LEARNING LEARNING 学習の学習 24.3
Newsletter of the JALT Learner Development SIG ISSN 1882-1103
Contents | 目次
GREETINGS AND NEWS UPDATES 挨拶と近況報告
In This Issue
Co-coordinators’ Message Koki Tomita & Yoshio Nakai

1
3

MEMBERS’ VOICES メンバーの声
You Are What You Speak: A Bitter Lesson I Learned from Study Abroad Kio Iwai
Big Changes, Same Focus Bruce Lander
Motivating Low-Proficiency College Students: Growing into a More Understanding Teacher
Akiko Kiyota
Significant Learning through Curriculum Design, Collaborative Play, and Creative Thinking:
My Learner Development Research Interests and Plans Nick Kasparek

5
7
9
11

LOOKING BACK 報告
PanSIG2016 LD SIG Forum Reflections: Starting a New Conversation: Using Innovative
Approaches to Ensure New Learning Joël Laurier, Alison Stewart, Katherine Thornton, Debjani
Ray, Hiroyo Nakagawa, & Greg Rouault

14

LD SIG 2017 GRANT AWARDEE REPORTS 研究助成金受賞者の報告
Takeaways and Practical Applications from JALTCALL 2017 Daniel G.C. Hougham
Developing Learner & Educator Identities at PANSIG 2017 Farrah Hasnain

25
32

SHORT ARTICLES 小論
Reflections on Learning and The Japanese Classroom Matthew Hollinshead
Exploring Effects of Socially Mediated Interactions on Learners’ L2 Motivation Yuri
ImamuraCan Diary Exchange Lead Students to Become Engaged In English Writing? Takeshi
Ishikawa

3540
47

REVIEWS 書評
Contempt to Curiosity: Creating the Conditions For Groups to Collaborate Using Clean
Language and Systematic Modelling by Caitlin Walker. Reviewed by Ellen Head56

GETTING CONNECTED つながりを求めて
Local Get-together Reports: Hiroshima Jim Ronald Kansai Agnes Patko Tokyo Andy Barfield,
Ian Hurrell, & Jenny Morgan

59

LOOKING FORWARD 今後のイベント
Interviews with the Editors of The Learner Development Journal, Issues 1, 2, & 3

62

SIG MATTERS インフォメーション
Learner Development SIG Financial Report Huw Davies, SIG Treasurer
Writing for Learning Learning『学習の学習』応募規定73
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Learning Learning

Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017

IN THIS ISSUE

W

elcome to the Winter issue of Learning Learning. In this issue, we bring together a rich range ofwriting that explores learner development from various perspectives and across different
educational levels. In Members’ Voices, Kio Iwai, Bruce Lander, Akiko Kiyota, and Nick
Kasparek—all new members of the SIG in 2017—share stories from their own experiences as learners
and teachers around issues of identity, inclusion, learner autonomy, and creativity. In Looking Back,
PanSIG 2016 LD presenters Joël Laurier, Alison Stewart, Katherine Thornton, Debjani Ray, Hiroyo
Nakagawa, and Greg Rouault invite us to consider a variety of educational approaches that have helped
foster creative ways of learning for their students both inside and outside of the classroom. LD grantawardees Daniel Hougham and Farrah Hasnain also look back to share their experiences and takeaways
from the 2017 JALT PanSIG and JALT CALL conferences, respectively. In Short Articles, Matthew
Hollinshead reports on insights into teacher identity, role, and power that emerged for him from keepinga reflective journal over a school year, while, within the different context of a self-directed learning
module, Yuri Imamura investigates the impact of her work as a learning advisor on guiding students tobecome more aware of affective aspects of their learning processes. Takeshi Ishikawa then looks at both
how and why a class of university students became more engaged with writing in English through acarefully scaffolded diary exchange. These short articles are followed by Ellen Head’s review of a bookby Caitlin Walker exploring the development of collaborative autonomy in groups. In Getting Connected
you will find short reports on the Kansai, Hiroshima, and Tokyo get-togethers in 2017, after whichinterviews with the editors of the recently published and upcoming issues of The Learner Development
Journal focus on their diverse experiences of working together with each other and with the writers,
reviewers, and others involved in each issue’s creation. Without further ado, we extend a warm welcome
to readers and wish you and yours a very merry winter and as always … happy reading!
Learning Learning Editorial Team
December 2017
Arnold Arao
Editor, Layout & Design

Daniel Hougham
Editor, Digital Content

Andy Barfield
Editor, Members’ Voices Coordinator

Hugh Nicoll
Editor, Learning Learning Webmaster

Chika Hayashi
Editor, Japanese Translation Coordinator

Yoko Sakurai
Editor, Grants Essay Coordinator

Tokiko Hori, Yoshio Nakai, Koki Tomita
Editors, Japanese Translators

With special thanks to Sean Toland
Guest Editor******
It is our pleasure to welcome Ken Ikeda, Fumiko Murase, and Sean Toland to the editorial team. We
would like to encourage other SIG members to take part and work together with us on Learning Learning.
If you are interested, please see http://ld-sig.org/information-for-joining-the-learning-learning-team/for more information, as well as for details of how to contact us. Many thanks!
******IN THIS ISSUE |1

Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017

Learning Learning
本号について『学習の学習』の秋/冬号をお届けします。本号も「インターラクションと学習者のアイデンティテ
ィとの関係性」「日本人英語教員とネイティブ英語教員に対する学習者の好み」など、様々な観点・教育レベルから学習者の成長に関して探究した、皆様の実践や教授法に役立つ内容となっています。「Members’ Voices（メンバーの声）」では、SIG の 2017 年の新メンバーである Kio Iwai,
Bruce Lander, Akiko Kiyota, Nick Kasparek が学習者や教師としての自身の成長について省察し、ア
イデンティティ、一体性、学習者オートノミー、創造性に関する学習者および教師としての経験を共有しています。「Looking Back（報告）」では、PanSIG 2016 LD の発表から、Joel Laurier,Alison Stewart, Katherine Thornton, Debjani Ray, Hiroyo Nakagawa, Greg Rouault が、教室内外で創造的な学びを促すさまざまなアプローチについて報告。LD 研究助成金受賞者の Daniel Houghamと Farrah Hasnain は、最近開催された JALTCALL と 2017 JALT PanSIG の各学会での経験を共有します。「Short Articles (小論)」では、まず Matthew Hollinshead が教員のアイデンティティ、役
割、パワーについて、１年にわたる省察的なジャーナルを通して考察。続いて Yuri Imamura が、
学習アドバイザーとしての自身の役割が、学習者が自身の学習を振り返る際に与える影響について検証します。また Takeshi Ishikawa は、足場かけを意識した交換日記の活動を通して、大学生が英語のライティングに積極的に取り組むようになったプロセスや理由を明らかにしています。Ellen
Head による寄稿は、グループの協働オートノミーの発達に関する Caitlin Walker の著書に関する書評です。「Getting Connected（つながりを求めて）」では、2017 年に行われた関西、広島、東京での get-together に関するレポート、さらに”The Learner Development Journal (LDJ)”の編集者とのインタビューを掲載しています。インタビューでは編集者間、著者、その他各号に関わる人々との協働的な取り組みについて語られています。皆様が素晴らしい冬をお過ごしになられますよう、
編集チーム一同願っております。
『学習の学習』編集チーム
2017 年 12 月

Whose Autonomy?
Voices and Agency in Language Learning

Independent Learning Association Conference 2018, Konan
Women’s University, Kobe, 5-8 September
The Call for Proposals closes 14 January 2018!
For more information <ila2018.org>

IN THIS ISSUE |2

Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017

Learning Learning
GREETINGS AND NEWS UPDATES 挨拶と近況報告

G

reetings all and welcome to the winter issue of Learning Learning!

As the new co-coordinators of the SIG, in writing our very first message to the members of
the Learner Development SIG, we had read a number of previously published LL
newsletters. In the course of the reading, we stumbled upon a message written by the 2013
Learning Learning coeditors, James Underwood and Glenn Magee. We have learned that the LD SIG isgoing to commemorate its 25th anniversary in 2018. We also encountered the footprints left by manydifferent active members of the LD SIG. We came to the realization that the anniversary is the productof collective efforts made by all the hardworking people who have been involved for the development of
the LD SIG.
We also would like to quote Hugh Nicoll who stepped down from the coordinator position in 2011.
“It is as clear as ever that we are a hard-working group, and that the SIG is an amazing, on-going work in progress”. As
Hugh stated in his message, the LD SIG has been and will stand strong with the support of hardworking
volunteers in the community. It is our honor to be involved as part of this amazing group and work withall of you. We would like to keep building on the legacy of the LD SIG until we pass the torch to thenext coordinators as the previous coordinators, Mathew Porter and Mayumi Abe, have done.
We believe that the year of 2018 is going to be as full of excitement for LD SIG members as thepast years have been. PanSIG, JALTCALL, and JALT International conferences are the three majorannual events for the LD SIG. In addition to these events, we would like to touch upon the
Independent Learning Association (ILA) conference, Whose Autonomy? Voices and Agency in Language
Learning, which will be held in Kobe in early September 2018. Chika Hayashi, one of our SIG’s active
members, is going to represent us and has been invited as a plenary speaker of the conference. To get
more information about the conference, please go visit http://ila2018.org/. The deadline for submitting
proposals is January 14th 2018, and we hope that many LD SIG members will be able to take part. Our
local activity, Get Togethers, will also be a great platform for new members to network and makebeneficial relationships with other members of our community.
We are looking forward to meeting and working with you in 2018!

Yoshio Nakai

Koki Tomita

Learner Development SIG Coordinators
December 2017

COORDINATORS’ MESSAGE |3

Learning Learning

Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017

みなさま、こんにちは。
Learning Learning の 2017 年冬号をご覧いただきありがとうございます。
この度コーディネーターをさせていただくことになりました冨田浩起、中井好男です。
メンバーの皆さまへの最初のご挨拶となります。このご挨拶を考えるにあたり、私たちはこれまで発行された多くの貴重なニュースレターを拝読しました。それを通して、数多くのメンバーによるご功績をたどることができました。その中でも特に、2013 年のコーディネーターであった James Underwood と Glenn Magee のメッセージに目が留まりました。そのメッセージを拝読して、この LDSIG が 2018 年に 25 周年という記念すべき年を迎えるということを知りました。このような記念すべき 2018 年を迎えることができるのも、ひとえに LDSIG でご活躍されているメンバーの皆さまのご功績のたまものであり、ここに感謝を申し上げたいと思います。
また、Hugh Nicoll が 2011 年にコーディネーターの任期を終えられた時のご挨拶を引用させていただきたいと思います。「この SIG は、勤勉な人たちが集まるグループで、今もなお進化を続ける素晴らしい SIG であることは明らかです。」この Hugh のメッセージにあるように、LDSIG は今後もメンバーの皆さまの素晴らしいサポートのもとにより確固たる組織であり続けることでしょう。私たちは、このような素晴らしいグループの一員として皆様とともに活動できることを光栄に思っております。そして、これまでの功績を引継ぐとともに、前のコーディネーターである Mathew Porter や Mayumi Abe から引き継いだバトンを次期コーディネーターへと繋ぐまでの間、さらなる発展のために微力ながら尽力して参りたいと思っております。
さて、2018 年は LDSIG のメンバーの皆さまにとって、これまで以上に非常に有意義な一年になると思います。PanSIG、JALTCall、３年に一度開催される JALT の国際大会、それに加えて、ILA の大会“Whose Autonomy? Voices and Agency in Language Learning”が2018 年９月に神戸で開催されます。ILA では当 SIG のメンバーでもある Chika Hayashi がプレナリースピーカーとしてご講演されます。ILA に関する詳しい情報につきましては、
http://ila2018.org/でご確認ください。プロポーザルの締め切りは 2018 年１月 14 日です。LDSIG のメンバーの皆さまもぜひご参加くださいますよう、よろしくお願いいたします。さらに、私たちの支部会である Get Together においても、様々なメンバーとの新たなネットワークづくりと有益な情報が得られるプラットフォームづくりを目指し活動しておりますので、そちらへのご参加もよろしくご検討ください。
最後になりましたが、2018 年も皆様にお目にかかれるのを楽しみにしております。
冨田浩起、中井好男
学習者ディベロプメント研究部会コーディネーター
2017 年 12 月
COORDINATORS’ MESSAGE |4

Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017

Learning Learning
MEMBERS’ VOICES メンバーの声

Members’ Voices offers spaces for SIG members to introduce themselves to other members of the SIG
in a variety of accessible and personalised text formats and lengths.
“メンバー声”、ＳＩＧ会員皆様が他会員皆さんに向けて多様な形式・文体・長さで、ご自身の考えや活動をご紹介していただくためスペースです。例えば、以下のような様々な声を歓迎しています。
Please visit the “Information for Contributors” page for more details: http://ld-sig.org/information-forcontributors/

You Are What You Speak: A Bitter
Lesson I Learned from Study Abroad
Kio Iwai
Rikkyo University
Email: <kio-iwai@rikkyo.ac.jp>

S

uppose there were a labelled bottled wine
and another one without a label. Would
you dare choose the one without a label?
Maybe not. We actually depend much on theinformation on the label when we decide whichwine to drink. In the case of humans, theequivalent of the label is our appearance and,more importantly, what we speak. This is a storyof me when I carried a very small label.

stars, but I was not. The only English-speaking
singers I liked were Olivia Newton John and
ABBA because they were blonde and goodlooking. I listened to their music but was notinterested in singing their songs. I did not evenknow what their nationality was. I simply
thought English-speaking people belonged to
the world outside Japan.

I started learning English when I entered juniorhigh school. In those days, English classes
mainly focused on grammar and reading
comprehension, and students seldom had
chances to listen to or speak English.

In the second year of high school, I joined aninternational youth exchange program called
Youth For Understanding (YFU). It was partly
because my mother recommended me to do so,and partly out of curiosity. As a student who
was getting fairly good grades at school and wassocially active and popular, I had little fear ofliving outside Japan. Thanks to practicalorientation meetings and workshops that YFUheld for us in Japan and in San Francisco before
we headed for each host family, I thought I waswell prepared for a different culture. Filled withhope and expectation, I started living in a small
town in Georgia, U.S.A. with a host family andwent to a local high school for one year.

For me, English was a school subject. I studied
English to get high scores in tests, preferably
full marks. I used to believe without doubt that
there are “correct answers” because term tests
and high school entrance exams are made tohave only one right answer for each question.
Some of my classmates had a strong yearning
for American rock music or Hollywood movie

I knew from the beginning I was not fluent inEnglish, so I asked my host family to correct me
whenever I made an English mistake. I musthave been naively expecting any Englishspeaking people to be my English teachers. On
the other hand, I tried not to pick up theSouthern accent that everybody was speaking
with in that area. I was afraid I would not be
MEMBERS’ VOICES |5

Learning Learningable to speak “proper” English if I acquired astrong regional accent. Likewise, I decided not
to learn any slang expressions. One reason wasslang was not included in my idea of “proper”
English. Another reason was I thought I would
be able to live more peacefully if I did notunderstand when other people spoke ill of me
using slang expressions including four-letterwords. I could be sure such words would notslip out accidentally if I did not know them.
In a few months, my listening ability of English
improved considerably, but my speaking ability
did not get better as much as I had expected.
This was partly because I could not speak
English as fluently as other people. More
importantly, I was not yet used to explain
everything in mind because the American
people I talked with didn’t guess what I wanted
to say and supplement it in English as Japanesepeople often do in Japanese. As a result, I was
not able to take part in conversations with myclassmates and my host sister. I was so
frustrated because I thought I would have beenable to say something witty if the conversations
were in Japanese. I would have offered advice
for my friends and would have been trusted andrespected. I could have even taken leadership
positions in classes and extracurricular activities.
The reality, however, was that I was treated likea five-year-old girl, because my spoken English
level felt so basic.
I sometimes made English mistakes that evensmall children wouldn’t make. One day, I
wanted to buy some yarn to make a doll with.
So, my 16-year-old host sister drove me to a
local general store. I wanted to ask where I
could find black yarn, but could not remember
whether it was “black” or “brack” because we
don’t distinguish “R” sound and “L” sound inJapanese. As soon as I had asked, “Where can I
find BRACK yarn?” my host sister and the sales
clerk, who happened to be my host sister’sVolume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017classmate, burst into laughter and talked about itagain and again after that.
From then on, to protect my pride and to makesome space for myself, I created a new
personality of “funny Kio”. She was innocent
and simple minded, she would often
misunderstand what other people said, ask
bizarre questions, and tell silly jokes. In thatway, I played the role of a clown. My classmatesand my host family treated me as if I were afive-year-old, though in fact I was the top
student in the math class and the best pianist in
the school.
These frustrating experiences let me learn thehard way that we are judged by how we arepresented, and not by what we really haveinside. Even if you have a good idea to share, itwill not be appreciated by other people unless
you use appropriate words and expressions withadequate speed, tone, and pronunciation. You
need to get the timing, too. You can, I learned,even manipulate your image by controlling how
you talk, like actors who speak with a different
accent depending on their role and aim. This
became a motivation for me to study foreign
languages after I came back to Japan. It also
helped me understand the feelings of foreignexchange students when I later studied atuniversity.
Despite the challenges that I faced while
studying in America, there were a few people
with whom I was able to talk naturally. One ofthem was another exchange student from
Finland, Riitta. Our English level was nearly thesame. We somehow understood each otherusing what little vocabulary we had. Riitta and I
taught each other our own language and often
played with English. For example, we callourselves “the bestest friends” to the present. I
also felt comfortable when I talked with older
people in the choir at the church my host family
attended. They lived at such a slow pace that

