LEARNING LEARNING『学習の学習』
Greetings and News Updates 挨拶と近況報告
In This Issue 今号について
Learner Development SIG News Update・LD SIG 近況報告
Getting Connected: Local Get-together Reports from Kansai, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, and Tokyo
つながりを求めて：関西 ・広島・福岡・東京

1-2
3-6
7-9

LD SIG Members' Voices メンバーの声
Thinking about language learning, Nat Carney

10-11

LD SIG Grant Awardees’ Report・LD SIG 研究助成金受賞者の報告
JALT 2015: A Reflection, Bjorn Fuisting

12-14

Aiming for Autonomy: Reflections on a 36-year career and the 2015 JALT International 15-17
Conference, Paul Arenson
18-20
Outreach Grant Report: Visiting Tohoku, Alison Stewart & Natsumi Magatake
Reflective Learning Article リフレクティブ・ラーニング
Reflecting on the use of music on creative writing in an L2 classroom, Lee Arnold
Looking Back 報告
Reflections on creating community: Learning together 2, Agnes Patko, Andy Barfield & Ken
Ikeda

21-27

28-37

Looking Forward 今後のイベント
The 2016 Learner Development SIG’s forums
PanSIG 2016 - Innovations in Education
JALT CALL 2016 - CALL and the BRAIN

38-39
39-41

SIG Matters インフォメーション
Financial Report 財務報告
Call For Contributions『学習の学習』原稿募集

42-43
44

NEWSLETTER / SPRING 2016/ LL 23(1)Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): In This Issue

In This Issue 今号についてThis Spring issue of Learning Learning brings
you a range of stimulating and informative
contributions from our members.
In addition to the latest news updatefrom SIG coordinators, Mathew Porter andMayumi Abe, we have a round-up of reports
from local get-together groups in Tokyo,
Kansai, and Hiroshima; we have a selfintroduction from new member Nat Carney;
we have reports by Paul Arenson, Bjorn
Fuisting, who were awarded grants to attend
the JALT International Conference, and by
Alison Stewart and Natsumi Magatake, whoreceived an Outreach grant to support a trip to
Rikuzentakata.
We’re pleased to announce the launchof a new section for Reflective Learning
Articles which features a thought-provoking
article by Lee Arnold on using music in
Japanese university classes to stimulate
creative writing in English.
There are also reflections on theCreating Community: Learning Together 2 Gettogether in Tokyo last December by five of its
participants (three students and twoteachers), and a preview of the LD Forums at
the upcoming PanSIG Conference in Okinawa
later this month and the JALT CALL Conferencein Tokyo in June.
It’s been a while since I edited thisnewsletter and in that time there have been
substantial improvements to the editorial andproduction process thanks to the previous
editors and publications coordinators. My
warmest thanks go to Rachelle Meilleur for
shadowing my role and doing a lot of editing

and proofreading, to the Members Voices
editor, Andy Barfield, the Grant Awardees
Reports editor, Yoko Sakurai, Michiko Imai forhelp with translation and Japanese
proofreading, Monika Szirmai for layout, andfinally to Mathew Porter for passing on knowhow as the previous editor.
Alison Stewart
Learning Learning Editor
Rachelle Meilleur
Learning Learning Shadow Editor「学習の学習」の春号では、我々LD会員から刺激的で役⽴つ情報を幅広くお届けします。
まず、LD SIG コーディネーターである
Mathew PorterとMayumi Abeからの最新の活動情報に加えて、東京、関⻄、広島での地域⽀部集会のまとめの報告、新規会員であるNat
Carneyの⾃⼰紹介、静岡でのJALT2015参加助成⾦受賞者Paul ArensonとBjorn Fuisting、および陸前⾼⽥への旅費に使⽤されたアウトリー
チ助成⾦受賞者Alison StewartとNatsumi
Magatakeによる報告があります。
また、リフレクティブラーニングという新しいセクションの⽴ち上げをお伝えできることを嬉しく思います。今号では、⽇本の⼤学において⾳楽を⽤いて英語のクリエイティブラ
イティングを促進するという、Lee Arnoldの興味深い報告を特集しています。
昨年１２⽉に東京で開催されたCreating
Community: Learning Together ２ の参加者のうち５名（学⽣３名と教師２名）による振りNewsletter of the JALT Learner Development SIG <ld-sig.org/>

1

Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): In This Issue

返りと、今⽉後半に沖縄で開催されるPanSIG
⼤会と６⽉に東京で開催されるJALT CALL⼤会
でのLDフォーラムの予告についても掲載します。
このニュースレターの編集を始めてからしばら
く経ちますが、前編集者や編集委員会コーディ
ネーターのおかげで、編集および作成の⼿順は⼤幅に改善されてきました。シャドウとして私の役割を⽀え、たくさんの編集や校正をしてくださったRachelle Meilleur、「会員の声」担当
編集者のAndy Barﬁeld、「助成⾦受賞者の報告」担当編集者のYoko Sakurai、翻訳と⽇本語校正を⼿伝ってくださったMichiko Imai、レイアウト担当のMonika Szirmai、そして最後になりましたが、前編集者としてノウハウを教えてくださったMathew Porterに、⼼より感謝の意を述べたいと思います。

スチュアート・アリソン（「学習の学習」編集者）

LDSIG Publications Available Online
Collaborative Learning in Learner
Development
Published in 2014, and edited by Tim
Ashwell, Masuko Miyahara, Steven Paydon
and Alison Stewart. Twelve chapters offer amultifaceted and critical new look at thewidely held assumption that people learn bestin groups. Available here.
Learner Development Working Papers:
Different Cases, Different Interests
Published in 2014, and edited by Andy
Barfield and Aiko Minematsu. Nine chaptersoffer multiple, and unexpected, criticalperspectives on the learner development
issues that it deals with. Available online here
or in print here.
Autonomy You Ask!
Published in 2003, and edited by Andy
Barfield and Mike Nix. Sixteen chapters ofJapan-based collaborative research explore
learner and teacher autonomy within Japanesecontexts. Available here.
Learning Learning Archives
Issues of Learning Learning going all the way
back to 1994 are now available in PDF format
here.

Learning Learning Team:

メイヤー・ラシェル（「学習の学習」シャドう編集者）

学習者ディベロプメント研究部会 <ld-sig.org/>

Editor: Alison Stewart
Shadow Editor: Rachelle Meilleur
Members’ Voices: Andy Barfield
Grant Awardee Reports: Yoko Sakurai
Translation: Yoko Sakurai, Michiko Imai
&Yuri Imamura

2

Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): LD SIG NEWS

Learner Development SIG News Update
学習者ディベロプメント研究部会近況報告
Mathew Porter & Mayumi Abe
ぽーター・マシュー ＆ 阿部真由美
November 2015 - April 20162015年11月〜2016年5月

Mayumi and I would like to begin this News
Update with a brief, heartfelt tribute to thepeople in and around Kumamoto and Oita wholost homes, loved ones, and peace of mind as
a result of the Kumamoto Earthquakes on April
14 and 16. We hope for their comfort and a
speedy recovery.
In committee news, Mayumi and I would
like to thank all of the different teammembers for working so hard behind thescenes to make sure that the SIG continues toserve its membership well. The team structureand degree of autonomy exhibited by teammembers is a strength of our SIG and allows us
to accomplish so much. Here is what has been
happening in the five months since our annual
general meeting at JALT2015.
The financial team of Huw Davies andSatomi Yoshimuta faced some challenges after
the JALT executive board meeting in February
at which a new system for distributing funds to
SIGs was decided. Under this new plan, SIGs
receive a set base grant from JALT and avariable grant based on SIG membership. As aresult, we received a slightly smaller overall
grant this year than we had expected.
However, the financial team has created abudget that will protect our financial healthwhile continuing to provide the services wevalue as a community.
The grant team of Satomi Yoshimuta,
Jenny Morgan, and Kris Sullivan have devised a

responsible grant structure that balances our
SIG’s desire to provide members with accessto funding for research, projects, andconference participation with the challengesof remaining within our budget. Details about
this year’s grants and how you can apply for
one can be found on the LD SIG website. We
would also like to congratulate Sean Toland,
the recipient of this year’s JALTCALL grant
and look forward to reading his report in a
future issue of Learning Learning.
The Programme Team of Lee Arnold,
Joel Laurier, and Blair Barr have decided upon
themes for our forums at PanSIG, JALTCALL,
and JALT2016, screened submissions, andassembled what will certainly be 90-minutesof interesting and thought-provoking
presentations. These forums account for the
majority of our SIG’s face-to-face activities,
so we hope to see a lot of members at these
events. You can find out more about theupcoming PanSIG and JALTCALL forums in thepages to come.
Another way to meet LD members inperson is to attend one of the Get-together
events held in Tokyo, Kyoto, or Hiroshima.
Although you can read reports from eachgroup below, Mayumi and I would like toexpress our gratitude to Anita Aden, Agi
Patko, and Chris Fitzgerald for their efforts torevive the Kansai Get-togethers. We hope they
can be as fruitful as the Tokyo and Hiroshima

Newsletter of the JALT Learner Development SIG <ld-sig.org/>

3

Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): LD SIG NEWSgroups, which also deserve our thanks.
The membership team of Ann Flanagan,
Barrie Matte, and Stephanie Corwin haverevised the various welcome emails andreminders and have diligently contacted
members every month to welcome them into
our community and share the benefits of LD
SIG membership. As an organization fully run
by volunteers, the health of our SIG is deeply
tied to our ability to welcome new members,
keep current members, and convince (beg,bribe, and threaten) members to volunteer forcommittee spots. We hope to be able tocontinue building and strengthening ourwonderful learning community.
Hugh Nicoll and Darren Elliott continue
to make progress on the first issue of the new
Learner Development Journal. The theme of
the first issue is “Visualizing Learner
Development” and the finished journal is
expected around this time in 2017. Over the
next few months, authors will be sharing ideas
and information as well as reading andcommenting on each other’s drafts. This
process that is just getting started reflects theprinciples of our community in which individual
practitioners with unique experiences andknowledge support each other’s research andwriting activities so that we can all grow. We
are all looking forward to seeing the results ofthese collaborative efforts.
Although the Outreach Team wasofficially retired at the AGM in November, weare still finishing up the 3.11 translation
project. We’d like to recognize the Publicity
Team—Rob Moreau, Kie Yamamoto, andTomoko Imamura—as well as Andy Barfield,
Mike Nix, Ted O’Neil, Fumiko Kurosawa, andAlison Stewart for their help putting together apress release for the Looking Back website,
corresponding with the press, and providing
feedback on the finished website and print
copy of the bilingual reflections. We’ve spentclose to two years determined to share thesereflections with Japanese and English-speakers

学習者ディベロプメント研究部会 <ld-sig.org/>

as well as deliver a print copy to community
members in Rikuzentakata, and it feels great
to have (almost) achieved these goals.
We would like to also deliver a very big
thanks to Hugh Nicoll for all of his work tokeep the LD website updated and runningsmoothly. Hugh is often contacted whenever
there is a trouble related to technology and
we are grateful for his expertise!
Finally, we cannot forget to thankAlison Stewart and her Learning Learning team—Rachelle Meilleur, Andy Barfield, Yoko
Sakurai, Monika Szirmai, and Michiko Imai—for
putting together another outstanding issue of
Learning Learning.
Mayumi and I are excited and grateful
to be working with so many smart andcompetent people who are dedicated toproviding so many ways for all of us tocontinue talking and learning about learnerdevelopment. Once again, thank you toeveryone who continues to make this ameaningful and irreplaceable community oflearners and teachers!
Mathew Porter & Mayumi Abe
Learner Development SIG Coordinators
April 23, 2016

近況報告に先がけ、まずは4⽉14⽇・16⽇に起きた熊本地震で被災し、家やご家族を失った
⽅々や精神的な被害を受けておられる熊本・⼤分県地域の皆さまにお⾒舞いを申し上げます。
皆さまの安全と⼀⽇も早い復旧を⼼から願っています。
各チームの報告に当たり、SIGがメンバーを⽀える存在であり続けられるよう蔭でご尽⼒くださった各チームのすべてのメンバーに感謝の⾔
葉を申し上げたいと思います。チームのメン
バーたちによる結束や⾃律性は私たちSIGの強みであり、SIGの多くの業績の源でもありま4

Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): LD SIG NEWSす。それでは、JALT2015年次総会（AGM）以
降5か⽉間の活動をご紹介しましょう。
財務チームのHuw DaviesとSatomi
Yoshimutaは、2⽉のJALT執⾏委員会議（EBM）においてJALTからSIGへの助成⾦に関する新システムが決議されたことを受け、難題に直⾯しました。この新システム下では、各
SIGはJALTからベースとなる⼀定の資⾦と、メンバー数により変動する資⾦を受け取ることになります。その結果、今年度私たちが受け取る
助成⾦の総額は予想より若⼲少なくなるのですが、財務チームは、SIGの財務の健全性を確保
し、さらにSIGが⼤切にしている活動を守るために新たな予算を作成しています。
助成⾦チームのSatomi Yoshimuta、Jenny
Morgan、Kris Sullivanは、限られた予算の中でもメンバーたちにリサーチ、プロジェクト、
会議参加の助成をしたいというSIGの願いをかなえるべく、助成⾦の⾒直しを⾏っています。
今年度の助成⾦および応募⽅法の詳細は、LD
SIGのウェブサイトでご覧いただくことができます。また、今年度のJALT CALL助成⾦受賞者であるSean Tolandにお祝いの⾔葉を申し上げるとともに、今後の『学習の学習』での彼のレポートを楽しみにしています。
プログラムチームのLee Arnold、Joel
Laurier、Blair Barrは、PanSIG、
JALTCALL、JALT2016でのSIGフォーラムが興味深く刺激の多い90分間となるよう、テーマを決定し、応募原稿をチェックし、準備を進めています。これらのフォーラムは、SIGの対⾯での活動の機会となりますので、当⽇は会場で多くのメンバーの皆さまにお会いできることを楽しみにしています。まもなく開催される
PanSIGおよびJALTCALLフォーラムについて
は、以下のページでさらに詳しく紹介されています。
LDのメンバーに直接出会うその他の機会としては、東京や京都、広島で開催されている集会があります。以下の各グループからの報告にもありますが、関⻄の集会を再スタートさせた
Anita Aden、Agi Patko、Chris Fitzgeraldの努⼒に私とMayumiから感謝の気持ちを伝えた
いと思います。東京や広島グループの活動のよ
うに実りのあるものとなりますよう願っています。同時に、東京や広島の集会を⽀えるメン
バーにも感謝いたします。
会員管理チームのAnn Flanagan、Barrie
Matte、Stephanie Corwinは、たくさんの歓
迎メールやリマインダーメールの内容を更新
し、毎⽉、SIGへの歓迎の意とLD SIGに所属するメリットを伝えるメールをメンバーに送付しています。私たちのSIGは完全にボランティア
で運営している組織ですので、その健全性は、
いかに新メンバーを迎え⼊れ、現在のメンバーを維持し、さらにメンバーに委員会に貢献してもらうべく説得する（頼み込んだり、ワイロを送ったり、脅したり……）⼒にかかっています。今後も、私たちの素晴らしい学びのコミュ
ニティーを築き、さらに強化し続けられるよう願っています。
Hugh NicollとDarren Elliottは、新しく誕⽣す
る論⽂集Learner Development Journalの第⼀号発⾏に向けて準備を進めています。第⼀号のテーマは「Visualizing Learner

Newsletter of the JALT Learner Development SIG <ld-sig.org/>

5

Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): LD SIG NEWS

Development（学習者の成⻑を視覚化する）」であり、2017年の今頃に出版される予定です。今後数か⽉をかけて、著者たちはお互いの原稿を読んでコメントし合い、アイディア
や情報をシェアします。独⾃の経験や知識を持
つ個⼈が互いのリサーチや執筆活動を⽀え合う
ことによって皆で成⻑していくのは私たちコミュニティーの主義であり、まだ開始したばかりのこの論⽂集作成プロセスにおいてもそれが反映されています。この協働作業の結果を皆が楽しみにしています。
アウトリーチチームは11⽉のAGMで正式に解散しましたが、現在まだ3.11翻訳プロジェク
トの最後の仕上げを⾏っています。広報チームのRob Moreau、Kie Yamamoto、Tomoko
Imamura、およびAndy Barﬁeld、Mike
Nix、Ted OʼNeil、Fumiko Kurosawa、Alison Stewartには、ウェブサイト「Looking
Back：震災のあったこの1年を振り返って」のプレスリリースの準備、マスコミとの連絡、完成したウェブサイトへのフィードバック、⽇英両⾔語の⽂集出版等で尽⼒されました。⽇本語
および英語話者にこれらの振り返りの作⽂をシェアし、さらに陸前⾼⽥市の地域の⽅々に⽂集を届けるべく2年近くの⽉⽇をかけてきまし
たが、その⽬的を（ほぼ）達成したのは素晴らしいことです。
LDのウェブサイトをスムーズに運営し更新し続けてくれたHugh Nicollには、⼼から感謝の意を伝えたいと思います。技術⾯でトラブルが起きたときはいつもHughが対応してくれました。彼の専⾨知識に感謝です！

学習者ディベロプメント研究部会 <ld-sig.org/>

最後になりましたが、『学習の学習』の素晴らしい最新号をまとめてくださったAlison
Stewartおよび『学習の学習』チームのRachelle Meilleur、Andy Barﬁeld、Yoko
Sakurai、Monika Szirmai、Michiko Imaiにも感謝いたします。
私たち皆がlearner development（学習者の成⻑）について語り合い学び合える数多くの機会を提供することに尽⼒くださる素晴らしい⽅々と⼀緒に活動できることは、私やMayumiにとって喜びであり感謝の気持ちでいっぱいです。改めて、LD SIGを学習者と教師が集うか
けがえのない意義の深いコミュニティーとして⽀え続けてくださる皆さまに感謝の意を表します。

ポーター・マシュー

共同コーディネーター

阿部真由美

共同コーディネーター

４月２３日

6

Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): local Get Together Reports

Getting Connected: Local Get Together Reports from
Kansai, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, and Tokyo
つながりを求めて：関西・広島 ・福岡・東京

KansaiChris Fitzgerald & Anita Aden
In the current incarnation of Kansai Learner
Development get-togethers, a growing groupof teachers have been meeting at a community
center in Kyoto since November last year. The
support and camaraderie found in this LD SIG
group makes gathering together a positive
experience each month.
In our latest meeting, the fifth, held on
April 17, we began with a short discussion
about new teaching positions and newchallenges in our current jobs. We then went
on to talk about the CEFR conference, where
we had held the previous get-together inMarch, before moving on to discussing the useof rubrics for assessment and learnerdevelopment. There was a brief discussion
about creating an event for students to meet
together or for students to do a poster
presentation on a topic of their choosing. In
response to this idea, Agi Patko described theCreating Community: Learning Together event
in December 2015, where the Tokyo LD groupbrought together students and teachers in ajoint program of presenting posters on various
topics.
The discussions at the Kansai LD gettogethers have been dynamic and energetic,with attendees keen to hear from like-mindededucators in a variety of contexts and offer
suggestions and advice, capturing the ethos at
the heart of what makes the LD SIG such an
inclusive and friendly SIG. We have managed
to get good-sized groups through word of
mouth and online forums, but are always
looking to get the word out about our gettogethers to the broader LD community. All
are welcome to future gatherings and the next
meetings are scheduled for May 14, June 11,
and July 19: we look forward to yourparticipation. For more information, pleasejoin the Kansai Learner Development group on
Facebook.

Newsletter of the JALT Learner Development SIG <ld-sig.org/>

7

Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): local Get Together Reports

Hiroshima
Jim Ronald
Over the last few months the Hiroshima
Learner Development get-together has
continued to meet, on a more or less monthly
basis. We meet at a table in the lobby of the
Ryugakusei Kaikan, or in one of the meetingrooms. With a total group of about 20 people,
and a core of maybe 12-15 occasional or
regular joiners, there are usually about six toeight of us at the meetings. We’ve continued,
with varying success from chapter to chapter,
to meet to discuss Thomas Farrell’s Reflective
Language Teaching: From Research toPractice. Our December get-together was
replaced with our annual, and increasingly
popular Inter-College Scrabble contest,
managed by Monika Szirmai. In March, six of us
met for our regular LD get-together just before
the new school year started. We started byhearing each other’s news and changes: newworkplaces, new family circumstances, newclasses and activities. One such new out-ofclass activity just starting at Hiroshima Shudo
University is the English Dreamers’ Club. Thisidea was born through a student’s story andthe reflection of the LD SIG Talking Points blog
with Naomi Fujishima last year, then revised
and now being managed with a great bunch of
students. We also talked about games in andbeyond the classroom. These ranged from
Taboo to picture shiritori to “message brick”
Jenga: with DIY messages or bought
readymade. (One version, “Love Jenga”,
sounded interesting but may not be suitable
for most classes!) Exit tickets for student
reflection at the end of class (see Jim
Scrivener’s Classroom Management Techniques

学習者ディベロプメント研究部会 <ld-sig.org/>

for an explanation) were also mentioned, andwe heard about an electronic version of theseavailable at Socrative (thanks, Ariel!).
Altogether, it was a good end to the old school
year—and a good start to the new one.

FukuokaMathew Porter
There’s not much to report from Fukuoka at
the moment. There aren’t a lot of LD SIG
members in Kyushu (perhaps a dozen or so)and the few people who seem interested in
discussions or collaboration haven’t been able
to get together due to scheduling conflicts.
Regardless, the dream lives on. I’m hoping tofind like-minded educators willing to meet a
few times a year to share ideas about
supporting learner autonomy in the classroom
and greater use of the target language outsideof the classroom. In particular, I’m interested
in the possibility of working together with agroup of educators in Fukuoka to recreate the
ACE Conference (http://
acestudentconference.weebly.com/
about.html), which provides students with twodays of English discussion, collaborative
problem solving, and presentations. With somany schools in the area, I’m confident that
we could create meaningful opportunities forall of our students if we worked together. If
you are interested or have other suggestions,please don’t hesitate to get in touch<portermathew@hotmail.com>. You don’t
need to be an LD member to join thediscussion.

8

Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): local Get Together Reports

Tokyo
Andy Barfield, Blair Barr & Ken Ikeda
We'd like to share with you some directions
for the get-togethers in 2016 where, following
discussions in February and March, we areaiming to create a common focus on doing,talking about, and sharing small-scale/
practitioner research into learnerdevelopment issues thatinterest you and otherLD participants.
Our first get-together this year took
place on February 21. In the afternoon people
shared their research histories and talked
about their learner development interests forthe coming year. For a more detailed set ofreflections on the February get-together,please go to <http://ld-sig.org/tokyo-gettogethers/february-2016/>. At the end of theafternoon people wished a fond farewell toAgnes, who is moving to Kyoto to start a newstage in her career, and a warm welcome toBlair as co-coordinator for the Tokyo gettogethers in 2016. Talking through ideas forthis year, the three of us thought it would beinteresting to include as part of the April, May
and June get-togethers a workshop focus for
60-90 minutes on different inclusive
approaches to practitioner research on
learner development issues. The idea would
be that in the first part of each get-together
people taking part would have space, as
before, to talk about their own learnerdevelopment interests, questions, andpuzzles, while, in the second half, there
would be an interactive workshop on aparticular way of doing practitioner researchon learner development issues.
For the April 24 get-together, Alison

Stewart started this new approach with aworkshop on Exploratory Practice (EP) in thesecond half of the get-together, which
included a lot of lively discussion of theconcept and its possible application. A warm
thank you to Alison for helping set in motion
this new way of doing get-togethers. For the
May 15 get-together, we are very pleased toannounce that Alex Shaitan and Caroline
Kocel-Ross will be leading a workshop on
doing interviews, and for the June 19 gettogether, Masuko Miyahara will run a 60-to
90-minute workshop on narrative research.
These workshops are expected to follow
roughly the same format as for April, so again
people attending will have plenty of time andspace for talking about their own learnerdevelopment interests. Our sincere thanks go
to Alex, Caroline, and Masuko too.
If you would like to know more about theTokyo-get-togethers, you can find informationon the SIG’s website here: http://ld-sig.org/
tokyo-get-togethers/. Feel free to email us
too at <ldsigtokyogettogethers@gmail.com>.

LD SIG get-together Contacts
Kansai: Anita Aden
(strawberry2410@yahoo.com)
Hiroshima: Jim Ronald (jmronald@gmail.com)
Fukuoka: Mathew Porter(portermathew@hotmail.com)
Tokyo: Andy Barfield, Blair Barr, Ken Ikeda(barfield.andy@gmail.com;
digger75ca@yahoo.ca; kodanuki@gmail.com)
If there isn’t a local get-together near you,and you know of two or three LD members who
might be interested in joining you, why notstart one?

