ISSN	
  1882-­‐1103	
  

	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  

Learning	
  Learning	  学習の学習	
  Volume	  19,	
  No.	  1	  Spring	
  2012	  	
  Greetings	
  ご あいさ	 From	
  the	
  Editors	
  	
  Michael	
  Mondejar	
  and	
  Jackie	
  Suginaga	
  
	
  
	
  
編集者	
 Michael	
 MondejarとJackie	
 Suginagaより	
 
	
 
	
 
Overview	
  of	
  this	
  issue	
  最新号について	
  	
 
	
 
	
 
	
 
	
 
	
 
Learner	
  Development	  SIG	  News	
  	
   	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
学習者ディベロプメント研究部会近況報告	
  Andy	  Barfield	
  &	
  Richard	
  Silver	
  
	
  

	
  
	
 
	
  
	
  

	
  
	
 2	
  
	
 3	
 
	
  
	
  	
  3	
  

	
  
	
 

	
  	
  5	
 
	
 6	
 

	
  

	
  	
  9	
  

	
  
	
  
	
  

12	
 
16	
 
18	
  

	
 

Greetings	
  from	  Learner	
  Development	  SIG	  Members	
  	
  
LD	
 SIGのメンバーより	
  
New	
  to	
  Learner	
  Autonomy?	
 自律学習は初めて？	
 	 	
 Steven	  Paydon	   	
  Greetings	
  from	  Bill	  Mboutsiadis	
  	
  LD	
 SIG会員紹介：Bill	
 Mboutsiadis	
 
	
  

LD	
  SIG	  2011	
  Grant	
  Awardees	
  L D	
 SIG2011年度助成金受給者
Lessons	
  from	  the	  Advising	
  for	  Language	  Learner	
  Autonomy	
  Conference	  アドバイジング・フォー・ランゲージ・ラーナー・オートノミー	 神田外語大学大会からの学び	
  Ian	
  Alexander	
  Hurrell	
  
	
  
	
  
Autonomy-­‐related	
  Problems	
  and	  Possible	  Solutions	  	  自律学習に関する問題と解決の可能性	
 Mehmet	
  Boyno	
   	
  
	
  
Reflections	  on	
  Autonomy	
  自律学習のリフレクション	 Michael	
  Wilkins	
  JALT	
  2011	
  Conference	  	
  JALT	 2011	
 の感想	
 Matthew	
  Coomber	
  
	
  
	
  

Feature	
  Articles	
  フ ィチャード	  アーテイクルス	  Developing	
  an	
  Online	
  Environment	
  to	
  Enable	
  the	
  Independent	
  Learning	
  	
  
of	
  English	
  Pronunciation	
  	
  	
  	
  英語の発音の自主学習を可能にする	
 オンライン環境の開発	
  Mathew	  Porter	
   	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
Private	  Tuition	
  as	
  a	
  Learning	
  Format	
  for	  Japanese	
  Adult	
  Learners	
  of	
  L2	
  English	
  	
  	
  
	
  
日本人成人のL2英語学習者のための学習形式としての個人教授	
 Lee	
  Arnold	
  
	
  	
  
	
  
Voices	
  
読者の声	
  
	
  
Autonomy	
  Big	
  and	
  Small	
  Phil	  Benson,	
  Michael	
  Mondejar	
  &	
  Jackie	
  Suginaga	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  

21	
  
35	
 

42

Looking	  Back	  	
  報 告	 My	
  Reflections	
  of	
  the	  January	  29th	  Get-­‐Together	  	
 １月２９日エリア・ミーティング振り返って	
 Rachelle	  Jorgenson	
  	
   	
  
th
Reflection	
  on	
  the	
  February	  19 	
  Get–Together	  ２月１９日エリア・ミーティングを振り返って	
  Tomoko	
  Kurita	
   	
  
	
  

	
  

49	
  

	
  

51	
  

	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  

52	
  
52	
  
53	
  
53	
  

Looking	  Forward	
  今 後のイベント	
  JALTCALL	  Conference	
  2012	  	  	
  Darren	
  Elliott	
   	
  
	
  
	
  
Nakasendo	
  2012	
  Conference	  	
  Robert	
  Moreau	
  
	
  
	
  
JALT	
  Pan-­‐SIG	
  Conference	
  Literacy:	
  SIGnals	
  of	
  Emergence	  	  	
  Jim	
  Ronald	
  Learner	
  Development	  SIG	  Forum	
  at	
  JALT2012	  	  	
  Bill	  Mboutsiadis	
  
	
  

	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  

SIG	
  Matters	
  イ ンフォメーション
財務報告	
  	
  	
  LD	
  SIG	
  Financial	
  Report	
  	
  LD	
  SIG	
  treasurer	  LDSIG財務	
  	
  Hiromi	
  Furusawa	
  Contributing	
  to	
  Learning	
  Learning	  	
  「学習の学習」原稿募集	
 	
 
	
 
	
 
	
  
	
  

	
  	
  

54	
  	
  	
  	
  
57	
  

JALT学習者ティヘロフメントSIGの会報	 	  Greetings	
  ご あいさつ	 From	
  the	
  Editors	
  	
  	
  	
  Michael	
  Mondejar	
  and	
  Jackie	
  Suginaga	
  編集者	 Michael	
 MondejarとJackie	
 Suginagaより	
 G

reetings all,This issue of Learning Learning comes out alittle later than usual, and in a season of mixed
emotions. While spring is normally a time ofrebirth and renewal, of fresh starts and new
beginnings, this spring was marked by the
one-year anniversary of the Great East Japan
Earthquake,which
ravaged the
Tohokuregionandcontinues tocast a heavy
shadowinthe minds and hearts of everyone in Japan.
Many of us affected by the quake have cometo reflect on our own lives and the lives of ourneighbors, and have become determined toaid in the rebuilding efforts either directly via
volunteering or indirectly by making donations.
The theme of self-reflection connects all of thecontributions in this issue of Learning Learning.
The issue begins with an introduction to two
new SIG members, Steven Paydon and Bill
Mboutsiadis. Currently in the SIG publications
team, Steven discusses his first encounter withlearner autonomy as a child in Australia, as
well as how this experience informs his beliefs
about teaching today. Bill, the SIG Program
Coordinator, describes how principles oflearner autonomy influence his teaching beliefs
and practices.
Following the introductions are reflective
pieces by the 2011 LD SIG Grant Awardees:
Ian Alexander Hurrell, Mehmet Boyno, andMichael Wilkins, and Matt Coomber. Ian and
Mehmet both detail their experiences at theAdvising for Language Learner Autonomy
conference, held by the IATEFL Learner
Autonomy Special Interest Group at Kanda
University of International Studies, and what
they came away with from the conference.
Michael discusses his roots and current
research in learner autonomy, as well as his
experiences
attendingthe
JALT2011
Conference held in Yoyogi, Tokyo last year,
and Matthew reflects on both positive andnegative experiences at the same conference.

2	
   LEARNING	
  LEARNING	
  19(1)	
  	
  We are also happy to feature in this issue
two articles by Mathew Porter and Lee Arnold.
Mathew describes an online pronunciation
course that he designed, discussing how
successful the course was in promoting his
learners’autonomous
acquisitionofphonological knowledge. Lee reflects on how
adult learners in private tuition take control of
their own learning, and offers some guiding
principles for promoting learner autonomy inthis particular learning context.
Also featured in this issue is an interview with
Phil Benson, one of the plenary speakers at
JALT2011 and long-time proponent of learnerautonomy. In this interview, conducted byMichael Mondejar and Jackie Suginaga, Phil
describes his personal journey with learnerautonomy, and the directions which it may takein the future.
In “Looking back”, Rachelle Jorgenson, andTomoko Kurita
each
offer
reflections on
the Tokyo LDSIG
gettogethers thathave been held
on a monthly
basis at Teachers College in Suidobashi since
December 2011.	
   Darren Elliott, Robert Moreau,and Bill Mboutsiadis also preview different LD
SIG forums taking place this year.
This issue of Learning Learning reflects the cooperation of many people, and we would like tothank in particular for their contributions andassistance: Phil Benson, Andy Barfield,
RichardSilver,StevenPaydon,Bill
Mboutsiadis, Ian Alexander Hurrell, Mehmet
Boyno, Matthew Wilkins, Mathew Porter, Lee
Arnold,Matthew
Coomber,
Rachelle
Jorgenson, Tomoko Kurita, Darren Elliott,
Robert Moreau, Kay Irie, Hiromi Furusawa,
Hugh Nicoll, Alison Stewart, and FumikoMurase. Without their invaluable help it would
not have been possible to publish this issue.
We hope that you will find something of
relevance and interest in this issue and as
always, we want to hear from you if you areinterested in writing articles, reflections, orbookreviews,orworkingontheeditorial/translating team.

Newsletter	
  of	
  the	  JALT	
  Learner	
  Development	  SIG	  	
  Overview	
  of	
  this	
  issue	  最新号について本号に投稿されたすべての論文・記事に共通しているテーマはセルフ・リフレクションです 。 19.1 号 は 二 人 の 新 し い SIG 会 員 、 Steven	 PaydonとBill	
 Mboutsiadisの自己紹介に始まり 、 2011 年 度 LD	
  SIG 助 成 金 の 三 名 の 受 給 者（ Ian	
  Hurrell ・ Mehmet	  Boyno	  ・ Matthew	 Coomber）が参加した学会を振り返り、二本の論文へと続きます。一本目はMathew	
 Porterがオンライン上での発音学習について、二本目
ではLee	
 Arnoldの成人学習者がいかに自律学
習をすることができるかについて述べています。そして、LD	
 SIGが２０１１年度年次大会に基調講演者として招いたフィル・ベンソンのインタビューをお読みください。彼自身が今までの自律学習を巡る旅を振り返り、今後の方向性について語っています。さらには、
Matthew	  Coomber ・ Rachelle ・ Jorgenson	 	
 Tomoko	 Kuritaによる最近のSIGの活動についての報告です。そして今号の締めくくりは古澤弘美の会計報告、Darren	
 Elliott・Robert	 Moreau・Bill	
 Mboutsiadisによる各学会にお
けるLD	
 SIG	
 フォーラムについてのお知らせがあります。巻末には学習の学習への投稿募集とガイドラインがありますので是非お読みください。	
 Michael	 Mondejar	
 &	
 Jackie	
 Suginaga	 	  Learner	
  Development	  SIG	  News	  November	
  2011-­‐April	
  2012	
  学習者ディベロプメント研究部会近況報告	
  2011年11月~2012年4月	
  Though the start of the new academic
year in Japan takes place in April, the LD
SIG began its new term in November,shortly after our Annual General Meeting(AGM) at the JALT National Conference inTokyo. After five years at the helm, Hugh Nicoll
stepped down at the AGM to focus more on
redeveloping the website and editing
publications. We would like to thank Hugh andall the outgoing officers for all their efforts onbehalf of the SIG these last few years. In our
new roles as co-coordinators, together with all
the other 2012 LD SIG officers, we hope verymuch to build on established successes and tohelp revitalize the SIG in other areas. Several
new faces were among the 20 people who
took part in the SIG’s AGM, where we
continued the discussions about future plansthat had started over email in the weeks
immediately prior to the conference. We
welcome the further participation of other SIG
members in the committee if you are interested.
Please just let us know if you would like to takepart.
Since November, many changes havestarted taking place. Kay Irie, fresh from coediting Realizing Autonomy, will be taking overfrom Hiromi Furusawa as SIG treasurer thisApril. Hiromi deserves special thanks forhaving been so efficient and organized,
helping the SIG stay financially organised inproviding a wide array of teacher support andconference events. Hiromi’s top-notch work
was noticed and commended by the National
Director of Treasury! Kay has been shadowing
Hiromi for the last year or so, and we hopesomeone will in turn step forward and shadow	
  Kay. Again, if you are interested, please let
Kay or us know - thanks in advance for doingso.
Onmembershipmatters,
Rachelle
Jorgenson is continuing as membership chair,and has been joined since November by Matt
Coomber and Jeremy White. As a team, they
have been putting in place new systems forkeeping up to date membership details and forreviewing and renewing the email lists bywhich we contact you. This will, we hope, allow
better communication about SIG matters, aswell as help the SIG acknowledge and include
new and renewing members more quickly than
before. We invite your feedback onmembership matters, and any other aspect ofwhat the SIG is doing, and how it is working foryou.
Following the publication of Realizing
Autonomy, the publications team, led by Alison
Stewart and Masuko Miyahara, together with
Hugh Nicoll and Fumiko Murase, have been
putting forward ideas for the next project(s).
These currently include self-publishing a seriesof books online. Expect to hear more about
this later in the year after the publication of a
special Learning Learning issue with theRealizing Autonomy Proceedings. Here wewould like to thank Alison and Kay, along with
Martha Robertson, Steve Paydon and Masuko
Miyahara.
Bill Mboutsiadis took over as Programme
Chair from Richard Silver and has created acollaborative
SIG programmesplanning
Google site which can be found via the LD SIG
website. Many people are helping Bill organize
events this year with Rob Moreau coordinating

LEARNING	
  LEARNING	
  19(1)	
   3	
  JALT学習者ティヘロフメントSIGの会報	 	  our participation at Nakasendo, Jim Ronald
with Ellen Head at the Pan-SIG Conference inHiroshima, and Darren Elliot at the CALL SIG
Conference in Kansai. We will have LD SIG
forums at all these events and hope to see youat one or more of them. As well as keeping you
up to date with all of the upcoming LD SIG
events, Bill will also be organizing the Learner
Development SIG’s annual forum at JALT2012
in Hamamatsu - we applaud Bill for everything
he is doing.
At the local level, the LD SIG has beenorganising get-togethers in Hiroshima, Kansai
and Tokyo, with Jim Ronald and Andrew Brady
taking the lead in Hiroshima, Ellen Head, Phil
Brown, Steve Brown and Richard Silver in
Kansai,andAndy
Barfield,
Rachelle
Jorgenson and Stacey Vye in Tokyo. We arehoping too that get-togethers will soon takeshape in Nagoya, with Darren Elliott leading.
LD SIG get-togethers vary in their specificcharacter from one metropolitan area toanother, but, generally speaking, they are
discussion based, with those attending
exploring their learner development interests
and/or engaging in collaborative practitioner
research. Please join in this year if you areinterested.
Another committee aim since November
has been to revitalize the SIG website. New
content is continually being added to thewebsite about different activities and projects
that the SIG is involved in, as well as
information about SIG grants, memberships
and subscriptions. Non-JALT members can
now take part in the SIG through subscriptions,and information about this and how to join the
SIG as a JALT member can be found on thewebsite. The AGM minutes from November
2011 are available there if you missed them,and past issues of Learning Learning are also
fully accessible online. Many thanks to Darren
Elliott, Mike Nix and Hugh Nicoll for all theirwork on the website so far, as well as formaintaining the SIG’s Facebook presence.
Rob Moreau has also been revising the LD
SIG logo, the new version of which you should
start to notice in the coming months. We thankhim for his time and effort on this, too.
Part of the strength of working in teams andhaving many different voices to listen to andacknowledge lies in the breadth and diversityof input that different issues and decisions
receive. This has helped us all develop further
the 2012 LD SIG Grants and Wider
Participation Scheme, with the first awardees
to be announced in April. It is also helping us
shape our collective planning for the next 1218 months following the success of theRealizing Autonomy project. We would like to4	
   LEARNING	
  LEARNING	
  19(1)	
  	
  thank the members-at-large of the committee
for all their constructive criticisms andsuggestions, in particular Phil Brown, Dexter
Da Silva, Ellen Head, Kayo Ozawa, Martha
Robertson, Greg Rouault, Keiko Takahashi,and Stacey Vye.
Though the story of SIG over the past six
months has been overwhelmingly positive, it
was with great sadness that in January welearnt of the death of Richard Pemberton, aclose friend of the SIG from its very beginning.
A full tribute to Richard will be published in theRealizing
Autonomy
Proceedings.
The
committee is currently developing ideas for a
fitting and lasting memorial to Richard and his
work in the learner autonomy field, and wehope to announce more information about thislater this year.
Our final round of thanks goes to Michael
Mondejar and Jackie Suginaga whose
sustained efforts over the past six months
bring to you this fantastic issue of Learning
Learning. We hope that you really enjoy
reading it. As with the newsletter, so too with
the SIG: We welcome your participation
wherever you are teaching, learning or using
languages (and whatever languages too) elementary school, junior high school, seniorhigh school, distance learning, graduate
studies, language school or university. May
this new school year be successful andfulfilling for you in exploring learnerdevelopment in many different ways.
With our very best wishes

Andy Barfield & Richard Silver
On behalf of the Learner Development
SIG committee
	
 
LD	
 SIG	
 委員会代表	 	 アンディ・バーフィールド	
 	
 	
 	
 	
 
リッチ・シルバー	
 
	
 
	
 

	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  
	
  

Newsletter	
  of	
  the	  JALT	
  Learner	
  Development	  SIG	  	
  Greetings	
  from	  Learner	
  Development	  SIG	
  Members	  	
  L D	
 SIGのメンバーより	
 	
 自律学習は初めて？	
 
	
 
LD	
 SIG会員紹介：Steven	
 Paydon	
  

	
  
New	
  to	
  Learner	
  Autonomy?	
  	
  Steven	  Paydon,	  Tokai	  University	
  
	
  

I

recently joined the Learner Development
Sig after becoming intimately interested inlearner autonomy. At first, I thought I was
new to this idea of putting the learner in controlof their own learning - but now I am not so sure.
Years ago my family moved to a station, what
Americanswould call aratherbig
ranch, on theedge of theKimberly
regioninoutback
Australia. It was remote and isolated, but thatis actually an understatement. Our nearest
neighbor, literally the house next door, was
12km away. The nearest town was 182km
away, along 120km of unsealed, rough roads
that were often made impassable by flooding
rivers. In fact, the town was so far away, andso difficult to get to, that we would only go
shopping about four times a year - in a big
truck! We were so remote that we even had
our own airstrip. The airstrip was vital for two
reasons. Firstly, we received our mail once
every two weeks by mail plane. Secondly, andmost importantly, if in case of an emergency
we needed a doctor, the only realistic way to
get help was via the Royal Flying Doctor
Service (RFDS). Needless to say, there wereno schools anywhere remotely near where we
lived. Instead, my brother and I completed ourelementary school years in a pioneer versionof distance learning called School of the Air.
School of the Air derived its name from theteachers delivering their lessons via HF Radio,
i.e. ‘through the air’ (schools.net.nt.edu/ksa/).

	
  These radio sets were another essential part oflife for isolated communities. Built into arugged, army-green metal box, they came witha hand-held microphone and a long piece ofwire that you would tie to a stick and throw up
the nearest gumtree for an aerial. They weremainly used for the RFDS, but so long as there
were no emergencies at any given time, they
could be utilized by School of the Air - or the
odd communications between a very small
amount of people scattered throughout a very
vast region.
Other than that, about the only other thing you
could rely on picking up on the HF radio was
the Indonesian fishing boats chattering away atnight about 1000km to our north.
Each school morning we would sit in front ofthese radio sets listening intently to the staticin excited anticipation. Then eventually, we
would hear our teacher’s voice come over theradio and our class would begin. A typicalmorning roll-call would go something like this:“Good morning KSA Grade 6. This is Mrs.
Fitzgerald. Are you there? Over.”Suddenly the airwaves would burst to life! A
multitude of young little voices would say, notin quite the synchronized unison we come to
expect in a physical classroom, “Good morning
Mrs. Fitzgerald. Over.” The adrenaline rush
was almost too
much for a young
boy to stand.
From
that
moment on wewere in contact
with the outside
world,
andalthoughouryoungimaginations
couldn’tquite
grasp it, we knew that we were a part ofsomething big.
Reflecting back now, School of the Air seems
to be my first real introduction to learnerautonomy. Autonomy seems to me to be
having a freedom of choice. My brother and I
were free to choose how much we studied andwhen. Just so long as we kept up to scheduleand got our work finished before the mail planearrived with our next set of lessons, mum didn’t
really care what we did. This was both aliberating and motivating experience for us.
Writing on Self-Determination Theory (SDT),
Deci and Ryan (2000) identify three

LEARNING	
  LEARNING	
  19(1)	
   5	
  JALT学習者ティヘロフメントSIGの会報	 	
  psychological needs that, when met, lead to
intrinsic motivation: relatedness, competence,
and autonomy. School of the Air helped fulfill
these needs for us. Although we couldn’t see it,
School of the Air gave us a sense of belonging
to a community. We would check in with our
teacher every school day, and we could hear
the voices of other little kids experiencing thesame wonder as us. We had a sense ofcompetence because we were learning frommaterials designed to be at just the right levelfor us (optimal challenge). Moreover, seeing as
there were no other kids, no TV, no video, noclubs, no shops…absolutely nothing, we were
free from distractions and totally focused oncompleting our lessons. Not surprisingly, we
also finished them in haste. And finally, we
also had ample autonomy because, apart fromhaving to be present for our morning roll call,
we could study whenever we wanted.
Deci and Ryan (2000) also postulate thatstudents in autonomy-supportive environments
show higher levels of motivation and learn
more than students in controlled environments.
My brother and I can vouch for this, too. We
were proactive and engaged. We used to burnthrough those materials so fast that we would
finish two weeks’ work in one week. There
were no school rules for us, no sitting incrowded classrooms waiting for a bell to ring,either. In fact, there was no watching a clock atall. We were interested, excited, confident, andthis translated into performance, persistence,and creativity. In fact, we were so creative thatonce we had finished all our materials, wewould just check in for roll call in the morningand then knick off down the creek catchingsnakes and lizards until the next lot ofmaterials arrived.
Now I find myself here in Japan. My neighborlives only inches away from me, I have over ahundred channels on my TV, and aconvenience store is always in walking
distance. Like everyone else teaching in Japan,
I also find myself bound by various institutional
constraints. These controls are often anecessary fact of life as a teacher, but learnerautonomy seems to me to offer us somebalance in regards to overbearing control. That,
combined with my own learning experience,
makes me think that we can use learnerautonomy to motivate our students to reachhigher and achieve more. If we can give ourstudents a sense of belonging, then they will
work hard for their community. If we can givethem a sense of success, then they will gain
the confidence to push their boundaries. And if
we can give them a sense of choice, then they6	
   LEARNING	
  LEARNING	
  19(1)	
  	
  will be motivated to take control. My brotherand I thrived on the ability to take control of ourlearning. We ended up being sent away toboarding school in our high school years.
However, my School of the Air experience set
me up to thrive at distant learning when doing
my Masters as an external student. The ability
to take control of my learning was a motivating
experience that I hope I can pass onto mystudents.
References
Deci, E., & Ryan, R. (2000). Self-determination
theory and the facilitation of intrinsic
motivation, social development, and wellbeing. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68-78.
Katherine School of the Air. Retrieved fromschools.net.nt.edu/ksa/.
	
