2017 April

Volume 3

ISSN 2189-0463

ELF

The Center for English
as a Lingua Franca
Journal
玉 川大学
Enhancing Intelligibility in ELF by Focusing on the Origin of Katakana Loanwords

Pedagogical Concerns and Approaches to EAP Writing Instruction within an ELF Program
A Brief Catalogue and Review of Key Online Video Resources and Platforms
Self-directed Learning for English Language Learners
Fostering Students to State Opinions Comfortably through a Speaking Activity
Computer-assisted Language Tests for the English Classroom:
Blackboard® Tests and Google Forms
New Learning and Teaching Modalities: The Reinvented Learning Spaces at
ELF Study Hall 2015, Tamagawa University
M-Reader in the Center for English as a Lingua Franca
Report of the Center for English as a Lingua Franca Tutor Service
A Report on Faculty Development and Research at theCenter for English as a Lingua Franca

CONTENTSClassroom-based Strategies on Improving Speaking and
Listening Skills through the Voices of Japanese Learners

The Center for ELF Journal
Issue Editors: Brett Milliner, Travis Cote and Blagoja Dimoski
Assistant Editor: Andrew Leichsenring
Translation: Mitsuko Imai
Reviewers:
Ethel Ogane
Mitsuko Imai
Jesse Hsu
Rasami Chaikul
Paul McBride
Yuri Jody Yujobo
Yoji Kudo
Jeremy White
Daniel Worden
Ayako Suzuki
Simeon Flowers
Michael Seko
Angelo Magasic

The Center for ELF Journal: Call for Articles
The Center for ELF Journal is a refereed journal that seeks to promote critical re-

ﬂection among English language teaching professionals from a wide range of professional contexts. Manuscripts are subject to blind reviews by two or more reviewers
after initial screening by the editorial committee.

Aims of Journal:▪ To encourage critical awareness among language teaching professionals▪ To encourage reﬂexive thinking among language teaching professionals▪ To encourage a praxis of action and reﬂection among language teaching pro▪
▪
▪

fessionals
To encourage language teaching professionals to empower themselves and in
so doing empower their students
To encourage sharing of teaching techniques among the CELF teachers
To serve and support the professional development needs of the CELF teachers

Types of Articles:

Research article (1000 ~ 3000 words)
Teaching article (1000 ~ 3000 words)
Forum article (1000 words)
Center for English as a lingua franca Reports (1000 words)
Book reviews (1000 words)
ELF classroom practices (1000 words)
Guidelines for Contributors:

Article contributions may include, but are not limited to, one or more of the following
areas:English as a Lingua Franca
Curriculum design and development
Teaching methods, materials and techniques
Classroom centered research
Testing and evaluation
Teacher training and professional development
Language learning and acquisition
Culture, identity and power in language education
Application of technology in the language classroom
Research Articles: Research articles should come with a description of the researchcontext and research questions, issues pertaining to the research context, relevant
theories, qualitative or quantitative research data, detailed

descriptions of research method including clear demonstration of attention to research
ethics and commentary.
Teaching articles: Teaching articles should provide a description of the teachingcontext, relevant issues related to the teaching context, teaching theories andapproaches appropriate to the context as well as comments reﬂecting pedagogicalpraxis.
Forum articles: From time to time, the editor may call for forum articles focusing

on a particular theme or issue. Readers are also welcome to propose themes or issues
for the forum in consultation with the editor. Contributors will be given the opportunity to engage with current issues from a given standpoint as well as with eachother’
s opinions on the issue.

Center for English as a lingua franca Reports: From time to time, the Center

for English as a lingua franca will request a report from full-time faculty. The reports
can focus on a variety of features or services within the ELF program. For example,
student use of the tutor service, research projects, and faculty development.

Book reviews: Writers of book (textbook or other) reviews should ﬁrst contact theeditors with suggested titles before proceeding with the book review.
ELF classroom practices: Articles should be brief“take-away”descriptions of any

activity, project, strategy or useful tool employed with varying degrees of success inthe ELF classroom (i.e.,“teacher’s toolbox”).

How to submit your manuscript:

Please email your submissions to the editors with the title,“The Center for ELF Journal Submission”.
email: celfjournal@gmail.com

Issue 3.0 Foreword:
It is my pleasure that we can present to you Volume 3 of the CELF Journal. In thisvolume, we continue to have two research articles, ﬁve classroom practice articles
in addition to four reports on various CELF activities. The aim of this journal is
to showcase our research and teaching activities to the readers, while giving ourfaculty members who are at various stages of their career path opportunities to write
up and share their activities and research. Each year, we have at least two reviewers
for each submission to thoroughly review and comment on the submissions forfurther improvements. The reviewers have different areas of specialties and are atdifferent stages of engagement with their profession. This makes it possible to train
up-and-coming ELT professionals to become more solid contributors to the ﬁeld.
While new generations of teachers, researchers, authors and reviewers are growing,
I would like to point out that two founding members are leaving us this year. I would,
therefore, thank former Professor Glenn Toh who left the program in August, andProfessor Ethel Ogane who retires from the full time position at the end of thisacademic year, for their dedication to the foundation of CELF and thus dedicate
this volume to them with appreciation. Last, but not least, I would like to thank
Brett Milliner, Travis Cote, and Bill Dimoski for another excellent job as editors.
March 1, 2017
Masaki Oda
Director, CELF

Contents
Enhancing Intelligibility in ELF by Focusing on theOrigin of Katakana Loanwords

01

Marc D. Sakellarios & Gregory PriceClassroom-based Strategies on Improving Speaking and
Listening Skills through the Voices of Japanese Learners

1121Charles E. Robertson
A Brief Catalogue and Review of Key Online Video
Resources and Platforms

27

New Learning and Teaching Modalities: The Reinvented
Learning Spaces at ELF Study Hall 2015, Tamagawa University
Yuri Jody Yujobo, Jesse Hsu, Rasami Chaikul & Andrew
Leichsenring
M-Reader in the Center for English as a Lingua Franca
Kensaku Ishimaki & Brett Milliner

Report of the Center for English as a Lingua Franca
Tutor Service

Thomas Saunders

Travis Cote, Blagoja Dimoski & Andrew LeichsenringSelf-directed Learning for English Language Learners

A Report on Faculty Development and Research at theCenter for English as a Lingua Franca

Jason Donald Arndt

Fostering Students to State Opinions Comfortably
through a Speaking Activity
Misaki Shirose

67

Brett Milliner & Blair Barr

Andrew Leichsenring
Pedagogical Concerns and Approaches to EAP Writing
Instruction within an ELF Program

Computer-assisted Language Tests for the English
Classroom: Blackboard® Tests and Google Forms

38

Brett Milliner & Blagoja Dimoski

59

80

87

93

98

Enhancing Intelligibility in ELF by Focusing on theOrigin of Katakana Loanwords
ELF学習者の発話の明瞭性を高める指導法：
カタカナ語の影響に焦点を当てることの効果について
Marc. D. Sakellarios, サカラリオス・マーク
Tamagawa University, Center for English as a Lingua Franca, Japan
marcus@lab.tamagawa.ac.jp
Gregory Price, プライス・グレゴリー
Tokyo University of Science, Department of Science and Engineering, Japan
grendel.t@gmail.com

ABSTRACTThis paper has sought to demonstrate negative language transfer resulting from
non-English loanwords in the Japanese language. Prior to conducting our
experiment, we theorized that some L1 interference may result from the use of
katakana for these borrowed words, which potentially leads to some students notknowing which loanwords are English, and which are of non-English origin. To
test this theory, a double-blind randomized experiment was conducted among 83
university students at Nihon Universityʼs School of Pharmacy. Subjects were given a
vocabulary test containing ﬁve questions; one with descriptions of the English words
only, and the other with descriptions and the katakana counterparts. Our aim was totest whether students given the katakana would assume it to be English. Compared tothe control group (mean score=1.551 out of 5), the group with access to the katakanacounterparts scored signiﬁcantly lower (mean score=0.738). An unpaired t-test of
the results was conducted, and the result showed a signiﬁcant difference between
the two groups (p = 0.0018). A follow up survey was conducted of 144 students
from Tokyo University of Science and Nihon Universityʼs School of Pharmacy tosee if students could identify the origin of common non-English loanwords. Of theloanwords tested, 80.56% of students incorrectly identiﬁed one or more of the words
to be from an English-speaking country. This supported the hypothesis that students
may not be able to discern the origin of Japanese loanwords.
KEYWORDS: Negative language transfer, Katakana, Loanwords, English as a lingua
franca, Language learning

11. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

In Japanese, there are three basic syllabaries. Kanji is closely related to Chinesewriting and is used solely for Japanese words. Hiragana, is a phonetic syllabary
generally used for grammatical endings to words in kanji, and for all words ofJapanese origin. Katakana is a special Japanese phonetic syllabary used for foreign
loanwords. Both hiragana and katakana have matching sounds for each of the roughly
50 sounds represented by their corresponding syllabary (Hadamitzky & Spahn,1996). The usage of katakana dates back to the Heian period, and has had a variety
of applications throughout the history of the Japanese language (Seeley, 1991). The
prevalence of katakana in connection with foreign words and its effect on Japanese
students of the English language is the main focus of this paper.
In most cultures the usage of foreign based words within the media is often
felt to be rather chic or cosmopolitan (Friedrich, 2002). Batra (cited in Özturk,2015), states,“Products with a foreign brand name will be evaluated as having aforeign country origin and improves the brands’desirability for symbolic, status andenhancing reasons in addition to suggesting overall quality”(p. 283). From the latter
half of the 20th century continuing through present day there has been a rising numberof reasons for the usage of katakana to denote foreign words. Some examples ofthese would be company regulations on documents, and new terminology, especiallyin the computer and science ﬁelds (Inoue, 2001). In Japan’s high consumer culture,marketing companies often make use of foreign terms. The popularity of foreignculture in Japan encourages this (Piller, 2003). Therefore, the prevalence of foreign
words transcribed into katakana is virtually everywhere in Japan. The separation offoreign words into katakana leads to a heightened awareness of this vocabulary as
being foreign, and instead of being fully integrated into the Japanese language, it isset apart (Kay 1995). This might lead to a general assumption that since these words
are differentiated from Japanese words, that their use in Japanese communication is
likely to be the same as in the country of origin. According to Kay (1995), becauseof this“there is often transference from loan usage to English, leading to incorrect
expressions in Japanese English”(p. 74).
In Japanese, as well as other languages, the degrees of separation from theorigin of loanwords often lead to such words being used out of context (Kent, 1999).
For example, the use of ライブ (raɪ bu) is most often used by Japanese speakers asa noun, as in“Tonight I will go to see a raibu.”Though in English the term live inthis context is always used as an adjective. Out of a survey of 104 Japanese college
students, 79 felt that the term raibu and its usage to be acceptable Japanese (Loveday,
1986). A personal observation shows an example of the misconception that words
written in katakana are widely understood by any native English speaker. Many
native English speakers may have limited knowledge of German, therefore would
likely be incapable of understanding a Japanese university student’s meaning of アルバイト (æ ru baɪ təʊ), when speaking about their part-time jobs. This may be confusing
2

to Japanese English learners since their exposure to this word is through katakana.
They may assume that an English speaking foreigner would be able to understandthis word.
Gairaigo and wasei eigo are terms for these words that originate from foreign
languages. Gairaigo generally denotes direct borrowings, while wasei eigo is a morecreative form of borrowed language that often strays quite a bit from the originalwords. Since they are both written in katakana in the same way, it is not easy for anative Japanese speaker to differentiate between words that are directly borrowed
from English and wasei eigo. Many of these would be quite confusing to native
English speakers (Oksanen, 2010). Simpliﬁed words such as ソフト (sɔ fu təʊ) forsoftware, ホーム (həʊ mu) for platform, or combined words such as セクハラ(sɛ ku hæræ) for sexual harassment, and パソコン (pæ su kɑ ŋ) for personal computer.
One of the most recognizable effects of katakana on English language
learning is in the realm of pronunciation. The Japanese kana system has similarsounds with the English phonetics, but is often a limitation for Japanese students ofEnglish (Ikegashira, Matsumoto, & Morita, 2009). According to Suarez and Tanaka(2001),“Students who annotated English pronunciation primarily using the Japanesekatakana syllabary, … were … shown to have signiﬁcantly lower test scores thanother students”(p. 99). One of the multiple consequences of using katakana for
English words is the addition of a vowel sound to the ending of practically every
borrowed word, with the exception of words that end with the n sound, such as スポーツファン (su pɔ tsu fæ ŋ) sports fan. The addition of a vowel sound to the ending not
only adds a different sound altogether to the end of an English word, but also changes
the cadence of the syllables (Kay, 1995). An example would be chocolate /chô k -l t /which has only two syllables in English, whereas chyokoreto (チョコレート) has twicethat amount. Natural language acquisition often requires the brain to notice patterns
and make guesses based on previous input. Studies suggest that syllables are basic
building blocks for the initial recognition of language in babies (Bertoncini & Mehler,1981). So it is possible, although we have not found any research to corroborate
this assumption, that a misunderstanding of the correct number of syllables for an
English word can lead to negative language transfer for L2 students/speakers.
Of course it is perfectly normal and acceptable for a language to borrow and use
terms from other languages. For the Japanese language to include borrowings fromother languages is natural. The effects of using katakana to denote these loanwords
are important to understand for both language learners and teachers alike. The useof a separate writing system for foreign words creates the appearance of borrowed
words as being somewhat separate from Japanese words, and not fully incorporated
into the language (Hinenoya & Gatbonton 2000).
The use of katakana is often a crutch for correct pronunciation of foreign
words, and this can divert the Japanese student of foreign languages from the moreaccurate pronunciation (Suarez & Tanaka, 2001). The experiment used in our researchshows that when presented with non-English Japanese loanwords, students perhaps
3assumed these katakana words were the same in English. This holds a strong potential
for negative transfer in the students’L2. The solution to these issues should not be to
drastically change the language, but rather to develop a wider student understandingof these points, and a stronger focus on these issues by both English teachers in Japan
and, perhaps equally important, Japanese language teachers.
2. METHODS AND MATERIALS

A hypothesis was formulated regarding the negative effects of katakana loanwords on
L1 Japanese learners of English. It was theorized that students might not be capableof discerning whether the loanwords written in Katakana were of English or nonEnglish origin. To test this hypothesis, a quiz was given to students containing words
which were loanwords of non-English origin in their ﬁrst language. The students
were asked to write the English word in the space provided.
The control group was given quizzes which only contained deﬁnitions ofwords such as x-ray. The deﬁnition used in this case was This is a machine that
doctors use to look at bones.
The experiment group was given questionnaires which contained the same
deﬁnitions, but also included the Japanese loanword counterpart. In the case of x-ray,“レントゲン”(rɛ ŋ toʊ gɛ ŋ) was used. レントゲン is a Japanese loanword of German
origin derived from the German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen.
The aim of this was to see if students would, if given the gairaigo equivalent,choose to write the Japanese loanword in roman characters (e.g.“Rentogen”); perhaps
assuming it was an appropriate English word. The teacher instructed the students touse only English, and the directions on top of the quiz clearly stated that the students
were to write the English word.
Two coed Nihon University School of Pharmacy classes were chosen due totheir size and demographic. The students were all enrolled in a ﬁrst-year“Freshmen
English”class. The students were place in these classes based on their year of study
and English level (pre-intermediate). All students were between the ages of 18-20
years old. Both classes were held in the morning between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and12 noon.
Questionnaires were shufﬂed randomly to prevent the experimenters or
students from knowing which students were given which questionnaire. The students
were spaced out evenly throughout the classroom to prevent cheating or discussion.
A timer was set for 5 minutes, and the students were prompted to pass up their paper
when the timer rang. After the test was completed in the ﬁrst class, the students were
instructed not to discuss the contents of the questionnaire with the second class. We
assume the students followed this instruction due to the consistency of the results
between the two classes.

4

3. RESULTS

The difference in mean score between the two groups was quite pronounced. The
control group had a mean score of 1.551 (out of 5), while the experimental group
had a signiﬁcantly lower mean score of 0.738. Looking at the graph labeled“MeanComparison”(Figure 1 below), the substantial difference in mean scores becomesapparent. An unpaired t-test of the results was conducted, and the result showeda signiﬁcant difference between the two groups which were highly unlikely tobe reached through chance alone (p = 0.0018). By traditional standards, a test is
considered highly statistically signiﬁcant when a p-value of p < .001 is reached.
As the test was conducted in a controlled environment, we feel conﬁdent that thedifference between the groups was the result of katakana loanword exposure rather
than other confounding factors.

Figure 1. Mean comparison between control and experimental groups.

3.1 Follow-up survey

A follow up survey was conducted of 144 students from Tokyo University of Scienceand Nihon University’s School of Pharmacy to see if students could identify theorigin of common non-English loanwords. To prevent previous exposure, none of thestudents in the survey had taken part in the ﬁrst experiment. All students were ﬁrst
and second year Japanese university students.
The instructions at the top of the survey read“この言葉はもともとはどこの国の言葉だったでしょうか？”(Which country do you think these words originally camefrom?). We intentionally chose only loanwords which were of non-English origin
for coding purposes. The words which were chosen were ナトリウム (nə toʊ ri u mu),which means“salt/sodium”and originates from German, アンケート (ʌ ŋ keɪ toʊ),
which means“questionnaire”and originates from French, ブランコ (bu rʌ ŋ koʊ),
which means“a swingset swing”and originates from Portuguese, ミイラ (mi i rʌ) ,which means“mummy”and originates from Portuguese, and ズボン (zu boʊ ŋ),
5which means“pants”and originates from French. These words were sourced fromthe writer’s knowledge of the Japanese language.
Of the ﬁve non-English loanwords tested, 19.44% of students correctly
identiﬁed that all words originated from non-English-speaking countries. 80.56%
of students identiﬁed one or more of the words as having originated from countries
where English is the ofﬁcial language (USA, England, Australia, and Canada). Of
the students, 21.52% of the students identiﬁed one of the words as originating froman English-speaking country, 37.5% identiﬁed two of the words words as originatingfrom an English-speaking country, 15.27% identiﬁed three of the words words as
originating from an English-speaking country, 6.24% identiﬁed four of the words
words as originating from an English-speaking country, and 2.08% identiﬁed all ﬁveof the words words as originating from an English-speaking country.
We were not overly concerned with“correct”answers, but rather if thestudents felt these words were of English-speaking origin. It was however noted thatthe students averaged 0.53 correct out of a possible ﬁve questions.
The results of this questionnaire seem to support the hypothesis that a numberof Japanese speakers of English perceive that some non-English loanwords arederived from English-speaking countries. This confusion may lead to non-English
loanwords being used in conversations with strictly English-speaking interlocutors.
This may cause issues regarding intelligibility.
4. DISCUSSION

When looking at the results of this experiment and follow up survey, it becomes clearthat katakana loanwords likely have a negative effect on L1 Japanese learners ofEnglish. What is less clear is the mechanism by which this interference is occurring.
The following week, after the questionnaires were administered, a class was taught
to the same students focusing on the origins of katakana loanwords in the Japanese
language. It was noted that many students seemed surprised to discover that words
such as アンケート(æ ŋ kɛ toʊ), derived from the French enquête, and アルバイト (ʌ rubaɪ toʊ), derived from the German arbeit, were, in fact, not English at all. They also
seemed surprised that words such as アイス (aɪ su), the ice morpheme of ice-cream,
were incomplete English words.
We would like to see more education given to Japanese students regarding theorigin and/or proper English counterpart of Japanese loanwords to increase worldly
knowledge, and intelligibility with L1 English speakers. There has been muchdiscussion over the years amongst the English teaching community in Japan about
how to rectify the misconceptions and negative transference created by loanwords inJapanese, which are denoted by katakana. Some on the extreme side may hope forthe day when katakana is eradicated from the language completely, and loanwords
could be written in hiragana, or some solution along those lines. We feel that the key
to increasing intelligibility with English speakers rests in educating students with6

regards to the origins of certain commonly used gairaigo vocabulary.
It is suggested that teachers of both English and Japanese make a point to notethe origin of non-English katakana vocabulary, as well as their English counterparts.
To extend this awareness, a standardized method of clearly displaying the origin of
the katakana words could be integrated into dictionaries. The purpose of this is not
to burden the students or teachers with tedious lessons or memorization of foreign
word origins, but instead to create an awareness of the wide variety of word origins,increase intelligibility when speaking with English speakers, and to make students
aware of the rich history of intercultural communication Japan has had with various
countries around the world.
As proponents of the ELF (English as a Lingua Franca) paradigm, we aremostly concerned with communication ability. We feel that knowledge of nonEnglish loanwords will increase communication ability between Japanese andEnglish-speaking interlocutors.
REFERENCES

Bertoncini, J., & Mehler, J. (1981). Syllables as units in infant speech perception.
Infant Behavior and Development, 4(1), 247-260. doi: 10.1016/S01636383(81)80027-6
Friedrich, P. (2002). English in advertising and brand naming: Sociolinguistic
considerations and the case of Brazil. English Today, 18(03), 21-28. doi:
10.1017/S0266078402003048
Hadamitzky, W., & Spahn, M. (1996). Kanji & kana: A complete guide to theJapanese writing system. Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing.
Hinenoya, K., & Gatbonton, E. (2000). Ethnocentrism, cultural traits, beliefs, andEnglish proﬁciency: A Japanese sample. The Modern Language Journal,
84(2), 225-240. doi: 10.1111/0026-7902.0006
Ikegashira, A., Matsumoto, Y., & Morita, Y. (2009). English education in Japan:
From kindergarten to university. In R. Reinelt (Ed.) Into the next decade 2nd
FL Teaching Rudolph Reinhelt Research Laboratory, EU Matsuyama, (pp.1640). Retrieved from: http://web.iess.ehimeu.ac.jp/raineruto1/02RD2.pdf
Inoue, F. (2001). English as a language of science in Japan. From corpus planningto status planning. The Dominance of English as a Language of Science:
Effects on Other Languages and Language Communities, 84, 457-459.
7

Kay, G. (1995). English loanwords in Japanese. World Englishes, 14(1), 73-76.

APPENDIX A

Kent, D. B. (1999). Speaking in Tongues: Chinglish, Japlish and Konglish. In
KOTESOL proceedings PAC2, 1999 The second Pan-Asian conference (pp.
197-209).

Questions

Loveday, L. J. (1986). Japanese sociolinguistics: An introductory survey. Journal of
Pragmatics, 10(3), 287-326.
Oksanen, A. (2010). Intralingual internationalism: English in Japan and “English
made in Japan”. (Unpublished Master’s thesis). University of Jyväskylä,
Jyväskylä, Finland. Retrieved from: https://jyx.jyu.ﬁ/dspace/bitstream/
handle/123456789/25659/URN%3ANBN%3Aﬁ%3Ajyu-201012073143.
pdf?sequence=1
Ozturk, S., Ozata, F, Aglargoz, F. (2015). How foreign branding affect brandpersonality and purchase intention? Business & Management Conference(pp.283-299). Vienna: International Institute of Social and Economic
Sciences.
Piller, I. (2003). Advertising as a site of language contact. Annual Review ofApplied Linguistics, 23, 170-83. doi: 10.1017/S0267190503000254
Seeley, C. (1991). A history of writing in Japan (Vol. 3). Leiden, Netherlands:
BRILL.
Suarez, A., & Tanaka, Y. (2001). Japanese learners’attitudes towards English
pronunciation. Bulletin of Niigata Seiryo University, 1, 99-111.

Please write the English word or words which best match the description.
1.) A kind of job which you usually work less than 28 hours a week. Sometimes
university students have a job like this to help pay for school.
________________________________
2.) This is a machine that doctors use to look at bones.
________________________________
3.) Questions asked of people to gather information. A company or experimenter
may use these questions to do research.
________________________________
4.) A dessert which is made of milk and served cold.
________________________________
5.) A two-wheel bike with an engine. An example is Harley Davidson.
________________________________

Thank you for taking the time to answer.

89APPENDIX B

Questions
Please write the English word or words which best match the description.

1.) A kind of job which you usually work less than 28 hours a week. Sometimes
university students have a job like this to help pay for school. (アルバイト)

Classroom-based Speaking and Listening
Learning Strategies: Japanese LearnerPreferences
日本人学習者の声に基づくスピーキング・リスニングスキル
改善のための授業内ストラテジー
Andrew Leichsenring, レイクセンリング・アンドリュー
Tamagawa University, Center for English as a Lingua Franca, Japan
andrew@lit.tamagawa.ac.jp________________________________
2.) This is a machine that doctors use to look at bones. (レントゲン)________________________________
3.) Questions asked of people to gather information. A company or experimenter
may use these questions to do research. (アンケート)________________________________
4.) A dessert which is made of milk and served cold. (アイス)________________________________
5.) A two-wheel bike with an engine. An example is Harley Davidson. (バイク)________________________________

Thank you for taking the time to answer.