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Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Members’ Voices

LD SIG Members’ Voices
LD SIG メンバーの声

Thinking about language learning
語学についてNat Carney
カーニー・ナトcarney@mail.kobe-c.ac.jp
My name is Nat Carney and I currently teach at
Kobe College in Nishinomiya. I teach listening,speaking, reading, and writing classes for firstand second year English majors. When I signed
up for the LD SIG the last time I renewed my
JALT membership, I did not expect much. My
membership in SIGs in the past usually has
meant receiving a publication now and then. I
quickly learned that the Learner Development
SIG actively contacts new members. I havebeen contacted a number of times withwelcomes of various forms, including the lastof which was the invitation to write in
Learning Learning along with other new SIG
members. I enjoyed reading others’
introductions, and I am happy to contribute
my own.
I have been teaching in Japan for about

学習者ディベロプメント研究部会 <ld-sig.org/>

ten years now. Like many other foreignteachers I have met in Japan, I did not expect
to be here for so long. I began teaching in the
United States, first as a Spanish teacher for
university students and later as a Spanish/ESL
teacher at the same university. Later, I taught
EFL in Korea for one year, and then after a few
years back in the United States, I came to
Japan to teach – first to Kyoto where I worked
part-time at a number of universities, then to
Sanda where I worked at Kwansei Gakuin
University’s School of Science and Technology,
and finally to Nishinomiya. I have had a very
positive teaching experience in Japan, and I
have enjoyed working with students here.
Especially where I currently work, many of mystudents are interested in foreign languages
and learning about other countries. As well,
the students at my school work hard and are apleasure to work with.
From a learner development
perspective, I am interested especially inlearners’ metacognitive strategies – how they
think about what they are doing. There has
been a good deal of research on how language
learners use metacognition when listening, andL2 listening is one of my main researchinterests. I especially am interested in theinteraction between top-down and bottom-up
processing during listening and how listeners
try to use these processes to understand when
listening. I am also interested in sociocultural
theory and its alternative focus on thelanguage learning process. I received mymaster’s degree from Penn State University
where sociocultural theory is emphasized, yet
when I came to Japan, it seemed very fringe. I

10Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Members’ Voices

think at least having an understanding ofsociocultural theory (SCT) and the SCT
perspective on language development is worth
many teachers’ time. Last year, I reviewed thebook Sociocultural Theory and the Pedagogical
Imperative in L2 Education: Vygotskian Praxis
and the Research/Practice Divide. It is notalways an easy read, but for those curious
about sociocultural theory, the book details
SCT’s perspective on learning and tells how it
is being applied for teaching and research.
Overall, though I like statistics very much and I
think large-scale quantitative studies have an
important place in SLA research, I haverecently become in interested in individual
approaches learners take to acquiring English
and in how situational factors can influencelearners’ progress and perception of what they
are doing. I have not done much research inthis area, but it interests me.
My own language learning has taught methat things are “learned” and forgotten, andsome things are more difficult to acquire thanothers. Some reasons for this certain might becognitive, but without question there areaffective and sociocultural factors at work as
well. Whether through diligent research or lessformal interactions with learners, I hope to besensitive to the non-linear paths some of us
take when learning new languages. As amember of this SIG, I look forward to learningfrom others interested in learnerdevelopment.
Reference
Carney, N. (2015). J. P. Lantolf and M. E.
Poehner: Sociocultural Theory and thePedagogical Imperative in L2 Education:
Vygotskian Praxis and the Research/Practice
Divide [Review of the book Sociocultural
theory and the pedagogical imperative in l2
education: Vygotskian praxis and theresearch/practice divide by J. P. Lantolf &M. E. Poehner]. Applied Linguistics 36,
143-6. doi: 10.1093/applin/amu073

The Learner Development
Journal: Call for Editors for
Issue 2
With the first issue of The Learner
Development Journal on Visualizing
Learner Development well underway
under the skillful editorship of Darren
Elliott and Hugh Nicoll and heading for
publication in 2017, we would like toinvite proposals for the second issue ofthe journal due for publication in 2018.
If you are interested in editing an issue(with one or more others) and can bring
together a group of contributors with ashared interest in exploring any theme
relating to learner development, we
would love to hear from you by June
15th.
For further details about the aim, scopeand policy of the Learner Development
Journal, please see http://ld-sig.org/ldjournal-concept/
If you have any questions or would liketo check any details with us, please do
feel free to contact us.
Alison Stewart(stewart1411@gmail.com)
Tim Ashwell(tashwell@komazawa-u.ac.jp)
Andy Barfield(barfield.andy@gmail.com)
Learner Development Journal Steering
Team

Newsletter of the JALT Learner Development SIG <ld-sig.org/>

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Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Grant Reports

LD SIG Grant Reports
LD SIG 助成金受賞報告

JALT 2015: A Reflection
JALT 2015 参加助成金

Bjorn Fuisting フースティング・ビョーン、
Sugiyama Jogakuen University 椙山女学園大学
bjornfuisting@gmail.com
First, I’d like to express my gratitude to the
Learner Development SIG for awarding me theconference grant and I hope that many moreof the SIG members take the opportunity tojoin this year’s JALT conference in Nagoya.
In 2015 JALT’s annual international
conference was returning to what some people
call its "spiritual home" at Granship Arts andConvention Centre in Shizuoka. For me it wasalso a return to the sight of my first ever JALT
conference back in 2009. Since then, theconference complex has gone through a majorrenovation but it felt like it was still "home".
The JALT International Conference is agreat opportunity to catch up with new
research and old friends, see the latest

学習者ディベロプメント研究部会 <ld-sig.org/>materials that have been published, and get
fresh ideas for the classroom. To make themost of the weekend I decided to arrive earlyand join the Welcoming Party on Friday
evening. The atmosphere was friendly andrelaxed, and it was a breeze to get myconference badge and bag. I was set for the
weekend.
Two of my main research interests arePeer Review in writing and Extensive Reading.
I am also interested in bilingualism, but more
on a personal level as I’m keen to know how
best to help my own children develop theirlanguage skills. So these were areas that I
intended to focus on when I was planningwhich sessions to attend. Here are some of myhighlights from the weekend.
Saturday
The first presentation that I had pencilled in
was the Bilingual SIG’s A Discussion on Adding
Biliteracy to Bilingualism. It featured threepresenters who shared their experiences andresults of attempting to bring up their children
biliterate followed by a panel Q&A. Although
all presenters were quite different inapproach, child rearing philosophy, andpresentation style, they each gave valued
insights and helpful advice. One presenter had
been very systematic in the teaching with astructured approach including phonics training,
checking reading speeds, and learning targets.
Another presenter had instead decided tofocus on the children’s interest and build thelearning around that. All presentersemphasised reading to their children andinteraction with family and friends who speak

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Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Grant Reports

have a challenge on my hands trying to get myown two children to learn to read and write inmore than one language, but I left the meeting
encouraged by their examples and guidance.
In the afternoon I went to what turned
out to be the most inspiring presentation of
the whole weekend. It wasn’t a presentation
on any research, it wasn’t about teaching orby a teacher, but it was a powerful message
delivered extremely skilfully. The National
Geographic explorer and TED presenter Aziz
Abu Sarah shared his story about growing up in
the occupied territories of Palestine, losing his
brother, escaping from the situation, andeventually returning to start a peace
initiative. Mr. Sarah set up an exchange
program whereby a Palestinian volunteer visitsa school in Israel and an Israeli volunteer goesto a school in Palestine. By talking to thechildren, they aim to help youngsters
understand the other side. Mr. Sarah also
shared footage taken by children in the wartorn Syria as part of a National Geographic
initiative. It was a truly moving and quite
emotional event sponsored by National
Geographic Cengage as part of the launch of a
new TED Talks textbook. I realised that inJapan we are extremely fortunate living in apeaceful society with almost no violence and,on the whole, sufficient food, shelter andeducation available. For my own teaching, thispresentation made me think about how
powerful stories and images can be forprovoking thought and igniting action.
I had to follow this excellent
presentation by doing my own poster
presentation. Poster presentation is my
favourite way of presenting educational
research since it gives you a chance to interact
more with your audience and get immediate
feedback on your presentation. Twocolleagues, Jeremy White and Brett Morgan,
and I have been looking into student andteacher attitudes towards the use of peer
review in EFL writing classes for the last three

years and we were presenting our latest data
in a poster. We had previously looked into
student and teacher attitudes from a mainly
quantitative perspective (White, Morgan &Fuisting, 2014; Morgan, Fuisting & White,2014) but this time we added the qualitative
aspect by including teacher interviews. We
also included another year’s worth of datafrom the students. Some of our main findings
were:• Most students find value in using peer
review• Students don’t feel criticized by peers’comments• Most students don’t worry about hurtingclassmates’ feelings• Most students believe they need to be
trained before undertaking peer review
In the coming year we hope to conclude ourstudy by publishing the findings from thisresearch project.
After having talked to conference goers
for 90 minutes about peer review, my twocolleagues and I finished the day by attending
the Best of JALT awards where the top
presenters from the past year wererecognised. Since JALT is varied in both
geographic location and interests, this annual
award ceremony gives you a chance to see
which presenters have been recognised fromall over the country. It was also a splendid andsocial way to round off the first full day of theconference.
SundaySunday started bright and early as I received
the Learner Development SIG’s Conference
Grant and then attended the Extensive
Reading SIG’s extremely engaging Colloquium
on Defining Extensive Reading. Even though I
have been using ER in my classes, have read a
lot on the topic, and have been involved with
the ER SIG, it is always refreshing to come andlisten to other people’s practice and research.
There were eight speakers sharing both

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Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Grant Reports

practical advice and research on ER. One of
the most engaging of these was the educatorand author, Jane Spiro, who showed us thedifference in the process of writing graded
readers compared to other genres of writing.
Her comparison of how the storytelling
differed yet was similar in one of her poems
and one of her graded readers was delightful.
It was clear to the audience that Spiro is an
educator, a researcher and a writer, as well asa keen reader, and I felt that most of theaudience aspired to become more like her.
• Fluent, sustained comprehension of
text as meaning-focused input• A large volume of material• Reading over extended periods of time
• Longer texts that requirecomprehension at the discourse level.
(Waring & McLean, 2015, p. 165)
In addition to these four, however,additional principles listed by Day andBamford (2002) in their Top Ten Principles of
ER may be added depending on the teachingcontext. Not only did this presentation
provide the findings from cutting-edge
research, it also confirmed my own belief
about what is important in ER. In the pastwhen I have tried to adhere to all top ten
principles put forward by Day and Bamford,
they have clashed with the institutional
requirements and with how my students learn.
With just four core principles it makes it much
more practical to implement an ER
programme in a variety of settings and also
adapt it to students’ needs. Next year I will
ensure that my own ER teaching does follow
these core elements but I will not feel forced
to comply with the original list of ten if
certain principles do not suit the institution,
students, or my own teaching preferences. At
the end of the colloquium there was the Great
Graded Readers Give Away when some of the
publishers donated graded readers for the

学習者ディベロプメント研究部会 <ld-sig.org/>teachers to sample and use with theirstudents. I walked away with advice,information, inspiration, and resources.
Conclusion
Overall, I found that it was the informal things
like the international food fair and old friends,
the unexpected things, like the TED-stylepresentation, as well as the stories that stuckwith me. Reflecting on the two days, I was
pleased that I went, that I learnt a few things,
and that I got a couple of leads for improving
my teaching. But mostly, I was pleased that I
got renewed inspiration and energy tocontinue to do my best as a teacher,researcher, and parent.
References
Day, R., & Bamford, J. (2002). Top ten
principles for teaching extensive
reading. Reading in a foreign
language, 14(2), 136.
Morgan, B., Fuisting, B., & White, J. (2014).
University student attitudes towards peer
review in EFL writing: A quantitative
study. Language Education in Asia, 5(1),93-116.
Waring, R., & McLean, S. (2015). Explorationof the core and variable dimensions ofextensive reading research andpedagogy. Reading in a Foreign
Language, 27(1), 160.
White, J., Morgan, B., & Fuisting, B. (2014).
Peer review in EFL writing: Teacher
attitudes. Perspectives 22(2), 20-27.

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Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Grant Reports

Aiming for Autonomy: Reflections on
a 36-year career and the 2015 JALTInternational Conference
学習者の自律性を培うためのアプローチ
ー 英語教育の現場における36年間とJALT国際会議2015に寄せる考察

The grant from the LD SIG was thus agodsend as it helped me to see past the
obstacles put in my path by the disaster andour move and refocus my attention on theneeds of my learners. In the following report, I
trace my journey as a critical pedagogue frommy beginnings as a teacher in New Yorkthrough to the new awareness I have gained
about dealing with sensitive issues in myclassroom.
The Road to Critical Pedagogy

Paul Arenson アレンソン・ポール
tokyoprogressive@mailbox.org
In 2012, my wife and I gave up long-term
employment and moved to Kyushu. Since the2011 earthquake and nuclear disaster inFukushima, we had become fearful for oursafety as we were living in a radiation hotspot
along the Sumida River. My new job was very
different to the previous teaching I had done,
where I had been able to pursue learnercentered approaches, and which I had found tobe very energizing. In the new job, I was now
a “trainer” (in the company’s parlance),
drilling my students in exercises designed tohelp them pass TOEIC and be “successful”.
When I tried to do something different andbring the real world into the classroom, myefforts felt clumsy and preachy, and thestudents did not respond well. I felt alienatedin this teaching context and I was unhappy
with the teacher that I felt I was becoming.

Thirty-five years ago as a new teacher at
LaGuardia Community College in New York, Itaught remedial English classes. One day,
Sandra, a young single mother, opened up tome about why she thought she couldn’t write“proper” English: she was, in her mind, stupid.
In fact, her high school teachers used justthose words and she had come to believe it.
At the time, I was using Community
Language Learning-Counseling Learning (CLLCL), a humanistic approach based on the workof Carl Rogers. Part of this involves validating
the learner as a person by using“understanding responses” to discover where
she is (in all senses, both linguistically andsocially) and helping her chart a path thatfacilitates learning. By the end of thesemester, she was writing beautiful essays(even if not 100 percent grammatical!). She
had found her voice.
Over time, I broadened my outlook to
include an awareness of the essential
unfairness that conspires to stop people like
Sandra in their tracks and hold them back.
Sandra was thus my introduction to criticalpedagogy, an approach that looks at thesocial, cultural and political contexts in which
language teaching and learning occurs (e.g.,
Benson, 1997; Pennycook, 1997; see also Scott
Thornbury’s blog, An A to Z of ELT on
Autonomy, Critical Pedagogy, Empowering
Education, Earl Stevick, and Ira Shor)

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Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Grant Reports

Teaching in Japan

A Reawakening

When I moved to Japan, I was no longer
teaching inner-city students, but I foundmyself most drawn to those students whobelieved they were stupid and incapable oflearning, “poor learners,” as I had once evenviewed myself in high school math class. Manyof my students with poor self-images werefrom Japan’s hard-to-see but very real
underclass: the working poor, zai-nichi andburakumin, those with developmental
disorders, all but invisible in a society whichcalls itself homogeneous in order to ignore theissues brought about by inequality. Gradually,
it became clear that I needed to bring thisworld into my classroom if language teaching
was to have any meaning to me and for mystudents. Increasingly, critical pedagogy wasadded to the mix, particularly critical media
literacy, and most of my students responded
well to this.
Then 3.11 struck, and our lives wereturned upside down. Moving to Kyushu wastraumatic, as my wife and I had to settle forlow-paid, part-time work, and it became
harder and harder to maintain face-to-facecontact with friends and former colleagues,
let alone pay the bills. Moreover, I felt that myteaching principles were being compromised. I
did not become a teacher in the first place
just to train students to pass standardized
tests. I was sick with anger towards the lives
wrecked by Tokyo Electric and I desperately
wanted to bring that reality into theclassroom. Yet my students resisted myattempts to examine and debate what wasgoing on in Japan (Arenson, 2015). Like aperson whose lover has been wrested from him
by a giant wave, I felt bereft. This was thesituation I was in when I went to the JALTInternational Conference in Shizuoka.

