LD SIG Realizing Autonomy Conference Proceedings

SELF -TA L K O F A TU RT L E : AU T O N O M Y I NC R E ATING A C HA P T E R
Naoko HaradaThis essay explores the psychological journey that I undertook as a writer of a bookchapter in Realizing Autonomy: Practice and Reflection in Language Education
Contexts. The key to completing the chapter in my case was balancing the two
dialectical elements, independence and collaboration, under the framework ofautonomy. Inspired by an image of a turtle in Tim Murphey’s plenary session at theRealizing Autonomy (RA) Conference in October 2011, I reflect on my own mental
process in the writing project.
Realizing Autonomy (RA)の一章を完成させる過程においての書き手としての自律性と執筆グループの一員としての協調性の大切さに焦点を当てたエッセイである。２０
１１年１０月のRA Conferenceの基調講演でティム・マーフィー氏が提示した亀に関する謎かけを踏まえ、肯定的な独り言の効用について考察する。

A Turtle Trying to Fly
At the Realizing Autonomy Conference, Tim asked the audience at the beginning of his lecture
to think of ways to fill the blanks in the following sentence:"

Why is a _____ trying to fly more beautiful than a _____ sitting in a tree?

The audience came together in small groups to discuss possible answers to this and other gapfill questions, but no one around me came up with Tim’s answer, “Why is a turtle trying to fly
more beautiful than a bird sitting in a tree?” COBUILD’s Advanced Dictionary of American
English defines a turtle as “any reptile that has a thick shell around its body, for example atortoise or terrapin, and can pull its whole body into its shell” (pp. 1405-1406). It is a creaturethat has the capacity to either walk or swim, but it cannot fly by itself. Tim’s question made usrealize that even with little possibility of flying, the sight of a turtle making every eﬀort tofulfill its dream is beautiful.
On hearing Tim’s answer, I thought, “Certainly a turtle with strong motivation can make aneﬀort night and day. It will impress its friends. But some of its friends may think it issomewhat ridiculous and call it reckless.” However, by the end of the presentation, I came toSpecial Issue of Learning Learning, Volume 19, Issue 2, July 2012（学習の学習特別号）!

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like the idea of the turtle. Murphey (2010) states, “…we become excited with our creative
agency (autonomy, independence) to increase control over our world. The fun of increasing it ismore exciting than getting there (p. 10).” In other words, the process of working toward a goal
autonomously has value by itself. If I were the turtle, even if I could not succeed in my mission
to fly, I would have learned something new. By practicing step by step
continuously, I might someday be able to collaborate with the crane, my dance
partner in Noh. Turtles, representing longevity and prosperity, are deeply
rooted in the Japanese cultural context, as in the example of the Nohplay, Tsurukame (Crane and Turtle) and as an image on congratulatory
messages (Sugiura & Gillespie, 2004). In line with this, the turtle thatlives 10,000 years, according to the Japanese legend, may find a way tofly with the help of birds, technology, or merely by luck.
In his lecture, Tim also told us about the importance of continuing to be curious and of getting
students to use a lot of self-talk to ask questions and think. Morin (1993) defines self-talk asverbally identifying self-information that is inherent to the individual (p. 230) and suggests thatit shapes our thoughts, feelings and behaviors in a great variety of ways (p. 223).
Self-talk was one of the themes of my poster presentation during the afternoon of theconference. In the following sections, I would like to explain the background of how using theHarry Potter series in my chapter and in the presentation led me to think about self-talk andits role in learner autonomy.
The Entertainment HookIn November 2008, I was sitting at the LD SIG display table at the JALT National Conference
chatting to Ellen Head about my forthcoming presentation, Learning Identity in Harry Potter’sClass and Mine, which was to take place in a few hours. I told her how much my students, who
had already read the Japanese translation, wanted to read the Harry Potter series in English
and how their passion motivated me to show scenes from the movie followed by reading
passages from Rowling’s book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, in the original Englishin the classroom. My teaching idea was to focus on the scene in which Harry’s classmate,Neville, the least confident student in Professor Lupin’s class, succeeds in performing a spell infront of the class to chase away a shape-shifter that embodies his fears. On hearing this, Ellenremarked it had both the entertainment hook and a bit of interaction analysis of how people
learn to control their fear.
My decision to use the Harry Potter series as an entertainment hook for students is not without
precedent. Belcher and Stephenson (2011) introduce the story of Allegra, a third-year special
education teacher in a middle school in the United States, who has used audio books of Harry
Potter with her students. One of Allegra’s students had similar feelings of alienation from her
foster family to Harry. The connection with Harry provided a strong hook for this student,
motivating her to read ahead at home (p. 129). This student was described as a person who felt

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LD SIG Realizing Autonomy Conference Proceedingsthat Harry Potter had relevance to her life and she showed a keen interest in reading the book,in spite of the fact that her usual performance in other activities in class was far fromoutstanding. Such a reaction is not surprising, as it resonates with my experience of becoming
an adult fan and making it my major research theme, and reflects the popularity of the series
worldwide.
In August 2010, the New York Public Library was oﬀering nearly 7,000 copies of Rowling’s
books mostly in English but also in languages ranging from Arabic to Japanese. In addition, theU.S. publisher Scholastic’s website, as of December, 2011, stated that the seven novels of theHarry Potter series had been translated into 68 languages and had sold over 400 million copies.
These numbers provide a glimpse of the global Harry Potter phenomenon.

