward their own learning

References

Allwright, D. (2005). Developing principles for practitioner research: The case of exploratory practice. The Modern Language Journal, 89(3), 353–366.

Farrell, T. (2018). Reflective language teaching (2nd ed.). London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic.

Hooks, B. (2003). Teaching community: A pedagogy of hope. London, UK: Routledge.

Pinner, R. (2018). Why I am and am not just a teacher: A reflection on teacher identity and classroom emotion in language learning. Humanising Language Teaching, 20(6).

Schön, D.A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Stiegler, B. & Rogoff, I. (2010). Transindividuation. E-flux. 14.

Ushioda, E. (2009). A person-in-context relational view of emergent motivation, self and identity. In Z. Dörnyei & E. Ushioda (Eds.), Motivation, language identity, and the L2 self (pp. 215–228). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Ushioda, E. (2011). Motivating learners to speak as themselves. In G. Murray, X. Gao, & T. E. Lamb (Eds.), Identity, motivation and autonomy in language learning (pp. 11–25). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Chapter 11. Becoming Language Learning Advisors: Exploring Teacher Autonomy

Adelina Ruiz-Guerrero, ITESO, The Jesuit University of Guadalajara, Mexico

Abstract

A fundamental concern for a self-access centre (SAC) should be that of having a congruent view between the objectives of the centre and the roles played by those who lend their support to the language learners making use of this particular environment (Gardner & Miller, 1999, p. 11). This, at the same time, should also be aligned with the institutional vision for the teaching-learning process of the university housing the SAC. This paper will briefly describe the recently adjusted supporting roles of the tutor and the language learning advisor (LLA) in the SAC of a Jesuit university in the west of Mexico, with the intention of better responding to the needs of the learners. In addition, the paper will also describe a research project that looked to provide teachers working at the SAC with the opportunity to train together as a community of practice (Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002) to become LLAs using their own teacher autonomy. The paper will include a description of the actions taken during the intervention and some of the lessons learned that helped shape the new Blended Diploma Course in Language Learning Advising.

The consolidation of the self-access centre (known as the Language Hub) as a “social learning environment” (Mynard, 2016, p. 333) was an important step in the constant evolution and growth that the language department at a Jesuit university in west Mexico has experienced. The rethinking of the Tutoring Programme operating in the Language Hub was also part of this consolidation process as we were aiming to encourage more “social collaborative learning” (Hughes, Krug, & Vye, 2012,

p. 163) as well as looking to support students’ learning instead of directing it (Pemberton, 2011). In a Jesuit institution such as ours, unlike most Mexican universities, giving students the freedom and the tools to discern between their available options, assume responsibility for their own process and develop autonomy are central issues that we are encouraged to work towards cultivating as part of the Ignatian educational model (Morfin Otero, 2005; Nicolás , 2008). This pedagogical model aims to develop in learners a capacity for decision-making, the focus is not in teaching young people to “learn to act successfully, but rather learn to think” (Garza, 2017, p. 3).

With all of this in mind, a first step was to redefine the role of the tutor and add a new key player in the form of the Language Learning Advisor (LLA) to the work that we do in our learning environment. After adding this role, our second step was to provide teachers working as tutors in the Language Hub the opportunity to participate in a training scheme that would allow them to develop language learning advising skills as they explored their own autonomy. A research project was launched to investigate this question and learn what would serve to accomplish this. The thinking behind the proposal was that for an advisor to be able to accompany a learner in the development of autonomy, this advisor had to understand what it took to develop it from first-hand experience. This is particularly relevant in our Mexican context where traditionally education does not focus on autonomy (Díaz-Loving, 2017).

Distinguishing a Tutor from an Advisor

Supporting learners in a self-access environment can be seen as part of a “learning conversation,” where the learner has an active role in negotiating and interacting with others (Mozzon-McPherson, 2001, p. 12). The decision to add both tutors and Language Learning Advisors was to complement the role of the teacher in the classroom environment and better support learners in their self-access experience.

To this effect, the old Tutoring Programme was reshaped and formalized into a new Tutoring and Advising Programme (Programa de Asesorías y Tutorías – PAT) where a distinction between the two roles was made. We describe tutoring and the job of the tutor as providing academic support to a learner to work on specific linguistic competency issues, to solve particular questions, or to work on a predetermined product. During a tutoring session, the learner works with an expert tutor (teacher or a peer tutor (an advanced student) in a teaching-learning relationship. A tutor is different from a classroom teacher in this interaction in the sense that his or her main role is not to impart knowledge, as usually seen in most Mexican educational contexts, but to be a more knowledgeable other who accompanies the learner in the process of understanding, clarifying and, in general, moving through the zone of proximal development in a “relationship of didactic support” (Padilla Partida, 2006, p. 11).

In this definition of the role of the tutor, we have the participation of the peer tutor, which is a recent addition to our self-access environment. Students have actively participated for years in the Language Hub leading conversation club sessions and in smaller numbers as administrative staff following Cooker (2010), but as of summer 2018, they have also been invited to be peer tutors. The intention is to encourage more learner involvement which Navarro (2014) identifies as beneficial for SACs.

Contrasting with the role of the tutor, Advising in Language Learning (ALL), as explained by Mynard and Carson (2012), focuses on developing learner autonomy. ALL does this by supporting learners in identifying needs and personalizing their individual learning experiences by “selecting appropriate resources, planning, monitoring and evaluating ongoing language learning” (Mynard & Carson, 2012, p. 14). For our specific needs in the PAT, support through advising has a much broader focus than tutoring. Advising promotes reflection and its aim is to help the learners assume responsibility for their own learning processes. It promotes and supports work on needs analysis, short and long term goals, and decision making on the learning and practicing process of the target language. It supports the learners in discerning from a variety of routes, suggestions and possible solutions to issues and questions they might have about their own processes and how to achieve their goals.

This accompanying, or walking together, is the role of trained and certified advisors and is done through intentional reflective dialogues (Kato & Mynard, 2015) aimed at a transformation process and development of learner autonomy as a pathway to help learners reach their language learning goals.

With this clarity of objectives came also the realization that ALL requires training and an understanding of what it takes to develop autonomy. This would become the basis for the intervention planned as part of the research project that would give us the necessary experience to design a professional development scheme, allowing us to train teacher-tutors as Language Learning Advisors.

The Intervention

The question we faced was how could we, as teachers, better understand the process learners go through in developing autonomy? Can a teacher, in particular in a Mexican context, who has not had much personal experience in developing his or her own autonomy, be able to help learners as an advisor develop theirs? According to Little (1995, p. 180) teachers “are more likely to succeed in promoting learner autonomy if their own education has encouraged them to be autonomous.” In our specific situation as Mexican teachers educated within a system that does not favour, let alone actively encourage autonomy, this becomes a challenge. The average Mexican teacher was not raised nor educated to be an autonomous learner (Hofstede, 2011). Thankfully, Little also advocates “first-hand experience of learner autonomy in [teacher] training” (Little, 1995, p. 180) and that became the main goal behind the design of the intervention that was to come.

Breen and Mann propose that for teachers, and for that matter, advisors, to become true instruments in the process of development of autonomy in learners they themselves “need to recognise and assert [their] own autonomy” (Breen & Mann, 1997, p. 148). Assuming that, as Benson (2011) explains “changing teachers is the first step towards changing learners,” (p. 196) we can agree that educating teachers for autonomy or training for advising roles can be more effective if “teachers experience pedagogical strategies for autonomy as students, reflect on these strategies as teachers, and experiment with them in field experience” (Benson, 2011, p. 196).

With these aspects in mind, an intervention was designed to allow teachers to train as LLAs by experiencing actions geared towards the development of their own autonomy. The work was viewed as an opportunity to create a community of practice (CoP) (Wenger, 1998) with teachers volunteering to participate in a professional development experiment. In looking to create this CoP, an open invitation was sent to attract teachers who were interested and motivated to take part in a professional development opportunity to learn more about ALL. For this to happen we needed to start building a “shared domain of interest” and following Wegner, McDermott, and Snyder (2002, p. 27) we hoped to plant a seed for a growing sense of community and do the basic groundwork for what would become the practice of the LLA at the Language Hub. This was to be a horizontal scheme, where all those interested could participate in the decision-making process. It was to be a learn-by-doing scheme to experience autonomy, and what it takes to develop it first-hand. The proposed work was organized into three main types of actions established before the intervention: decision-making meetings, reflection-on-practice, and expert support.

Decision-making meetings

One of quickest ways to relinquish control and start empowering participants is to allow them to make decisions that can start with very basic aspects and grow to have an impact on more important issues. As the intervention started, only the first meeting was called on my initiative as the head of the Language Hub. From then on, how often we would meet, when exactly and for what purpose became a matter open to discussion with the group of participants. The idea was to encourage voting, negotiating, discussing, to support each other and encourage a sense of community and ownership as well as a sense of belonging. Another aspect open to discussion in these meetings was the work we would do, how it would be organized, any possible deadlines, and the decision as to what needed to be presented as part of the expert-led support. It is common to have a top- down approach when it comes to professional development schemes where an expert disseminates knowledge and “teachers are subsequently expected to translate [it] into action (Farrell, 2018, p. 236), and in Mexico this is what teachers are used to and expect (Diaz-Guerrero, 1975). The idea in this intervention was to provide a sense of agency and control, and give the participant teachers the power to make decisions over what they needed and wanted from the expert.

Reflection-on-practice

If we consider autonomy as “a capacity –for detachment, critical reflection, decision-making, and independent action” (Little 1991, p. 4) and we agree that one of the most important attributes of a teacher who seeks to promote autonomy is his/her “self-awareness as a learner” (Breen & Mann, 1997), we can understand that “reflective practice is critical to expertise” (Marzano, Boogren, Heflebower, Kanold-Mcintyre, & Pickering, 2012). Teachers critically reflecting on their own practice can analyse their beliefs and assumptions about teaching and learning, and thus better understand these processes. It can also offer a way of self-evaluating and with that provide self-awareness into their professional development goals (Richards & Lockhart, 1996, p. 2).

Considering all of this, the participants were invited to reflect on their own practice, as teachers as well as from a learner’s perspective. Farrell points out the importance of teachers reflecting on their practice as a source for information or data that can allow them to make better-informed decisions “about their practice and beyond their practice” (Farrell, 2015, p. 22). For this purpose, and with the intention of helping the participant-teachers to start an exploration of their teacher-selves, Farrell’s (2015) framework for reflecting on practice was used as a guiding point of reference (see Figure 1). The aspects in the suggested framework allow teachers to go from describing and examining, to challenging old rooted assumptions, all with the intention of providing the participants with a clear view of “what has shaped their professional lives as they become more aware of their philosophy, principles, theories, practices, and how these impact issues inside and beyond the classroom” (Farrell, 2015, p. 23).

Figure 1: Framework for Reflecting on Practice (Farrell, 2015, p. 23

Teachers chose from a variety of tasks, some suggested by Farrell (2015) and others explicitly designed for this intervention and for each stage in the framework to help them carry out reflective exercises. Some of the tasks helped them identify their current beliefs on a range of aspects such as language acquisition issues, autonomy, and teaching-learning. Other tasks were meant to help them figure out who they were as learners and as teachers, and how each profile informed the other. Other tasks were designed to help them look at their own autonomy and encouraged them to reflect on what they did to achieve it and/or what they could do to improve it. In this last process in particular, the activities were set up along Kato and Mynard’s (2015) framework for the learning trajectory for learning advisors as given in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Learning trajectory for learning advisors (Kato & Mynard, 2015, p. 203)

This was done with the intention to hand over to the teachers participating in the project as much control over their own processes as possible. Making decisions, individually and as a community and following the learning trajectory meant encouraging motion and progress, with an aim at transformation.

Expert Support

Some of the activities promoted for this component of the work included:

• Expert-led workshops, where the topic presented by the expert was decided by the group of participants. This included the work the teachers were doing in learning about LLA, in particular with respect to intentional reflective dialogue (Kato & Mynard, 2015) as the methodology we chose to guide our training, as well as exploring concepts such as autonomy and self-access.

• Advising sessions, some of them where the participants practiced their advising skills with learners and others where they were advised themselves to experience models of effective advising (Marzano et al, 2012, p. 11) from an expert. This latter type of individual advising sessions complemented the work on reflection-on-practice that the teachers were doing.

• Online asynchronous discussions on the virtual platform Slack (slack.com), where teachers exchanged ideas and discussed cases.

• Reading, sharing notes and discussing relevant bibliography and research on the fields of autonomy, self-access, and advising.

The three components of the work done during the intervention ran on a parallel calendar throughout the semester. We had six discussion and decision-making meetings, a number of discussion and reflection tasks, two expert-led workshop experiences and as many advising session as each participant decided they needed or wanted. On average about 15 teachers attended meetings, ten sought out advising sessions, and five carried out tasks.

What We Learned

Some of the most salient conclusions we reached at the end of the experience included an understanding that there is great value in living the experience from a learner’s perspective. We realized that working on theory as well as having opportunities for practice is an ideal balance. Besides providing participants with chances for hands-on practice on strategies to develop skills, it is important to also have opportunities for guided individual reflection.

In addition, perhaps one of the biggest insights we received from the experience was that there is a lot to learn and experience by being advised during the process. In that same line, having a visible, approachable leader who can model advising was very helpful.

On the more practical side, we learned that having periodic face-to-face groupwork with minimum requirements for attendance, work and deadlines helped in getting organized, stay focused and on track, and it built time-management skills even when we thought we already knew how to do this. We liked having choices whenever possible, for tasks, reading materials, presentation of products, etc., and we felt that this provided us with a sense of ownership and it also developed agency. Finally, having opportunities for focused practice as well as for evaluation was vital in keeping track of progress and in providing a sense of achievement.

From these broad lessons, the last action taken at the end of the intervention was to put all of our acquired experience together into a proposal for a professional development pathway designed by the community to formally train ourselves and future cohorts of teachers as Language Learning Advisors through their own teacher autonomy.

Blended diploma course in language learning advising

In Mexico, the Online Diploma Course in Advisor Training from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico - UNAM) is a point of reference as a professional development scheme for LLAs. This fully online course gives participants an experience in self-directed learning, as well as preparing them in autonomy and self-access matters. Our proposed pathway differs from this well-established and recognized course, in various aspects.

