Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 26 (2): SHORT REFLECTIVE ARTICLESSHORT REFLECTIVE ARTICLES | 小論
Ensemble: Extended Reflections on Active Learning
Abstract
This is an ensemble short article with extended reflections following a Tokyo get-together on active learning(AL). In the first piece, Ken Ikeda draws on different interpretations of AL from Japan, the United States andEurope to look at how students characterise their own learning within an academic skills course. He
furthermore explores possible connections between AL and foundational notions of learner developmentthat the LD SIG started with in the early 1990s. James Underwood next questions how active learning
practices vary according to context, situation, and the capabilities of the learners involved. What might strong
or weak versions of active learning involve, and what roles might learners be asked to play in the design anddevelopment of appropriate AL systems and curricula? In the final reflective piece, Tim Ashwell argues that itis helpful to understand the "active" quality of AL as grounded in what learners do through speech or writing
to negotiate with other learners as they act upon information they have heard or read. Tim concludes byinviting readers to consider to what extent such an interpretation of AL can be related to the Output
Hypothesis (Swain, 2000).
Keywords: Active Learning, academic skills, strong/weak versions of active learning, learner development,
learner negotiation, Output Hypothesis
要旨
このテーマ企画は、東京で行われたアクティブラーニング（AL）をテーマにしたLD SIGの会合で話題に上ったトピックについて、さらに深堀した小論をまとめたものになります。1本目の小論は、Ken Ikedaが日本、米国、ヨーロッパにおけるALの様々な解釈を描き出し、学生たちがアカデミッ
クスキルの授業の中で、どのように自らの学習を特徴づけているのかについて見ていきます。Ikeda
はさらに、ALと学習者ディベロップメントが1990年代初頭にスタートした当初の基礎的な概念とのつながりについても踏み込んでいきます。次にJames Underwoodは、アクティブラーニングの実践
が、コンテクストや場所、学習者の能力に応じて変化しているのだろうか、という点について疑問を投げかけています。本稿では、「アクティブラーニングの程度が強い、または弱いというのはどういうことか」、また「適切なアクティブラーニングのシステムとカリキュラム、それぞれの授業
設計の中において、学習者はどのような役割を求められるべきか」という質問に答えています。最後の小論では、Tim AshwellがALの”アクティブ”な要素は、学習者が聞いたり書かれたものから得たインプットを、スピーチやライティングを通して、他の学生と意味の相互理解を行うプロセスに根ざしており、そのプロセスを理解することはALのより深い理解に繋がるとしています。TimはこのようなALの解釈がどの程度Output Hypothesis (Swain, 2000)と関係しているのかを読者に考えてもらえる機会を提供しています。
キーワード: アクティブラーニング、アカデミックスキル、アクティブラーニングの程度、学習者ディベロップメント、学習者間の相互作用、アウトプット仮説

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Learning About the Active Element in Learner Development
Ken Ikeda
Email: <kodanuki@gmail.com>
My interest in active learning (AL) was sparked when my university asked me at the beginning of this year toteach a course as part of a license renewal program to Japanese teachers of English. I decided my course
would aim at strengthening students’ language motivation. A number of teacher responses included queries
on AL and how to bring it into being. I have often wondered if AL is just limited to being a pedagogical slogan
for educators to guide learners into seemingly interactive discussions. Aware that the teacher license renewal
course would end in August, I’ve aimed to maintain my interest in AL beyond that moment. I’ve been trying toactualize my insights gleaned through an academic English skills course this past semester, the results ofwhich I’ll report on at the upcoming LD Forum at JALT2019 in Nagoya.
I begin with an exploration of three views of AL, from the U.S., Japan, and Europe. I proceed to show how
I’ve incorporated these views into my teaching this year and close with musings on the interaction of AL andlearner development (LD).
