M enu

Community, Identity, Motivation

JALT2006

KITAKYUSHU

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Contents

Autonomy facilitators speak out: Learnerdevelopment SIG forum, JALT 2006
Reference Data:
Graves, N., Robertson, M., Vye, S., Endo, K., Kawazu, K., Keith, B., Munezane, Y., Nishimoto, K., and Ochi, Y. (2007). Autonomy facilitators speak
out: Learner development SIG forum, JALT 2006. In K. Bradford-Watts (Ed.), JALT 2006 Conference Proceedings. Tokyo: JALT.

Forum co-coordinators: Martha Robertson, Aichi University & Stacey Vye, Meikai
University
Facilitator: Nanci Graves, Columbia University Teachers College
Greeter: Mayako Kakei
Co-authors and presenters:
Kaoru Aoki, Urawa Senior High School
Kazufumi Endo, Shizuoka Prefectural High School
Keiko Kawazu, Asian Development Bank and Soka Matsubara Community Center
Barry Keith, Gunma University
Yoko Munezane, University of Electro-Communications
Koichi Nishimoto, Kyoei-Gakuen High School
Yoshie Ochi, St. Catalina Girls’ High School
Janell Pekkain, Sundai College of Foreign Languages
Writing and editing support:
Nanci Graves, Martha Robertson, & Stacey Vye

Writers

Help & FAQs

Copyright

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Graves, et al: Autonomy facilitators speak out: Learner development SIG forum, JALT 2006
This year’s Learner Development Forum focused upon the teacher’s journey
towards autonomy. As part of the Forum, teachers in a graduate program atColumbia University Teachers College, Tokyo Campus presented samples ofcurricula they designed and implemented to foster learner autonomy in awide-range of teaching contexts. The teachers reflected upon their individual
experiences and shared their applications of principles that promote autonomy
in our classrooms and in our professional lives. This paper summarizes someof the classroom applications presented at the forum and brings together thereflections of the presenters after they had the opportunity to discuss theirideas and applications with visitors to the Forum.
本年LD研究部会は 教師の自律への道 に焦点をあてて発表した。 その研究部会の一部としてコロンビア大学東京キャンパスTESOL 修士課程で研鑽を積む教
師達が、様々な教育現場で学習者の自律を育てるべく考案し実践したカリキュラム
サンプルを紹介した。教師たちは自身の経験を省みつつ、教師として 研究者として自律促進を巡る取り組みについて意見交換した。本論文は フォーラムで紹介した教育現場での実践を要約すると共に、発表者達の フォーラム参加者との発表内
容についての議論後の感想を 集約するものである。

Martha Robertson teaches in the Department ofComparative Cultures at Aichi University. Her researchinterests include learner autonomy, sustained-content
language teaching, and teacher development.
Stacey Vye is currently at Meikai University. Her researchinterests are learner and teacher autonomy including theconnections between both.

Facilitating autonomous learning: An
overview
Nanci Graves
Columbia University Teachers College

From January to May in 2006, the teachers who presented
their action research studies in the JALT Conference’s

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Learner Development Forum participated in a course
titled Facilitating Autonomy in Language Learning at theTokyo campus of Columbia University Teachers College.
Despite the fact that their instructional situations covered
the full range of learners from children to teenagers toadults, the teachers were able to engage in a serendipitous
sharing of reflections, concerns, and activities that spurred
everyone to go further than they had ever gone before in
their explorations of learner autonomy. Emerging from this‘synergy’ was the desire to share their discoveries and their
enthusiasm for autonomous approaches with other teachers,
both through their poster presentations in the forum and in
the descriptive reports below.
As will be seen, finding ways to reduce theoverdependence that has been engrained in learners frompast experiences of traditional teacher-directed approaches
is a primary consideration in these studies. When, how, andhow much control to turn over to learners in the classroom
also remains an ongoing question, as is the issue of whether
there is too much or too little teacher-direction. Maintaining
overall control while gradually relinquishing it to learners at
appropriate times and in appropriate ways requires a great
deal of vigilance on the part of instructors in order to balance
learner capacities with learner needs. When shifting the
focus to more learner involvement in the learning process,both the degree and the kind of help given by the teacher
need to be continually rethought. Overall, the presenters’studies reflect on the following two macro- and micro-level
questions to provide a guide for this process:1. How can principles of autonomy be embedded in the
curriculum so that learners become increasingly empowered

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Graves, et al: Autonomy facilitators speak out: Learner development SIG forum, JALT 2006
to take over the controls for their own learning?
2. How can students be involved in autonomous activities
that make sense to them and enable them to share effectively
in their learning choices?
The studies below illustrate the idea that facilitating
autonomy should not be viewed merely as a method, butrather that developing autonomy involves a consistentemphasis on learner-enabling skills and learner-controlled
activities that serve as a touchstone for teacher decisionmaking in all areas. Optimistically, these presenters takethe view that, while autonomy cannot be taught, it can be
developed and strengthened. The task may best be seen as aform of teacher training, in which learners gradually cometo understand more about themselves and how they learn
best, so that they can become effective self-instructors inmaking informed choices and guiding their own learning
path. The presenters share both the content of their studies
and their reflections upon their own learning experiencein order to convey the dynamic processes of the learner’s
journey toward autonomy.
Nanci Graves teaches at Kobe Steel. She has also been the
instructor of an annual course offered at Teachers College
Columbia University titled Facilitating Autonomy in
Language Learning since 2001.