I TESO’s Blended Diploma Course in Language Learning Advising (BDC-in-LLA) was generated out of the experience of the intervention described here, making it a research based professional development scheme. Although there is a heavy online component to the BDC-in-LLA, the face-to- face interactions are a central aspect of the course as they aim to encourage the sort of collaborative work that allows the formation of a CoP with the participants. Finally, the most relevant component of the BDC-in-LLA is its focus on the exploration and awareness-raising in the participants of their own autonomy, from a personal to a professional level, and what it takes to develop it. These aspects also differentiate this scheme from other successful approaches where the main focus is on the practice and developing of skills for LLA (Magno e Silva & Castro, 2018) and the facilitation of the intentional reflective dialogue (Kato, 2012).

The course has the following characteristics, all derived from the lessons learned from the experience of what did and did not work during the intervention:

• 120 hour diploma course in a blended modality with eleven 4-hour face to face sessions taking place once a month, and 76 hours of self-directed individual, pair and collaborative work done online.

• Work is set up on a learning management system, in our case Moodle; and is supported by both team and individual interactions through the collaboration platform app Slack.

• The work is divided into three modules with the following time distribution for work, with one face-to-face session per month.

Table 1: Topics and times per module

Each session is organized in a pre, while, and post format that allows participants to carry out a variety of activities with built-in choices that include:

• reading, analysing and discussing current relevant bibliography and research,

• self-reflection tasks,

• individual and collaborative tasks,

• identifying, discussing and challenging beliefs on various aspects,

• building a common language and sharing experience to build trust and a sense of community,

• experiencing first-hand effective models of advising as a learner,

• analysing strengths and areas of opportunity to inform the setting of short and long-term goals,

• opportunities to engage in focused practice (Marzano et al, 2012)

• tasks for observing and discussing advising models through audio and video recordings, as well as the possibility to witness live sessions in an unobtrusive way,

• giving and receiving peer and expert focused feedback on practice.

From my participant observation platform in this research, I can say that the experience has taught us many lessons: for example, how much we still need to do to understand better the basic tenets of autonomy, self-access and advising. We learned that having the freedom to choose does not necessarily translate into action or autonomy, especially for adult learners who had no formal previous experience in actions that aim to develop autonomy. Exploring our own autonomy, or lack of it, allowed us to gain valuable insight into our own history and learning processes. For some of us it has meant a questioning of years of one way of doing and being, in favour of perhaps another perspective. Moreover, that one of the most difficult tasks for teachers training as advisors is for us to “train to stop teaching students” (Sturtridge, 1997). We are still working hard on this one.

Update since ILA 2018

The first cohort of teachers trained with the pathway designed by our CoP, successfully concluded the 120 hours of the Blended Diploma Course in Language Learning Advising on November 30, 2018.

References

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Breen, M. P., & Mann, S. J. (1997). Shooting arrows at the sun: Perspectives on a pedagogy for autonomy. In P. Benson, & P. Voller, Autonomy and independence in language learning (pp. 132–149). New York, NY: Longman.

Cooker, L. (2010). Some self-access principles. Studies in Self-Access Learning Journal, 1(1), 5–9.

Diaz-Guerrero, R. (1975). Psychology of the Mexican, culture and personality. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

Díaz-Loving, R. (2017). Las garras de la Cultura: Investigaciones en torno a las normas y creencias del mexicano [The clutches of culture: Research around Mexican norms and beliefs] (Kindle IOS version ed.). Ciudad de Mexico, Mexico: Manual Moderno.

Farrell, T. (2015). Promoting teacher reflection in second language education: a framework for TESOL professionals. New York, NY: Routledge.

Farrell, T. (2018). Reflective language teaching, practical applications for TESOL teachers. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic.

Gardner, D., & Miller, L. (1999). Establishing self-access: From theory to practice. UK: Cambridge University Press.

Garza, H. (2017). Senderos en la niebla: Repensar el papel de la educación y la tarea de la universidad [Paths in the fog: Rethinking the role of education and the task of the university]. Guadalajara, Mexico: ITESO.

Hofstede, G. (2011). Dimensionalizing cultures: The Hofstede model in context. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2(1), 1–26. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.9707/2307-0919.1014

Hughes, L. S., Krug, N. P., & Vye, S. L. (2012). Advising Practices: A survey of self-access learner motivations and preferences. Studies in Self-Access Learning Journal, 3(2), 163–181. Retrieved from http:// sisaljournal.org/archives/june12/hughes_krug_vye

Kato, S. (2012). Professional development for learning advisors: facilitating the intentional reflective dialogue. Studies in Self-Access Learning Journal, 3(1), 74–92.

Kato, S., & Mynard, J. (2015). Reflective dialogue. New York, NY: Routledge.

Little, D. (1995). Learning as dialogue: The dependence of learner autonomy on teacher autonomy. System, 23(2), 175–181. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/98cc/d256a30f03fd1fdd7c09c38a498d69cee047.pdf

Magno e Silva, W., & Castro, E. (2018). Becoming a language learning advisor: insights from a training program in Brazil. Studies in Self-Access Learning Journal, 9(4), 415–424.

Marzano, R. J., Boogren, T., Heflebower, T., Kanold-Mcintyre, J., & Pickering, D. (2012). Becoming a reflective teacher. Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research.

Morfin Otero, F. (2005). El modelo educativo del ITESO: un conjunto de principios y criterios que orientan los procesos de aprendizaje de los programas de licenciatura [ITESO’s educational model: a gathering of principles and criteria that guide learning processes]. ITESO The Jesuit University in Guadalajara. Guadalajara, Mexico: ITESO.

Mozzon-McPherson, M. (2001). Language advising: Towards a new discursive world. In M. Mozzon-McPherson, & R. Vismans (Eds.), Beyond language teaching towards language advising (pp. 7–22). London, UK: CILT Publications.

Mynard, J. (2016, August 4-5). Taking stock and moving forward: Future recommendations for self-access language learning. Presentation given at the 4th International Conference on Self-Access (EICA). Mexico City, Mexico: National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

Mynard, J., & Carson, L. (Eds.). (2012). Advising in language learning: Dialogue, tools and context. Harlow, UK: Pearson.

Navarro, D. (2014). Framing the picture: A preliminary investigation into experts’ beliefs about the roles and purposes of self-access centres. Studies in Self-Access Learning Journal, 5(1), 8–28.

Nicolás, A. (2008). Misión y Universidad: ¿Qué futuro queremos? [Mission and university: what future do we want?]. Jesuites - Companyia de Jesús de Catalunya (pp. 1–16). Barcelona, Spain: ESADE.

Padilla Partida, S. (2006). Gestión de ambientes de aprendizaje constructivistas apoyados en la zona de desarrollo próximo [Managing constructivist learning environments supported by the zone of proximal development]. Apertura, Revista de Innovación Educativa, 7(6), 8–21.

Pemberton, R. (2011). Self-Access: Starting off. In C. J. Everhard & J. Mynard, with R. Smith (Eds.), Autonomy in language learning: Opening a can of worms (pp. 124–127). Canterbury, UK: IATEFL.

Richards, J. C., & Lockhart, C. (1996). Reflective teaching in second language classrooms. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Sturtridge, G. (1997). Teaching and language learning in self-access centres: Changing roles? In P. Benson & P. Voller (Eds.), Autonomy and independence in language learning (pp. 66-78). Harlow, UK: Longman.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice. Learning, meaning and identity. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice. A guide to managing knowledge. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press

Chapter 12. Promoting Continuing Professional Development in English Language Teaching

Hideo Kojima, Bunkyo University

Abstract

Taking into account skills and competencies needed to survive in the 21st century, the Japanese Central Council of Education (2015) expects teachers to develop not only students’ subject knowledge and skills but also their generic skills. The purpose of this study is to analyze and discuss a group of EFL teachers’ self-evaluation of H. D. Brown’s Good Language-Teaching Characteristics (GLTC) (Brown, 2001, p.430) and to consider some implications for their continuing professional development in English language teaching (ELT). In 2017, 27 secondary school EFL teachers took part in my class for the Teacher Certificate Renewal System (TCRS) program and learned a variety of new concepts to help with innovation in ELT. I encouraged them to reflect on their teaching practice and share various problems with fellow teachers. I also asked them to rate themselves in terms of 30 items of the GLTC. As a result, they were likely to raise their professional consciousness and identify their challenges in their ELT situations. We teacher educators need to help EFL teachers develop professional competence and autonomy so that they can enhance leadership, teamwork, and collegiality, and contribute to innovation in ELT in their institutions.

The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) has promoted educational reform and recently revised the Course of Study (MEXT, 2016). Moving from a teaching-centered classroom organization towards a clearly learning-centered instruction, MEXT classifies key skills and competencies in three categories: (a) knowledge and skills, (b) abilities of thinking, judgment, and expression, and (c) autonomy, collaboration, and humanity. In order to integrate these skills and competencies in daily classes, MEXT encourages teachers to implement autonomous, cooperative/collaborative, and active learning in primary and secondary schools. MEXT also expects teachers to work in collaboration with relevant stakeholders such as colleagues, parents, and employers as a Team School (TS). Autonomy and collaboration seem to be key concepts in the MEXT reforms.

In order to realize educational changes effectively, various measures are being systematically implemented at each stage: teacher training in universities, recruitment carried out by boards of education of prefectures and designated cities, and continuing professional development. This study deals with my 2017 class of the Teacher Certificate Renewal System (TCRS) program for renewing fixed-term certificates and promoting continuing professional development. MEXT expects teachers to preserve the quality and ability needed as a teacher by periodically learning the latest knowledge and skills in the TCRS program. Ordinary and special teaching certificates fixed at 10 years must be renewed by completing 30 hours or more of “certificate-renewal courses” approved by MEXT. In my one-day six-hour class, “Innovation in ELT: Theory and Practice”, 27 secondary school EFL teachers learned a variety of new concepts essential to promoting ELT innovation. I asked them to rate themselves on 30 items of the Good Language-Teaching Characteristics (GLTC) scale (Brown, 2001, p.430). In this study, I focus on analyzing and discussing the results of the participants’ self-evaluation of the GLTC and considering some pedagogical implications for their continuing professional development in ELT.

Theoretical Background

Here I need to consider the definitions of learner autonomy and teacher autonomy, emphasizing the social aspect of autonomy in communities of learning and teaching. With regard to learner autonomy, I favor one definition known as the “Bergen Definition” (Dam, Eriksson, Little, Miliander, & Trebbi, 1990), which defines autonomy as “a capacity and willingness to act independently and in cooperation with others, as a social, responsible person”(p.102). In terms of Edward Deci’s three basic needs (competence, relatedness, and autonomy), constructivist pedagogies exploit various modes of relatedness in order to harness and extend learners’ autonomy and develop new competence (Deci & Flaste, 1996). This implies that learning is individual and cognitive, but also social and interactive. In addition, whereas Vygotsky’s definition of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) (Vygotsky, 1978) implies that progress in learning depends on input from an adult (teacher) or more competent peer, I have shown in my research that groups of equally inexperienced learners are capable of performing tasks effectively through cooperative/collaborative learning (Kojima, 2012, 2013, 2014). The growth of learner independence could be supported by learner interdependence. Some other educators in Japan have tried to integrate autonomy with reflective group work in an empirical fashion (Murphy & Jacobs, 2000; Smith, 2000; Usuki, 2007).

In relation to language teachers’ professional development, McGrath (2000) remarks, “Teacher autonomy is viewed from two different but related perspectives: teacher autonomy as self-directed professional development and teacher autonomy as freedom from control by others.” Learner autonomy and teacher autonomy are promoted interdependently and reciprocally (Kojima, 2012, 2013, 2014; Sinclair, 2009; Smith, 2000). The Japanese Central Council for Education (2012) proposes that school teachers should deal with difficult educational issues by collaborating with their colleagues. This social aspect of teacher autonomy would lead to the development of a Team School (TS). One effective way to develop a TS might be to carry out Exploratory Practice (EP). EP is “a form of practitioner research in which learners as well as teachers are encouraged to investigate their own learning/teaching practice, while concurrently practicing the target language. It offers a way of avoiding ‘burnout’ by integrating teaching, learning, and research” (Hanks, 2017, p. 2). Although EP is not yet well known among Japanese teachers and researchers, it seems to have some potential to enhance mutual understanding and development among all those related to TS.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study is to analyze and discuss the results of a group of EFL teachers’ self-evaluation of the GLTC and to consider some pedagogical implications for their continuing professional development in ELT.

Method

Participants

The study involved 27 (22 junior and five senior high school teachers) who took part in my 2017 TCRS class (a one-day six-hour program). They were eight males and 19 females in their 30s to 50s, all required to renew their EFL teaching certificates.

Materials and procedure

In the TCRS program the participants learned a variety of new concepts, such as “the paradigm shift from teaching-centeredness to learning-centeredness”, “learner and teacher autonomy”, “21st Century Skills”, etc. They reflected on their teaching practice in their schools, discussed various educational issues in EFL learning and teaching, and rated themselves in terms of 30 items of the GLTC from H. D. Brown’s book (2001, p.430) on a scale of 1 to 5. The results of self-evaluation were analyzed and discussed. Taking this into account, some pedagogical implications for continuing professional development in ELT will be considered.

Participants’ self-evaluation of the GLTC

After discussing the characteristics of a good language teacher, in order to promote their professional consciousness-raising, the participants were asked to rate themselves on a scale of 1(never or almost never true of me) to 5(always or almost always true of me), using the questionnaire which consisted of 30 statements: technical knowledge (1 to 6), pedagogical skills (7 to 18), interpersonal skills (19 to 23), and personal qualities (26 to 30). Table 1 shows the number of participants who responded to each point, and in the right-hand column, the mean score of the level of agreement given by the 27 participants.

Table 1. Participants’ self-evaluation of the Good Language-Teaching Characteristics

Note. N=27; M= mean agreement. 5= always or almost always true of me, 4= usually true of me, 3= somewhat true of me, 2= usually not true of me, 1= never or almost never true of me. Adapted from Brown (2001, p.430).

