Institutional
Pressuresand Learner

Autonomy
Michael Carroll
Faculty of Letters,
St Andrews Momoyama Gakuin
University
carroII@andrew.ac.jp

Ellen Head
Language Centre,
St Andrews Momoyama
Gakuin University

eiienkobe@yahoo.com
In this chapter weattempt toprovide a rich picture of English curriculum development at a private
university in western Japan. Wink developing in-house materials to be used by a large numberof students and teachers, we have often found it a challenge to reconcile a commitment to teacher
and learner autonomy, with the constraints imposed by the requirements of the university. The
chapter deals with the challenges which we have encountered and our attempts to meet them. We
also present our different perspectives on the theoretical significance of those challenges when we
hypothesize abouttheplaceof learner autonomy in thecurriculum.
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A u t o n o m y You Askj

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Carroll &HeadWidening the Focus: Models and Images of Learner Autonomy
Across a Curriculum

Michael: When we think ofan individual learner, it's not hard to envisage what learner autonomy
means. It entails the learner making choices about their learning experiences, evaluating thoseexperiences as well as their progress, andplanning subsequent steps. When we think of a classroom,
we can perhaps also envisage howa teacher might organise class activities which facilitate thesekinds of individual behaviors. Ofcourse, doing this at the classroom level is more complex than in a
one-to-one situation. In anygroup ofstudents there will bediverse needs, abilities, learning styles,
and levels of motivation. Activities thatsupport oneperson's independence may limit another's. For
example, askingstudents to talk freelyabout their personal experiences may constitute a welcome
freedom for some, but others mayfind the lack of direction to bea major obstacle: They may be
simply unable to choose a topic. Still, the teacher may beclose enough to his or herstudents to beable to keep track of student needs and address these variations bycarefully balancingfree choicewith useful directions.
The placeof autonomy in an institution-wide, planned curriculum is afurther step removed
from thepersonal relationship between teachers and individual students. Theperson designing
curriculum frameworks, syllabuses or even specific activitiesmay not even know many of thestudents. Infact, the whole idea of a planned curriculum might seem antithetic to the idea of
autonomous learning and teaching. Trying to regulate whatgoeson in the classroom necessarily
reduces thechoices that teachers and learners can make. However, this is to thinkoffree choice as
being an all-or-nothing construct. A more useful, and realistic, wayof thinking aboutautonomous
learning arises out of the notion thataframework that defines a range of appropriate choices insomesenses allows us to 'choose' more effectively than we could withoutanyframe.
As curriculum designers, then, our task must be to create a system of supports, a scaffold thatboth teachers and students can use to make sense of theirlearning experiences. Andfor learners inparticular, and sometimes for teachers too, we need to consider to whatextentwe have to explain
how to use thescaffold: how it can beadded to or by-passed as the occasion demands, and how it
can best be navigated and monitored.

Ellen: The metaphors I would like to use for thinking aboutautonomy in thecurriculum are
the map and the menu. A map encourages autonomy by showing the layout, without dictating
the route. Ourcurriculum is more likeafixed itinerary. Although somefixed elements are needed
for learners whose sense of autonomy is notyet highly developed, such learners also needsome'optional excursions.' I believe it could be helpful to include a strand focused on learningto
learn, a map of how to learn, which would enable learners to work out theirown itineraries. The
curriculum couldalsoprovide for a menu of choices ofprogressively increasing significance.
Writing aboutdesigning materials to encourage learner autonomy, Julian Edge and Sue
Wharton (1998) emphasize thedesirability of incorporating choices andproviding ways for theteacher to shareresponsibility with learners.
A carefully designed coursebook can in itself encourage development: it can carry theseeds of its own adaptation, (p. 299)

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Heidi Evans Nachi for discussing various ways of carrying out curriculum
evaluation.

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Institutional Pressures

The idea of including materials to help students work on their learning processes isby now well established in EFL coursebooks... materials are not capable of making
learners autonomous or making teachers develop, (p. 302)

I would like to suggest that ascurriculum developers who think that learner autonomy is a goodidea we have a responsibility to raise the issue with our colleagues. Bytalking and listening to theother teachers who are involved in realizing the curriculum inpractice, we might be able todevelop
together. I don't want to take a positivist position, to imply that I know what learner autonomy is
andI amgoing to teach mycolleagues about it. I amaware of that as one of the perils of operating
in a somewhat hierarchical academic culture. However, I think that asking questions like "What do
you think about learner autonomy?" and "What do you do about learner autonomy?" is beneficial
because it helps us to establish a shared vocabulary with ourcolleagues, and to articulate where thedifferences are. Torbert (1978) notes:
The rhetoric of collaboration alone will not promote shared purpose and self-direction
among members. On the other hand, to attempt to develop shared purpose and selfdirection through coercion is self-contradictory [... ] an ironic kind of leadershipand organizational structure, which is simultaneously educative and productive,
simultaneously controlling and freeing, is necessary, (p. 113)
Curriculum Change: A Case Study

Our university is implementing a new English communication curriculum for 1500 first-year
non-English majors. The curriculum is centred around an in-house coursebook which wehave been writing and re-writing over the last two years. The program involves more than 40
Japanese and native English speaker teachers. The tension between prescribing objectives, texts,
and sometimes activities, on the one hand, and facilitating creative teaching, on the other, has
become an increasingly important issue for this initiative.
In this part of the chapter, we will briefly describe the situation that existed before theimplementation of the new curriculum, and the way the university has gone about addressing
the problems it identified.
Impetus for the Curriculum Change

The curriculum change was motivated by two broad trends. First, with the new English
curriculum in Japanese high schools, students who graduate in the next few years will have aless comprehensive background in English grammar and a more restricted exposure to English
vocabulary. At the same time, many of them will face an employment market on graduationthat places increasing emphasis on English proficiency (Toyama, Carroll, Head, Miyake, &Nohara, 2001). Second, with the effects of the fall in the birth rate now impinging on university
application levels across Japan, our university sought to rationalise the activities carried out
within the first- and second-year compulsory English program. Although this program is thelargest set of interrelated courses in the university, there had hitherto been little co-ordination
between courses.

