Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 28(1): Members’ Voices

Members’ Voices | メンバーの声
Creative Collaboration - Kickstartingthe 21st Century Classroom
Tim Cleminson
Associate Professor, Kawasaki
University of Medical Welfare
Email: <tim@mw.kawasakim.ac.jp>

Intro
Hello everyone, I’m Tim.
My journey to Japan started
off in the UK, when I met and married a lovely Japaneselady in 2000. I came to Japan the following year to learn
more about her life and culture. We’d only planned tostay for a few years. But when the little ones camealong, time just seemed to fly by. I started off as an ALT.
Since then, I have worked in universities for 16 years
teaching English and cultural courses. Even after all thistime, I still feel like I am just starting to gain the culturalcompetency to do my job properly! I take that as apositive because it means there is still so much to
explore and keep me engaged. I am fascinated bycreativity and collaboration, and explore them in myteaching and with informal networks online. I thinkcreativity is a humanizing force that gives a sense ofplace and purpose in life. I am a photographer https://chapinthehat.com. I work with volunteer groups inOkayama and Fukushima. I like to run up hills. I like to
run far.

Research Interest: Creativity and the EFLClassroom
I guess Ken Robinson is one of my educational
heroes. I fell for Ken when I watched his hilarious
takedown of conventional education, ‘Do schools killcreativity?’ (Robinson, 2007). His deep belief in thecreative potential of others hit a chord with me, as did
his observation that education often lionized test
success in highbrow subjects and stigmatizednonacademic forms of creativity. At present, my eldest
daughter is battling through university entrance exams.
For her, English has become a purely academic exerciseof grammar-translation; a matter of ticking the right box.
This notion of English having a right answer can reduce
student autonomy and spontaneity. I believe thatcreative collaboration is a great way to help students

escape the 2D maze of grammar-translation and switch
on their communicative potential.
Creativity has been identified as the cornerstone ofapproaches to 21st Century Skill development (Scott,2015). People often conflate creativity with being
artistic; thinking ‘I’m not artistic, so creativity’s not forme.’ However, creativity is a new, surprising and valuable
contribution in any field of human endeavour (Boden,
2004). It’s just as ‘at home’ in the dark matter ofastrophysics as the Titanium white of Picasso’s Guernica.
We can think of it in terms of creative contributions (newproducts, painting, and ways of thinking); or as a set of
creative behaviours (divergent, convergent, imaginative
thinking) that lead to those contributions. How thesecontributions are valued is culturally dependent withsome cultures prioritizing conceptual novelty, whilst
others prioritize appropriateness (Niu & Sternberg,
2006). So, how does creativity relate to language
learning?
Imagination and creativity can aid learning andcommunication skills. Empathy and social-emotional
imagination allow us to visualize different times, peoples
and perspectives (Gottlieb et al., 2017) and gain adeeper understanding of the human condition (Chappell
et al., 2012). This understanding helps us interpret
others in everyday conversation and communicate
appropriately (Jones, 2016). In addition, language-play
results in memorable phrases that aid understanding
and information retention (Tagg, 2013). So, creative
thinking skills are a fundamental part of communication—creating a mindset that is open to new possibilities
and able to make and retain connections.
In my own practice, I have long focused oncollaborative group work and physical building tasks likethe egg-drop challenge. My university classrooms areoften strewn with newspaper, straws, spaghetti, tape,hastily hashed-out plans, a fair sprinkling of wonky
towers, and broken eggs—all joyful accidents as teams
try to outsmart and entertain each other. These
activities are all about creating spaces for creative play.
Creative play embodies an open mindset and spirit ofengagement. Creative play is an intrinsically motivated,autonomous and interactive process (Cleminson et al.,2019) that facilitates
1.Democratic participation and collaboration
2.Improvisation, risk-taking and emergence
3.Plurality of identity and possibility thinking. (Craft,2012)

