Part 3: Inquiry into instructional practices"How we got hooked"
What motivatedstudents to commit

themselves so fervently
into autonomous andcollaborative English
learning projects?
Yoko Morimoto

School of Political Scienceand Economics, Meiji
University
yoko.morimoto@gmail.com
AboutYoko

I live in the Yatsugatake Mountains, two hours west of Tokyo, and I also have lived
in Auckland, New Zealand, and New York City. My interests are in group dynamics,
autonomy, affect, and extensive reading and listening. I am also interested in
facilitating language learning in the context of spiritual development. I like traveling,
photography, and being in the nature.
mtMj&frz>~mmuEm\z$>rz%, a ^ - s k ^ t ^ s t . ^rz-3.-xyyY(DX-y=>yFt-^-3-y\z&/vfzz\thfo*)£T» Wfim>b*W

113*

M o r e A u t o n o m y You Aski

ii4

*

Morimoto

oTHiCtt, X)l-X- XXX^yyx, gft^m Ifgr, x^Xfyy^'-'J-f

Acknowledgements

I thank my students in group 2001 the most as well as all the previous groups, especiallytheirdirect senpais of group 2000,and my seminar students who laid a foundation for fostering theirautonomy in the previous 14 years. I learned mainly from these students about what autonomy
and collaboration are about. Secondly, I wish to thank the other EPC/ACE teachers, Kevin
Mark, Philip Zitowitz, Kermit Carvell, Kate Elwood, and the other teachers and administrators
at Meiji. Especiallyfor their technological support, I would like to thank people in the AW
IT Support Service on Izumi Campus for enabling us to carry out numerous multi-media
projects, often working extra hours. I also thank Dr. Junko Kurahachi for keeping her interest in
EPC, introducing me to and teaching me about motivational theories, and encouraging me to
conduct this research. Finally, I thank Des Mann for being a mentor in my educational pursuit
and giving me advice on this paper, and Miki Kohyama and Eric Skier for their careful andthorough editing, warm support, constructive criticism, and patience.
Abstract

A group of 14 non-English major students in a four-year-long semi-intensive English program at
Meiji University went thorough a major slump in terms of their motivation level in their first year.
However, from the beginning of their second year, the group miraculously transformed itself into
an autonomous and collaborative group, carrying out time-consuming and often student-directedcollaborative English projects, such as writing andproducing digitalfilms, plays, musicals, organizing
English camps, and teaching themselves to conduct debate tournaments. They also started to work
efficiently with each other and bond strongly within thegroup. This paper is thefirst of a series ofwork that the author conducted based on taped student discussions and interviews, attempting toanalyze the reasons why this group of students followed such a course of a major slump followed
by a seemingly sudden upheaval in their motivational levels. Based on thestudents' feedback, somesuggestions for encouraging autonomy and collaboration in language classrooms in general aresummarized, and the importance of human relationships andgroup dynamicfactorsarediscussed as
an essential foundation for autonomous collaboration to take placeamonga learning group.
Wffi7X^m^m®±$''(>;r>yy3£$&y*oi?7&\ZrfiM~f?>, %m%1f%.bLU^2/z&.U%,<Dp;7X<DM^fg«rffHba#bfcO, x^^-h-b-± ^>h©*SS«it*'5*& BSWSST*, iCf^igO&^K
m?'ai;x.?b£fttio£t\z&^fz.fcZ\Z£tz®m£<feW}?Z&?liZf£K), 9)V-T^LTfcS^flCL-fc.
zmmiziz, m%tfzn^(D¥%.<D^j7i)yy3yt^>?E3--(Df--7°&btizfrt£^fz-mmft3z<D, w,-wt$>&„ mntizy>7°<D'&. z<D¥§z?)v-?<DMm\/^)i'Wmzm&i'f£m&izz>\,vxft%r*Ufrz><, *mtzm^z. ¥!3v-ju-7°\Hx&mt!']p<m'EMtfPim\zfrteiDtiz,fzib\ztt. Afflmmtfii-y'- ^•a-s.y?
y,<DwmmmT'$,v. x<zt<Dx$m)±i5T'&z>tmvibnz>,

I. HOW I COT MOTIVATED TO START THIS RESEARCHA MAJOR SLUMP"Wouldthis group actuallybe able to evenhold together next year?" This was a genuine
question I had toward the end of the first year with this group of students, which started with
24 and rapidly diminished into 14in less than eight months. The attendance rate was getting
worse and worse, and even our strict attendance rules (basically, three absences per class per

—

LD

SIG

2006 Anthology —n5

H o w We

Got

Hooked'semester and you were out) could not make them come to class anymore. Nobody seemed to
be able to stop people from quitting, and we, the teachers started, to wonder if there would beanybody left when the second year began...
A SUDDEN MIRACULOUS "RESURRECTION" AND THEN AN "EXPLOSION"'.!!

Then, all of a sudden, in April the following year, the group seemed not only "resurrected,"
but totally recharged, and students started to look happier, more serious, and enthusiastic
about their projects, either teacher-directed or student-initiated. People showed up with an
enthusiasm of, say, attending a party. It seemed like they no longer needed strict attendancerules or perhaps even grades. They looked as if they just wanted to be there.
Bythe end of their second year, they had conducted two English camps which were packed withEnglish presentations and activities, taught themselves debate procedures and conducted debate
matches in my classes, upgraded and added huge bilingual contents to our program'swebsite(EPC Group 2001,2002). During the summer break, they then wrote, produced, and performed acourt case playin English (See Figure 1) with an extremely sophisticated digital film of situations
surrounding a murder inserted into this playfilled with legal terminology. They alsoproduced andperformed a musical, The Lion King, and produced a graduation and homecoming party for 90
peopleor so,filled againwith English presentations, and made full use of their computer skills. And
this is just naming a fewof their accomplishments in a period of nine short months!

Figure 1. Mock court case performed on campus (December 2002)
We sawmany of them work daysand nights into projects none of us teachers had told them todo. I remember having to ask themnot to workso hard and please get moresleep almost every
time I saw them. We also noticed they were getting to know each other very well. They seemed
to besogood at allocating different jobs to themost appropriate person and everything seemed
to get done immediately and efficiently. They studied andsocialized together. They spentmany
nights working together at each other's dwellings. They celebrated each other's birthdays withhome-baked cakes.They had arguments from time to time, but it never seemed to break thebonds theyhad created witheach other. Theclass had turned into a family. They seemed to work
much more efficiently together and with more loving dedication than most professionals I had
More Autonomy You

Aski

ii6

*

Morimoto

ever seen in my life! Everythinglooked so beautiful, almost too good to believe.I was toucheddeeply, and so seemed many others including their other teachers, administrators, and peers who
happened to observe how hard and happily they worked together.
Bonding strengthens and autonomy blossoms as the year goes by

I went on a sabbatical for two years in New Zealand in this group's junior and senior years.
Usually, as the number of classesdecreases into only one (and non-credited) from three a week
in the first two years, the bonding weakens, and the group diminishes to just a few people, whoare extremely enthusiastic about studying English much on their own. However, this group was
different. They stuck together even though many of them chose to belong to the most demanding
seminars in their specializations, and NOBODY DROPPED OUT in the meantime. Moreover,when I requested for a few people's possible participation in my presentation at JALT2004,11 out
of 14 paid their own expenses to go from Tokyoto Nara, which was more than a whole night's
drive, and they created a special video for the presentation outside their class requirements. Again,
they seemed to be so happy together again, and worked incredibly well and efficiently together
preparing for this. They seemed to take much pride in being given the opportunity to present
before language teachers. When I came back from New Zealand in April 2005, right after theirgraduation, they also showed me another original digital film that they created, which became
their graduation project (outside their requirements for graduation). I also learned that many
people were putting a lot of individual effort into improving their English for their own purposes,
such as passing civil-service exams to become a diplomat, studying to become a CPA, applying tograduate school, preparing to study abroad, launching an international NPO, and so on, and thegroup seemed to function as a supportive cocoon.
Actually, it was like my dream had come true as an educator, and as somebody who wasclose to them, I was in such bliss that I often became tearful just watching them in and outsideof my classes, and I still tear up today whenever I have even a glimpse of them working withand supporting each other so well. However,I was not so sure what was responsible for thedramatic change that took place in the second year. Also, I realized that although they werespending all this time and energy into their projects,especially in the second year, so much had
to be spent on chores that had little to do with their English, such as preparing props, booking
classrooms and equipment to be borrowed, etc.... Although most of the students seemed to
improve their communication skills in English quite remarkably, even by the end of the second
year, I felt they could have done much better if all their work could be more concentrated into
their improvement of their English. However, I did not want to take away their joy in working
as they did. It seemed to me that improvement of their English was secondary when comparedto their development as happy human beings who are capable of working with others so well.