MEMBERS’ VOICES |6

Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017

Learning Learningthey were always ready to wait for me to findthe right words. These people not only helped
me learn to speak English, but also gave me
confidence that I didn’t have to speak English
as fluently as native speakers to communicate
successfully. This confidence has since
supported me throughout my learning andteaching career until today.
We seldom have a chance to notice that the way
we speak a language directly shapes our image
when we are learning the language as a foreign
language. As a teacher of English, I will keep
recommending my students to study abroad not
only to improve their language ability, but also
to experience the frustration that they may
experience when they cannot get assessed fairly
because of their inadequate language
proficiency. From that point, I believe, they can
open a new door to their development as active
language learners.

Big Changes, Same Focus
Bruce Lander
Matsuyama University, Faculty of
Humanities
Email: bruce.w.lander@gmail.com

Hello everyone, my name is Bruce
Lander. I’m from the UK and next
year I will have been in Japan for 20
years on and off. Pleased to meet you all. As ofJune 2017, I am a “born again” LD SIG
member. In fact, some of you may, or may not,remember me from my initial years with thegroup, as I first became a member of this family
in 2007. After my membership expired in 2010
for no particular reason I was absent, and now,in 2017 am very pleased to be back again. So, aheartfelt “hajimemashite” to some of you and a“tadaima” to the pillars of the group who are stillaround.

As would be expected, a lot has happened in the
8 years or so, since my absence, from global
issues, tragic world events to educational visionand expectations. Without delving into thepolitical realms of the pros and cons of eachone, for many reasons I now see the world in adifferent and more positive light. Now, like us
all, I am more experienced, have been throughthe rigmarole of post-graduate degrees at alllevels both through correspondence and here in
Japan, am now a parent, and have moved
around quite extensively. But, one thing iscertain. I am still a college-based teacher inJapan, hold a strong passion towards
independent learning, and challenge myself tomake my students become more autonomous
learners.
For many years previous, before initially joining
the LD SIG, I had been interested ingroupwork, in project-based learning and having
students collaborate more with each otherrather than just learning passively. I remember
walking past lecture theatres with the door open
seeing students charging phones, generally
looking bored and uninterested, chatting to eachother, and showing very little respect to theteacher at the front of the lecture hall. Those
images haunted me back then and still do now. I
vowed never to be like that rather to try to
encourage students in class to become more
active, more independent, and more creative intheir learning from that day on.
I started devising projects back then which I stilluse now to some degree. These include themovie-project, the picture-book project and the
TV commercial project, all of which involve lotsof collaborative group work. The goal of eachof these projects was quite similar, to get
students to communicate more with each other,meet as groups, and become more autonomousin their learning decisions. During that period at
Ehime University in Matsuyama, it also helped
being around several inspiring educators who

MEMBERS’ VOICES |7

Learning Learning
shared this sentiment that is so prevalent
amongst LD followers, that students may learn
more outside the classroom than they do in it.
All that was quite topical 10 years ago, but
seems to be even more timely now with thecurrent trend in “active learning” and trying to
get students to collaborate more, learn morefrom each other, and become more independent
in their learning.
Teaching in this way was so rewarding, but also
frustrating at the same time. On the surface
student response was mostly good, but it wasvery difficult to tell if they were in fact
becoming autonomous. How can we know?
What can we do to explore improvements andchanges in their learning strategies? Without
enforcing pre-test, post-test formats I think it isquite difficult to discover any improvement at
all in language ability or learning outcomes.
However, one day in 2014, about 6 years after
leaving my post in Ehime, I received a message
from a former student whom I had taken
through every project I could muster over thethree years in which I taught him. Thisparticular student used every opportunity tolearn and improve his English. He kept intouch, he visited us regularly. He came to every
workshop, signed up for every class he could
and visited the communal office we shared at
the time. He was getting married to an
American lady and wanted me to be the MC at
his wedding to help with translating for theforeign guests. Needless to say, I took him up
on the offer. It was an honour and a privilege,
and, more to the point, it was evidence that thisone student had developed into the perfectautonomous learner. This student remains agood friend, my best student ever, and a highly
proficient English speaker. A complete successstory.
Nevertheless, things were quite different during
my inaugural beginnings of life in the LD SIG.
The word iPod was a commonality, Wi-Fi wasVolume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017