  
	
  

Greetings	
  
from	
  
Learner	  Development	
   SIG	
   Member	
   Bill	  Mboutsiadis	
  LD	
  SIG 会 員 紹 介 ： Bill	 Mboutsiadis	
 
	
  

H

ello everyone. My name is Bill
Mboutsiadis. I have been asked to
introduce myself since I’m a recent LD
SIG member and to discuss myunderstanding of learner development. I hope
to meet more of you during the various events
that are now being developed. As LD
programme chair, I’ve had the pleasure toconnect with some of you via emails and so
I’m looking forward to meeting you in person
this year. In this introduction I will also explain
my ongoing understanding of learnerdevelopment by specifically discussing what
learner autonomy means for me and how it isrealized with my learners in our sharedlearning environment.
I arrived in Japan in March of 2010 with myfamily to teach at Meisei University in the WestTokyo area of Hino City. I have been teachingin ESL environments for most of my career
though my initial experience was teaching at auniversity in Bratislava, Slovakia. Turning
down a JET teaching offer back in 1996, I
started teaching English for Academic
Preparation at the University of Toronto’s
English Language Program. Since then I’ve
always wondered how things would haveturned out for me if had chosen to go to Japan.
Coming here has thus fulfilled a long-time goal
to have a Japanese EFL teaching opportunity.

Newsletter	
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  It has also been a great chance for mychildren’s growth and learning. My second son
Alexander was born in Niigata in December of2010. Finally, a major motivating factor tocome to Japan was to re-energize my career
after a recent loss of plausibility and purpose in
my teaching. The professional development
possibilities and academic rigor in appliedresearch here in Japan have been a major
motivating factor to better myself and has
contributed to a re-evaluation of myprofessional belief system. Most memorable so
far has been the many individuals with whom
I’ve met at various conferences who havewelcomed me as if I’d been here for a longtime. I’ve been learning on a daily basis here.
With the LD SIG, I have found a great sense of
a community of practice which brings out thebest in everyone. This is what I have been
missing the last 10 years of my career.
Learner autonomy development
As soon as we take our first breath as humanbeings upon leaving our mother`s womb, weare born learners.
We are learners
in the survival oflife. The recent
birth of my twosons in 2009 and
2010,
have
demonstrated tome, as to all new
fathers,
thecurious love oflearning. They both are independent explorersof the world. My wife and I give guidance andtry to create an environment of encouragement
for learning and growth. John, my three-yearand-three-month old son, is constantly trying todo things on his own. He literally pushed meaway and wants to do things by himself. He
demonstrates a desire to have control of hislearning through his curious exploration of theenvironment around him. I have come torealize that I should give time for him to figure
things out on his own. With my watchful eye
and positive feedback I am facilitating his
learning through experiences that he iscreating and not simply being directed towards
instructional behaviour from me. Knowing
when to intervene and when not to is key tomaintaining an unobtrusive observation.
In the future, as my children enter educationalsettings, there will be attempts to curtail their
independent learning through the conforming
influences of formal institutions. This isunfortunate and can be stifling for learners. A
loss of control and ownership of their learning	
  process will occur. I would hope their learning
environment would encourage them to be
independent critical thinkers and encouragethem to seek out truth and knowledge.
I believe autonomy in learning is the taking
back of this loss of control in one’s learning
process. The ability to take charge of one’s
learning is very powerful because it builds
learner agency. Agency creates motivation
through nurturing curiosity and thus developing
a belief that something positive is happening to
one’s self and that there is independent control
that is facilitating this experience. A confidence
is thus created that allows a learner to be arisk taker in the learning process. Thisregained control shifts the responsibility oflearning to the learner as opposed to being
dependent on the educator (Holec, 1981).
According to (Benson, 2001), “the autonomous
learner is one that constructs knowledge fromdirect experience, rather than one who
responds to someone’s instruction” (p. 70). As
in my son’s case there is a natural tendency
for learners to take control over their learning.
Autonomy may be displayed in different ways
to different degrees depending on each learnerand the learning situation. Autonomy can be
developed if given the appropriate conditions
and preparation and is a more effective form oflearning than non-autonomous learning.
Autonomy can be illustrated by the famous
quote of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), “Youcannot teach a man anything; you can only
help him find it within himself.” Furthermore,
within my practice I try to be less of an
instructor and more of a facilitator. My students
are discouraged from relying on me as themain source of knowledge. I try to encourage
my students’ own capacity to learn on theirown and with their peers. I try to encouragethem to make decisions about what they learn.
This all takes time and patience since it isbasically a re-socialization that needs to takeplace.
At Meisei University in Japan, the instructors in
the International Studies Department havebeen given great autonomy in instruction andcurriculum development. The instructors havecome together and decided the textbooks forparticular courses. On the other hand, thedepartment that manages the required general
English courses has basically mandated the
textbooks. In all classes where a text is
required we, the students and I, negotiate thechapters of the text that they would like tocover. In some other classes I have gone off
the textbook and used my own material to liven
up the class since the text is so disconnected

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  JALT学習者ティヘロフメントSIGの会報	
 	  from the learners’ reality. The most autonomy
I have in my teaching context is by being thechair of the Computer Assisted Language
Learning (CALL) autonomy learning courses.
International Studies majors are required totake four autonomous learning classes overthe first two years of study. These classes arequite unique in Japan and take place in a
CALL room. I am lucky as the chair of the
CALL autonomy learning courses since I am
constantly learning and trying to make apositive learning environment for my students
and instructors. We are constantly adapting
and improving the course. There is no text
book for the class. Most of materials aredeveloped, provided and introduced to thestudents. Students are also encouraged toseek out other sources for their learning that
may include online websites or other out-ofclass learning opportunities. The class is notstreamed by proficiency levels due to thelogistics of booking the CALL room. This mixed
class context allows for each student to seekout their own comfortable level of learning.
Students have a choice of their learning
activities on a daily basis. The activities include
a variety of online learning sites, in-house
software, graded readers and some DVDs.
The students are assigned a similar term
project but it allows for self directed creativity
and expression.
Within my classes I try to give as much choice
to my learners as possible. In the autonomy
classes there is absolutely no testing of any
kind unless the students try some online
quizzes. At the end of the term I set up
advising sessions where we look at the term’s
activities and their progress and together wenegotiate their final mark. This situation is quite
unique and can be explained by the fact that
Meisei is a private university which allows
	
  
	
  

	
  
	
  
8	
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  some freedoms. The English teachers havebeen given great autonomy in designing thecurriculum. This autonomy would be very
limited in a more conservative national
university. Finally, autonomy in learning in
general, as I see it, is not necessarily a finaldestination. It is also not something to betaught by some individual. It is a life-long pathof continual discovery by both the learner andeducator of what it means to connect with theworld in the search for ultimate truths in life.
Bill Mboutsiadis has been an instructor in the
English Language Program at the University ofToronto since 1996. He is chair of CALL
Learning at Meisei University and is a highschool TESL certified educator. Bill has been
living in Japan with his wife and two boys since2010. His research interests include: learner &teacher autonomy development, Language
education
policy,transformative&sociolinguistic learning theories, CALL, criticalpedagogy, Content & Language Integrated
Learning (CLIL), Dogme, Extensive Reading(ER), Digital literacy, kamishibai storytellingtradition, digital interactive storytelling, English
for Academic Purposes (EAP), World
Englishes (WE), art media education,
children’s literature, international field work
learning, and Teachers Helping Teachers(THT) – international teacher development
workshops and in-service volunteer work.
References
Benson, P. (2007). Teaching and researching
autonomy in language learning. Harlow:
Longman.
Holec, H. (1981). Autonomy and foreign
language learning. Oxford: Pergamon. (First
published [1979], Strasbourg: Council ofEurope.)Newsletter	
  of	
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  Learner	
  Development	  SIG	  2011	
  Grant	
  Awardees	  LD	
 SIG2011年度助成金受給者
Lessons	
  from	  the	  Advising	
  for	
  Language	
  Learner	
  Autonomy	
  Conference	  	 アドバイジング・フォー・ランゲージ・ラーナー・オート
ノミー神田外語大学大会から
の学び	
 
	
  

Ian	
  Alexander	
  Hurrell	  University	
  of	
  Birmingham	
  
	
 

Ian	
  Alexander	  Hurrell,	  バ ー ミ
ンガム大学
	
  

A

s a head teacher
at a small private
language school,morecommonlyreferred to in Japan as
an ‘Eikaiwa’ school, I
probably came to theAdvising for Language
Learner
Autonomy
Conference at Kanda
University of International Studies (KUIS) froma different view-point than most of the otherparticipants who were coming from a university
teaching background.
I find that it is useful to think of an Eikaiwa
school as a kind of fitness gym for developing
English, where each student comes to theschool with different ability levels and also witha range of goals, such as becoming able tocommunicate in a professional environment or
simply for personal interest. In addition, as aservice industry, there is strong pressure toprovidecustomersatisfactionasthecustomer’s desire to stay at the school isdirectly linked to the satisfaction they feel from
theserviceprovided.
However,
accommodating all of these different ability
levels and goals can be very demanding onteachers who struggle to prepare materials tosatisfy their student’s needs and expectations.
This was the case for me in the early years of	  teaching at an Eikaiwa school. The sheer
volume of work in constructing personalizedmaterials for each of my 40+ students wasoften overwhelming and would frequently
result in classes that not only failed to satisfy
my student’s needs but also failed to provide a
motivating teaching experience for myself as ateacher. However, after starting a Master’s
degree in TEFL/TESL, I was introduced toideas such as learner-centered teaching,learner autonomy, discovery learning, advising,self-access learning, etc. This has allowed me
to develop and implement open-ended syllabi
which put me in the role of a learning advisor
and passed control of the student’s learning
progress into their own hands. In this way, I
was able to help my students to develop theirown teaching programs and create their own
materials, tailored to their personal needs. This
has not only helped to reduce the burden of
creating materials on my shoulders, but, more
importantly, it has allowed my students todevelop into more responsible, motivated andindependent learners, as well as creating amuch more positive learning environment at
my school (Hurrell, 2010).
It was with this background that I came to thisconference, with a view to finding out how
others have been applying the ideas ofadvising and learner autonomy in their own
teaching situations and how I might be able toapply them to my situation in the Eikaiwa
industry.
The day before the conference, I was lucky
enough to go on a tour of Kanda’s Self Access
Learning Center (SALC). It was illuminating tosee how KUIS had implemented the concept oflearner autonomy and advising into their center
throughfull-timelearning
advisors,
independent learning programs, private multipurpose language learning rooms, and alounge area where students could come andchat in English in a relaxed and comfortableenvironment. We also had a chance toobserve an advanced writing class where thestudents worked collaboratively to investigate
topics of their choosing using the internet anda variety of other sources and write their own
research papers. It was clear that the idea oflearner autonomy runs deep in the corephilosophy of KUIS, which made it the perfectsetting for this conference.

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  JALT学習者ティヘロフメントSIGの会報	 	  The next day, I was impressed to see thenumber of people who had come from all overJapan and also internationally to attend theconference. After taking part in theenlightening seminars and chatting with theparticipants between sessions, it seemed clearthat conference presenters and participants
shared a number of common issues with
developing the ideas of advising, learnerautonomy and self access learning in ELT.
The first and biggest issue was naturally thequestion of how should we introduce the ideasof advising and learner autonomy to students.
These ideas are still in their relative infancy
and, while the literature provides a lot ofevidence to show how autonomous learners
are more successful, there is still little
information on how teachers can actively help
students make the transition from being
passive learners to independent learners whoare in control of their own progress.
Many of the seminars focused on how wemight address this issue. Howard Doyle from
Kochi University and Michael Parrish from
Kwansei Gakuin University presented theirstudy on the methods that their learners use toimprove their English outside of class. This issomething that my students often ask me
about so I was interested to hear their findings.
I was amused by some of the more ingenious
methods their students had come up with,such as switching the language of theiriPhones from Japanese to English. At thispoint, their study seemed to be mainly
concerned with identifying the various methods
that their students preferred to use, but I think
it would also be very useful for language
advisors to have more information about which
methods are more successful in improving thelearner’s communicative ability. This could be
the subject of a follow-up study.
John Adamson and Naoki Fujimoto-Adamsonfrom the University of Niigata Prefecture
presented their work on the role of translanguaging (alternating between the learners
L1 and L2) during mentoring sessions. This isa subject that is of great interest to me as I
have often experienced resistance to native
speaker instructors using Japanese in theirlessons at Eikaiwa schools. I believe that thisis primarily because of the perception that an
English-only policy will create an immersion
environment and will aid learning by pushing
the students to speak more English. While thisidea may have some merit, I feel this policy
greatly limits the types of ideas that can be
introduced, especially with lower level students,10	
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  as language has to be kept within the learner’s
L2 ability range. In my classes, I have beenable to get positive results by mentoring mystudents using Japanese where necessary andstudents have reported greater satisfaction
with their classes. Over time, the managementof my school has gradually become more
comfortable with the judicious use of Japanese
in my classes. Nonetheless, this is still an
issue that I grapple with on a daily basis in myteaching. Just how much of the student’s L1should be used during teaching sessions? It
was interesting to hear the stories of how other
instructors dealt with this issue in their classes.
One teacher commented that he only used
Japanese when he got the “blank stare”, anexperience that I think many of us have had atleast one time in our teaching careers.
However, from the range of opinions that wereexpressed, I think it is fair to say that the use oftrans-languaging is very much left to personal
intuition at this time. It would be very useful forthe development of language advising to see
more work done in this area to create a set of
guidelines so that instructors can be better
informed about appropriate use of translanguaging when advising.
It goes without saying that creating
autonomous learners was a major issue of theconference, but another issue of equal
importance was encouraging institutions
themselves to promote the ideas of learnerautonomy and advising. It was clear to see that
KUIS had made a considerable investment increating their SALC, and many of theparticipants who I talked with had come withthe aim of starting similar facilities at their own
universities. However, in these tougheconomic times, competition for resources isfierce between various departments, andconvincing university decision-making bodies
to commit these scarce resources to creating acenter and employing full-time advisors is a
tough prospect. This is especially the casewhen there is currently little concrete evidence
to prove that such centers would besignificantly more effective in improving a
student’s
communicative
abilitythanconventional teaching.
This point was clearly illustrated by thepresentation made by Marjo Mitsutomi andMariko Sakurada from Akita University, which
has also recently opened a self-access center.
They talked about their difficulties in fighting forresources and trying to get students throughthe doors. As I listened to their presentation, a
lot of the problems they were talking about
reminded me of discussions from my days as a

Newsletter	
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  business major, such as the need to create a
coherent business model for the center and tomarket the center effectively within the student
body. Therefore, it seems that if we promote
the widespread development of such centers,
especially in a commercial industry such as
Eikaiwa, then a sound theoretical underpinningalone will not be sufficient. We also need astrong business rationale.
This brings me to the final issue raised in theconference, that of using ideas from otherfields to aid our research in developing theconcept of learner autonomy. We saw how the
representatives
from
Akita
University
highlighted the need for a clear businessrationale. However, there were otherpresenters who had also taken concepts fromother fields. A presentation which greatly
impressed me was given by Satoko Kato of
Kanda Institute of Foreign Languages. Ms.
Kato had conducted research into the various
problems that advisors at her institution had in
their professional development, for example:
understanding their role as a facilitator of
language learning rather than a teacher;dealing with the uncertainty of advising where
potentially any issue could arise versus therelative certainty provided by teaching with alesson plan; and adjusting the expectations ofboth advisor and advisee as to what is to be
expected in advising sessions. Ms. Kato used
a wheel diagram (Kato & Sugawara, 2008) toplot how advisors and advisees felt about theiradvising sessions and used the results todiscuss with advisors about how they could
improve their advising. Neither I nor the people
around me had ever seen this kind oftechnique before. When I approached Ms.
Kato to ask her about how she had developed
the idea, she informed me that she had
adapted the wheel diagram from a techniquecommonly used in life counseling to help
people improve their life. After hearing this, I
thought that this technique could also be
applied with my students to help them develop
as autonomous learners, and I plan to do thisin the future.
It became apparent that advising in ELT could
greatly benefit from work already done in
related fields, and this issue was encapsulatedby the final presentation given by the key-note
speaker of the conference, Chris Candlin. He
presented his research on the techniques usedby the professional medical industry to advise
patients about health issues and highlighted
how health advisors could not explicitly tellpatients what they should do, but rather had toemploy a number of techniques in order to	
  guide patients to make the right choices bythemselves. Candlin then went on todemonstrate how this basic principle may be
applied when advising students to become
more autonomous learners. This further
reinforced the idea that a lot could be learned
from other related fields to develop the idea ofadvising for language learner autonomy
So, after all this, what lessons could be taken
away from this conference? It is clear that
there is still a lot of work to do if we are going
to convince both students and institutions tocommit to the ideals of learner autonomy,
advising and self-access learning. This isespecially true of the Eikaiwa industry, which iscommercially driven and wary of abandoning
tried and tested methods. However, if research
into the problems raised in the conference canbe continued with the help of work alreadydone in related fields, such as business andcounseling, I believe that it will be possible toovercome these issues. Conferences such as
this one play a great part in exciting people’s
imaginations to explore ways that we mightdevelop and adapt our own teaching contexts
so that we can help learners take greater
control of their own learning, and I look forward
to making my own contributions in the future.
Ian started his teaching career on the JET
program teaching at two senior high schools in
Saitama Prefecture, Japan. After three
productive years on the JET program, hebecame head teacher of a private language
school in Sapporo, Hokkaido, where hecontinues to help his students to develop into
successful learners of English. Currently, he isabout to complete his Masters in TEFL/TESL.
His main interests lie in learner autonomy,task-based language teaching and the use of
discourse analysis to help learners understandpragmatic meaning in authentic materials.
References
Hurrell, I.A. (2011). A plan for a negotiatedtask-based syllabus. JABAET Journal,
14(15), 93-110.
Kato, S., & Sugawara, H. (2008). Actionoriented Language Learning Advising: A
new approach to promote independent
learning. The Journal of Kanda Universityof International Studies, 21, 455-475.

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JALT学習者ティヘロフメントSIGの会報	
 
	
  

Some	
   Autonomy-­‐Related	
   Problems	
  and	
  Possible	  Solutions	  	 自律学習に関する問題と解決
の可能性	
 
	
  
Mehmet	  Boyno	  Sahinbey	
  Kiz	
  Teknik	
  ve	
  Meslek	
  Lisesi	  	
 Mehmet	  Boyno,	  Sahinbey	  Kiz	
  Teknik	
 ve	
 Meslek	 Lisesi	
 
	
  
	
  

T

he way I
wasbrought up
as a child athome and theway I was treatedas a student at
schoolinanobedient culture(one where a person isn’t able to decide or
behave on their own in most cases) made me
eager to become an autonomous individual. In
the first year of my PhD studies, I becameaware of the concept of learner autonomy andcould name this desire concretely. Then, I
conducted research on some dependentengineering students with low motivation. They
were dependent in that their English instructor
was complaining about their not activating theirinner mechanisms in terms of shaping anddirecting their own learning. On mysupervisor’s advice, I started to deal withlearner autonomy. My PhD dissertation isentitled “An analysis of the factors influencing
learner autonomy in the Turkish EFL context”(Boyno, 2011). While learning more aboutautonomy, I decided to encourage my students
to become autonomous because my students
were, as I observed with the engineering
students, not so independent nor self-directed.
Accordingly, at the very beginning of theacademic term, I administered a questionnaire
to students so that I could find out theirpersonal diversities: their learning styles,
multiple
intelligenceareas,
emotional
intelligences, motivation, attitudes and anxiety
towards learning English, parental attitudes
and English language learning strategies thatthey employ. I shared the results with them sothat they could experience more personalawareness before getting language awarenessand learner awareness. I did not follow the12	
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  ready-made curriculum and the commercial
coursebooks entirely. Instead, my students
decided on the syllabus design, the order ofthe units and topics to study in accordancewith their needs and wants. They also
developed their own materials in addition tousing the coursebooks. At the end of thesemesters, they assessed both their own
performance (self-assessment) and that of
their peers (peer assessment).
I am interested in parental attitudes andautonomy in early childhood, and theapplications of self-access centres. I am alsointerested in classroom-based advising. I know
the difficulties of classroom-based advising(please see my explanation of our presentation
for the details); yet, in last year’s IATEFL
Learner Autonomy Special Interest Group (LASIG) event entitled ‘Advising for Language
Learner Autonomy’ held at Kanda University ofInternational Studies (KUIS), I expected tolearn more about the role of the advisor andthat of the advisee and about the advisingprocess including the development of materials.
I have been teaching English in Turkey since1995. I worked at both private and public
primary and secondary schools. Everything
was quite traditionally teacher-centred: theforeign language teaching system, teachers’
way of teaching, administration, and so on. In
2007 and 2009, I presented and listened topresentations on different aspects of learnerautonomy at the Independent Learning
Association Conferences (ILACs). The LA SIG
event at Kanda was very special for me owing
to its on-target topic: advising. As a practitioner
researcher, I have been aiming to practiceautonomy in my classrooms since 2007
despite facing many problems (the details of
which you will find below where I write about
our presentation). By joining this LA SIG event,I wanted to learn from other academics’
experiences as to classroom-based advising intheir presentations and to find possible
solutions to my problems.
In 2009, I listened to Marina MozzonMcPherson’s presentation at ILAC in HongKong. She talked about advising and how todeal with advising-related problems. I enjoyedit very much. Hence, I decided to join the oneday event at Kanda after flying from Turkey toJapan for nearly 11 hours non-stop, thinking
that I would be able to listen to Marina again.
Unfortunately, she could not make it to thisevent on advising because of some healthproblems. (I hope you made a speedy
recovery, Marina!) Yes, I missed her but