At the conference I attended presentations by
Hugh Nicoll and Andy Barfield on approaching
global issues in the classroom, and I saw how
students were allowed to invest time inselecting topics, choosing and analyzing
research materials and writing about or
discussing what they had learned. In Andy’s
case, for example, scaffolding was provided
with articles that piqued the students’interest, and there were links to previous
student research and note-taking strategies
such as mind maps. This hit a chord because
global issues were no longer working for me in
my classroom of elite engineers.
As a “radiation refugee” whose own
life had been turned upside down by
Fukushima, I have rather firm views on thecomplicity of the government and nuclear
power industry in the disaster. I had beenchoosing materials on controversial issues,
including nuclear power, for my students
without considering that they might see things
differently, especially since among the
products their company makes are components
for nuclear reactors. Talking to Hugh andAndy, I began to understand why my approach
had been backfiring to the extent that a few
students were even hostile toward discussing
any political issues. It was clear that thestudents were picking up on my strong antinuclear views through the songs and videos
that I used in class, and this may haveinhibited them from expressing opinions that
contradicted mine.

学習者ディベロプメント研究部会 <ld-sig.org/>

A Reencounter With Carl Rogers
John Spiri’s talk on mindfulness in theclassroom was also an unexpected reminder ofa philosophy that had inspired me greatly
earlier in my career: Carl Rogers and the useof those understanding responses I firstencountered 35 years ago with Sandra, where16

Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Grant Reports

an empathetic teacher simply tries to reflect
back what she thinks the student is feeling.
John took a question about “non-compliant”
students who refuse to cooperate, just coming
to class and sleeping. Rather than get angry at
the student, why not, John asked, try to see
things from your student’s point of view? In hiscase, he simply asked the student if he wastired, thus starting a dialogue that helped him
feel understood and bringing the student backinto the classroom emotionally.
It is easy to be lead astray when one’s
own life events get in the way of seeing
clearly. We must work with the hand we aredealt, and Andy, Hugh and John helped merealign what I was doing in the classroom withthe teaching philosophy I did not want todiscard. I took away from the conference aplan: from then on I would place emphasis on
helping students select a controversial topic,
learn how to paraphrase what the author says,
how to look for contrasting arguments, andhow to develop one’s own point of view. But I
would be careful not to impose my own
worldview on them. I would guide, I would
listen, I would reflect back to them thedifficulties they had in confronting the life
questions they encountered.
Ta-Dah!
In the semester that had just started at thetime of the conference, I provided mystudents with a list of possible research topics,
asked them to add their own, and with them
discussed a variety of research sources withoutsteering them toward the conclusion I hoped
they would reach. I waited for them toencounter the voices of those who write about
the inequalities, the absurdities, theunfairness that is all around them, rather thancall attention to them myself. Some took noteof these voices and still concluded that all iswell. Others said they are not so sure. And a
few even ventured to question the status quo.

I began to enjoy teaching again as I saw thestudents tackle topics that they themselves
had chosen such as the death penalty or free
trade.
I have begun to see my “trainees” as
the people they are and stopped worrying
about whether or not they are critically awareof the issues that affect the world they live in.
It is probably one of the hardest teachingsituations I have ever been in, but, thanks to
my conversations with John, Hugh and Andy,something new is being born.
References
Arenson, P. (2015). What my cousin Joanie
taught me about teaching and learning:
Developing critical media literacy andautonomy in a guided discussion anddebate format. http://gilesig.org/
2015cmlarticle.pdf
Benson, P. (1997). The philosophy and politics
of learner autonomy. In P. Benson & P.
Voller (Eds.), Autonomy andindependence in language learning (pp.
18-34). London: Routledge.
Pennycook, A. (1997). Cultural alternatives
and autonomy. In P. Benson & P. Voller(Eds.), Autonomy and independence inlanguage learning (pp. 35-53). London:
Routledge.

JALT2016: Transformation in Language
Education

Friday 25th to
Monday 28th
November, 2016

Aichi Industry & Labor Center – WINC Aichi
Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan

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Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Grant Reports
LD SIG Outreach Grant Report: Visiting
TohokuLD SIG アウトリーチ助成金受賞報告：
東北を訪れてseminar translated essays the Kesen JuniorHigh School students wrote into English. I was
one of them. After we had finished translating
the essays we were assigned, we worked inpairs and checked each other’stranslations. After that, we worked together ina translation workshop. Here we standardized
our word choice, that is, we agreed on ways toexpress certain words. For example, we
agreed to use both tsunami and tidal wave.
We also used a word list sent to us by the
project editors to accomplish this task.
A: What do you feel you got out of thatexperience?

Alison Stewart, Gakushuin University
スチュアート・アリソン、学習院大学
stewart1411@gmail.com
Natsumi Magatake, Gakushuin University
曲竹 夏実、学習院大学
maggy.jpn@gmail.com
As a grateful recipient of a Learner
Development SIG Outreach Grant in 2015, I
would like to thank the Grants Team forapproving my application and thus helping
finance (retrospectively) a trip to
Rikuzentakata in Iwate Prefecture in July
2015, the purpose of which was to clear a path
to publishing a website and bring the LD’s
Tohoku translation project to completion. The
grant paid for the cost of a Shinkansen return
ticket to Ichinoseki for Natsumi Magatake, who
was my graduate student at the time, and who
agreed to accompany me in the capacity of aninterpreter. For this report, I have conducted
an email interview with Natsumi to talk aboutthat experience.
Alison: How did you get involved in the essay
translation project before the trip?
Natsumi: A number of students from our

学習者ディベロプメント研究部会 <ld-sig.org/>

N: I felt that it was difficult to translate thestudents' experience into appropriate English.
We struggled to express certain Japanesephrases like「これからもよろしくお願いします. 」
This sort of means, “Please keep on supportingus”, but not completely. So it was interesting
to think deeply about the meanings ofeveryday expressions and their translation,
especially in the context of these students'
essays.
A: After that experience, you graduated andrejoined Gakushuin as a graduate student,
didn't you? Because we saw a lot of each otherover the following two years, I came to rely on
you very often for help in corresponding by
email with people from Rikuzentakata,especially in the summer of last year.
The translations had all been
completed by the end of the previous year,
and we were ready to launch a website. But atthat point we realised that we didn't havepermission from the children, or rather, since
they were minors, from their parents or
guardians, and so ethically we couldn't
proceed with the website. Of course, weshould have thought about this much earlier
and asked the school to help us get these
permissions right at the time when we agreed
to do the translations. At this point, three
years after the children had written the18

Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Grant Reports

essays, it was very much harder. The children
had all graduated from the school and movedon, our main point of contact, Kazutoshi
Musashi, who had been president of the school
Parent-Teacher Association, and who hadsuggested the project in the first place, wasno longer in that role and had no connection
with the school, and the school principal had
also changed. When we contacted the newprincipal, he was not interested in helping us
contact the students to ask for permission.
So it was then that we thought about
traveling up to Rikuzentakata and talking to
the principal in person. We weren't sure whoshould go, but after some discussion andreviewing of schedules, it was decided that I
would go with Caroline Kocel-Ross, who would
be going on afterward on a fieldtrip with heruniversity, and with you, Natsumi.
N: That's right. I went to Kesen Junior HighSchool with you and Caroline as aninterpreter. We met Musashi-san at his new
ramen cafe in the town of Rikuzentakata, thendrove to the new school building, which issituated a few kilometers away from thecoast, and met the school principal, Suzukisensei and his deputy, both of whom had been
recently appointed to their jobs at the school.
We told them about our work and negotiatedwith Suzuki-sensei for permission to publish
the essay. He listened to us kindly and finallyagreed to help us.

Kesen Junior High School

A: Before we went to the school for our
meeting, Musashi-san took us to see the oldschool building, which is now unused. What
were your impressions of the old and newschools, Natsumi?
N: First of all, I was really surprised at how
close the old school was to the sea. So it was
hard to believe the fact that all the students
had survived on the day of the tsunami. In thearea around the old school, there were nohouses where people lived. I heard that thepeople who used to live there have all moved
away because the area was so devastated by
the tsunami, and probably they will nevercome back again. I asked Musashi-san aquestion, “Why don't they come back now?”
He answered that it was taking such a longtime to repair the area and people could not
wait. I was really shocked to hear that...
On the other hand, the students inthe new school were very cheerful and polite.
They said hello once they saw us entering the
new school building. This building was a little
bit smaller than the old one, but it had a warm
friendly atmosphere.
A: I agree, there was a nice feel to the place. I
was very impressed by the new school
principal, Suzuki-sensei, and the care he
expressed for the children and the people wholost so much in the disaster. Of course, I was
also delighted that he agreed to help us trackdown the families of the students who wrote
the essays we translated, and I have to thankyou for the very important part you played inhelping that discussion go smoothly. As aresult, about half of the families sent backpermission for us to publish the essays on a
new website (http://lookingback311.wix.com/
start). Given that nearly three years had
passed since they had written the essays, I was
surprised and relieved that we received somany.
My last question to you is perhaps
more personal, Natsumi. You are starting work

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Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Grant Reports

as an English teacher at a high school in
Saitama this April. Do you think that our trip
to Rikuzentakata has affected the way you
think about English teaching and your future
career as an English teacher?
N: This experience will certainly affect myfuture as a teacher. I came to think that thereason for learning English is to have more
opportunity to get and give information. Thatis, if you speak English, you can learn more
about what you want to know. And you cantell more people about what you have learnt.
But this experience also affected me on a
personal level. It is very difficult for most highschool students to imagine how terrible
disasters are because they live in peace. I’dlike them to realize the importance of theirfamilies and their lives.
A: I think that is one of the main things I too
have learned from working on the translation
project and traveling to the area that wasaffected by the tsunami. Even though I
experienced the earthquake in Tokyo on 3.11,
my life returned to normal quite quickly. For
the Kesen Junior High School children, life
would never be the same again. Even today,
five years later, many families are still
suffering from housing, employment, andhealth issues that are the direct result of thedisaster.
It’s been important to me as ateacher and as a long-term resident of Japanto gain some awareness of these problems andto share my concerns with students andothers. I believe strongly in the value ofbringing social issues into the language
classroom, but I sometimes feel that thispractice can be somewhat sterile or distantfrom those issues. The Looking Back 3.11
translation project was one of those rareoccasions where I could feel practically as wellas emotionally connected with the people in
the Rikuzentakata area who were affected by
3.11 and its aftermath, as well as with my

学習者ディベロプメント研究部会 <ld-sig.org/>

students, including Natsumi, who agreed totranslate their words and their feelings. Forme, this has been a high point in my career asa teacher. To other SIG members who may beconsidering doing projects with their students
that aim to make a difference, I offer mywarmest encouragement.