In a pioneering report on AL, American educators Bonwell and Eison (1991) regard AL as basically“anything that involves students in doing things and thinking about the things they are doing” (p. 2). Theyobserve five characteristics that students perform in AL: (a) doing more than listening; (b) developing theirskills by themselves; (c) carrying out higher order thinking (analysis, synthesis, evaluation); (d) engaging inreading, discussing, writing activities; and (e) exploring their own attitudes and values (p. 2). They encourage
instructors to persuade their institutions that AL is effective (p. vi.) For Bonwell and Eison, the thrust of AL
here is not really on actualizing learners’ skills, rather, more on making instruction strategies active.
Building on this early conceptualization, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology(MEXT) has urged teachers in Japan to incorporate AL in their lessons (Tahira 2012), but in recent years has
reworded it into a slogan “shutaiteki, taiwateki de, fukai manabi” (2017), translated as “proactive, interactive,
deep learning” (Suzuki, 2007, p. 8). “Proactive” is best expressed by Ito (2017) to mean “taking action throughchanges” (p. 1). “Interactive” appears to involve active engagement between people, but “dialogic” may be abetter rendering, because “interactive” does not necessarily mean activity that involves dialogue (Hanten
Jugyo Kenkyukai, 2017). I would argue that “dialogic” fits well with the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
in sociocultural theory, by which learners engage with others who assist them enough so that they can
perform at a higher level than which they might do without assistance (see Carr & Wicking, 2019, in this issue
for further discussion and references). Whether “taiwateki” ought to mean “interactive” or “dialogic,” MEXT’sreformulation of AL is an improvement on Bonwell and Eison, since it directs focus more on the learners’
activities than on teachers’ efforts.
The European University Association (EUA) goes further and explains AL as:“…(consisting) of a broad range of pedagogical processes that emphasises the importanceof student ownership and activation. It harnesses the benefits of curiosity-driven methods,
research-based/problem-based learning and diverse assessment practices, thus stimulating
the learner’s critical thinking skills. It is defined by a student-centred approach to learningand teaching, in which teachers are seen as facilitators of learning.” (EUA, 2018, p. 3)
Although critical thinking is present in both the American and European explanations, the EUA places
stress on “student ownership,” which is absent from the five characteristics of AL (Bonwell & Eison, 1991, p.
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19). Ownership implies purposeful action to make learning one’s own. I agree with the EUA term of “student
ownership” as it involves “curiosity-driven” searching, which I regard as similar to Byram’s sub-skill ofdiscovery (savoir apprendre/faire) within his model of intercultural communicative competence (1997, p. 99).
The EUA paper states that AL is “iterative, dialogical and mostly collaborative; it is about the doing ofunderstanding and, hence, about the application of knowledge in new and authentic situations” (p. 3).
“Dialogical” certainly resounds with the “dialogic” interpretation raised earlier in this paper of MEXT’s
taiwateki; “dialogical and mostly collaborative” furthermore echoes the sociocultural approach to learning.
Not only does the EUA paper call for encouraging students to take ownership of their learning, but argues
that the roles of instructors and students be changed:“Active learning casts the teacher in the role of facilitator and coach and invites the student
to take responsibility for learning. Hence, they need to enter into a new contract andrelationship and negotiate new ways of working and learning. There needs to be a culturalshift to accommodate an active learning stance and this shift is possible only in the context
of nurturing and supporting learning communities for staff as well as students.” (p. 3)
I concur with this cultural re-positioning of AL. Instructors also need to regard their roles to be more
facilitators than evaluators in their local classrooms. I interpret “staff” to include instructors, who need to be
active learners themselves.
This semester, I implemented AL principles in a class to raise learners’ academic skills in English, but also todevelop their own sense of their selves, which is the fifth feature of active learning that Bonwell and Eison(1991) identify occurring in classrooms (p. 19). Values are not simply abstractions, they are “clearly groundedin fear and desire” (Lemke, 2008, p. 27). Trainor (2008) argues that if people become clearly aware of theirvalues, “the easier it is to put them into practice. Values provide the framework for decision-making” (para.
2). I would venture that I am treating "values" here in a broader context, to students coming to grips withwhat they hold important as members of society, not limited to being learners in a classroom.