The university therefore set up a new administrative unit, The Language Centre, managed
by a committee drawn from members of the Faculties. The chair of the committee is also
the director of the Centre. The first task of the centre was to devise and manage the new
curriculum, but it also administers the hiring of, and liaison with, teachers of English courses.
At a later stage, it will also take on the management of programs for languages other thanEnglish, including Japanese as a Second Language.

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The Language Centre has three basic policies for reforming language education in theuniversity:

1. research and development of language teaching and learning methodology;
2. a system of full-time contract English lecturers;
3. the development of new texts and assessment processes. (Toyama et al., 2001)
Of these, most energy during the implementation phase of the new curriculum has been
focused on 2 and 3.

One full-time English native speaker lecturer was appointed to start in 2002, the first yearof implementation, another in the second year, and a third will start in 2004. In addition toteaching, these lecturers have responsibility for producing teaching and assessment materials
and for assisting in the implementation of the new curriculum. These lecturers' full-time status
gives them a broader view of the curriculum as a whole than is possible for part-time staff. It
also allows them to mediate between the Language Centre management and the predominantly
part-time teaching staff. In addition, these lecturers have been closely involved in the writing
and revision of the new coursebook, the main vehicle of curriculum development in ourparticular context.

Curriculum Development through the In-house Coursebook

A working group of four faculty members was set up in April 2001, whose primary task was
to set up the Language Centre and to produce a coursebook. This coursebook would be usedby all teachers for approximately half of their teaching time. In 2002, the first contract lecturer
joined the working group, and in 2003 when the second lecturer was appointed, she also joined
the group.
In addition to the concerns stated above (the changes in the high school curriculum, theperceived increased demand for English in business, and the need to rationalise across the verylarge English program), there were other issueswhich informed the way the curriculum wasoriginally conceivedby the management committee. First, this committee perceived students
as being, in some senses, poorly motivated to study and requiring a lot of encouragement toproduce more than isolated words and phrases. However, at the same time, it was recognisedthat there was a residual goodwill towards English classes, particularly when those classes wereseen to be less pressured than some high school examination-oriented ones. Second, they
assumed that most students had very limited experience of using English for communication,
hence the hesitation when they were required to speak or write.

The working group therefore decided to create a curriculum which assumed minimalcommunication experience, relatively little grammatical knowledge, but post-beginner
vocabulary levels. Initial goals and objectives were very broad: to motivate the students andto try to encourage them to use their latent capabilities. The working group conceived thecoursebook from within this framework, and the way they attempted to achieve these broad
objectives was to distance it from conventionalhigh school texts,with their focus on English
in the world beyond, and to begin with the focus on the students themselves,and their new
surroundings, as first-years beginning to get to know the campus.
Since few students would have the opportunity to talk with English speakers on a regularbasis, the text tried to provide the tools they could use if they were to talk to each other about
the new experiences they were encountering together. The coursebook was therefore called— LD SIG 2003 A n t h o l o g y73*Institutional Pressures

English Here and Now atMomoyama, and was divided into four books. Book 1, covering thefirst semester, focuses on the campus; Book2 is to be used in the second semester, taking as its
focus the students and their surroundings in Kansai. Books 3 and 4 are planned to broaden thisfocus to topics about Japan, and about Japan in relation to the restof the world.
Learning Arrangements

Students meet for two 90-minute sessions per week, once with a Japanese teacher (English 1A),
and once with a native-speaker English teacher (English IB). English 1Acomprises structured
exercises based on words, phrases and structures from a written text, while English IB consistsof more extensive speaking practice based on model dialogues and other activities on thesame or closelyrelated topics. The two teachers (for the 'A and 'B' courses) use the common
textbook, English Here andNowat Momoyama, in which each unit is divided into an 'A' and 'B'
section. This text is designed to take up 45 minutes of each 90-minute session. The purpose of
the shared text is to give the students a sense of continuity between the 'A' and 'B' courses, whileat the same time allowing teachers the freedom to include materials and activities that allow
them to make the best use of their individual skills and teaching styles.
Each pair of teachers using the textbook is asked to communicate with each other week
by week about their progress through the text, or other issues, as required. Since many of theteachers work part-time on different days of the week, they do not usually meet face-to-face,
except at the half-day teachers' pre-session meeting in March. For these reasons, we haveencouraged teachers to fill in a 'message to partner' pro-forma with a brief summary of theirlesson. The messages are also photocopied and copies filed in the Language Centre.
Assessment of Students

The proposal for the new Language Centre courses, as it was formally accepted by the Faculty
and by the University Management Board, stipulated that there would be a common final test
and that this would account for 50% of each student's individual grade. It was not explicitly
spelled out in the proposal whether a single test would be common to both 'A' and 'B' courses(taught by a Japanese teacher and a native English speaker teacher, respectively), or whether
each course would have its own final test. Since the fundamental concept of the textbook was
the close connection between the 'A and 'B' sections—with 'A' focusing on the language ina short text and 'B' on expanding on the same structures in a less restricted way—it would
have been logical to have a single test. However, in interpreting the original proposal, theEducational Affairs Committee ruled during the first semester that, since the two courses wereindependently credit-bearing, each must have its own test. The creation of such tests raised anumber of difficult challenges which we will explore in more detail later, but first we will lookat how we went about getting feedback on the first edition of the textbook.
Evaluation and Feedback

Feedback on the Textbook

The chronological pattern of our curriculum development cycle differed from the classic
pattern of "needs analysis - objectives - testing - materials - teaching" (Brown, 2001, p. 14). The
original plan for curriculum reform at Momoyama was lacking in provision for consultation
with teaching staff, systematic needs analysis and program evaluation. This means that thepattern of evaluation up to the present has developed on an ad hoc basis.

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Carroll &HeadSince the materials were not tried out before being delivered to a large audience, it was
important for us to get feedback from teachers at an early stage. Our first step was to circulate a'retrospective syllabus' for teachers' comments, followed by an end-of-semester evaluation form
focused on the textbook and test. Over the past 18 months, we have modified the program
extensively, largely as a result of feedback from teachers. However, we should point out thatperhaps the most significant fact is the lowrate of response. On average about 13 out of 40
teachers responded.