10

ABSTRACT

Learner perceptions and experiences can aid in the conceptualization of how andwhy learners use and prefer particular language learning strategies and language
use when developing language skills. This pilot study explored the opinions andexperiences of twenty-ﬁve Japanese university students on factors that improved
their speaking and listening skills through their reﬂections on three years of study
in an English language program. The learners indicated that opportunities to speak
English in class, a variety of activities and the socializing effect of speaking to others
in class were signiﬁcant factors that helped to improve their speaking skills. Listening
skill improvements were perceived by the learners to result mainly from listening
to Teacher Talk studying for the Test of English for International Communication(TOEIC) in class and listening to other learners speak English in class. Findings
from this research indicate that learner perceptions on language skill development
can be a valuable resource that teachers can utilize when they are designing andimplementing speaking and listening activities.
KEYWORDS: Learner perceptions, Listening, Self-reﬂection, Speaking, Teacher talk
1. INTRODUCTION

This pilot study explored learner self-perceptions on classroom-based teaching andlearning strategies that helped to improve their speaking and listening skills. A reviewof the literature focuses on language learning strategies and language use strategies
for speaking and listening skills development. Next, the methodology describes
the participants and the instrument used to elicit participants’perceptions. Findings
are then considered in the light of the participants’voices about the strategies they11

identiﬁed and how these facilitated their learning. Finally, a discussion of the ﬁndings
in relation to the literature review follows, limitations of the research are identiﬁed
and conclusions are presented
2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Teacher facilitation of the learning of English second language (L2) users has been
inﬂuenced by research into language learning strategies. The inception of the strategy
concept in language learning research brought about the optimistic expectation thatby ﬁnding out what good language learners do, teachers could teach these strategies
to other learners in order to help them meet with equal success (Rubin, 1975).
However, Grifﬁths (2013) noted that learning can be inﬂuenced by important variables
including the importance of learner identity. Various factors contribute to individual
identity such as age, gender, motivation, style, beliefs (Grifﬁths, 2008) and issuesof learner identity which inﬂuence the extent to which learners are willing to invest
time, effort or money into the pursuit of learning a new language (Norton Peirce,
1995). Learner identity is shaped by the context in which the learner is situated.
Norton and Toohey claimed that“learners of English participate in particular, local
contexts in which speciﬁc practices create possibilities for them to learn English”(2001, p. 310). Littlewood (2000) posited that teachers may have preconceptions ofAsian learners viewing the teacher as an authority ﬁgure not to be questioned andlearners as wanting to sit in class passively receiving knowledge. Holliday (2003)
warned about Western cultural bias and encouraged teachers to learn from learners’socially-based learning strategies while sharing learning strategies with learners.
That is to say, a move away from a native speakerist approach to classroom teaching
and learning including teacher controlled oral interaction and towards the preexistingsocial autonomy of learners and the social worlds of learners that they bring fromtheir lives outside of the classroom.
For the purpose of conducting the current research a practical deﬁnitionof strategies as they relate to language learning was essential. Grifﬁths provided
a working deﬁnition of a strategy, i.e.,“activities consciously chosen by learners
for the purpose of regulating their own language learning”(2008, p. 87). The
language learning strategies a learner uses and the effectiveness of those strategies
greatly depends on learners themselves, the learning task at hand and the learning
environment (Gu, 2012). Cohen & Weaver (2006) noted that a distinction can bemade between language learning strategies (i.e., for learning material for the ﬁrsttime); and language use strategies (i.e., for using materials that have already beenlearned, at least to some degree). Both language learning strategies and learning use
strategies are imperative to develop second language proﬁciency (Saville-Troike,2006) and facilitate the language development process. In the current study, theresearcher attempted to explore learner preferences on language learning strategies
based on the strategies that the learners identiﬁed themselves.
12

Kawai and Kawai’s (2005) study of 1758 Japanese undergraduate learners ofEnglish found that the building of a language use environment can help learners to
use a language and develop language use strategies. They did so by implementing thefrequent use of short group presentations, peer evaluations and in-class and online
discussions. Kawai and Kawai concluded that learner conﬁdence in using English
was increased considerably when learners were involved in group and pair work andtheir interactions increased the use of social strategies which helped to break downsocial barriers and reduce competitiveness in the classroom.
There are some studies on Japanese learner perceptions of the cultural factorsthat can inﬂuence their English language development. Maftoon and Ziafar (2013)
found that classroom interactional patterns between Japanese learners of English andtheir teachers depend on some contextual, cultural and local factors. Firstly, learners’
attitudes towards the role of English in their society often does not make them feel
any immediate needs for English and authentic real-world communication. Secondly,
anxiety about tests such as university entrance examinations has produced an effectof focusing on grammar, vocabulary and comprehension components of English to
the detriment of communicative interaction. Thirdly, communication in Japaneseculture is characterized by valuing indirect speech, face saving, group conformity,
reticence, competition avoidance, individual shyness and the preference for teacher
dominated classrooms. In relation to these factors, Maftoon and Ziafar (2013) argued
that Japanese language learners should be made aware of the important role that
English plays in helping them achieve intercultural competence rather than being
merely proﬁcient language users.
Mori et al., (2010) study explored the role that culture may play in English
language learning by surveying 355 Thai and 350 Japanese university students
and asking them to share self-perceptions on their successes and failures on actual
language learning tasks. Results from this study showed that Thai learners wereinterested in grades, teacher inﬂuence, classroom atmosphere and effort; whereas
Japanese learners were concerned with teacher inﬂuence, class level, classroom
atmosphere and interest. The current research found agreement with Tsui’s (2001)
contention that the researcher needs to have a sound view of the cultural phenomena
from the perspective of the participants in order to gain a fuller understanding of thecontext of classroom interactions.
While there was an absence in the literature of research into Japaneselearner perceptions of language learning strategies that aided in their speaking skills
development, some research was found in relation to the development of English
language listening skills. Of the four main language skills (i.e., listening, speaking,reading and writing), many learners maintain that listening is the most difﬁcult (seeField, 2008; Renandya & Farrell, 2011). For the purpose of the current study andin relation to listening skills development, a listening strategy can be understoodas including“conscious plans to manage incoming speech, particularly when
the listener knows that he or she must compensate for incomplete input or partial13

understanding”(Rost, 2002, p. 236). Siegel (2013) studied learner perceptions ofclass-based listening strategies and how those strategies could be useful to learners
in their futures. This study of 54 Japanese university students enrolled in English
classes, who were surveyed and interviewed, found that a majority of them believedlistening strategies would beneﬁt them in a variety of contexts, including academic,
business and travel. In reference to the literature reviewed, the current research
explored the perceptions of Japanese learners about language learning strategies andlanguage use strategies used in the classroom that helped to improve their English
speaking and listening skills.
3. METHODOLOGY

The experiences of twenty-ﬁve third and fourth year undergraduate students enrolled
in an English language program formed the foundation of the current research. The
participants were members of a single class group at the time the data were collected.
They were requested by their class teacher (the researcher) to write a 100 to 150
word individual blog in English and post their written work anonymously to a classgroup blog in the second last week of their course. They were given one week toanswer the question:
Is this English program helping you to speak English and listen to English
better? Why? How?
Participants were aware that the blog activity was part of their coursework
participation and served as an activity of self-reﬂection. Completion of the blog
was considered as meeting the requirement of that component of their coursework
participation Upon completion of their blogs in a subsequent class period participants
engaged in small group discussions (as part of the research) where they could sharethoughts on their answers to the above question. At the time the research was conductedparticipants were enrolled in their sixth semester of study in the program, had beentaught by several teachers and studied with a variety of other students over that time
period. Hence, they generally shared both some similar and different experiences
during their three years of study and the breadth of their engagement in the program
offered a source of discovery for the current research. The researcher requested thatparticipants draw upon any of their three years of experience in the English program
when constructing their written reﬂections. Data used in the following section were
derived from non-random sampling so that the researcher could select the deepest
detailing offered in the participants’responses in relation to the speciﬁc categories
elicited from the data collected.

14

4. RESULTS AND FINDINGSThis section has been divided into two parts: ﬁrstly, the perceptions of learners on
how their speaking skills have improved in the English program; and secondly, theperceptions of learners on how their listening skills have improved in this program.
4.1 Perceptions on Speaking Skills Development

Among the twenty-ﬁve participants, there were thirty-nine references made to theprogram’s inﬂuence on the learners’speaking skills development. The researchergrouped these references into six categories.
Table 1
Speaking items helping English skill development
Speaking-related item
Opportunity to speak English in class

No. of times selectedby learners
15

Socializing effect6

Varieties of activities

6

Overcoming shyness / apprehension

5

Teacher influence on speaking English, not Japanese

4

Development of a sense of international use of English

3

The most commonly discussed theme was the opportunity to speak English inclass which ﬁfteen participants selected. Seven of them talked about the program being
their main avenue to talk in English because they could not ﬁnd those opportunities
easily in their lives in Japan: Because I didnʼt have some chance to speak English in
my life before I attended English classes. I always used to speak Japanese only with
my friends and teachers. But in English classes, we have to speak English as possible(sic) as we can (P14). The regularity of attending two class lessons per week and its
inﬂuence on their English language skills development was mentioned by eleven
learners and one of them found that this program helped to improve her English when
considered in combination with other English courses she was attending: Before I
entered this university I was not good at speaking and listening English…I did nothave such a chance…now I take four English classes a week, including this program.
and the teachers give us many chances which we speak English. (P19).
The English program was noted by approximately one-in-four learners asproviding socializing experiences that they believed helped in the developmentof their speaking skills. For example, being situated in an environment in which
everybody speaks a lot of English (P3) and learners can speak English with friends
and their teacher (P7, P12, and P24). One learner referred to his immersion in the15

program and how mixing with people in the classroom changed him over time: I was
not good at talking with a person at ﬁrst, when I entered university. However, English
speaking activities changed me, so they improve my speaking skill and I am good attalking with a person now. (P13). Interactions with others in the classroom brought
one learner to reﬂect upon his learning and how talking with others helped him togain and share knowledge in English with others: All knowledge has no sense unless
it (is) communicated to others…thanks to the program I have opportunities to speakwith my friends, I got communication skills (P10).
The variety of activities that learners engaged in during class lessons
was emphasized by six participants as a primary reason for their speaking skills
development. One learner talked about his experience of participating in many typesof activities with his peers in the program: There are many opportunities for me tospeak English in this program, for example, book report, blog, presentation, pairwork. While I talk with partner about book report, blog, presentation, pair work, I
always use speaking ability (P6). Other learners talked about doing activities for theﬁrst time in their life in English: I gave a presentation in English for the ﬁrst time.
When I heard that we gave presentation in English, I thought it was impossible forme. However, I was able to show presentation magniﬁcently because I practiced
with friends (P21). Another learner discussed class activities and how teachers’tips
helped to improve her speaking skills: I experienced some book reports, speaking
test and important talking activity time in English class. All study helped my English
skills. Teachers taught me how to improve to speak English, for example, watching
CNN news, YouTube and listen radio. These are effective for me (P16).
Overcoming shyness and/or apprehension were recorded as being an important
outcome for ﬁve learners in the development of their speaking skills. Several learners
noted that they were able to overcome their nervousness with talking to others in theclassroom in English: I was very shy when I enter university. But, speaking activities
help me improvement my character…As a result, I can speak English actively (P1).
One learner implied that the program helped to shift her focus from grammar whentalking and use her existing and developing oral skills: I worried about grammar verymuch until I received English classes…However, I came to think that it is importantbecause teachers made me to speak English these classes (P5).
The inﬂuence of classroom teachers in guiding learners to speak in English
rather in Japanese was referred to by four learners. One learner noted: If a teacher
doesnʼt care whether I speak in Japanese or not, it`ll be easy to discuss friends andmaybe it`ll be fun, but it`ll not be my practice. That`s why the teacher makes mood that
we have to speak in English (P4). Another learner remarked on the importance of theteacher speaking English, rather than in Japanese and English: I like teachers speak
only English, so I have to listen carefully what they say. If I donʼt listen carefully…I
would fall behind (P20).
Three learners noted that their participation in the program gave them a senseof ownership of English as one of their languages of use. One learner thought that her
16

immersion in the program and constant use of English seemed to help her see herself
as a speaker of English, to some degree, when travelling abroad: I came to think that
it is important that I was told to speak English this program. When I went for a trip
abroad, I did not abnormally feel uneasiness either...I became able to go for a trip
positively (P5). Two of the other learners noted their goal of becoming an intelligible
speaker of English rather than aiming for native speaker competence and one of themreferred to her study in the program as helping her to do that: this program helps me
to speak… In my future, I would like to use English for job. I want to be (a) good
English speaker, but I donʼt aim perfect pronunciation. I think most important thingis that I try to message for other people. (P16).
4.2 Perceptions on Listening Skills Development

Among the twenty-ﬁve participants, eighteen references were made to the program’s
inﬂuence on the learners’speaking skills development. The researcher grouped thesereferences into three categories.
Table 2
Listening items helping English skill development
Listening-related items
Teacher Talk

No. of times selectedby learners
8

TOEIC study

5

Listening to other students

5

Eight learners referred to Teacher Talk in English as a factor that helped
them to improve their listening skills. A common sentiment expressed among themis exempliﬁed by one learner’s view: the teachers are foreigner and I heard theirEnglish well. So, my ears had ability to hear English naturally. I can listen to English
well (P13).
Six learners considered the studying of TOEIC in the classroom as being
important for their listening skills development. Due to the inﬂuence of one of his
teachers, one learner commented on a particular listening skill that he had learnedin class: From TOEIC practice and my teacher I was able to change my skill ofcatching main points from listening activities (P1). Another learner talked about
how her listening ability improved from studying TOEIC in class: TOEIC listening
training helps to listen English. Because we listen to English and we think about ananswer to hear English…I think that I become able to hear it little by little (P15).
One learner mentioned the importance of studying TOEIC in class for improving her
TOEIC score: If there is no English class time, we cannot more easily get high score
for TOEIC test. (P11).
Being situated and interacting with other learners in the classroom who were17

speaking English was highlighted by ﬁve learners as helping to improve their listening
skills. One of those learners felt that by listening to others speaking English in classhe was able to learn how to use the language more when he wanted to communicate: I
can learn how to use English when I want to talk with and listen other students (P22).
Another learner realized the value of observing and listening to other learners when
they were doing presentations in English: My teacher said, “Please listen carefully
to the presentations of other people.” I became able to understand what a presenter
wanted to say through the grace of that teacher (P21).
5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONSTeachers may need to consider preconceptions of Asian learners (Littlewood, 2000)
as preferring to be passive learners. The most commonly referenced reason reportedby the learners for their speaking skills improvement while studying in the English
program was the opportunity to speak English in class. Participants also referenced
the socializing effect that they experienced in their classes and the value of engaging ina variety of activities during classroom learning which in some cases helped learners
to overcome shyness and apprehension about speaking in English. This ﬁnding is
supported by Kawai and Kawai’s (2005) conclusion that the building of a language
use environment can help learners to use a language and develop language use
strategies. Yet, initial self-perceptions of shyness, grammar and test focused attitudes
in relation to the spoken production of English were noted by several learners as
being problematic at times for them; an issue raised by Maftoon and Ziafar (2013)
which was discussed in the literature review.
The teacher’s inﬂuence on speaking English in class, not Japanese was referred
to by approximately a ﬁfth of the learners as being important to their speaking
skills development. This ﬁnding concurs with Mori et al. (2010) results showingthat Japanese learners considered teacher inﬂuence and classroom atmosphere to
be important in language use and language learning strategies. Listening to Teacher
Talk in English and listening to other learners in class were identiﬁed as important
strategies used by learners for language use and language learning.
Practice in various ways to talk in English inﬂuenced learners’speaking
and listening skills development positively. This ﬁnding contrasted with Siegel’s(2013) argument that Japanese learners prefer to focus on using listening strategies
instruction for bettering their test scores. However, it should be noted that one-ﬁfth
of the learners referenced the importance of TOEIC test study in their classroom
learning and listening skills development.
As noted by Mori et al. (2010), it cannot be assumed that all students have thesame perceptions and preferences regarding learning styles, teachers and classroom
environments, and classroom activities. Thus, a wider range of participants should be
included in future research on this issue and the inclusion of more than one researcher
could beneﬁt the breadth of learner perceptions that could be explored.
18

The current research was not intended to evaluate the English program. The
focus was on learner perceptions of their speaking and listening skills improvement
as they understood from their experiences with various class groups of learners andteachers during their three-year period of study in the program. Insights offered by
the learners show the depth of reﬂection that they were capable of presenting in theirindividual blogs. Teachers may ﬁnd that class-based discussions or their own ﬁeld
research observations might help them to identify their learners’preferred strategies
for negotiating what is to be learned in a particular context (Liyanage & Bartlett,2012) and help learners to develop a greater awareness of strategies that can be used
to support a closer alignment between learners’knowledge of strategies and theirknowledgeable usage of them. Teachers should give consideration to both cultural
bias (Holliday, 2003) that can potentially inﬂuence their research and learners’
experienced-based perceptions when analysing future research ﬁndings. Future
research may also beneﬁt from consideration of gender differences in reported
strategy use, how they may vary, and why particular strategies appear to be morefavorable to some learners in particular learning contexts.
REFERENCES

Cohen, A. D., & Weaver, S. J. (2006). Styles and strategies-based instruction:
Teacherʼs guide. Minneapolis, MN: Center for Advanced Research on
Language Acquisition, University of Minnesota.
Field, J. (2008). Listening in the language classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Grifﬁths, C. (2008). Lessons from good language learners. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Grifﬁths, C. (2013). The strategy factor in successful language learning. Bristol,
UK: Multilingual Matters.
Gu, X. (2012). Language learning strategies: An EIL perspective. In L, Alsagoff, S.
L. McKay, G., Hu, & W. A. Renandya (Eds.), Principles and Practices for
Teaching English as an International Language (pp. 318-332). New York:
Routledge.
Holliday, A. (2003). Social autonomy: addressing the dangers of culturism in
TESOL. In D. Palfreyman, & R. C. Smith (Eds.), Learner autonomy acrosscultures: Language education perspectives (pp. 110-128). London: Palgrave
Macmillan.
19

Kawai, Y., & Kawai, C. (2005). A strategy-driven approach to style enhancement.
Media, Language, and Culture, 48, 87-103.
Littlewood, W. (2000). Do Asian students really want to listen and obey? ELT
Journal, 54(1), 31-36.
Liyanage, I., & Bartlett, B. J. (2012). Gender and language learning strategies:
looking beyond the categories. The Language Learning Journal, 40(2), 237253.
Maftoon, P., & Ziafar, M. (2013). Effective factors in interactions within Japanese
EFL classrooms. The Clearing House, 86, 74-79.
Mori, S., Gobel, P., Thepsiri, K., & Pojanapunya, P. (2010). Attributions for
performance: A comparative study of Japanese and Thai university students.
JALT Journal, 32(1), 5-28.
Norton Peirce, B. (1995). Social identity, investment, and language learning.
TESOL Quarterly, 29(1), 9-31. doi: 10.2307/33587803
Norton, B., & Toohey, K. (2001). Changing perspectives on good language
learners. TESOL Quarterly, 35(2), 307-322. doi:10.2307/3587650
Renandya, W., & Farrell, T. (2011). Teacher, the tape is too fast! Extensive listening
in ELT. ELT Journal, 65(1), 52-59.
Rost, M. (2002). Teaching and Researching Listening. Harlow, UK: Longman.
Rubin, J. (1975). What the good language learner can teach us. TESOL Quarterly,9(1), 41-51.
Saville-Troike, M. (2006). Introducing second language acquisition. Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press.
Siegel, J. (2013). Second language learners’perceptions of listening strategy
instruction. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 7(1), 1-18.
Tsui, A. B. M. (2001). Classroom interaction. In R. Carter, & D. Nunan (Eds.), The
Cambridge guide to teaching English to speakers of other languages (pp.120125), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

20

Pedagogical Concerns and Approaches to EAP
Writing Instruction within an ELF Program
ELFプログラムでのEAPライティング指導における教育的関心とアプローチ
Charles E. Robertson, ロバートソン・チャールズ
Aoyama Gakuin University, College of Science and Engineering, Japanrobertson@aoyamagakuin.jp

ABSTRACTEnglish as a Lingua Franca (ELF) research lends itself well within the domain of
spoken English where speakers actively negotiate meaning within shared contexts. In
an ELF circumstance, speakers are not bound by native speaker (NS) norms; rather,
their “success” can be measured by their ability to communicate functionally. Yet,what are the implications for writing instruction within an ELF program? And more
speciﬁcally, how should college-level ELF instructors address the issue of English for
Academic Purposes (EAP) writing since, broadly speaking, EAP assumes that NonNative Speakers (NNS) should conform to native forms of language use. The author
suggests several pedagogical approaches meant to assist L2 writing practitioners
working within existing ELF programs. In particular, the author explores how sometenets of ELF can be incorporated into a multiple-draft, process approach writingclassroom.
KEYWORDS: ELF and EAP writing, ELF composition, ELF writing instruction
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 English as a Lingua Franca

For more than two decades, English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) research has called
into question basic assumptions regarding language use and appropriate learning
goals for non-native users. At its foundation is the belief that the pursuit of nativelike English proﬁciency, which is rarely attainable, is unnecessary as most non-native
English speakers adopt their own use of English shaped by local circumstances andneeds. Thus, English as a Lingua Franca challenges the concept of ownership ofEnglish and the idea of a standard English in a profound manner. Widdowson (1994,
p. 379) puts forward the view that the“custodians of standard English are selfelected members of a rather exclusive club”who fear linguistic variety since it might21

lead to the downfall (in their view) of standard English as a means of international
communication.
Jenkins (2006, p. 160) went even further to describe ELF as a“contact
language used only among non-mother tongue speakers”yet now acknowledges
that most ELF researchers accept that native speakers can take part in international
communication. Within an ELF construct, many Non-Native Speakers (NNSs) havebecome effective communicators despite not conforming to native-speaker norms
of proﬁciency. More simply put, according to Seidlhofer (2011, p. 197),“’
Failed’learners can be(come) effective users of English.”In the classroom, ELF practitioners
endeavour to establish learning objectives which are more achievable and“realworld”by encouraging students to develop“strategies for making sense, negotiating
meaning, [and] co-constructing meaning”Seidlhofer (2011, p. 198). Moreover,ELF students are encouraged to exploit local linguistic resources, including First
Language (L1) communicative strategies, to achieve communicative goals.
Seidlhofer (2011, p. 198) suggests that regardless of the amount of language
a NNS ultimately acquires, it is their“capability”with the language which can help
them when they“need (or wish) to conform to standard norms where such conformity
is contextually appropriate.”Standard English (SE) is a“required”variety of English
for academic discourse since it is used for institutional purposes. Accordingly, it
can be assumed that exposure to an EAP writing curriculum can provide NNSs with
opportunities to use their developing ELF capabilities to understand and conform(if they wish) to an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) discourse community. To
this end, the author believes that it is possible (in several pragmatic ways) to satisfy
the learning goals of most EAP writing programs while remaining faithful to some
general ELF principles. In particular, ELF instructors and writing tutors can assist
ELF writers at each stage of the writing process. Below are several instructional
approaches which attempt to balance an ELF orientation with well-established
Second Language (L2) writing instruction practices.
1.2 Introducing English for Academic Purposes (EAP)

Before writing tasks are assigned, NNS students need to understand how academic
writing is situated among other types of writing. The metaphor of composition being
akin to a track and ﬁeld competition, with EAP being but one of several“events,”
often helps students visualize EAP as a distinct discourse genre. Staying with thismetaphor, each writing“event”has developed its own forms, standards and (reader)
expectations; moreover, these conventions have evolved according to the rhetoricalgoals which are embedded in each form of discourse. From this standpoint, ELF
teachers can exemplify the various features of EAP writing, i.e., appropriate rhetoricaldistance, explicit (versus implicit) language use, common discourse structures,
citation rules, etc., as a means of illustrating how critical inquiry is shaped within
written academic discourse. Additionally, by exploring EAP this way, students will
be more prepared to deconstruct and interpret writing prompts which normally frame
22

critical points of view and establish investigatory boundaries.
1.3 Prewriting/Drafting stages