My class consisted of seven students, five of them in their first year of university, the other two
respectively in their third year and fourth year. The instructional approach I carried out (Ikeda, in press) has
mirrored in significant ways with the EUA recommendations. Through curiosity-driven learning, students firststudied a list of statements on various topics to select their degree of agreement or disagreement on an 8point scale. They then polled each other in deep discussion to find those who agreed or disagreed to thesame degree on one or more value statements. Their interaction and analysis resulted in them being placed
into three groups in which they were tasked with constructing manifestos based on their shared values. These
group manifestos were presented in a public lesson attended by several colleagues from my department who
provided constructive feedback. This course ended with the students presenting proposals based on theirgroup values in another public lesson attended by visiting high school students.
As facilitator, I perceived at least two responsibilities: (a) to encourage students to probe their ideas andhone their manifestos, and (b) refrain from knowing their test placement scores that put them into levels. At
the end of the course, I gave them a questionnaire that asked them about initial barriers they perceived andthe extent they had found ways to overcome these barriers. I will interview the students who answered thequestionnaire and report these results at the LD Forum at JALT2019. I haven’t thoroughly analyzed theseresults yet, but I close my reflection by commenting on two students.
One of them is currently a fourth-year student who has received an offer for a job when she graduates inMarch next year. She transferred into this department from another college. I am interested in how she
regards herself as a student in her senior year and views English learning as part of her personal
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Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 26 (2): SHORT REFLECTIVE ARTICLESdevelopment. Despite the pressures of job hunting, she was absent only twice, freely advised and discussedwith others, including constructing her group manifesto.
Another student is in her first year of university. She wrote on the questionnaire that she feared if she
would do well in my class primarily due to her section level, which was lower than she expected. This firstyear student has excelled in this class, becoming one of the more influential motivators. For her groupmanifesto presentation, she conducted an Instagram poll on Japanese people’s awareness of refugees andpresented many graphs with professional-level citations. I learned from her that both of her parents
graduated from universities in the United States, but finances have prevented her from having an extended
study abroad. This student is now preparing her application for a long-term study abroad program next year.
This reflective piece is just a probing foray into various conceptions of AL to see how they could be actualized
in a class. I seek to find ways to carry out these understandings of AL in my academic skills class that has
equipped students through discovering their values. I close this exploration with this query: How does AL
relate to learner development (LD)? As Smith (1994) has put it:“…learner development as an aim could be construed as implying both or either of: (1)helping students “learn how to learn”, and deploy what they’ve learned, as a route towards
more effective language acquisition and use; and (2) weaning learners away from an attitudeof teacher-dependence and towards an assumption of greater responsibility for and controlof their own learning, as a means of more general empowerment.”
Smith’s second point of LD certainly relates to AL. “Weaning” is an apt word to encourage learners to
become autonomous users of the language, particularly in “control of their own learning” and“empowerment”. Too often instructors are overly influenced by the institutional constraints and expectationsof their teaching environments and lose sight of their actual roles as encouragers toward independent
learning. For Bonwell and Eison (1991), their “strategies promoting active learning” are primarily directed tofaculty, not the students themselves (p. 8). Reviewing the three conceptions of AL, the EUA (2018) stance on
student ownership and encouraging students to take responsibility for their own learning is the clearest viewof active learning that coincides with aims of LD.
AL and LD would seem to make good bedfellows, yet, a clear understanding of these has not beenentertained in my opinion. I hope my extended definition leads to further exploration into these seemingly
compatible ideas.

Acknowledgements

I credit Andy Barfield for alerting me to the EUA advocacy paper on active learning for universities.

References

Bonwell, C., & Eison, J. (1991). Active learning: Creating excitement in the classroom. ASHE ERIC Higher
Education Report No. 1. Washington, DC: George Washington University.
Carr, N., & Wicking, P. (2019). Applying sociocultural theory to the writing classroom in instruction andassessment. Learning Learning, 26(2).