in its early-stages, everyone seemed reluctant tomake the switch to the unknown smartphone,and iPads did not exist. I remember sharing
things so much more then than I do now,
books, CDs, ideas, but at the same time life wasquite private. Only a select few would know ofyour whereabouts, upcoming travel plans,
weekend itinerary, and even your birthday. I
even still knew how to read a map then. Digitaltechnology was far less ubiquitous then than it isnow. Now, it seems everyone knows everything
thanks to the onset of computers, social
networking,mobiletechnology,
communicational tools and the way we interact
with each other. Ownership of smartphones is
now widespread and close to 100% amongst ourstudents. Now, with the help of suchtechnology the chance to make our students
more autonomous learners is greater than ever.
Almost all our students carry around highly
expensive and cutting edge technologies that, if
used in the right way, can bring foreign language
learning to their fingertips any moment theychoose. There is a long list of educational
EFL/ESL apps, not to mention podcasts andother tools that theoretically allow students tolearn any time anywhere.
To this day though, many of the decisions I
make in the classroom now originate from thatinspirational year and from those influential
peers whom I met in 2007. I learnt a great deal
back then and also from further involvement at
LD events, workshops, and international
conferences attended by like-minded educators
who all shared similar belief. I still remember
my first official international conference, the
ILA in Hong Kong headlined by David Little in2009. Many conferences later, my interest in
independent learning has not waned any, rather
it has been spurred on by the new trend in
CALL (computer aided language learning). My
research made the likely transition towards
CALL, but maintained its roots in LD. I still
adopt a lot of the projects used 10 years ago, but
MEMBERS’ VOICES |8

Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017

Learning Learning
have adapted them with innovative changes
using Google docs, iPad apps, and various othercollaborative Edu-tech tools. Now, a lot of mytime is spent on professional development
projects,
knowledge
management,
andintroducing how technology and smartphones
in particular, can aid the autonomous learner.

TOEIC Bridge Test scores range from 56 to
110 (equivalent to 280 or below in TOEIC). In
this short reflection, I would like to share withyou my experience of how I motivated thesestudents, and look at interconnections between
the story of my own personal and professional
development and the stories of my learners.

Although unfortunately the overall language
ability gap between those who can and those
who cannot seems to be widening, my aim
remains focused on making our students
autonomous enough to learn by themselves. It
is an honour to be back and I look forward tomeeting some familiar and new faces on thescene to exchange ideas with. Finally, I would
like to thank my inspiring colleagues who
influenced me so much: Steve, Tanya, Ian, youknow who you are you, I salute you all and hope
to see you soon.

Obtaining my M.A. in TESOL in 2005, I
continued teaching at an eikaiwa school, andthen later began teaching part-time at a Japanese
university. In both places, students weregenerally highly motivated and eager to learn
and master English. Then I had to leave myposition and Japan also, in order to live with myhusband who was assigned to work overseas.
Returning to Japan in 2015, I started teaching at
my present situation in private Japanese
universities, where I was allocated to teach thelowest groups of non-English major students,
according to their placement tests. This changeof teaching context made me notice afundamental difference. With motivatedstudents, you can fully focus on language
pedagogy itself; however, with low proficiency
students, who are often not fond of learning
English or not good at learning a language, you
additionally need to take care of issues other thanteaching language per se.

Motivating Low-Proficiency College
Students: Growing into a More
Understanding Teacher
Akiko Kiyota
Asia University and Tokyo Keizai
University
Email: <akiyota@asia-u.ac.jp>
Without sufficient motivation, even individuals with themost remarkable abilities cannot accomplish long-termgoals, and neither are appropriate curricula or goodteaching enough on their own to ensure student
achievement. (Dörnyei & Ryan, 2015, p. 72)

Hello, everyone. Currently, I teachgroups of low proficiency students atuniversity level. By “low proficiency
students,” I am referring to learners who have
had six years of compulsory English educationin junior high and high school, and whose

The first day of the class used to be almost thesame every year—students sitting scattered(often at the back of the room), not looking at
each other, seemingly not interested in learning
English very much (or, at all). However, after
putting a lot of effort into creating a
motivational, cohesive class group andgenerating motivation in students, the climate is
now totally different. My students sit in theirdesignated seats so that they can form groups
for collaborative learning, they have become
friends with each other, and they are not quiet
anymore. On the contrary, they are quite
talkative as much as they can speak at their(“broken”) English level, and they engage fully

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Learning Learningin every activity. There is a lot of laughter andsmiles during each class. The change in student
attitude and participation is professionallysatisfying and rewarding, because at last, fromhere on actual learning and preferable
development can take place.
Personal and professional growth
To be honest, teaching such students was very
difficult in my first year back in Japan. The
shock from having a miserable lesson was
emotionally overwhelming and tiring. Soon I
started to take actions to change what I wasdoing. I started to gather information about mystudents’ backgrounds, as well as what they
could do and what they were not good at doing.
I spoke informally with them after lessons, andcommunicated with other teachers, too.
Attending conferences and seminars by JALT
and other academic associations let me gain
theoretical and practical teaching ideas. I also
participated in workshops offered by the
Facilitation Association of Japan, and obtained
practical knowledge on various facilitating
techniques such as ice-breaking, brainstorming,
and workshop design.
Meanwhile, I read books on classroom
management, ice-breaking, and motivational
strategies, including those written by Japaneseelementary school teachers. Among the works I
read, the book by Dörnyei (2001) Motivational
Strategies in the Language Classroom, and another by
Dörnyei and Murphy (2003) Group Dynamics inthe Language Classroom have been tremendously
helpful throughout the time I have been
adapting my teaching to these learners. I
constantly consulted these two books; and haveadopted and adapted almost all of the ideas thatwere possible for me to execute in my situation.
Trying out new methods and ideas that I havelearned with my students and seeing theirreactions, which are often positive, has been not

Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017

only enjoyable but also rich in learning about
my learners further. Also, observing student
growth in their reflective writing and reports
was an excellent source for understanding about
their learning and development. With all thesechanges, my current teaching situation has
certainly been training me to grow into a more
understanding teacher.
Learner development: One case
It is August at the time of writing, and I havejust finished the 2017 Spring semester. I feelrelieved and content that many students haveshown satisfactory development since April.
Among them, there was one student, Hideki(pseudonym), whose transformation was
striking. This student wrote in several of hisreflection sheets at the beginning of thesemester comments such as “I get goose bumps
when I listen to English,” and “Doing listening
activities from the morning gave me aheadache.” However, practicing English
through the semester with a friendly, cohesiveclass group, together with peer role models
outside the classroom, and constant teacher
support, Hideki had, by the end of the semester,developed to the level where he could enjoy his
visits to the school’s English lounge (which hevisited more than five times). He could evenapproach and have a conversation with an
English-speaking staff member from the lounge
outside school when he saw him at the train
station. Hideki reported that he had a pleasantconversation in English on the train. (I was so
happy when I heard this from him.) In his final
reflection sheet, Hideki wrote, “(Before) I had astrong “nigate ishiki [awareness of not being
good at]” and I had never had a decent score on
tests …, but (now) as I reflect, I have made aprogress as if it seems almost strange. I want tokeep up this pace and be able to speak English
freely” [my translation].

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To end…
As I reflect on this student’s growth as a learnerand my own as a teacher, I feel that the rightclassroom atmosphere, constantly generating
and keeping motivation, and providing followup advice and words of encouragement were thekeys to the successful development of thestudent mentioned above, and these keys weremade possible through my own development asa teacher. Because teachers are the ones who
can generate motivation in students, or create anenvironment where students can form intrinsic
motivation, the teacher’s role can have a great
impact, especially for those learners who lackinitial motivation. I look forward to meeting you
someday at get-togethers and other events,
exchanging motivational strategies with you, andlistening to each other’s stories of learnerdevelopment. The stories of student growth areso beautiful and touching to reflect upon andappreciate with each other.
References
Dörnyei, Z. (2001). Motivational strategies in thelanguage classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Dörnyei, Z., & Ryan, S. (2015). The psychology ofthe language learner revisited. New York &London: Routledge.
Dörnyei, Z., & Murphy, T. (2003). Groupdynamics in the language classroom. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

Significant Learning throughCurriculum Design, Collaborative
Play, and Creative Thinking: My
Learner Development ResearchInterests and Plans
Nick Kasparek
Email: <nick.kasparek@gmail.com>

As both a scholar and a teacher, I havelong been curious about the expansive
possibilities of education. In my MA
research into peace education theory, I came tobelieve that scholar-educators need to transcendtheir self-imposed limitations on imagination,and I argued in my thesis and elsewhere for an
explicitly utopian turn for this philosophy ofeducation (Kasparek, 2016a). Completing my
MEd studies on teaching English language
learners, I was likewise drawn to educational
thought that conceptualized learning as
something more than just the sterile transfer ofknowledge and skills. It was thus a revelation
when I discovered L. Dee Fink’s (2013)
taxonomy of six interrelated types of“significant learning” for university students: (a)foundational knowledge, (b) application, (c)integration, (d) the human dimension, (e) caring,and (f) learning how to learn (p. 37). As thistaxonomy suggests, Fink’s (2013) conception ofsignificant learning “goes beyond understandand-remember and even beyond application
learning” (p. xii) and is characterized broadly as“something that is truly significant in terms of
the students’ lives” (p. 7).
Fink (2013) presents an integrated approach todesigning primarily content courses to help
college teachers achieve this ambitious goal ofsignificant learning, but I began to see inspiring
possibilities for language learning goals as well.
In fact, as Díaz-Rico (2013) suggests, language
teachers may actually be better positioned than

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Learning Learning
content teachers to help learners achieve
humanistic and caring types of goals because
language teachers can draw upon “a symbolic
system that is subdominant in the first language
but lies dormant, connected with powerfulemotions, in a sense waiting for a portal of
expression” (p. 202). Considering this potential
for significant learning goals regarding bothcontent and language, Fink’s course designmodel based on significant learning seemed toprovide a strong framework for my MEd
capstone course design project for a content
and language integrated learning (CLIL) course
for Japanese universities (Kasparek, 2016b).
While all six types of significant learning arevital and interrelated, I have found it especiallyinteresting to focus my recent research on how
to achieve the more ambitious three types ofsignificant learning goals, namely, the humandimension, caring, and learning how to learn.
The human dimension refers to students“learn[ing]somethingimportantabout
themselves or others,” which “enables them tofunction and interact more effectively,” while
caring goals provide “the energy [students] needfor learning more about [the subject] andmaking it a part of their lives,” since the learning
experience itself changes how much students
care about what they are studying (Fink, 2013, p.
36). Building on this, learning how to learn“enables students to continue learning in the
future and to do so with greater effectiveness”(Fink, 2013, p. 37).
To achieve these three connected forms oflearning goals, I have been especially interested
in researching interconnections between
curriculum design, a playful and creative
approach to learning and teaching, and learning
through interaction and collaboration. This has
led me to take an iterative and reflective
approach to applied research into curriculum
design for significant learning. I hope to use
research from particular classroom experiences

Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017

to inform teaching in other contexts and suggest
new possibilities. Exploring iterative course
design, I want especially to attend to evidence of
how much students learn regarding the humandimension, caring about the subjects, andlearning strategies. At this point, however, I am
still at the early stages of this research, as until
now I have focused more on how valuable thisdesign process is for teachers’ own learning andprofessional development (Kasparek, 2016b).
I am further along in my research into play andcreativity in language learning. Drawing upon
my positive experiences as a language learner, I
have designed activities to facilitate playful
student creativity (Kasparek & Turner, 2017;
Turner & Kasparek, 2017), and I haveconducted mixed-methods classroom researchon the effects of a playful and creative approachon student learning (Kasparek, 2015; 2016c;
2017). Findings from my classroom researchsuggest that both collaborative play andindividual creative writing are effective language
learning strategies that students can internalize
and transfer to different contexts (Kasparek,
2016c; 2017). While I still have some concerns
about students taking serious content toolightly, I believe that more playful interaction
affords opportunities for not only moreengaging repetitive practice but also deeper
engagement with various subjects. In fact,
student questionnaire responses have shown
surprising correlations between self-reported
play and their sharing of real ideas (Kasparek,
2016b). These results suggest that collaborative
play helped students find new ways to careabout the content. I also plan to explore otherways of creating the conditions for interactionin which learners can co-construct the relevanceof the content for themselves and in whichsustained collaborative engagement with any
content can become an end in itself, such thatlearning about any subject can become truly
significant. Additionally, as part of my own
continued learning, I hope to interact and
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Learning Learning
collaborate with other teachers and researchers
in the Learner Development SIG to explore
these issues further together.
References
Díaz-Rico, L. (2013). Strategies for teaching English
learners (3rd ed.). Boston: Pearson.
Fink, L. D. (2013). Creating significant learning
experiences: An integrated approach to designingcollege courses. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Kasparek, N. (2015). Facetious language play forcreative repetition. New Directions in Teachingand Learning English Discussion, 3, 118-127.
Kasparek, N. (2016). Toward a utopian peaceeducation. In T. Ottman, Z. Ritchie, H.
Palmer, & D. Warchulski (Eds.), Peace as a
global language: Peace and welfare in the global andlocal community (pp. 27-42). iUniverse.
Kasparek, N. (2016b). Exploring global issues andbetter futures through English: A content andlanguage integrated learning curriculum design project
for a Japanese university (M.Ed. scholarly
project). University of North Dakota, USA.
Kasparek, N. (2016c). Facilitated play, target
language use, and authenticity. New Directionsin Teaching and Learning English Discussion, 4,
143-152.
Kasparek, N. (2017). Creativity throughdialogue writing: Letting it get a bit weird.
New Directions in Teaching and Learning English
Discussion, 5, 172-181.
Kasparek, N., & Turner, M. (2017). Harnessing
humorous outbidding for the rapid
generation of content. In J. Rucynski (Ed.),
New ways in teaching with humor (pp. 22-25).
Alexandria, VA: TESOL Press.
Turner, M., & Kasparek, N. (2017). Playing withperspectives: An academic preparation
activity for creative thinking. The Language
Teacher, 41(1), 23-24.

Diversity and Inclusion
44th Annual International Conference on Language Teaching and
Learning & Educational Materials Exhibition
Shizuoka Convention & Arts Center (Granship) Shizuoka City,
Shizuoka, Japan
Friday, November 23, to Monday, November, 26, 2018
Call for presentation proposals:
https://jalt.org/conference/call-proposals
Deadline: Monday, February 12, 2018 11:59 pm, JST

MEMBERS’ VOICES |13

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LOOKING BACK 報告

Starting a New Conversation: Using Innovative Approaches to Ensure New
LearningJoël Laurier
University of Tsukuba
Alison Stewart
Gakushuin University
Katherine Thornton
Otemon Gakuin University

Debjani Ray
Tokyo University of Science
Hiroyo Nakagawa
Kansai Gaidai College
Greg Rouault
Tezukayama Gakuin University

New Conversations to Help Shape the Future of EducationJoël LaurierAs educators, we are continually innovating to keep pace with our students’ needs in today’s
rapidly changing world. From materials usage to materials creation, to lesson content andteaching style, teachers in a wide variety of contexts develop innovative practices to suit theever-changing dynamics of our creation studios, commonly known as classrooms. At the same time, as
we innovate, we need to be keenly aware of the effects of innovations on our students. Maintaining
critical and constructive dialogues or conversations with our learners and with other teachers is essential
for gauging the worth of these innovations. These new conversations, in all their varied forms, bringabout initiatives that help shape the future of education and help educators be agents of change. For the
Pan-SIG 2016 Conference in Okinawa, the Learner Development Special Interest Group (LD SIG)
Forum showcased a variety of innovative practices. This article presents summaries of the five posters
that were shown at the Forum, each of which reflects different perspectives on what innovation means
and what kind of innovation might benefit learners and teachers. The article starts off with Alison
Stewart offering a critical look at the place of autonomy as an innovative language learning approachthrough a comparative overview of theories of learning and language learning pedagogy. Katherine
Thornton provides a perspective of one university’s initiative to foster autonomous language learning
practices among its students. Debjani Ray provides a reflection of an English Lounge and its effects on
her students. Hiroyo Nakagawa introduces a new approach to develop reflective writers. Greg Rouault
ends the article with an account of his mentoring of his undergraduate teacher trainees. This initiative
enabled his students to attend language-teaching conferences with the support of an LD SIG Outreach
Grant.
Joël Laurier is an associate professor in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Universityof Tsukuba. He is co-editor of The Language Teacher’s SIG Focus column and JALT’s Regional
Professional Activities Committee Chair. He is a cooperative learning practitioner and trainer whose
current research interests are in the domain of mind, brain and education.
Author correspondence: waldolaurier@gmail.com