As I kept witnessing the increasing bondingand autonomy takingplace in this group,I wasconvinced that it was my job to find out what had gonewrongespecially in the previousyear(s), andalso learn what was behind the dramatic changes I was observing. I consulted my former colleague,
Dr. Junko Kurahachi, an educational psychologist who has been interested in our program forsome time and has conducted some research on EPC Group2000 previously (Kurahachi &Morimoto, 2001).She introduced me to a usefultool to analyze students' motivation, calledWTC,
a "Willingness to Communicate"model developed by Mclntyreet al.(1998). In 2003,1 started

analyzing thestudents' feedback, which isthe major component of thispaper, and Dr. Kurahachi
and I co-presented our analysis using WTC at the Learner Development Forumat JALT2003. The
current paper is a more detailed description and analysis of the students' feedback on what triggered
the dramatic changes of their motivational levels, without employing WTC.

LD

SIG

2006

Anthology

ii7* "How We Got Hoo kep

Then, based on the conclusions I havemade in this paper, I went on to write another paper,in which I attemptedto usethe principals of"group dynamics" to analyze mainlythe groupformation process looking again at the same data (Morimoto 2005). Theworkwas much inspiredby Dornyei and Murphey's book on groupdynamics in language learning(Dornyei &Murphey2003). I feel the current paper and the subsequent, but already published one, form a pair
supplementing each, this paperbeing more detailed on the actual data collected from students,
and the latter, being more focused on analysis basedon group-forming theories of groupdynamics. I would be happy to send readers an electronic copyof the other paper upon request.
Also, in the past four yearssince I started this research, as I mentioned above, the students
themselves in this group started to collaborate with me. Sincethen, I have presented at JALT
with my students twice, first in the Learner Development Forum with 11 students when they
were seniors (Morimoto, 2004), and then with Takeshi Komoto, who is also mentioned later
as one of the three individual interviewees, and who acted as a representative for the alreadygraduated members in the following year (Morimoto, 2005b). It seems that these presentation
projects further boosted their motivation and strengthened their bonds.
What's EPC?

EPC (1991-2006), the English Proficiency Course in the School of Political Science andEconomics, Meiji University, was an electivesemi-intensive course for those who would like totake more English classes to improve their communicative skills. There was a selection process
in the beginning of the first year, and once they entered the course, they were expected totake three 90-minute classes a week in the first and second years, and one class a week in thethird and fourth years on another campus. At the beginning of the second year, a few students
were allowed, via a selection process, to join in the program to make up for the students who
had dropped out in the previous year. Courses in the program were taught mostly by native
speakers using English as the teaching medium, except for me in recent years, and each of theteachers were quite independent in what they taught. Each class had a maximum of 24 students
in the beginning, and it had a tendency to get smaller as it progressed over the four years.
The characteristics of the program may be summarized as follows:
1. Teacher-directed and student-directed collaborative projects
2.

Use of multi-media

3. Drama and presentation skills

4. Extensive pleasure reading and video watching
5. Intensive and extensive listening
6. Two English camps every year in spring and autumn
7. Encouraging peer learning and influences across different groups

8. Emphasis on human development as well as on improvement in English language skills
9. Incorporation of student opinions and writings into curriculum, materials
development, and the student selection process of the EPC program.
High dropout rates>>reform>>ACE Program

Due to the demanding amounts of group and individual assignments and projects, and lackof credits given to about half of their classes and some other factors which are going to be
discussed in this article, there were quite high dropout rates (Morimoto, 2001). After many

—

More

Autonomy You

Aski

—

n8

•

Morimoto

discussions and bureaucratic procedures over the years leading up this study, in April 2003,12
years since the inauguration of this rather experimental (in its status also!) program, EPC wasreformed into a new and more formal program with a new name, called ACE, or Advanced
Communicative English. The university now allows twice as many students to be enrolled in
the program, and offers credits for all the work they do in the program. ACE students are also
exempt from having to take additional regular required English classes, which EPC students
had been required to take in the past.
EPC Group 2001

The EPC group who entered in April 2001, about whom I am writing about, turned out to be
one of the last groups of students in this program.
In the first two years, Phillip Zitowitz, Kevin Mark, Kate Elwood, and I taught them. Phillip
Zitowitz, who has a strong background in professional drama and musical productions aswell as photography, had spent much of his class time for those activities. Kate Elwood, whotaught them in the first year only, focused on speech acts and intercultural awareness. Kevin
Mark, whose expertise is in development of learner-corpus-based CALLsoftware, employed it
when he taught this group in its second year. In the two years I had this group, I had them read,
write, listen, and discuss a lot in small groups based on pleasure reading and video viewing
assignments, requiring them to read many books, newspaper and magazine articles in paperand electronic media, as well as watch videos and DVDs. I also introduced them to peerteaching and peer-evaluation through TALK Learning System (Junge, 1998-2002) and taught
them basic presentation skills. Kermit Carvel who taught them in their third and fourth years
utilized his specializations in journalism and film production to help the students write andproduce a few digital films. In general, all the EPC teachers this group had encouraged small
group learning.
Selection process

In April 2001, 24 students were selected for the program. First, there had been an orientation
to the EPC program, for which about 200 or more freshmen turned up, where most of theteachers of the program and a few second-year students explained what the program wasabout. A few days later, those who wanted to enroll in the program submitted an application
form in which they stated, in Japanese or English, the reasons why they wanted to apply. Then,
there was an English test, interviews in English by the teachers, and in Japanese by secondand third-year students. The interviews were conducted in small groups mainly to see theirmotivation levels and their willingness to communicate in English, and cooperate with others
in group-learning situations.
Group 2000 as their "senpai" (senior members)Group 2001 waswelcomed by the then second-year students (Group 2000),who had
demanded us, especially me, earlier in 2002 that they wanted to be a lot more autonomous in
their classes and camps and they wanted to actuallyplan and run some of my classes and thecamps on their own under my supervision (Morimoto, 2002). Aftersome consideration andconsultation with my peers, I decided to let them do as they requested because I was quite
impressed by the enthusiasm I felt from them toward improving EPC, and I thought it might
be a good chance for them to take more charge of their own learning. I also genuinely felt that 1
could trust them and that this mutual trust might bring about something more.

—

LD

SIG

2006 Anthology —

ii9

*

"HowWeGotHooked;

As a result, the senpai organized the selection interviews for 2001 quite meticulously, andspent hours and hours in discussions to carefully screen the new students to come up with theirrecommendations. Also, they organized and managed the spring camp 2001 in the university's
seminar house in Kiyosato Heights, where the teachers were allotted some time to do their own
activities and the students, mostly in English, managed the rest. To us, the teachers, this wasan eye-opening change from us having to force them to do things all the time. Although it did
not seem to be directly linked to the actual improvement of their English, the changes in their
enthusiasm and attitudes toward EPC, their peers and teachers, and most importantly, in theirself-esteem, were quite remarkable.
Group 2001's first year-ups and downs

As in most cases in the past, Group 2001 seemed to us, the teachers, to be fully motivated andenthusiastic, and things went well for the first semester. We had thought the Group 2000 had
done a marvelous job at the camp welcoming them and showing them some good examples,and our classes seemed to be going fine.

However, after summer break, a few students left the program, and toward the end of theyear, more students, most of them the top-level students left the program, too. Even after aquite successful autumn camp, the trend did not seem to reverse itself. This could have meantthat this group was unable to continue the new"tradition" their senpais had created showing
strong leadership and conducting various projects more autonomously the next year.All theteachers were then extremely puzzled about this. We thought we had successfullyselected themost motivated students, there were good peer influences,and that we were teaching quite

well using dramas, conversation strategies, cultural differences, computer-assisted language
learning, extensive reading and listening, etc....
Research questions

1. What went wrong, especially in the first year?
2. What were the reasons for the students' sudden upheavals in their motivation levels?