In the following paragraphs, I will analyze the results of the participants’ self-evaluation. Overall, there was no item whose M score was under 2.5 or over 4.2 (M=2.6 to 4.1, average M=3.5). It might be said that the participants tended to claim to have low pedagogical skills (average M=3.4) and high interpersonal skills (average M=3.9).

Technical knowledge. Regarding items 1 to 6, the M scores of items 1, 2, and 5 were almost the same and the average score was 3.5. However, that of item 3 (having fluent competence in English language skills) was 3.0 and that of item 6 (keeping up with the field through regular reading and conference/workshop attendance) was the lowest (2.6). As for item 3, although MEXT expects EFL teachers to develop their own communicative competence so that they can foster students’ integrated language skills, 20 participants’ responses were “somewhat true of me” or “usually not true of me.” Regarding item 6, 10 participants claimed that they had not kept up with the field. Their attitudes towards teacher learning or professional development might not be so positive, or their heavy workloads might prevent them from attending various conferences/workshops. The TCRS program should be a good opportunity for the participants to enhance their technical knowledge and learn new theories and practices for innovation in ELT in Japan.

Pedagogical skills. The M scores of items 7 to 18 were 3.1 to 3.8 (average M=3.4). The majority of the participants claimed to lack a variety of pedagogical skills in ELT such as having a well-thought-out, informed approach to language teaching (item 7, M=3.1), understanding and using a wide variety of techniques (item 8, M=3.2), monitoring lessons as they unfold and making effective mid-lesson alterations (item 10, M=3.1), and using interactive, intrinsically motivating techniques to create effective tests (item 18, M=3.0). They might be accustomed to traditional knowledge-based instruction, where what to teach is more important than how to learn/teach. On the other hand, two-thirds of the participants claimed that they initiated interaction, cooperation, and teamwork in the classroom (item 13, M=3.8). Working in pairs or groups is often employed in the communicative EFL classroom in Japan.

Interpersonal skills. Regarding items 19 to 25, the M scores were 3.6 to 4.1 (average M=3.9). The participants tended to feel that they had good interpersonal relationships with students and fellow teachers. This might be one of the features of EFL teachers working in the group-oriented educational contexts in Japan. It should be noted that developing learner/teacher autonomy through positive interdependence is emphasized in educational reform in Japan. In relation to items 24 (M=3.9) and 25 (M=3.8), MEXT puts stress on developing a Team School (TS) through collaboration among school teachers. Exploratory Practice (EP) also emphasizes the importance of collegiality and mutual understanding and development among all those involved in teaching practice in different institutions.

Personal qualities. The M scores of items 26 to 30 were between 3.4 and 3.6 (average M=3.6). These scores were a little higher than those of items related to technical knowledge and pedagogical skills. About half of the participants were likely to have good personal qualities as EFL teachers. Item 26 (being well organized, conscientious in meeting commitments, and dependable) and item 30 (maintaining and exemplifying high ethical and moral standards) are essential in developing a TS. Moreover, item 28 (maintaining an inquisitive mind in trying out new ways of teaching) and item 29 (setting short-term and long-term goals for continued professional growth) are closely related to promoting teacher autonomy, which refers to teachers’ self-directed professional development and their professional independence in schools, especially the degree to which they can make autonomous decisions about what they teach to students and how they teach it.

Pedagogical implications for continuing professional development

Taking into account the analysis of the results of the participants’ self-evaluation of the GLTC, I consider the following pedagogical implications for continuing professional development in ELT.

1) EFL teachers who lack confidence in their English proficiency need to reconsider the definition of communicative competence, which might include not only language knowledge and skills, but also real world knowledge, intercultural understanding, attitudes towards social life, and humanity. They should also recognize that the new Course of Study emphasizes the integration of knowledge and skills, literacies, and competencies.

2) In order to keep up with innovation in ELT, EFL teachers with heavy workloads are expected to promote teacher learning autonomously. EP encourages teachers to work collaboratively and integrate inquiry and pedagogy. This could help individual teachers promote their professional development through positive interdependence. Teacher educators should also advise school teachers to develop their own approaches to ELT as reflective practitioners and researchers.

3) EFL teachers who tend to lack pedagogical skills need to recognize the paradigm shift of ELT from teaching-centeredness to learning-centeredness in Japan. In order to be successful in learning-centered approaches, it is important for them to play their new roles as facilitators who support students’ autonomous, cooperative, and reflective learning, and to recognize the interdependent relationship between learner autonomy and teacher autonomy. They are expected to develop professional competence and autonomy so that they can develop students’ autonomy for lifelong learning.

4) EFL teachers should facilitate group dynamics in the classroom, where positive interdependence, individual and group accountability, face-to-face interaction, social skills, and group processing are emphasized as key elements. Collaboration among teachers is also significant to foster collegiality in different institutions. Implementing EP could help teachers enhance mutual understanding, trust, and quality of life in a TS.

Conclusion

In this paper, I have analyzed and discussed 27 EFL teachers’ self-evaluation of the GLTC and considered pedagogical implications for their continuing professional development in ELT. Regarding their self-evaluation, over all, they tended to claim to lack pedagogical skills and have high interdependent skills. I encouraged them to consider various new concepts critically and improve their own teaching principles. In the learning-centered classroom, not only learners but also teachers need to learn interactively and develop their autonomy reciprocally. EP would be effective in enhancing mutual understanding and development among all those involved in TSs. The significance of effective partnerships in communities of practice should be reconsidered for continuing professional development and innovation in ELT.

References

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Part 4: Collaborative Reflections

Chapter 13. Scaffolding, Metaphors, Deep Seas and Buried Treasure: Useful Things We Learned at ILA

Nick Boyes, Meijo University

Ellen Head, Miyazaki International College

This is a collaborative reflection from Nick Boyes and Ellen Head on their experiences of the 2018 ILA conference. Nick and Ellen each wrote an initial reflection and then read and commented on each other’s thoughts to stimulate further reflection. The original reflections appear first, followed by the dialogue they inspired.

Nick’s Reflection

All teachers want to give their students a transformative experience. Learning is change. While extrinsic motivation produces short-term change, intrinsic motivation encourages long-term change (Brown, 2007). However, the creation of intrinsic motivation eludes many teachers. At the Independent Learning Association (ILA) Conference, many teachers championed autonomy, scaffolding and reflection as a framework to transform student learning and enable students and teachers to truly hear students’ voices. It was refreshing to meet many teachers and presenters from different backgrounds who share these intrinsically motivating values.

Although I am not a learning advisor, and I’m only minimally involved in Self Access Learning Centers, I am very much interested in helping my students become more autonomous and reflective human beings. Jo Mynard's plenary speech on Thursday set the tone for the conference. Her ideas on reflection and truly hearing student voices are extremely useful for all types of educators. Her ideas on using repetition, restating, summarizing, empathizing, etc. can enable better communication among all teachers.

Also on Thursday, Elizabeth Schlingman gave us a very candid assessment of her experiences using reflection with students who work as conversation partners in Konan Women’s University’s Self Access Center. Although there is often limited time for training, the use of reflection gave students more experiences to learn from than training sessions could ever provide. Reflection also offered students more autonomy in learning about their job and how they are adjusting to it. Schlingman did reflections with students at the beginning, middle and end of the semester. Students were able to express their frustrations, learn from them, and also see the changes they had made along the way. I am interested in Language Learning Histories and Portfolios, and I hope to add Schlingman’s ideas to my own work with students. The presentation stressed that teachers must build trust with students and follow-up on their reflections. Reflection must be meaningful for students and not only a summary.

On Friday morning, Chika Hayashi and Leena Karlsson’s plenary presentation on their language learning and teaching experience drove home the impact that we as teachers have on students. It gave us a fresh perspective on the lifespan of students’ language learning process. Hearing about Hayashi’s positive experiences with teachers was particularly encouraging to me. However, the opposite, the thought of bad experience with teachers, was concerning. When I have students do reflection, some have mentioned negative experiences. However, I feel that it is important to authentically acknowledge and empathize with these experiences as well. Hayashi’s reflections with students on “if English were an animal” encouraged me to more creatively use metaphor. The presenters’ consideration of long term and short term goals with students also further supports authentic voice from students. Again, I hope to add their ideas to my own work with students.

Clair Taylor gave an encouraging presentation on developing a teletandem program in her school’s English lounge. Teletandem is the transformative experience of letting students video conference with students from other schools by using video conferencing software such as Skype (Vassallo & Telles, 2006). Students’ experiences before and after using Teletandem were presented. Taylor stressed the importance of involving departments, other teachers and administration in supporting the Self Access Center. She spoke of the importance of including not only the university’s PR department, but also of the value of students talking to other students about their great teletandem experience. I feel it is also important to get administration, coordinators, etc. on board with more reflective and autonomous types of learning as well. As mere teachers, we only have so much influence. We need to foster the strength of an institution behind us as well.

One area that lacks scaffolding at many institutions is study abroad. Andy Tweed’s report on being a “distance learning advisor” for students during their short-term study abroad was insightful and much needed in this area. Students were asked to report daily on their language learning and cultural experiences by electronic messaging. This gave them an opportunity to reflect on their experience and express their voice on the positive and the negative. The presentation gave attendees food for thought on how to better support student reflection before, during and after a study abroad experience.

Expanding on the Thursday plenary speech, Satoko Kato and Jo Mynard gave a workshop on advising strategies and reflective dialogs on Friday afternoon. Although the workshop seemed to be intended for learning advisors, these skills are very useful for all teachers. The workshop focused on creating powerful questions for students and moving from awareness - raising to having transformative experiences. Kato stressed that when working with students it is important to focus on the learner (it’s not about you!), and to not be judging or assumptive. These are great guidelines for creating a safe learning space.

Kato presented a very useful progression of powerful questions that moved from (1) yes / no questions as the least powerful to (2) who, when or where questions, then (3) what or how questions, and finally (4) why questions. Intuitively, most teachers have a sense of the level of difficulty of these questions, but as a teacher I have never considered using these questions in order of their power to help students reflect and drive in their own learning journey. Questions can broaden student perspectives. The most freeing question was “What if you were guaranteed success? What would you do?” These “what if” questions can break students out of cycles of doubt. Understanding how to use this hierarchy of powerful questions was very transformative for me!

Participants were also encouraged to take part in an activity where they titled the current chapter of their life. Although this idea seemed easy, as a student of this activity I was surprised at how difficult it was! However, in the weeks after the conference, I have found myself reflecting on previous “chapters” of my life and titling them. Like “Name it to tame it” (Siegel & Bryson, 2012), this may be a useful activity to use with students in Language Learning Histories.

Kato also explained how to use metaphors with students. We all get tired of having the same conversations with students. “How are you?” “I’m tired.” “I’m happy.” She gave an example of one impactful report a student had given about their English learning journey saying “I’m so tired. I feel as if I’m going the wrong way against an airport escalator.” For both the student and the teacher, this creates a much clearer picture of how the student is feeling.

Finally, on Saturday, Darren Elliot shared how he uses metaphors to get students to reflect on their English learning experience with the sentence starters “A teacher is like…”, “A language learner is like…”, “A classroom is like…”, and “Language learning is like…”. As Kato also said, this enables both students and teachers to more fully understand the experience students have had. Elliot then surveyed his students’ metaphors and sorted them into technical, hierarchical, affective and social metaphor types. I would like to add Elliot’s sentence starters to my own classroom practices. However, while I personally value hearing my students’ experiences in such detail, I am unsure that use of metaphor will be embraced on an institutional level.

All in all, ILA was a great chance to hear from teachers who are dedicated to reflective practices and scaffolding autonomy. There were many more great presentations that I could not include here! It was a great opportunity to hear concrete ideas and practices from other like-minded teachers. Learning about how teachers are building students up through reflection, powerful questions, use of metaphor, and scaffolding autonomy helped to transform my teaching.

However, while I strongly believe that scaffolding and reflective practices make for a more autonomous and motivating learning experience, I’m concerned that these values may not be deemed important by administration. Some of my colleagues do not value reflective practices because they feel that they take away time from teachers. However, I feel that the enhanced learning, insight and improved relationships they provide is well worth the time. Hopefully, the practices we learned can be further spread to other educators and institutions in the future.

Ellen’s Reflection: The Power of Metaphor

The metaphor of the storybook appeared several times during ILA 2018. In this reflection I would like to explore the storybook metaphor and the power of metaphor more generally. A storybook has chapters, images, chronology, narratives and voices, and these were modelled in various ways during the conference. In “Our professional journeys with learners’ voices”, Chika Hayashi and Leena Karlsson shared parts of their personal stories. Chika focused on her childhood, and how she developed from a child who feared school into a strong teacher, while Leena talked more about professional life and the development of her institution as well as individual students. In their discourse we could find endorsement of the efficacy and legitimacy of connecting personal development with professional development, modelling of non-judgmental acceptance of self and others, and an invitation to write/speak one’s own story. In the workshop on Practical Advising Strategies for promoting reflective dialogue, Satoko Kato and Jo Mynard asked “If your life were a storybook, what would the title be? What chapter would you be on right now?” This was an engaging question for a workshop. I am going to have a go at answering it in the next paragraph. However, this kind of writing comes with a caution: the results could be changeable, transient and highly personal.

Reflecting on the question “If your life were a storybook, what chapter would you be on?” on the way home from the conference, I decided it is an epic series with several volumes. Book 1 was “England: discovering the circle game”. Much of my work and thinking about teaching until my late 30s was driven by trying to create a circle of good relationships in the classroom. At this stage in my career I was keen on games and storytelling in a circle. At this time I was very vulnerable to the ups and downs of each class’s moods. Book 2 was “Prosperity, love and Non-Violent Communication” (a mode of conflict resolution), an exciting 15 years in which I moved to Japan, learned a bit about psychology and coaching. I became a bit more interested in holding the space for students. One thing this meant was keeping the class disciplined enough to protect the quieter students. Another thing was that I started to believe that instant gratification was not the end of learning. If students had to work a bit harder to understand something, it might not mean the lesson was a failure. I noticed that I got better feedback from the class with which I was the strictest. Along the way I gained know- how about how spoken language is assessed. I was involved with the Framework and Language Portfolio SIG, learned more about the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) and also worked with the British Council on materials and development in China. This fed into my sense of competence as a teacher. Now book 3 is going to be more about inviting others and empowering others intentionally. There are specific tools which I am fascinated by. Tool one is metaphor and tool two is portfolios and journaling. I hope that I am going to be co-constructing meaning with students and colleagues in this phase. For me at the moment after ILA 2018, the chapter title was “metaphor is the new spinach”: nutritious and goes with everything (but it’s also a matter of taste). As I am writing, dialoguing with Nick and going through the editorial process, it has already changed. In the remainder of this reflection, I want to discuss some of the other ways that metaphor came up at ILA and to introduce a particular way of eliciting metaphor. Hopefully there will also be some time to dialogue with Nick about it.

