Review
JASCE 5th Annual Conference / IASCE 30th
Annual Conference – Cooperative learning inJapan and the world
Dexter Da Silva
Keisen University
The Japan Association for the Study of Cooperation in Education(JASCE) held its 5th national conference in conjunction with the 30th
conference of its international parent, the International Association for
the Study of Cooperation in Education (IASCE), at Chukyo University,
Nagoya, on the weekend of June 7–8 (http://jasce.jp/conf0507prog_e.html). It was a conference that I had looked forward to with anticipation
as I had only recently heard about and joined JASCE, and because
its principles meshed with my recent research. The association also
seemed to be applying these principles in practice. These principles
are those of Cooperative Learning (CL). CL is not new and has had its
own volume in the JALT Applied Materials Series (Kluge, McGuire,
Johnson & Johnson, 1999). However, many teachers (including myself
until recently) are unacquainted with the principles that make CL
different from other forms of group work. There are many forms of CLand varying theoretical positions, but the most commonly quoted ofthese principles are Johnson and Johnson’s (1999) five elements: 1)
positive interdependence, 2) individual accountability, 3) face-to-facepromotive interaction, 4) social skills, and 5) group processing. Though
research supports the claims that CL leads to improved achievement
250

JASCE/IASCE Annual Conferences, OnCUE Journal, 2(3), pages 250-253

and greater learning for all, CL adherents insist that the process is as
important as these results.
On Friday 6 June, the day prior to the conference, there were tours
arranged around Nagoya, one of which was a visit to Inuyama city
primary schools where participants could see CL in action. As a parentof a 3-year-old, I was disappointed not to be able to attend this tour, but
the general response I heard from those parents who participated wasthat the classes they observed were so much more active and enjoyablethan the classes their own children had experienced in other Japaneseelementary schools.
The conference itself started with a bilingual keynote by Professor
Masato Takahata (one of the pioneers of CL in Japan), of Chugoku
Gakuen University. His lecture “The development and present situationof cooperative collaboration in classroom learning in Japan” gave us abrief but clear history of CL in Japan, and outlined the principles andcritical points of his approach to CL. This keynote, which served to bringmembers of JASCE and IASCE together, was followed by concurrent
workshops/roundtable sessions where about 60% were conducted in
English and the rest in Japanese. The English ones included those bywell-known international presenters such as Yael Sharan from Israel,
one of the founders of IASCE, and George Jacobs from Singapore, oneof the main promoters of CL in EFL. But even if one did not attend theirpresentations, learning from and interacting with these experts duringother sessions was a fruitful part of this conference, as these sessions
were structured with discussion time facilitated by a discussant, and theexperts all attended and actively participated in many of these sessions
that I attended. The ones I went to included Winnie So and Justina
Ip’s “Developing a framework for implementing cooperative learningin Hong Kong basic education”; from the US, Lynda Baloche, Dena
Beeghly, and Martha Dropnak’s “Developing individual responsibility
in cooperative groups”; and, from Germany, Gesa Meyer’s “Design andevaluation of a program for training pre-service language teachers for251

DaSilva

cooperative learning”.
These smaller sessions were followed by the second bilingual
keynote which served to bring the participants of the English andJapanese presentations of the conference back together. This one wasby Yael Sharan on the theme of “Cooperative Learning: A diversified
pedagogy for diverse classrooms”. The day ended with the reception
party, which did not escape from the principles of CL. There wereactivities planned to ensure we met new people, share our reflections
on the day, and help each other collect seals if we wanted to havesome dessert. This first day saw both my knowledge of and enthusiasm
for CL develop greatly. While I knew that CL, as defined by many ofthe leaders in the movement, was not merely a general kind of group
work but a specific form that included an individual responsibility
component, I was ignorant of its long history in Japan, its variegatedforms, its high ideals, and its creativity.
The second day was another full day with sessions organized from9:30 to 6:30. As with the previous day, there were again the two parallelsessions of English and Japanese presentations. There was also again
the wide variety of cultures, contexts, subjects, and themes to choose
from. For OnCUE Journal readers, some of those relating specificallyto EFL at Japanese colleges and universities included the following:
Yoshiyuki Nakata’s guest lecture on autonomy in the Japanese EFLcontext, Mitsuko Tanaka’s study on CL using Dictogloss, and Kumiko
Fushino’s work on measuring students’ readiness for group work in
L2 at a Japanese university. However, at conferences like these thereis great value in stepping outside contexts similar to one’s own andexploring work in other subject areas, other very different situations,and other cultures. The result is often a realization that there are moresimilarities than we can imagine between these situations and our own,
and recognition of what the differences are that we can understandand appreciate in our own situations more clearly.
In addition to gaining insights from these different contexts,
252

JASCE/IASCE Annual Conferences, OnCUE Journal, 2(3), pages 250-253

for me the main value of attending this conference was the deep
understanding of CL I gained from experiencing the stories of teachersattempting to apply it systematically and in keeping with its principles,and openly discussing the problems they experienced doing so. I
greatly appreciated this focus on the principles of CL throughout theconference, as often these principles get lost in translation when CL istransferred to a different audience of teachers with more heterogeneous
beliefs and eclectic approaches. I gave all of my meishi away andreceived many more in return, all from teachers I intend to keep incontact with, either for collaborative research or for continued sharingof ideas about cooperative learning.
For more information on CL, and on the two associations, thefollowing are their Web site URLs:
JASCE – http://jasce.jp/indexe.html
IASCE – http://www.iasce.net/
Dexter Da Silva recently received his Ph.D. from the Self Enhancementand Learning Facilitation (SELF) Centre at the University of Western
Sydney. He has been teaching at the tertiary level in Japan for over
20 years, and has also taught EFL and ESL in Laos and Australia. He
is currently Professor of Educational Psychology at Keisen University,Tokyo.

References
Johnson, D., & Johnson, R. (1999). What makes cooperative
learning work. In D. Kluge, S. McGuire, D. Johnson, & R.
Johnson (Eds.), JALT applied materials: Cooperative learning(pp. 23-36). Tokyo: Japan Association for Language Teaching.
Kluge, D., McGuire, S., Johnson, D., & Johnson, R. (1999).
JALT applied materials: Cooperative learning. Tokyo: Japan
Association for Language Teaching.
253