During the prewriting and drafting stages, ELF students should be prepared tonegotiate the meaning and scope of their writing assignments with their instructors
and classmates. It is also at this stage where students can bring to bear their oral
communicative strategies to forge their thoughts and opinions. In return, ELF
instructors need to illicit critical thinking by encouraging students to investigate their
topics thoroughly and to search for commonplace arguments which either support
or refute their opinions. However, to be mindful of ELF research, instructors should
also be careful not to favor students’opinions based upon linguistic accuracy, butrather on the merit of the ideas expressed and on their pertinence to the writing
topic and prompt. Borrowing from Kumaravadivelu’s (2006) idea of post-method,Toh (2016, p. 363) describes the possibilities of“a respect for locality, heterogeneity
and the potential for fresh meaning making”when ELF teachers abandon what
Holliday (2005) characterizes as“English-speaking Western [Teaching English
to Speakers of Other Languages] TESOL.”In other words, when ELF instructors
engage in meaningful dialog with students and allow themselves to become partof the negotiation and renegotiation of meaning, they are, in turn, valuing thinking
which is informed by ELF.
1.4 Drafting/Revising stages

As ELF promotes the notion of natural linguistic diversity and challenges the ideaof a standard English, care should be taken to present model essays which reﬂect
this perspective. The simplest solution is to utilize model essays which havebeen authored by NNS writers (written at the same stage of composing) in orderto highlight the authorial choices made by other NNS authors. Peer-review typeactivities where students are asked to investigate and comment on“global”issues(i.e., essay structure, ideas/arguments, arrangement of ideas/arguments) can help
raise important awareness in their own writing. ELF students need to be given achance to discuss concerns regarding comprehensibility and decide (collectively,
when possible) whether an author has failed to express her ideas clearly or not. The
goal of this activity is to ready students to examine their own drafts and decide if any
changes need to be made at the rhetorical level. It is important to remember that all
discussions concerning sentence-level issues should wait until the editing process has
begun. In essence, ELF instructors should, take to heart one guideline which Drubin
and Kellogg (2012, p. 1399) have proposed“for writing and evaluating manuscripts.”
Brieﬂy, they remind editorial boards who review professional manuscripts authoredby NNS that“Nonnative speakers of English can write effective manuscripts, despite
errors of grammar, syntax, and usage, if the manuscripts are clear, simple, logical,
and concise.”23

1.5 Revising/Editing stages

The consequences and/or potential“beneﬁts”of textual intervention as a meansof avoiding future“errors”is beyond the scope of this paper. However, while
conferencing with students at the revising and editing stage of the writing process,ELF instructors can effectively explain and illustrate the types of feedback commonly
employed by teachers. One approach is to divide feedback into three areas, where“errors”are discussed in accordance to their impact on comprehensibility.
To begin, areas where intended meaning is ambiguous to the reader shouldﬁrst be identiﬁed. Then, through reader-response discussions, authors can negotiate
meaning with readers and, in the process, rethink, rephrase (and rewrite) their own
passages until they are mutually intelligible. Additionally, as overall comprehensibility
can be greatly improved by the selection of accurate vocabulary items, instructors
should closely examine the lexical choices made by students. Then, as Kaur (inMurata 2016, p. 251) has suggested, ELF teachers can promote the awareness ofthese choices through learning activities which can over time help learners to“selectlexical items that are precise and exact in conveying meaning in a given context.”
Once students understand how their ideas are more easily conveyed through better
vocabulary choices, they might become more motivated to improve their lexical
knowledge. Finally, grammatical errors which greatly distract or confuse the reader,i.e., subject-verb agreement or subject-pronoun errors, should be explicitly discussed;
however, these discussions should focus on how these errors are affecting the author’sintended message.
1.6 Editing/ Assessment stages

In the ﬁnal stage in the writing process, ELF instructors will have to decide which“errors and/or deﬁciencies”are acceptable in a ﬁnal draft. They will have to decide
which characteristics reﬂect the variability of NNS English, and the degree to which
this variability strays from the general features of academic discourse. Ultimately,
writing instructors are inﬂuenced by the assessment guidelines used to judge theirstudents’writing. In many cases, assessment protocols and rubrics are created at theinstitution and/or program level to reﬂect the values and expectations of a writing
program. Since ELF places a strong emphasis on comprehensibility over correctness,
it can be“naturally”assumed that rhetorical features related to organization, content,
idea development, cohesion & consistency and support & reasoning, for example,
would be valued over most syntactic concerns.
Taking an ELF-informed perspective requires institutions to acknowledge theuse of non-standard English. In the case of EAP composition, writing issues related
to sociolinguistic and/or grammatical control should, thus, be discounted as anempathetic reader (within an international communicative setting) should be able tocompensate for any non-standard features and receive an author’s intended message.
Needless to say, the use of idiomatic language should not be encouraged or rewarded
during assessment.
24

2. CONCLUSION

Teaching academic writing within an ELF program brings many challenges.
Paramount among these challenges is the acceptance of the notion that writing which
reﬂects non-standard, non-native-like English can still be considered satisfactory
within an academic setting. Traditionally, L1 and L2 composition instructors haveshared the common goal of developing conﬁdent writers who can produce clear,cohesive writing. And, to this end, they have held their students to the same standardsof achievement. Yet, since ELF research holds that L2 authors should not be penalized
for their“inability”to produce native-like products, assessment metrics must also bereassessed.
As a part-time writing tutor within a center which is committed to English
as a Lingua Franca, the author has sometimes struggled to subsume traditional
expectations of student writing performance within an ELF paradigm. As a result,the author has sought answers to the following questions in order to inform andsupport his pedagogy:
What are the hallmarks of ELF?
What types of accommodation are admissible within an ELF framework?
● How can writing for academic purposes be approached pedagogically within
an ELF program?
● What are some possible approaches (on a practical level) towards conferencing
ELF writing students?
●●

To conclude, the author respectfully suggests that the commitment to ELF
thinking be clearly reﬂected in rubrics designed to assess academic discourse. The
signiﬁcance of creating such rubrics is two-fold: First, the process will oblige theinstitution to make important judgments regarding the values and skills it would liketo emphasize (from a student performance standpoint); and, second, these judgments
will assist teachers to select appropriate teaching approaches in an effort to meet
program objectives while remaining faithful to ELF.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The author would like to express many heartfelt thanks to Paul McBride at Tamagawa
University for his valuable insights and suggestions. However, it goes without sayingthat the opinions reﬂected as well as any errors which may remain are solely theauthor’s responsibility.

25

REFERENCES

Drubin, D. G., & Kellogg, D. R. (2012). English as the universal language ofscience: Opportunities and challenges. Molecular Biology of the Cell, 23(8),1399. doi:10.1091/mbc.e12-02-0108
Holliday, A. (2005). The struggle to teach English as an international language.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jenkins, J. (2006). Points of view and blind spots: ELF and SLA. International
Journal of Applied Linguistics, 16, 137-162. doi:10.1111/j.14734192.2006.00111.x
Kaur, J. (2016). Using pragmatics strategies for effective ELF communication:
relevance to classroom practice. In K. Murata (Ed.), Exploring ELF in
Japanese academic and business contexts: Conceptualization, research andpedagogic implications (pp. 240-254). New York, NY: Routledge.
Kumaravadivelu, B. (2006). Understanding language teaching: From method topostmethod. New York, NY: Routledge.
Seidlhofer, B. (2011). Understanding English as a lingua franca. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Toh, G. (2016). Doing justice to an English as a lingua franca paradigm. Journal of
English as a Lingua Franca, 5(2), 355-367.
Widdowson, H. (1994). The Ownership of English. TESOL Quarterly, 28(2), 377389. doi:10.2307/3587438

A Brief Catalogue and Review of Key Online
Video Resources and Platforms
オンラインビデオ教材とプラットフォームの目録と評価
Thomas C. Saunders, サンダース・
トーマス（宮松知雄）
Tamagawa University, Center for English as a Lingua Franca Japantcsaunders@lab.tamagawa.ac.jp

ABSTRACT

Today, there are countless online tools to improve English proﬁciency and ﬂuency.
The proliferation of these resources has grown exponentially in the last 25 years or
so and they have undoubtedly become leading instruments in current ELT practice.
However, this tremendous expansion has also led to difﬁculty in discerning which
tools may best serve ELT goals. This article will attempt to catalogue and evaluate
the utility, of a small handful of sites that include: YouTube; TED and TED-Ed;
BBC Learning English; CNN Student News; Netﬂix and Hulu; English Central
and Speechyard; and VoiceTube. While this is not an exhaustive list of online video
platforms, these sites are key players in relation to ELT and were therefore chosen
for this report. A review and critique of these sites is provided based on their value inregards to two speciﬁc study methods: Extensive Watching (EW) and a more focusedand blended watch-study-watch-repeat method. Furthermore, considerations are
made about how these resources can beneﬁt ELF classrooms and how well they fulﬁll
the tenets of good ELF practices.
KEYWORDS: ELF, Extensive watching, Online video resources, Study methods withvideo, L1 & L2 captioning
1. INTRODUCTION

In the world of English Language Teaching (ELT) today, there are numerous tools
for, both educators and students alike, to utilise in the pursuit of improved English
proﬁciency and ﬂuency. One such tool, which has only become available in the lastquarter century or so, is online video resources. As the content on, and functionalityof the Internet has grown exponentially over the last two and a half decades, it
has undoubtedly become one of the leading instruments in an ever-growing study
inventory. However, it is precisely this tremendous expansion of the Internet andonline platforms that has also led to difﬁculty in discerning which tools may best
26

27

serve ELT goals. This article will by no means attempt to catalogue all Information
Technology (IT) video resources and evaluate their utility, but will instead focus on asmall handful of sites that include: YouTube; Technology, Education, Design (TED)
and Technology, Education, Design, Education (TED-Ed); British Broadcasting
Corporation (BBC) Learning English; The Cable News Network (CNN) Student
News; Netﬂix and Hulu; EnglishCentral and Speechyard; and VoiceTube. Thesesites were critiqued based on their value in regards to two speciﬁc study methods:
Extensive Watching (EW) and a more focused and blended watch-study-watchrepeat method, which the author has found effective in past teaching experiences.
Furthermore, a consideration will be made about how these resources can beneﬁtEnglish as a Lingua Franca (ELF) classrooms and how well they fulﬁll tenets of the
ELF paradigm.
The speciﬁcs of these techniques will later be explained in greater detail, but
it will be useful at this juncture, to brieﬂy review some of the beneﬁts of using video
in the ELT classroom and individual learning practice. Although there is some debate
about the comparative pedagogical efﬁcacy of video use in ELT settings, there is a
general consensus that students do see marginal beneﬁts in language study by using
ﬁlm as a means of learning (Brook, 2011; Duffy, 2007; Hamilton, 2010; Muniandy& Veloo, 2011). Any contention surrounding the use of the medium generally stems
from debates regarding the depth of its effectiveness or in its comparative value toan alternate method. Without getting into that debate, we shall simply look at themarginal beneﬁts, as they are manifested for the student. Conveniently, Nakamura(2007) has listed a variety of advantages of video use in ELT as providing: (a) exposure
to genuine and realistic language (demonstrating natural speed and pronunciation);(b) understandings of different cultural features or practices; (c) clear contexts
for learners to understand situation-speciﬁc English usage; (d) enjoyable settings
to lower students’affective ﬁlters; (e) identiﬁcation of common spoken language
through subtitles and/or scripts; (f) encouragement of independent and autonomousstudy outside the classroom; and (g) longer concentration periods with lower levelsof study fatigue. There is little research to dispute these claims, however the depthof corollary outcomes in actual language improvement is somewhat contested. Thatsaid, most academics concur that student motivation and engagement are positively
inﬂuenced, when video watching activities are undertaken.
With that in mind, we can now turn our attention to the teaching practices,which make up the conceptual framework and assessment metric by which we will
examine and evaluate the various online video platforms and their utility for teachersand students alike.
1.1 Extensive Watching

Although this is still a somewhat novel study method, Saunders and Ishimaki (2015& 2016) have effectively demonstrated that, when considered as a means of broad
exposure to contextualised language, the use of video can be quite beneﬁcial in28

deepening students’understandings of English. The basic tenet of this method is tovoluntarily watch a large volume of video with both Second Language (L2) audio
and L2 captions engaged, in order to give learners as much contact with the target
language as possible. Deriving its core pedagogical philosophies from Extensive
Reading, EW espouses a method that requires students to have a large breadth ofcontent from which to choose from. In this way, students have a profound amountof autonomy to choose the media they consume and study. Saunders and Ishimaki(2016) contend that this heightened level of control has an acute positive effect onlearner motivations and maintains the potential to be very useful for students, who
employ this method.
With this technique in mind, the review of online video tools found in thisreport, were gauged by the availability of accurate L2 subtitles, as well as the breadthof the content available for view. The metrics of evaluation will be further detailed
in a later section, but since a large spectrum of choice is integral to this method,
the sites and online resources needed to satisfy the criteria of having both, a large
selection of titles, as well as accurate L2 captions.
1.2 A Blended Study Method

An alternate method for using videos in ELT involves watching (a scene from) asingle title several times and studying a speciﬁc section of dialogue until the students’
understanding, pronunciation, intonation and ﬂuency are at a relatively high level of
proﬁciency. Although there is no single method for implementing this and different
educators have slightly nuanced versions of this technique, the general pattern here
is some variation of watching the video several times with differing combinationsof First Language (L1) or L2 captions engaged, and having learners do a variety oftasks between viewings.
A method that has worked very well for the author’s classes in the past is thefollowing: First, have students watch the whole title with L2 audio and L1 captions
engaged. Next, focus on a single scene which can be anywhere from 2 to 10 minutes
long. Have the pupils watch the scene with L2 audio and L2 captions on and ask
them to take note of any vocabulary or grammar they are unfamiliar with. With thesenotes, they can study the new words and phrases, before watching the speciﬁc scene
again, still with L2 subtitles engaged. After that, play the scene again, but this time
without captions and pausing after each sentence so students can repeat the dialogue
and mimic the actors. Finally, play the scene once through with students shadowing
the entire dialogue in order to improve ﬂuency and intonation. An optional and often
enjoyable step for higher-level students can be to have the students then act out thescene as a small skit in the class.
Needless to say, the criteria for evaluation of online video material for thismethod are rather different than that of the EW approach. Since at different times
in the exercise, both L1 and L2 captions are required, points were awarded for sitesthat provided accurate captions in both languages. Furthermore, as there is little29

priority for a large breadth of choice, this was not considered in the grading. Thatsaid, points were given, if a resource had extra activities or speaking functionality tohelp facilitate the tasks demanded of the students.
1.3 ELF Considerations

It likely goes without saying that many of the practices in the Blended Study Method
described above, are derived from more traditional English as a foreign language(EFL) and English as a Second Language (ESL) techniques and do not necessarily
include nuanced philosophies of ELF approaches. That is not to say that they aremutually exclusive from ELF-informed pedagogical practices, or cannot be adapted
to ﬁlms and video material that encourage understanding English, which falls outsideof native-speaker norms. However, the priority placed on repetition of dialogue andattempts at mimicking intonation and ﬂuency, would likely incur a bias toward native
speaker Englishes from what is known as the“inner-circle”countries. That said, itwould require a determined effort upon the instructor and/or students to speciﬁcallyfocus on video materials that aim to facilitate an ELF-aware curriculum, wherestudents are exposed to the varied philosophies and tenets of the ELF paradigm.
With that in mind, the online video platforms were also judged by the ways
in which they can be easily tailored to meet ELF-inspired teaching practices. By
example, sites that readily enable student exposure to different kinds of English-especially forms that do not adhere to native speaker norms and/or exemplify
dialects or accents, which fall outside the inner-circle country standards- were givena favourable consideration in this regard. Furthermore, resources that did not focus
exclusively on EFL or ESL teaching standards were deemed to have utility for ELF
classrooms and instruction.
2. CRITERIA OF EVALUATION

In order to devise a uniform means of rating the various platforms and video resources,
a grading scheme was developed based on a simple binary,“yes/no”criterion in 10
different categories, with some nuanced explanations described below: (1) availabilityof L1 subtitles; (2) availability of L2 subtitles; (3) breadth of content; (4) availabilityof levelled or graded content; (5) availability of searchable and referenced target
vocabulary and/or grammar; (6) availability of additional exercises and practice; (7)speaking practice functionality; (8) ELF considerations; (9) free or paid service; and(10) class management and monitoring functions.
Since the availability of subtitles is important for all of the methods describedabove, separate scores were given for each of L1 and L2 availability and accuracy.
If the subtitles in either language were deemed to have signiﬁcant inaccuracies, thepoint was not awarded for the platform.
The amount of content is particularly important for the EW methodology,
as the user should be able to choose from a large variety of videos to suit her/his
30

individual interests or preferences. Although this is somewhat difﬁcult to gauge, andcould be deemed rather arbitrary, a given resource was awarded the point, if there
was a great breadth of topics, levels and dialogue context to choose from.
The levelled content and searchable target language aspects were generally
not available for sites that were not dedicated language learning platforms. Although,some of the sites were deliberately aimed at younger students or viewers, who may
not have profound academic vocabularies, if there was not a clear grading scheme inplace, or there was no means to search for speciﬁc grammar and/or vocabulary, thenthe site would not receive the points in these respective categories.
This is also true of the additional practice exercises and speaking functionality
criterion. However some sites like TED-Ed do provide comprehension questions at
the end of videos, to gauge viewer engagement and understanding. It must be said,
that this does not always test speciﬁc language abilities, such as spelling or speaking.
Yet, if the resource had any exercises whatsoever, the point was given for additional
activities. Speaking activities on the other hand were treated as a specific andindependent criteria.
The ELF criteria was generally judged by whether or not a platform had videos
that demonstrated different forms of English that do not conform to native speakernorms. It must be stated, that this by no means encompasses all of the philosophicaltenets of the ELF framework. However, the availability of media with a wide variety
of Englishes was deemed to satisfy a World Englishes oriented understanding, which
can be considered as one approach within ELF pedagogy. Since this paper is meant
more as a cursory guide to online video resources, the ELF criteria was awarded
here, if World Englishes were readily present on the site. However, a more in depth
investigation is certainly needed in this area and this is not an exhaustive analysis
of appropriate online resources for ELF-speciﬁc purposes. Furthermore, since theauthor could not conceivably watch all the content available on each site, this point
was only awarded if non-core country English videos were relatively easy to ﬁnd in
the ﬁrst few pages of each site or through a simple search.
In the free or paid category the preference was given to free sites. If a platform
was a totally free platform then the site earned this point. As student costs in mostcountries are already extremely high, any site with paid content areas would not
beneﬁt in this ﬁeld.
Finally, if a site had additional teacher support functions, such as classmanagement, or the ability to tailor videos to ﬁt the students, then the platform
would get a point in the“class management and monitoring functions”section. To
elaborate on this point, some platforms have grading functions for the language usedin the videos, which are an obvious advantage for teachers. Furthermore, sites thatare speciﬁcally designed with ELT in mind, such as EnglishCentral, have built-in
student and class speciﬁc functions that could be of great beneﬁt to the educator.
For example, although exclusive to paid subscribers only, teachers can get access tostudent lists and are able to monitor student participation, and the volumes of media
31

watched, as well as assign speciﬁc titles for viewing. In addition, teachers are able
to see how well their pupils performed on given tasks, such as speaking activities
and/or comprehension questions at the end of each video. Granted, the available
functions varied from site to site, but if at least one educator-oriented component wasavailable, then the point was awarded in this category.
Once the scores were calculated for each site, they were then broken down
into four categories with the following respective denominators: Overall utility(x/10); Extensive Watching utility (x/7); Blended Method (BM) utility (x/8); andELF utility (x/9). For clarity, the Overall score included all of the grading categories;
EW excluded categories (1), (6), and (7) above; The Blended approach removed
numbers (3) and (8); and ﬁnally ELF only disregarded the volume criterion (3) fromthe list at the beginning of this section.
Finally a quick reference guide of how all the sites were graded is available atthe end of Section 3 (see Table 1).
3. CATALOGUE AND REVIEW OF ONLINE RESOURCES
3.1 YouTube (https://www.youtube.com)
Overall Score: 3/10; EW Score 3/7; BM Score 1/8; ELF Score 2/9

In terms of content, YouTube is certainly the largest of all the resources. The statistics
regarding the site are mind-boggling and it is difﬁcult to get an exact number of videos
as observers claim that anywhere between 300-500 hours of content are uploaded
every minute! Thus, it certainly met the volume of content requirement, however, itfell short in many of the other categories. Since YouTube is not explicitly designedwith the purposes of language study in mind, levelling, target language searching,extra activities, and speaking practice functions simply do not exist.
Additionally, when it comes to subtitling, the YouTube platform is somewhat
unreliable and fairly inconsistent. L1 subtitles are not available for most videos, unlessthe content provider has hard coded them into the video or independently provided
translations that can be toggled on or off. Although not ubiquitously available on all
videos (the uploader must toggle the functionality at the time of upload), there aremany videos that have limited L2 subtitling capability. However, since this subtitlingusually employs Google’s automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology, there aremany times when the algorithm misunderstands a speaker or misinterprets a phrase
as it is spoken in the video. This shortcoming is especially exasperated, in videos
that have non-native (particularly non-American) speakers. Therefore, according to
the grading criteria for this catalogue, YouTube performs quite poorly, however as
the technology associated with the automated-captioning functionality improves, theplatform may do better in the near future.
3.2 TED (http://www.ted.com) and TED-Ed (https://ed.ted.com)
Overall Score: 6/10; EW Score 5/7; BM Score 5/8; ELF Score 7/932

Many readers will by now be familiar with the TED (Technology, Entertainmentand Design) site and it’s spin-off: TED-Ed (Education). For those that are not, theplatform offers a multitude of videos in the form of short (averaging about 10 minuteseach) talks on a variety of subjects. The speakers come from all parts of the globe
and in fact, more often than not, their manner of speaking falls outside of the native
speaker norms, thus this is a great tool for ELF instructors, wishing to expose theirstudents to alternative accents and speaking styles. Although TED talks are hosted on
the YouTube platform, the curators of the site provide reliable subtitles for viewers totoggle on or off, if they please. These are usually available in a number of translated
languages, however it may take some time for newer content to be translated or evenfor English captions to be coded into the video. That said, all videos have English
transcriptions available elsewhere on the page so the site received the grade in both
captioning categories. One drawback to the main TED site is that the content is often
rather difﬁcult and would only be appropriate for high-level learners.
However, the spin-off site TED-Ed is directed at native speaker junior highand high school students. Although there is no means to search by target language
or grammar, the videos are well categorised by content and comprehension tests areavailable at the end of each video –a functionality that is not available on the parent
site. Finally, TED-Ed offers the ability to tailor videos and quizzes for each class andthis is a welcome feature for any educator.
3.3 BBC Language Learning (http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english)
Overall Score: 6/10; EW Score 4/7; BM Score 5/8; ELF Score 5/9This platform is a very useful free service with a large number of videos to choose
from. The site is speciﬁcally designed to help students of English improve theircomprehension and abilities via a large selection of videos and radio content producedby the BBC.
Content is well organised and can be searched by target language, however
the subtitling and ELF considerations are areas, where the resource falls a little short.
There are no L1 subtitles to speak of and for L2 captions; users must rely on transcripts
instead of simultaneous captioning within the given media. However, the L2 subtitles
point was awarded since the transcripts are available directly under the embedded
videos for students to follow along. Since the service is aimed at improving students’
understanding of British English, there is very little, if any, content that does notconform to native speaker norms. Finally, extra activities are available, but there areno speaking technology or class management features to use.
3.4 CNN Student News (http://edition.cnn.com/studentnews)
Overall Score: 3/10; EW Score 3/7; BM Score 2/8; ELF Score 2/9

Another free service is CNN Student News, where current events are presented in amanner that is thought to appeal to younger viewers. Much like the BBC Language
Learning site, the content is derived from a parent news site: CNN. However, since
33this site is not made with the explicit goal of improving student understanding at a
language level, it is lacking in many of the categories that gauge pedagogical utility.
The site has L2 captions available, but nothing to toggle L1 subtitles. There isa fairly large amount of content but most of it is focused on news or sporting events.
With an almost exclusive focus on American English, there are no considerations
made for a variety of speaking norms and there are no extra features that can facilitate
more directed learning or class management for teachers.
3.5 Netflix (http://www.netflix.com) and Hulu (http://www.hulu.com)
Overall Score: 4/10; EW Score 3/7; BM Score 2/8; ELF Score 3/9

These two paid international services have become very popular in recent years andoffer clients the chance to choose from a broad range of television shows, ﬁlms, anddocumentaries. Subtitling options are usually available in several languages, however
this is often region-dependant. Although the content is vast and there are titles thatsatisfy the ELF requirement, since this platform is primarily an entertainment service,
the levelling, searchabilty by language, activities, speaking and class management
functions are not built into these systems.
That is not to say that the resources are not without their utility. With somedetermined navigation and directed study, it is possible to seek out titles that are appropriate
for a given group of students who want to focus on longer videos that highlight speciﬁc
contexts and situations. This is particularly true when utilised for EW assignments thatask students to view several titles over a given period of time and/or for the Blended
method, if educators want to focus on a particular ﬁlm. Yet, since the platforms are notdesigned with language study in mind, the sites fared poorly in this review.
3.6 EnglishCentral (https://www.englishcentral.com) and Speechyard (http://
speechyard.com )Overall Score: 7/10; EW Score 5/7; BM Score 6/8; ELF Score 6/9

These two paid platforms are very similar and combine many functions to satisfy
a large number of the evaluation criteria. The sites offer a vast collection of shortvideos for users to watch and learn from. Students can use these resources for boththe EW and blended approaches and their viewing can be easily tailored to either ofthese methods. The three areas where the sites failed to gain points were L1 subtitles,
paid content, and ELF content. Furthermore, although Speechyard is very similar to
English Central, the former does not have a teacher-speciﬁc interface for educators
to manage classes and monitor student progress.
That said, the two sites use very clever technology that gives students a wide
variety of controls and options to direct their viewing in order to maximise theirlearning experience. Both platforms allow users to search content by either level ortarget language, and have interactive exercises to improve vocabulary comprehension
and spelling practice. They even have brilliant speaking and pronunciation functions
that provide an interactive learning environment. However, it must be mentioned that34

the content and pronunciation on both sites is speciﬁcally geared toward EFL and
ESL principles and does not make any accommodation for ELF ideals of prioritisingcommunication above emulating native speaker norms.
3.7 VoiceTube (https://www.voicetube.com)
Overall Score: 9/10; EW Score 6/7; BM Score 7/8; ELF Score 8/9

Finally, the relatively new platform VoiceTube is very similar to English Central
and Speechyard, in terms of its content and functionality. There are L2 subtitles; alarge volume of levelled titles, which are searchable by grammar and language; extra
exercises and speaking practice functionality. However, like Speechyard, VoiceTube
does not have a class management interface. VoiceTube fared slightly better thanEnglish Central and Speechyard because, at the time of this writing, it is entirely
free (although this might change) and there are many videos available with (a selectgroup of) L1 subtitles. Lastly, since VoiceTube amalgamates and categorises its
content from several online sources (many of the ones listed in this report) there
are also titles from TED and other sources which regularly feature videos with nonnative English speakers. Thus, it scored higher than it’s competitors’websites as it
readily satisﬁes the EFL content requirement and can be accessed with no cost to theuser (for now, at any rate).
Table 1
Summary of grades for all sites
Evaluation
TED &Netflix EnglishCentral
YouTube
BBC CNN
VoiceTube
Content
TED-ed& Hulu & Speechyard○○○○
L1 Subtitles
○
○
○
○
○
L2 Subtitles
Breadth of
○
○
○
○
○
○
○
Content (EW)
Graded or○○○Leveleld Content
Searchable by○○○Grammar or
Vocabulary○○○○
Extra Activities
Speaking○○
Practice Function○○○○
ELF Content
○
○
○
○
○*
Paid/Free
Additional Class○○○
Functions
Note：*indicates that the service was free at the time of writing.

