Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 26 (1): Members’ Voices

MEMBERS’ VOICES | メンバーの声
Ways to Encourage
Elementary School
Learners’ Autonomy
Inside and Outside
the Classroom
Sandy Chong,Freelance<sandywchong@gmail.com>

My name is Sandy Chong. I have beenteaching freelance in Tokyo, Japan for morethan eight years. Like many, I started mycareer as an eikaiwa instructor. I, then,gradually narrowed my work down to teaching
children. I found great passion in teaching
children because by experience, I realizedthat the skills used to teach them, such asscaffolding and designing fun activities, can becustomized to teach adults. However, theskills used to teach adults may not be
modified to teach children due to excessive
explanations and minimal fun activities. I am
fascinated by the thought that being a
successful teacher for children can lead tosuccess in teaching adults. Therefore, I
decided to earn a Master of Education degree
while practicing onsite. Yet, I still practice theart of scaffolding everyday teaching atelementary schools.
After completing my studies last year, I
joined the Japan Association for Language
Teaching, in hopes of continuing to enhance
my skills through learning from experienced
educators. I decided to join the Learner
Development SIG because I hoped that I could

gain and contribute ideas on learnerautonomy.
As an educator for children for more than
two years now, I have been engaging myself inongoing action research to explore what isbest for young Japanese learners. Conducting
action research is an excellent way to help
bolster my focus on developing the bestteaching methods for children. For one of myaction research projects, I exploredappropriate activities for children to help
develop their autonomy outside of class time.
For example, I found that the English sectionin the library is not as popular as any othersections. Therefore, I started hanging aroundthe English books section to see what would
happen. At first, a few children who know me
would approach me and I would start readinga book to them. That attracted many morechildren and they would listen to thestorytelling until the school bell rang. Later,according to the librarians, some children had
asked when I would be there again forstorytelling and more children have started
borrowing English books. My next step is to try
storytelling at the beginning of each class tosee if that will encourage the children to
become more interested in reading English
books on their own in the library.
Another action research project that I havebeen conducting is finding out what studying
English means to young Japanese learners. In
my classes with fourth graders, I asked them
why they think it is necessary to learn English
at this age. Out of 170 students,
approximately 30% of them raised their hands.
The answers I collected from them include toNewsletter of the JALT Learner Development SIG <http://ld-sig.org>

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Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 26 (1): Short Articles
be able to enter a good school in the future,
to prepare them for future English classes, tocommunicate with foreigners, and to look fora good occupation when they grow up. They
seem to be aware of the logic behind learning
English as an investment for their future.
While they specify the reason to learning
English is to interact with foreigners, I am
more interested in how the process of learning
English would help them to ‘communicate’
better in general.
Although I do not possess any concrete data
to share at the moment, I recognize that themajority of my students reacted to the word‘communicate’. As an experiment, with thehelp of the Japanese homeroom teachers, I
explained to the classes that I believe‘communication’ is not only to share
information in words, but to be able topresent oneself to another and toacknowledge one another. When I mentioned
the keyword, even with my limited
observation due to a large number of students
in each class, I could see that this word rang abell with attentive students, put anindifferent look on quiet and distant students,
and caused a queasy face on students who are
suffering from autism. It seems to me that, if
there is one, the barrier for these children inlearning English in the first place was theirfear of facing disapproval and failure ofutilizing English. If I were to reposition English
from just a subject to a useful tool to face
their fear to communicate with foreigners,
perhaps that may change their attitude
towards it. I am convinced because after I had
explained it in every class, my students are
more willing to take part and speak up. Myongoing engagement in this matter is toexperiment with ways to help these young

learners develop their own ways ofcommunicating effectively as a whole in ourEnglish classes.
As a passionate educator for children, I am
excited to dedicate time to experiment withways to help children’s learning. I hope myideas of teaching can influence children as
well as other inexperienced teachers. to takeparts to speak up. My ongoing engagement inthis matter is to experiment ways to help
these young learners develop their own waysof communicating effectively as a whole in our
English classes.

How can a self-accesslearning center
facilitate English use
among students?
Sina Takada 高田シーナ
Kanda University ofInternational Studies<sinaka10024@gmail.com>
Hello everyone!