3. What could we do better to link their enthusiasm more directly to the improvement of theirEnglish?
4. What are some lessons that we can learn from this experience and how can we apply theminto ACE and the English classesat our institution in general?
II. DATA COLLECTION BY TAPED DISCUSSIONS AND INTERVIEWS
Group discussions and interviews

I decided to conduct a qualitative analysis by having students discuss their experiences in small
groups and videotape them. After analyzing the videotapes, I decided to individually interview
three students of various personalities and with different paths of motivational development inorder to go even deeper into their individual experiences.
Discussion procedures

1. Request

In spring 2003, after teaching this group for two years,and just before my sabbatical leave
abroad, I asked the group to cooperate with me by tracing back changes in their attitudes,—

More Autonomy You

Aski

—

i2o

•

Morimoto

motivation, and overall atmosphere of the classes by having discussions on these topics insmall groups (two to four in each group) videotaping them and taking notes and eventuallysummarizing their discussions by each group into written form.
2. Providing a relaxed environment

They seemed to respond very positively to this request, and during the spring break of 2003,
toward the end of their second year, all 14 (eight female, six male) students in the group
participated in this project. Eight of them (six female and two male) came to my house, twohours west of Tokyo, and stayed overnight to do this, and others got together on campus. On
average, they spent at least two hours discussing, but some of them went on talking for several
hours, and in fact, I was told later that some even kept discussing it the whole time on the
highway bus on their way back to Tokyo!
They got to videotape at least an hour of their discussion and they manipulated the video
camera themselves which was set up on a tripod. I was usually not present except for several
minutes per hour when I went in to check in with them to see if they were doing all right andwere staying on track. I made it a point to help them relax by doing things such as playing
background music and serving them tea at times.
3. Discussion "facilitating" sheet
In order to help them structure their discussions, I handed them a sheet of paper, which listed
some events/times to look back and reflect on in the chronological order. It looked like this (seeTable 1):

Table 1. Discussion facilitating sheet
Changes of attitudes and motivation toward EPC
What became the key factors in the changes?
•

Expectations toward the collegelife (EarlyApril)•

Impressions of and expectations for EPC (During the orientation, etc.) (April)•

During the selection process (April)•First Class (April)•

Spring Camp(May)•First Semester (April-July)•

Summer Break (August-September)•

Second Semester (September-January)• Autumn Camp (November/December)• Spring Break (February-March)=>=>=> => =>2nd year (the same cycle)

4. Other requests and suggestions
I also askedthem to come up with ideasto improvethe course and help motivate them evenmore. I told them that advice for teachers, fellow students, and newcomers would be welcome.

I also encouraged them to discuss what could havebeen done better to steer their enthusiasm
toward improving their English, not just doing things together. I encouraged them to talk frankly
—

LD

SIG

2006

Anthology —

121

•

" H o w We G o t H o o k e d 'abouthowtheyfelt aboutanything, and toldthem that thevideos and their contentwould neverbe shownor discussed to anyone withouttheir permission. Fortunately, I felt wehad developed
enough mutualtrust for them to be comfortable sharing theirtrue thoughtsand feelings.
Individual interviews

I selected three people, a rather introverted female, a male leader figure with much overseas
experience, and a used-to-be"anti-social" malewho was initially feeling strongly against group
work or even socializing with his peers. I interviewed them on the phone for one to two hours
and took detailed notes of our conversations.

III. Summary of the discussions and interviews
A. Summary of group discussions in chronological order

I took notes on most of the points the students made by watching the video and reading theirwritten summaries of their discussion.

Note about relatively little feedback on teachers

One thing that struck me when I started taking notes was that the students spoke relatively
little of what each teacher did in our classes. I was more than surprised because I had expected
to hear that certain things we did had encouraged or hindered them to be autonomous andmotivated. I also thought I would get some meaningful findings as to what the EPC teachers
could do to promote more autonomy. Instead, I kept hearing about what they were feelingabout each other and the group dynamics that they were so concerned about.

One speculation I have for this, is that even though I had taken great care to let the students
express their opinions about our classes freely, as I, one of the teachers, was the one to listen
to and analyze their feedback, the students might have carefully avoided talking too directly
about any teachers' teaching style or what we actually did, to maintain pleasant and smooth
relationships of everyone, the students and as well as teachers involved in EPC.
Another view, which Kevin Mark communicated to me, was that "the students did

not have the maturity to appreciate much of what was going on around them: they may
focus enthusiastically on certain aspects of the program that are salient to them without
understanding their ramifications" (Personal communication, March 3,2004). I also feel thatmany students got so euphoric in their peak experience, which was just a few months prior
to this data collection that their focus at the time of the interview was mainly on what thestudents themselves felt and achieved rather than what the teachers did or provided them.
Following is a summary of the much more detailed notes I took. I added some descriptionsof what was going on in some of the periods in concern for the readers:i. Expectations towards University Life in early April

Various levels and qualities of motivation toward study of English were reported. Some had
more intrinsic motivation, others more external. However, overall morale sounded quite high.
2. Impression and expectations for EPC during orientation, etc.... (April)

During freshman orientation, we stressed that students should not take EPC casually,saying it
was extremely demanding for the few credits they will get.

More Autonomy You

Aski —

122•

Morimoto

Too threatening: Many reported that they felt overly threatened by the teachers. Somewere also shocked by how fast some of the native speakers spoke to them in English
and they could not understand much of what was said. Many were impressed by
the senior members, who appeared to be following what was going on. Some wereattracted to the demanding aspect of EPC. Others were attracted by the more practicaland communicative content of the curriculum than in regular English classes and werelooking forward to having teachers who were native speakers.
Looking back, many felt there was too much emphasis of how difficult it would be to be in
the course and too little explanation of how actual classes would be conducted, i.e. how muchemphasis there would be on group work and collaboration.
3. During the selection process (April)

The exam to enter the program included: a listening section, a short Japanese essay to identify
their motivation, an interview in Japanese (by the senior students), and a group interview
in English (by teachers). Applicants were, for instance, instructed to introduce themselves toeach other in pairs, and then told to introduce their partner to a third person. We selected
the students on the basis of their motivation rather than their English ability. In the end,
approximately twice as many people applied than were accepted.
Low confidence: Most of them lost confidence in themselves (and in English?). Most
thought they would never get in. Some were impressed by their senior members whohelped them to relax and made them feel like asking them anything.
4. The first class (April)Three 90-minute classeswere taught every week by three teachers, Phil Zitowitz, Kate Ellwood,and me in the first year EPC classes.

High anxiety and tension: Most students reported tremendous levels of anxiety andtension, as they were unable to followeverything in the class, which was mostly
conducted in English, and they were also afraid of their peers since they either seemed
to have better command of English or they seemed more skilled and assertive in groupsituations. Some did not understand what the teachers were expecting of them. Someof the males and females reported that they were afraid of the females, who looked
more assertive and confident than the males in this group. At this point, relationships
between the students had yet to have formed.
5. The first year spring camp (May)

Both first- and second-yearstudents participated in the camp that was held at the university's
seminar house facing Lake Yamanaka. It was the first time in EPC history that the students
themselves (Group 2000, then second-year students) organizedthe spring camp, not theteachers. The activities were more recreation-oriented rather than academic.

Frustrated with human relationships: Many students were aware that one of the goalsof this camp was to familiarize themselves with each other and to get closer. However
most felt this was not achieved, although they could see how close their senpai (Group
2000) were, and they longed for that kind of relationship with their own peers.

Not readyforgroup work: Many felt it wastoo earlyfor them to work in groups as they
had not built close enough human relationships with each other to know how much
—

LD

SIG

2006 Anthology —

123

*

"How We G o t Hooked'

they could "stand out" and initiate actions, and this became a frustrating factor. It
was especially apparent in an activity that had them choreograph a dance sequence.
Ironically, the teachers had the intention of giving them such a task to encourage
bonding among the students.
6. First year, first semester (April-July)

Receptive and not many human relationships developing: Most reported that the content
of the classes was different from what they had expected based on what they had
heard in the orientation. Many reported that they were not so happy with the humanrelationships among the group or the lack thereof. Some also reported that after thecamp they felt cut off from the second-year students. Many reported that as they werestill receptive in class,there were people who could not express their dissatisfaction,and that led them to lose motivation toward the course. Some suggested that in orderto solve this problem of declining motivation after the spring camp, it would havebeen productive to provide opportunities for the first-year students to participate inpresentations and events.
7. First year summer break (August-September)

Taking different paths: Most felt that there was no cohesiveness in the group when thefirst semester finished, and people went ahead and did different things during thesummer. Depending on what they did and how they perceived their experiences, theirmotivation levels toward EPC changed. Some of those who went overseas came backmore motivated to learn English, but some others came back less motivated and wereconsequently attracted to other things or other ways of learning English. Some decided
to quit EPC making up their minds on what they really wanted to focus on. Somealmost forgot about EPC or could not be bothered when they were asked by e-mail tocooperate with the second-year students' website project.
8. First year second semester (September-January)

The attendance rate suddenly dropped. Five students had left EPC by December. It wasnoticeable that most of them were the excellent students.

A major slump: The existence of so many people being absent and quitting led
others to lose their motivation. More motivated people were very unhappy with thesituation. Many quit because they could not express themselves well about their own
dissatisfaction with the classes.