Looking Back: This Past Year After the
Earthquake
震災のあったこの1年を振りかえって
http://lookingback311.wix.com/start20

Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Reflective Learning Article

Reflective Learning Article
リフレクティブ・ラーニング

Reflecting on the Use of Music on Creative Writing in an L2 Classroom

音楽を用いたクリエイティブライティングのL2授業の考察

Lee Arnold, Seigakuin University
アーノルド・リー、聖学院大学
washizora@gmail.com
This song is like a feeling of a young mother going somewhere to abandon her children,
she does not have money to feed her children, so she will abandon her children in front of ahouse that looks like with a rich family inside, with a family richer than her, so probably
the children will have a better life. For me this song demonstrate the unstable feelings andthoughts that she had when she go to abandon her children. At the beginning she feel that
she is doing the right thing, with her act her children will be more happier in other family
maybe her children can achieve something great! But in the way to the place she get
regretful, she think about her living with her children, with many problems that her
children causes but which makes her happy.
(From a first-year Japanese university English writing class learner)
The composition above was submitted for an assignment in one of my first-year English writingclasses. The task was for the learners to write short stories to pieces of instrumental music, and I
assigned it out of curiosity for what it might yield from them in terms of writing creativity. I was
inspired by a conference presentation by Milne (2012) on the use of ambient music in a writingclass. In his presentation, he explained how he used such music to stimulate more heartfelt
expression in his learners and greater creativity with descriptive vocabulary and compositional
exposition. I was motivated by the promise of his findings to investigate what effect a similar
approach with music might have with my learners, and what they would produce.
Upon reading this composition, I was immediately struck by the learner’s rich, moving
response to the piece of music he chose to write about — the French jazz pianist JacquesNewsletter of the JALT Learner Development SIG <ld-sig.org/>

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Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Reflective Learning Article

Loussier’s version version of J.S. Bach’s Siciliano in G Minor (https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=3Y_kRyuoVw8). It is perhaps all the more moving as the learner’s grammatical errors do not
detract from his ability to write with great empathy.
Indeed, a number of the learners’ stories and texts demonstrated a similar expressivenessand imagination. While some of the compositions were longer, and some were more sophisticatedthan others in terms of grammar and exposition, I considered this assignment an overall success interms of learner engagement and task realization.
Conventional Orientations of L2 Writing Instruction
The noticeable improvement in the learners’ level of engagement in this task compared with thetasks they usually did prompted me to ask why creative composition rarely, if ever, appears inmuch L2 writing pedagogy or textbook assignments. This is not to criticize any particular textbook
for my classes. Indeed, I had selected a textbook for this class and found that it was useful andeffective for other assignments. Nor can I blame the syllabus; I wrote it myself with the textbook
in mind knowing that the learners I would get would mostly be freshmen who would most likely
need the structure of a textbook. But the fact that I had to go completely outside of the syllabus
to assign a piece of creative writing struck me as odd. I wondered why creative writing was notpart of a standard syllabus, and why this had not occurred to me sooner.
Further consideration of this question also brought me to another realization—that learnercreative expression also rarely appears as an object of study in most L2 writing research. Kramsch(2006) makes the point that researchers in both TESL and TEFL seem to “have given more attention
to the processes of acquisition than to the flesh and blood individuals who are doing the learning,[…] separating learners’ minds, bodies, and social behaviors into separate domains of inquiry,”with the effect that “the cognitive and the social have been seen as distinct entities” (p. 99).
This tendency to separate the intellectual and emotional sides of the language learning
process also seems to be reflected in the conventional orientation of many second and foreign
language curricula. Hanauer (2011) observes that language instructors are more often than not“directed by the imposition of abstract standards, the requirement for particular teaching methods
and evaluation tied to external standardized tests” and that in such a mindset, “language learning[…] is defined overwhelmingly in linguistic, structural, and cognitive terms” (p. 1). Student
evaluation consequently becomes narrowed to abstract criteria, feeding in turn a research focus
that, however unintended, characterizes language learning in abstract terms. Hanauer continues
that “the experiences, emotions and symbolic transformations inherent in the process of learning alanguage are erased and superseded […] by the overriding emphasis placed on the communicativeand cognitive aims of language usage,” wherein “it seems natural to avoid any discussion of thehuman in the classroom and to emphasize the learning and testing of a decontextualizedcode” (pp. 1-2).
Smith (2013) raises a further issue with such an orientation. Speaking within the context oflearner reading, he makes the point that the bulk of reading material assigned to learners to write
about is, more often than not, creative in nature. “Among the most valued texts in any language
are creative works,” he notes, adding further that “when we give students extensive reading, we
recommend graded readers that are overwhelmingly fiction” (p. 12). Nonetheless, “when EFL
teachers ask students to produce written work, they usually ask for well-organized facts andexplicit opinions: descriptions, essays, reports” (p. 12). The gap between how learners assimilate

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Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Reflective Learning Article

the ideas and language they encounter and what teachers usually seek in written production isstark, all the more when teachers expect learners to engage with the material yet write within aframework that tends to exclude the most interesting aspect of the engagement — the subjective
and visceral responses of the learners.
Against such a tendency, an expressive component to L2 writing, where learners areencouraged to write freely and imaginatively in the target language, might be a worthy avenue for
exploration in practice and research. On this point, a quote from Widdowson (1993, cited by
Hanauer, 2011, p. 5) sums up what dedicated learners aim for and where such a direction might
lead: “You are proficient in a language to the extent that you possess it, make it your own, bend it
to your will, assert yourself through it rather than simply submit to the dictates of its form” (p. 5).
Creative Expression in Language Learning
A growing body of literature has nonetheless considered the subjective and creative side of L2
language learning and acquisition (Zamel, 1982; Gould, DiYanni & Smith, 1989; Carter & Long,
1991; Crystal, 1998; Hanauer, 2004; Kramsch, 2009), with the aspect of subjectivity in particularraising incisive questions on the connection between language, learning and identity. On this note,Kramsch (2006) proposed that, while the language learning process may potentially threaten
learner identity, it might also become an opportunity for identity re-creation. She characterizes
the language learner as occupying a transitional “third place,” an area “filled with memories ofother languages, fantasies of other identities” and with “linguistic anxieties and communicative
joys, of symbolic gamble and subjective power” (p. 98). Seen from this perspective, the endeavor
to master another language is bound up with one’s whole being. “Because it is not only a code but
also a meaning-making system, language constructs the historical sedimentation of meanings wecall our selves” (p. 99).
This holistic view may be anticipated in Asher’s Total Physical Response (1969); it is central
in Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences (1983); and it is even supported by Krashen’s
Pleasure Hypothesis (1994). Unifying each of these positions is the sense that learners acquire
language when it is meaningful to them, and this occurs not through mastery of discrete clustersof techniques or through an all-encompassing methodology, but when they have the freedom tocapture and filter what they find meaningful in their own terms.
Such a view prompts questions on how creative expression may be stimulated, and it is here
where music may be relevant as a spur to learner creativity. Perhaps with Asher’s (1969) work in
mind, Murphey (1992) explores the affirmative role of music through its somatic and motivational
effects, as well as in facilitating vocabulary learning. He notes the pedagogical value of songs
given their popularity, their ubiquity in media and public spaces, and in the phenomenon he cites
from one of his previous studies as the “stuck-in-my-head” tendency of songs to echo in the mind
after listening (Murphey 1990).
Larsen-Freeman’s (2000) book-length treatment of differing teaching methodologies
examines Desuggestopedia and the role Lozanov gave to music in his original conception and nameof Suggestopedia (1978). In the approach, classical music is used to set various moods as a
background to story reading by the teacher and dialog practice and expansion by the learners. A
key principle of this methodology is to remove “the psychological barriers learners bring with themto the learning situation” through “techniques to activate the ‘paraconscious’ part of the mind,
just below the fully-conscious mind” (Larsen-Freeman, 2000, p. 81). In particular, the teacher

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Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Reflective Learning Article

dialog-reading is matched to the music so that “the ‘whole brain’ (both the left and the righthemispheres) of the students becomes activated” (p. 82). This is consistent with Lozanov’s (1978)
belief that music was effective in working through the blocks learners unconsciously placed out offear or lack of confidence.
Even before I had investigated the literature, my own excitement at what my learners wereable to produce from my trial of creative writing to music led me to consider how much more theirintrinsic interest could be motivated and engaged when a personal space was opened up for theirwriting. That such research supports my intuitions on the value of stimulating creativity in theclassroom leads me now to review some samples of learner writing.
Using Music to Stimulate Creative Writing
Inspired by Milne’s (2012) successful experience with ambient music, I decided to use instrumental
music in four of my English writing classes with mostly first-year learners at two private
universities. I chose four pieces of music, ranging from sparse to more layered in aural andinstrumental density: the Bach interpretation by Jacques Loussier, a Miles Davis jazz-fusion piece,
an acid-jazz performance by Ronny Jordan, and a short Frank Zappa composition that was a blendof jazz, avant-garde classical influences, and rock. My hunch was that different kinds of musicmight elicit different responses from the learners. My choice of instrumental over vocal music wasbased on this rationale: to create an atmosphere of discovery and fresh encounter where learners
could explore a sense of scene and experiment with characterization without distraction from song
lyrics. To bolster such an atmosphere, I deliberately selected music they would not likely haveheard before.
I played the four pieces of music on CD and iTunes in the writing classes and asked thelearners to free-write a short paragraph to each piece of music in their notebooks. For eachparagraph, I asked them to imagine a different scenario to the music and urged them to write
whatever came to their minds from what the music suggested to them.
Prior to the classes, I uploaded video files of each piece of music onto the two learnerteacher blogs I kept for each university. In class, via computers or on their mobile devices, I thenasked the learners to choose the one musical piece they liked best or thought was the mostinteresting, and expand on their original paragraph about it. I asked them to submit their work in
typed form in the following class.
Samples of Learner Writing
Overall, the written compositions varied in length and quality, with more proficient learners
tending to submit longer texts. Nonetheless, samples of this level of writing demonstrated somesurprising depictions with play of contrast within their characterizations, such as this one written
to Miles Davis’ “Portia” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nuNfDYhq6Y):
In a certain house, thief comes up. The thief gets closer to the room on his
tiptoes. When he goes into the room, there is a girl. She is a cute and beautiful
girl, and fall asleep. The man falls in love with her at first sight. For a while, shewakes up and surprises him. And he forgets an original purpose and kidnaps her.
This sample effectively conveyed, in its brevity, a scene with an unexpected twist.

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Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Reflective Learning Article

With a similar brevity, but depicting a quite different atmosphere, the following sample waswritten to Frank Zappa’s “Little Umbrellas” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5JBqKYo_Xk):
I imagine many a place with many adrenaline and laughs in the air. Many lights,
many people, many feelings, many dramas on the stage and many hopes anddreams delivered for children and teenagers! But also for adults, it breaks thecommon sense that adults do not have dreams because they lived long time togive up their dreams for "real life." In this place, those type of people can learn
that dreams are also real! This place is a circus.
In some cases, quite differing interpretations emerged from the same piece of music, such as these
two short samples based on Ronny Jordan’s “After Hours” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=NTymOEuJNIc):
This has a negative image. The boy was very fat. When he was walking, he stuck
in a hole. He was fat so he didn’t get out of a hole. He was writhing in pain.
Many people assisted him but he did not get out. He reflected on what he haddone for the day. He decided that go on a diet.
By contrast, the piece brought out a quite different setting and character for this learner:
I am Jenny. I am 24. I work as a fashion designer. There is a café I go there
almost everyday. The café’s master is a middle-aged man and he has a cutemoustache. The coffee which he made is always tastes good and the music in thecafé which he selected give me a cozy feeling. I am attracted by him unwitting
for a long time but I don’t want destroy “the master” and “the denizen”
relationship. Because I remember that he said once that he would never bemarried. So I decided that I would come to this café until it be closed.
One tendency that emerged was that the more dense the musical instrumentation andstructure the more impressionistic the writing tended to be. Such density may have hampered
imaginative processing and vocabulary choice, and raised an obstacle with learners of lower
proficiency, further accounting for the brevity of their work. By contrast, less-textured music, suchas the Bach piece, brought forth the most imaginative writing, and offered particular stimulation
to more comparatively advanced learners. Here is one submission from a more proficient learnerbased on the Bach piece (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y_kRyuoVw8):
The main melody was very beautiful but sad. I felt the sound of piano fantastic,
and I also felt something mysterious. It brought me to the world of fantasy,
separated from the reality. It made me imagine the story.
In a small town in Austria, there was the calm lake floating some redlotuses. It was in the park far from any buildings, and it was near the forests.
The silence controlled the all-time in the park. The place was not warm but
little bit cold. The season was early spring. No one was there but a crying young
girl sitting on the bench in front of the lake. She looked twelve or thirteen. Her
face was pain badly because she lost her favorite clarinet given by her
grandmother. She would often play the clarinet in the park and she loved thetime passed so slowly.

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Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Reflective Learning Article

She knew that she had to go home and tell her grandmother the truth. But she
was reluctant to do so then. She did not want to see the sad face of her
grandmother and did not have any courage confessing her mistakes. So she
wanted to stay in the place any one was not. Only stars knew where she was andwhat made her cry and stars were shining for her for a long time.
This piece, much like the sample in the introduction, depicts great tension between an idealizedstate of affairs and a harsh reality, set against an otherwise idyllic background, and characterizedwith depth and sophistication.
Overall, many of the learners across a range of proficiency were able to create a variety ofcharacters and settings for their compositions to music, commensurate with their level. The
experiment with music produced a successful collection of writing that gave the learners a novel
way to express themselves in the L2. After the assignments were completed, I gathered anduploaded some of their samples on my blogs to showcase their efforts and for all of them to readand reflect on.
Reflection and Implications
Creative expression may be the most personal of writing for learners to explore and perhaps this is
why it is so engaging and motivating. Yet it still appears to be largely untapped as a pedagogicaltool. Holistic language development in general and writing instruction in particular must
nonetheless include room for the development of expressive language for the motivational
possibilities this facilitates. An index of language proficiency is marked when learners claim
ownership of language, and such a capacity in writing is as pragmatically central to thedevelopment of well-rounded productive skills as their ability to write clear, logical essays on
factual topics. The growing body of research on creativity in language learning and the rewarding
experience of writing that I have described imply that teachers could expand opportunities forlearners to engage in exercises of creative expression.
This exploration of music for learner creative writing admittedly centered on samples ofmusic that I had selected for the moods, compositional characteristics, and sonic dynamism I knew
they possessed. In future, I would like to explore how learners not only respond to other forms ofmusic I have in mind, such as non-Western samples of music, but also music that they choose
themselves. Would they respond differently to music with which they were familiar and with which
they perhaps associated particular memories? This also raises a much larger question: What role
does non-linguistic input play in the language learning process? This question may be answered
better within the context of semiotics rather than applied linguistics. The promise this task in theuse of music for creative writing demonstrated may call for some exploration of areas where
semiotics may be relevant to language learning and acquisition.
While there is still much for me to explore in research, I have sound reasons to believe thatany materials and activities which foster creativity in writing classes may inspire more heartfelt
learner involvement, unlock learner creative potential, and provide opportunities for learners towiden an emotional linguistic repertoire and thus enhance their L2 development. This kind ofdevelopment furthers Widdowson’s (1993) dictum on learner ownership of language and serves as
an exemplary aim for teachers to direct their learners toward.

