Newsletter	  of	  the	  JALT	  Learner	  Development	  SIG	  	  Tokyo	  Campus,	  February	  19th,	  2012	  My	  Reflection	  on	  the	  February	  19th	  Get–Together,	   Teachers	   College	  Columbia	  University	  	  ２月１９日エリア・ミーティ
ングを振り返って,コロンビア大学ティーチャーズ・カレッ
ジ（於：東京）２０１２年２
月１９日	  	 Tomoko	  Kurita,	  Kawamura	  High	 School	  	 Key words: learner development interests,getting to know each other, self-assessment
within a self-directed framework, language
learner vs language user, identity	  I

recently
becameamember of JALT
as well as LD-SIG
in January 2012.
Thiswasmysecond time toattend a LD-SIG
get-together.
Inreviewing
theJanuary meeting, I
enjoyed getting toknow other members’ learner development
interests and different teaching contexts. I
decided to join the group which had an interestin self-assessment within a self-directed
framework, although vocabulary development
andcollaborative
learning
werealso
fascinating topics for me.

Getting to know LD-SIG members
I thank Andy for providing us with theopportunities to learn new things and get toknow other members of LD-SIG. Talking with aLD-SIG member made my vague ideas of selfdirected projects clearer. I talked to an
attendee named Ken, who teaches in a college.
I teach English in an elementary school. Ourteaching contexts were different but we shared
a lot of interests about vocabularydevelopment andautonomous learning
amongst others. Ken talked about his
vocabulary building practices at the college. I
talked about the project I recently started	  which is a kind of self-directed assignment. In
the project, each student chooses a topic anda web site to view, and then uses a notebookto record what he or she learned from the website. Finally, he or she makes a presentation
about it to share with other classmates.

Group discussions
I joined the group “self-assessment within aself-directed framework”. Some people left andsome new people joined our group, including
Sachiko, Chris and Lynn. Chris and Lynn
shared their English drama project in which thestudents wrote and performed a play, showing
the video by iPhone. Peter had summarized
the previous discussion in January and it
helped a lot to confirm our shared perspectives
at this meeting. We discussed our variousinterests and teaching contexts. However, it
seemed difficult to narrow our interests into
specific research questions. This was because
we have such different teaching contexts,
which would make the content of assessment
varied.
Although it seems important for students toself-assess
theirperformanceandimprovement
withintheself-directed
framework, the ability of learners to self-assessthemselves depends on the student’s age andproficiency level. Although it seemed difficultfor our discussion to move forward we tried tobrainstorm ideas. I suggested a selfassessment of learner’s identity as an L2 user
vs. an L2 learner. From my experience as aJapanese learner and teacher of English, I
have been wondering if having identity as anEnglish learner might be critical to Japaneselearners of English.
I found a difference between Japanese people
who view themselves as English users whouse English as a foreign or the second
language in a real context and Japanesepeople who view themselves as English
learners in terms of confidence and autonomy.
Recently, I had two returnee students (one is ath4th grader from Canada, the other is a 5grader from Indonesia) at the elementaryschool. I noticed the returnees who had
confidence in speaking and writing English
even though they had no more grammar andspelling knowledge than some classmates who
had learned English only in Japan. On theother hand, good students who study in Japan
feel less confident comparing themselves tothe returnees. As for learning, Japanesepeople as English learners tend to try to get
more knowledge about English in school

LEARNING	  LEARNING	  19(1)	   51	  JALT学習者ティヘロフメントSIGの会報	 	  context but not use it in a real context. They
tend to be passive learners. They don’t likemaking mistakes and even think it is
impossible to be an English user unless theymaster the language perfectly.
After talking about my insight above, weshared ideas about differences in identity
between an L2 user and an L2 learner. Peter
shared his insight that the English user vs.
English learner might be relevant to fluency vs.
accuracy. Sachiko, who is teaching at an
English conversation school, shared her ideathat her students seemed to have identities as
English users rather than English learners
because they were aiming to study abroad. We
agreed that our group would explore therelationship between self-assessment, learner
identity, socio-cultural aspects and motivation.
I am excited to see how our group research
will develop.
Tomoko teaches English at Kawamura HighSchool. Her current research interests arelistening for acquisition, autonomous learning,
CALL and cooperative learning. She has an
MA TESOL degree from Teachers CollegeColumbia.

Looking	  forward	  今後のイベント	  	  LD	  SIG	  Forums	  in	  2012	  	  2012	 LD	 SIGフ ォ ー ラ ム (6月	  JALT CALL Conference 2012
Konan University, June 1-3, 2012
http://conference.jaltcall.org/2011/jaltcall-2012/
Darren Elliott
LD-SIG Forum Coordinator

The JALT LD-SIG will be holding anotherforum at the JALTCALL Conference
2012. JALTCALL 2012 will be held at theKonan CUBE, Hirao School of Management,
Konan University from June 1-3, 2012.
From self-access centres with cassettelibraries to m-learning, technology has played
an important role in learner autonomy inlanguage education. However, CALL activities

52	   LEARNING	  LEARNING	  19(1)	  	  are not intrinsically autonomous and Learner
Autonomy need not make use of educational
technologies. In this forum, we will explore
CALL as viewed through the prism of learnerautonomy, and vice versa, in an attempt to findcommon ground.
Each presenter will give his or her fifteenminute presentation twice (including questions)
within the 90-minute slot, giving participants
the opportunity to see four different
presentations. Of course, visitors are welcome
to join the full session or just come in to see
one or two presentations. We will have shortpresentations on Facebook, CALL in selfaccess centres, e-learning, blended learningand other autonomy / technology-related topics,
from a number of experienced and talentedpresenters.
The JALTCALL conference itself is always well
worth attending, with visitors from around theworld and a lively atmosphere. This year, theconference welcomes a true leader in the fieldwith the visit of Dr. Stephen Bax as featuredspeaker.

Nakasendo 2012 Conference
Urawa Citizen’s Hall, June 2, 2012
http://nakasendoconference.com
Robert Moreau
International ChristianHigh SchoolUniversityT

he LD-SIG forum this year at theNakasendo 2012 Conference in Urawa,ndSaitama on June 2 promises to be aninteresting space in which participants canshare a variety of ideas on teaching andlearner development. Since December 2011,
members of the LD-SIG have been meeting on
a monthly basis and, in groups, have been
discussing ideas and conducting small-scale
practitioner research in the following areas:collaborative learning, language learning
strategies, self-assessment, and vocabularydevelopment.
In this forum, members of each research groupwill set-up display stations where people canlearn more about what members of each grouphas been working on, ask questions andengage in dialogue on the different topics thatpeople have been exploring so far. Finally,
participants will be invited to share thoughts
and ideas about what they have seen anddiscussed.