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Language development in student
journals: Promoting learner autonomy
Kazufumi Endo
Shizuoka Prefectural High School

Recent studies show that Japanese students lack cohesiveand coherent writing skills, as well as syntactic maturity
at the sentence level. To address these issues, theresearcher assigned 12th graders the task of writing journals
approximately every three weeks on topics such as theirsummer vacation, favorite movies, or their evolving ideas
about themselves. Since most traditional teacher feedback
involves comments on the content of student diaries orcorrection of grammatical mistakes, improvement in thecohesion, coherence, and overall syntactic complexity ofstudents’ writing is often not measured. The researcher
therefore attempted a systematic analysis of student journals
by utilizing the T-unit (a main clause plus any type ofsubordinate sentence) to measure the overall complexity ofstudent journal writing.
The findings from triangulation (journal analysis,
interview, and surveys) demonstrated that journal writing
could be effective in encouraging students to adopt newlearning strategies. Some students became aware of thesignificance of content schemata to enrich their journals.
Other students reached the meta-cognitive stage, in which
they transformed two simple sentences into a T-unit sentenceby means of conjunctions or relative clauses without any
direct instruction. Although the shift from simple to complex
sentences was not major, the researcher received positive
feedback on journal writing from the students.

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Graves, et al: Autonomy facilitators speak out: Learner development SIG forum, JALT 2006
The most crucial findings from the study were the shift ofstudents’ priorities and their keenness for journal writing.
Students who began journal writing to obtain a better grade
came to prioritize the communication between themselves
and the instructor. This communicative interaction gave
students greater confidence in their English skills. Students
expressed happiness and fulfillment through journal writing,and some hoped to continue English journals after the course
was over. As a measure of maturity and autonomy, theresearcher observed that students made efforts to enrich theirjournals without any specific instruction from the instructor.
Student interest and motivation indicate the possibility
for a longitudinal study of journal writing. Therefore, theinterviews and surveys in this study seem to offset thesmaller results noted by the T-unit analysis.
The strongest impression I got from presenting mystudy at the JALT Learner Development Forum is that theinterpretation of autonomy varies from person to person.
Some visitors seemed to regard any type of scaffolding, eventhe presentation of a topic, as a breach of the concept ofautonomy. Others appeared to assign journal writing without
any qualitative or quantitative point of view. I feel, in thatcase, if teachers do not provide any sort of framework, thestudents will be like people who are thrown into the desert
without any compass or necessities. However, I reallyappreciated the comments of the visitors, and I am gratefulto them for sharing time and exchanging opinions with me.
Their frank comments encouraged me to undertake further
study on the effects of journal writing as a means of helping
students become more autonomous learners.

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As my instructor, Nancy Graves, reiterates, the instructor’s
job is to guide learners to become more autonomous andto encourage them to adopt better learning strategies. This
presentation helped me to gain greater insight into the
instructor’s role of providing support, or scaffolding, incarrying out my responsibility to promote learner autonomy.
Endo Kazufumi teaches at a public senior high school
while studying at Teacher’s College of Columbia University
in Tokyo. He is currently intrigued with effects of journal
writing in terms of the development of student writing skill
and the empowerment of students as autonomous learners.

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Fostering autonomy through kamishibaiand collaborative learning
Keiko Kawazu
Asian Development Bank and Soka Matsubara
Community Center

I was very happy to take part in the JALT Learner
Development Forum and share my experiences in developing
language skills through group discussion activities that
foster autonomy. The LD Forum was my first experiencein sharing my teaching approach in a purely academic
environment. Through discussions with other teachers whocame to the presentation, I learned many things to encourage
and guide my students in becoming autonomous learners.
Each discussion reminded me that it is important for students
engage in the process of learning for themselves.
Earlier this year, I participated in a course called
Facilitating Autonomy in Language Learning at Teacher’sCollege at Columbia University’s Tokyo campus (TC),directed by Nanci Graves. Exploring issues in autonomy,
receiving insightful comments from my classmates, andapplying the principles of learner autonomy proved to bea memorable learning experience. I had been analyzing
and reflecting upon the teaching process with my TC
classmates for several months, and had selected various
observations and small nuggets of wisdom gleaned from
more experienced instructors. Then, as part of a team of nine
TC classmates, I presented a project at the LD Forum.
My project was a Kamishibai, an ancient form of Japanesestorytelling that uses picture cards. Kamishibai requires

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students to employ three activities: creative visualization(art work), building up detailed stories (literature), andappreciation of performance (acting and reading). I haveseen some translated Kamishibai being used in othercountries, and foreign teachers are trying to use Kamishibai
more. However, even though Kamishibai was created inJapan, surprisingly few English teachers in Japan haveintroduced this great learning tool into their classrooms.
Since I became a member of Kamishibai Bunka no Kai(The International Kamishibai Association of Japan) in
2004, I have been quite interested in using Kamishibai in myEnglish teaching. The Association focuses primarily upon
information dissemination of the traditional Kamishibai andits proper implementation. However, I found that Kamishibai
could also be very useful for language learning, fostering
autonomy, and cooperative learning. When students create
an original Kamishibai, the accompanying activities improveclassroom dynamics. I was surprised to learn how much mystudents could create individually, but also how they could
collaborate in groups, drawing upon and trusting their own
experience.
I involved my students in a Kamishibai group project thatinvolved cooperative learning with an eye to eventuallyleading my young learners toward self-directed learning.
Having observed several English classes and having had
discussions with parents and instructors, I have repeatedly
heard the opinion that working in groups is suitable forJapanese children. Specifically, this dynamic shows itself
as collaborative learning, the practice of which naturally
promotes leadership roles, as certain students emerge as
those whom other students trust and look to for reference.