European University Association (2019, January). Promoting active learning in universities: Thematic peergroup report. Retrieved from https://eua.eu/resources/publications/814:promoting-active-learning-inuniversities-thematic-peer-group-report.html
反転授業研究会 [Hanten Jugyo Kenkyukai] (2017, December 17). 対話的な学び（その１）: interactive or
dialogic? 問学教育研究部 [Mongaku Kenkyubu]. Retrieved from https://mon-gaku.com
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Ikeda, K. (in press). Encouraging students to express meaningful opinions based on their values. Accents Asia.
Ito, H. (2017). Rethinking active learning in the context of Japanese higher education. Cogent Education, 4(1),1-10. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2017.1298187
Lemke, J. L. (2008). Identity, development, and desire: Critical questions. In C. R. Caldas-Coulthard & R.
Iedema (Eds.), Identity trouble: Critical discourse and contested identities (pp. 17-42). New York, NY:
Palgrave Macmillan.
MEXT (2017, October 24). 主体的・対話的で深い学びの実現:（「アクティブ・ラーニング」の視点からの授業改善）ついて（イメージ）[Realization of proactive, interactive, deep learning: (Regardingclass improvement from the viewpoint of “active learning”)]. Retrieved from http://www.mext.go.jp/
component/a_menu/education/micro_detail/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2017/10/24/1397727_001.pdf
Smith, R. (1994). Some thoughts on the formation of the JALT Learner Development N-SIG. Learning Learning,
1(1), 2-5. Retrieved from http://ld-sig.org/LL/1994a.pdf
Suzuki, K. N. (2017). Lessons from PISA 2015: The future of learning: Scientific literacy and proactive,
interactive and deep learning. 19th OECD/Japan Seminar (English version).
Tahira, M. (2012). Behind MEXT’s new course of study guidelines. The Language Teacher, 36(3), 3-8. Retrieved
from https://jalt-publications.org/files/pdf-article/36.3_art1.pdf
Trainor, N. (2008, December 30). Expressing your values. Covenant Group. Retrieved from https://www.covenantgroup.com/expressing-your-values

Conceptualizing the Degrees of Active Learning
James Underwood
Email: <jamesmichaelunderwood@gmail.com>
The more I read about active learning (AL) the more I noticed parallels with Everhard’s (2016) proposedmodel for the Assessment Autonomy Research Project (AARP). Her model graphically shows the degrees ofautonomy in foreign language learning. It outlines various characteristics that courses exhibit from no
autonomy through to high autonomy in the following four categories:● content knowledge and skills● motivation and context● strategies and process● feedback evaluation and assessment.
For no autonomy, she proposes that the language teacher controls the content of the course through thesyllabus that determines the material used and the skills that will be developed. The learners are extrinsicallymotivated by their desire to pass the assessment designed and evaluated by the teacher. Success in passing isbased on the learners' ability to reproduce the knowledge imparted by the teacher during the course. To doso, they complete tasks designed by the teacher in the order the teacher prescribes. In high autonomy, thelearners are in control. They decide the course content, materials used, and the skills that will be developed
based on their needs and objectives. The learners decide how they will realise their objectives through theselection of appropriate strategies. And as they learn, they monitor their performance and adjust these if
necessary. Throughout their learning, the learners are intrinsically motivated by their curiosity and interest. In
between these two extremes lie low and medium autonomy, which vary according to the degree that thelearner is in control and gradually bridge the gap between low and high autonomy.
As I tried to conceptualize what active learning involves through examining the literature, I started towonder if it would be possible to realize active learning not as a fixed or static concept but a process thatvaried according to the context, situation, and the capabilities of the learners involved. And furthermore,
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could this variation be contextualized on a scale that described degrees of active learning from weak tostrong? After all, there seems to be a wide gap between the original description of active learning describedby Bonwell and Eison (1991), and that described by the European University Association (2019), especiallywhen it comes to student involvement in curriculum development and beyond.