35

4. CONCLUSION AND CLOSING COMMENTS

This report is by no means exhaustive and certainly misses many other online video
platforms available today. The grading scheme is admittedly myopic in its scope andsimplicity, and if the author is entirely honest, the evaluation criteria is somewhat
arbitrary. However, it is the intention of the author that this essay can serve as amore general, yet hopefully useful guide to some of the more prominent Internet
video resources at the disposal of students and educators alike. The grading scheme
and catalogue should be sufﬁcient for readers to quickly get a general idea of how
the featured sites work and in what ways they can be of beneﬁt in ELT study. Every
student and teacher will certainly have slightly varied ways of employing these tools.
Some may elect to focus on the EW approach and others might prefer the blended
method. Others still, may want to emphasise ELF principles in their pursuits or utilise
a combination of these techniques. However with this undoubtedly limited guide asa reference, navigating and selecting resources should ideally be made somewhat
more manageable in an ever-changing landscape of teaching tools and devices.

Nakamura, K. (2007). Teaching learning strategies to EFL college students throughDVD movies. Memoirs of the Hokkaido Institute of Technology, 35, 125-132.
Saunders, T., & Ishimaki, K. (2016). Learner attitudes of L2 engaged extensive
watching versus extensive reading. The Center for ELF Journal, 2(2), 1-14.

REFERENCES				

Brook, J. (2011). The affordances of YouTube for language learning and teaching.
Hawaii Paciﬁc University TESOL Working Paper Series, 9(1, 2), 37-56.
Retrieved from http://www.hpu.edu/CHSS/English/TESOL/
ProfessionalDevelopment/201109_TWPspringfall11/9_1-2_Brook.pdf
Duffy, P. (2007). Engaging the YouTube Google-eyed generation: Strategies forusing Web 2.0 in teaching and learning. The Electronic Journal of e-Learning,
6(2), 119-130. Retrieved from www.ejel.org
Hamilton, R. (2010). YouTube for two: Online video resources in a studentcentered, task-based ESL/EFL environment. Contemporary Issues in
Education Research, 3(8), 27-31. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/
docview/747986483?accountid=10382
Ishimaki, K., & Saunders, T. (2015). Devising an effective methodology formeasuring the beneﬁt of L2 subtitled extensive watching on learner motivation,
autonomy and skill development. The Center for ELF Journal, 1, 61-82.
Muniandy, B., & Veloo, S. (2011).Views of pre service teachers in utilizing online
video clips for teaching English language. International Journal of Social
Science and Humanity, 1(3), 224-228. doi: 10.7763/IJSSH.2011.V1.39
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37

Self-Directed Learning for English Language
Learners
英語自主学習方法における考案
Jason Donald Arndt, アーント・ジェーソン・
ドナルド
Tamagawa University, Center for English as a Lingua Franca, Japanj.arndt@lab.tamagawa.ac.jp

ABSTRACT

Self-directed learning requires second language learners to take ownership of theirlanguage acquisition by making choices about how to proceed with their language
education outside of a traditional teacher centered classroom. This paper contains ahandout that was designed to raise motivated second language learnersʼ awarenessof the directions their self-directed language learning may take. The handoutʼs six
sections cover topics such as: learner needs analysis; goals & objectives; materials
selection; learner strategies; self-assessment; and self-reﬂection. Japanese university
students are the intended recipients of the handout. The handout is a prototype
because it has not been ﬁeld tested as of the time of writing.
KEYWORDS: Self-directed learning, Autonomy
1. INTRODUCTION

As an English teacher in Japan, I have been asked by various students forrecommendations about what to study outside of the normal textbook. These students
are ﬁrst and second year English language students at a Japanese university. At thesetimes I usually make a suggestion about one particular aspect the student should
practice, such as listening comprehension, and recommend one activity they can do
to improve on that particular area of focus.
These suggestions seem inadequate considering how complicated it is to learna second language. True learning requires a deeper commitment on the part of thestudent. Instead of being passive participants, language students are in the uniqueposition of being able to initiate their own goals, learning strategies and learning
styles to maximize their language learning experience (Pemberton & Cooker, 2012).
This means language students should become active contributors to their own
learning.
38

2. REASON FOR STUDY

In response to these encounters, I have created a handout to expose the university
students to the concept of self-directed learning and to provide them with a tool
which they can use to develop their independent English study skills outside of the
traditional classroom setting (see Appendices A, B, & C). The target students forthis handout are Japanese university students. However, the focus areas that will
be further discussed can easily be modiﬁed to ﬁt the needs of any English language
learner. These students should focus not only on current needs, but future needs asworking professionals.
The aim of this handout was to raise student’s awareness about the possibilities
and directions their self-directed learning can take. The handout attached to thispaper was intended to assist a motivated English language learner to take ownershipof their own learning process and become an autonomous language learner who
can direct their course of study in the manner that is most beneﬁcial for himself
or herself. It is not intended to be used in isolation, without guidance. A language
instructor or language advisor will need to facilitate student learning by providing
guidance,helping the learner select materials, set goals, choose strategies, and provide
encouragement as the learner negotiates this new process (Du, 2013).
At the time of writing, the handout is only a prototype which has not yet beenused by individual students or introduced in a classroom setting. The author primarily
teaches ﬁrst year Japanese university students. Patterson, Crooks, & Lunyk-Child(2002) identiﬁed six competencies that students must possess in order to be successful
self-directed learners. These are: assessment of learning gaps; evaluation of self andothers; reﬂection; information management; critical thinking, and critical appraisal.
The majority of ﬁrst year university students have not developed their language
learning skills to the points speciﬁed by the authors. Older university students are
more likely to have the skills necessary to successfully use self-directed learning toadvance their second language acquisition.
3. LITERATURE REVIEW

Self-directed learning (SDL) is based upon the ideas of learner autonomy. Holec(1981) deﬁned learner autonomy as“the learner’s capacity to take control over theirown learning”(as cited in Reinders, 2010, p. 40). Knowles (1975) deﬁnes selfdirected learning as:…a process in which individuals take the initiative, with or without thehelp of others, in diagnosing their learning needs, formulating learning
goals, identifying human and mental resources for learning, choosing andimplementing appropriate learning strategies, and evaluating learning
outcomes (p.18).

39

Knowles also stated that students who are proactive learners will learn more
and remember it better than those who are reactive learners. Based on Knowles’
observations, the autonomous learner is more likely to be invested in their learningand more likely to be successful in their language learning experience. Benson (2011)
argues that it is the natural progression for language learners to take control of theirlearning. He reasons that if learners lack autonomy, they are capable of developing
it. Furthermore, Benson emphasizes that autonomous language learning is more
effective for the learner than dependent language learning. King (2011) recognizes theimportance learner autonomy has in relation to language learning precisely because it
allows the student to gain control of their language acquisition. It is reasoned that themore a student has control over their learning, the more invested they will becomein their growth as a language learner. For these reasons autonomous learning has thepotential to greatly increase student learning through self-empowerment.
Autonomous learning is done outside of the traditional classroom and istherefore more ﬂexible in its environment and content. Reinders and White (2016)attribute four modalities to autonomous learning: location, formality, pedagogy, andlocus of control. Location refers to the setting in which learning takes place. Some
universities and language learning institutions have self-access learning centers inwhich dedicated learning advisors assist language learners on their path towardautonomy. Formality refers to the degree to which learning is linked to organizedcourses. Pedagogy refers to the degree to which actual teaching is involved. Locus ofcontrol means how much control the student has over the choices for their learning.
The desired outcome of the self-directed learning process is for the English
language learner to take responsibility for their own learning. Research shows thatstudents who are more invested in their learning experience are more likely to be
successful language learners (Mynard, 2011; Reinders, 2010). Those learners are
better able to focus on the skill areas that are most needed in order to meet theirlanguage goals.
According to Reinders (2010), students will likely need training and a large
amount of support before they can become autonomous learners. Language advising
is a form of learning support in which guidance is provided to students about theirlanguage learning. Whereas teaching and tutoring focus directly on the language
itself, advising focuses on how the students should go about learning the language(Reinders, 2008). A language advisor is highly recommended to help raise thestudents’awareness of the potential for learning outside the classroom and preparing
students for self-directed language learning.
Several factors contribute to the success of the self-directed language learner.
In a study on the beneﬁts of self-direct learning, Du (2013) found that students withprevious experience in self-study at the university level were more likely to have apositive learning experience. Also, students’self-efﬁcacy was linked to performancein his project. Du reported that students who excelled in the project shared these
traits: self-conﬁdence, a willingness to take risks, a drive to attain goals, and a strong
40

intellectual curiosity (Du, 2013).
The largest potential problem with autonomy and self-directed learning isthat the students must remain disciplined. A signiﬁcant amount of self-motivationand critical reﬂection are required to undertake and pursue autonomous learning. It
is the responsibility of the student and the advisor to hold the student accountable ifthey do not complete their work or if they do not take the time to study. A language
teacher, language counselor, or other educational professional that advises thestudent is a valuable asset to help prevent attrition. Drawing on Self-determination
theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985), we all have a universal desire to connect with otherpeople. The relationship between the learner and the advisor can be a motivating
factor for the learner in their search for autonomy in language learning. The advisor
may provide the student with the incentive to continue on their desired path toward
English language acquisition.
4. HANDOUT

Based on the four modals identiﬁed by Benson (Benson & White 2016), I envision
the handout being used outside of the formal classroom. It will be informal in that
it is independent of required university course work. The student is engaging in
self-directed learning on his or her own accord. Counseling should take the formof advising, not formal teaching. Students should have control over their choices
for goals, materials, and assessment. The following describes the six sections of thehandout.
4.1 Needs Analysis

The language needs analysis takes the form of a self-report questionnaire (seeAppendix B). The self-report questionnaire utilizes a series of statements related tothe skills required to participate in those activities. The student will rate themselves
on a 5 point scale regarding their self-perceived ability to perform those tasks. I havebased my 5-point scale on Ellis & Sinclair’s (1989) self-reporting scale (p. 6-8).
The questionnaire takes language learners between 10 and 15 minutes to complete.
After considering the results of their self-report questionnaire, the student can thenprioritize which areas they need to focus on in their studies. Once their needs havebeen identiﬁed, students can restate those needs in terms of goals and objectives.
Once a learner has made the decision to begin taking ownership of theirEnglish language studies, the next step is to identify what areas they need to study.
The purpose of a needs analysis is to help students identify their immediate language
needs and potential language needs in the future (Brown, 1995). A needs analysis
helps students to identify what areas they are likely to participate in and theirconﬁdence in those areas (Ellis & Sinclair, 1989; Reinders, 2010).

41

4.2 Goals and Objectives

The needs identiﬁed in the self-report questionnaire will help learners identify theirlanguage goals (Mynard, 2011; Reinders, 2010). A goal refers to a general statement
about what must be accomplished in order to satisfy the need of a student (Brown,1995). Goals provide the student a direction or purpose when studying the language.
After completing the self-report questionnaire, each student should examine theirﬁndings in order to identify which areas and skills they wish to focus on. An example
of a goal would be the improvement of presentation skills. In order to reach thisgoal, the student must consider the steps necessary to improve his or her presentation
skills. These steps can be called objectives.
An objective refers to a precise statement about the skills a student must
accomplish in order to reach the goal (Brown, 1995). Objectives are the speciﬁc
steps that a student must take in order to accomplish a goal. For the goal of improving
presentation skills, objectives could include organizing a presentation into an opening,
body, and closing; identifying the four parts of a presentation opening; identify andchoose appropriate opening statements; identify and choose introductory statements,
etc.
4.3 Selecting Materials

After the formulation of goals and objectives, the student must then select materials
for their study (Brown, 1995; Reinders, 2010). The modern language learner has agreater variety of English language learning materials to choose from than ever before.
These can include more traditional language learning materials such as textbooks,
reference books, or human resources. They can also include realia such as news
reports, business reports, ﬁnancial documents, press releases, etc. Technology andthe internet have provided a seemingly endless array of language learning softwareand interactive websites. The student should select materials which focus on theneeds identiﬁed in the self-report questionnaire. A language advisor can provide
direction if the student is unsure about which materials are best suited to their needs.
Brown (1995) classiﬁes materials development into three categories; adopting
materials, creating new materials, or adapting existing materials. Adopting materials
refers to using materials as they appear without the need to alter them. Examplesof these types of materials are textbooks, newspapers & magazines, the internet or
podcasts. Creating new materials requires the student to take a creative role in making
their own, unique materials to assist their learning. Examples of such resources are
ﬂashcards, journals, or word lists. The ﬁnal form mentioned by Brown (1995) is toadapt existing materials. This means altering any existing materials to better suit theneeds of the student. No matter what types of materials are chosen, the materials
should be suitable to the student’s methods of learning. For example, a student who
likes listening to lectures could listen to podcasts as part of their studies.

42

4.4 Learner Strategies

Once the learner has selected the appropriate materials for their development, theyneed to choose strategies to learn these materials and practice their language skills(Mynard, 2011). Cohen (2012) deﬁned learner strategies as a learner’s thoughts
and actions, which are considered and executed, to assist the learner in carryingout a task at multiple levels. Reinders (2010) placed learning strategies into threemain categories; cognitive, metacognitive, and affective. Cognitive strategies refer
to how individuals process information and complete problem solving (Grifﬁths,2012). Metacognitive strategies require a learner to consider and evaluate their own
thinking process (Anderson, 2012). Affective strategies refer to the learner ﬁnding
different opportunities to use the English language outside of a controlled setting(Reinders, 2010).
The center for the advanced research on language acquisition at the Universityof Minnesota published a language strategy survey to help learners identify strategies
for language learning (http://www.carla.umn.edu/about/proﬁles/cohenpapers/
lg_strat_srvy.html). These strategies are largely cognitive and affective strategies.
The URL for the website is included in the handout. This survey takes the average
language learner between 15 and 20 minutes to complete.
4.5 Self-Assessment

In order to gauge the effectiveness of the self-directed learning curriculum, the student
must be able to assess their English learning progress (Luoma, 2013). Self-assessmentof their learning progress will allow the learner to see where they have improved
their language skills and where they should continue to focus their attention in futurestudies (Reinders, 2010). The learner’s motivation to continue studying English isheavily inﬂuenced by their ability to see themselves making progress towards theirlearning goals (Reinders, 2010). Therefore, self-assessment of the learning progress
is vital for a successful self-directed learning curriculum.
Self-assessment should be completed at regular intervals in the student’slearning progress. Luoma (2013) states self-directed learning should progress insmall intervals, with the guidance of an advisor. The reason for this is that learners
may ﬁnd the self-assessment portion of the curriculum to be challenging and possibly
demotivating because the learner may not see themselves as making progress toward
their goals. Professional educators may see the progress the learner is unable to see
for themselves. Therefore it is highly recommended that learners seek out expert
assistance when trying to measure their learning progress.
The self-report questionnaire (see Appendix B) is one tool the learner canuse for self-assessment. What other forms of self-assessment are possible? Can-dostatements and learning portfolios are two types of self-assessment tools that provide
a variety of quantitative and qualitative data on learner’s progress. Can-do statements
provide learners with an opportunity to quickly measure their language acquisition
progress by reading a statement and deciding if they can perform the task speciﬁed in43the statement, or they cannot (see Appendix C). The learners will be able to use thecan do statements as a type of checklist to self-assess their conﬁdence in ability tocomplete the tasks that are listed in Appendix C. A checklist such as this is useful for
quantitatively measuring student learning progress. In order to get a more qualitative
understanding of the student’s learning progress, it is useful to look at the learner’sefforts holistically. One method of doing this is for the students to collect theirlanguage work in a learning portfolio.
Learning portfolios are a collection of the work produced by the student asthey learn English (Nunes, 2004). The student’s portfolio should contain examplesof the student’s work generated through the self-directed learning curriculum. It is
recommended for the student to review the components of their collection with anadvisor.
What kinds of materials can be included in the learning portfolios? For writing
components, student’s essays and diaries can be included. The student can select anarticle to read that is appropriate for their ability levels. The student can then write
a summary of the article. This summary can be corrected by the student or it can becorrected by another person. Similarly, students can write short essays on a topic of
their choice. These essays can also be corrected by an advisor or self-corrected. A
learning diary is is an account of which activities the learner is doing, how often they
are doing them, and what are the results of those activities. The student should review
the diary often and compare the types of activities they used to promote learning inorder to see which ones are most effective. Critical comparisons are essential in orderto focus on and improve areas that require further attention (Reinders, 2010).
For listening practice, the student can purchase a listening comprehension
text book. With this type of material, a student can listen to a CD recording and write
down what they hear. The student can then verify the accuracy of his or her writingsby comparing their written account against the transcript of the CD. Similarly, thewebsites Voice of America (m.learningenglish.voanews.com) and Breaking News
English (breakingnewsenglish.com) are English learning websites which offer
news broadcasts aimed at English language learners. News reports are modiﬁed for
different language ability levels. The audio recording of a news story is available aswell as the transcript of the news broadcast. The student’s transcription, along withthe corrections, can be included in the learning portfolio.
Speaking is the ﬁnal category that should be considered when planning
portfolio submissions. A 4-3-2 activity can be self-administered by the student topractice ﬂuency training (Arevart & Nation, 1991). This type of activity should beaudio or video recorded. For presentation practice, the student can video record
himself or herself giving a presentation on a topic of their choice. The recording canthen be corrected by the student or another person. Finally, the student can engage
in a conversation with another English speaker and record the encounter with audio
or video recording equipment. All recordings should be submitted as part of theportfolio.
44

All of these suggestions would provide the student with many opportunities to
ﬁll their learning portfolio with examples of their development as language learners.
Such information will be valuable as a means of measuring the student’s language
production as well as demonstrating improvement over time.
It should be restated that learners should not be expected to take immediateownership over their learning. Autonomy in learning requires time and guidance.
The student’s instructor or advisor should provide steady support and advice forthe learner as they make slow and steady progress in their self-directed learning
curriculum development (Reinders, 2010).
4.6 Self-Reflection

Self-reﬂection should be completed in the ﬁnal phase of the self-directed learning
process. During self-reﬂection, the learner should examine the overall learning
experience by reﬂecting on the components of their curriculum and how they usedthe curriculum to improve their English language skills. The student should considerof all the information that was used to create the self-directed learning curriculum
including; the self-report questionnaire, the materials that were used, how the learnerused the materials, the study habits of the student, the time and location of studying,
and any assistance that the student received in their learning process (Brown, 1995).
This is done in order to identify the things that worked and things that didn’t work in
the self-directed learning process. Because learning never truly stops, the process is
cyclical and can be repeated when the student establishes new goals and objectives,
creates new learning materials, and ﬁnds new learning strategies to improve theirself-directed learning experience (Reinders, 2010).
5. DISCUSSION

As previously stated, the handout containing Appendices A, B, & C are a prototype.
The author has envisioned it as a guide to help motivated, Japanese university
students take their ﬁrst steps towards autonomy in their acquisition of English asa second language. The students should pursue their self-directed language studies
on their own time, outside of the classroom. The students would need the help of alanguage advisor. Consultations between the student and the learning advisor would
be informal and take place at a mutually accessible location. The student would
become responsible for the direction and content of their English language learning.
The consultations are the student’s opportunity for discussion and feedback on thework they have produced from their studies.
There are several limitations to this concept which must also be addressed.
The handout and its intended use are only conceptual at the time of writing. The
application of the handout in a real learning environment is absolutely necessary inorder to evaluate its effectiveness as a language learning tool. It is likely the handout
will require some revisions as it is ﬁeld-tested. The handout does not specify the ability
45

level of the intended language learner. However, language students who possess
speciﬁc language competencies are more likely to be successful as self-directed
learners. The language advisor would do well to be selective when encouraging
students to pursue self-directed learning. Furthermore, language advisors must
consider their own abilities and the resources that are available to help the learner.
Without the support of a language department or self-access center, an individualadvisor may ﬁnd it difﬁcult to secure the resources necessary to properly assist thelearner.
Consultation with university teachers and language advisors who haveexperience with self-directed learning may greatly beneﬁt the design and executionof this handout. Securing material and mental resources in preparation for
implementation would greatly improve the quality of assistance given to the learner.
Finding competent and willing participants for a ﬁeld test of the handout will highlightareas of the handout which require improvement.
Many future research opportunities exist as this handout is used to guide students
in self-directed language learning. Each student’s experience should be documented
to judge the effectiveness of the handout as well as demonstrate the improvement of
the student’s language skills. Formal measures of students’improvements throughautonomous learning are lacking in the research literature (Reinders, 2008). Anymeans of documenting the progress of students’learning would be very useful for the
self-directed learning community.
6. CONCLUSION

This paper was written as an explanation of the information contained in the selfdirected learning handout, self-report questionnaire, and self-assessment can-dostatements. These documents are designed to provide a motivated learner withsome ideas about how they can take ownership of learning English in order to hone
the language skills needed to participate in the academic and the post-academic
English speaking world. If the language learner is not prepared to undertake these
responsibilities, the learning process will not continue. It is recommended the learnerconsult with a language advisor as they undertake self-directed learning.