Different motivation groups form: Some students remarked that around that time theclass splinteredinto three categories. The most motivated started feeling, aroundthe time of the autumn camp,that they themselves had to initiate things moreautonomously. The less motivated ones felt they had to do what they were told to do.
The third group had things that they wanted to do, but as they either found it too
difficult to carry their plans out in this group,or felt veryunsatisfied about not being
given credit for their work or the classes themselves, they left the program without
being able to express their opinions.
In the end, there were two groups left: The motivated ones who chose to do debates or
speeches for the autumn camp, and the less motivated group who took on the musical,
which was a sort of "leftover," not chosen by the former group. Some chose to be in

the less motivatedgroup only because they felt their English level was not high enough—More Autonomy You

Aski

—

124 *

Morimoto

to be in the more motivated group. Some students even started getting together insomebody's house to prepare for their parts in the autumn camp.
9. First year autumn camp (November)

It was held at the university's LakeYamanakaseminar house. The camp was organized by both
first- and second-year students. Although the second-year students took the initiative, the firstyear students were given complete charge of the activities they were responsible for. Meanwhile,a few students, mostly top-level ones, did not attend the camp, and all of them quit shortly after
this despite many of their peers', teachers', and senpais' efforts to persuade them to stay.
Getting closer to each other increases motivation: Most, for the first time, actually foundjoy in working with others, which motivated them to put more energy into their EPC
studies. As many of them ended up staying up all night, sometimes three nights in a
row working with their peers before and during the camp to prepare for their activities,
they became much closer to each other. Many felt positively influenced by their peers
and their seniors by seeing their presentations. Most reported that this camp madethem get much closer to each other than before, and this made a significant difference
toward pushing up their motivation to speak in English with each other, study it, anddevote more time and energy into EPC.Some noted though, that this upheaval in
motivation lasted only for a while after the camp.

Non-participants quitfeeling left out. Many said that all of the non-participants of thecamp quit shortly after the camp only because they did not "giveit a try" to do group
work and they felt they have been left out even when the participants persuaded themit was never too late. Many of those who did not participate seemed to have made apremature decision that they would never enjoygroup work, the students reported.
They went on to propose that all the camps should be made absolutelymandatory
because of the above reason. Many regretted that they should have tried much harderto persuade them to come to the camp.
10. First year spring break (February - March)Socializing begins: Manystarted socializing with eachother,celebrating birthdays andso on. The mailinglist was not thereyet,but somestarted networking. In March, somestarted workinghard toward the selection process, but those who were abroad or hadgone backto their hometowns couldnot participate in this process, and this made a
difference in their feelings of commitment to EPC-related activities. Some reported that
thislongblank period did affect human relationships and motivation levels.
11. Second year during the selection process (April)

Second- and third-year students were in charge of interviewing first- and second-year
applicants for EPC. A huge controversy arose concerning the second-year students selection
during their discussion after the interviews, and they ended up spendingmore than 20 hours
debating to come to a conclusion.

The biggest turning point: Each member got the opportunity to express their frankopinions feeling responsible for the applicants theywere in charge of:All of themrecognized this event as their biggest turning point. Everybody becameso seriouswhen
he/she faced the difficulty to judge someone. They became aware of their responsibility
to express open-hearted opinions since they had committed to the applicant
whom each member was in charge of. Everybody, not just the lead figures, became
—

LD

SIG

2006 Anthology —125* "How We Got Hookedindependent enough to express his/her own opinion without fear sincethis experience.
The members faced conflicts of different views and opinions. It was the first time they
had such uninhibited and frank discussions.

Agreat controversy over choosing their new peer members forced them to clarify how theyenvisioned EPC as a learning community, to beand also clarify each member's values:
Many admitted that at that stage,the group itself had not developed a strong enoughbond, and they were afraid that allowing new members would throw off the fragilebalance within the group. Some were strongly against allowing too many people in, andothers were against being too exclusive. This led them to clarify what EPC was about
and how they wanted it to be. The points of discussion included whether a person'sEnglish ability was more important than his/her motivation to study, willingness tocooperate with others, and so on. They realized that they, not just the teachers, had the
key to create it and felt extremely responsible for making the right decision. After somevery heated and emotional (many were in tears trying to defend for the applicants)
debates, they finally came to an agreement. Many reported that after this experience,for the first time, they really got to know each other in depth as they talked so muchabout their values and beliefs so intensively. Some stated that this experience wasinvaluable.

12. Second year spring camp (May)This group planned and ran this entire camp at Lake Yamanaka which was attended by the
first-, second-, and some third-and fourth-year students with a few teachers and an alumnus
who led some activities in given time frames.
Learning to collaborate efficiently: Many reported critical insights on their inefficiency incollaborative work at that point, especiallyon communicating with one another. They
started using their mailing list heavily, sometimes exchanging several e-mails a day. Many
also pointed out that the content of the camp could be more academically oriented sothat it would be more stimulating for both old timers and new comers alike.
13. Second year first semester (April-July)

Major student-initiated collaborative projects, such as debates and presentations started taking
place in many of the classes.
Extremely busy, butfun working together: Most reported that all those projects kept
them extremely busy week after week, day and night, but they tremendously enjoyeddoing them with their peers. EPC became the center of their lives. Many also admitted
that one of Professor Kevin Mark's softwares, called Lexispace (see Mark 2003, which
outlines this software.) which allowed them to share their diaries and other writings in
English, which was rewritten by the teacher, not only helped with their English, but also
helped them in getting to know each other better, and this contributed to strengthening
their motivation even more.

Unsatisfied with their English: Many, on the other hand, reported as they packed too muchinto a semester, things never were completed at a truly satisfactory level,especiallyin
terms of accuracy in their English. Many reflected that more cooperation with teachers interms of scheduling and getting help in English should have been sought for.

More Autonomy You

Askj

126

•

Morimoto

14. Second year summer break (August-September)

The members who stayed in Tokyo during the break did spend time together to work for thewebsite presentation event that was held by the university in October.
Kept in touch and in concern: Unlike the previous summer, people stayed in touch
through e-mail, even when they were abroad, and they felt connected with EPC in Tokyoand felt bad that they were not helping those who stayed in country with the website(http://www.kisc.meiji.ac.jp/~epc/) project. Many who stayed in Japan the previous
summer went abroad largelyinfluenced by their peers who had done so the previous year.
15. Second year second semester (September-January)

They became so active that they started creating projects beyond the classroom. These included
writing, producing, and performing a court case play in English, making two semi-publicpresentations of their play,film, news video, and the Lion King musical on campus on top ofnumerous other projects for in-class and camp presentations and execution. (See Mark 2003
for screen shots from the Lexispace software of a cloze exercise using a narrative on LionKing that the students had written and photographs from the student performance.) The
class provided the members opportunities to meet and have some discipline to speak only inEnglish. They did work completely autonomously or attempted to finish the projects that were
proposed by teachers by themselves.

Working to their limits: Everybody worked to or surpassed their limits with many
sleepless nights. Many were completely driven. However, there were some gaps inmotivation among the group, which they were aware of, and people patiently waited
for the less motivated to raise their motivation levels, which in turn was very muchappreciated by the initially less motivated ones. Although the group had become
extremely efficient working together, rotating leadership roles for different projects,
and enjoying the work and the feeling of accomplishment, many were feeling they were
doing just too much work, and that their English was not improving as much, as theyspoke in Japanese mostly outside the class pressed by time constraints.
16. Second year autumn camp (November/December)This was held at Lake Yamanaka for three days. It featured not only numerous presentations bysmall groups but also the murder casecourt playwith an insert of a short film created solely
by students, whose production and contents werelargely kept secretfrom the teachers until
the night of the performance, which lasted for three hours including audience participationon the verdict which first-year students and teachers were led into by the students. (Kevin
Mark and Phillip Zitowitz helped them improve this and had them perform it again on
campus along with The Lion King and other presentations. See picture 1.) There were somemembers who did not sleep for the entire week preparing for this. Because of the nature of thisextremely intensive and demanding camp, they had a post-camp without teachers at a nearby
accommodation just for recreation after the officialcamp ended.
A peak experience: Most seemed to feel that it was the peak of the whole EPC
experience up to this point in time. They felt a high level of sense of accomplishment,
but at the same time, some were starting to feel sad that all this was coming to an end
soon as they knew, in the following year, the curriculum would not allow them toallocate so much of their time into EPC.

—

LD SIG

2006 Anthology —127* "How We Got Hooked

Note bythewriter: It was interesting that very few comments were made about thiscamp. I asked the students later about this, and they said it was so obvious that foreverybody it was such an extremely exhilarating, satisfying, and touching experiencethat they felt there was no need to mention it.
Additional comments
On lagged improvement of their English

More realistic scheduling and reviewing process necessary: Many admitted that they ended up
speaking to each other mostly in Japanese working on their projects due to the time constraints
except when they were in class. Things had to be communicated accurately and efficiently
when they were working toward deadlines, and this was a big compromise most students had
to make. They also reflected that they wanted to spend more time on the completed projects,
especially on the accuracy of their English. However, some reported that despite all this, they
still thought that their English had improved far better than if they had just studied on theirown. Many also stated that most of their other skills in English, except for accuracy, had madea huge leap. Moreover, many admitted that their communicative skills had improved quite a
lot and they no longer were inhibited to express themselves in English. It seemed that the moreadvanced students suffered the most as they had to accommodate the lower linguistic levels of
their peers especially in conversation.
Note by the writer: At the time of the writing in autumn 2006, three of these students havecompleted their MA's in England and one is in an international graduate program in Japan. A
couple more have done some graduate levelwork in the US, and one studied in a university in
Sweden as an exchange student for a year during her junior year.Yet, these students presented
various levels of English proficiency upon entry into the EPC program. In recent personalcommunications, many students reported to me that in their junior and senior years, and evenafter graduation, many students started studying harder to improve their English.
On group work

Students felt it was necessary tocultivate relationships which in turn became thebasis for
motivation: Most seemed to recognizethe importance of group work, which required them towork together outside the class, to be a necessarycomponent in cultivating productive humanrelationships. Over and over they reported how their excellent relationships with one anothercontributed to motivating them to put more energy into their work and studies.