In the interview with Katherine Isbell (1999) it seems that for Eison the teacher or “active learner
practitioner” is still very much in control of this process. In this interview he hypothesized that during theplanning stages the practitioner will ask themselves the following three questions:(1) What knowledge, skills, and attitudes do I want students to examine and employ?;(2) What exercises or assignments can I have students complete to demonstrate their understanding of,skills with, and beliefs about important course content?; and(3) What instructional materials might I prepare to help maximize student effectiveness and efficiency inachieving these important learning outcomes? (p. 4, emphasis added)
With the foci of these questions very clearly on the practitioner, it is clear that Eison believes the student is
not a part of this process (Isbell, 1999). In contrast, the EUA (2019) proposes that the students should be
involved “in all levels in redesigning higher education, i.e., academic strategies, the design of the learningspace and time, assessment practices and the use of technology” (p. 6). For many institutions, this level ofinvolvement may be unfeasible. Thus the EUA model of active learning could be seen as “strong” active
learning, with "no" active learning at the other end of the scale. Taking inspiration from Everhard’s (2016)
model, I wondered if there could be a low and medium version of active learning that will bridge the gap
between the two extremes.
At the start of the scale lies “no active learning” or as it is more commonly known “passive learning.” For
this type of learning the teacher is very much in control as the main source of information. They often requirethat the students reproduce an almost exact copy of the information that they provide through theassessment that they design. Often this assessment will take place at the end of the semester, meaning thatthe student is unable to use this assessment as an indicator of their strengths and weaknesses and work on
fine-tuning these so that they can improve in the short term. Following on from passive learning is low active
learning where the students are slightly more involved in the learning process. As the students gradually
become more involved, they are, as Chickering and Gamson (1987) claim, able to “make what they learn apart of themselves” (p. 5).
In low active learning, the students will be doing more than note-taking and will be actively processing
what they have learnt through reading or discussion. Although the teacher is still the main source of
information, the students will be more able to supplement this with their (and other students’) knowledge
and experience through working collaboratively with other students to understand the material. Throughout
this collaborative inquiry, the teacher would have some degree of control as they will be deciding not only
when it will happen, but often the form it will take. One example of this could be the “pause procedure”
described by Eison in the interview with Isbell (1999) where during a teacher-fronted lecture, the teacher
pauses the delivery to give the students time to discuss and share understanding every 12-18 minutes.
Another way the teacher would be able to control the sharing activity would be by preparing discussion
questions or writing tasks and essay questions, which would direct what is shared. In this low active learning
stage, the content would not all come from the teacher, and the teacher would assign readings for homeworkto add to the students' understanding. By assigning these readings for homework as preparation for thelecture and the sharing sessions, the teacher would be supporting the active learning process. Mori (2018)suggests that it takes at least one week for the learners to internalize the content so that they can effectively
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share their understanding. In terms of assessment, the students’ performance in these activities will be still
assessed solely by the teacher. And in terms of reflection, the students will probably complete tasks designedby the teacher during the time allocated. Taking all these characteristics into account, the level of student
involvement is much like that in Everhard’s (2016) description of low autonomy where the students aredeveloping skills with the framework, and materials, designed by the teacher. In the next stage of active
learning, these responsibilities are shared.
In medium active learning, the teacher and students work together to negotiate a framework for thelearning that will take place. Unlike strong active learning, which I will describe later, this framework will be
put in place on a course level, not on a university-wide level. In terms of materials used, there will be morevariety, and the students would be free to choose those that are relevant and of interest them. This variety
would enrich the quality of the collaborative inquiry as the students would not all be reading or listening to
the same texts, and would thus be able to share more varied perspectives on the content. The impetus forthis sharing through presentation, discussion or writing assignments will come from the students themselves
as they create discussion questions or writing prompts with guidance from the teacher. Unlike low active
learning, these tasks will be assessed collaboratively through a combination of self, peer and teacher
assessment. There will also be more room for the reflection which would be in-depth, and could, for example,
include both a self-assessment of their performance and a section devoted to outlining their weakness andaddressing how they will plan to overcome these. Considering all the characteristics I have outlined above,
this quality of active learning could be seen as an interim or transition phase as the students take more andmore control in the learning process. As I have said above, exactly how much control the learners havedepends on the learning context and the institution’s readiness and willingness for the “cultural shift” that
the EUA report is advocating. For many institutions, the medium active learning I have described may be thebest they can do given the institutional constraints.