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Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 28(1): Members’ Voices
A sense of autonomy, a willingness to improvise andadapt to the situation are essential components of realworld communication. This requires both cognitive
flexibility and psychological resilience. Creative play
enables students to use English whilst collaborating,encountering problems, building solutions, andexperiencing failure and success. These experiences canhelp practice problem solving in English and build
resilience. The question for me then became: How can I
do this in a more structured and meaningful way in the
EFL classroom?

and refine their ideas. Increased student control oflearning promotes inter-learner engagement (Skehan,2003), scaffolded learning (Vygotsky, 1978) and positive
affective states (Sawyer, 2007). In these ways,
collaborative and creative project work provides amethod to practice improvisation and develop
communicative resilience and autonomy. Hence, DT, cancreate dynamic classroom environments that help
students learn language competencies for the globallyconnected and uncertain futures they face.
If any other people are interested in learning more,or share similar research interests, I’d love to chat.
Thanks for reading.

Design Thinking: Communicative and Collaborative
EFL Model

Figure 1. Design Thinking Model
Over the last few years, I have explored thesuitability of Design Thinking (DT) as a communicativeand collaborative model for EFL. Design thinking aims tocreate solutions that users value (IDEO U, 2020; Stanford
d.School, 2010). DT starts with empathetic interviews tounderstand problems from the users’ perspectives.
Design teams then ideate possible solutions in a freethinking and iterative process. Through discussion, thebest possible solution is chosen and a prototype isdeveloped and tested. Based on feedback, the solution
is redesigned and made fit for purpose. So, the DT
process requires collaborative risk taking and divergent
thinking to generate possible solutions and critical andconvergent thinking to make the solution fit for purpose.
When I have implemented courses based on DT, I
have found students to be highly engaged and animatedin their discussions (Cleminson & Cowie, 2019). They
have also come up with some incredibly imaginative
solutions. Empathetic interviews help to develop deeplistening skills and social-emotional imagination.
Iterative design tasks help to develop divergent andconvergent thinking. Collaborative problem solving
promotes communication as students present, discuss,

学習者ディベロプメント研究部会 <http://ld-sig.org>

References
Boden, M. (2004). The creative mind: Myths andmechanisms. Routledge.
Chappell, K., Craft, A. R., Rolfe, L., & Jobbins, V. (2012).
Humanizing creativity: Valuing our journeys of
becoming. International Journal of Education & theArts, 13(8), 1-35 Retrieved from http://
www.ijea.org/v13n8/
Cleminson, T., & Cowie, N. (2019). Design thinking andcreative group engagement in the EFL classroom. In
The Asian conference on language learning 2019:
Official conference proceedings (pp. 361-374).
Retrieved from https://papers.iafor.org/
submission51741/
Cleminson, T., Rennie, K., & Dalling, E. (2019). Defining
creative play: Literature review, part 2 of 3. The
British Council. https://www.britishcouncil.org/
programmes/creative-play/defining-creative-playliterature-review-part-2
Craft, A. (2012). Childhood in a digital age: Creative
challenges for educational futures. London Reviewof Education, 10(2), 173-190.
Gotlieb, R., Jahner, E., Immordino-Yang, M H., &Kaufman, S. B. (2017). How social-emotional
imagination facilitates deep learning and creativity
in the classroom. In R. Beghetto & J. Kaufman(Eds.), Nurturing creativity in the classroom (current
perspectives in social and behavioral sciences (pp.
308-336). Cambridge University Press.
IDEO U. (2020). Design thinking. IDEO U. Retrieved fromhttps://www.ideou.com/pages/design-thinking
Jones, R. (2016). Creativity and language. In R. Jones & J.
Richards (Eds.), Creativity in language teaching:
Perspectives from research and practice (pp.
16-31). Routledge.
Niu, W., & Sternberg, R. J. (2006). The philosophicalroots of western and eastern conceptions of15

Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 28(1): Members’ Voices
creativity. Journal of Theoretical and PhilosophicalPsychology, 26(1-2), 18-38.
Robinson, K. (2007). Do schools kill creativity? [Video].
YouTube. https://youtu.be/iG9CE55wbtY
Sawyer, K. (2007). Group genius: The creative power ofcollaboration. Basic Books.
Scott, C. L. (2015). The futures of learning 2: What kindof learning for the 21st century? UNESCO Education
Research and Foresight, Paris. ERF Working Papers
Series, No. 14.
Skehan, P. (2003). Task based instruction. Language andTeaching, 36(1), 1-14.
Stanford d.School. (2010). An introduction to design
thinking: Process guide. Hasso Plattner Institute of
Design at Stanford University. Retrieved fromhttps://web.stanford.edu/~mshanks/
MichaelShanks/files/509554.pdf
Tagg, C. (2013). Scraping the barrel with a shower ofsocial misfits: Everyday creativity in text messaging.
Applied Linguistics, 34(4), 480–500.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The developmentof higher psychological processes. (M. Cole, V. JohnSteiner, S. Scribner & E. Souberman, Eds.). Harvard
University Press.

Writing classes and thenext generation oftranslational software
Jeffrey Stewart
Tokyo University of Science
Email: <jeffjrstewart@gmail.com>
During a final interview for atenured associate professor position I was met with aquestion that caught me by surprise. The university isbest known for its strength in science and technology,
and this background gives faculty members aninteresting perspective toward the humanities. While I
don't recall the precise and more polite wording of thequestion, the gist of it was: "Given the great advances intranslation software in recent years, it will soon bepossible to automatically translate text and even speechwith great accuracy. If this is the case, why should wegive you a permanent position as an English teacher?”I apparently managed an answer that impressed theinterviewers sufficiently enough to continue with thehiring process, but the question has haunted me eversince, and even more so since I discovered DeepLTranslate (deepl.com), the AI software that translates
text with considerably more accuracy that Google
Translate. While DeepL isn't perfect, it handles many of
the issues that you thought translational software would
never be able to handle—politeness register, pronouns,
context—with surprisingly intuitive ease. Soon, I foundmyself using it to translate many of my work emails andreplies to said emails. Writing and reading suchmessages has been a key way I learn Japanese, but it ishard to keep the habit up when I know I can finish thetask at hand at the click of an icon. The writing appears
to be on the wall.
I wondered more about what effect DeepL would
have on language classes through 2020, when myclasses went online and became more dependent on
students' written work. I teach two Listening andSpeaking classes, one with an average TOEIC score ofabout 500 and the other with an average score of about
650. I have them do debates in teams while the rest of
the class watches and votes on what team was morepersuasive, but find this assignment works better if
students have ample time to prepare opinions that will
be of interest to the class and are sufficiently
controversial and arguable, and then to articulate theirthinking on these topics and formulate defensible
arguments to support their beliefs in advance.
First, I ask them to “tell me something you believethat many people your age do not believe”, and screen
the responses for answers that are either notcontroversial enough among their peers (e.g., “Japan’s
rapidly aging population poses challenges”) or are too
subjective or trivial to argue about in detail (e.g., “I don’t
think chocolate tastes good”). The students thencomplete a survey of their peers’ opinions, and indicate
which they agree or disagree with and how strongly. I
use this information to determine what topics each
student will argue for or against, and assign anargumentative essay for preparation following a basic
five-paragraph format: Introductory paragraph(introducing the opinion), three body paragraphs, eachlisting a different and distinct reason for the belief ineach paragraphs’ topic sentence (“The first/second/third
reason is because…”), explanation of the reason and acitation of facts or statistics that support each reason,and final a closing paragraph to summarize the position.
To prepare them for this, I introduced them to Toulmin’s
argumentation model, which breaks arguments into
individual components such as claims and warrants.