In the first semester that the new coursebook was used (Spring 2002), those teachers that did
respond offered comments which suggested the materials weretoo complex:• The level of the language was too high for most of my students.
The material needs to bestreamlined andsimplified.
• I would like to seea thinner, more compact book with clear main targets and more
sample phrases/sentences for students to remember.
'Students stuck with thesimplest, mostfamiliarconstructions in speaking exercises.
Modifications to the Curriculum in Response to Feedback

Since this feedback was received while we were in the process of writing the next installment of
the text (for the autumn semester), we were able to respond by simplifying the layout and thetask type, and making the format of the book more consistent from unit to unit. For example,
we introduced a language summary section entitled 'What should I learn this week?' to provide
a clear objective for each unit. This replaced a section in the first edition headed 'What did I
learn this week?' where students were expected to write their own reflections. Other changes
made between the first and second semester included providing a cassette tape to go with the
textbook, adding some picture-based activities, and reducing the number of units from 12 to 8,
which allowed teachers more time for revision and supplementary activities.
Apart from gathering written feedback from the teachers, we were also able to discuss thecurriculum at workshops held twice a year. At a half-day workshop at the start of the autumn
semester in 2002, we showed the next part of the textbook to a group of eight teachers, andasked for their comments. One teacher suggested the division of the textbook target language
into core language and extension sections which could be used by students independently.
Another colleague commented: "The textbook should be for the student rather than for theteacher." According to this view, complex instructions to students should be mediated throughthe teacher rather than being included in the textbook. Rather than 'optional activities,' the
textbook should contain additional 'conversation starter' phrases that students could use.

These insights helped us to change our approach as we revised Book 1 for the second
edition. Over successive revisions, our rubrics have become increasingly simple. Although wehave provided teachers' notes on how to use the coursebook, these have been very little used.
This suggests that our main efforts should be spent on clarifying the activities so that they are
self-evident.

One of the difficulties in the first volume was that the language samples were often too closely
tied to the context to be easilygeneralisable. In the second textbook we tried to include moregeneralisable language, and presented the practicethrough 'guided dialogues' (initial questions
and closing phrases printed with spacesfor students to fill in their own words). That was also
problematic because students couldn't always manipulate the language in the way required. Someteachers were in favour of changing the format, so, in the revised edition of Book 1,we have

— LD SIG 2003 A n t h o l o g y —begins his story

It was around 11.00 pm. I was having a bath

UnitS Traffic Accident

I think so, but still the car driver should have

Yasu:

Was it a lucky escape?

What happened in the end?

What happened? What did you see?

What were you doing at the time?

When did it happen?

his or her story.

His friend cameThat's terrible

The police arrived

I was taken to hospital

I saw a man run out of the bank

The ball hit me in the face

I was woken up

I was playing football
I was sitting on the bus

I was sleeping

2 weeks ago

3 years ago

When I was at high school

main pointsof yourstory. Then takeit in turns to ask yourpartner about

Tell a story about an accident you have had or seen. First, write down the

As you listen to your partner's story, help him or her by asking
questions. When your partner pauses (stops speaking) you can also
help him or her by saying something to show you are interested:

B:

A:

B:

A:

B:

A:

B:

A:

Uiaiugue UUIQc.

slowed down too.

It sounds like the bike rider was to blame.
slowed down too.

I think so, but still the car driver should havehehappened.

tells
Shinichi what

Then

the time.

he was doing at

by saying what

begins his story

See how Yasu

My brother was with me.
I was woken up.

lt'spainful.

Wow!

Yes.

Really?

That's terrible.

I was angry.

His friend came.
I was shocked.

you are interested:
Oh dear!

I was taken to hospital.
The police arrived.

asking questions. When your partner pauses (stops speaking)you can also help him or her by saying something to show

I saw a man run out of the bank,

The ball hit me in the face.

I was with my parents.
My leg hurts,

I was sitting on the bus.
I hurt my back.

a scratch.

I was sleeping,
I wasplaying football.

2 weeks ago,

3 years ago,

When I was at high school,

1 saw a dog run over by a car.

I was in a car accident.

I crashed my bike.

Phrase bank: What happened:

As you listen to your partner's story, help him or her byaccident?

How did you feel after the

Who wasto blame?

Was anyone hurt?

Where did it happen?

accident?

I've got a bruise.
Who else was in thea cut.

I twisted my ankle.

collar-bone.

teg.

I broke my arm.

I was injured/hurt.

Phrase bank: injuries

Whendid it happen'

How did it happen?

Whathappened?

accident?

Have you ever had an

Question bank

2. Tella story about an accident you have had or seen. First, writedown the main points ofyour story. Then take it in turns to ask your partner about his or her story.

Yasu:

too badly. He didn't go to hospital.

Shinchi:rider was not hurt too badly. He didn't go to hospital

It sounds like the bike rider was to blame.

The ambulance came, but the rider was not hurt
Shinchi:but one of the bike ridersswerved in front of the car, andthe car hit the motorbike. The ambulance came, but theriders got in the way and the car hit the motorbike.

Yasu:

g

happened.

fast, and tried to pass them, but one of the bike

Well, a car came along the street and tried to pass them,Oh, how did the accident happen?

Shinichi:

Yasu:

tells

Shinichi what

Oh no. How did the accident happen?

Well, just then a car came along the street, quite

Shinichi:hegang of bike riders were making a lot of noise in the street.

a lot of noise in the street.
Thenheard a noise outside. I looked out of the window anda

the window and a gang of bike riders were making

It was around 11.00 pm. I was watching TV when Z

the time.

Yasu:

my house.

An accident? What happened?

he was doing at

Shinichi:

Hi Yasu, did you have a good weekend?

Oh, not bad. There was anaccidentin the street outsidewhen I heard a noise outside I looked out of

by saying what

See how Yasu

An accident? What happened?

Shinichi:Shinichi:Yasu:

outside my house, though.

what happened.

Oh, not bad. There was an accident in the street

Yasu:

ENGLISH HERE & NOW at Momoyama

1. Read the dialogue as you listen. Then close your book, and explain to your partner

Book 2 Second Edition 2003

Yasu:

UrtitS Traffic Accident

Hi Yasu, did you have a good weekend?