For the strong version of active learning, learners and instructors are not only co-creators of the course
content but are also co-creators of the curriculum and learning space itself as they both are redesigned torealize the full potential of active learning. The EUA (2019) report advises that when redesigning takes place itshould be done with design thinking principles and “include needs analysis, an experimentation andevaluation phase and enough flexibility to adjust if needed” (p. 6). When suggesting ways how this flexibility
could be introduced, the EUA report suggests using e-learning platforms to address the problem of limited
physical resources. Although these learning management systems are already in place in many universities inJapan, I found it interesting that in relation to the development of these the report suggests that theuniversities “acknowled(ge) the potential of students to provide smart, creative, functional and targeted
solutions for a better way of learning” (ibid.).
Already the institutions I work at acknowledge the students in the curriculum and course design process
to some degree when they collect feedback from the students through the course questionnaire. However as
this feedback is often closed in nature, with the learner evaluating the course by reading a pre-preparedstatement and signalling their level of agreement to this on a Likert scale, there is little room for the students
to "provide" their solutions. Added to the design of the course questionnaire, the timing of when theteachers see the results becomes important so that the teachers can adjust if necessary. Another aspect that
becomes important is whether or not the instructors can respond to the questionnaire. Furthermore, if theteacher and student are going to be true “co-creators,” there needs to be a channel of dialogue that is open
throughout the year and beyond.
Through this extended reflection I have attempted to conceptualize degrees of active learning from "no"active learning to "strong" active learning. When I reflect on the different contexts I have taught at throughthe lens of this scale, it appears to me that teachers at different levels of education are more able than others
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to incorporate a higher degree of active learning. When examining my current context and universities I teachat, I realised I am more likely to implement a higher degree of active learning at those institutions that
support and encourage learner and teacher autonomy throughout their curriculum. By supporting andencouraging both, they facilitate the teachers' and learners' "potential ... to provide smart, creative,functional and targeted solutions for a better way of learning” (EUA, 2018, p. 6). With the 2019 autumn
semester about to start, I hope to allow a higher degree of active learning to take place by involving thelearners more in those classes where in the past I have been very much in control due to the culture of theinstitution. I hope the scale that I have proposed can help other SIG members to do so at a level applicable totheir contexts.
References
Chickering, A.W., & Gamson, Z.F. (1987, March). Seven principles for good practice in undergraduate
education. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin. Retrieved from http://www.lonestar.edu/
multimedia/SevenPrinciples.pdf
Bonwell, C.C., & Eison, J.A. (1991). Active learning: Creating excitement in the classroom. ASHE–ERIC Higher
Education Report No. 1. Washington, DC: The George Washington University, School of Education and
Human Development. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED336049.pdf
European University Association (2019, January). Promoting active learning in universities: Thematic peergroup report. Retrieved from https://eua.eu/resources/publications/814:promoting-active-learning-inuniversities-thematic-peer-group-report.html
Everhard, C. (2016). What is this thing called autonomy? Finding a definition and a model. In M.
Mattheoudakis & K. Nicolaidis (Eds.), Selected Papers of the 21st International Symposium on Theoreticaland Applied Linguistics (ISTAL 21) (pp. 548-568). Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/16ee/
6727617245af0064d69979b832cf3e2cae04.pdf
Isbell, K. (1999). An Interview on active learning with Dr. James Eison. The Language Teacher, 23(5), 4-5, 9.
Retrieved from https://jalt-publications.org/tlt/articles/2504-interview-active-learning-dr-james-eison
Mori, T. (2018). The flipped classroom: An instructional framework for promotion for active learning. In
Matsushita, K. (Ed.) Deep active learning: Toward greater depth in university education. Singapore:
Springer Nature.