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Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Reflective Learning Article
References
Asher, J. (1969). The total physical response approach to second language learning. The Modern
Language Journal, 53(1), 3-17.
Carter, R., & Long, M. (1991). Teaching literature. Essex: Longman.
Crystal, D. (1998). Language play. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books.
Gould, E., DiYanni, R., & Smith, W. (1989). The act of writing. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Hanauer, D.I. (2011). Meaningful literacy: Writing poetry in the language classroom. Language
Teaching: Surveys and Studies, 45(1), 105-115.
Kramsch, C. (2006). Preview article: The multilingual subject. International Journal of Applied
Linguistics, 16(1), 97-110.
Kramsch, C. (2009). The multilingual subject. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Krashen, S. (1994). The pleasure hypothesis. In J. Alatis (Ed.), Georgetown University round tableon languages and linguistics (pp. 299-322). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Larsen-Freeman, D. (2000). Techniques and principles in language teaching. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Lozanov, G. (1978). Suggestology and outlines of suggestopedy. New York: Gordon & Breach.
Milne, A. (2012). Music as a means of building vocabulary and composition skills. Paper presented
at JALT 2012, Fukuoka, Japan.
Murphey, T. (1990). Song and music in language learning: An analysis of pop song lyrics and the useof music and song in teaching English to speakers of other languages. Bern: Peter Lang.
Murphey, T. (1992). Music and song. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Smith, C. (2013). Creative writing as an important tool in second language acquisition andpractice. The Journal of Literature and Language Teaching, 2(1), 12-18.
Widdowson, H.G. (1993). The ownership of English. TESOL Quarterly, 28(2), 377-389.
Zamel, V. (1982). Writing: The process of discovering meaning. TESOL Quarterly, 16(2), 195-209.
Appendix
Links to music used:
Jacques Loussier – Siciliano in G Minor (J.S. Bach): https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=3Y_kRyuoVw8
Miles Davis – “Portia”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nuNfDYhq6Y
Ronny Jordan – “After Hours”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTymOEuJNIc
Frank Zappa – “Little Umbrellas”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5JBqKYo_Xk

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Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Looking Back

Looking Back
報告

Reflections on Creating Community:
Learning Together 2「第2回学習者ディベロプメント研究部
会コミュニティの創造：共に学ぶ」についてAgnes Patko, Andy Barfield, & Ken Ikeda
パトコー・アグネス、バーフィールド・アンドリュー 、イケダ・ケン
Creating Community: Learning Together
2 took place on Sunday December 13 2015 withover 35 poster presentations/digital displays
by both students and teachers. Thirty-four
teachers, 34 students, and two parents took
part. This small-scale, informal afternoon
conference offers opportunities for students
and teachers to learn together from eachother about different experiences,questions and issues to do with learnerdevelopment. As the final Tokyo get-togetherof the year, we aimed to keep presentation
formats informal and interactive. At Creating
Community: Learning Together 2 there were
two rounds of poster presentations and digital
displays, with each round followed by small
discussion and reflection circles for 30 minutesin pairs and small groups in each presentation
room. The conference finished with a plenary
session where the website for the SIG's 3.1
Children’s Accounts translation project was
launched and everybody at the conference hada chance to share reflections and questions
about creating community and learning
together.

学習者ディベロプメント研究部会 <ld-sig.org/>

We include here five reflections bypresenters at the 2015 informal afternoon
conference. Our thanks go to everybody whohelped at participated in the conference, as
well as to Junsei Goseki, Rob Werner, Erina
Iwasa, and Shuhei Yamada for contributing
their reflections on CCLT2.
Learning and Solving Puzzles ThroughCommunication
コミュニケーションを通じて学習と問題解決をする
Agnes Patko
パトコー・アグネス
After the successful informal conference,
Creating Community: Learning Together in
December 2014, I was looking forward to thesecond one in 2015. I was glad to see thatmany people attended and created a friendly
and positive atmosphere.
Although, as a presenter, I did not get
to see other presentations during the firstround, I got valuable feedback about myresearch. I presented about a correspondence
project, in which my Japanese students andstudents from my university in Hungary
participated. This was the first time I had
presented about it; therefore, besides talking
about what and how I was doing with mystudents I wanted to know what other people
thought about it and what they would
recommend me to do differently. Questions
and comments from the participants helped
me to gain deeper understanding of thepreliminary results and identify different
possibilities for analysis.

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Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Looking BackIn the second round I visited several
presentations on various topics. I had theopportunity to see both the teacher andstudent perspectives on different teachinglearning situations and managed to interact
with “subjects” of stories of success. I wasespecially impressed by stories about how
students took responsibility for their own
learning and how they gradually became more
and more autonomous learners. One of themost memorable stories was a first-year
female student’s. She had volunteered abroadto help build a house in Indonesia for people
who had become homeless after a natural
disaster had stricken their region. At first she
felt useless there. She could not do hard,
physical work nor could she speak much to
locals. However, she tried her best to express
her feelings in English and it brought her
closer to the local community.
At this informal afternoon
conference I was happy to see that it did not
matter who was a teacher and who a student.
People treated each other equally friendly,
which contributed to a relaxed atmosphere.
Presentations and discussion made me think
about various factors of teaching and learning.
A few questions that came up for me are as
follows:* There were a number of presentations
by teachers addressing difficulties resulting
from students’ lack of motivation in writing
tasks (e.g. thesis and home paper). I waswondering whether students’ lack ofmotivation or unproductivity in writing tasks
corresponds to insufficient instruction onacademic writing at the beginning of their
university studies. Is it a result of students
entering university with a low level of active
language knowledge, which universities try to
improve by providing a greater number ofgeneral English language classes thanacademic skills classes? I also wonder what
students think about these questions.

* There were several students telling theirstories of how they had become moreautonomous and learned to make decisions
about their own learning. It was great to hearthem and I was happy to see students fromdifferent universities share their experiences
or give each other advice on learning. I wonder
if they do the same at their own institutions as
well. Do students get a chance (in class or at
any kind of events) to talk to their classmates,
peers, seniors or juniors about their learning
successes? I hope so. If not, where or whenshould teachers provide space for it? Could
students be encouraged to take the initiativein this?
I believe that such events can aid thecommunication, mutual understanding andcooperation between teachers and students;
therefore, I am looking forward to next year’s
Creating Community: Learning Together event.
Learner Development SIG ―学生として参加―
学会への個人的回顧
五関順盛, 学習院大学修士1年
私は担当教授のスチュワート先生より、11月のJALT国際大会と12月の大妻女子大学でのSIGで自分の研究のプレゼンテーションを行う機会をいただけた。学生としての自分の参加経験を振り返り、自分に起こった変化を出会った発表や参加者の方々を含めて紹介させて頂きたい。
今振り返ってみると、11月の学会では予想以上の規模の大きさに圧倒されて、また非常に年齢層が幅広い教師の方々、たくさんの国籍の人々がいて、適応するのに時間がかかった。
英語を教えている人々から話を聞く事は自分が望んでいたことではあったが、中々自分から話しかけることが出来なかった。11月の学会が終わったときには大きな安心感を得て緊張感がほぐれた気がしていたので、ある程度ストレスを

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Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Looking Back

感じていたのかもしれない。しかしながら12月

いうものが離れていなければいけないのかといのSIG学会は規模が小さく、学生も参加者の約う疑問に挑戦をするようなプロジェクトであ半数ほど参加しているのが見え、自分としてはり、非常に興味深かった。他の学生達からもユ

無意識のうちに安心感を覚えていたのかもしれ

ニークで興味深い内容の発表を色々と聞くことない。最初は中々口が開けず、先生方や学生にができた。
発表の中には、マシュー先生の「3.11も話しかけることが出来なかった。しかし、最初のプレゼンテーションのセクションが始ま

Looking Back Together」では2011年から現在まり、Patko先生のポスターで「日本人の学生がでの東北や、震災・電力の様子を発表していハンガリーの日本語専攻の学生と英語でコミュた。震災が与えた被害、電力、原発の情報は普ニケーションをとるという形で、ハンガリー人

段あまり情報として耳に入ってくることではなの日本語専攻の学生に対し日本人学生が教える

いので、約5年前のできごとであるが、地震やというポジションをとることができる」という津波のことを思い出し、考えることができた。

主旨の発表をしていた。学生・教師・年齢など

そして、回顧することの大切さ、これは震災だという個々のアイデンティティはコミュニケー

けに限らず、過去を振り返る事で自分たちはションに大きく影響するが、彼女のプレゼン

色々なことを学べるのだと改めて感じさせられテーションを最初に聞いた事で、私はこの学会た。

ではできる限りのことを他者から学び、自分の回顧というと、SIG学会では発表のセッ

学生というポジションに関係なく、できる限りションが終わると10分ほど議論をする時間が設伝えられるようにしたいと考えることができけられたが、今思うとなぜ私は積極的に発言をた。

しなかったのだろうかと考える。色々な要素が参加者の発表では、明治大学の学生が原因となっているはずだが、後悔をしている時「World Peace Game」という政治的な交渉を点で自分にはまだまだ足りないところがあると英語で行うというアクティビティを紹介してい感じた。総合として学生は私を含めてもっと主て、学生たちが主体的にゲーム内容を紹介して体的に、積極的に活動するべきだったという点くれた。彼らは英語専攻ではないということががある。ある時は積極的、主体的に行動ができ印象的であった。また、別のセクションでは大ても、いかに環境の変化によってそれが変化し学のセミ学生による「SAGEプロジェクト」とうるかということの良い例であった。しかし、いう発表が非常に学べることが多かったものか

このように回顧をすることで改善し、次に繋げもしれない。そのプロジェクトは約20人のゼミることができればよいと思えた。

の学生が数年に渡り行っているプロジェクト

私は、「信頼」ということをテーマに発で、高校生、大学生、ビジネスパーソンという表を行った。普段、関係の中であまり言葉とし3つの完全に異なる存在を繋げようというものては意識しないであろうこの「信頼」がどのよだ。これは、なぜ高校と大学、そして社会人と

うに先生と学生が捉えているかを調査した。場

学習者ディベロプメント研究部会 <ld-sig.org/>

30

Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Looking Backにいた先生・学生の方々合わせて約30名程度にけを与えてくれたかもしれない。中学校・アンケート回答のご協力を頂いた。私が色々な高校で英語を教える日本人教師がより多く発表を通して改めて、または新しく「気づき」

参加して、なぜ英語を教えているのか、そがあったように、私の発表を聞いて下さった先してその考えをネイティブの先生方と共有

生、学生の人にも同じ「気づき」があれば、私することが出来れば、とても有意義になるの発表は大成功であると思う。そしてまず何よのではないだろうかという風に感じた。

りも、あの場で私が大事だと思う事を「教える」ことが出来たならば、私の成功であると感

2． 責任感、達成感などのコントロールの所じる。今回の12月のSIG学会を終えた時には、在はどこにあるか？

11月の国際大会を終えた時にあった安心感など

学会で先生方のプレゼンテーションをはなく、もっと多くの人と話したいと言う気持

聞いて、先生方は想像以上に英語を教える

ちになっていた。自分はこのような気持ちにということに責任感を持っているというこなっていたことから、この「コミュニティ」にとを感じた。日本の大学生たちに英語を教参加することができて良かったと思った。

えるのは簡単なことではないが、先生方が最後に、学会に参加して疑問に感じた事を2つ紹介。
1． なぜ英語の先生は英語を教えるのか？

教室で思った様にいかないことを学習者のせいにするのではなく、彼ら自身に責任を置くことで、教育は成り立っている。言い自分自身で、なぜ英語に関する修士号

換えれば、教師は教える事を止めるまではを取得したいのかを考えるきっかけになっ教師、学習者として成長をやめることがでた。1つには、英語圏の文化、ヨーロッパやきない。これは、学ぶ側も同じで、学習者

アメリカが好きだということと、英語が好が言語学習の失敗をテスト・教師・教室なきだからである。また、英語をある程度勉

ど周りのものだけの要因・原因していたら強して使えるようになったことから、世界学習者自身が変化するのも、学習を成功さ中の人と話すことが出来るということが素せるのも難しくなるのではないだろうか。

晴らしいと思った。自分が英語を教えるな

学会では振り返る事の大切さや、態度・心らば、この感覚と経験を他の人にも共有しへの変化を与える事の大切さを学ぶことがてほしい、そして全く異なる人々から英語出来た。これは、私自身がこの学会から有を通じて異なる価値観を学ぶ大切さを伝え

意義な行動、そして結果を得ることに責任たい。英語を教える人はそれぞれ英語を教を感じていたことによって可能だったのでえたいと言う理由を持っているはずであはないだろうか。したがって、重要なことる。この学会で私たちは、先生方と生徒たは自分に変化を与えることが出来るのは、

ちとコミュニケーションが出来たため、こ周りのものではなく、自分自身であると考の質問に対する答えについて考えるきっか

え直す事である。

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Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Looking Back