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Graves, et al: Autonomy facilitators speak out: Learner development SIG forum, JALT 2006
Through a series of activities, students create their own
order, seek new challenges, and stimulate self-awareness.
When the students have a problem, I make suggestions, but
do not provide information. Eventually, I saw my students
autonomously guide themselves to find their direction in
their own way. I could see leadership shared across the classin different activities. When different students took leadingroles at different times, then the individual’s confidence
in leading could grow. Thus, a group project involving
Kamishibai proved to be a valuable method for fosteringboth content and leadership through the different activities
and roles required to complete one piece of work.
Sometimes it is difficult for me to guide students without
giving too much assistance, but standing back is importantfor independent learning. For example, I was surprised when
two students came up with two different endings for a story.
They negotiated and kept both endings; that was the best partof this project. They simply enjoyed engaging in the projectat each stage of the process, and, as they started to thinkcarefully about how they could make the story better, they
were becoming more autonomous learners.
Comments from my colleagues at TC and from visitors to
the Learner Development Forum have helped me to further
refine my project. One teacher observation in particular
stands out: I had developed performance evaluation forms
for my students with three sections for comments from thepresenter, the instructor, and peers. When another teacher
mentioned a quote from the philosopher, Samuel Johnson(1750), “Men more frequently require to be reminded
than informed,” I felt exactly the same. So I created asimpler evaluation form with smiley faces, neutral and sad

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expressions for small children who could not write much.
I received other valuable feedback from instructors at thevenue, who noted that my presentation incorporated a seriesof elements that mirrored my own process of reflection,
analysis, discussion, and observation. Better still, they
offered suggestions for ways in which I could expand on
my thesis, and they drew connections from my presentationthat I had not considered. Through these comments, I was
reminded again that self-assessment, self-reflection, and selfdirected learning are valuable tools for effective instruction.
Keiko Kawazu, on staff at the Asian Development Bank,
teaches on a voluntary basis. She recently participated in thetranslation of an art book of the dreams of street children,
entitled If I had the chance… Her research interests include
learner autonomy and emotional intelligence.

References
Johnson, Samuel. Rambler #7 (April 10, 1750). Link 534.
Retrieved May 29, 2007, from Samuel Johnson Sound Bite
Page <www.samueljohnson.com/knowledg.html>.

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Reflections on an experiment inautonomy
Barry E. Keith
Gunma University

Before I learned anything about autonomy in language
learning, I figured it would be the panacea to all my teaching
worries. If only I used the tools of autonomy, students would
be happily engaged in tasks they are genuinely interested in.
In effect, there would be less work for me and my job would
be easier. So I thought.
In this brief paper, I will describe an experiment in which
I introduced several autonomous teaching practices into thecurriculum. I will reflect on the outcomes and consider ways
to improve them. A visual representation can be found in
Appendix I.

The context
I teach general English in a night-course for engineering
students. Nearly 90% are male. Many students have parttime jobs during the day. Some work full-time jobs before
attending the three-hour evening class. Classes are large,
50-60 students. The night-course students have a reputation
as low academic performers. “They lack motivation” is acommon refrain amongst frustrated faculty members. Twoyears of English are required. The classes meet once per
week for fifteen weeks during the semester.

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The experiment
Given the challenges described above, I was interested
in raising students’ awareness that they are in control of
their own learning destiny. I wanted students to have morechoice and control in the class. The first major hurdle wasselecting learning materials that facilitate autonomy. I had
taught TOEIC and various conversation textbooks, but I was
always unhappy with the materials. I had been interested inauthentic or content-based materials for some time, and so,
two years ago, I decided to scrap the textbooks and switch
to the Asahi Weekly, a newspaper for Japanese learnersof English. Now each student subscribes to the paper for
three months during the semester. A newspaper is suitable
for autonomous learning as students are able to explore
their interests through English. Thus, the first piece of myexperiment was already in place.
Materials by themselves, however, do not make a classof autonomous learners. The curriculum must be structured
in such a way that students have input in the making of thecurriculum and are vested in the outcome. The framework
for my experiment in autonomy was based on work by
Mackenzie and Fujioka (2002). The main components weregoal-setting, negotiating curriculum, and assessment.

Goal-settingFirst, I asked the students to think about the goals of
the course. What is the outcome they want to achieve
during fifteen weeks? Outcomes were determined by abrainstorming activity followed by a class discussion toarrive at Our Goal. Goals for the class were compiled via theJALT2006 ­— Community, Identity, Motivation

Graves, et al: Autonomy facilitators speak out: Learner development SIG forum, JALT 2006
KJ Method, a creative problem-solving technique devised by
Kawakita Jiro, in which ideas are brainstormed, collected,
and then categorized into a mind-map.The students thus
identified elements for our negotiated curriculum, as
described in the section below. The next step asked students
to consider their personal learning goals, called My Goal.
Students developed these goals during the semester. The
instructor held mini-conferences with the students toevaluate student goals and the means of their achievement.
Students were allowed to revise or change their personalgoals as needed.

Negotiating curriculum.
Identifying what students want to study was importantbecause it allowed me to develop several study activities
around those interests. Topics and activities included games,
music, movies, news, puzzles, comics, food –all which canbe found in the Asahi Weekly. Finally, students chose topics
of interest for a newspaper poster project.

Assessment
Once the curriculum was set, students were asked to assign
a grade percentage to attendance, participation, in-class andout-of-class activities, projects, and tests. In groups of four,
each student assigned percentages as individuals. The group
discussed these and finally derived a set of percentages
that the group could agree upon. The percentages for eachgroup were compiled on the board and percentages for theentire class were discussed with input from the instructor.
Students voted on the outcome and were allowed to change451

the figures the following week. For the assessment scheme,
a combination of self-assessment and evaluation by the
instructor was used.