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Mercer, S. Ryan, & M. Williams (Eds.) Psychology for language learning:
Insights from research, theory & practice (pp. 169-187). Basingstoke:
Palgrave MacMillan.
Arevart, S., & Nation, P. (1991). Fluency improvement in a second language. RELC
Journal, 22(1), 84-94. doi 10.1177/003368829102200106
Benson, P. (2011). What’s new in autonomy? The Language Teacher, 35(4), 15-18.
Brown, H.D. (2007). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language
pedagogy (4th ed.). White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.
Brown, J. D. (1995). The elements of language curriculum: A system approach toprogram development. Boston: Heinle.
Centre for Canadian Language Benchmarks (2013). Can-Do Statements.
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Cohen, D., Oxford, R., & Chi, J. (n.d.). Language Strategy Use Survey. Retrieved
from:
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Cotterall, S. (2000). Promoting learner autonomy through the curriculum:
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Du, F. (2013). Student perspectives of self-directed language learning: implications
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APPENDIX A
Self-directed learning handout for English language learners

This handout is intended to help you take ownership of your language learning
experience by guiding you in the creation of a self-directed language learning
curriculum. It is recommended to discuss this learning process with an experienced
advisor. This document is only intended to expose you, the learner, to learning
opportunities by focusing your English language studies speciﬁcally for youracademic or post-academic needs. Please consult with your teacher or language
advisor as you proceed through your learning experience.
The items listed below should serve as a guide to help you take the steps
necessary to identify language needs, set goals to meet those needs, identify
materials to help you learn, identify strategies to make the most of your learning
experience, and then assess your progress.
1) Language Needs Analysis: What activities do you currently perform while
using English? What are you likely to use in the future? Circle all that apply:
Presentations

Listening

Email writing

Small talk General Communication

Writing papers

Interviews Reading

Self-report questionnaire: What is your comfort level of using English
in the areas mentioned above? Are you comfortable making a presentation in
English? Can you make small talk in English? Please ﬁll out the attached selfreport questionnaire (Appendix B). The questionnaire will highlight the skill areasin which you are proﬁcient and those areas which require further English language
practice. It should take approximately ten to ﬁfteen minutes to complete thequestionnaire. The areas in which require further practice will be used to form yourlearning goals.
2) Goals and Objectives: Now that your areas of need have been identiﬁed, it’syour opportunity to create your own goals and objectives for learning.
Goals: Goals refer to general statements about what must be accomplished in order49

to satisfy the language needs of a student. Your goals should reﬂect what you want
to be able to do using English. Example goal: I want to improve my presentation
skills.

use survey can be found at http://www.carla.umn.edu/about/proﬁles/cohenpapers/
lg_strat_srvy.html
The survey should take approximately ﬁfteen to twenty minutes to complete.

Objectives: Objectives refer to the speciﬁc steps that a student must take in order toaccomplish a goal. Each goal will require several objectives in order to accomplish
the goal. Example: For the goal of improving presentation skills, objectives couldbe; organizing the presentation into an opening, body and closing; identifying thefour parts of a presentation opening; identifying and choosing appropriate opening
statements; etc.

5) Self-assessment: Over the course of your English language studies, it isimportant to chart your learning progress. As you practice English you will create
practice works. It is highly recommended to collect your practice works into alearning portfolio. This will serve as a record of your learning progress. This
collection will help you see how much you have progressed and which areas you
should continue to focus your attention. The items listed below are practice items
which will generate works for you portfolio. Looking at the progress you makethrough your practice works will demonstrate which areas you are improving inand which areas you should increase your focus in order to improve.

Based on the results of the self-report questionnaire, what English language
learning goals will you set for yourself? What objectives will help you reach thesegoals? Create learning goals for yourself to help you focus your English language
studies. Several objectives should be listed for each learning goal. These goals andobjectives will be the basis for your self-directed learning program.
3) Materials: Now that you have identiﬁed goals and objectives, it is necessary to
select materials to assist your language learning needs. Many types of materials are
suitable for English language study. If you are having difﬁculty ﬁnding materials
or are unsure of what type would best suit your learning needs, talk to an English
instructor for some advice.
Traditional types: textbooks, reference books, human resources, vocabulary lists,
ﬂash cards, etc.
Realia: graded readers, emails, reports, classroom assignments, magazines,
newspapers, news reports, ﬁnancial reports, etc.
Technology: internet sites, CD-ROMs, on-line tutor, language learning software,
online chat room conversation groups, etc.
The materials you have selected can be used in the form they are found or they canbe altered to meet your needs. An alternative is to create your own materials. Feelfree to use the materials in the manner that will best help your learning style.
4) Learner strategies: Now that you have set your learning goals and selected
learning materials, it’s time to think about how you learn best and what kinds oflearning strategies you could use to be a more efﬁcient learner. What actions or
behaviors can you use to increase your English language abilities?
One resource to help you identify your current learning strategies is a language use
survey. This survey is designed to help you think about how you learn best andwhat are some possible new ways to approach language learning. The language
50

For writing practice: •Write a summary of an article of your choice.
•Write an original essay on a topic of your choice.
•Keep a learning diary in which you record new words,
phrases, grammar or any other pieces of information to
help promote your learning.
For listening practice: •Listen to a recording, write down what you hear, andcheck the transcript of the recording and compare it toyour notes. A listening comprehension textbook may be
helpful for this exercise.
•Visit the English learning website Voice of America anduse the website’s online news source with audio, video,
and transcript to write down what you hear and verify its
accuracy. http://m.learningenglish.voanews.com/•Visit the website Breaking News English for free English
lessons. The website offers content at seven different
ability levels. Students may select the speed at which
the recording is played. Written text is also available forstudents to check their listening accuracy.
http://breakingnewsenglish.com/
For speaking practice: •Audio record a 4-3-2 activity to build ﬂuency. Record
yourself telling a story or piece of information for four
minutes. Then tell the same story in three minutes.
Finally, say the same story in two minutes. Audio record
all three examples.
•Prepare a short presentation on a topic of your choice.
Video record the presentation and review it. Make any
corrections you desire to the presentation and thenperform the presentation a second time.

51

•Engage in conversations with English speakers
and record the conversations. Review the conversations
or areas in which communication became difﬁcult or inwhich communication broke down. Research the causesof the communication breakdown and ways to repair
those breakdowns in the future.
For reading practice: •Extensive reading requires students to read material thatis at or below the student’s current reading level. Students
will be able to read the material quickly and should not
require the use of a dictionary. The website Extensive
Reading Central, offers a wide variety of reading texts
at different ability levels. The website also offers students
vocabulary building activities. http://www.er-central.com/•Intensive reading requires students to read materials at
a level higher than their current reading level. Students
will read slowly. Grammar and vocabulary will be difﬁcult.
•Apply the SQ3R technique:
1. Survey: Skim the text for an overview of main ideas.
2. Question: The reader asks questions about what
they will read about based on the survey of thematerial.
3. Read: Read the text while looking for answers to thepreviously formed questions.
4. Recite: After you read each section, tell yourself-out
loud-what you have just read.
5. Review: Write a summary of the most important
information you have read.
6) Self-reflection: After you have spent the time and the energy to create yourEnglish learning curriculum, it is very important that you review the choices you
made and the activities you practiced. Were your choices effective? Did you meetyour learning goals? If yes, what helped the most? If not, what could have been
done differently? Were you satisﬁed with your progress? How did you use yourtime to study? Where did you study? How often did you consult with an advisor
about your language curriculum, progress, activities, or speciﬁc questions?
Learning is an ongoing process. You are never done. It is now time to take what
you have learned and begin the learning cycle again.

52

APPENDIX B
Self-report questionnaire for English language learners

Adapted from Learning to learn English: A course in learner training, (Ellis and Sinclair, 1989).
Adapted from Teaching by Principles, An interactive approach to pedagogy, (Brown, 2007).

Read the following statements. Consider your abilities to perform, in English, thetasks listed below. Give yourself a score for each task based on your current ability
to complete each task. This questionnaire can be completed in approximately ten toﬁfteen minutes.
1•Not able tocomplete thetask

2•A lot ofdifficultycompleting thetask•Errors arelikely to stop
communication•Errors are•Communication•Errors arelikely to disrupt errors are minimal
likely to stop
communication communication

Score

3
4
5
•No difficulties•Some difficulty •Few difficulties
completing the completing the task completing the task
task

Email Writing
Use an appropriate level of formality
for your writing purpose
Clearly state why you are writing theemail
Create topic sentences for eachparagraph
Use transition words to guide thereader through the email
Write a concluding sentence
Use appropriate vocabulary for the
farewell

Score•Communication iserror free

Presentation
Identify the three major components
of a presentation
In the opening of the presentation,
provide an appropriate greeting,introduction, purpose statement, andoutline of your speech.
Organize the body of the presentation
in a logical sequence
Provide supporting points for eachmain point in the bodyUse visual aids/PowerPoint to support
your presentation
Provide a summary, conclusion, andfuture action statements in the closing
Answer questions from the audience53

ScoreWriting Papers
Select a topic that is appropriate forthe writing purpose

Score

Create an outline before writing
Write a thesis statement to give yourpaper focus
Organize the paper into an opening,
body, and conclusion
Paragraphs should include a topic
sentence, supporting sentences, anda conclusion

Score

Score

Guess at meaning from the story

Scores of 1 or 2 indicate areas where English language skills are lacking and should
receive focused attention.
A score of 3 indicates further knowledge and practice is recommended.
Scores of 4 or 5 indicate ability to perform these tasks with conﬁdence. Practicing
these skills to maintain proﬁciency is recommended.
The results of this questionnaire should be used to create the learning goals andobjectives for your self-directed learning curriculum.

Use the story to understand new
vocabulary words

Score

Interviews
Describe your skills
Describe your qualifications

Score

Write a resume in English
Write a cover letter in English
Talk about your job history

54

Scan the text for specific information

Listening
Understand the type of speech you
are listening to (a conversation, aspeech, a news broadcast, etc.)
Decide the speaker’s purpose in
speaking (persuade, request, affirm,
deny, inform, etc.)
Listen for the main idea andsupporting ideas
Guess at the meaning of unknown
words or phrases
Use the speaker’s facial movements
or body language to determine
meaning

Describe your personal qualities

Reading
Choose reading materials that areat your level and fulfill your learning
needs
Identify the purpose of the author’s
writing
Skim the text for main ideas

Small Talk
Introduce yourself to a new person
Ask questions with the appropriate
level of formality
Answer questions with the appropriate
level of formality
Ask logical follow up questions during
a conversation
Politely end a conversation

General Communication
Asking someone to repeat themselves
Restating what someone has said inyour own words
Asking about someone’s schedule andavailability
Describe your schedule and availability
Talk about daily routines
Ask for or give directions to a location

55

APPENDIX C
Can-do statements for self-assessment of learning progress

Adapted from the Centre for Canadian Language Benchmarks, Can-Do Statements
Adapted from the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition, University of
Minnesota, Language strategy use survey

Place a mark in the space to the left of the statements in which you can successfullycomplete the task written in the statement.
Email writing___ I can use an appropriate level of formality to write an email for any purpose___ I can write an appropriate greeting.
___ I can write an appropriate opening sentence.
___ I can create clear topic sentences for each paragraph.
___ I can use transition words to move from paragraph to paragraph.
___ I can write a concluding sentence.
___ I can use appropriate vocabulary to write the farewell.
Presentations___ I can identify the three major components of a presentation___ I can create an appropriate greeting, introduction, purpose statement, andoutline in the opening of a presentation.
___ I can organize the main points of the body of the presentation into a logicalorder___ I can provide supporting points for each main point in the body of thepresentation.
___ I can use visual aids in my presentation.
___ I can provide a summary, conclusion, and future action statements in theclosing.
___ I can answer questions from the audience in English.
Paper writing___ I can write a short paragraph about a topic I am familiar with.
___ I can write a paper of three or more paragraphs on a topic I am familiar with.
___ I can write a paper that is more than one page long on a topic I am familiarwith.
___ I can write using formal or informal vocabulary and phrases.
___ I can use books, journal articles, and internet resources to support my ideas.
___ I can use other people’s writing to support the ideas in my paper.
___ I can cite the work of other people who have inﬂuenced my writing.
56

Listening___ I can understand greetings and introductions.
___ I can follow simple instructions and directions.
___ I can understand requests and warnings.
___ I can ask for help and permission.
___ I can understand simple small talk and social conversation.
___ I can understand descriptions of people and objects.
___ I can understand events listed in the order they occurred.
Reading___ I can understand simple social messages.
___ I can understand simple instructions with multiple steps.
___ I can understand information about everyday topics.
___ I can look for and ﬁnd information written in simple charts, schedules, andforms.
___ I can understand social conversation including common idioms.
___ I can ﬁnd information in dictionaries, encyclopedias, textbooks, and online.
Small talk___ I can introduce myself to a new person.
___ I can exchange business cards if necessary.
___ I can ask questions with the appropriate level of formality.
___ I can answer questions with the appropriate level of formality.
___ I can ask logical follow up questions during a conversation.
___ I can use knowledge of a topic to continue a conversation.
___ I can politely end a conversation or excuse myself from a conversation.
General communication___ I can ask someone to repeat themselves.
___ I can restate what someone has said in my own words.
___ I can ask about someone’s schedule and availability.
___ I can describe my schedule and availability to others.
___ I can talk about my daily routine.
___ I can ask for or give directions to a location.
Interviews___ I can describe my skills.
___ I can describe my qualiﬁcations.
___ I can describe my personal qualities.
___ I can write a resume in English.
57

___ I can write a cover letter in English.
___ I can answer questions about my job history.
After considering all of the statements listed above, you should now be able to see
which areas of English you are able participate in with conﬁdence and those areas
which require further study and practice.
At this time please think about what activities and learning practices you
have used to learn in English in the past. Which activities and learning practices
helped you to improve your English learning? Which activities and learning
practices did not help you to improve your English learning? What can you change
to improve the activities that did help you learn English? It is recommended toseek the advice of a language instructor when considering these questions. As
you answer these questions, you and your language advisor can begin creating an
English learning curriculum that will help you achieve your English learning goals.

Fostering Students to State Opinions
Comfortably Through a Speaking Activity
意見を発信する力を養成する
スピーキングアクティビティ
Misaki Shirose, 白勢美咲
Tamagawa University, Center for English as a Lingua Franca, Japanm.shirose@lab.tamagawa.ac.jp

ABSTRACTIn this article, a speaking activity which can be implemented in university-level
English courses will be introduced. With three integral components (familiar topics,
feedback and student-self assessment), this activity has especially been designed
and is effective for low-intermediate university students to state their opinions
comfortably, to build up their vocabulary and increase their conﬁdence in language
learning. After being assigned the activity, students became more conﬁdent andresponsive in conveying their ideas in English.
KEYWORDS: Speaking, Conﬁdence, Self-assessment
1. INTRODUCTION

In this article, I will introduce a speaking activity which can be easily implemented
in low-intermediate level English courses. This activity beneﬁts students by building
vocabulary, providing an opportunity to express opinions comfortably, and fostering
their conﬁdence in language learning. The reason for creating this activity was that I
noticed that discussion questions often accompanied by a particular reading passage
were quite challenging for low-intermediate students; the questions require learners tounderstand the content, evaluate ideas and information while reading, and state theiropinions based on their reading comprehension. In order to address this situation,
I implemented a speaking activity, which would lighten the burden on students byproviding enough scaffolding and familiar topics to them, consequently enhancing
their conﬁdence to carry out a discussion in English. Student self-assessment was also
provided to raise students’consciousness and responsibility towards their language
learning. The outcomes of the activity and assessment were remarkable; students
became conﬁdent in giving their opinions as well as independent language learners.
58

59

60

2. RATIONALE

3. PROCEDURE

The aim of the activity is to foster students to state their opinions comfortably, to build
up their vocabulary, and to construct conﬁdence to carry out a discussion in English.
The basic framework for this speaking activity was taken from Komatsubara’s (2013)free-talk activity, in which junior high school students acquire their communication
strategies by talking about a given topic freely, resulting in an increase of positive
attitudes to communicate in English. I modiﬁed his activity with greater emphasis on
fostering students to form their opinions clearly, hence building conﬁdence, so thatit serves as a bridge activity for students to successfully complete discussions on
academic topics from the textbooks.
Signiﬁcant focus is placed on how to build students’conﬁdence in speaking
in English. It seems that their reluctant attitude during speaking activities is often
attributed to their insecurities and lack of experience to actively speak up in English.
In Williams and Andrade (2009)’
s study of EFL learner’s anxiety and its causes,
they conﬁrm that activities that incorporate familiar topics prevent them from feelinganxiety in language learning. By talking about topics that relate to their personal
experience, they are able to reduce their anxiety and hopefully feel the sense ofachievement as they form their opinions. Thus, topics used in this activity graduallyshift away from one’s own relevant experience to more abstract and opinion typequestions as the semester progresses. Each topic is accompanied with the opinion
questions or open-ended questions which elicit their opinions with convincing reasons(Appendix A). What I emphasize during the task is the uniqueness and diversity instudent responses, so that they will not adhere to right or wrong answers and present
their opinions without hesitation.
Another component of this activity is student self-assessment. It offers aneffective means of objectively reﬂecting on their progress and attitudes towards
studying English, which enhances students’
conﬁdence. Cunningham (2011) suggeststhat self-assessment plays a signiﬁcant role in raising students’consciousness andimproving their attitude in their language learning. Baleghizadeh and Masoun (2013)
also conﬁrm that providing self-assessment on a regular basis increases their level ofcapability. Therefore, at the beginning of the semester and at the end of each month,students evaluate their progress and conﬁdence in their speaking skills, the skills
they want to improve, and what is essential to achieve them, on the scale provided on
the worksheet (Appendix C), to engage them in the process of learning and stimulate
their initiative in improving their English. The questions regarding their attitude andimprovement are assessed by rating themselves, so that they can easily reﬂect on
their progress every four weeks.

The activity is designed to be carried out during each lesson’s warm-up session
throughout the semester. First, I list the topic and the questions on the whiteboard,
distribute the worksheet (Appendix B) and allocate 5 minutes for students to talkfreely based on the topic. During the talk, I encourage the students to write down new
words, which they looked up in a dictionary, in the“New Words and Expressions”
section on the worksheet, and write their partner’s answers in the“Your Partner’s
Response”section on the worksheet to promote note-taking skills. While monitoring
the students, I provide prompts or light assistance where necessary.
Feedback is an integral part of this activity; students can build vocabulary andexpand their perspectives by sharing their opinions as a class. After the talk, I collectthe worksheets and compile common errors, useful expressions and interesting or
thought-provoking ideas from their worksheets to share them in class. In the following
week’
s class, after returning the worksheet to each student, I go through the errors,
expressions and ideas on the whiteboard. I encourage students to write down any
new or unfamiliar words that were brought up by other students in the“New Words& Expressions”section on the worksheet, so that they are able to refer back to their
vocabulary list during the semester for continual revision. As an extension, writing
a journal, making a presentation and debating could possibly be incorporated as afollow-up activity if time permits.
Student self-assessment also plays an important role in the activity. At theend of each month, I instruct students to evaluate their progress and conﬁdence intheir speaking skills on the scale provided on the worksheet (Appendix C). For thequestions regarding to their efforts to improve their weaknesses in English, I allow
students to answer in Japanese to prevent their responses from being misinterpreted
due to their English proﬁciency. Additionally, I ask students to write any comments
to the instructor, or to suggest topics they want to discuss in future classes.
4. CONCLUSION

This activity beneﬁted students in three ways; stating their opinions comfortably,building vocabulary, and fostering their conﬁdence.The primary focus is to improvestudent’s skills to state one’s opinion comfortably. Over the semester, students became
more conﬁdent in organizing and forming their opinions and took more responsiveroles during class conversations. According to the results of the Self-Assessment
collected from 37 students, while the number of the students who answered“verycomfortable”and“comfortable”with stating their opinions was 3 at the beginning of
the semester, it increased to 16 at the end of the semester. On the contrary, the numberof students who perceived themselves as“uncomfortable”and“very uncomfortable”
decreased from 15 to 7. Students were also given the means to be able to expand theirperspectives by sharing their opinions as a class while being exposed to new ideas by61

fellow students. This extended their range of expressions and thoughts which could
be employed during their future discussions.
By implementing this speaking activity, I perceived positive outcomes in
my classes. I believe that the activity developed students’potentials to discuss on
academic themes comfortably and promote them to become more conﬁdent andindependent language learners.
REFERENCES

APPENDIX A

Topics and Questions
Week 1
Topic: T raveling
Questions: Whichcountries do you want to go? Why do you want to go there?
Do you think you would have a chance to go there in the future?

Baleghizadeh, S., & Masoun, A. (2013). The effect of self-assessment on EFL
learners’self-efﬁcacy. TESL Canada Journal, 31(1), 42-58. Retrieved fromhttp://ﬁles.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1033761.pdf

Week 2
Topic: U niversity
Questions: W hy did you decide to go to university? What do you want to learn
while you are in university? Why do you want to learn it/them?

Cunningham, N. (2011). Using self-assessments in a university academic English
class in Japan. Josai International University Bulletin, 19(2), 43-68.
Retrieved from http://www.jiu.ac.jp/book/bulletin/2010/human/Cunningham.
pdf

Week 3Topic: S tudying English
Questions: W hy do we have to study English? What is your purpose of studying
English?

Komatsubara, T. (2013). Eigono jugyoo tanoshikusuru 10-punkanno obikatsudo.
[A 10-minute-activity that makes English lessons enjoyable]. Tokyo:
Sanseido.

Week 4
Topic: T heater
Questions: W hat is the best live theatrical performance you’ve ever seen? Why
do you think it was the best performance?

Williams, K. E., & Andrade, M. R. (2009). Foreign language learning anxiety inJapanese EFL university classes: Causes, coping, and locus of control. Sophia
Junior College Faculty Journal, 29, 1-24. Retrieved fromhttp://e-ﬂt.nus.edu.sg/v5n22008/williams.pdf

Week 5Topic: S martphone
Questions: D
 o you always have your smartphone at your side? Why or why not?
What are the side effects of smartphones?
Week 6
Topic: G iving advice
Questions: W hat are three pieces of advice you would give younger kids injunior high school? Why?
Week 7
Topic: L ifestyle
Questions: W hich do you prefer, the city lifestyle or the country lifestyle?
Support your answer with sufﬁcient reasons.
Week 8Topic: A mazing structure
Questions: W hat do you think is the most amazing structure in the world? Why?

62

63

Week 9Topic: I nspiration
Questions: W ho inspires you? What makes the person so special to you? How
does he or she inﬂuence you?
Week 10
Topic: M oney and Happiness
Questions: C
 an money buy you happiness? Why or why not? Support youranswer.
Week 11
Topic: I nvention 1
Questions: T hink of a machine you would like to invent. Describe your idea.
Week 12
Topic: I nvention 2
Questions: W hat do you think is the most important invention? How did itchange our lives?
Week 13
Topic: F utureQuestions: W hat do you want to do with your life? Where do you see yourself in
10 years? Why do you think so?

APPENDIX B

Name:
Topic & Your Partner’s Response
Week Topic:
1

New Words & Expressions

Week Topic:
2
Week Topic:
3
Week Topic:
4
Week Topic:
5
Week Topic:
6
Week Topic:
7
Week Topic:
8
Week Topic:
9
Week Topic:
10
Week Topic:
11
Week Topic:
12
Week Topic:
13

64

65

Computer-assisted Language Tests for the English
Classroom: Blackboard® Tests and Google Forms

APPENDIX C
Name:

The
beginning of
the semester
OctoberNovember
December
The end of
the semester

Is it
How
enjoyable tocomfortable are
speak in English? you with stating
your opinion in
English?
5=Veryenjoyable
5=Very4=Enjoyable
3=Moderately
comfortable
4=Comfortableenjoyable
2=Not so enjoyable 3=Moderately
1=Not at all
comfortable
2=Not socomfortable
1=Not at all

How confident
are you to
speak inEnglish?
5=Veryconfident
4=Confident
3=Moderately
confident
2=Not soconfident
1=Not at all

54321

54321

54321

54321
54321
54321

54321
54321
54321

54321
54321
54321

54321

54321

54321

Write any comments or suggestions to the instructor.

Note: *This appendix was originally printed in landscape orientation.

What skills(s)do you want
to improve in
the next fourweeks? (Youcan also write
your response inJapanese.)

What are you
going to do toimprove theskills(s)? (Youcan also write
your response inJapanese.)