Carefully planned introduction is important: However, many also noted that group work should
be introduced carefully taking into account the amount and number of difficulties, and thatthe senior members should support the junior members during this process. Some pointed
out that this process was necessary as most students werejust not used to collaboration orautonomy in their educational experiences, and it did take some time for them to understandthe concepts and get used to actually doing them.

Many tips learned on cooperative skills: Many stressedthe importance of sharing responsibilities
and rotatingjobs and leadership roles so that everybody could experience having jobs of
responsibility. Theyreported that theyhave improved their cooperative skills so much that they
could carry out numerous tasks incredibly efficiently.

More Autonomy You Ask; —128 « Morimoto
General comments

Gained life-longfriendships and became compassionate toward each other: Many stated that they
got to know each other so well and be considerate and compassionate with each other so muchthat once they decided to do something, they couldbe one working toward their goal in perfectharmony. They tried to cover up for people who were going through hard times.They studied,struggled, and laughedtogether, and these memories wouldstaywith them for a long time.
Teachers' and senpai's support and trust were important: Some remarked that a combination ofgroup work, friendship, and teachers' and their senpai's support, contributed to this miraculous
upheaval of motivation. Because of the trust and support the teachers and senpais showed
them, they could realize some of the dreams they had and create a new tradition of EPC. Theircontinuous and timely support, praise, and encouragement further led them to carry out evenbigger and more challenging projects.
Gained leadership, communicative English skills (especially listening andspeaking), presentation
skills, and computer skills: Many commented that they learned to think in English and became
more fluent. Some stated that the skills they have obtained would stay with them for the rest of
their lives. Many also appreciated becoming effective presenters using their drama techniquesand computer skills they learned through EPC.
Accelerated human development. Many commented on just how fast they grew as human beingsin the two years.
Writer's observation: On many occasions when this group stood next to other groups on andoff campus, such as other seminar groups, circles, and clubs, they often looked so much moremature, self-regulated, and confident. This was even the case when compared with groups
consisting of older juniors and seniors.
Suggestions

Showing concern for the first-year students to ease the process in becoming an autonomousand strongly motivated group of learners:
1. More support of and exchanges with the seniors in the first semester, such as
introduction of a buddy system, first years' visit to the second years' classes,second
years' presentations on what they had done in the first year, etc....
2. More academic stimulus in the first semester and more opportunities for the firstyear students to present, such as presentation and discussion events.

3. Encouraging first-year students to developbonds much earlier by establishing groupe-mailing, more group work assignments,and making participation in the camps
mandatory.

4. Providing clearer orientation and reasons for activities, such as group work anddrama activities so that they would convince the students that these would actually
help their improvement in English.
5. More careful and gradual introduction of collaborative activities.
6. More careful coordination of schedules among and between teachers and students.

7. Having their own room to meet and store EPC equipment and materials.

—

LD

SIG

2006

Anthology

129 * "How We Got Hooked"
B. Summary of individual interviewsi. Asako Nagasaka's (an introvert) case:

Asako has always been a very quiet person. She rarelyspeaks up in class. Furthermore, she said
she had never done collaborative work before. (Although most students must have done somegroup work during their elementary school years, so many mentioned that they had neverworked that waybefore. I think during their junior and senior high school years,they musthave gotten so stronglyconditionedto studying individually, often for competition, that they
had forgotten their previous group learning experiences.) Shejoined EPCbecause she wanted
to keep the level of English proficiencyshe had attained prior to entering Meiji University.
During the first semester, I graduallyrealized this was a very different course from what
I was accustomed to. It was completely new to me. This caused me to be both nervous
and curious. During the first semester, there were times when I thought of quitting
EPC.

However, the autumn camp in the first year became a turning point. As I learned tointegrate different opinions of people, rather than taking an "all or nothing" approach,I began to enjoy group work. And being able to work well with other people became afoundation for me to put my energy into studying English and enjoying it.
In the fall semester in the second year, I even became a sub-leader for the Lion King
production. My work included scheduling, choreographing, and booking places forrehearsals. People around me (outside EPC) commented to me, "You've been doing a
big job!!"
Since the time of the interview in spring 2002, although Asako stayed a quiet person, shestarted expressing herself more confidently in group situations, and cooperated with andsometimes led others in the group.
2. Jun Inoue's (a leader-type) case:

Jun had spent some years abroad, and was more fluent in English than most of the others in
EPC. To the teachers, he appeared to keep a low profile for most of the first year. However, he
did not think so. He said to me that he felt it was just a matter of being given opportunities.

People somehow appointed me to be the leader around the end of the first year. My
policy was not to express my own opinions so much, but to make sure everyone, eventhe quietest in the group would be paid attention to, and to draw out everybody's
opinions. I also thought that once you get the group's vector into one direction afterworking out the consensus well, the group can gain unbelievable power to execute
things. I thought that's what might have happened to this group of EPC students.
Although I remained a "general leader" for the whole year, students rotated theleadership role to different people in the second semester in the second year, and it
was good, I thought. Everybody had some shining strengths and these opportunities
revealed them. Even somebody like Asako became a great leader!

My senpais (senior members) were very kind to me. They would even run to me intimes of trouble. On the other hand, I wanted to some day outperform them.
I put a lot of work into perfecting projects by using my computer skills. (Jun was the
key person who edited their movie, "The Motive," among other numerous projects.) I

—

More

Autonomy You

Aski —

i3o•Morimoto

wanted to reward my peers for making a neat record of their accomplishments and toencourage them to do even a better job the next time.
The miraculous success of EPC came from the compassion people had for one another.
People saw goodness in everybody. When somebody came back after a long absencefrom our work, nobody criticized him/her or even mentioned the fact. The selection
process was particularly memorable as they let themselves express their true feelings
about important issues, and there were even many tears. After all, we had nothing tohide from each other. Selecting a new member in the group was sensitive stuff. We were
nervous about it as we were just becoming a "family." The group was still so fragile
then, and we did not want to break it by letting the wrong person in. That's why wegot so serious and gave deep thought to what we really wanted from EPC, our "otherfamily." We ARE a family now, and this is such a secure one that we all feel we have aplace to come back to any time.

When I look back on the last two years, the most fulfilling classes were the ones weplanned and conducted ourselves. I was pretty much fed up with "systematic" classes
from my junior and high school days.
If I may make any request of teachers, it is for them to allow students to do what theywant when they come up to you for permission. To come to a group consensus todo something together, we required enormous energy and motivation. Denying ourchance to do so will only blow out the little flame we finally managed to ignite. So,teachers, please do not turn us off!!

During his senior year,Jun launched an NPO, based in California, providing leadershiptraining programs to students who are internationally-minded. More than 100students got
trained in them, and as of August 1, 2006,it was officially acknowledged as an NPO by in theState of California. In the meantime, Jun obtained a GMAT score of 610 and a TOEFL score of

270, and applied to and was acceptedby two graduate schools in the States. In the end, however,
he chose to work for an IT company in Japan.
3. Takeshi Komoto's (an antisocial) case:I remember Takeshiwell from our first camp in April 2001,just because I ended up paring up
with him in the introduction activity as the number of students were in odd numbers. It wasthen veryhard to communicatewith him in English as he was not at all comfortableor capableeven in responding to mybasic questions, suchas"Where areyou from?" To be veryfrank, I did
wonder if he could reallysurvive in EPC with that level of oral proficiency.
According to Takeshi, he quickly lost his motivation in EPCin the first year.

I then became lazy. I especially did not like the social aspects of it. I was aware thatsome peoplestarted "doing things" outsideclasses—celebrating people's birthdays andso on. I wanted to have nothing to do with all this social stuff, so I stayed away. I was so
disinterested in EPC that as late as the beginning of the second year, I could not evenremember the name, EPC, after a long break, and was about to quit. When I spoke
up to Jun about it, Jun said I was necessary in EPC and wanted me to stay. Anothermember told me not to give up so easily. Those words shifted something in me.