Newsletter	
  of	
  the	  JALT	
  Learner	
  Development	  SIG	  	
  enjoyed andpresentations.

learned

a

lot

from

other

One of my main points of interest is the selfaccess centres (SACs) incorporating materials
available for the students, advisors andassessment. I satisfied this academic hungerof mine during the pre-conference visits to theself-access centres. This was not my first timeat self-access centres. In 2009, I also visited
some centres in Hong Kong as a preconference event before ILAC and in Mexico
when I visited Marina Chavez Sanchez andher colleagues at Universidad Nacional
Autónoma de México (UNAM), and Virna
Velázquez and her colleagues at Universidad
Autónoma del Estado de México (UAEM). I
tried to understand how people design thesecentres, how many advisors are employed forhow many students, what the limitations of thecentres are, and what kind of students tend to
make use of the facilities in the centres. I
enjoyed my interviews with both the advisors
and the students there in this sense. I did thesame during the SAC visit before the LA SIG
event at Kanda. I found out that, if notintegrated into the curriculum in any year,
mostlyfinal-year
students(fourth-year
students) visit self-access centres aiming toobtain some materials in their majors to assist
them with their career after graduation. In otherwords, they hoped to find opportunities inEnglish for academic and specific purposes. I
observed that there were not often enoughadvisors in SACs. Another problem was not
the diversity of materials but the limited
number of the same materials.
My teaching experience through autonomy
taught me that learner autonomy is a kind ofcharacter education. As one gets older, I
believe it gets difficult to change a person’s
character. Hence, it would be better to startnurturing autonomous learners when they areyoung. And I insist that, even before beginningschool, children should be brought up as
autonomous individuals. In other words,
parental attitudes are of crucial importance.
There is a famous Turkish saying: “A tree getsshaped when young.”
In the conference, I visited the poster
presentation entitled “Advising using parenting
skills” by Yuki Hasegawa and attended thepresentations entitled “Advisor versus advisee”
by Umida Ashurova, “Developing a deeper
understanding of learning processing during
complex learning tasks” by Luke Carson, “Howa learner changed: Linguistic evidence ofmetacognitive awareness in advising sessions”

	
  by Hisako Sugawara, and “Encouraging
learner autonomy through peer feedback in thewriting classroom” by Jennie Roloff-Rothman.
My colleagues Eyyup Akıl, Ferhat Dolaş and I
gave a presentation entitled “Difficulties ofclassroom-based advising”.
The themes of these presentations suited myinterests and the questions in my mind. Yuki’s
poster introduced the concept of STAR
Parenting(respond tocooperation,
acknowledge feelings, set limits, teach new
skills, and avoid problems). These components,
which are originally proposed for not perfectparents but growing parents, are used in faceto-face advising sessions and also in
written feedback on the students’ work byteachers and aim to assist children in
becoming autonomous by giving them
responsibility to make choices on their own.
Although very practical, the steps of this study
look very difficult to practice in a crowded
classroom in terms of dealing with each
student in details. Nonetheless, I believe thatthese steps can be useful with students who
are really eager to learn English at areasonable level in spite of their harshconditions. What is more, this study positively
confirmed my belief that not only teachers at
schools but also parents at home can dosomething to nurture autonomous individuals.
Umida and her two third-year student advisors
talked about the linguistic gains from peer
advising to first-year students through positive
feedback. They shed light on the importance of
the interference of peer advisors’ own learning
styles, and learner beliefs and attitudes inadvising sessions. Some other variables thatthey emphasized were cooperation between
peers, credibility of peer advisors, personality,
age, gender, culture, motivation and language.
I asked Umida about her thoughts concerning
the integration of self-access centres into thecurriculum as in their case. She replied that asa limitation of their curriculum they had toseparate listening skills from reading, writing
and speaking skills and learner training.
Students worked on their listening skills in theirself-access centre as a compulsory part of thecurriculum
while
practicing
the
other
components in the regular classrooms. One ofthe participants suggested that integration of
the self-access centres into the curriculum
raises awareness in students and makes them
explore
more
about
their
strengths,
weaknesses, wants and needs. I have seenthat there are different set-ups with regards to
SACs: some are completely integrated into thecurriculum, some are integrated partially into

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JALT学習者ティヘロフメントSIGの会報	 	  the curriculum, and others are separate fromthe curriculum. I think it might be a burden forteacher-dependent students to visit such acentre and try to make their own way throughtheir learning. However, as they get
accustomed to the centre and start to be more
successful in their learning, that is, once they
get a taste of success, this burden might turninto a habit of them making use of centres.
Luke’s presentation was on how cognitive andmetacognitive processing interact in complex
learning situations. In his study, teacher
guidance was replaced with learning advisors’
working with advisees – a very dynamic andcontinuous movement between upper andlower levels of cognitive processing. This
process was improved by all learners’
metacognitive behaviours to various extents.
To him, the upper level of cognitive processing
is a must for the completion of a complex
independent learning task and must be
accompanied by metacognitive learning
concepts such as planning, monitoring andcontrol of learning. Most of my students are
passive and have low motivation to learn
English. They prefer playing the secretary of
the teacher while they take notes in theclassroom and memorising their notes before
exams as much as they can. Putting aside
whether they can direct their own learning interms of planning, monitoring and controlling it(metacognition), they do not even try to
discover their own wants and needs. Neither
do they try to understand the tasks that they
are assigned (cognition). Thus, parallel to thefindings of this study, cognition andmetacognition should go hand in hand.
Hisako’s presentation described one way toassist learners to reach their learning goals: byautonomous dialogues through multiple
advising sessions instead of assigning themwith a long to-do list. Hisako’s case study with
one female student put forward some linguistic
evidence as to how her learner’s metacognitiveawareness developed to take responsibility ofher own learning process. At the end of thisinformative
presentation,
one
of
the
participants commented that teachers should
focus on not only “what is the student doing”
but also “what does she think she is doing” In
addition, he added that even parents should
personalise the learning process for their kids
and support them metacognitively at their own
reasonable pace instead of asking them to do
everything that teachers require, including
staying up late all night studying. Yes, this was
one of my viewpoints concerning autonomy. I
felt elated to see that there are academics14	
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  thinking in the same way as me.
In Jennie’s workshop, participants discussed
the significance of peer advising and peer
feedback
fordynamic
andeffective
autonomous writing lessons. During theworkshop, through sample essays and peer
reflection worksheets, we played the adviser
and learner. At the end of the workshop, we
found opportunities to speculate on theapplicability of the presented writing materials
to our own contexts and encourage thepromotion of peer feedback in the writingclassroom. I believe that peer advising andpeer feedback should be aimed for whenautonomy is in practice. However, when writing(a productive skill) is in question, teachers
should be attentive and keep monitoring thelearners’ work.
My colleagues and I aimed to draw attention tosome other elements apart from the learning
advisor which is still a crucial component ofautonomous learning: the education system,
fellow teachers, learners, administrators andparents in the Turkish EFL context at thesecondary school level. The foreign language
teaching system has imposed ready-madecurriculums and materials. Fellow teachers
have been uninterested in professional
development and have showed resistance tochange and shifts in their roles. Students havebeen unwilling to take on more responsibility intheir own learning and are disturbed andreluctant to leave their comfort-zones.
Administrators have been strictly loyal to theready-made issues and concerned about thestudents’ disturbance just like parents. At theend of our presentation, one of the participants
told us that we were not alone in experiencing
these issues. He meant they experienced thesame problems in Japan. Another academic
complained about the restrictions made bypolicy makers. In addition, Andy Barfield asked
whether there was an autonomy association in
Turkey. It was an honour for me to say that wehave already started a new association withmy colleagues. We aim to conduct autonomyrelated research at school – starting fromuniversities down to primary school. In order tobe able to practice learner autonomy in any
circumstance as effectively as possible – atsecondary schools in my case – I believe thateveryone
involved(teachers,
students,
administrators, parents) needs training.
Additionally, a radical change is needed in theforeign language teaching system. Fortunately,
the system in Turkey has changed since thebeginning of this academic term. We would liketo start with the three universities in our cityNewsletter	
  of	
  the	  JALT	
  Learner	
  Development	  SIG	  	
  (Gaziantep). At the same time, we are in close
touch with the Provincial Administration of
National Education to train the English
teachers to help them gain positive beliefs
towards learner autonomy as an initial issue.
Thus, they will be able to encourage theirstudents, administrators and student-parents
to practice learner autonomy as well. The
students may be encouraged to gain more
responsibility related to their own learning
processes. The administrators and the student
parents may be more patient with the process
and provide the teacher and the students withsome
supportbothfinanciallyandpedagogically.
All of these points reminded me of two realitiesof the Islamic Turkish educational system:
medreses (a kind of religious and scientifichigher education institution) and Holy Qur’ancourses. At medreses (although rare in
number nowadays, they have been functioning
for centuries), the scholars have their own
classrooms, just like individualised rooms fordifferent skills at self-access centres. They
educate groups of two students at the sametime by means of assessing their individual
learning out of class. This is to not only
personalise the learning but also provide
opportunities to negotiate in groups. Students
follow their own paths of learning and try toaccomplish the requirements at their own pace.
That is to say, even though some students
start the programme on the very same day,they may soon find themselves following
different paths according to their levels,
background and pace. As for the Holy Qur’ancourses, there is a hodja (a teacher) helping agroup of successful learners to go ahead andwork at their own pace. After finishing their
daily requirements, these leading successful
learners are assigned with teaching andhelping some other groups of learners learn attheir own pace. In other words, they play therole of peer advisors. In both cases (medresesand Holy Qur’an courses), learning is not
limited to school or course hours. Rather,students do research and study out of school
and are scaffolded in their learning whennecessary.

choose from ready-made materials or develop
their own materials? When should students
start to develop their own materials? Whatkinds of training programmes should beorganisedforstudents,
teachers,
administrators and parents? Where should theadvisor start and stop? Is peer advising
practical in all levels? What are the typicalcharacteristics of an advisor? What are theroles of teacher-, peer- and self-assessment? I
am planning to pursue my post-doc studies tofind answers to these questions.
Mehmet Boyno received his MA in English
Language Teaching from Gaziantep University,
Gaziantep, Turkey, in 2003 and his PhD fromÇukurova University, Adana, Turkey, in 2011.
His main interests include learner autonomy,
English for specific purposes, teaching young
learners,
personal
andprofessional
development, and teacher education.
References
Boyno, M. (2011). An analysis of the factors
influencing learner autonomy in the Turkish
EFL
context.
(Unpublisheddoctoraldissertation). Cukurova University, Adana.

All in all, many questions come to my mind
regarding nurturing autonomous learners andindividuals: How can the teacher be
encouraged to let go of some of their control
and to let their students gain more
responsibility? When should we start giving
responsibility to the students? What criteria
should be taken into consideration while
deciding on the tasks? Should students	
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JALT学習者ティヘロフメントSIGの会報	 	
  Reflections	  on	
  Autonomy	  自律学習のリフレクション	 	  Michael	  Wilkins	
  Ritsumeikan	
  University	  	  Michael	
 Wilkins,	
 立命館大学	  My name isMichaelWilkins.
I
workatseveraluniversities
aroundthe Kansai area. I
received a grant toattendthe
JALTnational conferencein Tokyo last November. I’d like to thank the
LD SIG members for this support. I think thesegrants, however small, make a big difference
to part-time teachers. The professional
development costs of courses, books, andconference fees and transportations costs can
add up over a year when coupled with noresearch grants from the universities. Last year,
I had a new addition to my little family, andbefore I received notice that I would receive
the LD grant I was seriously considering
cancelling my attendance in Tokyo. Howeverin the end I participated in five presentations.

My learner autonomy “history”
I’ve always been a bookworm, so when I firstheard of Extensive Reading (ER) through apamphlet written by Rob Waring and publishedby Oxford University Press, I was an instantenthusiast. However, my teaching context at
the time was not conductive to experimentation
so I soon started doing my M.Ed at Temple
University. I think my interest in both ER andlearner autonomy started from my own
learning style and interest in reading. I actuallyjoined the LD SIG at that time but was unclear
on how to participate besides going to thenational conference, so I let my membershiplapse.
Another source of my interest in learnerautonomy is from my classroom experience.
Like most teachers I experiment in theclassroom to see what works best. Essentially,
I do my own action research daily and I foundthe obvious pattern that students would
engage in learning much more readily when
dealing with topics they were interested in andin ways they were comfortable with. Luckily, inthe past 3 years I have had teaching situations

16	
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  that allowed me to be flexible and experimentwith different materials and methods to follow
up this interest. Some materials and methods I
have tried are extensive reading, portfolio
assessment, negotiated syllabi, projects,
vlogging (video blogging), webquests, andvarious social media applications.

Autonomy research group
Last year I joined a group of 6 researchers
from various universities but based at Kansai
University of international Studies. The focusof the group is learner autonomy. We
administered a survey to almost 1000
participants at various universities around
Japan.
The research was inspired by a study
conducted by Holden and Usuki (1999), whichattempted to correct the misconception thatJapanese university students are somehow
less autonomous than learners from othercultural backgrounds. Their study utilized 10
open-ended interview questions to elicit
students’ attitudes and beliefs about learning,
their expectations of themselves, and their
expectations of their teachers in the learning
process. Our study, however, utilized aquestionnaire used by Ustunluoglu (2009) in
Turkey. This questionnaire contained 22
questions to elicit: what learning decisions andtasks students perceive as their responsibility,
what learning decisions and tasks are theirteacher’s responsibility and what learning
decisions and tasks they perceive they arecapable of doing. The final goal is to measure
students’ perceptions of responsibility andability in the classroom - two main learnerautonomy dimensions laid out by Littlewood(1999).
The process of doing this research has been
as interesting as the outcomes. As the lastperson to join the group, I had no say in theinitial structure of the research. However,being able to collaborate with a large groupand participating in the process of collecting,coding, and analyzing data from a study ofover 1000 respondents was a valuable
experience.

My classes
I have been lucky enough to have beenteaching in places where I have teacher
autonomy. To me, teacher autonomy is the
freedom to experiment and be creative in theclassroom. This has allowed me to experimentwith using new technologies, peer assessment,
syllabus negotiation and other studentcentered teaching methods.

Newsletter	
  of	
  the	  JALT	
  Learner	
  Development	  SIG	  	  I saw Steve Quasha’s Best of JALT 2008
winning presentation at a Kobe chapter
meeting on portfolio and peer assessment, andhave been working on variations of that idea
for over 3 years. Some things I like about thismethod are: the students reflect on what they
have done over the whole course, theaudience is more than just the teacher, thestudents have choices about what they will putin their portfolio and how they will present it. As
well as English skills the students need to use
artistic skills, and, most of importantly,
students choose to share some surprising
personal information about their successful
experiences that brings the group closer
together. Students always give this sort ofevaluation good feedback.
I have also been experimenting with new ways
for students to present their information. Someways I have tried have been Pecha Kucha(see pecha-kucha.org), Prezi (see prezi.com)
presentations, poster presentations, and video.
Recently, the production and consumption ofvideo has been a major area of student activity
in and out of class. One reason for this is
Facebook and smart phones make it extremely
easy for students to make and share shortvideos and interact with each other.

Recent interests
For the last few years I have been reallyinterested in polyglots, people who speak
multiple languages, and their take on language
learning. Their perspective is a little different
than that of a language teacher, but they are
the ultimate successful autonomous language
learners so they must have something to say.
Of course, throughout history there have been
many good examples of polyglots, but in thedigital age there are a few that have caught myattention:
Steve
Kaufman(thelinguist.blogs.com
andlingq.com),
Khatzumoto (alljapaneseallthetime.com), andBenny Lewis (fluentin3months.com). All three
are very successful and autonomous language
learners. They are not particularly supportiveof language classes and teachers, but rather
advocate Krashen-style input learning methods
such as extensive reading and listening.

JALT National
Autonomy seems to have become a buzzword
in the teaching community. At every session I
attended the presenters mentioned autonomy
and how their topic would positively affectstudent autonomy. This may have been due tomy own focus but the presentations were often
random ones I chose for their time and location	  next to my presentations rather than their
particular topics. Since then I have noticed
learner autonomy mentioned in almost every
local presentation as well.
I’m embarrassed to say I had not heard of Phil
Benson until his keynote speech, which piqued
my interest. Through attending the LD SIG
forum and dinner, I had the good fortune oftalking to him at length. I have since bought his
book and am currently working through it.
I participated in five presentations at the 2011
JALT national, four of which were connected tolearner autonomy. The first was titled“Examining Learner Autonomy Dimensions”
from the project described in the third sectionof this article. The second was titled “The 24
Hour English Challenge”. In this project we
asked students to volunteer to use English all
day on a non-school day. Originally, the idea
was for students to individually try a variety of
autonomous activities but in collaboration. It
evolved into groups of students interacting in
English in the community while completing fun
tasks. This worked well and was verysatisfying when students recreated the idea
themselves without direct teacher input (but as
invited participants). The third presentation
was entitled “Using Google Docs in the Writing
Classroom”. This was mainly an introductory
presentation describing for teachers on how to
use the Google Docs tool. However, the focusof the activities was on groups of students
working autonomously on writing projects
collaboratively on line. The last presentation
was titled “Developing an Audience for ESL
Writers”, which looked at using the Internet tocreate spaces for students to create real
meaningful content that others want to readand in turn motivate students to learn more.

FutureMy main project next year is how to create an
audience on the Internet for student work.
Students react positively to an appreciative
audience for their efforts. With thedevelopment of the Internet and social media,
this has become easier than ever before. I’dlike to start a blog, YouTube channel andFacebook page where students write about
what interests them about Japan in English
and attract people around the world who areinterested in Japan.
A second project is an English Speakers’ club.
Students from various universities would meetto do fun activities in English only. Students
often express a need to find social situations to
use their English and meet others who want to

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JALT学習者ティヘロフメントSIGの会報	 	  do the same.
References
Holden, B. & Usuki, M. (1999). Learnerautonomyinlanguagelearning:A
preliminary investigation. Bulletin of Hokuriku
University, 23, 191-203. Retrieved fromhttp://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS /ED450581.pdf
Littlewood, W. (1999). Defining and developing
learner autonomy in East Asian contexts.
Applied Linguistics, 20(1), 71-94.
Ustunluoglu, E. (2009). Autonomy in language
learning: Do students take responsibility for
their learning? Journal of Theory andPractice in Education, 5(2), 148-169.
Retrievedfrom
http://eku.comu.edu.tr/index/5/2/e_ustunluogl
u.pdf

Reflection	
   on	
   the	   JALT	
   2011	  Conference	
  J ALT	 2011	 の感想	
  National	
  Memorial	
  Olympics	  Center,	  Yoyogi,	  Tokyo,	
  November	
  18th	  –	
  21st,	
  2011	
  国立オリンピック記念	
 青少年総合セ
ンター、2011年11月18日〜21日	
  	
  Matthew	
  Coomber	
  Kyoto	  Sangyo	
  University	
  マシュー・クーンバー	  	
  京都産業大学	 W

ere anyone to
conductagenre analysis
ofELT
conference
reports, they would
doubtless arrive at theconclusion
that
conferences
areunremittingly
sunnyaffairs,andpresentations always professional, thoughtprovoking and engaging. But of course thereality is not quite the same. Conference-going,
like any other activity, has its fair share offrustrations and disappointments. It’s just thatthese aspects of the experience rarely seem tomake it as far as the reports, and with goodreason considering the huge amount ofvolunteer work that goes into organising a
conference on the scale of JALT National. It
seems almost inconceivable to report on aconference in anything less than glowing terms,
as if to mention a negative experience is insome way a criticism of the conference as a18	
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  whole. Even though this is most emphaticallynot the case, it is thus with some trepidationthat I must report that my two days in Yoyogi
included both ups and downs.
Despite the risk of living up to the common
stereotype of the British as being obsessedwith the weather, it would be difficult to write abalanced report on this year’s conference
without mentioning the torrential rain which
persisted throughout the whole of the first day.
I wish I had been able to ignore the effect ofthe downpour which set in when I was in the
middle of Meiji-jingu, having foolishly decided
that a walk across the park from Harajuku
would be a more pleasant way to get to thesite than attempting to change trains at the
intimidatingly complex (to a non-Tokyoite atleast) Shinjuku station. Sadly though, thatwould require a more phlegmatic character
than that which I possess. Needless to say,arriving soaking wet was not a good start tothe day, and with events split between threebuildings drying out was never more than
temporary. This combination of bad luck andmy own bad judgment led me to reflect upon
how these two factors can impact upon theconference-going experience.
A more predictable, but equally unavoidable
problem, relates to scheduling. While one of
the great advantages of a conference the sizeof JALT National is that there will almost
certainly be a presentation appealing to yourinterests at any particular time, the downsideof this is that there will often be more than one.
Thus, when deciding on my first presentationof the day during my shinkansen journey from
Kyoto, I was faced with the dilemma (trilemma,
perhaps?) of choosing between threepresentations which, for very different reasons,appealed to me roughly equally. Greg Sholdt’s
Featured Speaker Workshop - Getting started
with quantitative research, sounded just thekind of thing I needed to help me with mycurrent research, in which I am looking at ways
teachers can encourage learners to make selfdirected revisions to their writing, rather thanrelying on teacher feedback. Yet on the other
hand, I really wanted to hear Marcos
Benevides introducing his new series ofgraded readers, based on the Choose yourown adventure series I enjoyed as a child. As
next year I will be starting a new job at auniversity with a well-established extensive
reading programme, I was especiallyinterested in discovering whether the ELT
version of the series had managed to retain
the atmosphere of suspense and reader
involvement I recall from my own reading.