Reflections
Although we developed Our Goal, a statement of aspirations
for the class, these goals were not effectively incorporated
into the curriculum. Rather, they served as an informal guidefor topics and activities that students would like to study
during the semester. The goals students produced were verybroad and, in fact, impossible to incorporate into such ashort course. The goals should be more clearly defined asachievable objectives that can be evaluated later by students
and the instructor.
In developing My Goal, students reflected on what
learning English means to them. However, students often
set unrealistic goals or did not know how to go about
achieving them. For example, one student declared he would“learn 100 words” by semester’s end, but he soon became
discouraged after studying word lists, a method used toprepare for entrance examinations. He eventually gave up
because it was “boring”. Such cases show that students
would benefit from setting achievable goals and learning
study skills that enable them to reach their goals. The miniconferences gave us opportunities to share ideas and give
students personalized feedback, but in large classes, this isalmost unamanageable. Students did not formally assess
their achievement, thus the incentive for My Goal remains inquestion.

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Students reacted positively toward having more control
and choice over the curriculum. By setting the grade
percentages for evaluation, students effectively became
stakeholders in the outcome of the course. As MacKenzie
and Fujioka (in press) warn, “this process [goal-setting]is necessarily messy.” Nevertheless, it was welcomed by
students in their course evaluation questionnaires.
Was the experiment a success? In spite of the so-calledlack of motivation in night-course students, students said
their motivation was positively affected by setting goals andnegotiating the curriculum. It is difficult to objectively say,but student comments do show that these students like tohave more control and choice in their class, and, once they
are given the opportunity, students do indeed take more
responsibility for their own learning. Although introducing
autonomy actually resulted in more work for me, I am muchhappier and my students appear to be as well.
Barry Keith teaches at Gunma University. His interests
include newspapers in education, autonomy, and needs
analysis.

Reference
Mackenzie, A. & Fujioka, K. (in press). Developing learnerautonomy through curricular choices. In M. Makiuchi(Ed.), Theory and practice for English education.

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From bonsai to sycamore: Students
and teacher grow together towardautonomy
Yoko Munezane
University of Electro-Communications

From bonsai to sycamore is my title. Bonsai is a metaphor
for the traditional, protective type of Japanese education,
which takes care of children really well, but sometimes
prevents their free growth. Goals are set, the curriculum isfixed, the method is unified, and children are molded to fit
the needs of society. On the other hand, the sycamore tree
symbolizes free-spirited, autonomous learners. Sycamore
trees reach 35-60m high and their life span ranges from 250600 years, so the sycamore image perfectly fits life-long,autonomous learners. This paper is about a teacher’s and her
students’ journey from bonsai to sycamore.
Moving from high school to university is a big change
for both students and teachers. University freshmen and I;
myself, who had just started teaching at a university, were
the participants in this study. It was a perfect time to lookback and to look forward, re-conceptualizing learning andteaching. The presentation explores student autonomy
from the perspective of motivation and identity, throughencouraging students to participate in goals-setting, partial
curriculum negotiation, group-work, generating test
questions, and an e-mail community.

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BackgroundAs a teacher at a strict, exam-oriented high school, I helda bonsai status. The schedule was always too tight, and thecurriculum was fixed. Homework and methodology were
unified across classrooms. Critical thinking was almost
prohibited in the sense that, at an exam-oriented school,
both teachers and students, were supposed to focus on
the university entrance exam. Then I took a university
position, and, suddenly, I had nearly the full-autonomy
of a sycamore. I was very happy, but it was a somewhat
daunting experience. Standing at the threshold looking into
a new world, we sometimes ask existential questions: Who
am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? Surrounded by
mountains of sample textbooks, I remembered Diana Ross’s
old hit song, “Do you know where you are going to?” I
thought of the following parody, which might inspire mystudents to think about autonomous learning from several
different aspects:(Curriculum negotiation)♪Do you know where you’re going to?
♪Do you like the things your textbooks areshowing you?
(Goal-Setting)♪Where are you going to?
♪What is your goal?
♪Do you get what you’re hoping for?
♪If you look around there are many authentic
materials.
(Self-Directed Study)♪Where are you going to?
♪Do you know?

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I decided to incorporate these questions into my course
content.

Methodology
In our first class, students reflected upon their own language
learning by interviewing each other in pairs, based on aquestionnaire with 20 questions in three sections: past,present, and future. After the interviews, students wrote
individual answers. From the interview questionnaire, I
formed a general picture of the class. I found that not many
students had positive experiences learning English, except
through music, and many had negative experiences such as
bad exam grades. They studied English primarily to pass theentrance exam, and most classes were yakudoku (grammartranslation) classes with few opportunities for group work.
In the present section, 60% of the students answeredthat they didn’t like English, and, surprisingly, 90% of
the students answered that they were not good at English.
Regarding the future, I found that 37 % of the students hoped
to become engineers or researchers in the sciences. Students
had a strong wish to improve their English skills, and mostof the students thought that being proficient in English would
be advantageous in their future careers.
I wondered if students’ self-image as poor at English
would change through taking control over their own
learning. I also wondered if their motivation would beenhanced through having sense of autonomy as Deci (1996)
suggests when he states that supporting autonomy is the best
way to motivate people. I introduced goal-setting, partial
curriculum-negotiation, group-work, student-generated tests,

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Graves, et al: Autonomy facilitators speak out: Learner development SIG forum, JALT 2006
and an e-mail community, hoping to encourage students tobecome responsible for their own learning. At the end of thesemester, I asked the students to fill in a post-questionnairewith both closed questions and open-ended questions.

