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in Language Education and Research
http://eliworkingpapers.org/SUPPORTING INDEPENDENT STUDY IN
THE CLASSROOM	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  ISSN 2187-4972	  	  Rochelle King
Corresponding author:rochelle-k@kanda.kuis.ac.jp	  Publication date: February, 2013

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King, R. (2013). Supporting independent study in the classroom.
Working Papers in Language Education and Research, 1 (1), 30 - 42Scroll down for article

Working	  Papers	  in	  Language	  Education	  and	  Research	  Vol.1	  No.1.	  February	  2013,	  30-­‐	  42	  	  SUPPORTING INDEPENDENT STUDY IN THE CLASSROOMRochelle King
Kanda University of International Studies

ABSTRACTIn addition to improving their language skills, language students also need todevelop their learner autonomy in order to take more control over theirlearning. At Kanda University of International Studies, there is a strong focus
on helping students become more autonomous, and many of the curriculums
include classroom activities that also promote learner autonomy. In this paper I
will introduce and discuss two classroom activities I developed to better
scaffold my students in becoming more independent learners. The first activity
is an adaptation of the required Independent Study activity in the Freshman
English program, and the second activity focuses on raising students’awareness of learning strategies they can use as part of their independent study
activity. Through these activities, students learned how to plan and complete
successful independent study projects, and increase their awareness of usefullearning strategies.

1. INTRODUCTION
This paper is a written report of a workshop I gave at CAMTESOL 2012. The purposeof the workshop was to introduce and discuss classroom materials I developed as part of theindependent study component of my Freshman English class. Examples of student work andreflections were also presented in order to illustrate how students’ independent study skills
developed over the course of an academic year.
2. BACKGROUNDFreshman English (FE) is a required two semester class for all incoming EnglishDepartment students at Kanda University of International Studies. In addition to teaching
students language skills, another goal of the curriculum is helping students develop greater
learner autonomy. In order to achieve this goal, students are required to plan and complete an30	  	  	  Working	  Papers	  in	  Language	  Education	  and	  Research	  Vol.1	  No.1.	  February	  2013,	  30-­‐	  42	  	  independent study project during the Orientation Unit which is taught during the first fiveweeks of the first semester.
In past years when I did the independent study activity with my students, I always felt
it was too rushed and left students more confused than autonomous. For many students thisactivity is the first time they have planned their own independent study project, so one cycle
is not enough practice for them to become confident in their ability to do independent study
on their own. Further, with only one cycle, students did not see the benefits of reflection
because they did not use their reflections to make changes to their independent study
activities. It often felt like the project was left half finished. Additionally, I realized thatstudents often knew what skill they wanted to work on, but they had difficulty thinking of
good activities they could use.
In my opinion, my students were not receiving enough training or scaffolding tosuccessfully complete the independent study activity. For this reason, I developed twoclassroom activities that would better support students in developing their independent skills.
First, I modified the standard independent study activity so that the activity reflections drew
the students’ attention to what type of problems they had and how they could avoid thoseproblems in the future. I also changed from a one-cycle activity in the Orientation Unit to one
cycle per unit totaling in six complete cycles over the course of the academic year. This gave
students more opportunities to reflect on and make changes to their independent learning
activities and experience how the benefits of the entire learning process.
In addition to the independent study activity modifications, I also sought to raise
students’ awareness of learning strategies by making it a regular habit to end each classreviewing what activities the students had used and what skills they had practiced. Students
also discussed in small groups what activities they enjoyed and how they could adapt them to31	  	  	  Working	  Papers	  in	  Language	  Education	  and	  Research	  Vol.1	  No.1.	  February	  2013,	  30-­‐	  42	  	  be used outside of the classroom as part of their independent study. Students then reported
their ideas to the class, and finally, students were given a few minutes to record activities they
were interested in trying in their learning strategy journals.
The learning strategy journal is a document I created to provide students with apermanent place to write down learning strategies they had tried or wanted to try. My
students would often tell me that they wanted to study on their own outside of class, but they
did not know what activities to do. Even though they were exposed to a large number and awide variety of activities throughout the year, they reported not being able to remember theactivities later because they had not written them down. Additionally, although they had said
they did not enjoy or think that an activity helped them improve their language, they wouldcontinue to do the activity because they either forgot their past experiences or could not thinkof other activities they could try.
Using the learning strategy journal, students can keep a record of the learning
strategies they have learned. The journal is organized into eight skill areas (speaking,listening, reading, writing, pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary), and in each section
there are spaces for students to record the activity name, step-by-instructions, necessary
materials, time needed to complete the activity, a 5-star rating system, a reflection, and subskills. When students want to do an activity on their own, they can easily look through theirjournal to find activities for the skill they want to practice. They can also confirm that theyhave the necessary materials and sufficient time to complete the activity. Finally, they canalso look at their past reflections to help them remember if they liked the activity, or if theyneeded to make any changes to the activity.