However, the biggest shift,or rather, a life-changing turning point came during theselection process. As I had a verystrong opinion against excluding people from EPC,
I kept challengingother members who had opposite opinions. I was very persistent
—

LD

SIG

2006 Anthology —

i3i

•

"How We Got Hooked

about it, and this led me to express myselffully in the group for the first time. I feltthat I finally was recognized as a member, and felt good being trusted to express my
opinions about such an important matter in the program. I believe, without having
participated in the 20-hour-long discussions following the selection interviews, mylife could have been much more different and boring.
Takeshi changed radically since then, (although contrary to his opinion, the group chose
only one person to join EPC after all) and he was fully committed to EPC and its members
ever since. Being inspired by some EPC graduates, he applied to participate in the JapanAmerican Student Conference, which is extremely prestigious and competitive, and he was
accepted. He says his experience in EPC of using English so much has helped him greatly inthe debates and reading and writing lots of materials. After graduating from Meiji, he now is
studying International Relations at Waseda University's graduate school, and he was the one
who presented with me in English on behalf of all his other ex-classmates at JALT05. At thetime of this writing in the autumn of 2006,1 have just heard from him that he was accepted to
be a diplomat in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He told me that as he still has very supportivefriends from EPC, even when he is doing a challenging task such as studying for exams, he feels
secure, and not too nervous. After a year and a half since graduation, he still comes back fromWaseda to Meiji, studies together often with his ex-EPC classmates and his sempai in the group
2000.

IV. Possible answers to the questions
Qi. What went wrong especially in the first year?

1. There was too much threatening and not enough concrete explanation, especiallyon
the nature of the collaborative work. This might have scared away students who wereautonomous or intrinsically motivated in their learning to begin with.
2. There was a mismatch between the students' expectations and the actual content of theclasses.

3. Even though we the teacherswere trying to be sensitive to the psychology of the students, wewere probably not placingenough attention to how they felt being involved in competition
during the selection process, whichresulted in some students loosingconfidence.

4. I think not enough effort was made within the group to foster good human relationships,
and this was a partial cause for the unsuccessful group work and low motivation especiallyin the first semester of the first year.

5. Although, again, teachers had felt they werebeing sensitive enough, collaborative work was
introduced apparently too soon before there was a good understanding on the part of thestudents on what it was and also before they could establish good human relationships with
one another. In the field of group dynamics, it is widely known that in the initial groupforming stage, people often behave as if they are not stressed or nervous in the new groupeven if they actually were (See Oyster 2000 cited in Morimoto 2005a).
6. Not enough effort was made to keep the group together for EPC during long breaks.
7. The importance of participation in the camps, whichwere major events in the developmentof the human relationships, was overlooked, and this resulted in all of the non-participants
quitting in the end.

More Autonomy You

Aski —

132•

Morimoto

Q2. What were the keys for the students' sudden upheavals in theirmotivational levels?

I categorized them into four main factors:

1. Agapeic and secure climate which was fostered successfully in group dynamics;
2. Empowerment, which occurred as a result of being given some control over student
selection, curriculum, and classroom decisions;

3. Opportunities to perform in front of others; and4. Enjoyment, higher self-esteem, creativity, and senses of accomplishment,
responsibility, and competence.

These factorsseemed to be developed and fostered by the following elements dynamicallyinteracting with each other:a. Close human relationships among the group.

b. Experiencing joy in group work and being creative.
c. Feeling trusted and supported by the teachers.
d. Feeling trusted and supported by their peers.
e. Having opportunities to express themselves fully among the group.
f. Feeling secure —having a family of friends.
g. Feeling responsible for the control they were given.
h. Compassion for their peers.
i. Desire to help the junior members through their process of developing autonomy,
motivation, and an agapeic climate.

j. Having and creating opportunities to present what they had achieved to others
outside the classroom.

k. Desire to perform well in front of their peers, senior members, junior members, EPC
teachers, and other members of the larger campus community, which included theirteachers, administrators, friends, and so forth.

1. Feelingcompetent in communicative skills in English.
m. Feeling competent in cooperative and interpersonal skills.
Q3. What could we do better to link their enthusiasm more directly to
improvement of their English?

As many students suggested, their perceived competence in English improved in general for
two exceptions. More advancedstudents, especially the ones who were quite fluent speakers
did not feel their English improved much, and some even reported that their TOEFL scores
worsened. Also, most reported that they were uncertain if the English they were using in all
those projects was accurate or not. This is quite apparent when we look at what they havewritten on their website (EPC Group 2001,2002), for instance. Consequently, they perceived
that their grammatical skills did not improve much.
Furthermore, there is one more important question we should pose here. When the students
talked about their motivation, was it about studying English, or general attitude toward

participation in EPC related activities? Reading and listeningto the students' comments over
and over, I feel there is no straight forward answer to this.

LD

SIG

2006

Anthology

133* "How We Got Hooked'

As I have attempted to explain above in the answer to Q3, it seems that many had more
instrumental or external motivation to study in the beginning and then more internal motivation
to participate in activities started to settle in. Maybe their motivation for more formal study
might have decreased as many of the activitieswere not so directly related to English itself,suchas the sewing of the costumes for their play, and the learning of how to handle equipment andcomputer software. However, this does not necessarilymean that they were disinterested inlearning and/or speaking in English, as had they been in an ESL situation, where there was anecessity to communicate in English, it was likelythat they had done most of their work using
English. Some students confirmed this assumption by saying that they wanted to speak English
all the time, but they could not just afford to do that under the time restraints, and that they werefrustrated that although they enjoyed working together, they were spending all this time andenergy for something which was not directly related to the improvement of their English.
Another way of analyzing this might be to shift the focus in the content of their learning
experience from being language-oriented to more content- and project-oriented. In otherwords, we succeeded in strengthening their motivation perhaps partially due to a more
content-oriented focus, but we also failed in keeping the link between the content and thetarget language due to time constraints and the linguistic environment. It might be correct to
say that we did not provide a safe and appropriate enough environment for the learners to keepusing English for their collaborative work.
Therefore, I propose the following answers to Q3:
1. More time for preparation for each project should be allocated so that students will feelsecure to take time in communicating in English with each other.
2. Review/rewritesessions with a teacher or a native speaker assistant/editor should be scheduled
before and after each execution of a project. An opportunity for a second or final version of
the presentation may be helpful to keep the students' focus and motivation for improvement.
3. Although teachers often oversaw the out-of-class activities, more presence of a teacher and/or a native or near-native speaker assistant in those activities may be beneficial for students
to check their accuracy of their English and to be encouraged to communicate in English,
provided that their autonomy is well respected. However, as students become more andmore productive, the teachers cannot possibly keep up with all the editing needs for theirperformance and publications. (Note that their website alone consists of perhaps morethan 40 pages of student English!!) Therefore, I agreewith my colleague, Kevin Mark's
proposal that the university outsources editors for this need, especially now that we haveapproximately 200 students enrolled in the ACE program, yet there are only five teachers(who also teach more students or classes outside the program).

4. Special attention should be given to the more fluent learners whose fluency level is high but
accuracy is not. It seems it is them who "suffer"most from not getting much out of the EPC
projects, many of which turn out to be more fluency- than accuracy-focused for the reasonsmentioned above. Perhaps we could encourage these students to take more demanding roles
in each project, which will in turn require them to focus on accuracy in longer narratives
and writings than in other projects.

5. Sharingof teacher-edited learner diary entries, using Lexispace, one of the programs in
the TRIO series by Kevin Mark (See Mark2001 for the outline of this TRIO project.),
mentioned earlier, used in his class seems to be extremely effective in improving students'
perceived sense of accuracy as well as creating bonding with each other. I recommend theuse of this at a much earlier stage, whichACE now does, and perhaps sharing it with senior
members after a certain point in time.
—More Autonomy You

Ask: —

134*

Morimoto

Q4. What are some lessons that we can learn from this experience and how
COULD WE APPLY THEM INTO ACE AND UNIVERSITY ENGLISH CLASSES IN GENERAL?

1. The importance ofgroup dynamics

We have learned that group dynamics should not ever be underestimated for development ofautonomy and motivation. As Murphey (2003) points out, "we learn autonomy in groups"(p.6), and security is the foundation of autonomy. Only after learners feel totally secure within
their group, will they feel safe enough to explore and be creative.As many students commented,
for them, EPC had become a secure family that they could alwayscome back to.
As I mentioned earlier, I read Dornyei and Murphey's book (2003) soon after I finishedmost of the work for this paper, and that led me to further analyze the data collected here usinggroup dynamic principles, especially on the group formation process of EPC 2001. The resultsof the analysis have been presented and published (Morimoto, 2004, 2005a, 2005b).
2. Socialization and introduction to collaborative work

Socializing and gradual introduction of collaborative work supported by teachers and senior
students seemed to be essential for a group to bond and to become an incubator for autonomy,
commitment, and higher motivation. Therefore, I propose that more classes be taught
intensively, preferably including overnight camps where everybody gets "locked" into studying
and socializing.
3. Scheduling social events carefully
In order to nurture the human relationships within the group, socializing opportunities should
be carefully scheduled to prevent people from feeling left out only because they could notparticipate in them due to scheduling conflicts. The presence of supportive senior students canbe extremely helpful, too. Special care should be taken for the timing of camps for this reason.
4. Individual attention

Especiallyin the initial stages, teachers', seniors' and peers' trust, support, and gradualorientation are essential for learners to do any collaborative work well, and care should be given
to each individual, not just the whole group, until the group itself starts doing this job on its
own.