ENGLISH HERE & NOWatMomoyama

Shinichi:DialogueBook 2 First Edition 2002

Figure 1 An example textbook extract

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C a r r o l l &c Head

introduced 'question banks' from which students can choosethe questions they want to ask, and'answer banks' containing possible answers. This allows more freedom for teachers to decide how
to use the material, as well as lets students start their conversations more easily.
The comments on the second round of feedbackranged from the positive—"Simpler
clearer dialogues: Love the bold type"—to the negative—"Amateurish at best and occasionally
offensive." One teacher commented that "there are few usable oral activities in the text" andasked for more. The positive comments were evidencefor us that we were starting to get a feelfor what teachers wanted and were able to use. However, the negative comments showed usthat there were still problems. Some of the negative comments stem from the problem that thecoursebook was seen as an infringement on teacher autonomy.
It is inevitable that prescribed materials to some extent imply a teaching style. The staff
include some very experienced teachers who have developed their own ways of working andmaterials over many years. Some of these had no investment in the new coursebook andperceived it as being inferior to their own chosen materials and methods. Actually someteachers simply refused to use the new materials, or used them despite feeling,"The curriculum
is nonsense."

Other parts of the feedback highlighted problems with institutional constraints such as therange of levels, lack of motivation and excessive class size:• In a class of 36 students, mostof whom wish they were somewhere else, it would be
impossible togetgood results even with the best textbook in the world.
Thelevelof thestudents greatly differs.
• It is impossible to improve much in English in only 1 year with 50 students in a class.
Thelatestresearch shows that200 hours areneeded to improve meaningfully, especiallyfor listening.
The feedback we received from the coursebook evaluation questionnaires and theworkshop, was detailed and reflected teachers' immediate concerns with the classroom
process. In terms of the 'map' and 'itinerary' metaphor, we could say that obtaining feedback
helped us to make a more accurate map of where students could be expected to go, at thesame time as streamlining the itinerary—the activities that could be expected to take them
there. The fact that we were seen to modify the textbook in response to feedback went some
way towards compensating for the lack of consultation at the start of the project. However,
the gathering of feedback needs to be incorporated into the materials development cycle aspart of an on-going process. Ideally, program evaluation should take account of the students'
progress and students' opinions about the course, as well as feedback from all (rather than, as
in our case, a small part of) the teaching staff.
Issues: Institutionally Controlled Assessment

Feedback on the Tests

The 'A' course, taught by Japanese teachers, and based on structured exercises, and the 'B'
course taught by native speakers of English, and focusing on production, each had their own
compulsory test. The imposition of these tests for the 'B' courses as well as the A' course createdproblems. While the 'A' course, with its more structured content and its basis in a set of texts,
could justifiably use a simple multiple-choice test to measure student achievement, the'B'
course did not lend itself to such a method.

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I n s t i t u t i o n a l Pressures

The 'B' course was specificallyconceived as being open-ended, encouraging productive
skills more than receptive ones, and valuing fluency over accuracy. While it would be possible
in theory to assess productive skills, it would be much more difficult and more costly thanour resources allow. Many teachers do assess productive skills in their own classrooms, but toattempt to do this in a standardised way across around 40 classeswould be enormously costly
in terms of both time and money.
In a university system with a narrow experience of assessment, mostly limited to easily
marked, multiple-choice tests and reports, this kind of investment was not on the tablefor discussion. As a result, it was necessary to develop a multiple-choice test to fulfill theregulatory requirements, even though such a test could have little or no validity as a measure ofachievement of the goals of the course. We therefore attempted to do this in a way that would
have as few negative consequences as possible in the circumstances. We constructed a test ofvery easy listening and reading items, based on the content of the coursebook, and to someextent focusing on spoken discourse patterns. Since we did not want to disadvantage students
by assessing them on criteria unrelated to the course goals, the test was deliberately designed toallow the majority of students to score highly.
Although we considered good test results an important way to encourage student
motivation, the test results did not always accord with teachers' own assessments of theirstudents. There existed among teachers a wide range of testing philosophies. Some teachers
expected the test to yield a normal curve that would allow them to rank students; others were
opposed to proficiency assessments in principle, believing rather that effort and improvement
should be the basis of assessment. In consequence, some teachers designed their own
assessment methods to compensate for the perceived deficiencies in the common test. Others
reported that they felt forced to reduce their component of the grades to redress the balance.
This kind of flexibility in the interpretation of the practical meaning of '50% of an individual
student's final grade,' while not referred to in any documentation, was both recognised andimplicitly approved of by the directorship of the Centre.
A further serious problem with the present testing system is that there is no institutional
mechanism for informing students about their test grade as distinct from their holistic gradefrom the teacher. Teachers therefore have to devise their own way of informing the students
about their two grades (the test grade and the teacher-determined portion of the grade). It isquite possible that, in some cases,the students did not know how they were assessed. This is an
issue that we need to address.

Our Response to the Feedback on the Tests

As a response to the feedback, in the third, most recent round of testing, the 'A test was
simplified and the 'B' test was made more difficult, with the result that a wider range of grades
was obtained. Nevertheless, the revised test still clearly does not match the curriculum. The
mis-match between the stated objectives of the course (improved oral communication skills)
and the style of the testing was felt to be problematic by many teachers:• [The test] had almost no correlation to their ability to actually speak English.
• It does not reallymeasure what the students learned.

In discussing how to address this problem, we found that we had significantly different
approaches. Ellen was fundamentally in favour of a common assessment and grade allocation
scheme. Michael was less optimistic about the possibility of creating a practicable framework
within the system operating at the moment.

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Carroll &HeadEllen: I amfascinated bytheidea of implementing a scheme for assessment in someform that
seems consistent with my conception ofwhat learner autonomy is. When welook at anymethod ofassessment, I think weshould ask, "What is the backwash effectfor learner autonomy?" The firstessential seems to me that the assessment should be transparent tostudents. Secondly, I would like
togive students the opportunity to evaluate themselves. Thirdly, I like the idea of using tasks which
require the students to take some responsibilityfor the content of the class, such aspresentation orgroup presentation. I recognize thatit might beimpossible to implement assessment guidelines forclassroom-based assessment across such a large anddiverse staffin a waythatis both consistentand meaningful. I think this is connected with staffdevelopment issues. If we were in a position
to work with a large proportion of the teachers to devise a set ofguidelines for assessment, then it
would not seem an imposition when theguidelines came to beused. Michael, how wouldyou liketo dealwith assessment? I suspect you would like togive the teachers complete freedom to assess as
they think fit?

