Learning Learning 学習の学習 20 (2): LD SIG Grant Awardees’ Essays

LD SIG 2012 Research Grant Awardee:
Interview on Research Interests
2012 年度 LD SIG 研究助成金受賞者：研究課題についてのインタビュー“Journey of Professionalization”: An Interview

about. I’ve also been looking into Multiple

With Cory Koby, LD SIG 2012 Grant AwardeeIntelligences and that’s something I’ve tried toby Alison Stewart, Gakushuin University

apply to my teaching, making sure that I include
different kinds of activities that apply to thedifferent learning styles. But as for “learnerdevelopment”, I’m not sure exactly how I woulddefine that.
Alison: In that case, let’s start by talking about
your teaching context. Where do you teach?
Cory: I teach at an all-girls integrated Junior andSenior High school in Sendai. It’s an old Catholic
mission school that’s considered pretty elite in theCory Koby and I met at the JALT Executive Board

area. I teach mostly high school classes though I
also do some eikaiwa classes at the junior highMeeting in Kyoto on June 29-30, where he waslevel. The high school has an intensive English

representing Sendai Chapter and I was anadditional nonvoting representative of the LD SIG.

programme, in which the students spend almost aHe started by apologizing profusely about his
delay in writing an essay in return for receiving theAustralia, New Zealand, or Canada. All students
are placed in a different school, so they are on theirresearch grant he was awarded back in 2012, so, inown for the year.

order to expedite completion of a final article, I
agreed to interview him about his interest in

Alison: Wow, that’s quite a challenge for 16 year

learner development instead…
Cory: Well, you see, that’s the first problem: you
ask me what my research interest is, and what myinterest is in learner development. But I’m not surethat I can answer that. I’ve been teaching for thepast six years, and I feel confident now in myteaching, but I don’t feel I know enough about how
students actually learn. So second language
acquisition is something I want to learn much more

year in the second year in a school abroad, either inolds.
Cory: That’s right. Our job is to prepare them tosurvive independently, since they will have alimited support structure once they get out there.
Once they arrive they are either put into ESL
classes for from one to three months, or they gostraight into the mainstream. I’m the subhomeroom teacher for that programme, something
I’ve been doing now for five years. Unlike theNewsletter of the JALT Learner Development SIG <ld-sig.org/>

11

Learning Learning 学習の学習 20 (2): LD SIG Grant Awardees’ Essays
homeroom teachers who move up the grades in theyou have a lot of freedom in your work as ahigh school with their students, I stay in this first-teacher.

year preparatory class. That’s become an importantrole for me. Apart from that, I teach the returnee
students communication classes, and I’ve started
teaching a unique content course for them—WorldTopics—through the Social Studies department.
I’m really excited about it.

Cory: Autonomy, yes! I have a lot of freedom. With
the Social Studies course, because it was acompletely new thing for me and because it isSocial Studies, not English, even though it’s taught
in English, I had the option of working with aAlison: Did you draw on high school materials

Japanese co-teacher and took it. I think theywanted me to have the support mechanism if Ifrom the American high-school curriculum or fromneeded it. But he hasn’t gotten involved at all.

British A-levels to teach this course?

Previously, the course was taught by a foreign

Cory: No, not at all. I had a completely free hand todesign the classes. So it was all new. This is what
has taken up a lot of my time recently. The course
is divided into some major themes that thestudents explore in depth. The first one we did wasFood, Nutrition, and Hunger. Now they’re lookingat Gender Issues. And we will explore Conflict andConflict Resolution, then Natural Resources toteacher, an outside teacher, who came in just forthis course. But that teacher had to leave, and theprincipal and the department head thought that I
would be well suited to fill the place because of mybackground. So that’s one of the courses I’ve beenteaching the third-year students. I also do debate.
So yes, I do have autonomy, the opportunity tobranch out into something new.

finish the year. These are issues that are real eye

Alison: What have you found to be the main

openers for them and, I hope, can be reallychallenges with this new course?

empowering.

Cory: Well, the first challenge is deciding what toAlison: That sounds great. These have got to bevery advanced high school students. Where do

include. So far, I’ve settled on one topic per term,
which is covered using different media. I show

they tend to go to after they graduate?

them TED talks and documentaries to familiarize

Cory: They do intercultural studies, language
studies, things like that. Quite a few of them go toSophia University, because of the Catholicconnection. Some go to Akita International
University, we usually get one or two into Waseda
and Keio. They virtually always go on to private
universities, and don’t even apply to the public
universities. I always find that strange; I’m surethey would get into some good public universities,
but it seems that they feel that they “ought to”
continue in private education.
Alison: That is curious, isn’t it. To go back to what
you were saying about the course, it sounds like

学習者ディベロプメント研究部会 <ld-sig.org/>them with the theme. I do some lectures and they
have discussions and debates, and they write
essays, which is the main way I have of assessing
them. Last term they also did group presentations,for which each of the groups chose a food aidorganization, like Christian Children’s Fund,World Food Program, other NPOs and religious
charity organisations. The students presented all inEnglish. The capstone of this process was debate.
Here the students formed teams, four on each side,plus umpires, and they had to vie for grants ofmoney for their organization. That was reallysuccessful. And several of them have continued
with the extracurricular debate team. The school