Newsletter	
  of	
  the	  JALT	
  Learner	
  Development	  SIG	  	  Finally, a short paper by Paul Leeming andStuart Cunningham on group dynamics andleadership in the classroom, the importance of
which I feel to be vastly under-represented in
ELT research, was something I didn’t want to
miss. In my own teaching, I have long been
mystified as to why certain classes seem to gel
far more successfully than others, and washoping to gain some insights as to how I might
be able to promote greater cohesion in my lesssuccessful groups.
Ultimately, my poor planning led to me arriving
late and took the decision out of my hands, but
the process of deliberation made me think
about how any one delegate can only ever see
a tiny fraction of what is on offer at JALT
National, and how the decisions that we make,which involve both luck and judgment, are to alarge extent responsible for our perceptions of
the event as a whole. Luckily, I was able toattend a later presentation by Sholdt on asimilar topic, and was thoroughly glad I did so.
Even more fortunate was the fact that no
Health and Safety officers happened to look in.
By the time the presentation began, a roomdesigned for around 20 people held twice that
number. However, it was well worth the effort
to squeeze into the room. While quantitative
methods can seem intimidating to the novice
researcher, Sholdt’s clear explanations andsheer enthusiasm for his subject left me withthe feeling that quantitative research was nolonger the impenetrable mystery I had
previously thought, but something I could see
myself eventually getting to grips with. While I
doubt I will ever attain a true appreciation ofwhat the presenter termed the ‘beauty behindthe numbers’, Sholdt’s example of an early
research project he conducted into extensive
reading helped me to realize both that potential
sources of quantitative data are readily
available in the classroom, and that results canbe analyzed and presented in ways that areboth meaningful and comprehensible. To
practicing language teachers, such as myself,
who have only a rudimentary knowledge ofstatistics, it would be a refreshing change weremore quantitative researchers to consider just
how accessible their work is to the typicalreader.
By 5.30 on Saturday evening, many delegates’
enthusiasm may have been starting to wane,
and my thoughts were turning to the first beerof the night rather than the last presentation of
the day. After an early start and a long,information packed day, what I needed was apresentation that could re-energise me. Given
that Richard Silver is not only co-coordinator of	  the LD SIG, which generously sponsored myparticipation in this year’s conference, but alsoa colleague and a good friend, I am about tolay myself open to charges both of sycophancyand subjectivity. However, not to mention
Richard’s presentation in this report would
seem fundamentally dishonest, as it was by far
the best I saw at this year’s JALT, providing
me with just the burst of energy I needed at theend of the day. Focusing on the issues andchallenges
which
arise
when
using
presentations in the language classroom,
Richard suggested several ways in which theactivity can be transformed from one
dominated by one-way transmission of
information by a single student to an
experience in which the entire class can be
more actively involved. Even more than thehighly stimulating content, what set thisworkshop apart was the innovative way inwhich the presenter managed to create
genuine interaction between participants who
had been strangers at the start of the session.
Too often, in my experience, presenters’attempts to promote audience interaction inworkshops feel forced, awkward, and at times
pointless. Yet in this case, the group activity
Richard engaged us in was not only integral tohis theme of Growing autonomy inpresentation-discussions, but also immensely
enjoyable. In spite of the knowledge that thatfirst beer was waiting for me, I left the roomwishing the presentation could have gone on
longer.
After such a positive ending to the first day,and with a dry pair of shoes on my feet and ablue sky overhead, my expectations were highas I set out on Sunday morning for the firstplenary speech of the day. A quick glance
inside the cover of any of the books in the
Cambridge Language Teaching Libraryreinforces the view that Jack Richards,
responsible for more titles in this series thanany other author, is without doubt one of the
giants of our field. Yet a speaker being an‘internationally renowned applied linguist,
teacher educator, and textbook author’, toquote Richards’ biodata from the conference
handbook, does not necessarily guarantee agood speech. Richards though, more than
lived up to his reputation, delivering a wideranging plenary covering some of the mostfundamental issues in our profession, anddoing so without apparently feeling the need topause for breath! As Richards himself
acknowledged, the scope of this plenary wassuch that to do his subject full justice in a merehour was an ambitious goal. But while thesheer breadth of topics covered meant that at

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JALT学習者ティヘロフメントSIGの会報	
 	
  times the audience may have been left wishingfor greater depth, personally I felt that Richards
did a fine job in walking (perhaps sprint would
be a better choice of verb?) the tightrope ofoffering something to novice teachers, 40-year
veterans, and everyone in between. As amember of the latter group, of particularinterest to me was the importance Richards
ascribed to disciplinary knowledge andpedagogical content knowledge. While I would
certainly agree with the presenter’s assertion
that teachers who possess both types ofknowledge are more likely to be more effective
than those who do not, I also wonder about thepotential impact of when and how thatknowledge was obtained. My practicalexperience of teaching preceded thetheoretical knowledge I have gained, asituation which would be decidedly odd in mostprofessions, but which does not seem unusual
among EFL teachers in Japan. It seems to me
thatoverlaying
theoryonto
practical
experience, rather than vice versa, may have asignificant impact on the ways in which wedevelop as teachers.
As Sunday drew to a close I faced my finalscheduling conflict of the weekend, with myown presentation beginning at the same timeas the LD Forum. Thankfully, although I
missed most of the poster session, I was able
to arrive in time to enjoy the stimulating roundtable discussion which closed the event, andfor me, the conference. While the need toreturn to Kyoto that evening meant that, muchto my disappointment, I was unable to joinother SIG members for dinner, I was at least
provided with food for thought: Phil Benson’sobservation that there is a degree of conflict
between the principles of learner autonomy
and sociocultural theory leading me to reflect
on the need to be aware of this potential
conflict in my own classroom. And it was withthat thought in my head that my participation in
JALT 2011, made possible by the muchappreciated grant I received from the LD SIG,
ended. Now, looking back through theconference handbook as I write this report, I
am reminded once again of the incredible
variety of expertise that language teachers inJapan possess, and only regret that limited
time allows us to enjoy such a small amount ofwhat is on offer at JALT. But perhaps it isbetter to be left wanting more.
Matthew Coomber has been teaching English
in Japan since 2001. Having spent the past
five years working at Ritsumeikan University,
he is looking forward to different challenges
when he takes up a new position at Kyoto

20	
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  Sangyo University in April 2012.

5-­year	
  membership	  of	
  JALT:	  Buy	  4	  Get	  1	  free!	
  
	
  
JALT	
  is	
  currently	
  running	
  a	
  ‘5	
  years	
  for	  4’	
  membership	
  campaign	
  where	
  you	
  can	  pay	
  for	  4	
  years’	
  membership	
  of	
  JALT	
  (4	
  x	
  
10,000	
  yen)	
  and	  receive	
  one	
  year	  free	  (i.e.,	
  get	  a	
  total	
  of	  5	
  years	
  membership	  of	  JALT).	
  The	
  campaign	
  runs	
  from	  March	
  1	
  
to	
  August	
  31	
  2012.	
  If	
  you	
  sign	
  up	
  for	  a	
  5-­‐year	
  membership	
  within	
  that	  period,	
  you	
  will	  also	  have	  a	
  chance	
  to	
  win	  a	
  fees	  waiver	  for	
  this	  year’s	
  conference,	
  to	
  be	
  
held	
  in	
  Hamamatsu,	
  Shizuoka,	  October	
  12-­‐15	
  2012.	
  For	  more	  information	
  about	  joining	  JALT,	
  go	
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  Newsletter	
  of	
  the	  JALT	
  Learner	
  Development	  SIG	  	
  Feature	
  Article	  	  	
  フ ィチャード	  アーテイクル	  Developing	
  an	
  online	
  environment	
  to	
  enable	
  the	  independent	
  learning	
  of	
  English	
  pronunciation	  英語の発音の自主学習を可能にするオンライン環
境の開発	
 
	
 
Mathew	
  Porter	  Hiroshima	
  Bunkyo	
  Women’s	  University	
  マシュー・ポーター，広島文教女子大学	
 	  Abstract: This exploratory study examines an online pronunciation course designed to (a) help
university students develop meta-linguistic knowledge about pronunciation, (b) gain familiarity withcognitive and meta-cognitive strategies (c) develop self-monitoring skills, and (d) develop phonologicalcompetency individually and at their own pace. 110 low-intermediate, first-year university students in arequired listening course completed eight post-module questionnaires and provided feedback on six
areas using a 5-point Likert scale. Two additional questionnaires administered at the end of thesemester asked students about their perceived improvement, performance, helpfulness of theassignments, and other aspects of the class in general. All questionnaires allowed for open comments.
The results showed students desired more guidance with segmentals and preferred Japanese
instructions. Open comments suggested the course provided a satisfactory environment for achieving
the above goals, but improvements could be made by including more multimedia, more freedom, andmore voices.
Keywords: pronunciation learning strategies, metalinguistic, self-monitoring, autonomy, CALL
要 旨 : この探索的研究は、大学生が(a)発音についてのメタ言語的知識を発達させ、 (b)認知ストラテ
ジーおよびメタ認知ストラテジーへの理解を深め、(c)自己モニタースキルを発達させ、(d)音韻論的能力を個別に且つ各自のペースで発達させるのを支援するために作成されたオンライン発音コースについて考察するものである。必修のリスニング授業を受講する初中級レベルの大学１年生１１０名がモジュール終了後の８つのアンケートに回答し、５段階のリッカート尺度を用いて６つの領域についてのフィードバックを提供した。学期末にさらに２つのアンケートを実施し、学生たちに向上したと思う点、学習への取り組み、課題の有益性、授業全般に関するその他の側面について質問した。すべてのアンケートには自由記述欄を設けた。本研究の結果から、学生たちは分節についてより多くの指導を希望し、日本語による指導をより好むことが分かった。自由記述からはこのコースが上記の目標を達成するのに十分な環境を提供したことが示唆されたが、マルチメディア、自由、そして学生たちの声をより多く取り入れることによって更なる改善が可能だと思われる。
	  キーワード：発音学習ストラテジー、メタ言語、自己モニタリング、オートノミー、コンピュータ支
援語学学習	  	  M

any teachers of Japanese students of English are already undoubtedly aware that many
students struggle to accurately perceive and reproduce the sounds of English. According to
Pawlak (2010), the complexity of foreign language pronunciation and the difficulty of achieving
phonological competence in an EFL environment can be alleviated by fostering learner autonomy.
Learner autonomy, as it relates to pronunciation learning, entails being able to self-monitor and selfevaluate so as to set goals, plan the learning process, and choose suitable strategies for improving
one’s pronunciation (Pawlak, 2011). However, this may prove impossible without a phonetic andphonological awareness of English (Vitanova, 2002) which can be developed through training inpronunciation learning strategies (PLS).

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JALT学習者ティヘロフメントSIGの会報	 	  Research into PLS is still in its early stages, and there have been few studies examining what kinds ofstrategies exist and which would be beneficial to introduce to adult EFL students. Peterson (2000),
describes 21 different tactics that her participants—American university students of Spanish—hadused when studying pronunciation and organized them according to Oxford’s (1990) classification
system. Cognitive and metacognitive strategies, made up of naturalistic and formal practice, learning
about and analyzing the sound system, setting goals, planning for language tasks, and evaluating
oneself, were the most common PLS used. (For other studies on PLS see Derwing & Rossiter, 2002;
Eckstein, 2007; Osbourne, 2003; and Varasarin, 2007.)
Getting students to self-monitor and self-evaluate means explicitly teaching students about specificfeatures of English pronunciation (Vitanova, 2002). In the metacompetence model of phonologicalacquisition, Wrembel (2008) describes phonological metacompetence as “conscious knowledge ofand about the grammar of the language and which may be developed by making the learner
metalinguistically aware of L2 phonetics and phonology” (p. 2). Wrembel has proposed an approachfor teachers to help students develop phonological metacompetence, made up of basic awarenessraising activities, articulatory control exercises, informed teaching techniques, and the use ofmultimedia learning aids, which will “equip students with self-monitoring strategies” (p. 2). Thisstrongly suggests that there is value in explicitly teaching pronunciation features even though this has
been seen as incompatible with the communicative approach (CA). However, pronunciation teachinghas gradually come to focus on the importance of producing comprehensible speech (over nativeness)because it facilitates communication. This means that both segmentals that have a “high functionalload” such as vowel sounds found in minimal pairs and meaning-rich prosodic features should betaught so students can develop phonological competency (Celce-Murcia, Brinton, & Goodwin, 1996).
Perception plays a key role in the development of phonological competency, and the L1 greatly
influences how L2 sounds are perceived because the perceiver must have enough prior knowledge to
identify, interpret, and sometimes even review and reappraise the underlying phonological units inorder to accurately process language (Tatham & Morton, 2011). Research has shown that adults canbecome able to perceive and produce phonemes crucial to communication in the L2 and create newcategories for those sounds (for an extensive discussion of this and other aspects of the Speech
Learning model, see Flege, 1995). It has also been shown that L2 vowel production is influenced by
how L2 vowels are perceived and that non-native subjects’ accuracy is related to their accuracy inperceiving the same sounds (Flege, 1997). There is also evidence that perceptual training can lead to
improvement in production, even without teacher-instructed articulation practice (Thomson, 2011). For
suprasgementals, Abe (2009) found that providing Japanese university students with instruction about
rhythm, linking, assimilation, and elision produced gains in perception and production of those features.
(For other studies documenting the effectiveness of teaching suprasegmentals in order to improve
perception and production see Derwing & Munro, 1998; Pennington & Ellis, 2000; Tanner & Landon,
2009.)In the case of Japanese, the influence of the student’s L1 creates serious perception and production
problems at both the segmental and suprasegmental levels. Two influential features of Japanese that
effect English pronunciation are the lower number of vowel and consonant possibilities and its
predominantly consonant-vowel (CVCV) syllable structure. Since Japanese only has 5 vowels andlacks consonants such as v (/v/) and th (both / θ/ and /ð/), English words represented in Japanese are
noticeably different and often far removed from their English equivalents. Also, the syllable structure
makes consonant clusters and closed syllables problematic (Rogerson-Revell, 2011).
Unfortunately, the use of katakana as an aid in English reading and the large number of loanwords
from English modified to fit the Japanese sound system reinforces these problems (Martin, 2004).
Furthermore, there are prosodic differences as well because Japanese is a mora-timed language,
which means that almost all sounds represented by the kana syllabary are of the same relative length
when spoken. In other words, は (ha) andあ (a) are the same length, but あん (an) or ああ (aa) are
actually twice as long. Additionally, stress is distributed equally on each syllable and vowels are
seldom reduced, so both rhythm and intonation are markedly different from English (Tsujimura, 2007).
Although Japanese students’ formal study of English begins in junior high school, most students don’t
receive enough pronunciation guidance or extensive exposure to comprehensible listening input
before entering university. Historically, the approach to English teaching at the junior high and highschool levels has focused on reading and grammar while preparing students for entrance22	
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  Development	  SIG	  	  examinations, which until recently did not focus on communication and therefore comprehensible
pronunciation. In addition, junior high and high school teachers have reported lacking an
understanding of English phonetics and phonology as well as training in methods for effectively
teaching pronunciation in their classes (Kochiyama, 2011). Naturally, the majority of pre-university
Japanese students of English have been exposed to non-Japanese English through popular culture
and perhaps access to non-Japanese English teachers at the primary or secondary school levels, butby the time they reach university they still lack extensive experience listening to simple, non-JapaneseEnglish with their attention focused on pronunciation features (Nakashima, 2006).
University teachers hoping to assist students in developing students’ ability to perceive and produce
English more accurately might find it hard to effectively support their students due to large class sizes,
time restrictions, curriculum constraints, and individual differences in ability and motivation. As more
universities adopt Moodle and similar virtual learning environments, teachers might be attracted tosuch environments as a way of coping with classroom limitations and start to design and sharemultimedia content for pronunciation study. Such online environments, especially if they incorporate
web 2.0 features allowing for collaboration and interaction, could help to foster autonomy (Bailly, 2010)
as students learn to pay deeper attention to English and monitor their own pronunciation.
This paper introduces an exploratory project I undertook to develop an online Moodle environment
where students could access explanations and examples in English and Japanese in order to develop
their metalinguistic knowledge of English pronunciation, gain familiarity with cognitive andmetacognitive strategies in order to develop self-monitoring skills, and explore activities and links toexternal sites where they could develop phonological competency individually and at their own pace.
This project is in its early stages and this preliminary study was initiated to discover if the above goals
were being met and in what ways the online environment could be improved. My hope is to create ashared, collaborative space for teachers and Japanese students of English which effectively achieves
the above stated goals.
The class
The Moodle course was made up of 8 modules covering, in chronological order: morae, phonemes,
syllables, vowels, consonants, ellipses and elision, stress 1, and stress 2. Since Moodle allows
creators to hide or show content to course members, pronunciation modules were prepared inadvance and hidden until that week’s class had finished. At the end of a class, a new module wasrevealed and students were told to complete it by the next class.
The first three modules - morae, phonemes, and syllables - used a contrastive approach to get
students to notice particular features about the English sound system vis-à-vis the Japanese. All threemodules included English introductions to the topics with exercises, discussion board activities (forexample, posting rhyming words or haiku), and quizzes. Beginning with the vowel module, theremaining modules were delivered using Japanese.
Two modules were created to reintroduce and review phonemes. The vowel module dealt with thedifferences between Japanese and English vowel sound categories, the physical articulation of vowel
sounds, and self-awareness activities such as reporting about the shape of one’s mouth when making
Japanese vowel sounds. The approach used in the consonant module was similar except students
were
given
instructions
togooffsitetoafreephonetics
lab(http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/) which has flash animation, video, and native examples.
Using these materials, students were asked to report which consonant sounds were difficult to hearand make. Although the morae topic was not reintroduced in Japanese, syllables were reinforced in
the remaining suprasegmental modules where possible. The ellipses and elision module usedrecorded examples and quizzes to introduce students to the elimination of unstressed sounds(ellipses) and the addition of glides (the semivowels /w/ and /j/) between vowel sounds to aid inpronunciation (elision). Stress 1, the most independent module, asked students to select unknown
words from the unit vocabulary list and note the word’s syllables and stress pattern in their vocabulary
journals. It also included a listening activity where students listened to two words and answered
whether their stress patterns were the same. The final module, Stress 2, introduced stress differencesin noun-verb homophones with word and sentence examples for practice and testing.
Since each module was created after viewing feedback from a previous module, the development ofmaterials and the approach was organic and tried to respond to student needs within the limitations of	
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JALT学習者ティヘロフメントSIGの会報	 	  the environment. As will be discussed below, the lack of feedback and desire for further guidancewere ever-present challenges, so where appropriate I addressed this by making Japanese-language
videos and uploading them to the course. Being reactionary, these do not neatly fit into the modules,
and could be conceived of as a “review” section added into the following week’s modules. In total, I
made 11 videos for the course. Using the information about difficult consonants reported by students, I
made 10 videos explaining how to articulate the difficult sounds, indicating where a similar soundmight already exist in Japanese, and introducing practice exercises. The final video explained how to
notice syllable boundaries using the mouth’s movements.
Additionally, for homework students were responsible for listening to a 15-minute Voice of America(VOA) Special English (http://www.voanews.com/learningenglish/home/) short story, completing one
video on English Central (EC) (http://www.englishcentral.com/), doing the self-study unit from the
textbook (Listen In 1, Nunan, 1998), and keeping a vocabulary journal of unknown words from a word
list from the VOA short stories and textbook.

Participants
The participants in this study were 111 first-year students from a university in western Japan majoringin Law (n=51), Commerce (n=37), Economics (n=29), or Human and Environmental Sciences (n=4).
All students were enrolled in English I, a required listening course focusing on TOEIC preparation,
which met once a week for 90 minutes, 15 times during the first semester. The TOEIC Bridge wasused as a placement test for incoming first-year students, and all students had tested into level 3 (lowintermediate), the highest first-year English level at our university. Two classes were made up entirelyof students from either Law (TOEIC Bridge average 145; Listening section average 69) or Commerce(146; 68), while the final class serviced the Economics department and Human and Environmental
Science (145; 68) department.

MethodData was collected using Moodle questionnaires (Appendix 1) in which students were asked if they
completed the module (P) and for feedback on 6 areas: ease (E), meaningfulness (M), comprehension(C), interest in studying further (I), need for guidance (G), and language (L) using a 5-point Likert scale.
They were also given space to freely write comments. The first questionnaire was delivered
electronically in class and covered the first three modules: morae, phonemes, and syllables. It wasgiven after a test and all students were able to finish before the end of the period. In subsequentweeks, a questionnaire was available online as the final step of each module and students responded
to them on their own. From this data, I tabulated student participation on each module and calculated
the means and standard deviations for each area. I then translated, coded, and tabulated opencomments.
After the final exam, students completed a final Moodle questionnaire (Appendix 2) in class asking for
feedback on course assignments, including the pronunciation modules. Afterwards, they filled out theuniversity’s course survey. Again, students had enough time to complete all of the questionnaires. I
was able to instantaneously view responses to Moodle questionnaires and received the analyzed datafrom the university’s survey along with any open responses after the semester ended. I tabulated the
responses from the Moodle questionnaire and then translated, coded, and tabulated all of the opencomments from both questionnaires.

Results
Figure 1 shows students’ self-reported progress for each module based on questionnaire responses.

24	
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110
100
90
80
70
No. of60
Participants 50
40
30
20
10
0

Neither
Attempted
Completed

ModuleFigure 1: Participation per module
As Figure 1 shows, all students report having either completed or attempted the first three modules(N=110). After the third module, students began to fail to respond to the questionnaire, so it can only
be assumed that they did not attempt the weekly activities. The final module was undertaken by only
half of the original 110 participants, although the weekly participation is not a simple downward trend.
The number of students attempting but not completing the modules does decrease steadily.
In the final Moodle questionnaire at the end of the semester, students were asked if they had
completed all of the modules in the pronunciation course and 74% of the respondents (N=108)
reported that they always did, 23% reported that they sometimes did, while only 3% said they had notcompleted one module. Figure 2 shows the distribution of completion numbers based on responses tothe module questionnaires.
Modules completed
Number of students

0
5

1
4

2
6

3
17

4
17

5
18

6
15

7
14

8
14

9
10

Total
110

Figure 2: Total number of modules completed
Accordingly, only 13% of students completed all of the modules and 83% completed some of themodules. The questionnaires were voluntary which may account for the large discrepancy.
The means and standard deviations for student responses to the 6 areas investigated are displayed in
Figure 3. The greyscale represents the scope of the first questionnaire and (N) is the number of
respondents. In the first three modules, only English was used, and language (L) above shows thatstudents had a strong desire to have the modules presented in Japanese, which was subsequently
accommodated.