Post-questionnaire findings
Goal-setting
Seventy percent of the students commented positively on thegoal-setting activity, claiming that self-determination pushedthem to work toward the goal and setting goals enhanced
their motivation. Student A commented:
I decided to read some novels which [sic] seemed
quite difficult for me. Indeed, they were difficult
but I’m happy that I challenged something new.
Unless I had set that goal, I would have never tried
reading novels.
This student demonstrates raised awareness of the positiveeffects of self-determination, realizing that, because he set
the goal, he worked hard to reach it.

454Group work
I received many positive comments in interviews and thepost-questionnaire about group work, including studentgenerated testing, and e-mail exchanges with foreign
students on campus. These activities contributed to thecreation of a community of autonomous learners.

Identity as English learners
Forty-four percent of the students answered “Yes” to thequestion, “Do you like English?” This was a 14% increase
from the pre-questionnaire. Those who answered, “I don’t
like English,” dropped from 61% to 36%. Those who
answered “neutral” tripled from 6% to 18%.
Sixteen percent of the students answered “Yes” to thequestion, “Are you good at English?” This was four times as
many as in the pre-questionnaire. Twelve percent answered“Neutral,” and those who answered, “I’m not good atEnglish” dropped from 90% to 70%.

Reflections
Curriculum Negotiation
Ninety-five percent of the students commented positively
on curriculum negotiation. Many students said that theirmotivation was enhanced through choosing topics of interest
and expressed satisfaction that their preferences and wishes
were respected.

Moving suddenly from almost zero (bonsai) autonomy tofull sycamore autonomy was a little daunting, but it turned
out to be an exciting experience. Similarly, my students
found joy in making choices and becoming responsible
autonomous learners. I was happy to see the positive change
in students’ self-image and identity as English learners. The
research process itself helped me to be a more autonomousteacher as we, students and teachers, grew together in aninterdependent, synergistic way.

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Yoko Munezane teaches at University of Electro
Communications. Her interests include global issues,
English literature and autonomy.

Reference
Deci, E., & Flaste, R. (1996). Why we do what we do?
London: Penguin Books.

455“Lost in Translation”: Vocabularybuilding to foster student autonomy
Koichi Nishimoto
Kyoei-Gakuen High School

In Japanese middle schools, students begin studying new
English words by using flash cards and repeating the words
after a teacher’s model pronunciation; thus, they learn
and retain many words with vivid impressions. Teachers,
however, stop using flash cards for third-year students atthe time when students begin to study the passive voice,the present-perfect tense, and relative pronouns. Teachers
become busy explaining these grammatical items, andtheir lesson style focuses on the grammar-translation,
or Yakudoku, method. Consequently, the emphasis on
vocabulary gets lost in translation, so to speak.

Autonomy at a glance: Is memorization of
vocabulary learner autonomy?
In senior high schools, students are given a vocabulary
book to memorize words at home, and each week take aquiz that helps to determine whether they have memorized
the assigned words or not. This seems autonomous on thesurface because students are studying independently, but
I have some doubts about this way of memorizing words,
especially in low-level schools. First of all, some students
actually memorize words at home, take the test, and thenwrite the mistaken words several times if their score is
not good. This practice, I feel, focuses on the negativityof students doing poorly on tests, rather than on students

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intrinsically studying vocabulary for pleasure. As a result,students don’t study vocabulary autonomously, but from thesense of obligation.
Second, although students have memorized the words tosome extent, they retain only a small percentage of thesewords, and forgetting seems to be faster than retaining.
Finally, the teachers simply distribute books and a test paper,
which means that teachers do not teach students vocabulary
at all.
What I want to emphasize here is that this type ofmemorization from a vocabulary book never makes thestudents succeed in acquiring a large number of words, nor
do students develop their own way of learning vocabulary.
Instead of committing a set number of words to memory
for the short term, I would like students to continue to build
their vocabulary over a lifetime.

Bringing vocabulary learning strategies back!
Then, how can students memorize and retain words?
Teachers should not leave the study of vocabulary solely
up to the students, but should teach vocabulary in theclassroom. Teachers must teach many things during eachlesson, including grammar, translation, phonetics, andquestions for entrance examinations, but they can manage
to spare a little time for teaching words. With five or ten
minutes at the beginning of a lesson, teachers can implement
carefully planned activities that promote autonomous
learning and encourage students to learn vocabulary.
At the 2006 JALT National Conference in KitaKyushu, I demonstrated some of these strategies for456

vocabulary building, such as word origin, word search,word replacement, and word association. Word origin has
been traditionally used to explain a word’s components. I
particularly want to show that every suffix, prefix and root
has its own meaning, and that English words are not alphabet
letters lined up randomly. Word search is like a crossword
puzzle. Students find words from their lesson on a chart andcircle them with a red ballpoint pen. Then they write theword, adding its Japanese meaning.
Word replacement sheets have two parts. The upper halfof the paper is a mix of English and Japanese. The Japanesewords are the new words that appear in the lesson. The
bottom half is written only in English. Folding the paper inthe middle, one student reads the words on the upper halfin English, translating Japanese into English. The otherstudent checks the answers by looking at the bottom halfof the paper. Word association consists of many ovals.
Inside several of the orals, new words from the lesson are
written with their Japanese meanings. Other ovals are blank.
Students write a word or a phrase that has some connection
with the previous word. Thus, students increase the numberof words that they learn.
I occasionally implement these strategies in my English
classes. The students enjoy finding, reading, and writing thewords with much more enthusiasm than I expected. Eachtime I finish a lesson, I encourage students to memorize andretain new words from the lesson with these strategies. Someof my students make use of Word replacement cards at home
to memorize new words for the term exam. I think theseways of memorizing words are effective even for low-level
students.