Personal Reflection as a Student on the
Conference
Junsei Goseki, Gakushuin University, Masters
1st yearThanks to my Master’s supervisor Alison
Stewart, I had the chance to be involved as apresenter in both the Learner Development
Forum at the JALT International conference inNovember 2015 in Shizuoka and in Creating
Community, Learning Together 2 at Otsuma
Women University in December 2015. Here I
would like to share my thoughts andexperiences about the conferences and what I
learned from them.
In retrospect, the international
conference in November was quite
overwhelming for me in terms of how huge thescale was and how varied the experiences andbackgrounds the participants, so it took awhile for me to adapt. I had hoped to listen to
people who teach English, but I did not feel
confident enough to ask any questions. Afterthe conference was over, I had a feeling ofachievement and I felt the pressure on me hadgone.
The LD SIG conference in December at
Otsuma Women University was not that big
compared to the international conference, andabout half of the participants were students,
which naturally made me feel more
comfortable. In the first hour, I was there
without speaking out and talking to anyone.
When the first round of presentations had
opened, however, I started to feel that I
didn’t need to keep silent. At first, I stopped
by at Agnes Patko’s presentation. She
explained the change in Japanese students’roles and the feeling of confidence theygained by teaching something to Hungarian
students who were majoring in Japanese. From
her presentation, despite the fact that ourdifferent identities, such as age, gender andwhether being a teacher or a student, strongly
affected me, I was able to be aware again of

学習者ディベロプメント研究部会 <ld-sig.org/>

the importance of challenging these barriers tolearn and teach things best.
In the section by student presenters, I
found many interesting things. The students of
Meiji University introduced the “World Peace
Game” in which participants negotiate as
representatives of each country over politicaldisputes. I was impressed at how passionately
they explained the details in English despite
the fact that they are not English majors. I
was also impressed by the SAGE project. The
project attempts to connect high school
students, university students and businesspeople, and has developed over several years
through the involvement of about 20 university
seminar students. It was amazing because ingeneral, high school students do notcommunicate with university students. Also
business people do not usually have any
chance of interacting with students. However,members of SAGE have tried to encourage
people who belong to the three different
groups to blend.
Mathew Porter’s presentation, “3.11
Looking Back Together”, reminded me of thedays I had volunteered in Tohoku. He talked
about the history of the worst disaster in 3.11
in 2011 to the present in terms of tsunami-hit
areas, power plants and electricity. As I rarely
have access to this information, it was really
informative and beneficial, which allowed me
to think back the event almost 5 years back. In
this section, I believe I learned to think that it
is important to have a reflection, not only on
the past events like the disaster, but also on
what has actually happened to ourselves,because we can learn from making theseconnections to our own lives and reflecting on
them.
Speaking about reflections, I wasallowed to discuss what we have learnt fromthe presentations after each round. Looking
back, I wonder why I was not active in being
open to the discussion. Probably there weremany reasons for that, but the point that I feel32

Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Looking Backthe regret about is that there were many ways
in which I could improve my participation in
discussions. The students including me at theconference could have been more active
towards the activities at the conference as awhole. I knew that I must have drawn more
benefits from the conference about teaching
and learning but I actually couldn’t do as I
expected myself to be able to do. This kind ofreflection, however, allows me to consider
what I should have done and could not so thatit allows me to have a change myself.
At Creating Community: Learning
Together 2 I gave a presentation about“trust”, something which we generally don’t
think about as a concept in learning, but which
is very important in relationships. I asked
participants about trust based onrelationships, responsibility, awareness,competence and confidence in their teaching
and learning in classrooms. I was able tocollect about 30 answers from the teachersand students. Just as I found myself
discovering new things and reconsidering
things I take for granted, I hope I was able toencourage other participants to reconsider
their thoughts of trust in their own ways, andin that case my presentation was of great
success there. After the SIG conference, as I
did when finishing the international
conference, I felt that I wanted to have moretime to talk with as many different people as I
could. For this reason, I was happy to be able
to share my time with people there in the
CCLT 2 learning community.
To close, I would like to introduce
several questions I considered after the
conference.
1. Why do English teachers teach English?
For myself, I wonder why I want to get a MA in
English. One reason is I love the culture ofEurope and America including thepeople. Needless to say, I also love thelanguage. Also once I become somehow
proficient in English, I get to love tocommunicate with people around the world. If
I teach English, my answer to the question isthat I would like to share this feeling andexperiences with other people and to convey
the importance of learning different values
from very different people. I would like to ask
all of English teachers why they teachEnglish. They should have reasons. The
conference gives us the great chance of
exploring possible answers to this question,
because we are all able to communicate bothteachers and students where I was able toconsider the question. I think there should bea lot more Japanese English teachers of juniorand high school at the conference to share
their experience with non-Japanese English
teachers.
2. Where is your locus of control?
Throughout the conference, after listening toteachers' presentations, I felt that if not all
but almost all of the teachers are responsible
in their teaching. It must be hard to teachEnglish to Japanese university students who
are not easily motivated to learn. However, it
is likely that a flower blooms when a teacher
does not see the failure because of students
but because of their teaching. In other words,
teachers should not forget to improve as ateacher and as a learner until they stop
teaching. That's the way everything might
improve. It is true in when we learnsomething, if we tend to attribute the failureof learning to surroundings such as exams,
teacher, classrooms and etc, we might find it
hard to change and develop what weshould. At the conference I learned a lot ofthings including the importance of reflection
and being responsible for getting meaningfulactions and effects from that event.
It is always important to think that it is
not others who can change me but it is rather I
who must change myself and takeresponsibility for my own learning andcontinuing development.

Newsletter of the JALT Learner Development SIG <ld-sig.org/>

33

Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Looking Back

Improving Data Analysis Instruction
より効果的なデータ分析指導をめざして
Robert J. Werner, Kanda University ofInternational Studies
ワーナー・ロバート、神田外語大学
Three students and I presented on ourreflections of a process-based course that I
taught for the first time in the Spring 2015semester. I would like to reflect on the data
analysis process, which one student focused onin her part of the poster presentation, because
it was the one area I felt was not successful
during the course. During the presentation andreflection sessions, I received valuablesuggestions both from participants and fromone of my student co-presenters that I think
will help me to improve the activity in the
future.
The course was a third- and fourth-year
elective on social issues, which I had
personally developed. It was intended to be amore advanced version of the university’s new
first-year curriculum, in which content islearned through various genres of texts, aswell as activities where students develop
different skills. The processes are repeatedthroughout the course, so students canimprove in areas such as leading discussions,analyzing data, and critical thinking, as theylearn the content. In this case, criticalthinking mostly involves exploring the course
material more deeply through writing original“why” and “how” questions and discussing
them in small groups. While this has always
been part of the curriculum, the otherprocesses are new. Since the new curriculum
has only been taught for one year, thestudents in my class had never learned in thisway. Therefore, the course was experimental,
with an eye toward the future.
As the name data analysis
implies, students analyze their own data,
which they create through formulating andasking survey questions. In encouraging

学習者ディベロプメント研究部会 <ld-sig.org/>

students to be autonomous in how they went
about the activity, I deliberately did not tellthem how to do it (aside from a brief
handout). I had incorrectly assumed thateveryone knew how to conduct a survey fromdoing a similar activity in a previous course.
(As it turned out, most students either did notremember how to do a survey or had neverdone it in the earlier course.) In addition,
since the task was unfamiliar, they wasted a
lot of time trying to get started, and many ofthem fell behind.
In my student Emiri's, conference
presentation, she reflected on the data
analysis process. In a thoughtful andconstructive way, she not only detailed why
she felt it did not work well, but also offereda suggestion on how to improve the activity inthe future. It was refreshing to receive criticalfeedback from one of my students, and I also
think she had an excellent suggestion. Emirisaid that the topic (race relations in the US)
was too difficult and that she did notremember how to conduct a survey from her
previous course. She suggested that there be amini data analysis activity, so students canlearn how to do a survey and become familiar
with the process before having to do it all on
their own.
There was one moment during thepresentation that was especially meaningful in
not only helping me to reflect on this activity,
but which I was also able to connect to mystudent's suggestion. One participant talked
about a possible problem related to students'
familiarity (or lack thereof) with the task typeand content, and he drew a small graph withfour quadrants to illustrate it. I believe hementioned the principle it represented, but I
cannot recall what it was. Based on myrecollection of the conversation, I tried torecreate the graph. However, after trying
several possibilities and reflecting on what
would best fit, the end result (see Figure 1)
differed from what I remembered. In the34

Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Looking Backgraph, memory relates to how well students
remember the content, and familiarity relates
to how comfortable they are with doing theactivity.
Positive Memory(Content Knowledge)

Negative
Familiarity(Lack of Comfort
with Activity)

Positive
Familiarity(Comfort with
Activity)

Negative Memory(Lack of Content Knowledge)

Figure 1. Students’ memory of content andfamiliarity with an activity .
As can be seen in the graph, the upper rightquadrant represents students' familiarity withboth the activity and the content. On theother hand, the lower left quadrant represents
unfamiliarity with both. The activity in its
current form was an example of the latter,
which goes a long way toward explaining why
it did not succeed.
After seeing this visual example during
the presentation, listening to my student's
suggestion, and talking about both in thereflection session, I realized that I could haveavoided confusion by practicing the activity(and teaching more about doing a survey) with
content students are more familiar with. One
such possibility is racism in Japan, as students
at this university will have heard about or
studied it, and it is also related to the course
content. Using more familiar content, I could
better structure the activity, explain both why
and how to do a survey, provide examples ofquestions and analyses, and maybe evenincorporate some communication strategies(one of the other processes). This way,

students would better understand how tocomplete the activity. It would then be one
fewer obstacle when they design a survey onless familiar content, such as racism in the US.
I am extremely grateful to my student
for making such a wonderful suggestion, which
in hindsight should be obvious, but that I
overlooked in an attempt to provide freedom
and flexibility. I am also appreciative of theparticipant who drew the graph to illustrate
the problem, thereby leading me to see apossible solution. As I combined the two, I had
a framework for how to teach the data
analysis process next time in a way that will
hopefully be clearer and more meaningful forstudents.
Since this type of activity is analytical,
students need to learn about and understandhow to use different types of skills in order tosuccessfully complete it. My experience inteaching data analysis, reflecting on it, andplanning to teach it again has raised several
questions, which might be useful for others
who are interested in trying a similar activity:* Is it important to teach survey and data
analysis skills to high school anduniversity students? Why or why not?
* How can teachers effectively prepare
students to design a survey and analyze
data (including creating and discussing
different types of graphs and/or othervisual representations of the data)?
* What strategies are useful for teaching
students how to explain data analysis andsurvey results to their peers?
* In what ways do learners deal with data
analysis?

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Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Looking Back

Talking With Students and Teachers From
Other Universities
他学校の学生・教員とのコミュニケーションを通してた。それに加え、たくさんの意⾒をくれたため、違う視点からも考察できるようになった。これによって、よりよい論⽂を書いていきたいと思う。
また、ほかの学⽣や教員の発表は私が今まErina Iwasa, Meisei University
岩佐恵莉奈、明星大学

で考えたことのない発表が多く、とても興味深いも

CCLT2 was a nice experience for me. It was
the first time for me to participate in an
informal conference and give a poster
presentation. Before CCLT2, I did apresentation in Belarus and it was a kind offormal presentation. So, I couldn’t speak withother presenters and members of theaudience. But in CCLT2, I could talk with many
people and get a range of advice about mystudies.
My academic interest is “The Image of'Sousyokukei Danshi' in Recent JapaneseAnimation.” It is a kind of gender study. So,
when I arrived at CCLT2, I was nervous
because I thought my focus did not match thisconference’s concepts. However, many people
were interested in my study and gave me somecomments to improve my study by, forexample, trying to collect questionnaire
responses, and thinking about how I can use
the insights from my study in education. I had
never talked to students and teachers fromother universities so their comments helped
me. It was interesting for me to talk withthem. At the conference, I could have a goodtime. Using this experience, I will study more
and more, and write my graduation thesis.