Looking at metaphor as a tool for communication, creativity and clarification of thinking, we could see many examples of elicited metaphor at the conference. Joe Tomei’s workshop focused on de-mystifying metaphor for students by using examples such as Basho’s “Life as a journey” metaphor and metaphors in pop songs. Chika Hayashi elicited feelings about English by asking high school students to draw “English as animals”. Jo Mynard recommended metaphor as a powerful tool for advising, giving the example of one student’s “English as a rocket” metaphor. Last but not least, Darren Elliott presented on his very detailed and brilliant research study identifying correlations between students’ ratings on an inventory of autonomous learning traits (Murase, 2015, in Elliott, 2018) and their metaphors for aspects of learning, i.e, the teacher, the student and the learning process. With studies going back to 1991, metaphor is clearly not a new kid on the block in ELT studies nor even in studies of autonomy.

However, I want to invite further discussion about what kind of tasks we give students when eliciting metaphors and also stimulate further thinking and reflection on their own metaphors among teachers and advisors. When we are trying to invite learner autonomy, couldn’t it be important to use students’ own metaphors rather than pushing our metaphors at them? Do we as teachers have some work to do on understanding our own metaphors before we invite students to share theirs? If we think that students need examples, would it be better to give them more choice rather than just one or two examples? All of these kinds of scaffolding do eventually determine what kind of house you can build. So if we ask students to describe “English as an animal” this is cute and might stimulate their imaginations but at the same time it does lead them in a certain direction, probably an empowering one but to me as an native speaker teacher it is slightly alarming. Suppose we asked students to describe other languages or nationalities as animals, or asked teachers to describe their students as animals, we might run into trouble with political correctness fairly soon. The assumption encoded in this task is that the power relationship is skewed so strongly in favour of the native speaker teacher that various methods should be used to redress the balance, and that may be so. But what about the alternative? What about just asking students for their metaphors with a few examples but no restrictions? This relates to a methodology for interviewing, which was developed by psychotherapist David Grove in the 1990s and has been refined by James Lawley and Penny Tompkins and others since then, called “Clean Language” (Lawley & Tompkins, 2000).

Clean language is language which attempts to be free of metaphor and to help the interlocutor to understand the intrinsic metaphors underlying their respondent’s utterances. Most kinds of questions are not “clean” because they contain pre-suppositions and the respondent is forced to deal with those pre-suppositions before they can get to their own idea. For example, if for me, learning English is like learning a dance, then “English as animals” forces me to think through things in a different way. Lawley and Tompkins suggest that exploring the various metaphors which underlie our experience can be transformational. The negative side of this is that assuming that people share the same underlying metaphor can lead to misunderstanding or conflict. It’s surprising how differently people (even those of the same culture) interpret language which we think of as transparent. For example, is it good to be at the cutting edge? Is thinking outside the box, good? Hearing so much about metaphor at ILA 2019 started me thinking that it would be interesting to find out more about the underlying metaphors of the people in their work context, not only students.

After the first evening of the conference I asked my friend about one of the metaphors that had been used that day. “During the plenary, Jo Mynard said that advising is deep and produces deep changes in students. What does deep mean to you?” “It’s like a container, that is very deep”, my friend said, making a rounded gesture. “Oh, really? I thought it was like the sea. Or maybe like treasure buried under the earth. Or maybe even magma at the centre of the earth.” “No, definitely for me it’s a container. I can’t necessarily see the bottom but I know it’s there, like a ..vase or something”. The two of us had very different interpretations. Looking at the most abstract correlations of the word “deep” I wondered if it means “connected with long term memory or long-term behavioral change” or “connected with basic emotions”. “Deep” creates mystery, which perhaps is appropriate for these delicate and evanescent interpersonal processes such as that between advisor and advisee.

One interesting way to learn more about teaching and advising and the differences between them might be to ask directly to advisors and teachers, “When you are teaching, that’s like what?” “When you are advising, that’s like what?”

Nick’s Questions for Ellen

Nick: Ellen, you have the most interesting titles for the chapters of your life and career! I’m especially interested in hearing more about each of the three “book titles” of your life. Do you think each “book” could have its own sub-heading in this reflection piece??

Ellen: It’s quite flattering to be asked about my own experience. But rather than more subheadings, what come to mind are books/educators that I was influenced by. When I started teaching, my favourite books were “Grammar Games” by Mario Rinvolucri (1984) and “Once Upon a Time” by Mario Rinvolucri and John Morgan (Rinvolucri & Morgan, 1988). They were books about being an entertainer and facilitator. I saw Rinvolucri teaching when I did my first training and I was very surprised by the kind of energy he had and the demands that were made on students. For example, he asked them to create a gesture for learning a vocabulary word. Later in the class he asked them to talk about divorce. Moving to Japan I discovered that this kind of methodology required too much risk-taking for most of my students. Claire Kramsch’s book “Context and Culture in Language Teaching” (Kramsch, 1993) was a help for me in that stage of accommodating to being in Japan. Kramsch talks about creating a third place culture which is not exclusively from L1 or L2. Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST) is also a useful idea, because it links things together in a non-linear way. Motivational Dynamics in Language Learning (Dornyei, MacIntyre & Henry, 2014) is a very helpful book for learning about CDST.

Nick: Your first idea about giving students freedom to write any metaphor would certainly lead to more autonomy and may yield much more insightful metaphors. However, I also feel that scaffolding should not be underestimated. Perhaps students could categorize their metaphors or be shown example metaphors in a second metaphor activity later on?

Ellen: Yes, I agree that this kind of activity needs scaffolding. I use a PowerPoint slide with a lot of different images such as gardening and piano playing and jogging, as a stimulus in the first session.

Nick: Prompts from images is a great way to scaffold and still allow students freedom! Teachers also may need prompting for their reflection, and the idea of asking teachers to describe teaching, their courses, etc. as metaphors (perhaps using the sentence starters Darren Elliot presented) would be a very useful way to institutionally structure much needed teacher reflection within departments. Finally, I would love to hear more about the “clean language” from Metaphors in Mind by Lawley and Tompkins (2000). Could you give an example?

Ellen: Yes. The following example comes from an explanation given by Tompkins, Sullivan & Lawley (2005). A student was having trouble doing maths. After some elicitation, he said “The numbers are like tangled spaghetti in my head.” The counsellor asked what would be good for the spaghetti. The child said pouring water over it would separate it. After a short time he said “Look, it has squashed together into one piece. It looks like a piece of paper and I can see the number on it.” Focusing on the metaphor during the question and answer allowed him to make an imaginary visual space for the numbers. In subsequent weeks he was able to do the calculations he had not been able to do.

Nick: Prompts from images is a great way to scaffold and still allow students freedom! Teachers also may need prompting for their reflection, and the idea of asking teachers to describe teaching, their courses, etc. as metaphors (perhaps using the sentence starters Darren Elliot presented) would be a very useful way to institutionally structure much needed teacher reflection within departments. Finally, I would love to hear more about the “clean language” from Metaphors in Mind by Lawley and Tompkins (2000). Could you give an example?

Ellen: Yes. The following example comes from an explanation given by Tompkins, Sullivan & Lawley (2005). A student was having trouble doing maths. After some elicitation, he said “The numbers are like tangled spaghetti in my head.” The counsellor asked what would be good for the spaghetti. The child said pouring water over it would separate it. After a short time he said “Look, it has squashed together into one piece. It looks like a piece of paper and I can see the number on it.” Focusing on the metaphor during the question and answer allowed him to make an imaginary visual space for the numbers. In subsequent weeks he was able to do the calculations he had not been able to do.

Ellen’s Questions to Nick

Ellen: There are several themes from your reflection which I want to ask you about, Nick. The first is about learning as a transformative experience. Could you say a bit more about that? Do you just want students’ English proficiency to increase or are you talking about a more personal transformation as well? Or are the two inseparable?

Nick: Ellen, you ask such great clarifying questions! Gains in English ability are simply gains in English proficiency, and these are not necessarily transformative experiences. When I was a novice junior and senior high teacher, I only considered my methods of information delivery. It took me years to realize that if you do not intentionally acknowledge the humanity of the students, the information will never stick! Sadly, some teachers seem to get stuck at this stage and never seem to be able to fully see their students as people. Students may soon forget the individual pieces of information we have taught them, but they will not forget what kind of person their teacher was. In the same way, more than simply teaching information about English, we must give students in our classrooms the chance to consider who they are, who they will become and how they can change. This increased communication awareness and chance for personal growth through reflection is what I consider to be a truly transformative experience.

Ellen: But don’t you think that communication awareness is connected with gains in ability?

Nick: I suppose it depends on your definition of ability. In my mind, while communication awareness develops students as social beings, ability is more related to grammar and vocabulary knowledge which may not necessarily enable students to communicate socially in real-life social situations. While students may eventually forget individual vocabulary or grammar items, I think we agree that our lasting influence on students will be developing them as human beings

Ellen: I am guessing that you probably did acknowledge the humanity of your students all along but without consciously prioritizing it. Is that possible?

Nick: That’s completely possible. Thanks for being so kind! However, as a beginning teacher, I think I myself was overwhelmed with the mechanics of teaching, and I didn’t consider individual student identities as much as I could have.

Ellen: You mention that you have been involved in Self-Access Learning Centres (SALC), and I would like to know more about that. Even though it may seem minimal to you, I think it is very different from not having been in an institution with a SALC at all.

Nick: In the SALC at my university, there is a “conversation area” where faculty chat with students who stop by once or twice a week. So, I am aware of the existence of the reading corner, self-study corner, movie corner, writing help corner, study abroad de-brief corner, etc. and I direct students to those resources. However, I am not involved in planning or executing any of these programs. Being in the conversation area, I get many chances to talk with students about their learning experiences and life experiences informally, and I know students who come regularly much better than I know students even in my own class.

Ellen: That’s very interesting. Do you think having talked to them affects your teaching or the way you set tasks/homework at all?

Nick: Depending on the student, especially students who come to the SALC center often, I know them and their friends well. I definitely keep these students in mind while planning and executing lessons.

Ellen: The other big question is about the tensions between teachers who want to promote learner autonomy and institutions. I think that universities and even MEXT (the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) to some extent pay lip-service to the idea of autonomy but find that in practice it is inconvenient, and so fall back on old methods of managing curriculum and assessment in ways that curtail both teacher and student autonomy. Any thoughts about that? You wrote that some colleagues do not want to take time away from teaching to do student-centered or autonomy building activities. Is that because of institutional requirements?

Nick: Your observation about universities and MEXT paying lip-service to the idea of autonomy (and reflection) hits the nail on the head. There may also be a lack of clarity on the institutional level. In theory, many educators believe in autonomy, but I feel they are easily deterred by the daily struggles of working with students, administrators and other teachers who do not share these values. Although it was a great transformative experience to learn so much about autonomy, reflection and metaphor at the ILA conference, I was frustrated with myself as I went back into the next semester and seemed to find myself in a 15-week whirlwind of details. I think many teachers get lost in this storm because they feel they lack the time for reflection – or it isn’t a priority for them. I myself am guilty of this. At my university, there are some institutional barriers to reflection and autonomy which come from administration, but some of these barriers are well-intentioned policies created by teachers themselves. True autonomy and reflection could be a guiding light for our teaching, but I am frustrated that sometimes I feel I have little say in what goes on in the lighthouse and at the helm.

Ellen: If possible I want to ask about the storm. For asking questions about metaphors it might be easier to have some kind of real-time or for you to spend a bit of time playing with clean language questions yourself. Text messaging is good for this. What kind of storm is that storm? What kind of lighthouse? What kind of helm?

Nick: It’s an Atlantic Nor’easter. It’s fast and appears out of nowhere during the season. The lighthouse is on a rocky cliff. The helm is of a small boat. You have to enter from below deck, but two windows let you see out ahead of the boat.

Ellen: When lost in the storm, what would you like to have happen?

Nick: This is a very freeing question! I want to have the clouds part, or at least get to the other side of the storm as soon as possible. I guess this means I should move forward? Step by step?

Ellen: What happens just before the storm?

Nick: Before the storm I am organizing my tools and equipment in the boat.

Ellen: You said, “I feel I have little say in what goes on in the lighthouse and at the helm”. What would you like to have happen?

Nick: This is a brilliant use of the questions that Kato and Mynard presented! I would like to work with teachers who have similar values, who are approachable and willing to listen. Hopefully we could develop values and goals together.

Finally, if I were going to contribute to the lighthouse of my school, I think I might steal an idea from Ellen’s original reflection and ask my colleagues to reflect on their teaching through metaphor at a Faculty Development meeting, etc. and encourage them to do similar reflections with their students. If that is not possible, I will at least re-start a weblog where I can do some reflection for my own professional improvement.

Ellen: There are some fascinating metaphors and a lot of ideas in what you just said. My comment would be that it is quite possible for changes to happen later. In my opinion it is efficient to maintain “coping mode” and it is legitimate to implement changes gradually. I am sometimes a bit naïve about the need to maintain coping mode but the times when I am most successful are when I have been able to pick up an idea, think it over, prepare and then implement it. A good example would be using Language Learning Projects (LLPs). Miki Kohyama and Jodie Stephens wrote about using individualized LLPs with their students and I decided I wanted to do it with every class I had. It happened that there was a graduate of my college who came to observe my class and she thought the low level of the students made it unsuitable for them to be doing LLPs without more support. I stopped LLPs for a while but a few years later I had an intensive English class for which it was ideal. I gave them more examples of the output wanted and they did marvellous projects. But it would have done no harm to wait until I had the right class and time to prepare for it.

Nick: Far from naïve, your comment is very encouraging! “Coping mode”, or consistently taking small steps forward is something all teachers need to keep in mind, myself included.