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Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 28(1): Members’ Voices
I asked students to write their answers in their own
words and not to rely on translational software, even if itmeant fumbling English grammar sometimes. But
clearly, not all of them were following those instructions.
Some transgressions were easy to catch; paragraphs
would begin in the prescribed format, but in the next
sentence the narrative would veer off onto strange,
logically mangled tangents that perfectly matched thetext of the essay's sources after passing those links
through Google Translate. As usual, that software's flaws
made it easy to spot. And even when there were few
mistakes, it was easy to see that the essays were apatchwork of original sentences and autotranslated
direct copying due to the sudden shifts in style and tone.
More worrying were the essays where the English
was grammatically perfect through and through. The
students in these classes were good, but not that good. I
don't know for a fact that any of my students used
DeepL to translate their essays to English straight from
all-Japanese drafts. But they could have, considering thequality of its translations. And even if they haven't yet,they likely will one day soon. Recently I got a letter in the
mail regarding some administrative issues from Waseda
University, where I teach a few part-time classes. The
reverse of the letter was a near-perfect English
translation. At the bottom was a note it had been
automatically translated using Deepl. If universities andbusinesses here are already using it, It won’t stay secretfrom students for very long.
Where does that leave us as language teachers? I
have had this debate with my colleagues over Slack for a
few months now. We have agreed that it would be
hypocritical for us to entirely condemn using the newsoftware when we find ourselves using it so often in ourown administrative work. But even if such software ispermitted in student work, there are still otherconsiderations students must make in order to write
English at an academic level. To write something one
must know what one needs to write, not just have thelanguage proficiency to write it. For this reason thesoftware doesn’t negate the value of genre analysis, forexample. And students still need to learn how to makeand support a logical argument if they need to write anargumentative essay. Essays written for this purpose inJapanese follow a markedly different and less culturally
appropriate structure that sticks out like a sore thumbno matter how good the literal translation is.
In the case of my own classes, I found that since theessays had so few grammatical errors that I wasn’t

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getting lost in the weeds of endless minor corrections,and could instead focus on the strengths andweaknesses of students’ individual arguments. My
comments were more often aimed toward things likeinconsistencies between arguments and the facts used
to support them, weaknesses in the quality of sources
and suggestions on how arguments could be improved.
Second drafts of essays were much better, and to mysurprise student evaluations showed that the essaywriting and the feedback they received were popular
aspects of the course, second only to the debates
themselves. Grading students’ writing is often an
unpopular task for teachers due to its time and laborintensive aspects. But once students’ written prose wasgood enough I could understand what they were trying
to say the first time I read it and was able to get pastendless corrections of the uses of “a” and “the”, I foundthe process quite smooth and enjoyable. I was able toengage with their ideas much more freely and directly
than I was able to in the past. In the year before thepandemic, teaching students how to analyze and pokeholes in arguments using the Toulmin model was an
uphill battle. This year, a greater proportion of students’cognitive load could be dedicated toward these key
conceptual aspects of formulating arguments andrebutting those of opponents.
Given this experience, I find myself more optimistic
about the effect of translation software on language
classes. Perhaps this software will become to foreign
language classes what calculators have been to mathclasses: a way to handle the more tedious aspects of thesubject quickly in order to devote more time to moreconceptual aspects of practice. While the shift will becontroversial and will likely inspire much debate in theyears to come, I suspect that in the future, EFL writingclasses will become more and more similar to non-EFL
English classes at the high school and college levels, withgreater emphasis on developing the higher-order skills
that separate good writers in a given language from poor
ones, regardless of how much vocabulary and how many
grammatical rules they have memorized prior to thestart of the class.
For more on the Toulmin model, see:https://courses.lumenlearning.com/
englishcomp2kscopexmaster/chapter/
toulmins-argument-model/

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Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 28(1): Members’ Voices