英語教育現場におけるコンピュータ支援テスト： Blackboard® テストツールとGoogleフォームの活用法
Brett Milliner, ミリナー・ブレット
Tamagawa University, Center for English as a Lingua Franca, Japan
milliner@lit.tamagawa.ac.jp
Blair Barr, バアル・ブレア
Tamagawa University, Center for English as a Lingua Franca, Japan
blairbarr@lab.tamagawa.ac.jp

ABSTRACT

Computer-assisted language testing (CALT) offers language teachers the opportunity
to transform the work they do in the language classroom. Apart from saving teachers
time to mark and manage the grading process, the immediate feedback provided
to students can have a powerful impact on their learning. In a review of Center
for English as a Lingua Franca (CELF) teachersʼ use of the Blackboard content
management system (CMS), however, Milliner & Cote (2016) identiﬁed that very
few CELF teachers are making use of CALT. This article attempts to make a case for
CALT and introduces two formats that teachers can adopt: (1) the Blackboard® CMS,
and (2) Google Forms and Google Sheets with some helpful add-on applications.
KEYWORDS: CALL, Blackboard®, Google Forms, Computer-assisted language testing,
CALT
1. INTRODUCTION

In the case of contemporary internet-connected language classrooms, the use ofcomputer-assisted language tests (CALT) represents an efﬁcient and effective way
for teachers to manage assessment, homework, and other classroom tasks. However,
evaluations of computer technology use in English classrooms both in the Center for
English as a Lingua Franca (Milliner & Cote, 2016) and at other universities in Japan(Bracher, 2013) suggest that CALT are seldom used. This article promotes the useof CALT and will introduce two formats for their design and delivery: (1) the online
test function available in the Blackboard CMS, and (2) the free services offered by
Google: Forms and Sheets.
66

67

2. COMPUTER-ASSISTED LANGUAGE TESTS (CALT)

step in preparing students to engage in adult life and work settings.

The authors deﬁne CALT as any test delivered via the internet to a personal computeror mobile device (e.g., a smartphone or tablet). Apart from test management, CALT
also mark students’responses and provide feedback on their test performances (e.g.,
overall test scores, test item analysis and comparisons with other class members).
In the next section, the authors will introduce the beneﬁts and drawbacks of CALT.

2.2 Concerns of CALT

2.1 Benefits of CALTThe use of CALT provides teachers with a range of opportunities to improve theireffectiveness in the classroom. Firstly, in light of the growing trend towards formative
assessment, where teachers conduct larger numbers of short, diagnostic-type tests,Ćukušić, Garača, and Jadrić, (2013) argued that this type of assessment can be more
efﬁciently managed using CALT. CALT also create reports in real-time which allows
teachers to more objectively and efﬁciently scrutinize the effects of their teaching(Ćukušić et al., 2013; Roever, 2001). For example, a teacher can use analytical tools
such as item analysis to establish detailed summaries of individual and class responses(Wang, 2014). Moreover, when teachers change their homework tasks to an online
test format, they can promote greater student accountability (Bracher, 2013; Roever,
2001; Suvorov & Hegelheimer, 2014) as it is easy to discern whether or not students
have completed their assignments.
Another argument for utilizing CALT is that they remove barriers between
teachers and students (Ćukušić, Garača, & Jadrić, 2013). Teachers can quickly
identify students who need remedial attention (Wang, 2014). Students who arehaving problems sometimes prove difﬁcult to identify in a large class, or language
classes speciﬁcally, because of the various language abilities. Teachers who establish
an intervention online, can offer support outside of class and provide support in acontext that is more conﬁdential for students.
Lastly, one of the strongest arguments for using CALT is that students canreceive immediate feedback on their learning progress (Ćukušić et al., 2013; Roever,
2001; Vanderkleij, Eggen, Timmers, & Veldkamp, 2011; Wang, 2014). In the caseof a class without CALT, students completing a homework assignment or take-hometest would be required to wait until the upcoming class to receive feedback from theirteacher, thereby potentially dampening motivation to focus on errors or reﬁne study
techniques. Moreover, students can retake a test to conﬁrm their learning progress.
Along with individual feedback, students can see how their performance compareswith peers by using item analysis or overall average data (Wang, 2014). This factor
can also have a motivating impact upon students (Vanderkleij et al., 2011). When
students learn to use the feedback data more effectively for their learning, students
are learning to (a) become less dependent on their teachers, and (b) become more
self-directed or autonomous (Ćukušić et al., 2013; Wang, 2014). Also, as Ćukušić etal. (2013) noted, learning how to evaluate and respond to feedback can be a powerful
68

As was noted in the introduction, Milliner and Cote (2016) evaluated CELF teachers’
usage of the Blackboard CMS, and found that even though a majority of teachers
were using the Blackboard system, the online test function was used in only 21 outof 76 classes. In a survey of English teachers’use of internet-based tools at otherJapanese Universities, Bracher (2013) found that only 26 out of the 100 respondents
reported using CALT in their classes. Brasher (2013) also observed a drop in usage
between teachers who responded in 2012 and those who responded in 2008.
There are a number of reasons why some language teachers are opting not
to use CALT. A lack of understanding of the tools and functionality is one reason.
Next, busy teachers may be choosing not to invest lesson planning time on creatinga CALT when the questions and answers are already provided in the textbook orteacher’s guide. The investment of time to: (a) learn how to make an online test,and (b) program test templates may also appear to be too great, particularly whenteachers face unstable work circumstances and a revolving list of class allocations
each semester (i.e., the test materials could not be reused in a later course).
The preparedness of students to use this online learning tool effectively
is another concern. Eklund and Sinclair (2000) admit that while e-Learning tools
represent an opportunity for students to learn more actively, students are also more
likely to become lost, fail to use the navigational tools effectively, skip importantparts, and choose visually stimulating content over material that may be more
informative. As tertiary-level Japanese students are reported to have limited PC
knowledge (Bracher, 2013; Lockley & Blyth, 2014) and digital literacy (Cote &Milliner, 2016; Gobel & Kano, 2014), one has to question whether they will be able
to use this learning tool to its full potential. Moreover, to mediate this issue, language
teachers will have to dedicate time towards training students and structuring CALT
in a way that students can slowly learn how to use this learning tool effectively.
A ﬁnal concern surrounds test security, or students sharing answers with theirpeers (Suvorov & Hegelheimer, 2014). Although making tests available online andproviding students with feedback relating to their test performance are signiﬁcantadvantages of this approach, test security can be compromised. Students may
complete tests together or take screenshots of the test and feedback data and later
share it with their classmates or friends. While some tests use computer-adaptive
test features (e.g., randomized questions and rotating a large bank of test questions)and stricter management of test settings, this issue has led Roever (2001) as well as
Suvorov and Hegelheimer (2014) to caution against using CALT for higher stakes
language testing.
In the following sections, the authors will introduce two approaches fordelivering CALT: (1) Using the Blackboard CMS, and (2) Google Forms andGoogle Sheets with add-on applications. It is worthwhile noting here that if teachers
69

are interested in using a system that provides automated feedback, developments
in technology still limit CALT to managing receptive learning tasks (Suvorov &Hegelheimer, 2014). Some examples of how CALT can be used in the English
classroom include: collecting reading or listening test responses, managing vocabulary
quizzes, completing a TOEIC® test or other standardised test practices, completingquestions from a textbook, running an online poll, or managing action research or
diagnostic instruments. Note, however, that manual grading tools are available in
CALT that allow the teacher to give feedback on productive tasks such as writing,but the feedback is not immediate for students.

3.2 Uploading the test template to Blackboard

Teachers then upload their Excel template to the Blackboard CMS. After uploading,teachers can consider a range of settings to manage the release of their tests (as seenin Figure 2). For example, teachers can: (1) set time-limits or due-dates for taking
the test; (2) restrict the number of times students can repeat a test; (3) determine howmuch feedback students receive (e.g., display of correct answers or showing the classaverage); and (4) shape the way test questions are presented (e.g., random display ofquestions and time-limits for speciﬁc questions).

3. BLACKBOARD CALT

Creating a CALT in the Blackboard CMS involves a four-step process:3.1 Create a test template in Microsoft Excel
Although teachers are able to manually create a test within the Blackboard system,
it is recommended that teachers create a test answer template in Microsoft Excel(and save the ﬁle in a rich text format- rtf). In the case of a textbook or a textbook
generated test for example, a template can be copied and edited to reﬂect the answers
for a later test or chapter. Although a computer can only mark multiple choice (MC)or true/false (T/F) questions reliably, teachers can program their template to include
other question types and manually mark students’work inside the system. As seen in
the example below (Figure 1), a line of short-response (SR) questions (10-13) and ﬁll
in the blank (FIB) questions (14-18) were included in this test template along withmultiple choice and true/false questions.

		

70

Figure 2. Blackboard test settings.

3.3 Release the test on Blackboard

Figure 3 below provides an example of how the test appears on a student’s computer.
After taking the test, students can: see their overall score, check results for individualquestions and compare their results with the class average. One of the greatest
advantages of the Blackboard test function is that teachers can funnel test scoresto the Blackboard Grade Center. This saves time for the teacher, and students can
immediately identify how a test score inﬂuences their overall grade for the class.

Figure 1. A test template created in Microsoft Excel.

71

process, formCreator by John McGowen - used to build test templates and generate
forms rapidly; and Flubaroo by Dave Abouav of edCode.org - a tool that can rapidly
calculate and deliver test results to students by email.
The process to build a digital test with Google tools can be broken into twostages, with an additional two stages for enabling graded feedback and viewing
analytics.
4.1 Build a template using the formCreator add-on in Google Sheets

Figure 3. Preview of a test in a student’s browser.

3.4 Analyse the test results

Using the formCreator add-on in Google Sheets, teachers can generate a setup sheet(Figure 5) that is used as a template for generating a Google Forms test. Similar toBlackboard tests, these templates can be reused for textbooks with repeating formats,or the templates can be readily copied and edited to reﬂect unique contents. The
formCreator spreadsheet provides teachers with a quick and easy way to edit contents
for a Google Form. Working directly in Google Forms can be a slow process tonavigate as contents can be spread across a lengthy webpage. The formCreator addon allows users to view the contents of the form in a condensed spreadsheet that isnavigated with ease before creating the Google Form with a single click.

Blackboard generates a range of analytic data concerning test results. Figure 4(below) illustrates the test statistics function (focusing on test-item analysis). Thisdata informs teachers about weaknesses or areas where further instruction is required.

Figure 5. A template using formCreator in Google Sheets.

4.2 Finalize the Google Forms test
Figure 4. Example of test statistics.

4. GOOGLE FORMS TESTING

In order to create tests that provide learners with feedback, there are two Google
applications that can be used in conjunction, Google Sheets and Google Forms.
However, within Google Sheets two add-ons need to be enabled to simplify the72

Once the Google Forms test is generated, teachers should link the response destination
to a Google Sheets document. This will generate an additional tab in your Google
Sheets document that will contain responses from the form in a spreadsheet.
Generally, if the template was set up correctly in the formCreator spreadsheet,the Google Forms test should be ready to distribute using a weblink. The form canbe edited for style and color. In addition, teachers can add pictures and enable data
validation for speciﬁc ﬁelds to set character limits or to require particular types oftext such as email addresses.
In a Google Form, teachers can generate a wide variety of question types,
73including multiple choice questions, drop-down lists (Figure 6), checkboxes for
multiple selections, scales, grids, short texts, and paragraph texts. However, thegrading functions directly in the Google Forms site are currently limited to closedresponse questions. Alternatively, teachers can perform more grading functions with
the Flubaroo add-on in Google Sheets.

response or spelling tests. In addition, teachers can also choose to skip questions or
grade by hand. Next, teachers will be prompted to select the line with the answer key
and then activate the grading. At this point, Flubaroo produces an additional tab in
the Google Sheet with graded results (Figure 8).

Figure 7. Grading settings in Flubaroo.
Figure 6. Example of a Google Form’s test with drop-down choices.

4.3 Using Flubaroo Add-on
4.3.1 Grading and Feedback with Flubaroo

In order to create an answer key for Flubaroo, the teacher must complete thetest one time with correct answers. Next, teachers should return to the linked Google
Sheets document to enable Flubaroo for grading.
There are a number of options at this point, but two are particularly usefulfor grading tests. The ﬁrst is to grade all tests at one time and then release all test
results at the same time. Alternatively, Flubaroo can be automated to release results
immediately upon the completion of individual tests.
4.3.2 Grading and sending independently with Flubaroo

At the end of a test, the teacher can choose to grade assignment using the
Flubaroo add-on. Then, teachers must set the weight of each question and decide how
they would like Flubaroo to grade each item (Figure 7). As a default, Flubaroo tries todetect identifying ﬁelds such as name, student number, and email, and then it assigns
every other item for normal grading, which automatically grades answers correct
if the contents are the same as the answer key. This option works well for closed74

Figure 8. Summary of test results with Flubarro.

The Flubaroo grades output not only contains individual scores and overall
averages, but it also highlights low-scoring questions and low-scoring students(Figure 8). Note, however, that questions that are graded by hand will contain blankﬁelds and incomplete grades at this point. Teachers, however, can insert additional
columns next to the student output, and then assign point values for individual
answers (Figure 9). These scores can be copied over to the Flubaroo grades sheet for
the appropriate questions.
75

4.3.3 Automated grading and emailing of results

For homework assignments, teachers may also choose to provide learners
with instant feedback. However, this option is only accurate with closed-responseor spelling tests. The setup is nearly identical to that used in grading after a test,
but teachers should select from the advanced options to enable autograding. At thispoint, teachers select the grading scales, choose the answer key, and ﬁnalize the mailsettings. Once this is completed, students can receive immediate feedback in theiremail upon the completion of the test, enabling learners to consider errors while
maintaining engagement.
5. Using Flubaroo and Google Forms as analytical tools

Figure 9. Text responses in Google sheets with manual grading.

Once scores have been tabulated, Flubaroo can then be used to share resultswith students via email (Figure 10). The email output will always include a score,
however, teachers can optionally include feedback that highlights students’incorrect
answers, displays hand-graded scores, or provides students with‘correct answers’(or sample answers) from the answer key. One concern with using Flubaroo is that
security settings connected to students’cellphone mailboxes may prevent them fromreceiving email reports. This problem can be overcome if students supply internetbased email addresses (e.g., Gmail or Hotmail).

Figure 10. Sharing of grades through email with Flubaroo.
76

As with Flubaroo in the previous section, the output for the scores also includes abreakdown of each question so teachers can see what percentage of the students
guessed each item correctly (Figure 8). This is a very helpful tool for guiding teachers
to identifying reviewable contents. However, there are a couple of weaknesses withthis display. For one, the Flubaroo output does not readily display which distractors
led to errors. In addition, the output can embarrass learners with its clearly highlighted
low scorers.
As a solution to the two problems above, we return to Google Forms to view
the summary of responses without isolating individually identiﬁable responses. For
closed-response questions, the answers are displayed in a clearly labeled pie chart(Figure 11). These can be shared with the class. Then, learners can discuss the correct
answers while also considering why speciﬁc errors occurred. For text-based answers,
the answers appear in a list that can be shared with the class (Figure 12). In this case,learners could be asked to look through the list for errors, and then be encouraged tocorrect the errors before reporting back to the class. From experience, learners seemto engage with these activities because the feedback is quick, and the data is basedon real contents generated by the learners themselves.

Figure 11. Summary of test results displayed in Google Forms.

77Ćukušić, M., Garača, Z., & Jadrić, M. (2013). Online self-assessment and students’success in higher education institutions. Computers & Education, 72, 100109.

Eklund, J., & Sinclair, K. (2000). An empirical appraisal of the the adaptive
interfaces for instructional systems. Educational Technology & Society, 3,
165-177.
Gobel, P., & Kano, M. (2014). Mobile natives, Japanese university student’s use ofdigital technology. In J. B. Son (Ed.), Computer-Assisted Language Learning:
Learners, Teachers and Tools (pp. 21-46). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge
Scholars Publishing.
Figure 12. Summary of text input in Google Forms.

5. CONCLUSION

The use of CALT represents an opportunity for teachers to more efﬁciently andeffectively manage homework and assessment items in their English classes. The
level of feedback and the efﬁciency of delivery to students can be a catalyst for
students exercising greater ownership and reﬂection on their learning. This paper
introduced two formats for managing online testing: (1) the test function available inBlackboard, and (2) the free service, Google Forms and related add-ons. The authors
hope that this paper will embolden more teachers to try out these tools for themselves.
The authors are also looking forward to investigating student perceptions of CALT
and measuring students’use of metacognitive strategies after receiving instant test
feedback.
REFERENCES

Milliner, B., & Cote, T. (2016). Adoption and application of CMS: Crucial steps
for an effective e-learning component. International Journal of Computer
Assisted Language Learning and Teaching, 6(3), 54-67.
Roever, C. (2001). Web-based language testing. Language Learning & Technology,
5(2), 34-37. Retrieved from http://llt.msu.edu/vol5num2/roever/Suvoruv, R., & Hegelheimer, V. (2014). Computer assisted language testing. In
J. Kunnan (Ed.), The Companion to Language Assessment (pp. 593-613),
Malden MA: Wiley-Blackwell. doi: 10.1002/9781118411360.wbcla083
Vanderkleij, F. M., Eggen, T. J. H. M., Timmers, C. F., & Veldkamp, C. (2011).
Effects of feedback in a computer-based assessment for learning. Computers& Education, 58, 263-272. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2011.07.020
Wang, T. (2013). Developing an assessment-centered e-Learning system for
improving student learning effectiveness. Computers & Education, 73, 189203.

Bracher, J. (2013). A survey of online teaching by native-speaker English
instructors at Japanese universities. The JALT CALL Journal, 9(3), 221-239.
Cote, T., & Milliner, B. (2016). Japanese university students’self-assessment
and digital literacy test results. In S. Papadima-Sophocleous, L. Bradley& S. Thouësny (Eds.), CALL communities and culture – short papers fromEUROCALL 2016 (pp. 125-131). Research-publishing.net. https://doi.
org/10.14705/rpnet.2016.eurocall2016.549
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79

New Learning and Teaching Modalities: The
Reinvented Learning Spaces at ELF Study Hall
2015, Tamagawa University
ELF Study Hall における新たな学修環境に関する考察と評価
Yuri Jody Yujobo, 祐乗坊由利ジョディー
yujobo@lit.tamagawa.ac.jp
Jesse Hsu, スー・ジェシー
hsujesse@lab.tamagawa.ac.jp
Rasami Chaikul, チャイクル・ラサミ
rasami.chaikul@lab.tamagawa.ac.jp
Andrew Leichsenring, レイクセンリング・アンドリュー
andrew@lit.tamagawa.ac.jp
Tamagawa University, Center for English as a Lingua Franca, Japan

ABSTRACT

There has been a wellspring of interest in recent years in the quality and characterof learning spaces and their overall impact on teaching and learning processes. As
the trend of academic institutions, from primary to tertiary, introducing new learning
environments that blend innovation, technology, and ﬂexibility continues, researchthat evaluates and enhances their post-occupancy use becomes increasingly critical.
This article provides a brief overview of the newly constructed learning spaces at the
ELF Study Hall and describes their inﬂuence on language teaching and learning basedon surveys administered to 1610 students and 29 teachers and personal observationof the spaces. There appears to be a signiﬁcant link between student satisfaction withthe learning spaces, especially with various attributes of the new facilities, and aperceived impact on language learning. This preliminary report is meant to guide
future investigation on how new learning spaces inﬂuence pedagogical choices andlearner experience in an ELF-informed language program setting.

1. THE NEW LEARNING SPACES

This article provides a brief overview of the new learning spaces in the ELF Study
Hall 2015 building of Tamagawa University and some initial impressions of how
the spaces enhanced ELF-informed language pedagogy and learning. Extensively
renovated to support innovative language teaching and learning, the building houses
the Center for English as a Lingua Franca (CELF) which administrates the campuswide English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) program at Tamagawa University. The spaces
were opened in April 2016 after almost a year of planning with input from a small
team which included the CELF director and faculty members, interior designers, anduniversity administrative staff. The discussions focused on creating an environment
for optimal learning through classroom ambience, furniture, and equipment. The prerenovation lecture-style classrooms did not match the collaborative nature of ELF
classes, inhibiting teachers from moving beyond teacher-centered pedagogies. The
team placed a high value on creating learning spaces that had not only modern andwelcoming aesthetics, but moreover, had a high degree of ﬂexibility that supported awide range of classroom learning conﬁgurations. This involved focused deliberationon the selection of various classroom components and attributes, including aesthetic
considerations (layout possibilities, temperature, sitting ergonomics, acoustics,
whiteboard projection visibility, color schemes, and curtains), classroom furniture(i.e., desks, chairs, and whiteboards), audio-visual equipment (projectors, audiovisual consoles, and Wi-Fi Equipment).
Prior to the renovation, the classrooms were larger lecture-style halls which
had regimented rows of desks and chairs that were immovable—an aesthetic of
the Post-World War II era which emphasized rigid functionalism and encouraged
passive learning through restricting the mobility of both students and the teacher.
When engaged in group work activities, chairs could only be oriented towards
the front of the classroom, impeding students from facing each other, while longtables prevented teachers from easily approaching students. The classroom, built toaccommodate over 50 students (see Figure 1), was overly expansive for the language
classes that averaged around 24 students. In short, both students and teachers were
physically and socially constrained from freely entering into modalities of teaching
and learning processes, apart from those associated with a teacher-fronted lecture.
1.1 New Classrooms

Twenty-one large lecture classrooms (up to 80m2) that were previously used by ELF
were renovated into multi-department use classrooms and the stationed tables were
replaced with long moveable tables and colorful chairs. However, these rooms are nolonger used for ELF classes.

KEYWORDS: Active learning, Learning spaces, Learner experience, Student perceptions,
ELF pedagogy
80

81

1.2 New Media Classroom

A more expansive learning space (80m2) called the New Media Classroom isenvisioned to support more intensive collaborations; it features four wide screen
monitors that permit various projection possibilities, round tables that are scalable tovarious group sizes, and portable white boards for group work. Teachers noted thatthe room’s spaciousness and large circular tables facilitated presentation preparation,
speaking assessment, student collaboration, active learning, and project learning,
while the multiple video-monitors enhanced on-task behavior.
Figure 1. Before and after (Multi-department use classroom).

Instead, faculty ofﬁce spaces were converted into 22 smaller classroomsof 38m2 and 8 classrooms of 49m2 and speciﬁcally designed for ELF classes. The
new rooms were equipped with the ergonomic-friendly movable chairs and desks
which are conducive for interactive learning, wireless internet capability, expansive
whiteboards, and ultra short throw projectors.
Figure 3. New media classroom.

1.3 ELF Lounge

In addition to classroom renovation, a new area for student learning and relaxation
was created. The ELF Lounge includes a“Self-Study Zone”that has booths for small
group or individual work, a“Tutor Zone”for tutor sessions for individual learningneeds, and an Active Learning Zone that encourages various learning conﬁgurations.
The Active Learning Zone can also be converted into event space for seminars,
presentations, and for informal community activities. In this past semester, it has
been used for faculty development, the university festival, and other events. Also,teachers have utilized the space for class presentations and various workshops forstudents.

Figure 2. New ELF classrooms.

Figure 4. New ELF Lounge.
82

83

Table 1
Student survey results for impacts of ELF Learning space

Learning
space

High
ImpactImpactSome
ImpactLow
ImpactNo
ImpactTotal

Weighted
Average25.14%
182

42.27%
306

25.97%
188

5.11%
37

1.52%
11

724

2.16

Table 2Student survey results for impacts of size and chair formation on learning
High
ImpactImpactSome
ImpactLow
ImpactNo
ImpactTotal

Weighted
Average

Classroomsize

24.61%
391

37.19%
591

24.92%
396

10.89%
173

2.39%
28

1,589

2.29

Classroom
chairs25.36%
403

40.59%
645

24.10%
383

8.62%
137

1.32%
21

1,589

2.20

Figure 4 (continued). New ELF Lounge.