Concluding Remarks

Nick: Perhaps the most transformative thing I learned at the ILA conference, and from writing this reflection, is the importance of telling our stories. The use of metaphor is a surprisingly rich tool that I was not expecting. I’m grateful for the chance to work with Ellen (and the editors) on this. I will continue to take small steps in implementing reflection and metaphor into my personal reflection, my reflections with students, and reflections with teachers as professional development as well. The great thing about metaphors and reflection is not only that they enable personal expression and deeper learning, but they also allow us to develop deeper connections. Telling our story this way truly enables us to be heard, and to listen to others as well. Up until now, most of my reflection has been personal, or has involved guiding students. It never occurred to me to do a reflection with another teacher. This was my first opportunity to do a formal paired reflection with another professional educator. More than simply learning, this reflection was encouraging and gave my teaching purpose and vision again. So I’ll do my best to recreate the conditions to do other similar paired reflections with colleagues again in the near future.

Ellen: Picking up the theme of metaphor, I think it would be a fruitful encounter to dialogue about the metaphors for teaching and advising which are held by teachers and advisors and see if we can find ways to articulate and become more effective in both spheres (to use the skills of advising when relevant and if we are teachers, to bring the awareness of advising into our teaching). It was very exciting to hear about Darren Elliot’s research and the use of metaphor in advising by Jo Mynard and Satoko Kato. I hope we will see more chances for advisors and teachers interested in having a dialogue focused on developing our personal metaphors for the various processes of things we do, at a peer level. The main pre-requisite is the readiness to answer questions and go with the flow trusting that the weird things in the metaphor landscape will make sense at some level. Metaphor gives concrete dimensions to things which are abstract. The metaphor landscape for a particular individual may not be very logical. What’s more, humans are neuro-diverse, and so a certain percentage of people do not experience metaphors visually. However, the awareness of our differences can be really useful. There can be some benefits in explicitly asking what metaphors people hold to reveal their different perspectives and even playing around with the metaphors to resolve differences about things. I think this does bring us back to the question of “Whose autonomy?” and “Whose voice?” Can you see the connection? I mean the connection between having/knowing/exploring one’s personal metaphors and being able to make more space for the voice of a student, or the voices of other people generally? What’s that connection like for you?

References

Brown, D. (2007). Principles of language learning and teaching. White Plains, NY: Pearson Longman.

Dörnyei, Z., MacIntyre, P., & Henry, A. (2014). Motivational dynamics in language teaching. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Elliott, D. (2018). Metaphor and learner autonomy, 2018 Updates. Retrieved from https://darrenrelliott.wordpress.com/2018/05/24/metaphor-2018-updates/

Kramsch, C. (1993). Context and culture in language teaching. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Lawley, J., & Tompkins, P. (2000). Metaphors in mind: Transformation through symbolic modelling. London, UK: Developing Company Press

Rinvolucri, M. (1984). Grammar games: Cognitive, affective, and drama activities for EFL students. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Rinvolucri, M., & Morgan, J. (1988). Once upon a time. Cambridge handbooks for language teaching. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Siegel, D., & Bryson, T. (2012). The whole-brain child: 12 revolutionary strategies to nurture your child’s developing mind. Brunswick, Australia: Scribe Publications.

Tompkins, P., Sullivan, W. & Lawley, J. (2005). Tangled spaghetti in my head: making use of metaphor. Therapy Today, 16(8), 32–36. Retrieved from https://cleanlanguage.co.uk/articles/articles/30/1/Tangled- Spaghetti-in-My-Head-Making-use-of-metaphor/Page1.html

Vassallo, A., & Telles, J. A. (2006). Foreign language learning in-tandem: theoretical principles and research perspectives. The ESPecialist, 27(1), 83–118. Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.845.2443&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Chapter 14. Collaborative Reflections on ILA2018 Conference

Naomi Fujishima, Okayama University

Daniel G. C. Hougham, Hiroshima Jogakuin University

Daniel: Opening Reflections

I participated in the Independent Learning Association (ILA) 2018 conference, held at Konan Women’s University in Kobe, September 5-8, in hopes of developing my approach to facilitating autonomous learning among my university students. The theme of the conference—Whose Autonomy? Voice and Agency in Language Learning—was very thought-provoking in that it made attendees and presenters think long and hard about the meaning of the words autonomy, voice, and agency and how important they are to the development of autonomous learning processes. In his pre-conference reflection on why/how this theme was chosen, one of the conference chairs, Steve Brown, explained the importance of voice by noting that:

…the voices of individual learners within the language learning process is an essential part of our own understanding of how the process works: how those voices, together with others (of other learners, teachers. ), serve to exercise individual agency within their community/ies (be it the class, in self-access spaces, groups of friends, online groups). (Brown, Mayeda, & Yamashita, 2018, p. 36)

In other words, it is vital for us to consider the voices of individual learners and how those voices serve to express individual agency within their sociocultural context(s). Agency refers to “the capacity for human beings to make choices and take responsibility for their decisions and actions” (Richards & Schmidt, 2010, p.18). Similarly, autonomy refers to “the ability to take charge of one’s own learning and to be responsible for decisions concerning the goals, learning processes, and implementation of one’s language learning needs (Richards & Schmidt, 2010, p. 44). At ILA2018, I thus felt encouraged to consider the voices of individual learners and how those voices make choices and take responsibility for their learning, and more importantly, how I, as a language educator, can find new ways in my work to promote autonomous learning inside and beyond the classroom.

I was impressed by how well everything was organized: the conference team did a fantastic job of putting together a varied three-day programme that aimed to empower learner voices and the promotion of agency/autonomy. In what follows, I will focus on what the main takeaways for me were from the pre-conference self-access centers (SACs) tour, one of the plenaries, one workshop, one symposium, and the closing ceremony I attended.

Just before the start of the conference, a large group of us visited three nearby SACs on the Japan Association for Self-Access Learning (JASAL) SACs tour: (1) Konan University Nishinomiya campus CUBE O-Zone, (2) Konan University Okamoto campus Global Zone Porte Language LOFT, and (3) Konan Women’s University e-space. We had a guided tour by the host institutions and then a Q&A/Discussion time. It was very interesting to learn about the different features of these SACs and how they try to support students in ways that promote learner autonomy and meet students’ needs. Some examples of what these SACs had on offer include advising by learning advisors, different types of peer support systems (e.g. international students helping Japanese students to improve their English and cross-cultural knowledge, and Japanese students teaching Japanese culture and language to exchange students), different kinds of stamp/point card systems that are linked to course requirements, opportunities for students to socialize (e.g. by watching movies or playing board games), opportunities for students to find interesting and suitable reading/listening materials and to take ownership of the spaces (e.g. having spaces on the walls to post notes about their motivation and goals, share photos of their study trips abroad, and book/movie recommendations). The post-tour report with some photos taken on this inspiring tour is viewable at https://jasalorg.com/jasal-sac-tour-at-ila-event-report

In her plenary titled Supporting Learning Through Dialogue Within and Beyond the Classroom, Jo Mynard (Kanda University of International Studies) talked about the importance of learning beyond the classroom (LBC), which, as she pointed out in a pre-conference summary of her talk (Mynard, 2018, p. 29), has been considered to be the most powerful kind of learning (Reinders & Benson, 2017). She discussed three main roles in facilitating LBC: (1) creating optimal learning environments, (2) creating opportunities in class, and (3) advising, which she emphasized is the most powerful tool for helping students. Advising in language learning (ALL) (Mynard & Carson, 2012) is usually “a one-to-one interaction with learners which has the purpose of promoting learner autonomy” (Mynard, 2018, p. 26).

I began to think more about “creating optimal learning environments” and reading up on how I could better fulfill this key role. Taking an environmental view, Benson (2017) argues that a SAC is one of many learning environments available to a learner, proposing the idea of “language learning environments” as a possible way of conceptualizing the ways in which SACs can be situated among the many other settings where learners potentially engage with language resources. From this view, he suggests, the key questions to ask are: (1) How does the SAC connect with other settings, (2) how can the various features of the SAC setting be manipulated so that it enhances the classroom as well as other settings where learners can engage with language resources, and (3) how can the SAC help learners expand their language learning environments by raising their awareness of potential learning opportunities beyond the classroom and SAC (p. 143)? Language learners need to navigate these various environments and increase opportunities available to them; therefore, the need for support is arguably greater than ever (Curry & Mynard, 2014). The kind of support needed depends on each individual learner, but to create optimal learning environments, Mynard (2018, p. 29) suggests reflective dialogue should always be involved as this mediates learning.

In their workshop titled Practical Advising Strategies for Promoting Reflective Dialogue, Satoko Kato (Kanda University of International Studies) and Jo Mynard provided us with an opportunity to do some face-to-face practice advising sessions. Working in pairs, we enjoyed trying out various practical strategies such as repeating and summarizing. It was really interesting to see some examples of advising dialogues. They also introduced their definition of transformational advising:

“An advisor supports a learner in going beyond improving language proficiency. The learner’s existing beliefs are challenged in order to raise awareness of learning, translate the learner’s awareness into action, and finally, make a fundamental change in the nature of learning” (Kato & Mynard, 2016, p. 10).

They then touched on some of the powerful tools in the learning advisor’s toolkit including the formulation of purposeful questions which, if well-timed, can stimulate reflective processes, the use of metaphor, and the power of ‘what if’ questions which can begin the process of broadening perspectives. In the final mock advising session, we enjoyed asking and answering the questions “What if your entire life was a story book, what title would best fit? Which chapter are you in now? What comes next?”

In the JASAL Forum titled Open Discussion on Self-Access Learning in Practice, facilitated by Hisako Yamashita (Konan Women’s University), Clair Taylor (Gifu Shotoku Gakuen University), Katherine Thornton (Otemon Gakuin University), and Andrew Tweed (Meijo University), participants formed roundtable groups and chose a topic to discuss. My group talked about making connections between a SAC and the wider university curriculum as well as individual classes. This discussion made me think about how I can provide the kinds of support students need in and out of class, by increasing the shared self-access learning opportunities at my university. While reading up on how I might go about this, I seized on the idea of using the ‘can do’ statements from the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), which is what Allert (2015, p. 237-238) mentions are used by learning advisors and students with success in their SAC context in Hong Kong. In fact, at my university, we are currently using the ‘can do’ statements in our Basic English course syllabi. I have recently begun having all students type their written ‘can do’ work (e.g. movie reviews) into a Google Document that is shared among class members, so that they can access it by themselves and enjoy reading their classmates’ written work. To take this a step further and create a self-access learning opportunity, I plan to give all students the opportunity to submit their written ‘can do’ work through a Google Form to a ‘Can Do’ Task Bank, and make it accessible to all students via a self- access website. Selected pieces may also be posted up on a physical wall.

During the closing ceremony, a large group of us enjoyed the opportunity to collaboratively reflect on some of our main takeaways from the conference, two of which were the importance of advising and reflective dialogue to help learners develop autonomously, and the importance of creating a space where students have opportunities to find and develop their passions and interests, not just their immediate language requirements, so as to nurture their long-term motivation. Fortunately, I was able to speak with some experienced SAC-practitioners who kindly pointed me in the direction of their published stories of practice and transformation in self-access facility design and management (e.g. Taylor, 2014; Thornton, 2015). As a result of these serendipitous encounters, I soon searched and found that there is a wealth of recent and relevant literature (e.g. Carson, 2015; Chavez and Peña Clavel, 2015; Werner & Von Joo, 2018), containing a lot of practical advice and suggestions on what to consider and what questions to ask when looking into setting up self-access learning environments. ILA2018 was definitely one of the best conferences I have ever attended. I would like to express my thanks to the organizers—especially Steve Brown, Ann Mayeda, and Hisako Yamashita—for hosting ILA2018 at Konan Women’s University.

Naomi: Opening Reflections

When I heard that the Independent Learning Association would be having their biennial conference in Kobe, Japan, I was very excited to attend. I had presented at two other ILA conferences, one in New Zealand (ILA2012) and another in Thailand (ILA2014), so I was really looking forward to ILA2018. I was not disappointed as I was able to meet many interesting people and go to presentations that sparked my interest in learner autonomy and motivation. I was fortunate to be able to attend many presentations, but the ones I describe in the following paragraphs were the ones I was most impressed by.

The first plenary speaker, Jo Mynard, Director of the SAC at Kanda University of International Studies, talked about how important it was for learners to become more self-directed and autonomous in the learning process. Students need guidance and advising to become successful learners because they sometimes don’t know where to start. Although she is the director of a self-access learning center, where she trains and supervises learning advisors, she emphasized that teachers, as well, can advise their students on how to be more self-directed in their learning. She quoted some features of successful learners from Richards (2015). The first feature was intentionality, meaning that students need to make a deliberate choice to learn. The second was agency, which was described as the socioculturally mediated capacity to act. The last three features to make a successful learner were motivation, interest, and to be interaction-based. These ideas resonated with me as I have noticed that students in my classes who were truly motivated and had a genuine interest in learning English were the most successful.

What I came away with from Jo’s talk was that you didn’t have to be a trained learning advisor to help students. As a teacher, we can encourage our students to become more self-directed and autonomous by promoting learning beyond the classroom and teaching them strategies that they can use on their own. She also talked about some ways to do written advising using logbooks (Dam, 2009) and learning logs (Murphey, 1993). I have used learning logs in an Independent Study Course (ISC) I taught to first-year university students, so it was reassuring to know that what I was doing was helping my students become successful learners.

For the rest of the conference, I tried to choose presentations with varying topics to widen my academic horizons. Kerstin Dofs’ presentation called Mutual Adjustment and Student Self- formation: A Pathway to Autonomous Learning was interesting because she outlined the challenges the students at her institution in New Zealand faced adjusting to their new lives and identities. She shared her own story about how she had to negotiate with her 3-year-old son on how to get home on a snowy day. She was pregnant with their second child at the time, so she could not carry him home. Instead, she listened to what he had to say, then gave him options on what he could do, so he could make his own choice. In the same way, when students are in a new environment, it is important to listen to their stories and then help them with ideas on how to adjust and become more independent. I found this to be true with the students who took my ISC class. Instead of the teacher lecturing at the front of the class, students were guided on how to become independent learners by making their own learning plan for the course. It took one or two lessons for them to get used to this new style of classroom learning, but by the end of the course, the students were able to discover strategies that worked best for them and could become more autonomous learners.