Mora

N

E

M

C

I

G

L

110

2.81

3.49

3.03

3.05

3.59

3.88

0.87

1.00

1.00

0.97

0.96

0.99

2.63

3.27

2.71

2.94

3.49

3.88

0.94

0.82

0.88

0.89

0.88

0.94

2.82

3.35

3.12

3.05

3.36

3.77

0.94

0.93

0.87

0.92

1.00

1.00

2.04

3.89

2.85

3.33

3.92

3.11

0.88

1.05

1.08

1.09

1.00

0.97

2.51

3.88

3.17

3.43

3.74

3.03

SD
Phonemes

110
SD

Syllables110
SD

Vowels73
SDConsonants

	
  

65

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JALT学習者ティヘロフメントSIGの会報	
 
	
  
SD
E&E

70
SD

Stress1

67
SD

Stress2

55
SD

0.95

1.05

0.94

0.93

0.85

0.86

2.79

3.75

3.31

3.41

3.59

3.15

0.92

1.07

0.91

0.99

0.81

0.80

3.22

3.78

3.51

3.49

3.43

3.12

0.99

1.23

1.00

1.06

0.98

0.94

3.55

4.09

3.95

3.76

3.56

3.35

1.02

1.08

1.09

1.03

0.95

0.79

Figure 3: Means and standard deviations for the six areas
E

M

C

I

G

Stress 2
3.55
Stress 1
3.22
Syllables
2.82
Morae
2.81
E&E
2.79
Phonemes
2.63
Consonants
2.51
Vowels
2.04

Stress 2
4.09
Vowels3.89
Consonants
3.88
Stress 1
3.78
E&E
3.75
Morae
3.49
Syllables
3.35
Phonemes
3.27

Stress 2
3.95
Stress 1
3.51
E&E
3.31
Consonants
3.17
Syllables
3.12
Morae
3.03
Vowels
2.85
Phonemes
2.71

Stress 2
3.76
Stress 1
3.49
Consonants
3.43
E&E
3.41
Vowels3.33
Syllables
3.05
Morae
3.05
Phonemes
2.94

Vowels3.92
Consonants
3.74
Morae
3.59
E&E
3.59
Stress 2
3.56
Phonemes
3.49
Stress 1
3.43
Syllables
3.36

Figure 4: Means ranked by area
Two areas, (E) and comprehension (C), were the most variable and did not seem to be related to thelanguage of delivery. The means for meaningfulness (M) were higher once the modules were
presented in Japanese. Starting with the fourth module, it can be assumed that only the students who
found the pronunciation modules meaningful continued to pursue their independent study. Interest (I)in studying the module topics in greater detail was low when the modules were in English, climbing alittle after they were presented in Japanese. Desire for additional guidance (G) was highest withsegmentals; however, students seemed to consistently want guidance on other modules regardless oflanguage of instruction.
In Figure 4, the means of five areas—ease (E), meaningfulness (M), comprehension (C), interest (I),and guidance (G)—have been rearranged in rank order from highest to lowest.
Morae, Phonemes, and Syllables could be considered the test phase of the project as the modules
were not well received and the results of the questionnaire were taken into immediate consideration to
improve the following modules. These areas ranked worst in meaningfulness, comprehension, andfurther interest. Even though they were in English, they ranked higher in ease than modules covering
segmentals in Japanese. Although 110 students completed the questionnaire, comments werereceived from only 12 students on the Morae module, 10 students on the Phoneme module, and 6
students on the Syllable module. Their responses are recorded in Figure 5 further below
The responses show students had difficulty dealing with unfamiliar topics and they wanted more
support in the form of additional explanations, in-class guidance, or Japanese language. The twomodules dealing with segmentals, vowels and consonants, ranked low in ease and comprehension,26	
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  high in meaningfulness, and highest in desire for guidance. This suggests that there is something thatmade the segmental modules difficult and hard to understand while participants believed that thecontent was important to know. Comments from 17 students on the vowel and consonant modules are
summarized in Figure 6.
Although the module had asked students to focus closely on the physical aspects of sound and thedesire for more guidance was requested in the articulation, this proved challenging for some students
form of in-class teacher intervention and the use of more examples. In response to this, more visualand aural examples were created to help students understand consonant articulation. As a result,students had remarked how much easier the consonant module had been thanks to videos,animations, and recordings.
Respondents
Comment

M

PS

I don’t understand.

2

3

2

I want to know more.

1

1

0

Please explain it more.

3

2

2

I don’t even understand this topic in Japanese.

1

2

0

I’ve never studied this before.

0

0

1

Please talk about it in class.

2

1

1

Please use Japanese.

2

0

1

I’m not good with computers.

1

0

0

Figure 5: Comments from Morae, Phoneme, and Syllable modules
Respondents
Comment

V

Articulating vowel sounds is difficult.

5

I want more guidance.

5

I’m trying to pay more attention when articulating
vowel sounds.
The vowel charts were helpful.

4

The recordings were helpful.

1

The consonant module was easier than the vowel
module.
It is hard to read/write pronunciation symbols.

C

2

3
3

Figure 6: Comments from Vowel and Consonant modules
The Ellipses and Elision module ranked around the middle in most areas, but low on ease. Bothellipses and elision rely on an understanding of syllable boundaries, with which students were still
having a problem. Comments were received from 18 students and are listed in Figure 7 (see below).
This time students commented on my Japanese, although more comments were expected because
there was no native Japanese input on any of the Japanese language materials produced. In addition,these comments are what lead to the creation of the syllable video with link to additional syllable
practice at http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/game/ en01soun-game-syllables-factory.
Both stress modules were at the top of the rankings for ease, comprehension, and desire to study
more deeply, with Stress 2 also ranking highest in perceived meaningfulness. This was reflected in thecomments received. The Stress 1 module received comments from 24 people while the Stress 2
module had comments from 15 people. Relevant comments are shown in Figure 8 (see below).

	
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JALT学習者ティヘロフメントSIGの会報	 	  Comment

Respondents

I don’t understand syllables yet.

4

I need to practice.

2

This is important in order to sound more native.

2

The audio was helpful.

1

I’m paying attention to vowels and consonants
more.
Adding w/y makes it easier to say words.

1

The Japanese explanation was helpful.

1Your Japanese was a little strange.

2

Learning pronunciation is fun, but I want to study
in class.

1

1

Figure 7: Comments from the Ellipses and Elision module
Although the comments allude to why the modules were easy to understand through the use ofmultimedia resources, they also suggest that the high ratings received for meaningfulness are due tohow comprehension can be affected by a lack of proficiency with stress (and syllables). The
comments also point to a need for improved use of dictionary skills using IPA.

Comment

S1

I think I need to understand syllables first.

1

I think stress is important.

1

If I pay attention to how my mouth opens, I canunderstand syllables.
The syllable video was easy to understand.
The syllable game helped me to understandbetter.
The syllable game was fun.
I have a deeper understanding thanks to looking
things up on my own.
I don't know how to note stress in my vocabulary
journal.
I can now notice that verb-noun homophones
have different stress patterns.
I will use this new knowledge to monitor myspeech and comprehension.
I don’t know what to do when my dictionary gives
me conflicting information about stress.

S2

1
3
3
3
1
1
5
2
1

Figure 8: Comments from Stress 1 and 2 modules
On the final Moodle survey at the end of the semester, students were asked if the pronunciation
course had been helpful and 81% responded that it had been very helpful with only 5% answering thatit hadn’t been helpful at all. When asked if their pronunciation had improved, 74% believed that it had
improved a lot, while 13% reported that they had felt no change. Of the 55 participants that leftcomments, 12 specifically mentioned the pronunciation course. See Figure 9 below for their responses.

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  As can be seen, the comments were both positive and negative, and the desire for in-class guidancecontinued to be a theme until the very end. In a class survey given by the university, another 54 opencomments were collected, 15 of which focused on the pronunciation course. The comments arepresented in Figure 10.
Although these final comments are positive, they should be interpreted holistically with all previous
comments in order to serve as catalysts for further improvements to materials, approach, and delivery,
as will be discussed in the next section.

Comment

Respondents

The materials were helpful.

3

The pronunciation course was too difficult.

3

I wanted more in-class help with pronunciation.

3

I want to continue working on my pronunciation.

3

Figure 9: Final Moodle questionnaire comments

Comment

Respondents

I can understand pronunciation better than before.

4

The materials were helpful.

4

The detailed explanations were helpful.

2

I liked studying at my own pace.

2

I like that this class focused on pronunciation.

2

I am more aware of my pronunciation now.

1

I liked using the internet to study pronunciation.

1

Figure 10: Comments from end-of-semester class survey

Discussion
This exploratory project was envisioned as a way for students to (a) develop their metalinguisticknowledge of English pronunciation, (b) gain familiarity with cognitive and metacognitive strategies for
improving their pronunciation, (c) develop self-monitoring skills, (d) develop phonological competency,and (e) work on goals 1-4 individually and at their own pace. Whether the project has met any of thesegoals and in what ways is up for debate; however, I think there is a case to be made for this type ofenvironment to support the independent learning of pronunciation.
First, metalinguistic knowledge of phonetics and phonology is gained by learning about the features of
not only the target language but also one’s mother tongue. Students were exposed to information,
through a variety of media, explicitly drawing their attention to pronunciation features. I believe thatcomments in which students report understanding something better or now being able to understand a
specific highlighted feature are evidence that these students are on their way to developing cognitiveawareness of English pronunciation that can be put to use in their practice of English listening or
speaking. Ideally I think it would be best if future participants in the course were also enrolled in aclass that spent some classroom time on communicative activities to supply students with a naturalenvironment for further pronunciation practice.
Cognitive and metacognitive strategies for pronunciation were introduced inductively throughout themodules. These included those cognitive PLS mentioned in Peterson (2000) such as listening to andimitating English speakers, practicing through repetition, talking aloud or silently to oneself, noticing
the position of articulators, noticing contrasts between the target language and your mother tongue,	
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  and metacognitive PLS such as learning about phonology and phonetics, focusing on particularsounds, or listening to one’s own pronunciation (possible in EC). Although there is some evidence inthe comments that students were beginning to use these strategies, I think more research is needed
as it is unclear if students had just used the strategies within the limited confines of the online
environment or if they had indeed acquired them and started applying them in other learning orcommunicative situations. Furthermore, since students were not given a PLS battery at the start of thesemester, it remains unclear whether some students were already using these strategies especially as
they are not often introduced in junior and senior high school.
Monitoring skills are theorized to rest upon phonetic and phonological awareness (Pawlak, 2010;
Vitanova, 2002), so it is possible that those students whose metalinguistic awareness of English wasstrengthened by the pronunciation course could also have developed or strengthened their ability to
self-monitor, and again there are a few comments from students who reported actively trying to pay
attention to specific pronunciation features. However, more detailed and experimental classroom
research is needed to discover if the course really realizes this goal as well as to measure theexistence of this skill before the start of the course.
Phonological competency is a very large area and one that takes years to develop. Pennington's(1994) research asserts that "the typical case in L2 acquisition seems to be that learners approachnew values for phonological features gradually and piecemeal, rather than as the outcome of a rapid
shift" (p.95), meaning that a single lesson is not going to awaken some large and powerful shift inphonological competence. Although it would be difficult to provide evidence of gains in phonologicalcompetency as a result of this course; I believe the online course did lay the groundwork for
improvement by providing students with an environment in which to develop their metalinguisticknowledge, use of PLS, and self-monitoring ability. With the additional out-of-class work as well as
short communicative speaking opportunities in the listening classroom, I am not surprised that 87% of
students reported that they felt their pronunciation had improved. Once again, controlled, longitudinal
investigation is needed to measure change in both production and perhaps students’ personal
approaches to pronunciation learning to see how effective the course has been in achieving this goal.
Finally, was this environment conducive to independent learning? Looking at the number of students
who completed all or a significant portion of the lessons, I believe it may not have been. My initialapproach may have been a contributing factor in dissuading people from undertaking thepronunciation course because students at this level were overwhelmingly unprepared to study the
topics in English. The addition of Japanese explanations improved student understanding, but perhaps
it was too late. A second reason could be the lack of in-class guidance related to the pronunciation
modules of which many students seemed eager for in their comments. Unfortunately, my classroom
situation limited the amount of explicit, individualized pronunciation teaching that could be done
because our limited class time was already committed to vocabulary and comprehension quizzes andlistening and speaking activities. To remedy the lack of individualized feedback, I created a forum on
Moodle and encouraged students to ask questions there or come to my office and talk with me, but
none used either support line.
As a topic, suprasegmentals seemed to be easier to digest in an online environment, but one of thereasons could be that every week students had a lot of opportunities to hear comprehensible English
in EC and VOA assignments and notice the features that were being introduced. Segmentals,
especially vowels, proved to be harder, and I have since become aware of an online resource that I
would like to introduce to students for improving the perception and production of vowel sounds(http://www.englishaccentcoach.com/).
One improvement that needs to be made relates to the degree of freedom students have within the
pronunciation course. The modules in the course were required and linear, and a new module wasintroduced every week. This means students worked at my pace although I had hoped that they would
work at their own. This could be allievated by providing a can-do survey or test related topronunciation features or to specific goals allowing access to a related module with explanations andactivities. Modules also should include more activities, explanations, and materials. Although students
did comment that diagrams and charts were helpful, audio recordings that provided students with anopportunity to hear a non-Japanese English speaker and video recordings of Japanese explanations
seemed to have had a greater impact on students. However, the non-Japanese samples used in the
Moodle course featured only my voice, which could mean that students had grown accustomed to my30	
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  speech and generalized phonological competence could be limited. Therefore, future versions of thecourse need to provide exposure to a variety of male and female voices from various English
backgrounds. Finally, a review module could be made freely accessible for students wanting moreguidance and practice in a specific area at any given time.
The original intention for the data collected in this study was to feed back into future modules andincarnations of the pronunciation course, so there are obvious flaws in how the data was gathered andanalyzed and a lot of opportunity for future research. Nevertheless, much time and effort went into
designing and creating this environment and the research that was undertaken to write this paper has
made me feel that the investment has been worthwhile and is worthy of further pursuit. In the future, I
hope I can continue to develop the course and design empirical research studies specifically looking at
the development of self-monitoring skills and the use of pronunciation learning strategies within this ora similar environment.

Mathew Porter has been working with English learners in the U.S. and Japan since 1999. Hecurrently works at a self-access learning center and is making a transition from classroom
teacher to learning advisor, which has been a great opportunity for reflection and growth.
References
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connected speech by Japanese college students. In M. Ashby & J. Maidment (eds.), Phonetics
Teaching and Learning Proceedings. University College London. Retrieved fromhttp://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/ptlc/proceedings/ ptlcpaper_29e.pdf
Abe, H. (2011). Effects of form-focused instruction on the acquisition of weak forms by Japanese EFL
learners. The 17th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS XVII) Proceedings. Hong
Kong.
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Beasom, S. (2011). Aspects of phonological competence in Japanese EFL learners. Accents Asia,
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Bongaerts, T., Van Summeren, C. Planken, B. & Schils, E. (1997). Age and ultimate attainment in the
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Celce-Murcia, M, Brinton, D.M., & Goodwin J.M. (1996). Teaching Pronunciation. New York:
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Derwing, T.M., Murray J.M., & Munro, G.W. (1998). Evidence in Favor of a Broad Framework for
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Derwing, T.M. &Rossiter, M.J. (2002). ESL learners’ perceptions of their pronunciation needs andstrategies. System, 30, 155–166. DOI: 10.1016/S0346-251X(02)00012-X
Eckstein, G.T. (2007). A correlation of pronunciation learning strategies with spontaneous English
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Flege, J.E., Frieda, E.M., & Takeshi, N. (1997a). Amount of native-language (L1) useaffects thepronunciation of an L2. Journal of Phonetics, 25(2), 169-186. DOI: 10.1006/jpho.1996.0040
Flege, J.E., Bohn, O.S., & Jang, S. (1997b). Effects of experience on non-native speakers’production
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 	  Fraser, H. (2006). Helping teachers help students with pronunciation: A cognitive approach. Prospect,21(1), 80-97.
Hahn, L.D. (2004). Primary stress an intelligibility: Research to motivate the teaching ofsuprasegmentals. TESOL Quarterly, 38(2), 201-223.
Hartshorn, J. (2006). Pronunciation Matters: English Consonant Production by AUAP Students. Asia
University Publication CELE Journal, 14, 1-8. Retrieved from http://www.asia-u.ac.jp/cele/
cele_assets/CELE20Journal%202006%20Vol%2014/002Ponunciation%20Matters%20AUAP%20
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Ingels, S.A. (2011). The effects of self-monitoring strategy use on the pronunciation of learners ofEnglish. Unpublished PhD dissertation. University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Champaign, IL.
Retrieved from http://apling. public.iastate.edu/PSLLT/2009/ingels.pdf
Kochiyama, M. (2011). Status of English Pronunciation Teaching in Teacher-Training Courses: A
Survey of University Syllabi in Kinki Area. Conference Proceedings of the Japan Association for
Language Education & Technology. Nagoya.
Luzon, M.J., Ruiz-Madrid, M.N. (2010). Webtasks for the development of language learner autonomy
in the digital environment. In M.J. Luzon, M.N. Ruiz-Madrid, & M.L. Villanueva, (eds.), Digital
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Appendix 1
I’d like to ask you about the online pronunciation course so that I can find ways to improve it. Pleaseanswer the questions below. There is no right answer and your responses are anonymous. Thank youvery much for your help.
1. Did you complete the entire module?
2. In the next section, I’d like to ask you how much do you agree or disagree with the statements
below. Click on a number from 1 to 5.
1 = Strongly disagree
2 = Disagree
3 = Neither agree nor disagree
4 = Agree
5 = Strongly agree
This module was easy.
I think studying this is meaningful.
I was able to understand.
I want to study this more deeply.
I want it to be explained more.
I want you to use more Japanese (English*).
3. Please use the space below to write any comments or suggestions you have.
*From the fourth module.

Appendix 2
I’d like to ask about your beliefs and behavior in regard to this English 1 course. Please answer thequestions below. There is no right answer and your responses are anonymous. Thank you very muchfor your help.
1. Read the statements below and answer (1) yes, (2) no, or (3) no change.
I think I did better on TOEIC this time.
I think my listening ability has improved.

	
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JALT学習者ティヘロフメントSIGの会報	 	  I think my vocabulary has increased.
I think I like English more.
I think I have gotten used to listening to English.
I think my pronunciation has improved.
2. Read the statements below and answer (1) always, (2) sometimes, or (3) never.
I did the vocabulary journal homework.
I did the self-study homework from the textbook.
I listened to and read the VOA short story.
I just listened to the VOA short story.
I just read the VOA short story.
I did English Central.
I did the pronunciation homework.
3. Read the statements below and answer (1) yes, (2) no, or (3) no change.
The vocabulary journal homework was helpful.
The self-study homework from the textbook was helpful.
The VOA short story was helpful.
English Central was helpful.
The pronunciation homework was helpful.
4. Complete the statements below with one of the following words: (1) easy, (2) hard, or (3) just right.
The vocabulary journal homework was
The self-study homework from the textbook was
The VOA short story was English Central was
The pronunciation homework was
5. Please use the space below to write any comments or suggestions you have for next semester.

	
  

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  Feature	
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  フ ィチャード	  アーテイクル	  Private	
  tuition	
  as	
  a	
  learning	
  format	
  for	  Japanese	
  adult	  learners	
  of	
  L2	
  English	
  	
  	
  
日 本 人 成 人 の L2 英 語 学 習 者 の た め の 学 習 形 式 と し ての個人教授	 Lee	
  Arnold	
  Hoshi	
  University,	
  Seigakuin	
  University,	
  Shibaura	
  Institute	
  of	
  Technology	  リー・アーノルド	 星薬科大学,聖学院大学,芝浦工業大学	
 Abstract: Japanese learners of L2 English in secondary and higher education have often beencharacterized as group-oriented and risk-averse. Yet adult Japanese continue with L2 development fornecessary employment and career purposes, often in private lessons, to an extent that may contradict
stereotypical characterizations. While commercial language schools have responded to such needs
and interests for adults, cost is often a factor. Adult learners are nonetheless seeking this format both
inside and outside of commercial ELT, perhaps with a latent desire for learner autonomy and arationale grounded in adult life experience. Such desire, with life experience as a component, may
enrich the profile of Japanese learners across the board if taken into account, and may elevate oneon-one lessons into a broader scheme of private tuition for adult L2 learning.

	
  Keywords: Japanese adult learners, private lessons, private tuition, andragogy	  キーワード： 日本人成人学習者、個人レッスン、個人教授、アンドラゴジー(成人教育学)	
 	
 要 旨 :	
  中等及び高等教育において英語を第二言語(L2)として学ぶ日本人は、「集団主義的」且つ「危機回避的」と特徴づけられることが多い。しかし、成人の学習者は雇用維持や昇進の目的でL2学習を継続し、多くは個人授業を通してこのような既成のイメージには一致しないレベルに達している。このような成人のニーズや関心には、民間の語学学校が対応しているが、費用がしばしば問題となる。
それでもなお成人の学習者は、民間の英語教育機関の内外で、この学習形式(個人教授)を求めている。
これはおそらく自律的学習を潜在的に求めているためであり、且つ成人としての人生経験に基づいた理由からであろう。このような欲求が存在することを考慮することで、我々は、日本人学習者が全般的にどのような特徴を持つのか理解を深めることができる。また、成人のL2学習のための個人教授という広い視野の中で、マンツーマンレッスンの地位向上に貢献しうる。	
 	  llwright's (1995) paper on the social context of classroom language learning highlighted a
dynamic that he believed had gone largely unnoticed: the potentially negative influence of L2
learners in groups on individual L2 learners. He traced this lack of attention to the striving insecond language acquisition (SLA) studies for research legitimacy in applied linguistics rather thaneducation, and to a preoccupation with details of methodology and psycholinguistic accounts of SLA.
Such details increasingly, and ironically, centered on the what the individual underwent, rather than
the role social interaction played, in the SLA process. This had the effect, in his view, of ignoring theclassroom as a social setting in its own right and how social dynamics shaped the learner (p. 7).