Experiencing Presence inEnglishWan Jung (Amy) Lin
Nagoya University of Foreign Studies
Email: <amywan@nufs.ac.jp>
It is natural and common that
language educators reflect on how theyacquire a new language and apply the strategies andexperiences in their teaching. Ever since I started
teaching, I always recall my own experiences in learning
languages, whether or not they were successful. When I
plan my lessons, I very likely design activities that I wish I
could have done when I was a student.
Born and raised in Taiwan, I then migrated to theStates in my early 20s, and now I currently teach inJapan. I originally came to Japan as an ALT working with
the JET Program in 2013, teaching at kindergartens,
elementary schools and junior high schools for five
years. Before I started working at the university level, I
taught English part-time at a private high school forabout six months. As a non-native speaker in English, it
was a long journey (and still is) for me to empower
myself by repositioning from solely oppressed, minor,
nonnative or silenced to a position in which I canexperience my presence in English communities.
In Taiwan, even though my parents spoke Taiwanese
to each other, my mother would speak Mandarin to mysisters and me to make sure we could understandinstructions when we first started kindergarten. It wascommon in Taiwan that parents use their respective
languages at home but speak Mandarin to their children
because Mandarin was considered more importantmany years ago. Therefore, I grew up understanding
Taiwanese but regret not being able to speak Taiwaneseeven now. I started studying English in junior highschool. I enjoyed it and would spend my spare timereading English learning magazines. Majoring in English
in college in Taiwan, I felt in some way satisfied that I
was studying English. I did not picture how I would use it
in the future and what it meant to “use” English. I was“studying” English, and that was good enough. However,when I was in college, my parents suddenly announced
that our family “finally” had received Green Cards(permanent residency) -- apparently, they had applied
long ago without informing their young children and had
been waiting for the result for more than 10 years.
When I was told that we had received Green Cards, it
was quite a shock for me. I had never imagined living
overseas and speaking another language in daily life. I

was angry, anxious, and grievous. I did not want to moveat all.
When my sisters and I emigrated to the States, I was
initially quite confused. I could speak English wellenough, but I did not feel my presence there. I was
intelligent and had already got my BA in Taiwan, but in
the States, I found myself thinking that I could only dogrocery shopping, write emails, and have small talk. I
thought I was still an English learner there, a newcomer
and a foreigner to the country. Who am I standing there
speaking English when people did not want to listen to
me? Can I expect anyone to pay attention to me when I
speak? I felt I lost my power as a person in California, as
Zou would describe (1998). She explains that no matter
how intelligent, experienced, powerful, and competentimmigrants have been in their home country, without
language proficiency they lose their power in a new
country. Even in graduate school, to get my MS in TESOL,
I could not actively join class discussions (my classmates
could read one line and say ten lines, yet I could
understand an article without knowing what to say inclass). Outside of my studies, in my daily life in
California, I also experienced powerlessness when I
could not fight for myself in English. I remembered when
Bank of America charged me an extra transaction fee, I
couldn’t argue to get my money back. In other cases,
sometimes people would not listen to me because of myaccent and poor vocabulary. I felt I was dumb andpowerless.
After living in California for about two years, I finally
noticed that I needed to identify myself with somethingelse. I couldn’t just be an English learner. I needed
something powerful inside of me to cause people tobecome interested in me and listen to me when I talked.
I worked on my accent; I watched the news; I became
curious and critical about everything around me andreasoned more carefully. After a few years, I finallydeveloped my new identity as Taiwanese American; forme this identity explained why I was in America. I cameto realize that I am not solely Taiwanese; I did not think
the way Taiwanese people thought nor did things the
Taiwanese way. I was not entirely American (of course I
was not); I didn’t even know the cartoons that children
watch. It was not an easy process, and it took many
years of constant reflection, evaluation, self-talk,arguing, fighting, negotiation, and frustration to come tothis transformation.
It was ironic enough that when I moved to Japan, my
identities were questioned again. Japanese people
around me did not think I was American even though I
came as a US citizen to teach at public schools in Japan.
Some of my American ALT colleagues did not consider
me as American either. I felt I needed to put in more ofNewsletter of the JALT Learner Development SIG <http://ld-sig.org>