Yoshio Nakai’s talk, Learner Autonomy as Socially Constructed Agency: Eva’s Language Learning History, was a case study of a Japanese language learner from Hong Kong and how she had several ideal L2 selves through her social interactions using an online video game called Niconico Douga. I had never heard of this game, so it was fascinating to hear how young people were learning Japanese these days. At the sake tasting event, we were lucky enough to talk to Yoshio about his presentation, and he showed us how the online interactive game worked.

I was most interested in attending the Model United Nations Simulations: Developing Learner Voices and Agency presented by Donna Tatsuki, Lori Zenuk-Nishide, and Tom Fast. Our university is also involved with the Model UN, but I had not had a chance to participate in or help students with it at this point. My impression of this type of simulation/role play was that it involved a lot of work and effort by both teachers and students. However, after listening to their presentations, I could see how rewarding an experience it can be for students. Although most students who participate in the Model UN have fairly high levels of English ability, it sounded like it could be beneficial for lower intermediate level students as well, as long as they have the motivation to learn. Students work in groups to prepare their position papers after being assigned a country to represent. There are model position papers to look at, and native or near-native students help write the drafts. The presenters told us that a minimum of four drafts of the position papers are written, so students can really improve their writing, critical thinking, and negotiation skills. During and after the Model UN, students and teachers get together for de-briefing sessions several times to reflect on their performance and get feedback from their peers and teachers. The whole process takes a lot of time and effort, but I’m sure students come away with a once-in-a-lifetime experience that they will never forget.

The only unfortunate thing about this symposium was that there were only three or four people in the audience. I really think that teachers could benefit from learning about the Model UN and how it works. A Model UN course at a Japanese high school or university would be a big asset to that institution. The skills students learn from participating in it would help them prepare for their future paths, not only because it would improve their English skills, but also because they would gain life skills such as building personal relationships, giving opinions, listening to others, and maintaining harmony. In my opinion, if teachers are committed, students would also follow and find it worth their while. This type of activity would also help promote globalization, something that many universities in Japan are seeking to achieve.

On the social side, the sake event and the conference dinner were both fantastic. I learned so much about sake and enjoyed trying different kinds while talking to other conference participants. The food at the conference dinner was great and had a nice variety of Japanese dishes for the newcomers to try. It was too bad the weather didn’t hold up, though! The rain was pelting down when we left the restaurant, but that didn’t deter us from finding another place for a night cap with longtime friends in Sannomiya.

Finally, I wanted to thank the conveners for organizing a great conference. The university campus where the conference was held was so beautiful with new buildings and facilities. The presentation rooms were easy to find, and if we ever had a question or needed directions, the wonderful student interns would be there with a smile to help us. As a veteran of conference planning committees for JALT, I know how much work is entailed to make things go smoothly. There are always headaches that come up before, during, and after, but the three conveners took care of everything with such calm and patience without looking flustered at all. Their hard work and effort truly paid off to make the conference a success.

Follow-up Reflective Dialogue:

Daniel:

Thank you for sharing your interesting and thoughtful reflections, Naomi. I was very interested to read your thoughts on Jo Mynard’s plenary. I too came away from it feeling empowered that even we as classroom teachers can help students by finding ways to incorporate advising in our classes. It was fascinating to hear about your experience of using learning logs in the Independent Study Course you mentioned you taught to freshmen at your university. It stimulated me to read Tim Murphey’s (1991) article and think about how I can adjust my current practice to offer more effective written advising doing action research through using action logs in my current teaching situation. It was interesting and reassuring to read about Tim’s account of gathering his students’ perceptions, which is similar to what I’ve been doing with my language classes. His method of turning the students’ perceptions of successful activities into a goldmine of information by sharing them via a class newsletter is admirable and is something I plan to try implementing. I also plan to use some of the many helpful advising tools and techniques such as structured awareness raising I found in Kato and Mynard’s (2016) Reflective Dialogue: Advising in Language Learning.

I also enjoyed reading your reflection on attending the Model United Nations (UN) simulation. It made me realize how interesting and valuable an experience such a simulation can be for anyone who puts in the time and effort. Your words made me reflect on how powerful the UN can be in helping achieve worthwhile objectives, such as the prohibition of nuclear weapons, to make our world a safer place.

Thank you again for sharing your reflections with me, Naomi. I would like to learn more about the Model UN and how it works, with a view to considering the possibilities of getting my university involved with it.

Naomi:

I was very impressed by your thoughtful and detailed reflections on the ILA2018 Conference, Daniel. Thank you for sharing them with me. A sentence in the second paragraph of your reflections really caught my eye: “…it is vital for us to consider the voices of individual learners and how the voices serve to express individual agency within their sociocultural context(s).” This ties in directly with the upcoming JALT2019 International Conference in November because the theme of this conference is ‘Teacher Efficacy, Learner Agency’. As teachers, I think our hope is for our students to be able to make their own choices on how they want to learn and to be able to take responsibility for their own actions. I teach in a language center at a national university in Japan, so the students are taking my classes to fulfill their academic requirements. I would say that a majority of the students are not accustomed to taking ownership of their learning. They are used to merely receiving instruction and fulfilling the homework requirements outlined by the teacher. They need guidance and support, and that is where teacher efficacy is important. The ideas that came out of the ILA Conference helped us to become more aware of how important it is to listen to our students and find the best ways to motivate them. The key factor for teacher efficacy is for teachers to be confident in their ability to guide their students successfully.

After reading what you wrote about Jo Mynard’s plenary, I went online to search for the book Reflective Dialogue: Advising in Language Learning (Kato & Mynard, 2016) to learn more about the transformational advising approach that you mentioned and found the pages that you wrote about. I thought that the four approaches outlined in the book were a helpful guide, not only for language advisors, but also for teachers as well. Essentially, the four approaches are:

1. Prompting action

2. Broadening perspectives

3. Translating awareness into action

4. Assisting transformation (pp. 10-12)

I am interested in this line of thinking regarding reflective dialogue because the university where I teach has a social learning space which does not provide language advisors. I understand that it takes extensive training to become a language advisor, but I wonder if student workers in the social learning space could learn about some of these approaches to advising so they could be available to other students who might have questions. This is something that I’ve been thinking about and wondering how to approach the current manager of our social learning space regarding this issue.

I enjoyed reading your description of the Basic English course that you teach at your university and how you have the students write ‘can do’ work into a Google Document which is shared among the class. You wrote that you ‘plan to give all students the opportunity to submit their written ‘can do’ work through a Google Form to a ‘Can Do’ Task Bank…’ It sounds like a very exciting and imaginative activity, so I hope you can let me know how the process went. I’m especially interested to learn more about the self-access website you mentioned.

Towards the end of your reflections, you wrote about your presentation on Quizlet, and you’ve also told me about this online tool when we’ve spoken face-to-face and by email. Thanks to your suggestions, I am using Quizlet in two of my classes this term. I’ve tried to emphasize the usefulness of the learning activities available in Quizlet to my students, but, due to time constraints, I haven’t asked for feedback from them. You wrote that you use goal/plan/reflection sheets, which I’d be interested to learn more about if you don’t mind sharing.

Thanks again for sharing your reflections with me. I found a wealth of information and hope to be able to follow up on some of your references as well.

Daniel: Final Reflections

Thank you for your thoughtful follow-up reflections and questions, Naomi. You noted that “the key factor for teacher efficacy is for teachers to be confident in their ability to guide their students successfully”, and you also wondered if student workers in the social learning space at your university could receive training in some of the transformational approaches to advising. One key question is, then, how can training be provided in a way that helps peer advisors develop confidence in their ability to advise their peers, and in a way that is not too time-consuming for teachers to provide? I, too, am interested in this area as I feel that my university could greatly benefit from having trained peer advisors. I found that Kato and Mynard’s (2016) book has a section on peer advising (p. 251) in which they point out that peer advisors could benefit from learning about basic advising strategies and tools, such as those they provide in their Appendices 1.1 (pp. 20-28) and 1.2 (pp. 29-67). One idea on how such training can be provided to peer advisors is through the giving of self-study modules in the form of quizzes using Google Forms. Short quizzes could be designed to test whether they understand about basic advising strategies, and the form can be set up to give immediate feedback.

You also noted that you have been wondering how to approach the current manager of your social learning space regarding this issue. You might want to share with the manager some information about the benefits and drawbacks of peer advising and perhaps share some examples of how other SACs are actively using peer advising to provide extra support to students. You might enjoy reading a paper by Craig Manning (2013) who briefly examines if and how peer support can be implemented as an appropriate means to improve self-access learning.

Regarding my plan to give all students the opportunity to submit their written ‘can do’ work through a Google Form to a “Can Do” Task Bank, I have now had a chance to implement the plan. I announced the opportunity in all of my final classes of Semester 2 and shared a link with everyone to a self-access site I set up myself. All students have a chance to participate by giving permission to share their work on the site, for the purpose of supporting future students by way of sharing good examples of written work. I’m excited to report that I have received quite a few affirmative responses so far, and have already added some of the students’ “can do” task work to the self-access site with their permission.

Additionally, I’m pleased to note that, in collaboration with our Academic Support Center, the site is now being used as a convenient location where students can find information and make reservations for our various English programs. It is hoped that the site will become a valuable resource for supporting students in many and various ways in the future.

I would like to conclude by expressing my sincere thanks to you for collaborating with me on this reflections paper, Naomi. I learned a lot throughout this collaborative and reflective writing process. I hope to attend the next ILA conference that will be held in Mexico in 2020.

Naomi: Concluding Reflections

Once again, Daniel, you have provided a wealth of information for me, this time on peer advising and training. Thank you so much! I have met Craig Manning several times at Hiroshima JALT chapter meetings in the past, so I am very interested in the work that he is doing.

I’d like to address a couple of questions you posed in your reflection responses to me—one was about the Independent Study Course, and the other was about the Model United Nations. They are both separate courses currently being taught at my university, so I’d like to share my ideas with you one-by-one.

The Independent Study Course (ISC) was originally created by Garold Murray when he was a professor at Akita International University, where he established and managed the self-access center on campus and another one in Akita city which was open to the public. During that time, he offered self-directed learning courses for both the general public and for first-year university students. When he moved to Okayama University, he shared all of his materials with his colleagues so we could offer a similar course, which is now called ISC. He has written extensively on it (Murray, 2009a; Murray, 2009b), and just recently, my colleague, Susan Meiki, and I gave a short presentation on the course at an Okayama JALT chapter meeting.

The ISC was offered to students interested in improving their English skills by using materials of their own choosing. Our main goal was for students to become more autonomous learners who are able to apply the study strategies and techniques they acquire to their language learning beyond the class and their university life. We were informed by Holec’s description of learner autonomy as “the ability to take charge of one’s own learning”(1981, p. 3), and wanted to provide students with the structure within the classroom to set their own goals and work with the materials recommended to them. They also made their own personal learning plans and assessed their progress. Our role in the course was to help facilitate the students’ learning by providing guidance and feedback throughout the process.

You also asked about the Model United Nations (MUN) and how it works. There is a wealth of information online about the MUN, but I also highly recommend reading the special issue of Kobe City University of Foreign Studies’ Journal of Research Institute, Volume 57 (Tatsuki & Zenuk Nishide, 2017). In 2016, Kobe City University of Foreign Studies hosted the National Model UN, and this special volume was born from their efforts.

My colleagues and I are especially grateful to Donna Tatsuki, Lori Zenuk-Nishide, and Tom Fast for their guidance and support of the Model UN. Donna and Lori, both teachers at Kobe City University of Foreign Studies, are two key people in Japan who have worked hard to maintain and promote MUN in Japan. With Craig Smith (of Kyoto University of Foreign Studies and who sadly passed away in 2018), they founded JUEMUN (Japan University English Model United Nations).

Finally, I’d like to say thank you for your support and guidance during this reflective process. I look forward to learning more about your “Can Do” task bank and perhaps reading an article based on your findings!

Acknowledgement

Daniel Hougham’s participation at the conference was supported by a research grant from Hiroshima Jogakuin University. He is very grateful for this support.

References

Allert, K. (2015). Considering context: The importance of specific institutional and learner contexts when researching the set up of a self-access centre. Studies in Self-Access Learning Journal, 6(2), 231–244. Retrieved from http://sisaljournal.org/archives/jun15/allert

Benson, P. (2017). Language learning beyond the classroom: Access all areas. Studies in Self-Access Learning Journal, 8(2), 135–146. Retrieved from https://sisaljournal.org/archives/jun2017/benson/

Brown, S., Mayeda, A., & Yamashita, H. (2018). Creating ILA 2018 together: Plans, hopes and reflections from the Conference Chairs. Learning Learning, 25(1) 36–37. Retrieved from http://ld-sig.org/learning- learning-25-1/

Carson, L. (2015). Human resources as a primary consideration for learning space creation. Studies in Self- Access Learning Journal, 6(2), 245–253. Retrieved from http://sisaljournal.org/archives/jun15/carson

Chávez Sánchez, M., & Peña Clavel, M. (2015). The development of CELE-UNAM mediateca. Studies in Self-Access Learning Journal, 6(2), 219–230. Retrieved from http://sisaljournal.org/archives/jun15/chavez-pena

Curry, N., & Mynard, J. (2014). Directions in self-access learning [Editorial]. Studies in Self-Access Learning Journal, 5(1), 1–7. Retrieved from https://sisaljournal.org/archives/mar14/editorial/

Dam, L. (2009). The use of logbooks. A tool for developing learner autonomy. In R. Pemberton, S. Toogood, & A. Barfield (Eds.), Maintaining control: Autonomy and language learning (pp. 125–144). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

Holec, H. (1981). Autonomy and foreign language learning. Oxford: Pergamon Press.

Hougham, D.G.C. (2019). Facilitating Japanese university students’ autonomous learning in and beyond the English classroom. In A. Peña Clavel & K. Thornton (Eds.), Whose Autonomy? Voice and agency in language learning. Selected papers from the 2018 Independent Learning Association Conference. Hong Kong: Candlin & Mynard ePublishing.

Kato, S., & Mynard, J. (2016). Reflective dialogue: Advising in language learning. New York, NY: Routledge.