My name is Sina Takada. I am currently astudent in the MA TESOL program at Kanda
University of International Studies (KUIS) andmy academic interest is in learner autonomy,
learning strategy, phonetics, and pragmatics. I
also did my undergraduate studies at KUIS,
graduating in 2018 with a BA in English. While I
was at KUIS, I worked as a TOEFL tutor, and itwas this first experience of teaching Englishthat made me interested in EFL and ESL. After
graduating, I enrolled in the MA program andstarted working as a part-time English teacher
at a local cram school. Later that year, I
started teaching adult learners English
conversation, and got a position as a Learning

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Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 26 (1): Members’ Voices
Advisor for junior and senior high school
students.
When I was an undergraduate student atKUIS, I used to use the SALC (Self Access
Learning Center) almost every day. The SALC
was a fascinating place to me, because it
provides students opportunities to use English
outside of class where students can use avariety of resources for learning English,
including CDs, textbooks, magazines, PCs,teachers, advisors, and other students. The
most significant part of the SALC was that we
speak English there. In order to improve
conversational proficiency, I spent much time
chatting or playing games with other people
that involved a lot of unplanned speeches. Inthe third year, I became a leader of a SALC
community called a Study Group, wheremembers gather at the SALC and study English
together. Through those experiences ofinteracting with other students, I was always
interested in how students’ interaction canfoster SALC use and language learning. Indeed
I have done some research about how themembers of the Study Group affect eachother’s motivation. I conducted interviews
with active members of the Study Group withsuch questions as why they joined a Study
Group and whether they feel motivated ordemotivated. Through the interviews, I
learned that they are most likely motivated tostudy hard by peer pressure. For example, oneanswered that when he sees other members
studying hard, he also feels like he wishes tostudy hard to catch up with them. While thiswas a motivation to some students, it turned
out that some can be stressed and rather
demotivated. In addition to this externalmotivation, members are also intrinsicallymotivated to gather at SALC, for example,

casually meeting in lunch time chatting in
English.
For my next research project about
students’ interaction, I am interested inlearning about language use at the SALC. As I
mentioned, the SALC is an English speaking
area but its language policy has been
controversial. I personally liked the strict
restriction of using Japanese in the area,
because it pushes students to use English.
However, some students can be so intimidated
by the strict policy that they lose confidence
and give up coming to the SALC. In addition,using Japanese is occasionally useful, such asasking how to say a Japanese word in English.
For those pros and cons of English-only policy,
it is hard to define legitimate rules oflanguage use. Instead of defining sets of rules,
I feel that it will be more important to think
about how to motivate students to use English
rather than forcing them to do so.
Now that I am working at K-SALC (the SALCat Kanda Jogakuen Junior & Senior HighSchool), I am experiencing the same issue oflanguage use that the SALC at KUIS has.
Although K-SALC is intended to be an Englishonly, or recommended, space, I have seenquite a few students speaking Japanese to
their friends and even to their teachers
sometimes. I have seen a similar situation atthe SALC in KUIS too. First, it seemed to me
that students resort to using Japanese due tolack of proficiency or confidence, but I havecome to notice another possible reason. I
highly suspect that students cannot codeswitch to English due to the strong
relationship they have already developed witheach other outside the SALC. As I noticed therelationship between the students andteachers outside of K-SALC, I came to suspect

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Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 26 (1): Short Articles
that many students don’t see K-SALC as a‘special’ place where students have to codeswitch to English, which means that being in
the SALC means nothing different for themfrom being any other places. I imagine thatspeaking English to someone with whom you
don't usually talk in English is not an easy
action, because it can be uncomfortable orembarrassing to change language tocommunicate with close friends. For example,
when I did an English conversation session
with a pair of students, they tried speaking
English to me. However, they tended to speak
much more Japanese to each other.
I suppose that once people develop aparticular relationship with each other using
languages in a particular way for that
relationship, they also develop such rules as
how to call each other, whether or not to use
honorifics, and what language to use. Most
students usually develop their relationships
with each other outside of K-SALC. It is
moreover likely that the students know thatsome of the English teachers can speak
Japanese, which, if true, explains why somestudents also speak to them in Japanese.
Indeed, when I was chatting with a student,
she revealed that she does not feel any
difference between being in K-SALC and otherfacilities. As she speaks to her friends andEnglish teachers in Japanese outside of KSALC, so does she in there too. I found her
opinion important for thinking about what KSALC means to the students. This has made me
decide it would be worth researching whether
or not many students feel similarly to her. If
so, they will need some stimuli that motivatethem to use English, and take them beyond
their pre-existing outside-SALC relationship.

Teachers keep emphasizing English use atK-SALC, but teachers pushing students to use
English may not be the best kind of motivation
because it is highly extrinsic and students
might not value using English themselves. I
suppose that students need more
“subconscious” pressure that makes them feelthat they want to use English spontaneously.
For example, constantly playing TV shows orradio in English in K-SALC is one of the ways tomake the area more English abundant anddifferent from the outside world, hence
facilitating English use. These ideas are still
hypothetical, but I wish to explore howstudents are feeling about language use in KSALC. At the same time, it will be useful toask them directly what can help them use
English. By making some changes in K-SALC
after listening to students’ feelings andopinions and observing their behavior, we will
be able to understand better how students canbe motivated to use English spontaneously.

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