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Reaching for autonomy
A teacher who listened to my presentation asked me howthese strategies were related to autonomy. I could not
explain it briefly and precisely to him, but what I want toemphasize is that when teachers make an effort to teachvocabulary instead of leaving vocabulary development up
to the students, the students become interested in words.
Consequently, they will grow to be autonomous learners.
Without intrinsic motivation, learners cannot memorize
thousands of words. Learning effective strategies forvocabulary building helps students to be more successful
language learners, and the students’ success, in turn,
encourages them to want to learn more words.
I still wonder whether these methods are certain to makeautonomous learners, but, as Thanasoulas (2000) observes,autonomy is a process, not a product. I believe students
will move toward autonomy if I use these strategies in myclasses. The philosopher Lao Tzu said, “Give a man a fish
and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and you feed
him for a lifetime.” Suppose I meet one of my students one
day in the future and find that he or she has come to be selfdirected in the habit of memorizing English words. Then,
I might be able to say that I gave that student “fish for a
lifetime.”
Koichi Nishimoto teaches at Kyoei-Gakuen High School.
His interests include student autonomy, vocabulary building
and tour-guiding in English.

457

References
Lao Tzu quotes. Brainy Quote. (n.d.). Retrieved April 8,2007 from <www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/l/laotzu121559.html>
Thanasoulas, D. (2000). What is learner autonomy andhow can it be fostered? The Internet TESL Journal, 6, 11.
Retrieved March 21, 2006, from <www.iteslj.org/Articles/
Thanasoulas-Autonomy.html>

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Autonomous learning throughinterpreting training method andextensive reading during asadoku
Yoshie Ochi
St. Catalina Girl’s High School

After sharing ways to introduce autonomous learningwith classmates in the Facilitating Autonomy in Language
Learning course at Columbia Teachers College, I discoveredthat all my TC colleagues struggled to get students topractice autonomous language learning, rather than only
teaching language skills to their students. Sharing myexperiences and listening to what other teachers were
doing made me realize there were quite a few successful
approaches to language learning in our respective teachingcontexts.
Through our exchanges, I found three common threads
running through the classroom strategies we employed toencourage learner autonomy. First, language learning thatgives students enjoyment and courage to step forward isessential. Second, activities requiring body movement raiselearner motivation and create a positive atmosphere forspeaking out without being afraid of making mistakes. Third,
goal setting raises students’ consciousness of the processes
and the content of learning, and gives students the power
to overcome their limitations. TC teachers agreed that goal
setting involves a detailed, step-by-step guide at the onset ofthe program so that students have the opportunity to branchout on their own with the teacher’s support. Building uponsmall successful experiences, students become independent
learners and begin to take action to reach their learning goals.

458

In order to test these three common threads and provide
better support to encourage learner autonomy, I introduced
the Interpreting Training Method (ITM), Cooperative
Learning (CL), and Extensive Reading (ER) into my classes
at Saint Catalina Girl’s High School. I hoped that the project
would provide insight into the broader question of whether
the concept of autonomy is more conductive and practicalfor language learning than traditional language learning
approaches.

The setting
There are five courses in the department of general studies at
St. Catalina’s. One of the courses is the International course.
The students in the International course are motivated to study
English. Many of them aim at entering prestigious universities,
thus the curriculum is focused on passing the entrance
examinations. The students concentrate on passing the English
Proficiency Step Exam, and getting a high score on the TOEIC.
I introduced my project in the International course.

Language learning methods in Japanese education
Intensive Reading (IR) has traditionally played a key role in
English teaching in Japanese high schools. It is the carefulreading of short, complex texts for detailed understanding
and skills practice. Putting a passage into Japanese is themain aim, which is called the Yakudoku method. Extensive
Reading (ER) involves the reading of large amounts oflonger, easy-to-understand material for fun. It was my belief
that integrating ER and IR had the potential to raise students’motivation to improve their communicative English ability.

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The first method that I introduced, Interpreting Training
Method, is one of the new approaches in Intensive Reading.
ITM has been used to train professional interpreters andincludes shadowing, overlapping, quick response practice,dictation, reproduction, translation of Japanese to English,
and summarization. Intensive Reading in Japan, however, so
far has just focused on translation from English to Japanese.
Accurate translation of complicated passages has been the
primary goal of English learning.

The project
My objective was to introduce ITM into my Internationalcourse English classes in order to encourage students to
speak out and think in English while making use of the
die-hard, traditional Intensive Reading. The Interpretive
Training Method makes students clarify the parts they do notunderstand. Comprehension of the content comes first, andthen shadowing, overlapping, and dictation help students
concentrate on listening and writing. I also wanted them tolisten to CD’s and practice reading at home, and eventually
start practicing on their own. In these ways, listening andreading activities are extended beyond the classroom. I
found that I did not have to tell students to read at home.
They practiced well at home to perform well in the class,which is one example of the gradual steps of autonomous
learning.
In addition, I introduced cooperative learning, including
pair work and group work, into the International course
English classes. What I introduced in the class for theacquisition of the important expressions and idioms is quick
response practice in pairs. After understanding the content,459

students make pairs and practice putting sentences into
English or Japanese. One student puts the sentence into
Japanese while looking at the textbook, and the other student
listens and puts the sentence into English. One student reads
the sentence and the other student repeats the words withoutlooking at the text. These activities allow students to help
one another with the task as well as get some speaking
practice. These kinds of physical activities also give themenjoyment and courage to step forward. Furthermore, theyraise students’ motivation and create a positive atmosphere.