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Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 28(1): Members’ Voices
the American social side of me to be more American. It
took me a few more years to struggle, to reflect, toargue, and to negotiate. All this helped me develop into
the person I am today. Because of these struggles, I
became more confident even when I speak the new
language, Japanese. I am convinced that my journey
would be more challenging, and I would be intimidated
if I did not have the skills to think critically, process,analyze, and evaluate. All those skills helped me
negotiate my identity in English, Japanese, Mandarin,
and Taiwanese. Over the years, I have become able toposition myself where I am in any language community. I
am not who people think I am, but rather who I think I
am, with my multicultural and multilingual backgrounds.
Drawing insights from my own story, when I am
teaching, even with different age groups, I always
wonder: will the lessons be relevant to the students?
Will they feel empowered when they communicate? Is
this activity going to help them connect with thelanguage? Will they develop a different identity as acommunity member when they contribute ideas inEnglish? What will help my students to be successful inthis new language?
Because of my experiences, when I teach, I decided
that I do not want to claim my expertise. I am not anexpert on any languages or cultures, but I can talk about
all of them. I hope to demonstrate to my students thatthey don’t have to sound or perform native-like to feel
confident when they speak. That expectation is too
unrealistic. My role in the classroom is more of a life
coach guiding students to contribute and think as acommunity member, and hopefully, through that, thestudents can feel their own presence when they
contribute in English.
I am currently teaching English-integrated skills
courses to freshman, sophomore, and junior students
learning a different foreign language rather than English.
We discuss health, judicial systems, fashion,environment, technology, economics, social issues, andmore. Through the discussions, I found some students
can be disconnected when they use the L2 even if they
are motivated. When they use the English language
inside or outside of class, they do not consider it aspractical or real, or even further, they lack emotions
when using the L2. I also observed that even if they canprocess information in their main language and form
their opinions, students rarely have the opportunity toobtain information in English, process it in English,
evaluate in English, and develop their opinions inEnglish. In my classes, students need to ask questions
and research respectively, and from what I have found,most students use Japanese sources and use Google
Translate. Some of them also share that they would

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translate their ideas from Japanese into English, even inconversations. With all observations above, even if
students are fluent English speakers, they sometimes
can lose their agency in English. Do they feel “a sense of[themselves]” (Davies, 2000, as cited in Vitanova, 2005,
p. 152) or “feel [their] own presence” (Morita, 2004, p.
592) in the L2 world?
My teaching philosophy, then, is to provide ways forlearners to develop skills to process information in
English, analyze it in English, reflect on it in English, andapply it to their lives in English. I hope that the skills canhelp them develop their new identity in the new L2
community. Of course, providing a safe environment for
students to exercise and practice the skills in is,therefore, teachers’ responsibility. In terms of classactivities, I have been developing different activities tocultivate students’ critical thinking skills to analyze andprocess the class materials and reflect and connect the
information to their own life stories. They are required
to continually ask questions when they read and listen
to presentations, research on their inquiries, role play,
and reflect on their own life. English is then moving fromthe linguistic level to the practical level, giving them thepower to speak. Encouraging student choice wherestudents choose activities to participate in and designing
student-centered activities is also a strategy to develop
learners’ responsibility in learning.
According to the survey I did last summer, many of
my students expressed the view that after learning how
to think critically in English, they felt more mature,
proud, motivated, educated, and confident. Whenlanguage educators recognize students as English users,
as members of the English-speaking community, rather
than English learners, their students will be empowered
and more responsible for their learning. They will
experience presence in English.
References
Morita, N. (2004). Negotiating participation and identity
in second language academic communities. TESOL
Quarterly, 38(4), 573-603.
Vitanova, G. (2005). Authoring the self in a non-native
language: A dialogic approach to agency andsubjectivity. In J. K. Hall, G. Vitanova, & L.
Marchenkova (Eds.), Dialogue with Bakhtin on
second and foreign language learning (pp. 1-8).
Lawrence Erlbaum.
Zou, Y. (1998). Rethinking empowerment: The
acquisition of cultural, linguistic, and academic
knowledge. TESOL Journal, 7(4), 4-9.

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