関係性、学習⽅法など多種多様でとても刺激になっ私は、いままでに⼆回学会に参加したことがあった。しかし、その⼆つは⼀⽅的な発表形式だった。
そのため、今回のインフォーマルな対話形式は初めてでどうやったらよいのか最初はつかみづらかった。しかし、実際にやってみると⼈の意⾒を聞きやすく、フォーマルな形よりやりやすく感じた。私の研究はこの学会にはあまり適していないと思っていたが、多くの⼈が来ては真剣に話を聞いてくれてい学習者ディベロプメント研究部会 <ld-sig.org/>のがたくさんあった。卒論に関することや、⼈とのた。他⼤学との交流は少なかったため、学⽣との交流ができてよかったと思う。

Coming to Talk With a Positive Mind
挑戦する気持ちを強く学んだCCLT2
Shuhei Yamada, Chuo University
山田 周平、中央大学
I think that motivation is the most importantpart of this conference. Even if I understandEnglish no matter how much, there is no
meaning if not going to talk. Of course, it isbad not to be going to talk English because I
can’t speak English well.
In the past, I have talked withforeigners. However, I have talked withforeigners when they have asked me how to
buy something a train ticket or which train
they have to ride. I have tried to talk English.
Of course it was in poor English. But, they
have tried to understand of my explanation.
At that moment, I have understood “I should
speak English even if I can’t speak English
well.”
I went to this conference with thatmind. And, I thought I had to talk English
positively. At time to hear other people's
presentations, I was very surprised. Because of
most people spoke English very positively. Yes,
they were very enthusiastic.
Next, I will introduce the contents ofmy presentation. Students of “Moreau class”
tried to keep a “Listening Log.” It is very
simple, but slightly serious. We listen 5 English
listening resources every week, andsummarize it in a note and illustrate by a36

Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Looking Backclass. It has raised ability of my listening andtalking comprehension. So, we decided to
explain it how we accomplished the "growth" inthis presentation while throwing in the changeof the notebook.
At last, the time came that I had to give
my presentation. I thought that I have to speak
English well. Of course, with very a positivemind. However, I was not able to talk so well.
Because of this I could talk with the person I
was talking to, but it was not possible for me
to talk to other people very much. For thereason, I was scared.
To sum up, I am still scared to speak
English now. But, this conference andparticipants told for me that I should talk withcourage. It is not good for me to speak English
with a shy mind. I can talk positively. I have tochallenge myself. Actually, I was able to finish
this conference. So, I can talk English withability of listening and talking from “ListeningLog” and have a positive mind from thisconference and speaking to foreigners. And, I
think that “The most important thing is...
never give up.” Thank you.

Newsletter of the JALT Learner Development SIG <ld-sig.org/>

37

Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Looking Forward

Looking Forward
今後のイベントThe 2016 Learner Development SIG
forums
大会でのLDフォーラムの予告
PanSIG 2016 - Innovations in Education
Nago-shi, Okinawa-ken, Meio University,
May 20-22, 2016
Learner Development SIG Forum:
Starting a new conversation: Using new
approaches to ensure new learning
Saturday, May 21 – 4:15-5:40PM,
Kogitoh Room 105
Our education system tends to value
compliance, conformity, and complacency. In
the effort to innovate our classrooms, old
mindsets often resist those pioneering new
approaches. But just as ineffective as those
resisting change are those who abandon
fundamental principles of learning for the sakeof “innovation”. In the digital age,technological devices may spur innovations
that are new tools, but not new ideas. While
this has involved a new dialogue in education,
has it brought about new schema in education,
appropriate for our learners in the 21st
century?
For our forum this year, the LD SIG will
showcase five great presenters with incisiveand thought-provoking presentations. Here aredetails about the PanSIG 2016 LD forum
presentations:

学習者ディベロプメント研究部会 <ld-sig.org/>

Alison Stewart (Gakushuin University) Educational paradigms: Evolving theories
about language learning and learnerdevelopment
This presentation offers a broad historicalreview of the dominant theories of learningfrom Ancient Greece to the present day.
Starting with Plato’s views on education andthe subsequent history of language teaching, I
come to focus on cognitive, sociocultural andecological theories, approaches tounderstanding learning that are prevalent incontemporary language teaching theory andpractice. My argument is that, although thethree approaches currently co-exist, they
assume incommensurate notions of how andwhere learning occurs. I conclude bypresenting examples from recent publications
to illustrate how these theories relate to an
evolving conceptualization of learnerautonomy/development.
Hiroyo Nakagawa (Kansai Gaidai College) - Anassisted writing approach for Japanese EFL
college students
This presentation is based in part on a study of
how Japanese EFL university students may
improve paragraph writing by an assisted
writing approach, which helps them reflect on
their own errors and content. They wrote theirown thoughts and impressions on social issues
they had read. Despite their relative lack ofprevious writing output, the result implies that
this approach may be effective to develop
fluency. Yet feedback to the approach38

Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Looking Forward

revealed an additional dimension: a sense of
maturation in their worldview, with greater
sophistication in global-glocal consciousness.
Katherine Thornton (Kanda University ofInternational Studies) - Established methods,
new setting: bringing learning advisingtechniques into the classroom
In this poster presentation, I will share myexperiences of taking the now well-establishedpedagogical approach of learning advising into
the classroom, through a blended approach ofclassroom activities, one-on-one advisingsessions, and self-directed learning. I will
provide practical examples of activities, andexplain how I have adapted the original idea
for this course to suit different groups ofuniversity students (freshmen, older students,
and those preparing for study abroad) over
several years. I hope to start a conversation
with other educators about how approaches
from advising can be used to enhance thelearning experience for students.

Greg Rouault (Doshisha Women’s College of
Liberal Arts) - Mentoring for professional
development: A case study ofundergraduates seeking teaching licenses
In developed countries, virtually everyone has
attended some form of formal education.
While one might think this experience would
foster great innovations, education delivery
has not changed much. As evidenced by thelearners coming into university foreign
language courses, it is clear that in the upper
years of schooling one-way transmission modes
dominate. Many English teacher licenses will
be awarded to university graduates with only
4-year bachelor’s degrees and common
knowledge is that teachers teach as they were
taught. This presentation reports on a casestudy into mentoring for professional
development as innovation, supported by an
LD SIG Outreach Grant.

Debjani Ray (Tokyo University of Science) New perspective: English Lounge
Conducting English Lounge as an
extracurricular activity is a relatively new
approach to enhance language learning. I
started it at my campus five years ago with theidea of giving the students an opportunity topractice the language they learn in theclassroom. In English Lounge, Japanese
students communicate with each other inEnglish without any hesitation. Away from any
course or syllabus, they feel free to use English
and through discussion their knowledge andskills of the language become deeper andbroader.

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Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Looking Forward

JALT CALL 2016 - CALL and the BRAINTokyo-to, Tamagawa University, June
3-5, 2016
LD forum: Stimulating technology? Let thelearners decide – day, time, and location TBA
Teachers implement technology in theirlanguage classes to increase learning. While
the goal is to have the students engage inmore interactive language-learning activities,
oftentimes we never get accurate feedback on
the effectiveness of such technology. This
forum hosts a selection of projects that
explore the teachers’ motivations for
implementing technical solutions while also
featuring students’ reactions and narratives
about the language learning experience inthese computer-assisted environments.
This LD forum will feature fivepresentations from seven incredible presentersthat seeks to add to the debate on this theme.
Here are our forum participants and theirpresentations:potential content they would need forvocabulary review tests. This digital/poster
presentation will highlight some of thelearners' experiences as well as offer a glimpseof the vocabulary-building program in order tohelp attendees adapt such a program to theirown needs.
Darren Elliott (Sugiyama Jogakuin University)- Personal technology as a conduit forlearner creativity
Learning management systems and othercomputer mediated processes can make lifeeasier for the teacher but ultimately alienating
for the learners. It need not be this way,
however. As long as they are supported in
evaluating hardware and software, learners
can navigate their way through the technology
by selecting the methods which work for them,and using the resources available to them. The
presenter will discuss ways to maximize theconditions for learners’ autonomous use oftechnology, with examples from his own
teaching practice.

Blair Barr (Tamagawa University) - Learner
reviews of vocabulary-building with digital
flashcards

Simeon Flowers (Aoyama Gakuin University)- An international poli-sci perspective on
online intercultural exchange

Although grammar is still often a focus inlanguage teaching, learners need to develop alarge vocabulary to increase their confidence
communicating in a foreign language. In thisstudy, the teacher implemented a vocabularybuilding program using the digital flashcard
application Quizlet to help low-proficiency
learners increase their vocabulary size while
preparing them for review tests. Learners wereguided through two stages. First, learners built
their knowledge of words and phrases throughtraditional picture-translation flashcards.
Then, learners were encouraged to develop
their understanding of the words in context
through gap-fill flashcards containing all theTechnology continues to create an increasinglyinterpersonal global community. In light of
this, intercultural communicative competence(ICC) has never been more relevant. This
presentation focuses on Japanese student
reactions to a teacher-initiated Facebook
exchange with students in Taiwan. Thirty-eight
Japanese university students from aninternational politics program participated inthis study. Qualitative and quantitative datacollected from student exchanges over thecourse of a year indicates that this project
supported both cognitive and socioemotional
development leading towards ICC andgrassroots bridge-building between Japan and

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Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Looking Forward

Taiwan. Participant feedback also provided
several areas for improvement.
Jo Mynard, Kie Yamamoto, and Elizabeth
Lammons (Kanda University of International
Studies) - Student voices: Evaluating an app
for promoting self-directed language
learning
Students at the presenters’ institution have
had the opportunity to take non-credit, selfdirected learning modules offered by the SelfAccess Learning Centre (SALC). From April
2015, the students were able to choose either
the paper version or a custom-made app
version of the module. The research team isengaged in evaluating the app from different
perspectives, including collecting learner
feedback via questionnaires and interviews.
The presenters will demonstrate the ways inwhich students engaged with the technology.
In addition, they will share extracts from thedata where students raised benefits andchallenges of the technology for their learning
experience.
Michael Hetherton (Kanda Institute ofForeign Languages) - Powerful words forbetter worlds
In this poster presentation I demonstrate how
the use of learning technologies both in- and out-of-class both for vocabulary development
and to raise awareness of CALL, may result insignificant improvements in high-stakes English
language test scores amongst a segment of thestudent population at a vocational college inTokyo. My approach with the technology aims
to bridge the gap between conforming to theneeds of the examination-bound syllabus andmy aspiration to develop learner vocabulary
skills towards creating more well-rounded andsuccessful English language learners who are
more confident and proficient in CALL.

CALL AND THE BRAIN 2016
June 3rd-5th 2016, Tamagawa University, Tokyo.
Keynote Speaker

Mark Pegrum
University of Western Australia
Plenary Speaker (virtual presentation)

Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa
FLACSO, Quito, Ecador
Plenary Speaker (virtual presentation)

Paul Howard-Jones
Graduate School of Education, Bristol
University

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Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Financial Report

Financial Report
財務報告
Financial Report
Huw Davies, LD SIG Treasurer
The biggest thing to report is the cut in revenue we will receive from JALT for each member. Under
the previous system we received ¥1,500 per member each year. I have budgeted for ¥1,000 per
member under the new system, but even this amount is not guaranteed.
Last financial year saw higher than usual expenditure due to the SIG's sponsorship of a featured
speaker from Australia to the JALT International Conference. Publishing expenses were also high,although we did receive a JALT Development Grant of ¥225,000 towards those costs.
This year, despite minimal expenses, we are expecting a loss which will take us close to using up
some of our reserve. That said, I have purposely over-budgeted for grants, so there may be somemoney left over if anyone can think of a suitable use. We are a non-profit organization, so there is
no reason for us to hold onto surplus funds in our account.
今回最も重要な報告は、会員数に応じてJALTからSIGに支給される金額が削減されるという事です。
今までは、年間で会員一人当たり1500円が支給されていました。この新しい方針をふまえ、一人当たりの支給額を1000円とし予算を組んでありますが、この額ですら保証されたものではありません。
昨年度はJALT国際大会へ海外から講演者を招待したこともあり、例年より多くの支出がありました。また、JALT開発基金からの助成金225,000円を受給しましたが、それでも出版費用も高額となりました。
今年度は支出を最低限に抑えたとしても、資金不足が見込まれ積立金を使用しなければならないかもしれません。そうは言いましたが、意図的に助成金の予算を多めに組んでありますので、他に適切な使い道がある場合は、そこから資金を捻出できる可能性もあります。私たちは非営利団体であり、口座の余裕金を使用する事に関しては、特に大きな問題ではないと考えています。

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Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Financial Report

Newsletter of the JALT Learner Development SIG <ld-sig.org/>

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Learning Learning『学習の学習』 23 (1): Call For Contributions

Call For Contributions
原稿募集

Learning Learning is your space for continuing
to make the connections that interest you. You
are warmly invited and encouraged tocontribute to the next issue of Learning
Learning in either English and/or Japanese.
We welcome writing in different formats anddifferent lengths about different issues
connected with learner and teacher
development, such as:• articles (about 2,500 to 4,000 words)• reports (about 500 to 1,000 words)• learner histories (about 500 to 1,000 words)• stories of autonomy (about 500 to 1,000
words)• book reviews (about 500 to 1,000 words)• letters to the SIG (about 500 words)• personal profiles (100 words more or less)• critical reflections (100 words more or less)• research interests (100 words more or less)• photographs• poems... and much more…
We would like to encourage new writing andnew writers and are also very happy to workwith you in developing your writing. We would
be delighted to hear from you about yourideas, reflections, experiences, and interests
to do with learner development, learnerautonomy and teacher autonomy.

学習者ディベロプメント研究部会 <ld-sig.org/>『学習の学習』は会員に興味あるつながりを構築する空間です。次号『学習の学習』への和文(もしくは英文、及び二言語での)投稿を募集しています。形式や長さを問わず、学習者及び教員の発達に関連した以下のようなさまざま文章を歓迎しています:•

論文 (約4000字-10000字)•

報告書 (約2000字-4000字)•

学習者のヒストリー (約2000字-4000字)•

自律性に関する体験談 (約2000字-4000
字)•

書評 (約2000字-4000字) • SIGへの手紙(約2000字)•

個人プロフィール (約400字)•

クリティカル・リフレクション (約400
字)•研究興味 (約400字)•

写真 •詩 その他

これまでにない形式のもの、また新しい方々からのご投稿をお待ちしております。内容について もぜひご相談ください。みなさまのご意見やお考え、ご経験、そして学習者の発達、学習
者の自律性と教師の自律性に関することなど、
ぜひお聞かせください。

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