Michael: If we think of the two main approaches to assessment thatwe seeamongstteachers,
proficiency-oriented assessment and effort-oriented assessment, I'm infavour of theformer.
In other words, I think we shouldset a standard of achievement, and give students creditfor
our courses to the extent that theyachieve thatstandard. If ourstandard ispitchedso that it isrealistically achievable by moststudents, this means thatsome, at the highest level, should be able
to achieve it withoutcoming to class, or bymaking very little effort. (Of course we shouldalso
provide higher levelcourses for any of these students who want to studyat that level.) In othercountries this kindof recognition ofprior learning is uncontested, but in Japan it's onlyjust coming
to be talked about, for instance in proposals to exempt students from certain compulsory courses ifthey have TOEFL or EIKEN scores at a certain level.
If I were to design a system like this, the assessments would be task-based rather than multiplechoice test-based. This kind of assessment requires a greatdealof training of teachers, cooperation
between teachers and management, and commitment on thepart of teachers. Forall thesethings, additional resources are necessary: paymentfor training and collaboration, assessment
materials, and so on. Also, the current system ofpart-time teachers would need to be changed toallowfor scheduling of timefor collaboration. If those resources were available, then I'd like to seea coordinated assessment policy, developed and administered through continuing collaboration
amongst teachers. However, in ourpresent system, we have an attempt to compromise between
two incompatible approaches. It doesn't work to anyone's satisfaction, so in thatsense, yes, I think
individual assessment of students should beleftto teachers.
Reflections on the Design of the Curriculum in Relation to
Teacher Autonomy

The twin notions of (a) imposing a text to be used for half of each class and (b) imposing atest to be used for 50% of individual grades were intended to leave space for teacher autonomy.
However, both notions are flawed. The compulsory textbook is perhaps less intrusive into
the teacher's autonomy, and more manageable than the compulsory test. The textbook atleast ensures some degree of week-by-week link between the content of the two courses, 'A'
and 'B.'Where this partnership works well, there are certainly advantages to the students, notleast in that they can experience in a tangible way some sense of a syllabus. However, someteachers reported problems with trying to, in effect, run two separate courses: one using thecommon text, and the other using their own materials or a different text. Ideally, of course, if
the common text is seen as a de facto syllabus,the remaining 45 minutes of each class would— LD SIG 2003 A n t h o l o g y79*Institutional Pressures

be best spenton activities related to the relevant unit, expanding on its themes, or deepening
students' ability to carry out the same or similar tasks.While some teachers called for thecommon text to be reduced, to allow them more time for their own materials, others called

for it to be expanded, so as to allow them to use it throughout the whole session. The former
presumably were not satisfied with the content of the text, and saw a need for their own

materials to remedythe deficit; the latter, perhaps, were expressing not dissatisfaction withthe content,but the reasonable expectation that, if a syllabus was being imposed, sufficientmaterials should be provided by the management. While most teachers are used to selecting
materials for teaching a syllabus of their own devising, selecting appropriate materials tocomplement a centralised syllabus is not at all the same thing. This attempt to accommodate
teachers' rights to make decisions, while at the same time imposing external constraints, wastherefore perceived by some as not enough and by others as too much.
As far as assessment goes, however, the 50% notion has serious problems. We have alreadyreferred to the inherent practical difficulty of assessing oral performance in a standardised way
on such a large scale,and hence the implementation of a multiple-choice test only marginallyrelated to the course objectives. However there are other problems too.
Testing to Allocate Grades versus Testing
to Evaluate the ProgramThis confusion between the role of a common test as an instrument of curriculum evaluation,and its use as a means of individual assessment has been compounded by the somewhat
unwieldy committee system. Under this system,a committee unrelated to the Language

Centre, and without expertise in language testing or curriculum design, the Educational Affairs
Committee, rules on questions of academic content and assessment procedures. This has led
to the ironic situation in which these freshman English classesare the only ones for which astandardised testing procedure exists, not under the control of the teachers, in a university witha generally laissez-faire attitude to whatgoes on inside the classroom. The imposition of thistest, therefore, was unlikely to be welcomed by teachers.

Michael: Leaving aside the problem ofhow and what to assess, the idea ofa standardised test isquite justifiable, if the purpose is to evaluate the effectiveness ofa new curriculum. However, thisisquite differentfrom using such a test to award student grades. We have little data about howteachers grade students, but the data we do have seem to suggest that there isa very wide range of
criteria used, and thatthese criteria differfundamentally from one teacher to another.
Central to these differences is the question ofwhether students should be graded according tolanguage performance criteria, or according to participation, effort, and improvement. Whilesome teachers award grades strictly on the basis oftest results, others combine test results with anassessment ofattendance and participation, and others still consider only participation and effort.
Some of this last group argue that since there isno streaming, and student levels within each classareso diverse, it's unfair to award grades based onperformance. Some students would beable toscore highly on the performance test even before the course had begun and would thus have to dolittle work, while others would begin sofar behind the majority that they would have no chance ofcatching up within a singlesemester.
Ellen: Allocating a proportion of the grade for active participation can help to motivate
students. I think thatparticipation is a necessary pre-requisite to achievingfluency, so including
participation in the grade tends to help students to focus on fluency as opposed toaccuracy.

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Afurther issue arising from the necessity to testhas been the effect on the revisions of the
textbook. Given that a test wasrequired,the textbookhas had to be re-designed, in part in
response to requests from teachers, so as to incorporate testable objectives. The open-endednessof the general aim of the 'B' section, expanding on a more focused 'A section and encouraging
fluency overaccuracy, has been narroweddown in favour of specifying more concreteobjectives.
This may not necessarily be a bad thing, in that students maybe more easily ableto seethe
pattern of the course, but it is nevertheless seen as restrictiveby some teachers.
Issues: Who Should be Involved in Programme Evaluation?

Ellen: One of the tensions is thatsystematic evaluation is a high priority for us but notfor theuniversity. It seems desirable to discuss howthe program is to be evaluated and to work to open
channels of communication between all involved: those who administer, fund, write, teach, andstudy on the program. At the moment the means ofevaluation are unclear. Statistical datafrom
the students' term tests has been read out at the teachers' workshops each year, which suggests that
undueemphasis may beput on it in some quarters.