Manning, C. (2013). Making an impact with peer tutoring. In N. Sonda & A. Krause (Eds.), JALT2012 Conference Proceedings (pp. 186–193). Tokyo, Japan: JALT. Retrieved from http://jalt-publications.org/proceedings/ articles/3256-making-impact-peer-tutoring

Manning, C. (2014). Considering peer support for self-access learning. Studies in Self-Access Learning Journal, 5(1), 50–57. Retrieved from https://sisaljournal.org/archives/mar14/manning/

Murphey, T. (1993). Why don’t teachers learn what learners learn? Taking the guesswork out with action logging. English Teaching Forum, 31(1), 6–10.

Murray, G. (2009a). Self-access language learning: Structure, control, and responsibility. In F. Kjisik, P. Voller, N. Aoki, & Y. Nakata (Eds.), Mapping the terrain of learner autonomy: Learning environments, learning communities and identities. (pp. 118–142). Tampere, Finland: Tampere University Press.

Murray, G. (2009b). A self-directed learning course. In. A.F.V. Smith & G. Strong (Eds.), Adult language learners: Context and innovation. (pp. 61–70). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

Mynard, J. (2018). Supporting learning through dialogue within and beyond the classroom. Learning Learning, 25(1) 26–31. Retrieved from http://ld-sig.org/learning-learning-25-1/

Mynard, J., & Carson, L. (2012). (Eds.). Advising in language learning: Dialogue, tools and context. Harlow, UK: Pearson.

Reinders, H., & Benson, P. (2017). Research agenda: Language learning beyond the classroom. Language Teaching, 50(4), 561–578.

Richards, J. C. (2015). The changing face of language learning: Learning beyond the classroom. RELC Journal, 45 (1), 1–18. Retrieved from https://www.professorjackrichards.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Changing-Face-of-Language-Learning-RELC.pdf

Richards, J. C., & Schmidt, R. (2010). Longman dictionary of language teaching and applied linguistics (4th edition). New York, NY: Routledge.

Tatsuki, D. H., & Zenuk-Nishide, L. (2017). NMUN 2016: Stakeholder perspectives on learning processes and outcomes. Journal of Research Institute (Kobe City University of Foreign Studies), 57. Retrieved from http://id.nii.ac.jp/1085/00002177/

Taylor, C. (2014). The transformation of a foreign language conversation lounge: An action research project. Bulletin of Shotoku Gakuen University (Faculty of Foreign Languages), 53, 1–16. Retrieved from http:// www.shotoku.ac.jp/data/facilities/library/publication/gaigo53-1.pdf

Thornton, K. (2015). Sharing stories of practice in self-access facility design and management. Studies in Self- Access Learning Journal, 6(2), 216–218. Retrieved from http://sisaljournal.org/archives/jun15/thornton

Werner, R. J., & Von Joo, L. (2018). From theory to practice: Considerations in opening a new self-access center. Studies in Self-Access Learning Journal, 9(2), 116–134. Retrieved from https://sisaljournal.org/archives/jun18/werner_vonjoo

Part 5: Student Papers from the “Learners About Learning”

Chapter 15. JALT LD SIG Student Conference event. Learners about Learning: Highlighting Student Voices and Facilitating Communication Through a Student Conference

Katherine Thornton, Otemon Gakuin University

Ann Flanagan, Ritsumeikan High School

Agnes Patko, formerly of Kyoto University of Foreign Studies

The Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT) Learner Development Special Interest Group (LD SIG) in Kansai has held a number of student conferences in recent years, under the title Kansai to the World, where students from across Kansai come together to share their ideas on social issues which affect them, through poster presentations and group discussion, held primarily in English (Aden, Flanagan, Narita, Patko, Teeter & Thornton, 2017). Academic conferences on language education implicitly have learners at their heart, as researchers and teachers present the results of studies into the effectiveness of teaching techniques and approaches, but voices of the actual students themselves are often absent from the conferences themselves, or presented only as a part of the research findings. By bringing our experience as student conference organisers to ILA 2018, the LD SIG Kansai group hoped to change this. As the conference theme of ILA 2018 was Whose Autonomy? Voice and Agency in Language Learning, it seemed appropriate to provide a forum where learners could exercise their own agency and share their experiences in their own voices. The result was Learners about Learning, a student conference inside the main conference, which delegates were invited to attend, held on Friday afternoon. Representatives from two high schools (Clark Memorial International High School and Ritsumeikan High School) and four universities (Gifu Shotoku Gakuen University, Kobe City University of Foreign Studies, Konan Women’s University and Otemon Gakuin University), took part, with seven high schools and ten university presentations in all. Students shared their experiences of learning languages through three rounds of poster presentations and discussion. Some students profiled their own approaches to learning English and other languages, sharing their successes and failures, while others shared experiences on study abroad programmes or projects such as the Marketing Competition Japan. Identity was also a common theme, with some students sharing their desires for Japanese society to be more accepting of difference and their own unique voices.

Attendees of the main conference were free to join, and many did, either attending the main event or viewing the student posters displayed after it had finished. After the poster presentations, the student conference concluded with all the students giving a one-minute summary of their topic to conference delegates in the main lecture hall. Many delegates commented about how inspiring the student presenters were, and how their presence gave further meaning to the main conference. See Patko, Flanagan and Thornton (2018) and Flanagan, Patko and Thornton (2018) for more detailed reviews of the conference.

In the ILA 2018 Proceedings, we are delighted to present papers from seven high school students who presented at the conference. From Clark Memorial International High School, Shouta Susaki, Eriko Kikuoka, Yuio Kinomoto, and Kento Miyoshi share their different approaches to learning English. Shouta explains how he connects reading books to speaking skills, while Eriko promotes the power of music for listening, learning colloquial expressions and improving intonation. Yuki recommends making a study menu and schedule which incorporates activities covering all four skills, and writing a reflective “statement of regret” at the end of each day to focus on achieving a good four- skill balance. Kenta highlights how he uses his commuting time for listening practice and vocabulary learning through music and videos, emphasising the importance of using media that you like.

From Ritsumeikan High School, Yuki Azuma, Shizuka Seto and Yu Tsuchisaka share their attitudes to education and growing up in Japan. As a gender-neutral person, Yuki shares their frustration with the slow pace of change in Japanese schools in adopting gender- neutral and transgender-friendly policies, particularly in terms of school uniform design. Having spent her first ten years overseas and attending various international schools, Yu shares her ideas to improve Japan’s approach to education and globalization through creating more opportunities for students and teachers to communicate on a social media app and change their perspectives. Shizuka concludes our collection with an impassioned account of her journey from being someone who hated studying to realising the value of education and how we can use our privileged positions in a developed country such as Japan to campaign for improving education and literacy levels across the globe.

As organisers of the student conference, we were inspired by the dedication, passion and humour the students brought to this event, and we hope readers will get a taste of this from this small collection of essays. We’d like to thank every participant, the teachers and professors who supported their participation in this event, and the ILA2018 conference organising committee for all their hard work in making it happen.

References

Aden, A., Flanagan, A., Nakai, Y., Narita, S., Patko, A., Teeter, J., & Thornton, K. (2017). Kansai to the world: Promoting learner engagement about international issues through a student conference. Learning Learning, 24(1) 34–39. Retrieved from http://ld-sig.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Kansai_24.1.pdf

Patko, A., Flanagan, A., & Thornton, K. (2018). ‘Learners about Learning’ student conference review. Studies in Self-Access Learning Journal, 9(4), 444–447. Retrieved from https://sisaljournal.org/archives/dec18/ patko_flanagan_thornton/

Flanagan, A., Patko, A., & Thornton, K. (2018). Learners about learning student conference (2018). Learning Learning, 25(2) 76–79. Retrieved from http://ld-sig.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/ FlanaganPatkoThornton.pdf

Chapter 16. Reading Can Improve Conversation Ability

Shouta Susaki, Clark Memorial International High School

As a first year high school student, I read an average of three graded-readers a week. I try to use my reading time to also improve my conversation skills. However, most of the students in my school watch videos or talk to the International Course teachers to get better at speaking. Recently, I have started to share my method for using graded-readers to improve conversation ability with the students at my school and would also like to share this method with other students studying English. In this paper I will: introduce how to select appropriate books; explain ways to read which are similar to speaking; and describe a reading and writing activity to use with graded-readers.

First, it is important to choose books which are easy to understand. If I choose a difficult book, and there are many words I don’t know, I cannot focus on the meaning of the story. Second, I think that manga or comic book style books are the best for improving conversation skills. I read both manga and regular stories, but when I read a regular story and two characters are talking in the book, I cannot concentrate on the conversation. I can only really think about the flow of the story and the scene. But when I read English manga and two characters are talking, I can really hear the characters conversation in my head. It is like listening to people actually talk to each other.

As part of my method I also recommend that when a student reads a manga story, they should try to become one of the characters in the story. They should pretend they are saying the dialogue themselves. This way, the story is even easier to understand and it becomes a kind of conversation practice.

Even though I chose easy books, sometimes there is a word I do not know. If there is a new word or phrase for me, I use my electronic dictionary as soon as possible to look up the meaning. There are two reasons for this. First, if I do not know a word, I cannot hear the conversation in my head. This stops me from being able to use the book for conversation practice. Second, if I wait until I finish reading a book before looking up new words, I will forget which words I did not know.

After I read a manga book, I have a special activity I do. It is called Read-Think-Write. This activity is used by all the students in my school and was introduced to us by our teachers. During Read-Think-Write, I read a sentence, turn the book over, and try to write as much as I can remember. By doing this, I can find the sentence structure and also catch the rhythm of the sentence. And a big bonus, I can also remember words and phrases better.

I have used this method of reading books to improve my conversation ability. The main steps in this method are:

Choose books which are very easy to understand.

Imagine you are one of the characters in the book as you read.

Use an electronic dictionary to quickly look up words you do not know.

Do the Read-Think-Write activity.

As a result of this method, I can use more phrases in my conversations and speak more smoothly. In addition, I have gradually come to feel that speaking English is fun and am motivated to continue learning and speaking in English. I believe that reading English manga with this method could improve all students’ English speaking skills as well.

Chapter 17. My Study Method for Four Skills

Yuio Kinomoto, Clark Memorial International High School

Although I am a high school student, in the future I plan to use English in my job. Therefore I think it is very important for me to study the basic four English skills with a good balance. I have developed a method which allows me to practice all four skills while studying English and believe that this method would be useful and effective for most students studying English.

First, it is very important to make a general study menu which outlines how you will study each skill. Student should be able to use the same study menu for a long time. If they do this, students will not have to make a plan for what they will study every day and will have a long-term view of their studying. With a study menu, students can save time and spend more energy studying English. I usually use my study menu for about three months.

On each menu, I have set study activities for each skill. For example, to study English, I read an interesting and easy book for 15 minutes. After the 15 minutes reading session, I read for one minute and count the number of words I read. This is my reading speed. When I started this reading practice, I could only read 80 words per minutes. Now I can read 150 words in one minute. The important thing is to try and study a skill every day and a study menu can help students to study consistently.

In addition to a menu, if students want to study the four skills with a good balance, I think it is important to make a weekly schedule. When I write a study schedule and keep track of my studying day to day, I feel motivated to study every day. At the end of each day, I always write a statement of regret which highlights those skills I did not have to time study during that day. While this might seem negative, seeing clearly what I could and could not accomplish helps me maintain my motivation. A concrete example is what happened with my studying on August 15th, 2018. After checking my study schedule, I realized that I had not completed my writing studying. In my statement of regret, I noted that I had not studied writing because I had played with my friends and I had no time. According to my study menu, I have to write a 30 word journal every day. Therefore on August 16th I modified my study schedule so that the next day I would write two journal entries.

Reviewing my study schedules and statements of regret, I noticed that I never miss my speaking practice. This is because speaking practice is very enjoyable to me. My speaking practice is to talk to someone for 10 minutes. If there is no one to talk to, I will to my dog or my Minion doll. I also use the English learning web site and application English Central to practice speaking. This application allows me to practice my pronunciation as well as learn new vocabulary.

The last skill on my study menu is listening. I currently use the book Ippun Kan Listening. I think it is an excellent book. It is easy and good for me. I listen to conversations contained on a CD that came with the book three times. After, I hide the sentences with a piece of paper and try to hear the complete conversation in my head. Then I try to listen again. It takes about 10 minutes.

One year ago, I didn’t have a set method to study English. I also did not think about balancing my four skills while studying. My English scores like EIKEN and TOEIC were not high. However, since implementing this method and using it for the past six months, my English has improved day by day.

The key points of my four-skills studying my method are:

Make a menu you can use for a long time.

Make a weekly schedule and try to study the four skills every day.

At the end of the day, write a statement of regret.

Change you next day study plan so you can have a good balance of the four skills

I think a well-balanced plan to study the four skills is important for me and every English student.

Chapter 18. Listening to Music is Studying

Eriko Kikuoka, Clark Memorial International High School

There are many benefits to using music to study English. I have developed a method for using music to develop my English skills, specifically, developing my vocabulary and improving my pronunciation.

According to Gilakjani and Ahmadi (2011), “Listening comprehension is regarded theoretically as an active process in which individual concentrate on selected aspects of aural input, from meaning from passages, and associate what they hear with existing knowledge.” I believe this process of listening as a process which is built on existing knowledge matches my own experiences of using songs to study English. I enjoy hearing and interpreting lyrics through my own experience. In addition to being able to rely on my own experiences, I find that learning English through music has a number of other benefits, including:

1: While listening to music I am exposed to many different accents and hence can improve my global listening comprehension. For example, listening to songs by Elvis Presley exposes me to a southern American accent while music by Israel Kamakawiwoʻole allows me to hear English with a Hawaiian accent.

2: Exposure to colloquial expressions which I do not have a chance to hear in my language classes or in typical daily conversation. Learning words such as ‘beckoning’ and phrases such as ‘hound dog’ allow me to express myself more clearly and help my language use to be more creative.

3: By singing along with a song and trying to mimic the pronunciation of the singer, I feel that I not only improve my pronunciation, but also can improve my general intonation. One of the most exciting benefits of this is an ability to say words more naturally within speech. When I look up individual words in the dictionary, the pronunciation is often different from that which is found in the songs. So I believe that developing my pronunciation through music affords me the chance to practice using a more natural sounding English.