Reflections
The ITM approach to reading offers students a lot ofadvantages, such as allowing access to a variety of materials
in the different fields and promoting the systematicalacquisition of grammar and vocabulary. The vocabulary andgrammatical knowledge gained from ITM can potentially be
the basis, or foundation, for Extensive Reading. Integrating
ER methods would provide students with the opportunity
to read English in quantity, improve self-access studying
methods, and permit students to choose and read materials
appropriate for their level. Unfortunately, even though ER is
said to improve learners’ overall reading ability and aids thedevelopment of a variety of other language skills, it has notgained widespread acceptance in Japanese high schools.
A paradigm shift in how teachers view English educationand how teachers regard their roles could be a step toward
a successful ER program. In implementing ITM, I realizedthat I must do something to fill the void IR creates. ER
shows that the way to supplement IR is to let students
experience language in context, teach them to process ideas,

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not individual words, encourage them to read massive
stories and to read for pleasure. What EFL teachers haveto do is to keep a good balance between Intensive andExtensive Reading. By adopting a flexible policy that allows
the integration of IR and ER, more ER programs could be
integrated into high schools in Japan.

Asadoku
Since the school year of 2005, my school has introduced
Asadoku (a short morning reading time). All the students atthe school choose their favorite books and enjoy reading forten minutes. This has allowed a chance for a paradigm shift
toward ER. My American colleague had suggested that ER
should be introduced into the school curriculum, and I had
been wondering how this could be done in an effective andsimple way. Asadoku gave us a perfect chance to introduce
ER into our English classes.
I decided that my action research plan for my class projectat TC would be to carry out ER for the International course
students during Asadoku in order to foster learner autonomy,
provide better environment for pleasure reading in English,
and lead to better language learning. The study involved
59 female students, aged 15-18, studying at a senior highschool. The study was conducted over a ten-month period.

Results of the survey
To investigate the success of the reading strategies anddetermine the relationship between extensive reading andstudent attitudes, I conducted a survey. The topics of thesurvey included: ER; pleasure reading; content-focused460

reading; the desire that makes students continue reading
extensively; goal setting; and motivation for learning
English. (See example questionnaire in Appendix II.)
The results were positive in several areas. A large numberof students who had never experienced ER had not expected
to be able to read books in English. The students’ attitudes
toward reading became significantly more positive. The
number of students who didn’t enjoy reading at all decreased
drastically to zero. More than 48% of the students enjoyedreading. Thirty-nine percent of the students answered “soso.” Now they are confident in reading in English, eventhough they only have ten-minute reading session five times
per week.
The open-ended sections of the questionnaire document
the students’ attitudes. Students wrote favorable commentson reading and expressed their hope to continue reading.
Some students said, “I’ve come to enjoy reading in English.”“Though I’m not so good at reading English in the text
book, I enjoy reading the story.” “I’m happy I have a lot ofchances to be exposed to English.” I can enjoy reading morethan doing in Japanese.” “I can read in English faster than
before.” and “ I think my English ability has improved.”
Many students expressed hope that they would like to readmore and would like more time to read.
Other students said “I felt I could read the difficult books,
which makes me feel I want to study English more.” “I’mhappy to read the real material. And I want to be a good
reader of English.” “I can enjoy reading as well as improving
English ability. It’s like killing two birds with one stone.”
Their comments show that they read books with pleasureand effort, which encourages them in their study of English.

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One third-year student who is studying hard for entrance
examination wrote, “It’s been difficult to make the time
for reading English book, so I’m pleased that I can read atschool.”No one expressed negative comments toward reading.
There seem to be two reasons: One is ER can be done during
Asadoku, which does not add a heavy workload for the
students. The other is that the students in the Internationalcourse basically like English regardless of their ability.
Integrating Extensive Reading into the curriculum gives
students an opportunity to summarize and comment upon
their reading. While reading and listening, students became
conscious of sentence structure, grammatical points,
vocabulary, and the flow of the story. They recognized thepattern of the whole story and formed images of the story,
which accelerated their output.
At first, students needed to comprehend what they readand listened to. Thus, they relied upon their L1 ability.
Gradually, after a great deal of reading and listening input,
they improved comprehension without using the L1. Thus,
integration of IR and ER has brought a lot of benefits to theclasses in terms of language learner autonomy and nurturing
output in English.

Conclusion
Krashen (1982) holds that the unconscious processof language acquisition, such as what occurs during
reading for pleasure, is more successful and longer
lasting than conscious learning. Motivation appears to be
stimulated by the satisfaction of reading. In a similar vein,

461

Csikszentmihalyi (1990) introduced the concept of flow.
Flow is the state people reach when they are deeply, buteffortlessly involved in an activity. In this state, concerns ofeveryday life and even the sense of self disappear. The joy ofreading appears to stimulate a state of flow, which increases
both motivation and language acquisition, as Krashen
indicates. If students are motivated to learn intrinsically, they
carry out learning activities for the pleasure of learning.
The term autonomy may seem to imply that learners should
learn independently, but I believe that autonomy also means
working together with teachers and students towards sharedgoals. Group work and pair work create synergy. Synergy
creates excitement and pleasure. Excitement and pleasure
increase motivation and create success in learning.
Thus, cooperative and interdependent learning can foster
autonomy as much if not more than solitary work, and abalanced combination of both interaction and self-study
seem most desirable.
Autonomous learning also includes setting up a purpose
for both the long term and the short term, as a map of ourlearning. If we do not know the destination we would like toreach, we will be at a loss for where to go, what to prepare,
how to get there, what means of transportation we shouldtake, and what we would like to do there. Once we set our
purpose, we can begin to move into action. We are able to set
goals for ourselves, adjusting those goals as circumstances
require. If we are autonomous, we never lose sight of where
we are headed next. In this sense a goal is a dream with adeadline for us. Autonomy gives us a power to set and meetgoal after goal, which in turn gives us motivation to seek
the next thing. When we reach one goal, it encourages us.