5. Performance factors

With regard to the 2001 group, every opportunity to perform in front of others (outside of
their own group) seemed to inflate their alreadyhigh and intrinsic motivation levels, and thestudents themselves seemed to know that adding causes for strengthening their motivationlevels would continue as they kept creating such performance opportunities. Therefore, I
strongly recommend the use of performancesand publications, including web-based ones, tostrengthen students' motivation and sense of accomplishment.
6. Use ofLexispace

One of the greatest ways, which addresses to all the factors mentioned above, and also being
raved by the students was the use of software calledLexispace, which let student-generated
writing become a learning material to be circulated via e-mails among the learning group. As it
not only addressed the social and psychological needs of the students, but also their linguistic
needs (and being applicable even in larger class situations), I recommend the use of thissoftware more extensively.

LD

SIG

2006

Anthology

135* "How We Got Hooked

7. On empowerment

As learners in Japan are especially not accustomed to being trusted by authorities to take charge
in almost anything in the educational setting (See Head, 2006, this volume), empowering themthis way can have a massiveimpact on the part of the students, especiallyin terms of their selfesteem and sense of responsibility. Sometimes, students may misunderstand the appropriate
use of their gained control, and in those instances, it may be a good idea for the teacher and/or
senior students to intervene and guide them. At the same time, in some cases, it could become alife-changing event as was recounted in Takeshi Komoto's case.
Furthermore, I have seen many senior students, or senpais going out of their way to
encourage the new students to be more autonomous. One member of EPC2001, now agraduate student, for example, came into my ACE second year class a few times in the firstsemester this year, showed them some clips from the digital films that they created, including
the one they made for JALT2004, and offered Q&A sessions on how to be more autonomousand collaborative as a learning group and in general concerning their coming years and jobhunting. These interventions have obviously empowered some of the current students, andthey held their own English camps during the summer break and started English discussion
gatherings with their senpais.
Also, as I discussed earlier, although students did not mention this so much in theinterviews, I also do feel that we, the teachers, must have been creating a safe enough climate
for the students to be bold enough to be this autonomous. Although some of the group
activities we had them do might have been introduced too early or just too challenging in thefirst years, I feel activities such as drama, film-making, and material development projects that
the EPC teachers facilitated with were quite appropriate, and encouraged the students to be
more collaborative and autonomous.

8. An "English-speaking zone"
If there could be more institutional support, it might be extremely beneficial for learners to havean "English-speaking zone," which might work hand in hand with self-accesslearning centers,
libraries, media centers, and so on. In such a zone, everybody is expected to communicate onlyin English, and some English speaking learning advisers may be positioned. Such people may be
employed part-time from a pool of graduate and undergraduate students who are native or nearnative speakers of English, and some training for their facilitation work should be offered. This
zone can be one of the primary spaces outside the classroom to carry out collaborative activities.
9. Learning cooperative skills

Even after the whole group bonds and becomes motivated, being able to work efficiently witheach other is yet another thing, and can take time for them to learn such skills. As Benson(2001) states, "Autonomy implies not only that learners attempt to take control of their own
learning from time to time, but that they possess the capacity to do so systematically." Thus,
teachers should have patience and allow for this to brew, and scheduling and curriculum
should be developed with this factor in mind.
10. Possibility for English to be a human development subject
Both the students' and teachers' observations seem to show that the students have developed
tremendously in the two years as a result of the intense collaborative work. Johnson andJohnson (1999) seem to support this view as they point out that when there is successful
cooperative learning, evidences shows that students achieve higher goals, build more positiveand supportive relationships, and develop better psychological health. Thus, just as in any—

More Autonomy You

Aski —

136•

Morimoto

subject matter, English has a good potential to be a human development subject whenautonomy is encouraged through collaborative work.
11. Acceptance of a shift in the teacher's role

The teacher's role,once autonomy is well established, becomes more of an ethnographer's studying
students (Murphey, 2003) as wellas of a mentor's in my opinion. Carl Rogers (1983) stated that:... the attitude of the facilitator has almost entirely to do with the climate, "How canI create a psychological climate in which the child will feel free to be curious, will
feel free to make mistakes, will feel free to learn from the environment, from fellow

students, from me, from experience?" (p.136)

I agree with his view on a teacher as a facilitator fostering the climate. Furthermore, when
the group, as seen in EPC group 2001, gets to the point of autonomy they reached, it seems
many of them start taking on even this facilitator's role, as mentioned above in item 7 in thissection. This rather dramatic role change may be challenging for some teachers, and this aspectshould be well understood by the teacher before s/he decides to encourage autonomy withhis/her students. There is more discussion on this point in my other paper (Morimoto, 2005)
much based on works in group dynamics in general, and Murphey's work applying the groupdynamics model of autocratic, democratic, and autonomy-inviting teacher leader modes into
the language classroom setting (Murphey, 2003).
11. Faculty development in the area of Group Dynamics
We have found throughout this study how important group dynamics are in developing
autonomy through collaborative work, and I see the need for us to smoothly bring classes
and groups into conducting collaborativework. However, very few of us language teachers
are trained in this area. It may be extremely helpful for the teachers to be trained, or at least
informed of in the area of group dynamics in order to foster autonomy in our classrooms.

Moreover,in the present university situations in Japan, not only in English classes, but also inall subject areas, there is a generaltrend where many students stop coming to classes soon after
their entrance. In worse cases, there are reports about them turning into "shut-ins" and NEETs,
and even about frequent suicidal attempts. According to my personal experiences with somestudents, and also from what we often hear from our university's student counseling office, afeeling of isolation seemsto play one of the major roles in this phenomenon. I foresee that there
will be increased need and demand for at least some teachers in each university to be trained ingroup dynamics so they can guidenew students more smoothlyinto the campus community.
Conclusions

In this paper, based on taped student discussions and interviews,I have attempted to analyze
the reasons why the EPC group 2001 experienced a major slump followed by a seemingly
sudden upheaval in their motivational levels in their first two years of the program. I foundthat senses of compassion, empowerment, and joy fostered in the group seemed to playmajor roles as wellas the opportunities to present their achievements to others outside theirclass in raisingtheir motivation. Wealso learned that a successful collaborative work notonly brings about autonomy and stronger bonding within the group, but also seems to bringabout much more, such as higher self-esteem, higher achievement, and greater senses ofhappinessand security. On the other hand, in the initialstage, teachers and senior students, if
they are involved, should be extremely sensitive to the group dynamics as well as the smooth

—

LD

SIG

2006

Anthology —137 * "How We Got Hooked

introduction of all collaborative work,which to many students can be a completelynew
concept of learning after being conditioned in the Japanese secondary education system tobe receptive studying individuallyoften for competition, not for cooperation. Because of its
strong influence on leaningexperiences and human development, I feel that more university
teachers should be trained in the area of group dynamics. In terms of improvement of English,
wefelt that providinga safer and more appropriateenvironment for using English in students'
collaborative work outside the class is called for to keep the content-oriented projects linked tothe constant usage of English as means of communication.

There are numerous topics and methods for further research that I feel could be exploredwith this case of EPC group 2001.1 feel I should also interview those who dropped out inthe first year, which actuallysome of my students suggested to me. Also, a longitudinal study
on the group, following them for at least a decadeto see how their experiencein EPC will
have influenced their academic, professional, and personal lives might reveal some more
profound factors. Another possibility is to look at how extrinsic motivational causes such as:
attendance policies, grading, exams, and so on, played roles in their motivational development.
Furthermore, in the new ACE program, we are already trying to address many of the issues
raised in this paper, and I hope to start conducting another research on ACE students.
Final remarks

Throughout this study, which began more than four years ago in my house, in a snowy
Yatsugatake, having the students discuss their experiences in front of a video camera, I havealways felt supported by the students' positive attitudes, passion for EPC, and compassion for
one another, their juniors, senpais, and to us, the teachers, which were permeating in theirwords, happy faces, and their laughter recorded on the videos. Even though some of theseformer students now are thousands of miles away studying or working in various parts of theworld, I feel connected to them as we still often exchange emails and even get to meet them allover in and outside of Japan, It has been the primal motivation to write this paper, to thankthem for letting me share their precious experiences with interested readers and teachers
like you and learn from it so I can apply what I learned with the generations of learners tocome. I also came to realize how important "relatedness" is in almost all faces of our lives as aprerequisite for becoming autonomous and independent in the true sense, and I now can see
much more clearly the importance of being connected to my colleagues and people who sharesimilar ideas as in The Learner Development Special Interest Group of JALT. I hope this paper
has provided some encouragement and insights for you to "get your students hooked," and act
as a starting point for our exchange of ideas in the future.