32	  	  	  Working	  Papers	  in	  Language	  Education	  and	  Research	  Vol.1	  No.1.	  February	  2013,	  30-­‐	  42	  	  In the next section of this paper, I will introduce and discuss selected students’
independent learning activities and passages from learning strategy journals that illustrate
how students used and benefited from these two classroom activities.
3. DISCUSSION
3.1 Independent Learning Cycles
After six cycles of independent study, there is evidence that students showed betterself-reflection skills and the ability to make changes to their learning plans in order to better
achieve their learning goals. For example, Student 1 wanted to improve her vocabulary skills,
so as part of her independent study she decided to use a music activity. In her first activity log(See Figure 1), she planned the activity, and after five weeks of doing the activity she
reflected on it. In her reflection she wrote that she enjoyed the activity because she likes
music, however, since she did not do the activity according to her plan, she did not improve
her vocabulary skills. She also wrote that to improve the activity, she should look at the song
lyrics while she listened to the song.

33	  	  	  Working	  Papers	  in	  Language	  Education	  and	  Research	  Vol.1	  No.1.	  February	  2013,	  30-­‐	  42	  	  Figure 1. Cycle 1 vocabulary activity plan and reflection from Sstudent 1

In the next cycle, Student 1 chose to continue her music activity (See Figure 2). She
did not change her activity plan, but in her reflection at the end of the cycle she noted that thistime she did look at the lyrics while listening. Even though she had solved one problem, she
discovered another. She was using a computer to look up the lyrics, but she sometimes did
the activity when she was not near a computer, so the activity was not always successful.
Although she recognized that this activity was still problematic and might not be helping her34	  	  	  Working	  Papers	  in	  Language	  Education	  and	  Research	  Vol.1	  No.1.	  February	  2013,	  30-­‐	  42	  	  improve her vocabulary, she still wanted to continue the activity because she enjoyed it. She
reflected again on how she could fix the problem and this time decided she would print out or
write down the lyrics which would allow her to do this activity whenever and wherever shewanted.

Figure 2. Cycle 2 vocabulary activity plan and reflection from Student 1
In cycle 3, Student 1 changed her learning plan to include the initial step of looking
up and printing or writing down the lyrics (See Figure 3). At the end of the cycle, she
acknowledges that the current activity plan works well and that she still enjoyed the activity.
She also realized that this activity could help her improve her pronunciation if she sang thesongs out loud. Finally, she also wrote that this activity was improving her listening skills but
not her vocabulary skills, so she decided not to continue this activity in the next cycle since it
was not helping her achieve her learning goals. By going through the independent study cycle
35	  	  	  Working	  Papers	  in	  Language	  Education	  and	  Research	  Vol.1	  No.1.	  February	  2013,	  30-­‐	  42	  	  multiple times, this student was able to use her reflections to change her study plan so that itbetter fit her needs, and in the end she was able to realize that a good activity was not the best
activity for her learning goals.

Figure 3. Cycle 3 vocabulary activity plan and reflection from student 1
Another student also identified vocabulary as her primary goal, but she decided to use
vocabulary cards as her activity. After five weeks of doing this activity, she wrote that she
enjoyed the activity and wanted to continue it, but she could improve it if she made example
sentences using the words she learned (See Figure 4). In the next learning cycle, she changed
her learning plan to include a step where she practiced using the words she learned (SeeFigure 5). In her reflections, she wrote that she tried to use the words in class and that she felt
the activity was helping her improve her language, but she did not enjoy the activity because

36	  	  	  Working	  Papers	  in	  Language	  Education	  and	  Research	  Vol.1	  No.1.	  February	  2013,	  30-­‐	  42	  	  it was just memorizing. She also wrote that she did not want to continue the activity because
she was tired of the activity and had other activities she wanted to try. This student wasdoing a common vocabulary activity many students use, but through reflection she was ableto recognize that the traditional method of drilling the words was not effective. She madechanges to the original activity and was satisfied with how it went, but by that time in theyear she had grown tired of this approach and wanted to try other activities she had
discovered, so she chose to quit this activity. Again, without completing multiple cycles, thisstudent may have continued using the flawed activity indefinitely.