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Then we move on to the next goal, energized by what we’vealready achieved. We keep our efforts focused by decisionmaking and setting goals based on our autonomy. These
principles apply to a variety of fields of endeavor. This isautonomy and holistic learning for our lifetime.
Yoshie Ochi teaches at St. Catalina Girls’ High School. Her
interests include learner autonomy, the Interpreting Training
Method in English education, and Extensive Reading.

References
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of
optimal experience. New York: Harper Perennial.
Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and practice in second
language acquisition. New York: Pergamon.

462

Conclusion
The proceeding papers document the the intricate
progression of the learner’s journey toward moreautonomous language learning and language teaching. The
presenters’ diverse teaching contexts and their individual
experiences as teachers and learners show that autonomy
cannot be approached as a practical set of skills to be taught,
but must be recognized as an continous, spiraling processof self-actualization in which learners engage with self,others, the material to be learned, and the context in whichlearning takes place. The presenters questioned how they
could involve learners in activities that made sense to themand that would encourage them to become more involvedin their own learning. They recognized the necessity of
supporting students in the journey towards autonomy, andpondered how the principles of learner autonomy could
best be imbedded in the curriculum so that students would
assume increasing control over their own learning. Finally,
the presenters faced their own fears of relinquishing controlof the classroom and entrusting students with responsibilities
that have traditionally been assigned to the teacher. In
meeting these challeges, the presenters supported andguided one another in their personal journeys toward selfactualization and autonomy.
This concept of autonomy as a communal process isshown to be a crucial component of the teachers’ own
self-development, and, by extension, is also an essential
feature in promoting autonomous learning in their students.
Likewise, the symbiotic processes of teaching and learningand the symbiotic relationships that develop between
teachers and learners are also vital to autonomous learning.

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As these presentations evolved from the participants workat Columbia University Teachers College, it is fitting that
their voices conclude this paper. Barry Keith of Gunma
University summarizes the parallel journeys that he and his
fellow classmates embarked upon as teachers and learners atColumbia Teachers College:
As participants in a university course about
facilitating autonomy, we experienced the selfactualizing potential of autonomy first-hand both aslearners and as teachers. As the class was founded
upon the principles that were being studied,what might have remained merely an academic
exercise became a research task that evolved intoa presentation, and, now, a collaborative paper tobe shared with our colleagues.
From our experience as autonomous learners and as
facilitators of autonomy, we have determined that, forautonomous learning and self-actualization to be possible,
there must be choice within a curriculum. If students have
options to choose from, they became stakeholders in theoutcome. Secondly, and this is inherent in the idea of choice,
we as teachers must relinquish a certain amount of control
to our students. To do so, required a leap of faith for someof the participants, but we learned to believe in our students’power and potential to become autonomous learners, and, as
our reports show, we were rewarded by greater enthusiasm
for learning and greater progress from our students.
We also learned about the challenges we face, especiallyin those situations where learner and teacher autonomy isstifled, such as in the codified curriculum of a high school.
When a tightly regimented curriculum must be followed,463

psychological factors as well as institutional constraints poseobstacles to effective learning and limit students’ capacity
to be autonomous and to act autonomously. Knowing how
to learn effectively is not innate, and clear guidance indeveloping self-directed learning skills, as well as the regular
opportunity to practice such skills, is essential. Therefore,
we must continue to find ways to integrate self-reflection,
learning strategies, choice, and decision making into thecurriculum so that students become increasingly empowered
to guide their own learning, for our choice to take up anautonomy-facilitating approach is the foundation upon which
our students’ autonomous development is being constructed.
Just as in the previously quoted proverb by Lao Tzu, “Givea man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him how tofish and you feed him for life,” teachers have an opportunity
to provide students with tools that will sustain learning
throughout life. In so doing, we teachers also become more
active participants in our own journey toward autonomy.

Reference
Lao Tzu quotes. Brainy Quote. (n.d.). Retrieved April 8,2007 from <www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/l/laotzu121559.html>

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Appendix5.

Ochi, Yoshie. Autonomous Learning through Interpreting
Training Method and Extensive Reading during Asadoku.
A Survey on Extensive Reading
Year（）Class（）Number（ ）Name (A. Reading in English
1.
No
Yes. (when
where
2.

j
k
l
m
n
o
p
q

)
)

How much do you enjoy reading in English?

1. not at all 2. not very 3. neither
4. enjoy 5. verymuch
yes nor nomuch
3.
How do you enjoy reading in English? (choose two)
j
k
l
m
n
o
p

read books in English which I have read in Japaneseread books in English which I have not read
read English books as I do in Japaneseread what I want to readenjoy a story in English
skip the hard part and feel relaxedothers ()
What part do you think it difficult to read in English?
(choose two)

j
k
l
m

how to select books
don’t use a dictionary
take time to put it into Japanese when reading
others ()

4.

What effects do you think ER brings about? (choose
two)

6.

gain English words and phrases
be exposed to a lot of English
read faster than before
read while guessing the story
not be allergic to English books
read as if I were reading in Japaneseread for pleasureothers ()
Write English books which were interesting

B. Do you read besides Asadoku?
1.
No
Yes (when where )2.
If you answered yes How often do you read?
® almost every day () minutes® 2 -3 times a week () minutes® once a week(
) minutes® twice a month() minutes
n others ()
C. What activities do you want to do?
1report what I read in a group2

write book reports

3

have a meeting where I can listen to the book464

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4

others (		)D. Write whatever you want about Extensive Reading
Thank you for your cooperation.

465