Personally, doing this research has been a transformational experience of its own. One
particular change is in my attitude toward my professional goals. For me, it's no longer justhelping people learn English, but facilitating them to enjoy learning it in an environment where
they can easily relate to and bond with others as they wish, and become truly autonomous
learners always having the choice to collaborate with others if they wish. I feel there is atremendous difference between people who appear to be independent and autonomous
without being able to relate with others well and the ones who are autonomous by choice.
Having the choice to relate to others well and be supported by them at anytime, the latter kindof people, the kind represented by the graduates of EPC 2001, seem to appear much happierand mentally healthier to me, and I do hope to be like them myselfand facilitate my students
in that direction, if they allow me to. After all, I don't think I will ever be the same teacher or
person as I was in April of 2001.

—

More

Autonomy You

Aski —

138•

Morimoto

Critical Reader Responses i

JuanitaHeicham
As a teacher who has had her fair share of ups and downs in the classroom, I appreciatedreadingYoko's sincere account of this remarkable episode in her teaching life. While there
are many points I'd like to discuss, I'll limit myselfto three. The first is how Yoko saw English
development as somewhat secondaryto students' "development as happy human beings whoare capable of working with others." Shewas clearly movedby the changes she witnessed inher students but disappointed that their work together didn't focus more on developing theirEnglish. She saw the students' autonomy grow, but that autonomy didn't seem to greatly impact
their learning of English.

When I read this, I felt a familiar pang. I also try to promote autonomy in my classroom, andone way that I do it is by using collaborative projects. Usually, the introduction of these projects
results in students taking control of some aspects of their learning. However, those aspects
aren't always as tightly linked to English as I'd like. I have watched students be empowered
and transformed, have seen their communicative confidence soar only to be devastated when
they got TOEIC results indicating that they hadn't made much "improvement." Undeniably
their English had improved, but not in a way that showed up on a standardized test (yet). I
like to think the autonomy my students develop will ultimately allow them to take control of
their learning of English in a way that improves those ever-so-important test scores. However,as scandalous as it may sound, if I had to choose between students' growth in autonomy or
English, I'd have to choose autonomy, but like Yoko, I'd like to see the development of the two
rapidly conjoin.
Another interesting point was how Yoko highlighted the importance of community inlearning. Of the four points that she listed as factors that impacted students' motivation,
three were related to interacting with others. As Fried-Booth states, "even the most reluctant,skeptical learner is susceptible to peer group enthusiasm and derives benefit from taking
part in a project" (2002, p. 7). With Yoko's students, once the flame (finally) took, they were
unstoppable. Haven't we all witnessed something like this? The phenomenon of a particularclass inexplicably becoming eager and vivacious while others remain nearly lifeless? When
we look at those singular classes,what we see, among other things, is notable bonds among
students. Yet, few of us put considerable energy into building those bonds; we have a "get-toknow-you activity" on the first day and then get down to the business. Perhaps we can learn
from Yoko's students. We might find that we will better promote our students' learning if wegive them additional time to get to know each other before we launch into our curriculum, or if
we build activities into our curriculum designed to help students continue to grow to know one
another throughout a course. Building relationships is an ongoing process, so why do we think
we can get it taken care of in 90 minutes or less?
The last thing that I'd like to discuss is Yoko's thought that teachers in Japan could benefit
from training in group dynamics. While I'm sure that could help many, I'd rather see thetraining focus on the development of learner-centered teaching methods or better yet, on
the development of learner and teacher autonomy. If more teachers in Japan were fostering
autonomy in their classrooms, then their students would be supported in ways that might justgive rise to growth in both their Englishlanguageskills and their development as happy humanbeings.

LD

SIG

2006

Anthology

139* "How We Got Hooked

Steve Brown

Laurence Olivier, arguably the greatest stage and film actor of the twentieth century was anotorious perfectionist. There is a story about one particular performance which was, in theview of everyone in the theatre —audience, cast, backstage crew —quite masterful. After thecurtain call, however, he stormed backstage to his dressing room, flung the door open and,glaring in the mirror, banged his fists on the table.
A fellow actor, puzzled by his reaction, followed him into his room.

"Larry, what's wrong? You were brilliant, perfect -- it was as good as it could possibly be.""I know," Olivier replied. "That's the problem. Why was it perfect?Why isn't it always likethat?"

Now, whether this story is true or not I don't know, but I was reminded of it as I readof Yoko Morimoto's students' 'resurrection' into a happy, enthusiastic, and apparently
autonomous learning community, after a period where the group almost fell apart. Yoko rightly
asks herself what went wrong during the first part of the programme, but the questions thatreally fascinate me are about the later success.Why?Why, as Olivier asked, isn't it always likethat?

I'm sure most of us have been in situations where we feel we've done everything right - class preparation, materials, activities, allowing space for the students to interact, our own
engagement with them —but somehow the lesson doesn't quite click. Then, on another day,we prepare in exactly the same way, engage with students as we always do ... and the class is aglittering success: students are engaged in their learning and with each other, we can see them
progress in front of us.
Why? Why isn't it always like that?
Why this time and not others? What did I do right?
I'm not sure if it's ever possible to find a definitive answer to these kinds of question, but
the important thing is to keep asking them, and to realize that when something goes well,it's probably because of the students, not because of us! Yoko's tentative answer seems to be
grounded in the issue of group dynamics: the working together, her students' willingness toengage in an interactive learning process,their 'compassion for one another'. AsVieira (2006)
suggests, perhaps 'we do not need to fulfill a vision of ... empowerment: we need to construct it
collaboratively' It's not the 'vision' (of autonomy, or language acquisition, say) that counts, nor
what we do as teachers, but what our learners do and what we can help them to do together.
Our task, then, is to keep working with our learners, helping them to construct their own
knowledge and move forward collaboratively and, in order to do that, to keep asking ourselves
the same questions.
Why? Why isn't it always like that?

More

Autonomy You

Aski

ho

•

Morimoto

Critical Reader Response 2

Jodie Stephenson
As a teacher who is interested in promoting positive group dynamics and supporting
autonomous learning, and as someone who now teaches in the ACE program that succeeded
the EPC program mentioned in this chapter, I read "How we got hooked" with great interest.
I was extremely impressed by the change exhibited by Yoko's students. They changed
from students who were lacking motivation and confidence, and who were struggling withinterpersonal relationships, to a competent and cohesive group of very motivated students
who spent hours out of class each week on projects that they initiated and directed. Likewise,
the dedication of Yoko and her colleagues and the staff in the media centre is to be applauded.
They, too, spent many hours outside of class time and normal working hours to provide
support for the students.
The experiences reported in this chapter show how being given choice and responsibility
can truly motivate and energize learners, teachers and staff to do much more than theynormally would. When given choice, people become more involved and invested in what they
are doing (Deci & Flaste, 1995).They can enter a state of flow, where they find enjoyment inwhat they are doing, and that enjoyment is its own reward and further stimulates intrinsic
motivation (Deci & Flaste, 1995; Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Indeed, this was something that myclassmatesand I experienced in a post-graduate course designed to foster autonomy (Kohyama,
Stephenson, & Jorgenson, 2002).

As I read this chapter, I was also reminded of the complex interaction of factors involved infostering autonomous learning. Not only do students need to be given choices, but they alsoneed to feel confident and competent, and comfortable enough with their classmates to takeadvantage of the opportunities afforded them. This process may take some time, as in the caseof Yoko's students. The implication for individual teachers and educational institutions is that
if we truly aim to foster autonomy, then we need to allowenough time for it to develop.

This study also indicates that teachers need to really listento students and to actively seek
ways of allowing each student'svoice to be heard,perhapsby using feedback questionnaires orreflection journals (Stephenson, this volume). If students do not feel that teachers listen to or
value their opinions, they may become disenchanted, demotivated, and in extreme cases evendrop out, as some EPC students did.

It may not be feasible or evendesirable for readers to expectsuch dramatic changes in theirown students. For example, most teachers may not expect students' (and perhaps even theirown) lives to revolve around their English classes. However, the changes in the attitudes andbehaviour of Yoko's students, and the levelof autonomy that they displayed, is very impressive.
For this reason, this chapter contains inspiration and much food for thought, even for teachersin very different contexts.

LD

SIG

2006

Anthology —