A

In Japanese ELT contexts, however, the social dynamic is significant to the extent that some teachers,
especially those new to the country, may see individual Japanese learners as defined by the group socompletely as to be unable to rise above it. In such a view, the needs of the individual may be seen as
lesser in importance to the needs of the group, reinforcing Allwright's (1985) concerns all the more andcirculating an image of Japanese as ultimately too dependent on the group to be capable of full L2
mastery.

	
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JALT学習者ティヘロフメントSIGの会報	 	  Yet if such an assumption of group definition is even true, it is true only part of the time.

Mainstream Japanese university research in English, understandably focused on its
predominantly late-teens/early-twenties learner demographic, overlooks what many Japanese may becapable of achieving in the L2 once they leave higher education and make their way into the working
world. Indeed, Japanese adults must often continue L2 development for the purpose of real-life
engagement across a spectrum of public and private interests wherever the L2 is required. Given theaction, choices and demands involved, there is no room for passivity or inhibition.
For adult learners, the joys and difficulties of their lives may form a powerful source of L2 motivationand development. Yet such a source is still largely untapped as a basis for expanding the sense thatJapanese are ultimately more capable of realizing greater L2 learner development than what they
have often been given credit for. This paper will therefore explore Japanese adult L2 learnercapability by way of a format that may draw the most from their life experience - the private lesson.
Such a framework could potentially serve as a developmental context for the autonomy that fits withadult learner orientation, unobstructed by negative social dynamics and connected to the bottom-up
initiative that adult deliberation calls for. The following will be an account of two adult learners I have
had in private lessons – one at a language school where I was once employed, and the other in a
private arrangement.

A reflection on two adult learners
Dr. Takeda (a pseudonym) was a highly educated medical science professional in a hospital affiliatedwith a medical school northeast of Tokyo. In once-a-week sessions, he made it clear from our firstmeeting about how the lessons should go and what materials he wanted to use. While the materials
were recommended by the school, he had a sense as to what he wanted from them - specifically,smoother spoken output with improved pronunciation and grammatical cohesion. While I privately
questioned such emphasis given how proficient he already seemed, I agreed to work with him onthese terms.
In each lesson, we would work through some structures he was comfortable in as warm-up activities
towards his target structures. He insisted on repeated dialog pair practice with me on these structures,and based on these forms we would create new personalized conversations, with work on
pronunciation points if needed.
As the year continued, we would deal with readings in the text with these forms as his confidence
grew. He challenged me on the structures and insisted on deeper answers for their rationale and use.
Any preparation on my part soon focused more on supplementary exercises, including my own
materials which centered on particular structures and their use.
He showed me, progressively over time, what his particular goal for the week's session was. He knew
how to discuss issues in his field; he was drawing from the outside as a way of attending to what
doubts he may still have had with his output. I soon stopped assigning homework; he did it without
being asked. At the end of the year, when my schedule was to change and I could no longer continue
our lessons together, he brought me a box of Belgian chocolates and a letter of praise to the school
director about my work.
A few years later, a private student I had taken on directly was similarly unique for the reflective
character he brought to bear. Mr. Nishimura (also a pseudonym) was a young minister in a church
who expected to be sent to Canada for a number of years with his wife and infant daughter. His aim
was discussion on topics of his choosing with social issues, particularly those that overlapped withwhat he expected to hear from his Canadian church members should he be posted there.
He had selected a reading text and had ideas about what he wanted from it, and while I believed it
was suited for him, I advised him to push beyond it into discussion based on reflection of the topics
themselves, rather than weekly updates on what he had read. He undertook this eagerly and soon
began emailing me in advance on what he would talk about from a particular reading, saying that thiswould enable us to focus on discussion in our sessions.
While he wanted to hear my thoughts on these issues, he also wanted feedback on how well he had
presented himself in his talk on them and how thought-out a certain view on an issue at hand had
been. He told me that he did not expect me to agree with him, and sometimes I did not – but that was36	
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reflections that sometimes showed change in his views. He eventually received his assignment to
Canada, thanking me in a card for our sessions and confident that his English came away
substantially improved.
Both of these learners brought a sense of purpose, great confidence, initiative and determination totheir learning, even with any doubts they may have had in areas of their language. The case of Dr.
Takeda in particular fits with Krashen's (2006) description of the autonomous language acquirer, interms of the vigorous pro-activity in execution he shared with Mr. Nishimura in what he wanted toachieve in the L2. If fully maximized in these terms, the one-on-one setting for adult learners moves
away from a group lesson tailored to one person towards an individualized vehicle more like anongoing tutorial. It may therefore be better to refer to it as private tuition, and requires a different
approach by a teacher and realization by the learner engaged in it. The notion of an individualized
learning scheme may nonetheless be problematic, and calls for a review of issues that may negate theeffects of private tuition.

Issues of private tuition
The marketability of private lessons in commercial ELT may admittedly represent a personalization of
choice among learners in that connectedness to the instructor, particularly the native-speaker, and theL2 can be bought, reinforcing the notion of learners as consumers. As many English conversation
schools also tend to charge more for one-on-one lessons than in groups, a narrow learner base may
only be reached – namely, middle-class corporate workers with the disposable income for such
lessons. The greater learner capability that the one-on-one format may show promise for may
therefore not develop over a wider range of adult learners.
In addition, the type of psychosocial dependence with a corresponding expectation of indulgenceidentified by Doi (1973) as peculiar among Japanese, explored further by Befu (1983), Clancy (1986),
and McDaniel (2005), and treated as an aspect in a number of L2 learning issues involving Japaneseby Bohn (2004), Doyon (2000, 2003), Pritchard (1995) and Yoneoka (2000) may indeed play a role inhampering learner capability even into the adult years, to a degree that the private lesson format may
not be able to remedy.
While outside of ELT, Hofstede's concept of uncertainty avoidance (1980), which emerged from his
insights about the scope of interaction within cultural boundaries, has bearing as well. His uncertainty
avoidance index (1991) expanded this concept further; on this scale, countries and their cultures were
gauged on the degree that withdrawal from ambiguous or uncomfortable outcomes within socioculturalinteractions are permitted to individuals. In his findings, he ranked Japan somewhat highly for thegreat importance attached by a significant number of Japanese to procedure and certainty in outcome
over ranges of interaction across business, educational and other societal settings and situations(Hofstede, 1991). Doyon (2000) also provides an account of shyness in the Japanese university L2classroom that may be formidable as a learning barrier. He traces this phenomenon to the compulsory
educational years, particularly on the secondary level, where student performance appears to beevaluated to a degree that goes beyond learning and into the assessment of students themselves as
people; as a result, low self-esteem can arise in many students, with the possible result of aperformance-oriented dependence on the approval of others, especially those in authority (p. 13). As
most Japanese leaving school will have likely gone through such an orientation, those teaching inhigher education will receive what it may produce – hesitant, easily overwhelmed and fearful learners
who may be unlikely to develop a heartfelt love of learning free from external approval.

Breaking through issues and stereotypes
Given the economic and sociocultural obstacles present, why are adult learners still seeking out oneon-one learning? One explanation is that dissatisfaction with the typical group lesson may haveemerged and that they have perceived a learning format they can engage in within a safe haven,
where proactive effort can be freed. With regard to the learners in my reflection this may have been
the case, as they controlled the question of their learning, but on their terms and time.
More importantly, it may be possible that they are seeking out this format as a release from the social	
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JALT学習者ティヘロフメントSIGの会報	 	  tensions Allwright (1995) points out. They may have accepted the interpersonal risks that can comewith one-on-one interaction as a price that must be paid in order to break through the L2 pain barrier,perhaps even coming to feel that such a barrier is best broken away from their peers. On these terms,
a more meaningful conception of private tuition is enhanced when it maximizes greater release fromsuch psychosocial tensions and sets learners as agents who can shape their learning.
The negative influence of the group in the L2 classroom what Allwright found may be seen as a
network of patterns among individuals in relation to groups – perhaps of value in tracing certain
aspects of behavior in relation to other learners, but falling short when examining individual learners.
Indeed, accounts of dependence, avoidance and shyness may even be unhelpful when we look at
adult learners themselves, let alone men and women with rights and responsibilities.
On those terms, if Japanese adult learners are to be taken with their existential characteristics into
consideration, tropes of dependence, avoidance and shyness must be put aside. Even more, there
must be a departure from the temptation to see these elements as forming a narrative about Japanese
as a whole. Only then will it be possible to see them in their own right as workers, professionals,
spouses, parents, travelers and returnees to Japan. Ultimately, for Japanese adult life to meet thedemands placed upon it, the group dynamic may not hold sway in the long run. An account by Kirk
(1999) of adult students admitted into EFL classes at a regional university in southwest Japandemonstrate the advantages they bring in interaction, motivation, and networking to their younger
classmates. If such students can have this kind of impact in a higher educational context, what might
be gained by explicitly seeking it out in a one-on-one format?

Realities of adult learners and Knowles' andragogy
The lives of adult Japanese living and working within the current social and economic realities ofJapan may be increasingly contradicting stereotypical images. Those who have left the country for
travel or extended living and working situations more often than not return changed from their
engagement with foreign cultures. Many are increasingly forced into changing jobs and careers as well
given the erosion of traditional patterns of lifetime employment. The societal pressures that may havegiven rise to certain psychosocial conditions in the past may now be gradually breaking down - orbeing engaged with by a newer type of Japanese adult, one more resilient.
In the light of such realities, teachers could ask who these learners are in their work experiences,
career paths and daily lives. Indeed, what are they looking for? What has been the character of theirprevious learning and life experience? Where do they wish to position their current and future L2 use?
What is in the research literature that will help us to understand who they are? Adult life experience
may be expressed within such learners consciously or not, because such experience goes to the heartof who they are as people.
Such questions were raised by Knowles (1973), in holding that adult learners situate their learning in
relation to their life experience. This was the culmination of his research on the differences between
adults and children in learning styles, and rounded out his body of thought about adult learning,
dubbed andragogy, or the education of adults (Knowles, 1970; Merriam & Caffarella, 1991). To
Knowles, the adult learner is driven by a sense of application that is direct, immediate, andinstrumental, centered in the way “(...) both programmed experiences (psychotherapy, adulteducation) and unprogrammed experiences (marriage, child rearing, occupational activities) produce
deep-seated changes in the ways adults approach problems, handle risk and organize their thinking”(p. 46).
Knowles' scheme is grounded in a North American context of individualism and bottom-up initiativethat seems at odds with Japanese sociocultural patterns. Yet what may reconcile these seemingly
opposed sources is an instrumental focus that may possess cross-cultural applicability. Such focus
draws from an adult what a given situation may require – something that demands, for example, asmuch from the new recruit at a Japanese company as it does from his or her counterpart overseas.
The ability to handle what emerges may therefore be a sign of mature adult development regardless ofcultural contexts and societal factors.
Extending this line, he proposed that one's readiness to learn coincided with one's developmental
maturity towards the assumption of social roles:

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  This assumption is that as an individual matures, his readiness to learn is decreasingly the
product of his biological development and academic pressure and is increasingly the product ofthe developmental tasks required for the performance of his evolving social roles. In a sense,
pedagogy assumes that children are ready to learn those things they “ought” to because of
their biological and academic development, whereas andragogy assumes that learners areready to learn those things they “need” to because of the developmental phases they areapproaching in their roles as workers, spouses, parents, organizational members and leaders,leisure time users, and the like (1973, pp. 46-47).
How may private tuition bring this formulation into Japanese adult learning contexts, especially withregard to the existential characteristics of learners? It may be best imported through a focus on thecontent of adult experience, contextualized into L2 areas most relevant for the learner, and on thecharacter of communication that most fully brings out the richness of such content.

Structure and features of private tuition
While private tuition may not necessarily be about conversation, the character of discussion, either topersonalize the content of lessons, or as an extension of themes within it, is central on three counts:
first, in the freer range of discussion and engagement that will be opened up from the nature of oneon-one interaction; second, from the way that alternatives to the grammar-orientation in much
Japanese instruction of L2 English can be explored; and third, in how context frames the spoken
discourse that occurs in analytical and practical terms.
Brown (2000) points out that the rules governing conversation, even where they belong to afundamental area of linguistic competence in the learner's L1, have been given little attention in the L2classroom (p. 255). Attention-getting, topic nomination, topic development, and topic termination, withskills such as turn-taking and clarification, are culturally-specific and may not always transcend cultural
boundaries. Grice (1967) gave what Brown calls conversational “maxims” that form a four-point guidefor topic development, clarification, and maintenance that may aid in bridging such gaps:
1. Quantity: Say only as much as is necessary for understanding the communication.
2. Quality: Say only what is true.
3. Relevance: Say only what is relevant.
4. Manner: Be clear. (cited in Brown, 2000, p. 257)
Where conversation may make the whole, or even part, of content, Guest (1998) argues against theuse of written forms as models. His corrective focuses on ellipsis, in how it shows what the L2 and L1
have in common with regard to unmarked forms and other less complex structures. In his view,ignoring spoken forms in favor of so-called “standard” language not only tends to overemphasize thedifferences between the L1 and L2 at their greatest points of divergence, but circulates a false imageof the L2 to the extent that it “may increase psychological barriers to acquisition” (p. 22). His response
is concise: “Freeing students from unnecessarily complex grammatical deliberation by focusing on thecommon shortcuts and interpersonal features of English that are manifest in spoken grammar (SG)can serve to lessen possible resultant cross-cultural misunderstandings and interpersonal friction” (p.
22).
In choice of material, the previous reference to Krashen's (2006) autonomous language acquirer may,at least in some cases, fit the characterization of some adult learners and make room for a similar
degree of liberation in content. His analysis of the potential of narrow listening and reading forpleasure holds promise for the autonomous acquirer (p. 4-5); the focus that may be enabled was
realized by my two learners in their approach to their material even given their more instrumental
purposes, and may suit a wider range of adult learners in one-on-one interaction as well. When taken
further with the conversational features described, more meaningful discussion from such material
may be realized.

Rights and responsibilities in private tuition
The question still remains on what is there to prevent individualized tuition from becoming areinforcement, rather than a release, from any misconceptions of learner role or L2 learning an adultstudent may have. Could this prevent a learner from drawing on the fullness of his or her social roles
as valuable assets? What indeed is there to prevent individualized tuition from enabling dependence?
Teachers must make it clear that private tuition still calls on learners to draw from the changes	
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 	  Knowles (1973) captured that leads to adult response to situational events. Yet given the expectations
attached that are still reasonably within what adult responsibility can handle, there is little room for
dependence or avoidance, as the purpose of the format will be defeated.
To summarize, here is a set of guidelines for both teachers and learners that may be used to structure
an individualized plan of tuition. For learners:
1. Private tuition gives an adult learner the right and responsibility to control the method andcontent of learning.
2. Private tuition necessitates proactive effort by the learner to a greater degree than in group
lessons.
3. Private tuition requires the learner's life experience to form some part of its content.
For teachers:
1. Private tuition calls on the teacher to be a cooperator and facilitator with the adult learner.
2. Private tuition necessitates as much thinking on the part of a teacher as that of group lessons.
3. Private tuition dictates proactive thinking by the teacher to respond to a learner's direction.
These guidelines can be laid out with prospective students as conditions of private tuition, with room
for more to be added. As a whole, they can form the structure for a plan tailored for a learner that
dictates equal input from both sides.

Conclusion
What Japanese adult L2 learners may be capable of achieving in private tuition, despite socioculturaland economic barriers, may make it worth more than what it has previously been conceived. Yet itstrue measure comes when there is understanding about how private tuition differs from group lessons,placement of learners and their life experience at the center, and clarity by both teachers and learners
on what it calls for. The maturation of Japanese adult learners from their life experience and thelearning orientation it may result in could nonetheless enable them to realize greater autonomy.
Lee Arnold is a part-time lecturer in the Hoshi University General Studies Department inpharmaceutical English, the Seigakuin University English Communication Arts program, and the
Shibaura Institute of Technology Department of Engineering English program. He has been living andworking in Japan since 1997, first in Ibaraki and Chiba prefectures, and since 2007, in Tokyo. He
holds a Graduate Certificate in Education and an M.Ed. (Honours) in TESOL from the University of
Tasmania and his research interests are in adult language learning, and vocabulary organization forenhanced reading comprehension and speaking ability.

References
Allwright, R.L. (1995). Contextual factors in classroom language learning. Lancaster University Centre
for Research in Language Education Working Papers, 35. Retrieved from http://www.ling.lancs.
ac.uk/groups/crile/docs/crile35allwrigh.pdf
Befu, H. (1983). Internationalization of Japan and nihon bunkaren. In H. Befu & H. Mannari (Eds.), The
challenges of Japan's internationalization: Organization and culture (pp. 232-266). Osaka: Kwansei
Gakuin University.
Bohn, M.T. (2004). Japanese classroom behavior: A micro-analysis of self-reports versus classroom
observations, with implications for language teachers. Applied Language Learning, 14(1), 1-35.
Brown, H.D. (2000). Principles of language teaching and learning (2nd ed.). New York: Longman.
Clancy, P.M. (1986). The acquisition of communicative style in Japanese. In B. Shieffelin & E. Ochs
(Eds.), Language socialization across cultures (pp. 213-250). New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Doi, T. (1973). The anatomy of dependence. New York: Kodansha America.
Doyon, P. (2000). Shyness in the Japanese EFL class: Why it is a problem, what it is, what causes it,
and what to do about it. The Language Teacher, 24(1), 11-17.
Doyon, P. (2003). Enhancing value perception in the Japanese EFL classroom. Asian-EFL-Journal,5(1). Retrieved from http://www.tesol-journal. com/march03.sub5b.htm
Grice, H.P. (1967). Logic and conversation. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University ofCalifornia, Berkeley.
Guest, M. (1998). Spoken grammar: Easing the transitions. The Language Teacher, 22(6), 21-24.
Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture's consequences: International differences in work-related values. Beverly
Hills: Sage.

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  Hofstede, G. (1991). Culture and organisations. London: McGraw-Hill.
Kirk, D. T. (1999). Andragogy in English as a foreign language classes at Prefectural University of
Kumamoto. Journal of the Prefectural University of Kumamoto Administration, 6(1), 55-67.
Knowles, M.S. (1970). The modern practice of adult education: Andragogy versus pedagogy. New
York: Association Press.
Knowles, M.S. (1973). The adult learner: A neglected species. Houston: Gulf.
Krashen, S. (2006). The autonomous language acquirer (ALA): Definition, rationale, and somesuggestions. In E.M. Skier & M. Kohyama (Eds.), More autonomy you ask! (Learner and teacher
autonomy in Japan 2) (pp. 1-8). Tokyo: JALT.
McDaniel, E.R. (2005). Japanese nonverbal communication: A reflection on cultural themes. In L.A.
Samovar, R.E. Porter & E.R. McDaniel (Eds.), Intercultural communication: A reader (pp. 266-274).
Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Merriam, S.B., & Caffarella, R.S. (1991). Learning in adulthood: A comprehensive guide. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Pritchard, R.M.O. (1995). Amae and the Japanese learner of English: An action research study.
Language, Culture and Curriculum, 8(3), 249-64.
Yoneoka, J. (2000). What is a kokusaijin? A 10-year study. The Language Teacher, 24(9), 7-13.

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JALT学習者ティヘロフメントSIGの会報	 	  Voices	  	  	
  読者の声	 Autonomy	
  Big	
  and	
  Small	
  
	
  
Phil	
  Benson,	
  The	
  Hong	  Kong	  Institute	
  of	
  Education	  フィル・ベンソン	
  香港教育学院	
  Michael	  Mondejar,	
  International	
  University	
  of	
  Japan	  	
  マイケル・モデジャー	
  国際大学	  Jackie	  Suginaga,	
  Komazawa	
  Women’s	  University	  杉長ジャッキー	 	  駒沢女子大学	
 Keywords: autonomy, grammar, vocabulary, institutional education, demotivation, self-instruction,
self-access, independent learning, self-access learning, democratic schools, technology and language
development, project work
キ ー ワ ー ド :自律学習、文法、語彙、学校教育、意欲喪失、独習、セルフアクセス、独立学習、セル
フアクセス学習、デモクラティックスクール、技術と言語発達、プロジェクトワーク	 	 ackie Suginaga and Michael Mondejar were thrilled and honoured to meet Phil Benson, one ofthe plenary speakers at the JALT national conference in Tokyo last November. As Phil has
been a writer and researcher at the forefront of learner autonomy for many years, we wanted tointerview him to get some insight into how his interest in autonomy started, how his ideas have
evolved, and what advice he could give to teachers who wish to promote learner autonomy. Sitting
down over coffee, Michael started the ball rolling with an important question…

J
	
  	
  

Michael: So why do you think promoting learner autonomy is important in second language
acquisition?
Phil: I think it’s important in learning and I think it’s especially important in second language
acquisition because of this idea that really there’s no curriculum for a second language. If you’re going
to learn a second language to a high level, first of all you have to do a lot of work outside theclassroom and second, everybody’s going to learn in their own way, anyway. So, it’s that idea that
second language acquisition is a very variable thing already, whether you are introducing autonomy ornot. So, I believe that autonomy is important, because that’s what people need to do – they need tolearn a language in their own way, to use it for what they want to use it for.
Michael: How would you respond to people who have researched first language acquisition and havestated that people’s first language is acquired in stages? Wouldn’t those people say that you have tostructure language learning in a certain way?
Phil: Well, I don’t think that that idea is incompatible with autonomy. I mean, I myself would think that if
I was learning a new language, I would want to learn the tense system, I would want to learn how tomake singular and plural, those basic grammatical things. That’s how I was taught French at school,
and there’s nothing wrong with that. But I think that that’s actually a very small part of learning aforeign language. So, I am not against the structure at all. I think there are some things that are betteras structured. But in fact, I think that that can generally be done in a very short time. It’s thedevelopment - it’s going beyond that kind of beginner, intermediate stage and so on – that takes timeand requires autonomy. In my own experience of teaching myself languages, I’ve started with agrammar book and tried to get on top of the grammar, the basic vocabulary, the kind of vocabulary
you find in a list of common words. That doesn’t take long, but then that’s when the difficult part starts.
I think you can also learn a language autonomously from the beginning. But what I’m saying really isthat autonomy doesn’t mean that you have to learn everything autonomously and everything in a kindof deconstructed way.