Figure 4. Cycle 1 vocabulary activity plan and reflection from student 237	  	  	  Working	  Papers	  in	  Language	  Education	  and	  Research	  Vol.1	  No.1.	  February	  2013,	  30-­‐	  42	  	  Figure 5. Cycle 2 vocabulary activity plan and reflection from student 2

2.1 Learning Strategy Awareness
The following are three examples of learning strategy journal entries from threedifferent students. The first entry is a grammar activity the student had discovered during a38	  	  	  Working	  Papers	  in	  Language	  Education	  and	  Research	  Vol.1	  No.1.	  February	  2013,	  30-­‐	  42	  	  class activity (See Figure 6). He enjoyed the classroom activity and wanted to do it again, soat the end of the class period, he and his group adapted the activity for independent study.
After their discussion, he wrote about it in his journal in order to remember the activity andhow to do it. Later he did the activity on his own using his own materials and wrote areflection about it. In his reflection he notes that the school’s Self-Access Learning Center(SALC) had similar materials that he could use so he did not have to create his own materials.
He also noted that in addition to grammar, he could also improve his vocabulary and listening
skills. By writing down the classroom activity in his journal, this student was able to see how
activities done in the classroom are not confined to the classroom and could be done on hisown.

Figure 6. Student learning strategy journal, class activity

Next, in addition to discussing classroom activities, students also had the opportunity a few
times a semester to exchange learning activities with each other and add them to their39	  	  	  Working	  Papers	  in	  Language	  Education	  and	  Research	  Vol.1	  No.1.	  February	  2013,	  30-­‐	  42	  	  journals. The next entry is an example of a student who wrote down a writing activity helearned from a classmate during one of these exchanges (See Figure 7). After hearing about
his classmate’s experience, he became interested in the activity and decided to try it. In hisreflection about the activity he noted that he changed the activity to better suit his study
habits. The original activity was to simply write a journal entry in English each day, but thisstudent enjoyed using social media, so he decided to write his journal in English on the socialmedia site, Twitter. After making this change, he wrote that the activity was simple and thathe enjoyed it, so in the future he can remember the changes he made and that he wanted to do
this kind of activity again.

Figure 7. Student learning strategy journal, classmate recommendation
Finally, I also encouraged students to look for activities in the places they studied, or in
the materials that they used. The next example is from a student who spent a lot of time in theSALC doing homework and talking to friends but did not use many of the materials. One day
he decided to explore the SALC for new learning activities, and he discovered this activity(See Figure 8). This activity is an idiom card game that he felt helped him remember idioms
40	  	  	  Working	  Papers	  in	  Language	  Education	  and	  Research	  Vol.1	  No.1.	  February	  2013,	  30-­‐	  42	  	  through pictures and guessing, and he gave it a 5-star rating. This student used the learning
strategy journal as an opportunity to explore a familiar place for new ways to learn, and hefound an activity that he enjoyed which he might have never found otherwise.

Figure 8. Student learning strategy journal, SALC activity
In general terms, there is evidence that by becoming more aware of learning strategies
they could use to study, and by having a place to record their activities, students were able toimprove their independent learning. They also became more aware of the different activities
that they can do, and that they could change these activities to better meet their own needs.
Also, students now, through this classroom intervention, had a way to organize and remember
the activities they tried or wanted to try, and when they wanted to do an activity, they knewthat they could refer to their journals for ideas. By the end of the year, my students had eachcreated a personal book filled with activities they had tried and reviewed that they could use
in the future.

41	  	  	  Working	  Papers	  in	  Language	  Education	  and	  Research	  Vol.1	  No.1.	  February	  2013,	  30-­‐	  42	  	  4. CONCLUSION
In conclusion, these two small changes I made to classroom materials and how I
taught and managed the required independent study activity seemed to help students reflect
more deeply about their independent study and improve their study skills. There is evidence
that they learned the importance of completing the entire learning process because they weregiven the opportunity to complete several cycles where they planned, did, reflected and replanned activities. Additionally, as students searched for new activities they could add totheir journal, they had the opportunity to become more aware of the wide variety of learning
strategies they could use in their independent study. They discovered many activities thatthey might not have otherwise tried if they did not take time to look for and record them.
Often students want to study on their own but they report that they do not know how to do it,so there is a tendency for them to either give up, or to not even try. Even though independent
study is done outside of the classroom, it is important for teachers to support students throughclassroom activities in order to ensure that students have a positive, successful experience.
The activities introduced in this paper are simple ways that teachers can scaffold studentswhile still allowing them a certain degree of autonomy. After doing these activities, students
may be more likely to try independent study having first learned how to do it in the classroom.

5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank RILS & LE for their support in helping me attend CAMTESOL for thispresentation.

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