2. NEW LEARNING SPACES AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON LEARNING

Byers (2015) stated that“it is commonly claimed that teachers’utilisation of spacemakes a difference to pedagogy, and therefore, must impact on student learning
outcome”(Joint Information Systems Committee, 2006, as cited in Byers, 2015, p.
34). At the same time, how teachers can organize and orchestrate the learning that
occurs in a space is contingent on any given space’s unique physical and technologicalaffordances and constraints. In the case of our newly renovated building, the newlearning spaces allowed for a wider range of learning activities than previously was
possible. This seems to be reﬂected in the surveys results—most students and teachers
found that the new spaces impacted learning. More than 93% of the 724 students
surveyed thought that the ELF Lounge and Active Learning Zone has impact on theirEnglish learning (Table 1). Another survey revealed that over 60% of 1589 students
felt that the new classroom size and ﬂexible seating possibilities impacted their learning(Table 2). Similarly, 63% of 43 ELF teachers who completed a survey mentioned thatthese attributes were supportive of their teaching. In terms of how teachers’current
classroom practices, collaborative active learning approaches (group work, pair work,and project-based learning) were largely favored over whole-class lecture approach
which align with the new classrooms’affordances for group engagement (Table 3).
The new classrooms were often found to stimulate pedagogical changes with someteachers reporting that they are considering more collaborative pedagogical approaches.
Taken together, the survey responses, observations, and anecdotal evidence all appear
to indicate that the new classrooms positively inﬂuenced student learning while
also expanding teacher’s pedagogical repertoires; and that the ELF Lounge showed
moderate use which afﬁrms the need for strategies to increase student awareness of
this learning space. We recognize that these tentative ﬁndings show only broad trends
in relation to the new learning spaces but still suggest that the new learning spaces arewell received by students and teachers alike.
84

Table 3Teacher survey results for classroom approaches
5HighlyValued

4

3

2

1
Least
ValuedWhole-class lecture

20.7%

24.1%

34.5%

13.8%

6.9%

Group work

75.9%

24.1%

0

0

0

Pair work

72.4%

24.1%

3.4%

0

0

Project based learning

62.1%

34.5%

3.4%

0

0

Learning Management System

24.1%

37.9%

24.1%

6.9%

6.9%

3. A LOOK FORWARD

This initial report serves as a stepping stone for future in-depth research articulating
the relationship between the new learning spaces, learning experience, and pedagogy
within the ELF paradigm. In other words, how do the affordances of the new learningspaces support ELF-informed curriculum and pedagogical approaches? There is aneed for a more detailed understanding of the relationship between speciﬁc attributesof the learning environments (i.e., aesthetics, furniture, technology, and etc.) andpedagogy. We hope to establish a baseline understanding through more data sources.
The new learning spaces are an important step for providing ELF students with stateof-art facilities that support learning and teaching innovation. We agree with Yang,
85

Becrik-Gerber and Mino’s assessment that“student satisfaction and performance inhigher education classrooms continues to be a critical initiative among educators andresearchers”(2013, p. 171), but how this is realized in the ELF classroom remains
relatively unknown and the focus of future research. More scholarly attention needs
to be devoted to examining how learning spaces can be better designed and utilisedfor ELF teaching and learning.
REFERENCES

Byers, T. (2015, June 5). The empirical evaluation of the transition from traditional
to New Generation Learning Spaces on teaching and learning. In W. Imms,
B. Cleveland, H. Mitcheltree, & K. Fisher (Eds.), TERRAINS 2015 Mapping
learning environment evaluation across the design and education landscape:An international symposium for research higher degree students. Paper
presented at TERRAIN 2015, Melbourne School of Design, University of
Melbourne (pp. 32-41). Victoria, Australia: University of Melbourne LEaRN .
Yang, Z., Becerik-Gerber, B., & Mino, L. (2013). A study on student perceptionsof higher education classrooms: Impact of classroom attributes on student
satisfaction and performance. Building and Environment, 70, 171-188. doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2013.08.030

M-Reader in the Center for English as a Lingua
FrancaELFセンターにおけるM-Readerの使用
Kensaku Ishimaki, 石巻・賢作
Tamagawa University, Center for English as a Lingua Franca, Japank-ishimaki@lab.tamagawa.ac.jp
Brett Milliner, ミリナー・ブレット
Tamagawa University, Center for English as a Lingua Franca, Japan
milliner@lit.tamagawa.ac.jp

ABSTRACT

M-reader (www.mreader.org) is a free internet site which is helping Center for
English as a Lingua Franca (CELF) teachers to manage extensive reading (ER)more effectively in their courses. In short, teachers are using this system to verify
whether students have read and understood a graded reader book or not. This isachieved by students taking online quizzes designed to test their understanding of abookʼs plot and characters, rather than how well they remember the book. Throughthe M-Reader system, teachers and students can easily track the number of books
and the number of words read. In this paper, the authors brieﬂy introduce M-reader,and report on studentsʼ and teachersʼ utilisation of the program in their ELF classes.
The authors hope that this article can be a reference for English language teachersand program administrators who are interested in using M-reader as well as provide
an insight into how teachers are incorporating extensive reading into their ELF
syllabus.
KEYWORDS: M-reader, Extensive Reading, ELF
1. EXTENSIVE READING & M-READER
1.1 Extensive Reading

The popularity of extensive reading (ER) components in English language programs
throughout Japan are a reﬂection of the growing body of research advocating the
beneﬁts of this approach. Most ER programs share a common purpose: that learners
read large quantities of self-selected, simpliﬁed texts in an environment which
86

87

promotes the enjoyment of reading in a foreign language (Day & Bamford, 1998;
Renandya, 2007). Contemporary research (e.g., Beglar Hunt & Kite, 2012; Jeon &Day, 2015) has demonstrated ER’s superiority over other approaches (e.g., intensive
reading) for reading skill development and claimed that it should be part of all
language learning programs (Nakanishi, 2015).
1.2 M-Reader

M-Reader is a free internet site designed to help teachers to verify whether students
have read and understood a graded reader book. The site uses online quizzes designed
to test reader’s understanding of plot and characters. When students pass a quiz, thebook and the total number of words in that book are added to the student’s M-Reader
records (as displayed in Figure 1 below).

2. ER IN CELF COURSES

Although it is not a required course component, CELF teachers are recommended toincorporate ER into their syllabus. Should teachers choose to incorporate ER, they
are asked to dedicate no more than 10% of total grades to ER; and dedicate only 5%
from reading or listening and speaking assessment. In CELF classes, one can observe
teachers using a variety of systems to manage and evaluate ER. For example, teachers
use book reports, ER logs and book presentations to evaluate student work and makestudents accountable for their reading. Moreover, how much reading is required of
students differs between each class.
In the next sections, the authors report on ten teachers and 359 students’
usageof the M-Reader system.
2.1 CELF teachers’ incorporation of M-Reader

Following fall semester 2016, the ten CELF teachers using M-Reader completed
an online questionnaire asking about their implementation of M-Reader. Table 1(below) provides a summary of their responses. In this summary, one can observe alarge difference between word targets set by each teacher. For example, to achieve
10%, students in one 300-level class were set a target of 45,000 words while inanother it was 150,000. There were also variations in how ER effort was rewarded
and whether teachers allowed ER during class time. When asked to reﬂect on using
M-Reader, most teachers had very positive remarks. Many appreciated how it helped
them manage ER. A couple of teachers noted how this system encouraged students toread more. For example,“In one of my classes students really took to M-Reader andgetting very high word counts almost became a competition.”In relation to students
reading more, another teacher highlighted the need for curriculum leaders to discuss
how ER can be more effectively implemented.

Figure 1. An example of M-Reader’s class summary page for teachers.

Both teachers and students can view information on the number of books
and the number of words read. This data makes it easier for teachers to monitor
reading progress and it provides a standardised system of measurement (words read)which can be used to evaluate and motivate students to read in larger quantities.
On the students’side, M-Reader can help them monitor their ER progress, and it
promotes greater accountability (Rob & Kano, 2013). For a detailed description of
the M-Reader system and how to use it, please visit the website (http://mreader.org/)or read McBride & Milliner (2016).

88

I think ER is great, but I just wish there was more teachers doing ER properly,
i.e. reading a lot of words. Many students are getting off too easy with few
books (i.e. four or ﬁve books that only take minutes to read), or they are getting
extensive projects on easy books (effectively turning extensive reading into
intensive reading for those students). I want the students to get something out
of it, and I generally found the students who did it right were doing well inother aspects of the class as well.
Another concern raised by teachers was students trying to cheat the system.
One issue was related to students colluding to answer quiz questions. Even thoughbook discussions and the sharing of interesting titles among classmates ought to be
encouraged, it should be considered cheating when one student answers a quiz on
behalf of another. To prevent such a case, a setting within M-Reader, which allowed
students to take a quiz every 12 hours was implemented to prevent students from89

90

asking others to take multiple quizzes on their behalf (and to promote constantreading). Some teachers also used M-Reader’s“check for cheating”function to
identify cases where students had (a) taken the same quiz at a similar time, or (b)taken multiple tests in common. Moreover, making this capability known to students
seemed effective as a deterrent measure.
A ﬁnal concern relates to students reading books based on popular movie
titles. Although the authors recognise the potential of watching movies to reinforce
comprehension of the story when they do read the book before or after watching themovie, the drawback is, however, that students can often pass the quiz without reading
the book and earn massive word counts without much effort. One measure a teacher
took to appease both sides was setting a rule that movie books would be counted after
students reached a speciﬁc word target. Teachers concerned about movie quizzes areable to ask M-Reader administrators to close tests relating to popular movie titles orsimply establish a verbal rule that no movie books would be counted.

2.2 CELF student’s utilisation of M-Reader

Table 1
How CELF teachers incorporated M-Reader (N=10)
TeacherClass
Level(s)Word Target (to get
maximum points)

ER Points

1

100
300

100=100,000
300=150,000

10%
10%

2

300

300=45,000

10% & bonus
Reading & Writing
points3100

100=300,000

10%

4

100
200

100=15,000
200=20,000

5%

X

5

200

200=80,000

5%Used a bonus tooverall grade

15/30

6

200

200=80,000

10%

X

7

100
200
300

100=40,000
200=60,000
300=100,000

10%

X

8

300
400

300=45,000
400=45,000

10%

9

200

200=20,000

6% used as abonus score

15/30

10

300

300=5 books

5%

X

Note: *The ELF levels correlate with CEFR levels: 100-A2, 200-A1, 300-B1, 400-B2

Reading in class(30 classes)

✓

28/30
X

✓

7/30

✓

✓

25/30

✓

M-Reader user logs were analysed to uncover how much reading students did. Table
2 (below) presents a summary of reading engagement across the different ELF classlevels.
Table 2
Summary of M-Reader log data for ELF students (N=359)
Class
level
100

Number Average Averageofwordpassedstudents
countquizzes
132
31666
13

Range

Standard
Deviation

15000-100000

Averagewords/
target68%

0-110589

29387.12

Word targets

200

103

35086

10

20000-60000

126%

0-119250

24659.05

300

105

50077

7

40000-100000

109%0-165368

39000.59

400

19

45701

3

45000

102%

11376-71796

14500.78

Total

359

38775

9.91

15000-100000

99%0-165368

31196.62

2.2.1 Overall words read

Most students reached their class’word targets. As illustrated in Table 2, thehighest word counts achieved at each of the ELF levels were: 110,589 for 100 levels,
119,250 for 200, 165,368 for 300, and, 71,796 for 400. Although these participants
and many others showed an extraordinary amount of effort, many students appeared
to have stopped reading once they reached their word targets. Each class also had one
or two students who did not participate at all. In some cases, it was due to students
withdrawing, while in others it was because students waited until the very end of thesemester to do their reading.
2.2.2 Average Passed Quizzes

As the level of the course increased, the average passed quizzes ﬁguresdecreased. This decrease can be explained by higher-level graded readers having
a larger word count. Therefore, one can observe higher-level students taking fewer
quizzes to reach their reading target.
4. CONCLUSIONSIn this paper, the authors reported on students’and teachers’
utilisation of M-Reader intheir ELF classes. Overall, the majority of students displayed legitimate engagementwith M-reader, and met their teacher’s expectations. The variety of amounts readby students may reﬂect that some students are more interested in ER than others.
As a result, teachers need to be mindful of this issue when setting reading targets
and rewarding student work. Teachers also have to carefully train and monitor theirstudents using this system so that access becomes seamless and regular reading
becomes pleasurable.

91

Report of the Center for English as a Lingua
Franca Tutor Service

REFERENCES

Beglar, D., Hunt, A., & Kite, Y. (2012). The effect of pleasure reading on Japanese
university EFL learners’reading rates. Language Learning, 62(3), 665-703.
doi:10.1111/j.1467-9922.2011.00651.x

ELFセンターでの学修支援制度 (Tutor Service) に関する報告

Day, R. R., & Bamford, J. (1998). Extensive Reading in the Second Language
Classroom. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Travis Cote, コーテ・
トラヴィス
College of Tourism and Hospitality Management, Tamagawa University, Japan
travis@bus.tamagawa.ac.jp

Jeon, E., & Day, R. (2015). The effectiveness of core ER principles. Reading in a
Foreign Language, 27(2), 302-307.

Blagoja Dimoski, ディモスキ・ブラゴヤ
Center for English as a Lingua Franca, Tamagawa University, Japanbdimoski@lit.tamagawa.ac.jp

McBride, P., & Milliner, B. (2016). Introduction to M-Reader: An online extensive
reading aid for schools. The English Teacher, 45(2), 96-105.

Andrew Leichsenring, レイクセンリング・アンドリュー
Center for English as a Lingua Franca, Tamagawa University, Japan
andrew@lit.tamagawa.ac.jp

Nakanishi, T. (2015). A meta-analysis of extensive reading research. TESOL
Quarterly, 49(1), 6-37.
Renandya, W. A. (2007). The power of extensive reading. RELC Journal, 38(2),133-149.
Robb, T., & Kano, M. (2013). Effective extensive reading outside the classroom: A
large-scale experiment. Reading in a Foreign Language, 25(2), 234-247.

KEYWORDS: ELF, Tutor, Self-access
1. INTRODUCTION

The Center for English as a lingua franca (CELF) tutor service was launched in April
2013 in conjunction with the new ELF curriculum. The tutor service was conceived
as a valuable resource for Tamagawa ELF students to access English and receive
support for their language studies. The tutor service was originally staffed by both fulltime and part-time instructors1 who came from a wide range of cultural backgrounds
allowing the students an opportunity to engage with a variety of English speakers,
both native and non-native. During the 2016-2017 academic year, there were 22
part-time instructors serving as tutors. Since its inception, the tutor service has been
managed by a subcommittee of full-time associate and assistant professors whooversee scheduling, bookings and data collection on how the service is used. Tutor
services are available from 9:00 to 17:00 on weekdays. Each tutor is responsible for
two, 50-minute tutorial periods each week. There are three‘appointments’during one
tutor period, and in the 2016 fall semester, there were 141 appointment slots available
per week. Students can reserve appointments by signing up directly, or be referredto the tutor service by their teachers. The tutor service is promoted to students as anopportunity to receive support for: review of exams/quizzes, presentation practice,
TOEIC preparation, textbook support, extensive reading support, Blackboard®
1

92

As of 2014, the tutor service has been staffed by part-time instructors only.
93

instruction, grammar study, listening and speaking practice, and e-learning support.
2. CELF TUTOR SERVICE DATAThe CELF employs two methods of primary data collection to maintain and reﬁne thetutor service; 1) a tutor service log and 2) an end-of-semester student questionnaire.
The tutor service log, which is an online form used to record basic information about
the student and the purpose of each tutor session, is completed by tutors each day.
The end-of-term student questionnaire is a larger, more comprehensive and detailed
survey about the entire ELF program. The questionnaire contains items related tothe tutor service, enabling students to provide feedback, and leave comments and/or
suggestions concerning the tutor service.
2.1 Tutor Service Log

Using a simple, 10-item form on Survey Monkey (www.surveymonkey.com), thetutors are responsible for recording basic information about individual students who
use the tutor service. The information includes the day and time of the tutor visit,
year of the student, department the student belongs to, and the student’s concern.
Table 1 (below) summarizes the 2016-2017 use of the tutor service by department.
Table 1
Summary of tutor visits by ELF students in the 2016-2017 academic year.

Table 2
Reasons for tutor assistance and percentage of visits concerning those reasons.
Reason for Tutor Visit

Spring 2016-2017

Fall 2016-2017

Presentation Practice

1.9%

2.5%

Writing/Process Writing

22%

27.7%

TOEIC Study

6.3%

0.78%

Listening & Speaking Practice

57.3%

53.4%

Extensive Reading Support

1.3%

0.63%

Textbook Support

0.47%

0.47%

Total NumberofStudents
SpringTotal NumberofStudents Fall

% of ELF
Population

Tutor
VisitsSpring

Tutor
VisitsFall

Grammar Review

0.57%

0.63%

Review of Exams/Quizzes

0.47%

0.16%

Pronunciation Practice

1.42%

0.47%

Humanities

377

284

16%

113

146

Liberal Arts

344

195

13%

195

35

Other

8.05%

13.15%

Business
Adm.

283

281

13%

152

90

Tourism

232

136

8%

84

25

College of
Arts

225

210

10%

130

46

Education

371

139

12%

195

131

Engineering

54

262

8%

13

30

Agriculture

344

490

20%

141

110

Total

2230

1997

100%

1023

613

College

94

The role of the tutor is to provide extra academic support and language
practice. As mentioned above, some of the reasons students might reserve a tutor
appointment include review of exams, presentation practice, TOEIC preparation,
extensive reading support, listening and speaking practice, or help with process
writing. Table 2 (below) provides a summary of the reasons ELF students sought
tutor support, given as a percentage of the total number of visits concerning thatparticular area or concern. The number one reason students visited the tutors, during
both the spring and fall semesters, was to engage in listening and speaking practice(57.3% and 53.4%, respectively). The second most popular reason, again during bothsemesters, was process writing support (22% and 27.7%, respectively).

2.2 End-of-Semester Student Questionnaires: 2016-2017

The Student Questionnaire for the 2016-2017 academic year provided the tutor
coordinators with information about frequency of use, to what extent the students
perceived the service to be beneﬁcial to their learning, and level of satisfaction withthe tutor schedule. Combining spring and fall semester questionnaire data, a totalof 3,420 responses were collected and Table 3 (below) summarizes the frequency
of use based on that yearly total. Approximately one-third (33.98%) of the students
who completed the CELF Student Questionnaire used the tutor service one or moretimes during the year. However, of great concern to the tutor service coordinators,
and for reasons that require further investigation, two-thirds (66.02%) of the above
mentioned students did not use the tutor service during that academic year.
95

Table 3
How many times did you use the tutor service during the academic year?

7 times or more
4-6
1-3
0

Spring(n=1,816)

Fall(n=1,604)

Yearly Total(n=3,420)

31 (1.71%)

39 (2.43%)

70

112 (6.17%)447 (24.61%)

75 (4.67%)

1,226 (67.51%)187

455 (28.37%)902

1,035 (64.53%)

2,261

Table 5The tutor service schedule was convenient for me.
YearlyAverage
(%)
2.07%
5.42%

26.49%

66.02%In response to a different item on the questionnaire, whether students felt the
tutor service was useful for learning, over 80% (spring and fall semesters combined)
either agreed or strongly agreed (see Table 4) with that statement, while approximately
ﬁfteen percent (14.88%) were neutral. A little over three percent (3.37%) of students
did not believe the tutor service was useful for learning.
Table 4
The tutor service was useful for my learning.

Strongly
agree
Agree
NeutralDisagreeStrongly
disagree

Spring(n=590)Fall(n=569)Yearly Total(n=1,159)

Yearly Average(%)

187 (31.69%)

163 (28.65%)

350

30.17%

306 (51.86%)

292 (51.32%)

598

51.59%

17 (2.88%)

17 (2.99%)

34

2.94%

77 (13.05%)
3 (0.51%)

95 (16.7%)
2 (0.35%)172
514.88%
0.43%

As for the tutor schedule, Table 5 (below) shows that more than sixty percent(61.78%) of the students who used the tutor service in the 2016-2017 academic year
believed the schedule was convenient. For almost a quarter of the students (24.31%),
the tutor schedule was neither convenient nor inconvenient and unfortunately,
almost fourteen percent (13.94%) of the students indicated that the schedule wasinconvenient for them.

96

Spring(n=590)Fall(n=569)Yearly Total(n=1,159)

Yearly Average(%)

Strongly agree

107 (18.14%)

133 (23.37%)

240

20.78%

Neutral

150 (25.42%)

132 (23.2%)
54 (9.49%)

282

132

24.31%

10 (1.76%)

30

2.58%

Agree

DisagreeStrongly
disagree235 (39.83%)
78 (13.22%)
20 (3.39%)

240 (42.18%)

475

41%

11.36%

3. CONCLUSIONThe CELF Tutor Service at Tamagawa University has been serving the various
academic and language-learning needs of Tamagawa ELF students since 2013.
Staffed by a diverse mix of language instructors who claim a variety of different
cultural backgrounds, Tamagawa ELF students have a unique opportunity to engage
and interact with English language users, both native and non-native, in a sharedenvironment. As noted in Table 1, there is a broad cross-section of users of the tutor
service from the various colleges and departments which is a positive development as
the ELF program extends campus-wide. It is important to recognize that the numberof tutor service users who are attending ELF classes can be grown substantially andthis should be a future objective for the Center to consider.
Looking ahead, the CELF and the Tutor Service coordinators need to ensurethat the ELF students continue accessing the service by promoting it as a valuable
learner resource outside of the classroom and reconsider the tutor service scheduleand operating times. As was observed during the 2016-2017 academic year, many
students are using the tutor service to obtain assistance and guidance with process
writing (see Table 2). To that end, the tutor coordinators are exploring the creation ofa Writing Center within the Tutor Service to assist students with the process of essay
and other forms of academic or informal writing, which it is hoped will also makethe tutor schedule more accessible to students.

97

Report on Faculty Development and Research at
the Center for English as a Lingua Franca
ELFセンタ−2016FDと研究活動レポート
Brett Milliner, ミリナー・ブレット
Tamagawa University, Center for English as a Lingua Franca, Japan
milliner@lit.tamagawa.ac.jp
Blagoja Dimoski, ディモスキ・ブラゴヤ
Tamagawa University, Center for English as a Lingua Franca, Japanbdimoski@lit.tamagawa.ac.jp

ABSTRACTIn the Center for English as a Lingua Franca (CELF), we believe that the successof our English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) program will depend largely on thequality of our teaching. In this report, we describe the different faculty training anddevelopment initiatives aimed at promoting effective instruction in our ELF classes
and share some of the centerʼs research achievements in the 2016 academic year.
KEYWORDS: ELF, Faculty development, ELF teacher training, ELF research
1. INTRODUCTION

A unique feature of the Center for English as a Lingua Franca (CELF) is our hiring
policy whereby teachers need not be native English speakers. As a result, a very
diverse group of 51 teachers was assembled to teach English classes in this campuswide program. This diversity represents a valuable resource for faculty development as
all teachers bring different cultural, educational, and language learning backgrounds(e.g., Ukraine, Brazil, Korea, The Philippines, China, Ireland and Germany). We hopedthat the different faculty development lectures and workshops staged throughout the2016 academic year would provide a platform for CELF teachers to share ideas
and advance the work they do in the classroom. This paper reports on these faculty
development events and the academic achievements of the CELF in 2016.

98

2. THE 2015 ELF FORUM

The CELF staged an ELF Forum on Thursday, September 15th, 2016. This year’stheme was reading and writing in ELF. The event featured two guest speakers, Dr.
Robert Waring from Notre Dame Seishin Women’s University and Dr. Yoji Kudo fromthe College of Humanities, Tamagawa University. Dr. Waring made an impassioned
case for students engaging in extensive reading to increase students’exposure to
English. Dr. Waring also illustrated how extensive reading contributes to students’acquisition of new vocabulary, grammar and reading ﬂuency. Dr. Kudo presented
his research on Japanese high school students’English writing proﬁciency. The talkwas concluded with Dr. Kudo sharing some ideas for creating more effective writing
tasks, using rubrics for writing assessment and promoting student’s metacognitive
skills during process writing tasks. CELF faculty made a further seven presentations.
A description of all talks is presented in Table 1 below. The event was attended byroughly 50 guests including Tamagawa University graduate students, CELF teachersand educators from other universities in Tokyo.
Table 1
Summary of speakers and presentation titles at the 2016 ELF Fourm.
Title

Author

The application of extensive reading in ELF contexts

Dr. Robert Waring

Approaches for teaching and assessment of English writing

Dr. Yoji Kudo

Brett Milliner, PaulMcBride & Blagoja
DimoskiAn exploration of Japanese learner perceptions: The making Andrew Leichsenring &of a good teacher
Blagoja Dimoski
Blagoja Dimoski, Jody
Yujobo, Tricia Okada,
Reflections from Cambodia
Mitsuko Imai & Dr. EthelOgane
A case study of implementing extensive reading using
Kensaku Ishimaki
M-ReaderTeaching critical literacy in the ELF context: Challenges andRasami Chaikul
possibilities
The Center for English as a Lingua Franca report

Access reading fun with extensive reading level checkers

Brett Milliner

Reflections upon working with Japanese written English
in academic contexts and recommendations for improving
instruction in the future

Dr. Simon Potter

99

Figure 1. Dr. Robert Waring speaking at the ELF Forum (September 15, 2016).

3. LOCAL ELF WORKSHOPS & TRAINING FOR CELF TEACHERS

Throughout the academic year, the CELF staged a number of informal training andworkshop events for teachers. Each event was held at the end of the workday between
17:00 and 19:00. A short report for each event is provided below.
3.1 ELF Teacher Orientation

Two weeks prior to the commencement of 2016 classes, an ELF faculty orientation
was staged on March 28th. Along with a general brieﬁng about class management
and operations, teachers had opportunities to discuss a range of issues concerning the
ELF curriculum including:
The Blackboard content management system
ELF● Assessment● Extensive Reading● Process Writing● Textbooks●●

After the two-hour program, teachers were divided into smaller groups to tour the
refurbished ELF Study Hall building.