Active Learning – Some Observations
Based on Interactionist Metaphors
Tim Ashwell
Email: <tashwell@komazawa-u.ac.jp>
Reading the interview with James Eison by Katharine Isbell in the “Special Active Learning Issue” of The
Language Teacher (1999) in which they discuss how active learning (AL) can be used at the tertiary level, I was
struck by how the AL activities mentioned involve learners in producing output in one form or another inspeech or writing. Unfortunately, this does not mean that so long as students are speaking or writing they are
involved in AL. They might appear to be active, but this may not be the “active” we are seeking. For AL tohappen, students need to be speaking or writing in order to process, interpret, translate, or transform
information they have heard or read. When they act on that information in some way and transform it so thatit becomes understandable and manageable for them, they are engaged in AL. Ultimately, the aim is forstudents to transform the information so that it is rendered in such a way that it can become part of theirown understanding. This requires making connections to previous knowledge and experiences and finding
ways to integrate new ideas into existing frameworks, a process that is negotiated through speech or writing.
Of course, it is highly likely that many students are active learners without the need to verbalize and it is clear
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Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 26 (2): SHORT REFLECTIVE ARTICLESthat much (most?) learning can occur implicitly and unconsciously. However, one way we as teachers canencourage students to be active learners is to require them to verbalize their understanding of the material
they encounter and thereby trigger processes, conscious or unconscious, that may lead to a reconfiguring of
their knowledge or skills.
The interview article also makes it clear that the information contained in course materials may not be theprimary focus for a teacher who wishes to promote AL. In promoting AL, the teacher is probably just, if not
more, concerned with the way activities can contribute to the development of particular skills, attitudes, anddispositions. Working through one’s understanding of material is an exercise in taking control of the learning
process. By seeking to engage with the material through speech or writing, the students are being
encouraged to take a critical stance and are being shown that individual understandings can be valid even if
they differ from one student to the next. They are being encouraged to take up a point of view and to accept
that there may not be a definitive answer. They are thus being shown that knowledge and understanding aremutable and that it is, in fact, sensible and mature to draw out tentative and temporary interpretations thatcan be refined and revised and even rejected through further rounds of negotiation.
There is a danger of making the learning process seem like a purely mechanical activity by using terms
such as “input” and “output,” but sometimes these information-processing metaphors can help us clarify
what we mean. In this case, I think it is useful to revisit Swain’s (2000) Output Hypothesis to gain a deeper
understanding of what we mean by AL. Swain has famously posited the need for learners to be pushed to
produce output as part of the second language acquisition process. Describing output, she writes: “Withoutput, the learner is in control. In speaking or writing, learners can ‘stretch’ their interlanguage to meet
communicative goals. To produce, learners need to do something. They need to create linguistic form andmeaning, and in so doing, discover what they can and cannot do” (p. 99). If I can take an almighty leap here
and extend the argument beyond second language acquisition to learning in general, Swain’s description
sounds very much like AL to me. By being pushed to respond to some form of input by speaking or writing
about it, learners are made to see what they do and do not understand. My feeling is that the input may not
be limited to second language grammar, vocabulary or pragmatics, but may extend to other forms of input.
I have chosen to dive into the debate from an interactionist viewpoint to see what light this can cast on
AL. I think the idea of output highlights the importance of speech and writing in AL and how these can help
push learners to work on the ideas they have been presented with to render them in a form which they can
integrate into their own framework of understanding. I have deliberately used the term “negotiation” above
because I think this is also a useful way of thinking about AL.

References
Isbell, K. (1999). An Interview on active learning with Dr. James Eison. The Language Teacher, 23(5), 4-5, 9.
Retrieved from https://jalt-publications.org/tlt/articles/2504-interview-active-learning-dr-james-eison
Swain, M. (2000). The output hypothesis and beyond: Mediating acquisition through collaborative dialogue.
In J.P. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural theory and second language learning (pp. 97-114). Oxford, England:
Oxford University Press.

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