Think-Aloud
It is worth noting that including self-talk in our activities is regarded as a useful strategy to
reduce pressure and anxiety. Experiments conducted by the California Institute of Technology
suggest that sound can actually change vision (Highfield, 2002). When participants were showna single flash accompanied by several beeps, some of them wrongly perceived them as severalflashes. This study indicates that the brain processes information from each sense separatelyand builds up a picture of events around us, allowing us to see what we hear (p. 157). If we canuse our voices more beneficially, it could help us to be more productive in accomplishing ourtasks. A good example is Hurd’s (2007) study of distance French language learners. During
think-aloud protocols, learners who uttered positive expressions, such as “OK good” or “I’mhappy with that” (p. 250), were better able to access their thought processes. The think-aloudprotocols also indicated the negative eﬀects of utterances expressing diﬃculty, uncertainty,frustration and confusion.
These two studies suggest that we tend to listen to our own words almost subconsciously andthat, if we utter positive words to ourselves, they will influence our feelings and behaviors. I
will now focus on self-talk that leads to a positive state of mind.

Positive Self-Talk
In the course of writing up my chapter for Realizing Autonomy, I came to see that healthy selftalk was eﬀective when I needed a breakthrough. Since I was the sole author of the chapter, atfirst, I felt the burden of responsibility for completing my chapter was mine alone. The furtherI dug into the research area of emotions such as anxiety, fear, or worry, the further I walked
into a psychological maze and let my feelings take the driver’s seat. When I came to a deadend, in other words, a writer’s block, my mind was full of can’ts and don’ts. I was focusing on
what seemed diﬃcult to accomplish and drifting further away from my goal of finishing thechapter. The editors of our group sensed the negative spiral I was in and advised me to focus
on my research question. They gave me timely advice by introducing useful references andSpecial Issue of Learning Learning, Volume 19, Issue 2, July 2012（学習の学習特別号）!

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sending me words of encouragement. I was ready to explore answers to my research question
again.
A similar use of self-talk is seen in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the story that I usedwith my students. When the frightening sound of a boggart in the wardrobe caused sometension in Harry’s class, Professor Lupin reassured the students with the phrase, “Nothing toworry about.” In my chapter, I mentioned the example of a student in my own classroom who
uses the same phrase as a way of reducing tension and encouraging herself when she is alone(Harada, 2011, p. 203). This self-talk is important for this student for helping her to relax andconcentrate on her task.
During my poster presentation, Tim instantly identified my student’s tension-reducing activity
as positive hitori goto (self-talk). Psychology specialists writing in a Stress and Internal Self-Talk
section on the Stress Management for Health Course website point out that, among the 50,000
thoughts we automatically have in a day, a healthy internal self-talk ratio is around two positive
thoughts to every one negative thought, and this can influence our feelings and behaviors(para. 1 and para. 6). In other words, people tend to have twice as many positive thoughts asnegative ones. Experts also claim that under chronic stress, our thinking becomes morenegative. However, we can change our thinking by positive self-talk, which is more realistic andoptimistic, and this can help reduce our stress (para. 12). Thus, encouraging ourselves to do
positive self-talk and lowering our stress will ultimately contribute to our mental health.
Looking back, I sometimes experienced negative thoughts and anxiety while drafting mychapter for the book. I was putting pressure on myself at times when I needed to relax. To
improve this situation, I tried out two things. One was to vocalize “Nothing to worry about”
while facing the computer screen on a day when I had made only a little progress. Saying thisto myself provided me with an opportunity to detach myself from a chain of negative thoughts.
It reoriented me toward my aim of completing my draft.
The other was to entirely trust my two editors. I said to myself, “If my editors believe that thischapter will be completed and if they are planning to send the drafts to the publisher, I should
trust them rather than my present negative feelings.” This worked to some extent, since I
could clearly picture them sending out a package of all the chapters to the publisher when
everything was ready. I realized my hope was to share with my readers the joy of introducing
Harry Potter into classrooms and to explain how the movie scenes and paperback books could
create the flow moment, the state in which people are involved in an activity where nothingelse matters to them (Csikszentmihalyi, 1999/2008, p. 4). All I had to do was write.
Collaboration in Reviewing
While each author wrote their chapter independently, when it came to reviewing the drafts, all
the authors worked cooperatively. This activity helped to create a balance between theindividual autonomy of the writers and collaboration of peers in suggesting revisions to eachother’s drafts. I benefitted greatly from reading my colleagues’ drafts and learned how to makeSpecial Issue of Learning Learning, Volume 19, Issue 2, July 2012（学習の学習特別号）!