12Learning Learning 学習の学習 20 (2): LD SIG Grant Awardees’ Essays
has a sort of Debate Club—actually, it’s not a

was working on a one-year contract. That’s pretty

bukatsu, it has a special status, so that students cannormal—in fact, it’s more stable than some other

do debate and still join one other club—and it’s
had its most successful year to date. In the past few

jobs. They renewed my contract once, and then I
asked for a change in status. I asked them to makeyears, a handful of girls have been in the Debate

me permanent. At first, they were, like, but we’veTeam and have participated in the national

never done that before. But I said, well, why not

tournament. Because there aren’t many schools

start now? And they did.

doing debate in Tohoku, we don’t have prefectural
tournaments for qualifying but are given a freepass straight to the national. We haven’t done

Alison: So now you have this stable job at theschool, how do you see the job developing?

particularly brilliantly against the other schools soCory: Initially I thought I would leave after a few

far, but this year, 35 girls have signed up for theyears and go to work in universities. But recently,team, and I think we have a good chance to domuch better. The debate team has some history

I’ve been thinking, why not stay where I am? It’s abehind it now—it’s an established thing.
Alison: So success breeds success. It sounds likeyou’re very committed to the school, with the newcourse and the work you’ve been doing with thedebate team.

good situation and I can help improve the course.
Things are changing at the school too. I noticed ashift a couple of years ago. When I first started
there, the foreign teachers were just part of thefurniture, or rather, just window dressing. Foreignteachers weren’t expected to do some of the things
that our Japanese colleagues do. But now I have aCory: Well, as they say, teaching for a high school

good relationship with people at the school. I’ve

is more like a lifestyle than a job.

established some kind of track record and peopleAlison: So tell me, how did you find yourself inthis lifestyle, I mean, job?

trust me. I’d say I have some sway with theadministration. They seem to listen to me.

Cory: I wasn’t a teacher before I came to Japan. I

Alison: It sounds like an enviable position to be in.

have a BA in law, and I worked for 20 years inbusiness in Canada. Then, my business partner at

Why would you think of moving?

the time decided to pull out and it seemed to be agood opportunity to come to Japan and let my kids
come and experience their other culture. So wecame over and I started working as an English
teacher. My first job was for an eikaiwa company
in Ishinomaki. It wasn’t a great job. They sent me
all over the place to teach; some places I only
visited a couple of times. So it was impossible toestablish much of a relationship with the kids. But
it was through that job that I came to my present

Cory: You’re right. Where I am now, I can beclosely involved in decision-making at the school.
When I talk to people I know who work atuniversities, it sounds like many have no voice at
all where they work. But all the same, I havenothing to compare it with. I’ve only been in Japansix years.
Alison: But it seems that you have been moving
forward with your career in these years. You said
that you have now started a master’s degree?

school. During that first year, the foreign teacher

Cory: That’s right. I’ve completed the postgraduate

who was working at the girls’ school left, so thecertificate in language teaching, so I have just two

school offered me a full-time position. Initially, I

more taught modules and the dissertation to go.

Newsletter of the JALT Learner Development SIG <ld-sig.org/>

13Learning Learning 学習の学習 20 (2): LD SIG Grant Awardees’ Essays
I’m doing it at East London. I know, it’s not very
well known as a TESOL programme. It’s very small
compared with Birmingham or Aston. I’m the only
master’s student on the programme who’s inLD SIG Grants 2013

Japan. Probably most other master’s programmes
have more of a support network.

The LD SIG Grants Committee would like tocongratulate all of the 2013 grants winners. We

Alison: So is that what draws you to JALT? The

look forward to their contributions to the LD

support network?

SIG:

Cory: Absolutely. It’s a journey ofprofessionalization. I can’t imagine where I’d bewithout JALT. Before I joined, I knew very few

Subscription grant:
Natacha Piederriere

people who were doing language teaching longterm. I joined the Sendai Chapter just three years
ago, and was immediately drawn in. Not only have

Membership grants:

I been the Publicity Chair for the Chapter for theBrandon Kramer

Adrian Wagner

entire time, I have now attended over 30 meetings
and two National Conferences, and really

Winner of the LD SIG 2013 research grant:appreciate the opportunities JALT provides. Mydevelopment both as a teacher and learner are still

Michi Sakivery much in progress. In fact, just as one of theJALT slogans says, for me learning truly is aWinners of the 2 JALT 2013 National Grants:
Caroline Ross

lifelong journey.

Aya Matsumoto

Alison: So, if learning is a lifelong journey, toreturn to the question I put to you at the beginning,

Winners of the 2 LD Conference grants:

how would you define learner development?
Cory: Well, that is the million-dollar question. Aslearners, each of us travels down a unique path of
exploration and discovery, and these individualand very personal experiences shape ourdevelopment. As teachers, I see our role as guiding

Mike Sullivan
Tanja McCandie
The 2014 grants will be announced in late
January or early February 2014.

For more information please go to:<http://ld-sig.org/grants2013/>

our learners along their individual paths, helping
our students understand and make use of their

Or send a quick email to:experiences. These definitions are obviously still“under construction”, which I suppose is really<learnerdevelopmentsiggrants@gmail.com>

part of my ongoing development as both a teacher
and learner.

学習者ディベロプメント研究部会 <ld-sig.org/>

14