The opinions ofstudents areconspicuously absentfrom the Language Centre planningprocess.
Sofar we have notgiven out a questionnaire for course evaluation tostudents. This ispartly due tothe fact that we have notwanted to burden teachers who already have to administer questionnaire
forms from the university. Some teachers use their own course feedback forms orask students for
feedback orally, and the results are fed back through the teachers.

I think that students should be involved in the evaluation of the program on a regular basis in
the future. We have talked about sending outa questionnaire toall students in December 2003,
andsetting up studentfocus groups in the autumn semester 2003. Do we need objective data forprogram evaluation? How would you carry outevaluation, ideally? What kind offactors limitthat?
Michael: Aproblem with a lotofthe work being done by teachers trying to encourage
autonomous learning on the part oftheir students is that the central question, "Does this approachproduce greater language gains than others?," is noteasy to research or to find answers to. We needto decide how best to measure language gains, how to decide to what extent they are attributableto ourattempts to encourage autonomy, andso on. And there are other aspects of evaluation, otherquestions we can ask, such as how teachers andstudents perceive the course, howattendance levels
may reflect satisfaction or otherwise, how easily understood our objectives and learning materials
were, how the administration supported or hindered teaching and learning, and so on.
We can collect much ofthis data quite easily, through teacher and student questionnaires andinterviews, university statistics onattendance levels, and other documents. Data on language
gains is more problematic, though. For many people this means test scores, but, as we've seen, ourown test is quite inappropriate for this, and in anycase, even the best pen andpaper test would
only provide information on a limited aspect of language gain. While it's true thatthe logisticalproblems of oral assessment of every student are prohibitive, onepossibility would be to assess
random samples ofstudents, for the purpose of evaluating the program. This, together with theother methods I've mentioned, would seem to me to be a reasonable means of evaluating thecurriculum.

Issues: Learner Development (and Teacher Development)
We decided to include some learner autonomy-related goals in the course objectives whichwere circulated to teachers in Spring 2003. Among the general aims was the following:— LD SIG 2003 A n t h o l o g y —8i•

Institutional

Pressures"Students will develop a sense of responsibility for their own learning." In the section dealing
with detailed objectives we decided to include 'initiating and ending conversations.' One teacher
commented, "I really agree with this. But do you know how difficult it is for our students?"
As we were working with constraints in terms of class size, time, motivation, and previous
experience, we did not feel able to make learner development a prominent theme of the course
materials. We did, however, attempt to incorporate some 'learner training' in the revised

version of the coursebook. In the first unit, we included a list of'Keys to good communication'in the reading comprehension (taught by a Japanese speaking teacher). Students were thenasked to put the advice into practice in the following lesson with the English native speakerteacher.We also discussed having a learner history in the textbook and including 'writing yourlearner history' as a task. Finally we chose to use an interview with an overseas student, and to
focus on the 'message' that It is OK to make mistakes. However, our attempt to prioritise fluency
over accuracy is undermined by having a compulsory multiple-choice test, as we have discussed
above.

At the end of each unit, we put a section entitled 'What do you want to remember fromthis week's classes?' The idea was that if students selected their own language items from theclass they would be likely to learn more. However, students need to be trained to 'notice.' Ellenfound that her students wanted her to tell them what they should write in that section, andactually she was not committed enough to pursue it at length. We wrote about this activity inthe teacher's notes, but that wasn't an effective way of getting the message across. If a teacher
isn't familiar with an open-ended activity, she or he needs some explanation about how to do it.
One teacher wrote: "Students do not have, in myopinion, concept of'linguistic uptake,' hence, theycannot intelligently dofinal exercise of each unit. I would like some help on how to helpstudents
do this." In the future version of the textbook, we have decided to retain that section but reduce

the space allowed for it. We added a puzzle activity which students can easily see how to do on
their own. In other words, we have tried to meet the students (and teachers) at their current

level of autonomy.

Teacher Development by Raising Questions
about Learner Autonomy:
Explicitly or Implicitly?

Ellen: I believe thatany effective program to encourage learner autonomy at curriculum level
cannot take place without wider involvement of the teachers. That raises the issue of teacher
development. In ourcontext, it seems most appropriate to approach teacher development by asking
questions rather than byattempting togiveanswers. Aspartof ourproject to develop learnerautonomywithin the curriculum, we decided to investigate the teachers' views about autonomy.
A questionnaire was sent in lateMay2003. The response rate was even lower than it wasfor the
feedback questionnaires: justfive replies from 40 teachers. This may indicate that the questionnaire
was notperceived as beingimportant or relevant to the majority of teachers. However, thefive
who did reply expressed a range of views, from "These students are not capable of learning
autonomously," to "What is learner autonomy? Does it mean communicate naturally?," to detailed
answers and worksheets from teachers who are actively pro-autonomy.
Forsome teachers using the coursebook restricted the time available topursue learner-centredor negotiated elements. One teacher, commenting on the conflict he had experienced between thecoursebook priorities and his own, wrote,

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I often wonder how I can work a topic or structure from the text into my classroom inan organic way. I often feel the need to 'cover the material' rather than looking carefully
at what the students are doing and what they need to work on.

Another teacher said, "Because theweekly topics areprescribed, there is less opportunity forstudents tostudy topics they are interested in, but such study can be undertaken independently in
preparation forpresentations /projects." This teacher is using the conversations in the coursebook
for his own oral test: "My exams ask a student to be able to spontaneously communicate whileallowing the student to have some freedom ofexpression (autonomy?)."It seems to me thatmany teachers are notcertain about the word 'autonomy,' and, inpractice,some of them are using techniques to build student independence, while others are not. Do you
think it's important to use thelabel 'learner autonomy'?
Michael: No, I think it's a nuisance. I'd rather we talked aboutgood teaching, effective learning.
You've talked aboutcreating a shared vocabulary, by talking to teachers aboutautonomy. I see it
the other way: The word 'autonomy' is notpart of ourshared vocabulary, but the vocabulary ofteaching, learning, methods, and so on, is. So we have a shared vocabulary already. I think that
good teachers have always motivated and inspired students to think about what they're learningand to continue to learn outside the class. This is whatautonomy is. By talking about these things
with teachers, we are in effect talking aboutautonomy, whether we use the wordor not.
Workshops for Teacher Development

The university holds a workshop for teachers at the start of each semester. The workshops
are usually attended by about half of the teachers, i.e., around 20 people. Up to the present,
the workshops have been organized in a way that reinforces the traditional hierarchy in theuniversity, with faculty members giving necessary information to the part-time staff in a
lecture format. Such a context is not conducive to developing teachers' experience of autonomy.
To lecture about learner autonomy would be worse than useless. We need to adopt Tessa
Woodward's principle oiloop input (Woodward, 1991), where the style of input is consistent
with the 'message' content.