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  Michael: I wanted to ask you something that occurred to me when I read your book, Teaching andResearching Autonomy. Students who are already very motivated to learn a language, wouldn’t they
automatically become autonomous?
Phil: Well, I don’t think they would automatically become autonomous, because that’s something that
schools and universities can discourage. I think institutional education often demotivates students. The
biggest risk in education is that you will actually discourage the students rather than encourage them.
But there is a link between motivation and autonomy, so I would agree that autonomy is perhaps more
for motivated students than for less motivated students.
There are also unmotivated students, right? There are students in language classes who really don’t
want to learn those languages. I think autonomy means that students should be free to not learn alanguage, free to spend their time learning something else instead. We can take a step outside
language learning and look at autonomy as having a choice about the kind of subjects we want tolearn.
This is the thing with English language teaching though, isn’t it? Everybody has to learn English,
particularly in Asia. In Europe and the West, we talk about language aptitude – that is, some people
are better at learning a language than other people. But in Asia, you rarely hear people talk about
language aptitude. It just seems that everybody has to do it, and it’s how hard you work that
determines your success.
Jackie: Why did you first become interested in autonomy?
Phil: The reason why I got interested in autonomy was because I myself would prefer self-instruction. I
prefer to teach myself than to go to classes. I’ve learned Spanish, Portuguese and Italian in this way. I
tried to learn Japanese and Cantonese too but had a lot less success with those. So, I guess I am
pretty autonomous myself. That’s how I got interested in, first of all, self-access because when I went
to Hong Kong it was to help set up a self-access center in Hong Kong University. I thought that that
was a really great thing for me because this was the kind of thing that I would love to have myself. So,
to help set something like that up for students was really interesting.
Michael: Could you tell us more about the self-access center?
Phil: Well, that was in the early 1990’s, and at that time they expanded the university education
system. These were all English-medium universities, so when they expanded by about 20%, they
were very concerned about the level of the English of the students. They gave a lot of funds to theuniversities for what they called “language enhancement”. Most of the universities at that time set up
these self-access centers, with various degrees of success. I think the ones that have worked
particularly well were City University, The Science and Technology University and the Polytechnic
University. The one we worked in at Hong Kong University, it’s been OK, but we had a lot moredifficulty than the other universities in terms of trying to integrate the self-access and the teaching
together. I think other universities were more successful in doing that.
Jackie: Would, for example, students research their own projects at the self-access center? And wasthis combined with some classroom teaching?
Phil: Yes, we tried various things. For example we had a course where 60% was classroom teaching
and 40% of the course was actually set up so that you could do what you want. You could choose tocomplete a project yourself, you would set targets or carry out the learning yourself, and keep a record,and so on. That kind of approach was less successful because there was a lack of connection
between what students were doing in the classroom, which was mainly academic writing, and what
they were doing in the self-access center, which would often be at a much lower level. At otheruniversities they developed programs that were 100% self-access, and you could get credit for that.
Michael: So there was no classroom instructor, or no classroom time?
Phil: In some cases. There was a program called the Independent Learning Program at City
University, where students could opt for that. The students had to take an English course, but they
could opt to take it in a classroom or they could opt to take it through self access. If they opted to take	
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 	  it through self-access, I think there was no classroom instruction. There may have been a kind of alearner-training workshop, but there was no curriculum, no set of skills that you had to improve – it
was all self-directed.
Jackie: But there was a teacher there for guidance?
Phil: Yes. So, say if it was a classroom course, you would have 20 students in your class. If it was aself-access course, you would also have 20 students who you were responsible for.
Michael: Was there any research in, say, gains in language proficiency?
Phil: I’m pretty sure there wasn’t research on language proficiency, no. It would be really difficult to do
because they were pretty short courses and the students are pretty advanced already when they go in,compared to other levels. At this age in Hong Kong, they have already done about 15 years of English
classes, so it’s very difficult to measure their language proficiency anyway, and then if you are looking
for an improvement over 10 weeks. There are some interesting articles written by Jean Young and hercolleagues about that course.
Jackie: With regards to teacher autonomy and learner autonomy, do you think that they areconnected in any way?
Phil: Well, I should say that I understand what learner autonomy is. I am not sure that I, or anybody
else, really understands what teacher autonomy is, in the sense that there are a number of ways thatyou can use that term, teacher autonomy. You can talk about whether teachers are autonomous
learners or not, so that’s a sort of learner autonomy of teachers, they are autonomous in their learningto teach. Then, there is teacher autonomy in the sense that they have a freedom to do and to makedecisions in the classroom. So, you know, there are so many different ways to define it that it’s difficult
to say. I am a lot less comfortable with teacher autonomy than I am with learner autonomy.
The other problem with the idea of teacher autonomy is that if teacher autonomy means teachers
having more freedom in the classroom, is that an end in itself? If teachers have more freedom in theclassroom, they can use that freedom any way they want. It might not necessarily be to promotelearner autonomy. So, the way I prefer to look at the whole issue is in terms of the specific constraints
that prevent teachers from allowing students to be more autonomous rather than more general
constraints on their own behavior.
But not everyone would agree with that. I’d be very reluctant and slow to take on this idea of teacher
autonomy. I understand what people are talking about, but I think our priority here is learner autonomy,
and then teacher autonomy. Yes, there’s a link, but it also takes you off into other areas aboutteachers’ lives, professional work, etc. which are not necessarily related to learner autonomy.
Michael: What do you think about this idea of filling students with knowledge, like pouring water into a
vessel, versus nurturing them like a seed, providing them with the necessary conditions in which togrow?
Phil: Well, I prefer the second, but I am not sure how helpful these kinds of metaphors are. I don’tknow if this is a metaphor, but I like to think of students as people. I don’t want to be critical about how
other people conceptualize things. But for me, I find it very important to remember that students arepeople. They are people like me, they are just as tired as I am, and they have the same kinds ofconcerns that I have. I think it is easy for teachers to forget that and treat students like they don’t havelives or that they don’t have their own particular concerns. Particularly in language learning, that’s
important. That’s where you begin: the idea that students are learning languages for particular reasonsor for a particular purpose and so on, and if you can help them develop those reasons and purposes,
then that’s good teaching. That’s teaching for autonomy. That’s like the seed growing - so it’s not abad metaphor. I think the idea that learning is growth is a valid idea. Otherwise, you’re going to see
the learner as an empty vessel, and you’ve got to try to fill it up. So we are all looking for alternatives
to that idea of filling up an empty vessel with knowledge.
Michael: Isn’t this idea still prevalent in Asia? The idea that the teacher has to bestow this knowledge
upon the learner and then the learner has to absorb it?

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  Phil: My impression is that it is prevalent in education systems. It’s odd, actually, because when you
look at policies and curriculum documents and so on, that idea is not there. It’s all learner-centered,it’s all lifelong learning, it’s all communicative and task-based and so on. But it seems that at the levelof the way that schools organize things, you tend to get that filling-up-the-vessel idea, and I think it’s
got a lot to do with the big high-stakes public examinations. I think that once you get that, it
encourages a lot of conformity.
Hopefully, in Hong Kong at the school level, it’s changing a little bit because they’ve just introduced a
lot of in-class, in-school assessments. But we have a system where you have one examination for thewhole territory, for the whole city. In principle, I should be able to go into a school on Tuesday, forexample, and see what’s happening in that school and I should be able to go anywhere in the city andsee exactly the same thing happening. That’s the ideal situation, but I think it’s impossible and they
can’t enforce it. It just doesn’t work. And that’s irrespective of the level of the students. You’ve got
really good students and really weak students, and they’re all supposed to be doing the same thing.
The driving force of that is the examination. So, I guess within educations systems, you have a lot ofdifferent drivers and they conflict sometimes.
But this is the case all over Asia. We have these education policies, particularly at the school level,
which are in favor of learner centeredness, communicative teaching, autonomy, etc., but it seems thatthe school systems themselves and the examinations systems conflict with that – they disconnect.
And this is why you can talk to teachers about autonomy. This is why they want to talk about it. It
creates a kind of fertile ground where you can actually have a discussion. But at the end of the day theteachers are quite likely to go away and say “yes, but I can’t do anything”. So, I feel that it’s importantthat we try to address that problem.
Jackie: How has your thinking towards autonomy evolved?
Phil: Well, I think there’s a big autonomy and a smaller autonomy, and the big autonomy is reallyabout education reform, about really changing the whole approach to language learning and language
education. And then there’s a small autonomy, which is what teachers can practically do withoutchanging the whole system. If you work in teacher education or even when you are speaking atconferences like this, it’s not really helpful to tell teachers that the entire education system shouldchange, or even that they should change it. Well, maybe they can do that, but they can’t do it
tomorrow. So, I think that we try to put that idea in their minds that it would be great if the whole
education system would change, but there are also things that you can do now that will be good foryour students.
Michael: How do you feel about democratic schools such as Sudbury – where they promote a
Rousseau-like curriculum, where the learners have more freedom to explore different kinds of stimuli
and take up whatever interests them? Also, learners have a stake in deciding the rules in the school;
they can propose rules and have the same voting power as school staff. There are several of theseschools even in Japan. I’m wondering how successful they are?
Phil: This is a whole informal education system in the States, right? I think every big city, every state
has one or two of these schools and some are better known than others. The impression I have of
these schools is that they generally serve kids who are dropping out, who are failing in the statesystem. So in a sense, as a parent, you only send your kind there when they fail everything else. It’s
really a last resort. If they fail there, it doesn’t really matter because they’ve failed everywhere else. It
does seem that they work for many of those kids. You’re talking about kids who have taken almost no
responsibility for their learning, and are very, very demotivated. These schools can have an effect inmotivating or empowering the students.
Michael: Do you have any experience working with these schools?
Phil: No, I don’t have any experience, no. To my knowledge, there was a well-known one in England –Summerhill. If you’re interested, get the book (http://www.amazon.com/Summerhill-School-New-ViewChildhood/dp/0312141378). A.S Neill was the headmaster – he wrote the book on it. It was one of thefirst of these free schools in the 60s. There were no rules, you didn’t have to go to class, you could doanything you wanted. Well, what they claimed was that normally the kids would just sort of lie around	
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JALT学習者ティヘロフメントSIGの会報	 	  and do nothing for six weeks, and then they would get bored. They started going along to lessons
because they were interesting. There have been a number of very well-known graduates. But whether
that’s a model for an entire education system – I don’t know. These schools have a particular role
within the mainstream education system in that they are taking up the kids who really can’t cope withmainstream education.
Michael: Do you think technology has had an effect on learner autonomy, particularly with increasinguse of online and mobile technology? Anyone can access any kind of information in the blink of an eye.
Phil: Yes, I think it’s had a massive effect, actually. I think that it is probably the most important thingthat is influencing autonomous language learning, especially in countries or in situations wherestudents don’t have direct access to the language they’re learning. The Internet has really quite
radically changed that situation because kids are spending hours every day on it. It’s like that’s
another country that they live in. All the research I’ve seen which has looked at students, the language,
and the Internet is really showing that they do access, particularly in English, the foreign language thatthey are learning out of class on their own. They don’t tell the teachers. It’s not part of homework.
They just do it. Whether they connect it to what they’re learning in school or not, I don’t know, but I
think often they don’t.
Jackie: What about the situation in Hong Kong? Do students access the Internet to learn English?
Phil: The major complaint that I’ve heard in Hong Kong year after year is the students don’t practiceEnglish outside class, but actually they do now. We know that they do, especially at the secondary
level. They get into things on the computer, and they’re doing it all the time, even if only they’re playing
games. Maybe it’s very different in Japan. In Hong Kong, very few people play video games in
Chinese. Most people play in English because of the quality of the games. So Japanese games comeout in an English version and a Chinese version. But normally the English version is much better thanthe Chinese version. It’s much more sophisticated. It’s because the Chinese game is a copy, it’s notunder license. It’s not exactly the same game. Actually, it’s not just the language, but the game itself.
The English games are always ahead. They may even be a year ahead of the Chinese games. That’s
why more people play games in English instead of Chinese. But lots of kids are finding ways to use
the Internet in a foreign language, so I think that’s really going to have a very big impact.
Michael: Do you think technology will have an impact on the role of the teacher in the future?
Computer-assisted language learning is still a relatively new field. Do you think it may change ourgoals?
Phil: If you’re teaching English to students in Japan, or you’re teaching English to Japanese students
who are at a British or American university, the approach would be very different, right? To
oversimplify, you’ve got a foreign language approach and a second language approach. So, what I’m
thinking is that in foreign language situations, the Internet is making English more of a second
language. So I think it’s that kind of adaptation - you have to adapt teaching to account for the fact thatstudents have so many more opportunities to talk to people or do things outside of class. And the idea,
for example, that we take all the text into the classroom for the students for reading – we find the text
and give it to the students – is so unnecessary now. It is very easy to ask the kids to go out and go
find a text for themselves. If they’ve got mobile phones they can even do it while they’re sitting in theclassroom.
I think this applies particularly to the self-access context. People involved with self-access are alreadyrethinking this. You don’t have to provide all of the resources anymore. It’s probably more important tobe knowledgeable about the resources that are available on the Internet. Students don’t necessarily
have to come to your self-access center. To a certain extent, self-access is maybe becoming
redundant as well. Self-access centers may become more like social centers for people interested inlearning foreign languages.
Jackie: What have been the most crucial moments in developing your own thinking about researchingand promoting autonomy?
Phil: Well, I started off in self-access with the idea that autonomy was about self-instruction, aboutproviding people with resources for self-instruction. And I think the major way in which my thinking has

46	
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  developed is that it shifted from the idea of providing resources in a particular place to looking at typesof learners and to what extent they are autonomous inside and outside the classroom. So, that’s been
the biggest development over 20 years or so. And I think a lot of other people in the field have gone
through a similar development as well.
Michael: What advice would you give for teachers seeking to promote learner autonomy in anenvironment where teacher-centered instruction is still the norm?
Phil: My advice is – and you can quote me on this – do what you can and don’t worry that you are notachieving the really big goal. Try to do small things that you can do and that won’t get you into toomuch trouble. Like a lot of people, I thought of learner autonomy as a kind of goal, something you’retrying to achieve with students. That’s fine, but sometimes I just have to prepare my next lesson.
When I do that I can just think about ‘how am I going to teach this stuff’. But if I add in autonomy, I
think ‘how am I going to teach this stuff’ and ‘how am I going to introduce some autonomy in thecourse as well’, and I will prepare in a different way. The way I prepare it may not achieve the goal ofautonomy in the end, but it will be different – it will take autonomy into account. So going back toadvice for teachers, when you’re planning lessons, when you’re planning a course, just think about
where autonomy can fit in. If you think about autonomy, will you do this a little bit differently?
There’s an interesting thing that Kumaravadivelu (2003) says - I was actually quite strongly influenced
by him and his ‘post-method pedagogy’. He has ten principles, ten things you should think about
whenever you’re planning a curriculum or a course. What struck me is his idea that autonomy is one ofthese principles. So, I’m excessively interested in autonomy, but for everybody else, autonomy is only
going to be one of ten things to consider. So, in terms of practically making autonomy work in teaching– just factor autonomy into your planning. There will be a very small number of people who actuallyplan their courses to achieve autonomy, but for everybody else, what we can hope is that they
incorporate it in one way or another.
Jackie: How do you factor autonomy into your courses?
Phil: Mainly by trying to create spaces where the students can have more choices and make moredecisions. People expect my classes are really autonomous, but they’re not, actually, because of thesituation I teach in. For example, in one class I have 160 students in a lecture hall. I’m supposed togive a lecture – that’s the way this course is structured. So I do little things in the lecture to try to givethem choices, try to get them more engaged, but it’s still a lecture; it’s still not the best way to teach.
Jackie: How about learners who prefer the teacher to do everything for them and think they’re toobusy to be autonomous?
Phil: Actually, that’s a real problem. My kid goes to an international school where they do a lot ofproject work. It’s progressive in the sense of having the students more actively involved in what they’re
doing. But the number of things he has to keep in his head and managing the workload is challenging
because he’s involved in many project groups. You can handle one or two…but what if you have fiveof those? Five different subjects, five different groups to manage? You’ve got to plan everything andso on. So I think, in schools that adopt that approach, the problem that they face is the complexity ofmanaging learning. My feeling is that the filling-up-a-vessel approach is very efficient in terms of theamount of knowledge you can pour in, but if you’re going to have more of a constructivist approach, I
think there’s a trade-off: You have to say that they’re not going to learn quite as much – their learning
may have to be more focused. The benefits that you get in terms of the student’s development oflearning skills outweighs the number of words they know. It’s quality versus quantity.
But this is a very difficult argument because people think it’s important that autonomous learners
should get to the same level of proficiency as non-autonomous learners. And I think they may not,actually. We may have to accept that and persuade people that there are more important things thanlevel of proficiency – for example, relevance, usefulness of what you learn. When we measureproficiency, we are very often measuring useless, trivial knowledge. There may be other things wehave to consider, personal relevance in particular. These things are difficult to weigh and measure.
Michael: So while autonomy may be an ideal, it doesn’t always mesh well with current beliefs andgoals.

	
  

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JALT学習者ティヘロフメントSIGの会報	
 	  Phil: Well, no, if you’re looking at the bigger picture, and you look at education policies, it does meshwell. I think what doesn’t mesh well are the education policies and the systems. It’s theinstitutionalization of education that is the problem, which makes it difficult to implement these policies.
There seems to be a willingness among people who are at policy decision-making levels, but it’sdifficult to put it into practice, and it’s difficult to get people to practice what they preach.
Jackie: That’s something for us all to think about. Do you have any last words to say?
Phil: I think it’s what I said before: Please think about autonomy when you’re planning your teaching.
Keep it in mind.
References
Benson, P. (2011). Teaching and researching autonomy(2nd ed.). Harlow, UK: Pearson Education Limited.
Hafner, C. A., Fisher, D., & Young, J. (2007). Integrating
independent learning: Lessons learned and implications
for the classroom. In D. Gardner (Ed.), Learnerautonomy 10: Integration and support (pp. 33-55).
Dublin: Authentik.
Hafner, C. A., & Young, J. (2006). From teacher tofacilitator: Developing perspectives. In L. Miller (Ed.),
Learner Autonomy 9: Autonomy in the Classroom (pp.
104-127). Dublin: Authentik.
Hafner, C. A., Young, J., & Fisher, D. (2007). Shifting sands: Supporting teachers in facilitating
independent learning. In A. Barfield & S. H. Brown (Eds.). Reconstructing autonomy in language
education: Inquiry and innovation (pp. 196-208). Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.
Kumaravadivelu, B. (2003). Beyond methods: Macrostrategies for language teaching. New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press.
Neill, A. S. (1996). Summerhill school: A new view of childhood. New York, NY: St. Martin's Griffin.
Sudbury Valley School. http://www.sudval.org/01_abou_02.html
	 Note
The photo on this page shows Robert Moreau, Phil Benson and Jackie Suginaga.