My process for using music to study English is as follows:

I listen to a song and if I really like the song, I will use it as study materials. This is crucial as I usually only study with one song at a time and will sometimes listen to the song over one hundred times. I find songs to use in my studying on the internet. I usually search for songs by the singers I admire on YouTube.

I try and sing along with the music as soon as possible. Singing along with the music is included in every step of this learning process.

I find the lyrics and sing along while looking at the lyrics. While I do this, I pay special attention to the singer’s pronunciation.

I look up words and phrases in the dictionary and compare the dictionary pronunciation with the pronunciation found in the song. If the pronunciation in the song and the dictionary is different, I try to learn both.

I will often look up the history of the song and try to develop a deeper understanding of how the song was written and why. This is especially interesting when listening to hip-hop and has helped me to better understand social issues that are sung about in the songs.

To test my understanding and memory, I will write down as much of the lyrics of a song as I can in my free time. I also translate the sentence I am learning into Japanese and rephrase the word in a different way to make sure I truly understand the sentence.

I mainly use the new vocabulary or phrases I learn by trying to describe the experiences I have and the things I see in my daily life in English. I tend to do this in my head, as it allows me to repeat the sentences many times without seeming strange to the people I am talking with.

Using songs to study English is only one of the ways I study English. However, I think that learning a language is an ongoing process that can last for a student’s entire life. Therefore, it is important that every student find a way to study which can keep them interested in and motivated to continue learning. For me, using music I love to study English helps me stay motivated. While I believe that using music is a useful way to improve English ability, even more important is students finding something they love which allows them to keep studying English. In the end, enjoying what you do is the best way to insure that you will get better at it.

References

Gilakjani, A. P., & Ahmadi, M. R. (2011). A study of factors affecting EFL Learners’ English listening comprehension and the strategies for improvement. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 2(5), pp. 977–988.

Chapter 19. How I Study English on the Train

Kento Miyoshi, Clark Memorial International High School

I think that using a textbook to study is important for us as English students. But enjoying studying is also important. I go to my high school by train every day. It takes about 1 hour to go to school from my house. During my train ride, I have found that using media to study English is an interesting way for me to learn and keep my motivation high. I have two ways to study using media.

One way is using YouTube videos. First, I pick up a YouTube video which I think looks interesting. I like science and astronomy videos. I do not worry about the English level of the video, therefore sometimes it’s difficult to understand. That is why I always watch videos with subtitles because when I cannot clearly hear some words or phrases, I can still easily look up new words or phrases by reading and identifying them in the subtitles.

When looking up a word or phrase, I use Weblio as my main dictionary. I recommend Weblio because it is easier to find phrases than with an electronic dictionary. For example, in one video, I identified the phrase “stable environment” and was able to quickly find it in the Weblio dictionary.

After I have looked up a word or phrase, I add the new words or phrases to a Quizlet set I make for that specific video. Quizlet is an online version of word cards. Sometimes if a phrase is really useful in daily conversation, I will also add the new vocabulary to my Quizlet set of daily conversation vocabulary. Some examples of words I have added to my daily conversation set are: “gas pedal” and “petrol station”.

The second way I use media is with Apple Music. I do not choose music just for studying English. Primarily I chose songs that I like and so I study the English that I find in these songs. I use Apple Music because you can scroll down and read the lyrics while listening to the music. But you cannot copy the lyrics in Apple Music, so I have type new vocabulary into the Weblio Search bar. Actually, this is time consuming. On the other hand, if students use other music apps, they will probably have to search for the lyrics on the internet and will have to use two apps at the same time.

With both videos and music, in my opinion, the most important thing is that students look up phrases and try to actively add them to their spoken and written vocabulary. When I learn phrases, not only do I feel that I can learn English better and more quickly, I also feel that it really helps me to speak naturally.

I often use the vocabulary I have learned from music and short YouTube videos with my language exchange friends from the United States. I feel it is easier to communicate with my friends in English after studying English through using songs and YouTube videos. In the future, I plan to use longer videos such as feature length movies. These movies contain spoken English phrases which I believe will be more useful in daily conversation.

In conclusion, to use media effectively and to enjoy studying English I believe students should: 1) Find the media they like 2) Don’t worry about the level of English in the media 3) Make sure to read the subtitles or lyrics while listening 4) Have a dictionary which is good for searching for phrases 5) Have a system to study vocabulary. I recommend Quizlet.

Because if students can have a good time when they study English, every time they study will be like a wonderful journey, even if they are only on the train going to school.

Chapter 20. Let me be ME

Yuki Azuma, Ritsumeikan High School

I presented about gender identity at the Learners about Learning Conference. I spoke about being genderless. In addition, I spoke about having clothes particularly school uniforms that are neither masculine nor feminine.

Genderless means a certain group of people who do not associate with either gender. We are seeing more and more people in the world identifying as being genderless especially with young people. However, revealing one’s gender is difficult to do for some people. If the word, “genderless” was used more often in Japan, the concept of gender would change. There is no wall between the two genders. It can be related to LGBTQ+, or people who cannot define themselves as male or female. In other words, they can be defined as gender neutral.

According to Dentsu Diversity Lab's "LGBT Survey in 2015", those who were recognized as LGBT were at least 7.6%, which is almost the same as the ratio of left-handed or AB-type people in Japan. As research like this increase, we cannot say that the number of people who are recognized as LGBT it is not significant anymore.

Some people cannot be defined with the typical gender criteria - male or female. It is confusing because society needs us to define the gender of a person in most things we do, for example, job applications, homeroom class lists and so on.

The recognition of gender has been slow in Japan, but it has changed in different countries like the USA. On Facebook USA, people were offered 50 kinds of genders as an option for choosing gender. They decided to offer this service because they want to care about the users who feel uncomfortable when they connect to Facebook. This is one of the progresses to change the concept of gender.

Nowadays, genderless style in fashion is becoming popular. Girls can wear men’s clothes and boys can wear skirts or make-up. This means that not all clothes are classified as polarized gender. Some models are claiming how genderless style is important in this disconnected society, and some broadcasts and magazines treat the genderless style of clothes as a popular fashion style.

Despite this, we, Japanese teenagers have one big problem of gender: uniforms. Most Japanese schools require their students to wear a uniform which has been determined by gender. Girls have to wear a skirt and ribbon, and boys have to wear pants and a necktie. Some schools accept and take care of transgendered students, but I believe that there is a high possibility of sexual discrimination. For transgendered students, some schools admit the change of uniforms or prepare rooms especially when changing clothes. However, there are few schools that accept transgendered students and take some action for them. Recently, some schools are offering genderless uniforms for the students, but this act is not related to boys who want to wear skirts. Honestly speaking, schools do not think beyond gender when they make uniforms.

We are always tied up by gender roles. Most obvious example is fashion, and the uniform is one of the easiest understandable things to explain why fashion is the most obvious to explain gender roles. Gender forces us to act either as male or female, nothing else. When society labels a person as male or female, it hinders basic human freedoms for self-expression. I do not need to be labeled as a man if I compare my fashion with no one. I want to be identified as gender neutral. Fashion is the easiest form of self-expression, so why should we confine ourselves to the old way of thinking – male and female? I hope people will be released from the bias of gender as soon as possible.

Chapter 21. My Opinion about Japanese Education and Globalization

Yu Tsuchisaka, Ritsumeikan High School

I would like to explain my experience from living in foreign countries. I think the experiences of my past are undeniable. I was raised abroad. I moved to Taiwan soon after I was born. These are the places I have lived in: Hong Kong, Shanghai, Taiwan, and Germany. When I say this to my classmates, they think I am not Japanese, and it makes them confused. Also, I used to go to international school, and this is one of the reasons why I can speak English as well as Chinese. I went to five different elementary schools which means that I changed school almost every year. I had to move because of my father’s work. However, I go to a Japanese high school right now.

I came back to Japan six years ago. I was 10 years old at that time. On my first day of school in Japan, I felt that I was really going to start my new life in Japan. The first thing I saw in the school assembly was everyone sitting on the floor holding their knees. Every single student was sitting in the same way and it left me with a great impression. During lunchtime, some of the students began to dish out food wearing weird looking hats and aprons and after lunch we had to clean our classrooms. But I kind of knew these kinds of things by reading books and watching TV. This was like a dream for me. However, the most surprising thing was that I was not able to have a drink during class. This, I thought did not make any sense. Why are we not allowed to drink even though we get thirsty? Also, we had to wear a large name tag on our P.E. clothes. This, I found a bit funny. Many things seemed to be strange to me. However, I was filled with curiosity too.

By experiencing my school life in Japan and other countries, it made me think how the Japanese education and Japan’s approach to globalization should be changed. When I came back to Japan, I was surprised at the education system in Japan, especially pertaining to joint responsibility, for example, when one of the students broke a rule, we all had to reflect even others did not break the rule. To tell the truth, I could not understand the reason why we had to be responsible for other people and I felt like teachers were controlling us. Because of this I was not able to talk with teachers honestly and I noticed that maybe it is not only myself who cannot say the truth. When I was in international school, I was close to my teacher almost like a friend. So, my idea is to make more time for students and teachers to communicate. I think this would be a great chance for both teachers and students to know more about each other. The other idea is to make time for teachers to go abroad (as a teacher) as well. Adults can see the world in other ways and teach us what they saw.

I have been talking about changing other people’s minds, but the most important thing is trying to change the situation by ourselves. So, I came up with a new project. In this project we will use social media (a new app). Why I chose to use social media is because it is essential for teenagers. Teenagers will share by writing down their ideas and thoughts. This will give more opportunities to praise each other and just be honest about what we think. We can write anything we want at any time. It can be really simple. These words would be sent to the education institution so that they can improve the Japanese education system.

As I mentioned before, another area that I would like to see change in Japan is its approach to globalization. These days, globalization has been necessary to Japan to compete in the global economy. But I think this does not mean just to learn how to speak English or to study abroad. I understand that going overseas would be a great experience, but this is not the only thing we can do. Especially in my school, there are many international fairs such as Japan Super Science Fair (JSSF) and Rits Super Global Forum (RSGF). We get a chance to communicate with foreign students. However, this could cause some problems between Japanese students and foreign students because of their understanding of the characteristics of Japanese people. One example of the characteristics is that Japanese people always try to consider the other person's feelings and act accordingly. Reading the other’s mind is important, but usually when we travel overseas, we have to speak frankly to the other person, or they will not get it. I heard a story from my friend before. She told me that when she did a homestay, she ate something she actually did not like without telling her host family. Her attitude to her host family might be thought as good manners in Japan but she might have had a better experience if she would have politely told the truth to her host family.

One of the problems Japan is facing now is depopulation. Its population is decreasing and decreasing while the number of its elderly people is increasing. In order to solve this problem, we have to accept immigrants from other countries, but this is not happening in Japan right now. 84% of people in Japan disagree with inviting immigrants (Mag2News, 2015). If we compare the number of immigrants we invite to other developed countries, it is incomparable. Can we say Japan is becoming more globalized in this situation? Inviting immigrants would be essential. Young people like myself see the need for immigrants in our work force. I believe that young people who get a global education have to spread what they learned to the elderly people in this aging society. If we do this, maybe we can convince them to be more accepting of immigrant workers. This can stop the falling population.

Lastly, as a teenager we should be more responsible about the community in which we are living at this moment. The first thing we have to do is to know the situation in Japan. We are the ones whom great things are expected from in the future and living in a society between the generations.

These are my thoughts about global education in Japan. I hope we can continue to strive for a stronger education system in Japan.

References

Mag2News. (2015). 80％以上が移民受け入れ反対！ アンケートで明らかになった日本の課題 [ Over 80% oppose accepting immigrants! Issues in Japan revealed by questionnaire]. Mag2News. https://www.mag2.com/p/news/9105

Chapter 22. You Can Change the World for a Better Place

Shizuka Seko, Ritsumeikan High School

I am Shizuka Seko. I am 18 years old, and now I am a senior in the Super Science Global Program at Ritsumeikan High School. At my school, there is a course of study called “Super Science Global” which specializes in courses in the scientific field and offers its students many opportunities to participate in overseas study programs. From now I will tell you about my personal story and how my motivation to study changed.

Before I entered high school, I hated studying so much, but I liked taking English class. When I had to speak English, I could be different from the Japanese me. In my school there are many opportunities to use English with people who come from other parts of the world. My school gives us a lot of chances to talk with people from around the world, and I did not want to waste those chances. I wanted to take in as much as I could. Most of my friends were shy to talk in English, but I took this chance to improve my English skills. I always tried to talk with the foreigners even though it was difficult. I could feel learning was fun for me only at this time. This active learning style made me think about studying. It was different than studying in a classroom.

One day in English class, my teacher was talking about the poor education system in other countries. It made me start to think about how I could help them. After I graduated from junior high school, I met the girl who would change my mind dramatically. We have known each other since primary school but this time was my first time to talk with her a lot. From that day onward, we always spent time together. Every day after classes she told me how beautiful math was. Her positiveness never stopped. At first, it was creepy for me because on the contrary, I really do not like math. But she kept telling me, “You should be more positive that you have time to study”. Then I started to be positive about my classes. I never used to do this, but it did not take me such a long time to realize how much learning meant to me.

In this world, there are many people who cannot have an education like us. According to the BBC News, 57,000,000 children cannot go to school, and 781,000,000 adults cannot read or write letters. This is what is happening in the world today. I do not want you to think this is just a number. Most of my friends do not like to study, but one important thing is that you have to bear in mind is that you have a responsibility. We have the power to change this serious situation by utilizing our education system. I am contributing to the world by telling the truth. I believe that some people’s mind will be changed by listening to my story. My views were changed because of my best friend. It means that I can change another person’s mind like she has done to me. This is such an easy thing if students can motivate each other, and it may lead the world to a brighter future. What are you waiting for? Let’s make a better world for tomorrow.

References

UN calls for change as 57 million children have no school (2014, January 30). BBC News. https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/25935185

Hammer, K. (2012, September 7). Global rate of adult literacy: 84 per cent, but 775 million people still can’t read. The Globe and Mail

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/global-rate-of-adult-literacy-84-per-cent-but-775-million-people-still-cant-read/article4528932/