We attempted to introduce a more informal style into the workshop in April 2002 by
spending a proportion of the time in free discussion in small groups. If we are able to adopt
this approach in future we might start to restore the sense of teacher autonomy, which seemed
to suffer when the coursebook and test were imposed.
Ellen: / think that the bi-annual workshops mightoffer an opportunity to raise questions about
learner autonomy, among other issues of interest to teachers. Do you think this is a possibility?

Michael: Onlyafew people, especiallyfrom thegroup of'B' teachers, come to these meetings,
so we should bewary of over-emphasising their effect. Also, if teachers make the effort to come, weshouldbeprovidingsomething that makes it worth their while: practical presentations, workshops,
materials demonstrations and so on, and anything requested by teachers. If we take theposition
that learners learn bestby beingengaged in tasks, becoming aware of thepurposeof tasks, reflecting
on theirperformance, and evaluating theirownprogress, these things will come through inpractical presentation I workshop-type activities. Isn't this whatautonomy entails?
'Grassroots' Developments of Teacher Autonomy to promote Learner Autonomy

Despite the lack of prior consultation with teachers, the curriculum development project
has stimulated networking between teachers. As one of the teachers said: "Now I talk to my

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I n s t i t u t i o n a l Pressurescolleagues more about the lesson because we are all using the materials." In addition to thisinformal discussion, teachers have formed research groups on their own initiative. One groupof'A' teachers is writing supplementary material to go with the textbook. The worksheets
produced by this group will be incorporated into the textbook in the spring semester 2004.
The other group is carrying out a surveyof students' reactions to different ways of doing selfevaluation, for example, using detailed criteria with a tick-chart (e.g., I remembered my text
book today, I spoke ... minutes of English today)—versus a more global self-evaluation in diary
format.

Conclusions

Michael: If we were to choose onekey word for this project, it would perhaps be the word 'tension.'
Just aspopular psychology tells us that life changes such as childbirth, marriage, changing
jobs and even moving house aremajor causes ofstress, so too, for teachers curriculum change
requires large changes toeveryday life patterns. In ourcase, there aretensions between teachers
and administrators, students and teachers, amongst teachers with different views of teaching
and learning, and so on. These tensions are revealed in conflicting views of materials design,assessment, evaluation, and the extent to which teachers and learners are and can be autonomous.

A curriculum on thisscale, bydefinition, infringes on theautonomy of teachers and to some extent
of learners too.
On the otherhand, if we think of 'autonomisation,' especially for students, as somethingthat
works best within aframework, then the designing ofa curriculum presents us with an opportunity
to create the conditions for teachers to support learners effectively. We have tried to show how wewentaboutcreating materials to do this, despite being constrained byproblems such as large classsizes, byan overall design of the textbook that waspredetermined, and by regulatory restrictions
such as those relating to testing. We havealso discussed theproblem of the inadequacy offormal
evaluation systems, and our attempts to seek and act onfeedback from teachers.
How all these things influence our attempt to encourage learner autonomy is the heartof thispaper, and here too there are tensions between us, the writers.
Ellen: / see curriculum development as offering a potential opportunity to talkabout autonomy
explicitly with teachers and learners. Forme autonomy is a desirable course objective in its own
right, independent ofshort-term gains in language proficiency, because I believe it can lead to longterm gains.
Michael: I take the view that curriculum is a set of suggestions, to be taken up or rejected freely
by teachers according to how useful they judge it to be. Autonomy—reflecting on our learningand
making decisions as a result—is simplyan aspect of learning a language. It's implicit in discussionsof effective teaching and learning, but without them has no meaning.
Ellen: Yes. For a moment let meplay devil's advocate in relation to my ownposition. Thinking
and talking to colleagues about the place of learner autonomy in ourparticular curriculum hasforced
me to contemplate thepossibility that it isjust not appropriate in ourcircumstances. I hearaboutclasses in which effective learning seems to be taking place—for example, one day my colleague told
me with a smile thatthestudents came out of the classroom actually saying the English phrases they
had learned from the textbook. Thestudents in question were the 'sports class,' i.e., students who havebeen granted admission to the university on scholarships for sports ability. Wlten asked about learnerautonomy, the teacher was adamant that it was not relevant to those students.

Recently I tried giving thestudents theresponsibility for preparing discussion questions anda presentation on a pop band. Sometimes I had a sense of struggle as thestudents tried topush—

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Carroll &Headme back into a conventional teacher role. In three of theclasses, thestudents finally succeededin generating their own material and managing their own discussion, while in one class I wasforced back into the role of entertainer andprovider. Incidentally, these were all students who had
failed the English IB course the firsttime round. Was it a waste of time togive them the option ofautonomy? Ifeel sure that if I had developed the framework in a more cunning way, I wouldhave
had more success. However, theprocess was time-consuming and required a lot of commitment
from thestudents and me. This highlighted thefact that developing autonomy takes time. Whatabout autonomy in the classes of 48 students meeting with one teacher for 90 minutesper week?
Benson (2001) notes:

Programs aiming at autonomy will often involve phases in which the learners are
expected to re-examine established approaches to learning and adjust to new methodsof work. It is also likely that the natural tendency for language learners to regressperiodically in order to move forwards at a later stage will be more pronounced
in programs that allow greater freedom in learning. It is therefore important that
evaluations of programs aiming to foster autonomy are sensitive to the temporary
disruptions in the learning process that their goals imply, (p. 191)
At the moment, in our context, the administrative and controlling bodies would almost certainly
not wish to embrace a learning process thatnecessitates "temporary disruptions in the learning
process." As a result, ourcourse is less concerned with developing autonomy than I wanted it to be
initially. But my ownpoint of viewhas changed during the process of developing the course. 'Mass
produced autonomy' was never going to work. Instead we have provided a common denominatorin terms of materials concerned with the 'here and now,' which at leastdoes not close off theoptions
for teachers to include more pro-autonomy activities themselves.
Michael: Has the curriculum been successful? In somesenses we are still too earlyin theprocess
to beable to answer. We need to expand on ourcurrentfeedback mechanisms and build in others
that take account ofstudent perceptions and learning outcomes as well as teacher perceptions.
However, we canpoint tosomeencouraging signs. The coursebook has been used, thought about,criticized, and revised. Anecdotal evidence suggests thaton thewhole students like the basic idea ofa textabout their own campus. Some transparency has been introduced in thatevery student cannowsee that there is a common contentfor all core English classes. Perhaps mostpositive is the clear
fact that teachers now have a common experience which hasallowed them to begin to talk to eachother more meaningfully about their teaching, and thatresearch and materials writinggroups haveformed spontaneously in response to the new curriculum.

We are still at an early stage in the evolution of this curriculum, but these signs would seemto suggest that our attempts to mediate between the interests of a wide range of actors arebearing fruit. The more we can provide practical support to teachers or groups of teachers incarrying out their own projects, publishing accounts of what they have done, and in this way
modeling good practice, the more likelyit is that good ideas will spread and our students will
benefit.

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Critical Reader Response i

Hugh Nicoll

Reflecting on curriculum reform in Japanese institutional contexts, I am often paralyzed byfeelings of shock and awe. Reading Michael and Ellen's paper, I feel a great sense of admiration
for the tenacity and perseverance they demonstrate. Even after many readings, however, I am
still asking questions that I continue to find difficult to answer.
1. How can English Departments or Language Centersbe expected to produce motivated,autonomous learners when the demands for raisinglearners' awareness of learning andgeneral literacy are not shared, across the curriculum, by institutions as a whole?
2. How can the goals of helping learners become autonomous be achieved without
supporting project-based learning activities?
3. What are the connections / relationships between what happens in English courses
and the work students do in other departments? To what extent are the students
making active investments in their own futures through the work they do in theirrequired English courses?

4. Do Momoyama faculty have the ability to fail students if they fail to turn in the work
assigned? Will the administrative staff support teachers who are 'strict'?
I am alternatively provoked and confused by the size and complexity of the challenges that
Michael and Ellen have faced in their roles as developers of an in-house coursebook. The partof me most committed to autonomy-oriented approaches to curriculum development bristles
with vicarious indignation at the constraints described in their chapter, and I feel tempted toargue that in-house materials should be limited to activity templates, questionnaires, checklists,
and individual or group project task descriptions. A more conciliatory voice wonders if themost practical solution to the institutional environment described here would be for Michael,
Ellen, and other autonomy oriented colleagues to seek alternative implementation schemes,
perhaps along the following lines:•

Continue to develop and refine their in-house text as one of the materials available toteachers in their program.

•Emphasize self-access support for, and self-study use of, the textbook.

•

Provide practical guidelines and models for more autonomous approaches explicitly
focused on developing literacy skills as a way of meeting the needs of more motivatedstudents and autonomy oriented faculty members.

We English teachers often put awful pressure on our students to speak out—to perform
roles which demand the articulation of self through the oral expression of ideas, and to engage
in discussions and debate. Some will object, and accurately predict, that I am going to argue
here against a primary emphasis on oral communicative competence in Japanese English
classrooms. And I will readily admit that there are ways in which oral skills can be cultivated,
but I have come to believe that one of the best ways out of the maze of tensions inherent in the—Autonomy

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the once-a-week, 90-minute class.
Critical Reader Response 2

Sara Cotterall

The two words in Michael and Ellen's report which resonate most with me are dialogueand
opportunity. I do not intend to dissect this report of their curriculum design project, but I willrefer to ways in which it prompted me to reflect on my experiences with learner autonomy.
Michael and Ellen present their reflections in the form of a dialogue, posing and responding
to questions; dialogue is also an outcome of their project—"The curriculum development
project has stimulated networking between teachers,"they report.

So, why should dialogue reverberate so strongly with me? Because dialogue is central to myefforts to support learning. Dialogue about learning may take many forms: self-referenced talksimilar to Vygotsky's "inner speech"; learners chatting after class; e-mail exchanges between
learner and teacher; hurried discussions with colleagues around the photocopier ...
All these dialogues can be seen as ways of creatingopportunities for learning to take place.
Indeed, one view of the teacher's function assigns a central role to "systematic management oflearning opportunity" (Crabbe, 2003, p. 9). Our training in applied linguistics has taught us torecognise the essential conditionsfor language learning; exercising our expertise involves translating
those abstract conditions into opportunities for learners to access and process input, participate ininteraction, be "pushed" to produce output (Swain, 2000a), and pay attention to the feedbackthey
receive. Similar concernswillhaveguidedEllen and Michael's curriculum project decisions.

But any attempt to specify the ideal curriculum for promoting learner autonomy is doomed
before it begins. To my way of thinking, a curriculum is a statement of potential, not a
blueprint for action. What's more, it can easily be subverted. Therefore, the most important
activityremains that which takes place"inside"and "beyond" the curriculum—on thoseoccasions where learner interest and opportunity coincide.
The kinds of learning opportunities which I have in mind to can be illustrated by referring
to some of the dialogues I have participated in this week:• talking with a Chinese student who wanted to clarify feedback I had written on his
essay, so he could apply his new understanding in writing his next essay;• talking with a colleague who wassearching for arguments to persuade aninternational student that she will learn more if she tries to edit her own writing thanif she asks a native speaker of Englishto edit it for her; and,• talking with a learner of French and Spanish about strategies for remembering
vocabulary.

Exchanges like this are part of the rich context of language learning and teaching. The
outcome of many such dialogues is action; actionthat is borne of confidence. This confidence
is not generated by anything printed in textbooks or enshrinedin the curriculum; it develops asa result of opportunities created and seized.
Opportunities and dialogue—what more do we need?
— LD SIG 2003 A n t h o l o g y —