	
  

48	
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  of	
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  Learner	
  Development	  SIG	  	
  Looking	
  back 	  	  	
  報 告	 My	
  Reflections	
  of	
  the	  January	  29th	  Get-­‐Together	
  Teachers	
  College	  Columbia	
  University	
  Tokyo	
  Campus,	
  January	  29th,	  2012	  	
 １月２９日エリア・ミーティ
ン グ 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１月
２９日	
 
	
 

Rachelle	
 Jorgenson	
 昭和女子大学	  Rachelle	
  Jorgenson	
  Showa	
  Women’s	  University	
  	  Key words: collaboration, discussion,
research interests, learning, reflection,observation

A

ndy
BarfieldandStaceyVye started off
the Tokyo LD-SIG
get-together with an
introduction of the
SIG and what goals
they envision for the
get-togethers.
The
goal of the gettogethersisforparticipants to discuss our teaching contexts
and research interests related to learnerdevelopment issues – how our students learn
and understand language and how we asteachers learn too. By getting together, we canbetter collaborate, develop ideas for researchor classroom practice and support each other.
Reflection: For me this is really important. In
my Teacher’s College Columbia University
days I had my classmates to bounce ideas offof and I found that discussing different
concepts with others helped me a lot to clarify
not only my understanding but also focus in on
what was really important and how I wanted toapproach my own classroom. I did a lot ofpresentations and research projects with myclassmates in the final year of my master’s	
  degree and I found working in a group to be
not only extremely helpful for confidencebuilding but also fun. The LD SIG gettogethers are providing me with the same kindof learning and researching atmosphere that I
enjoyed at Columbia.
Since there were a lot of new members joining
the get-together, Andy and Stacey had thenew participants make a group with a person
who had attended the December meeting tobring them up to speed. My group was Mike
Nix, Masuko Miyahara, Fumiko Kurosawa andme. Fumiko had attended the December
meeting so she told us what they did and thenproceeded to tell us about what she wasinterested in researching. She is interested in“tandem learning.” It was very interesting tohear that there is an international associationof tandem learning that pairs language
learners up with native speakers over theInternet. Masuko also had a chance to tell us
her research interest, which was “Autonomy
and Identity.” It was very inspiring to hear thather university wants to implement autonomous
learning underlying the whole curriculum at her
university. Unfortunately, Mike and I didn’t
have a chance to talk about our researchinterests.
Reflection: I felt this activity really helped
make the new members feel welcomed into
the fold. Even though we had missed theDecember meeting, we could still catch up andparticipate in the get-togethers to follow.
Fumiko and Masuko’s stories were reallyinspiring!
In the next
part of the
gettogether,
we
were
asked
to
write a fewofourresearch
interests
on a A3 paper and walk around the room withthe paper facing outwards so that others could
see if they had similar research interests. My
A3 paper had two areas of interest. The firstwas helping my students establish more
effective vocabulary learning practices outside
the classroom and how does encouraging
feelings of happiness, excitement andenergized focus affect memory. My second
research interest was helping my students
become better critical thinkers and agents ofchange. I ended up talking to Andy and Lee

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JALT学習者ティヘロフメントSIGの会報	 	  Arnold a lot as they were both interested in
vocabulary too. But I talked to a lot of otherpeople as well.
Reflection: I thought this was an efficient andcreative way of getting a large group of people
to quickly find others with similar interests. I
also enjoyed the fact that I met a lot of different
people though briefly. As the contact person
for the get-together, it was great to meet
people and start connecting the names ofpeople I had contacted by email with theirfaces. I wanted to have more time to talk withpeople but we had to keep things focused.
After the A3 paper activity, we sat down ingroups of people with similar researchinterests. My group was Andy Barfield, James
Underwood, Lee Arnold and me. I hadn’t
talked to James at all before so I wasn’t sureexactly what specifically he was interested in.
Lee and I had talked a lot. We are bothteaching content classes in which the students
were having difficulty discussing topics due tolack of vocabulary. We wondered how we
could better help our students. I could be
mistaken but I think James was interested in
vocabulary acquisition strategies. Andy had
been doing research related to vocabulary forone year already. His students had written
reflections about the way that they learn
vocabulary. He is teaching a content class inwhich students have to do a research project
on some social, political or global issue andthough vocabulary is not explicitly taught,
students have to be able to explain theirresearch to their classmates in presentation
format. In preparation for this activity, students
initially felt that they needed to study “new anddifficult” words but when they went through theprocess of explaining their research to others,
they realized that their vocabulary focus shiftedto “important and useful for explaining myresearch.”
Reflection: My initial feeling in this meeting
was that I needed to start doing a lot of reading
on my own so that I could get a feel for whatkind of research is being done in this area andwhat I would like to do with my own classes.
Andy had mentioned reading Paul Nation’s
Learning Vocabulary in Another Language asa good base for the field. Later on herecommended
anothersource,Folse’s
Vocabulary Myths. I plan to get a hold of theseresources and others and start familiarizing
myself with the field.
In the later part of the get-together, John
Fanselow, in his usual unique and creative
way, asked us to watch a video clip of an “ideal50	
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  class.” He had us transcribe what the teacher
and students were saying. Although the classseemed very positive, we learned that bytranscribing it, there were “issues.” Theteacher was not really listening to her students’
responses but instead focused on the answer
to the question she had asked. His point is thatwhen we audio or video tape our classes anddo a bit of transcribing, we can realize a wealthof information that is not readily available to us
compared to if we just reflect about our classafterwards. He encouraged us to ask thequestion, “What do students learn from thiskind of teaching? Is the instruction useful andhelpful or is it stupid and useless?”
Reflection: This exercise reminded me ofwhen I took the Observation course at TC. I
had some basic questions about mymovements in the classroom and how I
interacted with students. I video taped myclass and was quite surprised by what I
learned. I think that when we are teaching, we
often are in our own “zone” thinking about what
we have to accomplish in that time period
allotted. We do things that we don’t realize andI was reminded that either video or audio
taping my classes is an excellent way ofcollecting data for research!
Final reflection: I thoroughly enjoyed thethJanuary 29
Tokyo get-together! It was
inspiring on many levels. My current work
situation is so busy and sometimes I feel that it
is all I can do just to keep up with myresponsibilities. But this gathering helped me
get back my motivation to start exploring mystudents’ learning and researching again. I
teach a class about social and cultural issues
in which students read a lot of articles and thendiscuss and debate them. The students find it
difficult to discuss and debate various topics
due to a lack of vocabulary. I want to help
them with their productive vocabulary andvocabulary coping strategies. I still have a lotof reading to do but I look forward to future
gatherings for more support and inspiration! 
Rachelle Jorgenson is an assistant professor
at Showa Women's University in Tokyo. Her
current research interests are learnerautonomy, vocabulary building and criticalthinking.

References
Folse, Keith S. (2004). Vocabulary myths.
Michigan: The University of Michigan Press.
Nation, Paul I. S. (2001). Learning vocabulary
in another language. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

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.
This
was
my
second time toattend a LD-SIG
get-together.
In
reviewingtheJanuary 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
were
also
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 a
LD-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 notebook
to 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 various
interests 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 to
self-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 an
English learner might be critical to Japaneselearners of English.
I found a difference between Japanese people
who view themselves as English users who
use 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 ath
4th grader from Canada, the other is a 5
grader from Indonesia) at the elementary
school. 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 College
Columbia.

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/jaltca
ll-2012/Darren Elliott
LD-SIG Forum CoordinatorT

he JALT LD-SIG will be holding anotherforum at the JALTCALL Conference
2012. JALTCALL 2012 will be held at the
Konan 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 activities52	
   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 talented
presenters.
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 featured
speaker.

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

University

T

he LD-SIG forum this year at the
Nakasendo 2012 Conference in Urawa,nd
Saitama 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.

Newsletter	
  of	
  the	  JALT	
  Learner	
  Development	  SIG	  	  The goal of the forum is to better acquaintconference attendees with the work of LD-SIG,
and also, through the sharing of ideas, allow
participants to take away with them new ideasthat may be useful for their own learning andteaching practices.

JALT	
  Pan-­‐SIG	
  Conference	
  Literacy:	
  SIGnals	
  of	
  Emergence	
  Hiroshima	
  University's	
  Higashi-­‐
Hiroshima	
  campus,	
  16-­‐17	
  June	  http://www.pansig.org/2012/	
  LD	
  SIG	  Forum:	
  Language,	
  Literacies,	
  Learners	  -­‐	  Development	
  Beyond	  the	
  Classroom	
  
	
  

•
•

Outside the classroom is Japan, where English
is typically perceived as a very foreign
language with which our students will havelittlecontact.
Throughrotating
minipresentations, we will report explorations ofdifferent ways of exploiting, or creating, a world
beyond the classroom to challenge thisperception, helping our students become more
motivated, focused, and independent (orinterdependent) language learners. We willaddress these topics: the purposes, planningand running of English camps; language
learner histories and digital comics; media
literacy development; online pronunciation
resources, finding and talking with English
speakers outside the classroom; running
Scrabble contests; and assessing learnerautonomy.

	
  Learner	   Development	
   SIG	
   Forum	  at	  JALT2012,	
  ACT	
  City,	  Hamamatsu	
  October	
  12-­‐15,	
  2012	
  Bill	
  Mboutsiadis	  Meisei	   University	
   and	   the	   University	
   of	
  Toronto	
  

D
	
  

The plan is for this year’s LD-SIG forum is to
involve many presentations exploring howlearner development can be theorized fromdifferent practices, so that overlapping andconflicting definitions and ideologies of ‘learnerdevelopment’ can be discussed ahead of the
SIG
holdinga
20th
anniversary
retreat/conference in 2013 (more details tofollow in the coming months).
Definitions
andideologies
development may draw from:Jim	
  Ronald	
  Hiroshima	
  Shudo	  University	
  ジム・ロナルド,	
 広島修道大学	 	 ear
LearnerDevelopment
members and newcomers,

This year we are proposing to hold a forum on“Defining Learner Development: Different
Interests”, and we would like to invite you totake part.

SIG

•

•

of

learner

Different theories of learning and thelearner (e.g. cognitive, constructivist, or
socio-cultural views);
Different areas and tools of, and/or
approaches to, learning (e.g. advising,self-access, self-assessment, collaborative
group-based learning, learning strategies,
vocabulary development);
Different issues and principles to do withinteraction and learner development (e.g.
agency,autonomy,criticality,
differentiation,
identity,
motivation,
narrative knowledging, near-peer modeling,
positioning, scaffolding);
Other discourses of learning anddevelopment.

Each contributor to the forum will present (a)particular case(s) of learning and learner
practices, and also theorize from such cases
about what learner development may mean/is
about within their local context and practice.
Cases may be drawn from classroom learning,self-access learning, outside-class learning, atdifferent levels and ages of education anddevelopment. Cases may also be fully
language learning-based or to do withacademic study, content-based learning, or
learning across the curriculum.
At present we envisage that the forum willfeature simultaneous displays or presentation
corners (poster, laptop, tablet, kamishibai, andso on), with plenty of opportunities foraudience interaction, discussion and plenary
round-up.
Many thanks – we’re looking forward to seeing
you there!

Bill
LEARNING	
  LEARNING	
  19(1)	
   53	  

JALT学習者ティヘロフメントSIGの会報	
 
	
  

SIG	
  Matters	  インフォメーション
	
 
財務報告	
  	
  	
  LD	
  SIG	
  Financial	
  Report	
  	
  	
  
2011年10月	
 -	
 2012年3月	
  	  	
  Oct	  2011–	
  March	  2012	
  Oct-11

Nov-11

Dec-11

Jan-12

Feb-12Mar-12

10/1/11

11/1/11

12/1/11

1/1/12

2/1/12

3/1/12

Balance in bank account 銀行預金残高

493,059	
  	
  645,063	
  	
  391,877	
  	
  344,160	
  	
  344,162	
  	
  344,164	  	
  Reserve liabilities JALT本部預け金

250,000	  	
  250,000	  	
  250,000	  	
  250,000	  	
  250,000	  	
  250,000	
  	
  

0	
  	
  

95,000	
  	
  

0	
  	
  

0	
  	
  

0	
  	
  

0	
  	
  

743,059	
  	
  990,063	  	
  641,877	
  	
  594,160	
  	
  594,162	  	
  594,164	  	
  The current month activities

	
  	
  

	
  	
  

	
  	
  

	
  	
  

	
  	
  

	
  	
  

Total revenue liabilities 仮受金等総額

0	
  	
  

0	
  	
  

0	
  	
  

0	
  	
  

0	
  	
  

0	
  	
  

Total revenue 総収入269,304	  	
  146,394	
  	
  

303	
  	
  

2	
  	
  

2	
  	
  

20,003	  	
  Total expenses 総支出-­‐22,300	
  -­‐494,580	
  -­‐48,020	
  

-­‐0	
  

-­‐0	
  

-­‐0	
  

-­‐0	
  

-­‐0	
  

-­‐0	
  

-­‐0	
  

-­‐0	
  

-­‐0	
  

End balance 当月帳簿残高

990,063	  	
  641,877	
  	
  594,160	
  	
  594,162	  	
  594,164	  	
  614,167	  	
  Balance in bank account 銀行口座の残高

645,063	
  	
  391,877	
  	
  344,160	
  	
  344,162	
  	
  344,164	  	
  364,167	
  	
  

0	
  	
  

0	
  	
  

0	
  	
  

0	
  	
  

0	
  	
  

0	
  	
  

Reserve liabilities JALT本部預け金

250,000	  	
  250,000	  	
  250,000	  	
  250,000	  	
  250,000	  	
  250,000	  	
  Cash on hand 現金

95,000	
  	
  

0	
  	
  

0	
  	
  

0	
  	
  

0	
  	
  

0	
  	
  

LD SIG balance 当月資産残高

990,063	  	
  641,877	
  	
  594,160	
  	
  594,162	  	
  594,164	  	
  614,167	  	
  Cash on hand 現金

Balance carried forward 前月資産残高

Total expense liabilities 仮払金等総額

Balance in other accounts その他の口座残高

	  Major revenue 主な収入 2011年10月 - 2012年3月 October 2011– March 2012

Membership dues SIG会費 (A)Tohoku donation from LD members
LD-SIG会員からの東北被災地向け寄付預かり(B)55,00020,000RA conference registration fees
RA出版記念カンファレンス 参加費(C)12,50080,000RA conference table fees from publishers
RA出版記念カンファレンス スポンサー・テーブル
使用料

12,00024,000Bridge loan repayment from FLP-SIG
FLP-SIGへの当座貸付返済 (D)50,000Temporary cash out from Treasurer
会計係からの仮受金 (E)

	
  
	
  
	
  

54	
   LEARNING	
  LEARNING	
  19(1)	
  	
  139,500

42,090Newsletter	
  of	
  the	  JALT	
  Learner	
  Development	  SIG	  	
  Major expenses 主な経費 2011年10月 - 2012年3月 October 2011– March 2012
Expenses for RA conference
RA出版記念カンファレンス必要経費

1,700	  	
  231,350	
  	
  20,000Donation to the Best of JALTBest of JALTへの寄付
Co-sponsoring a JALT2011 plenary speaker
JALT2011の講演者共同招聘費用

100,000

Conference grants
LD SIG 年次大会参加助成金 (F)80,000

IATEFL-KANDA Conference grants
IATEFL-KANDAカンファレンス参加費助成 (G)80,000

Shipping LD materials for JALT2011
JALT2011会場へのLD資料配送料

5,270

Repayment to Treasurer (temporary cash out)
会計係からの仮受金返済 (E)42,090

NOTES
(A)

1,500

93 members (for 6 months)(B)

The following LD members have donated for the SIG's future plan to support those in Tohoku. 以下のLD-SIG会
員から、東北被災地支援目的で寄付を預かっている: (1)Richard Silver (35,000yen) (2)Funds surplus at an
informal SIG party (20,000yen) 非公式のSIG会合での余剰 (3)Andy Barfield (15,000yen)(4)Philip Brown (5,000yen). Also, we reserve the following amount for the future donation: 更に、将来の寄付目的で、以下の金額を準備金として保有している：SIG's original budget SIGの寄付目的予算	
  50,000
Alison's donation (June 2011) 30,000 In total we currently have 155,000 yen for the donation purpose. 総額で、寄付目的で155000円を現在保有している。
以下のLD-SIG会員から、東北被災地支援目的で寄付を預かっている。
Also, we reserve the following amount for the future donation:
更に、将来の寄付目的で、以下の金額を準備金として保有している：
In total we currently have 155,000 yen for the donation purpose.
総額で、寄付目的で155000円を現在保有している。

(C)

From 54 participants at "Realizing Autonomy" conference held in October
10月開催の"Realizing Autonomy"カンファレンスにおける参加者５４名からの参加費(D)

Bridging Loan for FLP-SIG (December 2010) was repaid in full.
FLP-SIGへの当座貸付(2010/12月実施)は、予定通り全額返済された。

(E)

Treasurer temporarily used her own money to send grants, which was returned to her in December.
会計係は助成金を用意するのに、一時的に自分の資金を使ったが、１２月には返済された。

(F)

40,0002 members(G)

40,0002 membersst

SIG fund balance March 31 2012 / SIG資金残高2012年3月31日
Balance	  in	
  bank	  account	
  銀行口座の残高	
  364,167	  	
  Reserve	
  liabilities	
  JALT本部預け金	
  250,000	
  	
  TOTAL 合計	
  614,167LEARNING	
  LEARNING	
  19(1)	
   55	  

JALT学習者ティヘロフメントSIGの会報	
 	  PLANNED EXPENSES April to Dec 2012	  2012年4月- 12月予定経費
Table	
  Rental	
  for	  JALT2012	
  ALT2012でのSIGテーブル代	
  (17,000)

Shipping	
  LD	
  materials	
  to	
  JALT2012	
  JALT2012への資材送料	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  

(10,000)

Shipping	
  fees	  for	
  other	  events	
  	
  他のイベントへの送料	
  (10,000)LD	
  web	
  site	  cost	  (including	
  domain	
  name	  registration)	
  	
  LD専用ウェブサイト費用(ドメイン名登録料含む)	
  (7,200)Financial	
  support	
  for	  Nakasendo	
  中仙道カンファレンス協力	  (10,000)

Donation	
  for	
  Best	  of	  JALT2012	
  JALT2012のBest	
  of	
  JALT寄付	
  (20,000)2	
  Tohoku	
  JALT+LD	
  SIG	
  membership	
  grants	  	
  東北JALT・LD	
  SIG会費助成 ２名	
  2	
  Pan	
  SIG	  conference	
  grants	
  (25,000	
  yen	
  each)	
  	
  
JALT	
  PAN-­‐SIG	
  2012年度大会参加助成金 ２名	
  
2	
  LD	
  SIG	  research	
  grants	
  (25,000	
  yen	
  each)	
  	
  LD	  SIG	
  研究助成金 ２名	
  2	
  National	
  conference	
  grants	
  (40,000	
  yen	
  each)	
  JALT全国大会参加助成金 ２名	
  

	
  *1	
  *2	
  
(20,000)(50,000)(50,000)(80,000)

Donations	
  to	
  the	  disaster-­‐stricken	
  area	  	
  被災地への寄付	
  Other	
  miscellaneous	  	
  他の雑費	
  SUB-TOTAL 小計(155,000)*3(20,000)(449,200)

PROJECTED REVENUE April to Dec 2012	
 2012年4月- 12月予定収入
Membership	
  75	
  members	  (150	
  members	
  *	
  6	
  months/12) 会費
半年分	
  SUB-TOTAL 小計

112,500	
  112,500

Projected SIG fund balance Dec 31st, 2012
予定SIG資金残高2012年12月31日
Balance	  in	
  bank	  account	
  銀行口座の残高	
  127,467

Reserve	
  liabilities	
  JALT本部預け金	
  TOTAL 合計

150,000
277,467

*4

	
  
NOTES
*1	
  JALT	
  membership	
  fees	  vary,	  but	  do	
  not	
  exceed	
  10,000	
  yen	  a	
  year. JALTの会費は何種類かあるが、最高年額は1万円。	
  
*2	
  We	
  have	  other	
  grants,	
  but	  they	  require	
  no	
  cash	  out.	
  他にも補助金制度はあるが、現金の出金は不要：	
  
	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  (1)	  10	
  First-­‐time	
  LD	
  SIG	
  subscription	
  grants	
  /	
  LD	
  SIG体験入会・会費助成(非JALT会員向け)10名	
  
	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  (2)	  10	
  First-­‐time	
  LD	
  SIG	
  membership	
  starter	
  grants	
  /	
  LD	
  SIG体験入会・会費助成(JALT会員向け) 10名	  *3	  See	  the	
  Notes	
  in	
  Actual	
   「実績」の備考欄参照	
  
*4	
  We	
  will	  need	  to	
  have	  100,000	
  yen	
  back	  from	  Reserve	  Fund	  to	
  have	  enough	
  operating	
  funds.	
  ＪＡＬＴ本部預け金から10万円を戻して、運転資金を確保する必要がある。	
  
	
  

	
  

Hiromi	  Furusawa	
  古澤 弘美	
  LD	
  SIG	
  treasurer LDSIG財務	
  	
  	
  	
  
May	
  6th,	
  2012 2012年5月6日	
  56	
   LEARNING	
  LEARNING	
  19(1)	
  	
  Newsletter	
  of	
  the	  JALT	
  Learner	
  Development	  SIG	  	
  Contributing	
  to	
  Learning	
  Learning	
  「 学習の学習」原稿募集
Learning Learning is your space for continuing to
make the connections that interest you. You arewarmly invited and encouraged to contribute to thenext issue of Learning Learning. We welcome
writing in Japanese and English, and in different
formats and different lengths about different issues
connected with learner and teacher development,such as:• Articles (about 2,500 to 4,000 words, with a 100
word summary)• Reports (about 500 to 1,000 words)• Learner histories (about 500 to 1,000 words)• Stories of autonomy (about 500 to 1,000 words)• Book reviews (about 500 to 1,000 words)• Letters to the SIG (about 500 words)• Personal profiles (100 words more or less)• Critical reflections (100 words more or less)• Research interests (100 words more or less)• Photographs• Poems… and much more…
We would like to encourage new writing and newwriters and are also very happy to work with you indeveloping your writing. We would be delighted tohear from you about your ideas, reflections,experiences, and interests to do with learnerdevelopment, learner autonomy and teacher
autonomy.
We hope to publish the next issue of Learning
Learning in October 2012. Ideally, we would like tohear from you well before July 31, 2012 – in reality,
the door is always open, so feel free to contact
somebody in the editorial team when you are ready:Jackie Suginaga
Michael Mondejar
Hugh Nicoll
Fumiko Murase

jackiesuginaga AT MARK gmail.com
mikemondoman AT MARK gmail.com
hnicoll AT MARK gmail.com, andfumikomurase AT MARK gmail.com

Learning Learning is the newsletter of the JALT
Learner Development SIG. We aim to publish twicea year in April and October. All pieces are copyrightof their respective authors.
All pieces are copyright of their respective authors.
Permission
tore-print and/or
re-produce
online writing from Learning Learning should besought directly from the author(s) concerned. If
arrangements are made for the reprinting and/or reproduction online of an article originally published in
Learning Learning, we respectfully request that thefull citation reference for the original article in
Learning Learning be included with the reprinted and/or re-produced online versio.

「学習の学習」は会員に興味あるつなかりを構築	
 する空間てす。次号「学習の学習」への投稿を募	
 集しています。形式や長さを問わ、学習者の発	
 達に関連した以下のようなさまさ
ま文章を歓迎し	
 ています:	 •	
 論文	
 (約4000語-10000語)	
 
•	
 報告書	
 (約2000語-4000語)	
 •	
 学習者のヒストリー	
 (約2000語-4000語)	
 •	
 自律性に関する体験談	
 (約2000語-4000	
 語)	
 
•	
 書評	
 (約2000語-4000語)	
 	
 •	
 SIGへの手紙	 (約2000語)	
 	 •	 個人プロフィール	 (約400語)	
 	 •	 クリティカル・リフレクション	 (約400語)	
 •	
 研究興味	 (約400語)	
 
•	
 詩	
 	
 	
 その他	
 
	
 
これまてにない形式のもの、また新しい方々か	
 らのこ投稿をお待ちしております。内容について	
 もせひこ相談くたさい。みなさまのこ
意見やお考	
 え、こ経験、そして学習者の発達、学習者の自律	 性と教師の自律性に関することなと、せひお聞か	
 せくだ さい。	
 	
 次号「学習の学習」は2012年10月1日に出版の	 予定てす。2012年7月31日まてにこ連絡いただ
けれは幸いてす。受け付けは常にいたしておりますの	
 て、アイティアが まとまり次第、遠慮なくいすれ	
 かの編集員にこ連絡くたさい。	
 	 Jackie	 Suginaga	 	
 jackiesuginaga	
 AT	
 MARK	
 gmail.com	
 Michael	 Mondejar	 	 mikemondoman	
 AT	
 MARK	
 gmail.com	
 Hugh	
 Nicoll	
 	
 
	
 
	
  	
 
hnicoll	
 AT	
 MARK	
 gmail.com,	 and	
 Fumiko	 Murase	 	  	
 fumikomurase	
 AT	
 MARK	
 gmail.com	
 	
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LEARNING	
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