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clearer comments through this experience. Moreover, I felt privileged to have my initial drafts
read by my colleagues in the Learner Development SIG research community. While Joseph P.
Siegel gave insightful comments and taught me what reader-friendly writing means, Stacey Vye,exercising her experiences as a writing teacher, annotated one of my initial drafts with words
that energized me.
Through interaction and comments from both colleagues in this project, I found myself in theposition of my students who wait for their assignments to be returned with their teacher’scomments. I had much to learn from my fellow writers’ professionalism in analyzing, advising,praising, and sharing. Casanave (2009) writes that, in our development as teachers and as
researchers, the ability to see our classes as our students do, and the ability to see our writing
through the eyes of our readers are two important perspectives we should try to take (p. 5). I
was lucky to experience both in this writing project.

Balancing Autonomy and Collaboration
Through the book project, I managed to learn how to write a chapter solo. If I had notexperienced and overcome my writer’s block with the careful support of the group editors andcolleagues, my paper would not have reached the point of completion. If I had not experienced
the collaboration with my colleagues through peer reading each others’ drafts, I would nothave improved my skills in giving feedback to my students. Consequently, I have learned theimportance of balancing autonomy and collaboration. I would like to conclude this section by
thanking the editors in our group for guiding me throughout the writing process, theconference organizing team for their Herculean work organizing the RA conference, and allother members supporting us to publish the book. Through this project, we have realized
stronger ties in our educational community. With a pioneer spirit, a willingness to collaborate,
and positive self-talk, even turtles might fly.

Naoko Harada teaches at the Senior High School Affiliated with Japan Women’s University. Her
academic interests lie in the areas of EFL materials development and global issues. She has been studying
the application of the Harry Potter books and movies in classes to promote confidence in learning English.
Related to the Realizing Autonomy book chapter, an article in the JALT2010 Conference Proceedings
highlights an episode 'om the sixth Harry Potter volume on luck and eﬀort.
To cite this article: Harada, N. (2012). Self-talk of a turtle: Autonomy in creating a chapter. In K. Irie & A.
Stewart (Eds.), Proceedings of the JALT Learner Development SIG Realizing Autonomy Conference, [Specialissue] Learning Learning, 19(2), 70-75. Retrieved from http://ld-sig.org/LL/19two/harada.pdf

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References
Belcher, C. L., & Stephenson, B. H. (2011). Teaching Harry Potter: The power of imagination inmulticultural classrooms. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Casanave, C. P. (2009). Perspective taking. The Language Teacher, 33(7), 3-6.
Collins COBUILD. Advanced dictionary of American English. (2007). Boston: Thomson.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2008). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: HarperPerennial.
Harada, N. (2011). “Nothing to worry about”: Anxiety-reduction strategies in Harry Potter’sclass and mine. In K. Irie & A. Stewart (Eds.), Realizing autonomy: Practice and reflection inlanguage education contexts (pp. 196-209). Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan.
Highfield, R. (2002). The science of Harry Potter. New York: Penguin.
Hurd, S. (2007). Distant voices: Learners’ stories about the aﬀective side of learning a language
at a distance. Innovation in Language and Teaching, 1(2), 242-259.
Murphey, T. (2010). Creating languaging agencing, The Language Teacher, 34(4), 8-11.
Murphey, T. (2011). Autonomy, agency, and social capital: Surfing the altruistic coral reef cafes! Handout
at Realizing Autonomy Conference, October 29, 2011.
Morin, A. (1993). Self-talk and self-awareness: On the nature of the relation. The Journal of Mindand Behavior, 14(3), 223-234.
Montesfinise, A. (2010). Harry Potter: The boy who lives on. Huﬃngton Post, August 6, 2010.
Retrieved from http://www.huﬃngtonpost.com/the-new-york-public-library/the-boy-wholives-on_b_673380.html
Rowling, J. K. (1999). Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban. New York: Scholastic.
Scholastic (2011). THE STACKS. Retrieved from http://harrypotter.scholastic.com/
series_information/
Stress Management for Health Course. (n.d.) Stress and internal self talk. In Stress Managementfor Health Course. Retrieved from http://stresscourse.tripod.com/id101.html
Sugiura, Y., & Gillespie, J. K. (2004). A bilingual handbook on Japanese culture. Retrieved fromhttp://www.japanlink.co.jp/ka/cdobfr.htm

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