Figure 2. Teachers touring the new ELF Study Hall during the ELF orientation.

3.2 Blackboard CMS Training

All teaching resources and administrative information for CELF classes are hostedon the university Blackboard course management system (CMS) and the CELF’steachers are recognised as the heaviest user group on the campus (Milliner &Cote, 2016). To train faculty for actively utilizing the system to manage classroom
assignments, student assessment and blended learning, the CELF staged four
workshops. The spring semester training sessions on April 18 and 19 focused on
basic Blackboard functions and the fall semester training (October 17 and 18) lookedat grade management using Blackboard’s Grade Center tool. In 2016, Milliner andCote published their ﬁndings from a technology acceptance model analysis of CELF
teacher’s perceptions of the Blackboard system. This analysis of 29 CELF teachers
revealed that most have a positive perception of the Blackboard system and thatteacher’s perceptions of Blackboard’s usefulness most directly inﬂuences their
willingness to use it in their ELF classes. Findings from this review have and willcontinue to shape how Blackboard training sessions are designed. That is to say,workshop sessions will aim to clearly demonstrate how Blackboard can augment
day-to-day teaching and provide practical examples of how Blackboard is used by
CELF teachers.
3.3 ELF Pedagogy Workshops
Continuing the center’s work raising awareness and understanding of ELF-informed

pedagogy, a variety of ELF pedagogy workshops were staged in 2016.

3.3.1 ELF Speaking Activities Workshop - May 16th and 17th, 2016

Presented by Blagoja Dimoski, a workshop on communication strategies,

100

101

including conﬁrmation, clariﬁcation, circumlocution and paraphrasing, as well as
pro-active listening comprehension was staged. The usefulness of training students
in using these strategies and practices for ELF communication was discussed before
Dimoski shared his resources and classroom tasks for training and evaluating
students. These teaching resources and presentation slides relating to this training
were also made available for teachers within the CELF teacher’s Blackboard Group.

Figure 4. Dr. Matsuda’s lecture (June 27th, 2016).

3.4.2 Dr. Yoji Kudo, Tamagawa University - Approaches for teaching andassessment of English writing - November 28th, 2016
Figure 3. Blagoja Dimoski leading an ELF speaking strategies workshop (May, 2016).

3.3.2 ELF Assessment Workshop - June 13th and 14th, 2016

Paul McBride, Blagoja Dimoski and Brett Milliner led a lecture and discussion
event concerning assessment for ELF classes. Issues covered in these sessions
included overall assessment in ELF classes, how to conduct speaking assessments,
and the scheduling of course assessments throughout the semester.

Dr. Yoji Kudo from the College of Humanities was invited to repeat his talkfrom the ELF Forum (in English). This time, however, Dr. Kudo spoke to a small
group of CELF teachers which created an active discussion on assessment approaches
and writing task design.

3.4 Guest Speakers

The center was able to welcome a couple of prominent scholars in the ﬁeld of
language education in 2016.
3.4.1 Dr. Paul Kei Matsuda, Arizona State University University - A conversation
on writing assessment - June 27th, 2016
Dr. Matsuda’s lecture was attended by members of the CELF, teachers
from Tamagawa University’s upper division and graduate students. In his talk, Dr.

Matsuda shared his experiences assessing writing with English students in American
universities along with a detailed critique of the CELF’s writing assessment rubric.
This talk was also recorded and made available along with presentation slides on the
CELF teachers’Blackboard page.

102

Figure 5. Dr. Kudo’s lecture (November 28th, 2016).

3.4.3 Standardised English Testing Lecture - December 12th, 2016
Kensaku Ishimaki, an Eiken test editor, presented an insider’s account of ﬁveof the most popular standardised English proﬁciency tests in Japan, namely: TOEIC,TOEFL, EIKEN, IELTS and TEAP. Kensaku also created an excellent comparativetable (see Appendix A) which was made available to CELF teachers.
1033.4.4 Dr. Christopher Hall, York St. John University - Cognitive perspectives of
ELF - December 14th, 2016

Dr. Christopher Hall shared a preview to his upcoming chapter in The
Routledge Handbook of ELF (2017).

3.5.3 YOJALT tech@ Tamagawa - January 22nd, 2017.

In collaboration with Yokohama JALT, the CELF co-sponsored a my-sharestyle event focusing on technology use in the English language classroom. The event
attracted 15 teachers from the Tokyo area with several CELF faculty members, bothfull and part-time, making presentations.
4. CELF RESEARCH ACHIEVEMENTS

The CELF faculty has also been very active in research activities in 2016. Focusingon ELF and a range of other ﬁelds connected with English language teaching, thefollowing sections report on this engagement.
4.1 Academic Presentations

In the 2016-2017 academic year, full-time faculty of the CELF made numerous
presentations, both domestic and international, ranging from plenary to poster
presentations and on various themes. In total, 24 presentations were made in Japan,
while 23 were made abroad. The following sections provide speciﬁc details of the 47
presentations.
Figure 7. Dr. Hall’s lecture (December 14th, 2016).

3.5 Collaborations with Academic Organisations

The center collaborated with two prominent Japanese academic associations focusing
on English language education, Japan Association of College English Teachers(JACET) and the Japan Association of Language Teachers (JALT) to host a numberof events in 2016.
3.5.1 1st JACET ELF Special interest group (SIG) meeting - April 23rd, 2016

The CELF was proud to host the ﬁrst meeting of the JACET ELF SIG. This
event featured a tour of the new ELF Study Hall and a presentation from the CELF’sdirector Dr. Masaki Oda. Dr Oda’s presentation was titled: CELF Reﬂection: A
Journey to the establishment of a university ELF program.

4.1.1 Domestic Presentations

The 24 domestic presentations were made by full-time faculty of the CELF
at conferences, forums, and symposiums (see Table 2). Notably among them, a
keynote address was made by the CELF’s director, Dr. Masaki Oda at the JATLaC
Symposium in Tokyo. In addition, Brett Milliner and Travis Cote were invited togive a presentation at JBUG 6: Blackboard Japan User Meet. Included in Table 2
below, are presentations made at the ELF Forum held at Tamagawa University, as
well as other presentations that were made by full-time faculty at various locations
around Japan.

3.5.2 JALT CALL & the Brain - June 3rd, 4th & 5th, 2016

The CELF hosted the annual conference for JALT CALL and JALT Brain
SIGs. Attended by close to 250 guests from Japan and around the world, the event
featured presentations on technology use in the language classroom and neuro English
language teaching. Five members from CELF faculty also gave presentations during
the event.

104

105

Table 2
ELF faculty’s domestic presentations (n=24).
Location

Title & Event

Tokyo

Presentation
CELF Reflection: A journey to the establishment of auniversity ELF program
JACET ELF SIG Meeting

Masaki Oda

Tokyo

Invited Presentation
Blackboard® adoption and application in the ELF
programJBUG 6: Blackboard Japan User Meet

Brett Milliner &Travis CoteTokyo

Presentation
Extensive reading on smartphones: A report on
student engagement and perceptions
JALT CALL 2016

Brett Milliner

Presentation
An investigation of digital literacy: Preparing Japanese
university freshmen for study abroad
JALT CALL 2016

Brett Milliner &Travis Cote

Presentation
Using a course management system for small talking
JALT CALL 2016

Ethel Ogane

Tokyo

Tokyo

Tokyo

Tokyo

AuthorPresentation
Language and education dilemmas of minorities inThailand
JALP (The 17th Conference of Japanese Association
for Language Policy)

Rasami Chaikul

Presentation
Report on indigenous rights: Self-determination, language and education
JACET Language Policy Meeting

Rasami Chaikul

SapporoPresentation
Native vs. non-native dichotomy in university ELT: A
Further direction for administrators
The 55th JACET International Conference

Masaki Oda

Tokyo

Colloquium(Kakenhi) Referent introduction and maintenancein bilingual narratives: Is there a cross-linguistic
influence? Colloquium: “The development of thesocially non-dominant language: Bilingual narrative
analysis from multiple perspectives”
PacSLRF2016

Yuri Jody Yujobo,
Satomi MishinaMori, Hideyuki
Taura & Mika
Akagi

Tokyo

Presentation
Teacher training from the perspective of assessment
literacy
JACET Kanto 10th Anniversary Convention

Taiko Tsuchihira,
Yuji Nakamura,
Kei Miyazaki &Rasami Chaikul

Tokyo

Presentation
An exploration of Japanese learner perceptions : The
making of a good teacher
The ELF Teachers Forum

Andrew
Leichsenring &Blagoja Dimoski

Tokyo

Presentation
Reflections from Cambodia
The ELF Teachers Forum

Ethel Ogane,
Yuri Jody Yujobo,
Mitsuko Imai,
Tricia Okada &Blagoja Dimoski

Tokyo

Presentation
Access reading fun with extensive reading level checkers
The ELF Teachers ForumTokyo

Presentation
Teaching critical literacy in the ELF context:
Challenges and possibilities
The ELF Teachers Forum

Keynote AddressTokyo

大学英語教育プログラムを変える
ーELFプログラムの挑戦ー

Masaki Oda

106

SapporoSymposium Presentation
ELF (English as a lingua franca) as a catalyst forre-thinking English education
The 55th JACET International Conference

Paul McBride

SapporoPoster Presentation
ELF (English as a Lingua Franca)
The 55th JACET International Conference

Paul McBride

Rasami Chaikul

Presentation
Tokyo

JATLaC Symposium

Brett Milliner

大学英語教育のグローカライゼーション
ーELFプログラムの挑戦

Masaki Oda

JACET Kanto
Presentation
KyushuThe gender performance and migration experience ofUniversity,transpinay entertainers in Japan
Fukuoka
The 89th Annual Meeting of the Japan SociologicalSociety

Tricia Okada

107

Shoko Kojima,
Corazon Kato,
Alison Stewart &Tricia Okada

NagoyaNagoyaPresentation
ELF: Small talking and communication strategies
JALT 2016

Ethel Ogane

NagoyaPresentation
A workbook project for motivation & autonomy
JALT 2016

Mitsuko ImaiPaul McBrideTokyo

Presentation
Online resources for extensive listening
YOJALT tech@Tamagawa 2017

Presentation
Vladivostok,“Ideological inhibitors to excellence in ELT”
RussiaAsia TEFL 2016

Brett Milliner

Masaki Oda

Kobe

Presentation
Positive teacher attributes through the eyes of thelearner: In Japan and a wider Asian context
The Asian Conference on Education and International
Development 2017

Andrew
Leichsenring

Presentation
Vladivostok, Beyond NES-NNES dichotomy: Teaching English as
Russiaa lingua franca in Asia
Asia TEFL 2016
Presentation
Neoliberalism as latent in multilingualism, and
Lleida, Spain manifest in ELT
ELF9 (The 9th International Conference of English
as a Lingua Franca)

Paul McBride

4.1.2 International Presentations

A total of 23 international presentations were made in the 2016-2017 academic
year. In addition to the regular presentations and poster presentations made by thefull-time faculty of the CELF that are listed below (see Table 3), Dr. Masaki Oda
made two plenary talks, one in Malaysia and one in Singapore. He was also invited tomake a presentation in Malaysia, a lecture in America, and a workshop in Singapore.
Table 3
ELF faculty’s international presentations (n=23).
Location

Title & Event

AuthorSingapore

Poster Presentation
Enhancing learner autonomy through making
workbook project
CELC Symposium 2016, National University University of Singapore

Mitsuko Imai

Singapore

Poster Presentation
Project based learning and its efficacy to increase
Yuri Jody Yujobo
ELF language awareness
CELC Symposium 2016, National University of Singapore

Ipoh,
Malaysia
108

Invited Presentation
Experience, beliefs and the making of a university
ELF program: (C)ELF reflection
Special Lecture, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

Presentation
EFL to ELF: Transforming language teacher identity
JALT 2016

Plenary Talk
Comparing apples with oranges?: A critical approachto ELT in mass media
MELTA International Conference

Masaki Oda

Bangi,
Malaysia

Presentation
Vladivostok, Rethinking learning spaces: Global HR development
Russiathrough active-learning
Asia TEFL 2016

Masaki Oda

Yuri Jody Yujobo

Presentation
Enhancing classroom management and promoting
Phitsanulok,
learning strategies with student nameplates
Blagoja Dimoski
ThailandGlobal Educators Network (GEN): TEFL International
Conference 2016
Limassol,
CyprusPresentation
Tertiary ELF teachers’ digital literacy: Is CALL
training still needed?
EUROCALL 2016

Brett Milliner,
Travis Cote &Ethel Ogane

Limassol,
CyprusPresentation
Preparing Japanese students’ digital literacy forstudy abroad: How much CALL training is needed?
EUROCALL 2016

Travis Cote &Brett Milliner

Gwangju,
Korea

Presentation
The Discourse of ELT ‘in’ Applied Linguistics: A
diachronic approach
The Third AILA East-Asia and 2016 ALAK-GETA
Joint International Conference

Masaki Oda

Arizona,USA

Presentation
Gender performance and migration experience
Trans*studies: An International Transdisciplinary
Conference on Gender, Embodiment, And Sexuality

Tricia Okada

109

Sydney,
Australia

Presentation
Understanding urban agriculture as pedagogy: themultimodality of edible verge gardens
ASFLA 2016

Presentation
Japanese learner perceptions on the making of aHong Kong good teacher
11th Symposium on Teaching English at Tertiary
Level

Andrew
Leichsenring &Blagoja Dimoski

Presentation
Strengthening active learning and 21st century skills
Hong Kongin Japanese tertiary education
11th Symposium on Teaching English at Tertiary
Level

Yuri Jody Yujobo

Presentation (online)
Cambridge, One year of extensive reading on smartphones: A
UK
reflection
OLLReN 2016

Journal articles and book chapters written by the full-time faculty appeared in avariety of academic publications. The topics and themes of these publications were
diverse, addressing particular areas related to classroom pedagogy, reﬂexive praxis,
and research. Almost all of the publications, consisting of 12 articles and two bookchapters, were peer-reviewed. Table 4 below lists the 14 publications along with
their references and author information.
Table 4
ELF faculty’s publications (n=14).
PeerReviewed

Brett Milliner

Presentation
Hilo, Hawaii, Multicultural education: International understandingUSA
program in formal education
Hawaii TESOL

Rasami Chaikul

Poster Presentation
Hilo, Hawaii, Paradigm shift in higher education: English as aUSAlingua franca
Hawaii TESOL

Rasami Chaikul

Presentation
Learner perceptions of good teacher attributes:
Japan and other Asian contexts
The IAFOR International Conference on Language
Learning 2017

Blagoja Dimoski& Andrew
Leichsenring

Vermont,
USA

Invited Lecture
Beyond NES-NNES dichotomy: Teaching English asa lingua franca at a Japanese university
St. Michael’s College

Masaki Oda

Singapore

Plenary Talk
Putting perspectives into practice: Creating an ELF
program at a University
The 52nd RELC International Conference

Masaki Oda

Singapore

Invited Workshop
Conflict resolution in university English language
program administration
The 52nd RELC International Conference

Masaki Oda

Dubai

110

Jesse Hsu

5. Publications

Reference

Author

Paper
Milliner, B., & Dimoski, B. (2016). A report on faculty
development and research inside the Center for English
as a Lingua Franca. The Center for English as a Lingua
Franca Journal, 2 (1), 49-67.

Brett Milliner& Blagoja
Dimoski✓

Yuri Jody
Yujobo, Ethel
Paper
Ogane, Tricia
Yujobo, Y.J., Ogane, E., Okada, T., Milliner, B., Sato, T.,
Okada, Brett& Dimoski, B. (2016). Efficacy of promoting awareness inMilliner,
ELF communicative strategies through PBL. The Center
Takanori Satofor English as a Lingua Franca Journal, 2 (1), 1-17.
& Blagoja
Dimoski✓

Paper
Dimoski, B. (2016). A proactive ELF-aware approach tolistening comprehension. The Center for English as a
Lingua Franca Journal, 2 (2), 24-38.

Blagoja
Dimoski✓

Paper
Milliner, B. (2016). Implementing a mobile-based
extensive reading component: A report on student
engagement and perceptions, In M. Iguchi, & L. Yoffe(Eds.), JACET Summer Seminar Proceedings No.14(pp.41-49). Tokyo: JACET.

Brett Milliner

✓

Paper
Milliner, B. (2016). The Google accreditation process for
Brett Milliner
language teachers. The Language Teacher, 40 (3), 22-24.

111

Chapter
Tanaka H., Ogane E., Sugiyama, A., Okuyama, K., &Kawamata, T. (2016). Lingua Franca for Asian Children.
In Kawamata T., Tanaka H., Ogane, E. (Eds.), English
as Lingua Franca and East Asian Young Learners (pp.
9-32) Tokyo: International Studies Department, Meisei
University.

✓

✓

✓

✓

Paper
Milliner, B., & Cote, T. (2016). Adoption and applicationof the CMS: Crucial steps for an effective e-learningcomponent. International Journal of Computer Assisted
Language Learning and Teaching, 6 (3), 53-65.

Brett Milliner &Travis Cote

Paper
Milliner, B., & Cote, T. (2015). Reflections on Japanese
university study abroad students’ digital literacy: Is more
ICT training needed? 玉川大学の教師教育リサーチセンター
年報 第6号, 99-109.

Brett Milliner &Travis Cote

Paper
McBride, P. (2016). An Overview Perspective on
Paul McBride
Teaching ELF: Principles and Practices. Waseda Working
Papers in ELF, 5, 186-197.
Paper
McBride, P. & Milliner, B. (2016). Introduction to
Paul McBride
M-Reader: An Online Extensive Reading Aid for Schools. & Brett Milliner
The English Teacher, 45 (2), 96-105.
Paper
Cote, T., & Milliner, B. (2016). Japanese university
students’ self-assessment and digital literacy test results.
Travis Cote &In S. Papadima-Sophocleous, L. Bradley & S. Thouësny
Brett Milliner(Eds.), CALL communities and culture – short papers fromEUROCALL 2016 (pp. 125-131). Research-publishing.
net. https://doi.org/10.14705/rpnet.2016.eurocall2016.549
Paper
Mishina-Mori, S., & Yujobo, Y. J. (2017). Referent
introduction and maintenance in bilingual narratives:
Is there a cross-linguistic influence? In M. Hirakawa, J.
Mathews, K. Snape, & M. Umeda (Eds.), Proceedings of
PacSLRF 2016, (pp. 145-149). Hiroshima: Japan Second
Language Association.

✓

112

Hiromasa
Tanaka, Ethel
Ogane, Aya
Sugiyama,
KurumiOkuyama& Takanori
Kawamata

Book Chapter
Oda, M. (2017). Reflecting on my flightpath. In G.
Barkhuizen (Ed.), Reflections on Language Teacher
Identity Research (pp. 222-227). New York: Routledge

Satomi
Mishina-Mori&
Yuri Jody
Yujobo✓Paper
Dimoski, B., Yujobo, Y. J., & Imai, M. (2016). Exploring
the Effectiveness of Communication Strategies Through
Pro-Active Listening in ELF-Informed Pedagogy. Language Education in Asia, 7 (2), 67-87.

5.1 Contributions to academic societies & grants received

In addition to the presentations and publications given above, full-time faculty
members of the CELF contributed their time and expertise to several domestic andinternational academic societies. Table 5 below lists the academic societies and theactive roles that members of the full-time faculty play in those societies.
Table 5Contributions to academic societies & grants received.
Society

Asia TEFL
JACET
Journal of Language and Identity
in Education
Critical Inquiry of Language
Studies
Asian Englishes

AILA Language Policy Research
Network
TEFLIN Journal

Position

Vice President for Membership
Director of Academic
Exchanges

Editorial Board Member
Reviewer
Reviewer

Advisory Committee Member

Reviewer

JACET Kanto Journal

Journal Editor

JACET Kanto Journal

Journal Editor

JACET ELF SIG
JALT Yokohama

JALT CALL 2016

Accents Asia Journal
JALT Yokohama
JALT CALL

JALT Journal

JALT Yokohama

Masaki Oda

Blagoja
Dimoski,
Yuri Jody
Yujobo& Mitsuko
Imai

JALT CALL 2016

Accents Asia Journal

Name

Masaki Oda
Masaki Oda
Masaki Oda
Masaki Oda
Masaki Oda
Masaki Oda
Masaki Oda

Paul McBrideContributor to SIG Website

Paul McBride

Publications Chair

Travis Cote

Conference Co-Chair
Issue Co-Editor

Mitsuko Imai
Travis Cote

Travis Cote

Treasurer

Brett Milliner

Reviewer

Brett Milliner

Treasurer
Publications Chair

Conference Co-Chair
Issue Co-Editor

Brett Milliner
Brett Milliner
Brett Milliner
Brett Milliner
113

TOEIC

TOEFL(iBT)
Universities(US, CA, AUS)

Companies,
Universities
Businesspeople(Mainly in Japan,
Students
Korea)

RLSW

RL
(SW)

Skills(A2)
B1-C1

A1 - C1

CEFR
Levels

0 - 12030-40(30 per Skill)

Total 10 - 990
Lis 5 - 485
Rd 5 - 485

Scale

TEST FeeInt’l Students(Applicants
for study-abroad)¥5,725$230 USD(¥26,000)

(A2)
B1-C1
(C2)

TargetExaminees
Recognised by

1.0 - 9.0
each skill
and Total

RLSW

Pass / Fail80 cities

80,0002.55 million(2015)(0.72
million)7 million(2014)

US

US
JP

ETS
CIEE (JP)ETSIIBC (JP)EIKEN

2.5 million(2014)

JP

31,000(2014)-

British Council
IDP (AUS)
Cambridge
EnglishUK
Language
Assessment
(UK)
EIKEN

3.22 million(2015)

EIKEN

Times
Testsites Population Population
Origin Organisation
per(Japan) in Japan in the world
year

10

230
cities

400 +
sites

Over
14 cities30

3¥25,380

A1 - C1

Int’l Students
UK Government(ApplicantsAcademic
for study-abroad)
Organisations
General learners(UK, US, CA, AUS)

RLW+SCSE Score(0) - 850
per skill

JP

114

-

Summary of standardised English tests in Japan (Ishimaki, 2016)

13,850(2016)

APPENDIX A (see next page)

12 cities

Milliner, B., & Cote, T. (2015). Adoption and application of a CMS: Crucial steps
for an effective e-learning component. International Journal of ComputerAssisted Language Learning and Teaching, 6(3), 54-67. doi:10.4018/
IJCALLT.2016070104

3

Ishimaki, K. (2016). ELF workshop: Understanding standardised English
testing [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from https://drive.google.com/
ﬁle/d/0ByNesYnVJwQ2RVFRWmRkQ1pIY0U/view?usp=sharing

Score(20-100 per
skill)and CEFR
Band

Hall, C. J. (2017). Cognitive perspectives on English as a Lingua Franca. In J.
Jenkins, W. Baker & M. Dewey (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of English
as a Lingua Franca. London: Taylor and Francis Ltd.

RL(+W+S) A2 - B2

REFERENCES

Japanese
Universities(Sophia, Rikkyo,
Dokkyo)In this report, we have described the different faculty development lectures andworkshops staged throughout the 2016 academic year. We hope that these initiatives
have helped our diverse faculty share ideas and grow as teaching professionals. The
CELF is also very proud of the many academic achievements in 2016.
In 2017, we are planning a review of the ELF curriculum, increasing thepromotion of active learning, blended-learning and more informed ELF teachingpractices. Similar to 2016, we are also looking forward to welcoming distinguishedteachers and scholars to share their knowledge and insights with CELF faculty.

Japanese schools
Businesspeople (Senior & JuniorHigh), Universities,
Students(GeneralInt’l Universities
learners)(US, UK, AUS)

6.0 CONCLUDING REMARKS AND PLANS FOR 2017

IELTS
(iBT)

Satomi Mori
(Rikkyo University)& Yuri Jody
Yujobo¥2,500- ¥8,400

2018「同時バイリンガルのナラティヴ
における言語間互作用の研究」

EIKEN

日本学術振興会科研費
基盤研究
28年度〜30年

Grants-in-Aid for Scientific
Research Recipient for 2016-

Brett Milliner

2nd & 3rd YearHighschool
RLWS ¥15,000
Students,
TEAP RLW ¥10,000
University
RL ¥6,000
Admission
Candidates

YOJALT Tech@ Tamagawa 2017 Event Chair

115