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Changing Paradigms: Evolving Theories About Language Learning and Learner
Development
Alison StewartThe aim of this poster presentation was to consider learner autonomy as an idea and to explore
how and where it might fit in a historical scheme of innovative ideas about language learning andlearner development. I have been thinking about this for some time, most recently in the courseof collaborating with other Learner Development SIG members to define or explain learner autonomy
for book chapters (Stewart & Irie, 2011; Stewart & Ashwell, 2014; Stewart, Ashwell, Miyahara & Paydon,2014), and in a lecture course “Introduction to Applied Linguistics and TESOL” at Gakushuin
University. Although these attempts to clarify learner autonomy have given me some insights, they havealso raised new questions about learner autonomy, what we mean by it, and what that means for our
teaching practice and research, and I wanted to discuss these questions with other participants at the LD
SIG Forum at PanSIG.
Although language learner autonomy is sometimes regarded as an innovative approach to language
learning, the idea of autonomy in learning is far from new, with its antecedents in the teachings of Platoand Socrates, Confucius, and the Hindu Upanishads. What we tend to now think of as “traditional”
education methods—teacher-fronted classrooms and rote memorization—were also “innovative” at one
time. Reflecting on the role education was called upon to play in the creation of modern nation-states ineighteenth-century Europe reminds us that innovative methods of teaching and learning are introduced
to respond to social conditions and challenges.
Turning more specifically to ideas regarding language learning, the following table of language learning
approaches highlights contrasts in their pedagogical focus, the teaching/learning practices they promote,and the ideologies or theories on which they are based. Learner autonomy is included in this table as alanguage learning approach, but, unlike the other approaches listed, there is no clearly defined theoreticalframework with which it can be associated.
Table 1. A Comparison of Language Learning Approaches
Language Learning Reason for Learning
ApproachGrammar-Translation Translation/reading/writing

Practices

Theories

Translation

Nationalist

Audio Lingual

Speaking/listening

Drills, chants

Behaviorist

Communicative
Language Teaching

Communicative competence,
SLA

Interaction

Cognitive

Content-Based
Learning (incl. CLIL)

Discourse alignment

EAP, ESP

Socio

Learner Autonomy

Learner development

Self-regulated learning,reflective practice?

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The final part of the poster traced some recent “turns” that have occurred in the field of applied
linguistics. Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research evolved out of Chomsky’s (1959) rejection of a
Behaviorist view that emphasized conformity to social norms and ignored the role of autonomy andcreativity in the learner. A subsequent “social turn” (Block 2005) saw researchers looking more closely at
issues of structure and agency in learning. Finally, a “spatial turn” now sees learning as a complex
dynamic system (e.g., van Lier, 2000; Larsen-Freeman, 2015) that develops as a result of interaction withand upon the environment (people, places and things).
Learner autonomy research and practice have followed all these turns, although this does not mean that
researchers or practitioners have necessarily rejected previous theoretical perspectives. Quite different
theoretical frameworks continue to underpin new research: SLA (individual differences), social(collaboration, interdependence), and spatial (learning spaces, linguistic landscapes), to the point that aleading figure in the field has questioned whether applied linguistics can even be called a field at all(Cook, 2015).
Does it matter? Is it helpful to think of learner autonomy as an “approach” or a “paradigm”, or doesthat push us to become dogmatic in our decisions about how we should go about conceptualizing it in
our classes or curriculums and in our research? There may not be any clear answers to these questions,but this should not be a reason not to ask them, nor to continue to seek answers.
Alison Stewart teaches in the Department of English Language and Cultures at Gakushuin
University. She has a doctorate in Applied Linguistics focusing on teacher identity and is the co-authorof a recent article in ELT Journal on Language Teaching Associations in Japan (one of which is
JALT).

Reflective Dialogue for Language Learning: A New Conversation?
Katherine Thornton

M

astery of a foreign language requires that students engage in learning beyond the classroom.
The growing movement towards learner autonomy in language learning (Benson, 2011) has
emphasized the role of the language teacher as a facilitator in this process and the importanceof providing sufficient support for learners to successfully negotiate their own pathways to effective
language learning. As Stewart (this paper) rightly points out, the development of learner autonomy canbe approached from many perspectives. In this section, I focus on a course I developed at a foreign
languages university in Japan, the aims of which were to develop the self-directed language learning skillsof the students. Reflective dialogue is a major component of the course, in both written and spoken
form.
The one-semester course for third- and fourth-year students, was held twice a week and taught by myself,
a learning advisor. While a teacher’s main focus is usually to support a learner to develop proficiency in alanguage, an advisor focuses primarily on metacognitive skills for learning, through engaging in an
intentional reflective dialogue with the learner (Kato, 2012). In this course, I employed several modes of

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instruction to help develop these skills: classroom activities, face-to-face advising sessions, and written
reflection through journals. The course included the following phases: awareness raising, planning, andtwo self-directed learning cycles.
Awareness raising
Learners’ prior learning experiences can have a significant impact on beliefs about learning, which inturn influence decisions made about language learning (Cotterall, 1995). In the initial weeks, students
completed the following activities to analyse their existing beliefs: including beliefs surveys and language
learning histories. I also introduced important self-directed learning skills that would be necessary to
successfully complete the course goals: planning, implementing, monitoring, evaluating (after Wenden,
1998), with an emphasis on implementing (Thornton, 2010), as experience showed that students
struggled most with issues such as time management and maintaining motivation, in other words theimplementation of their plans.
Planning
After considering their prior learning experiences and critically analysing their beliefs, learners engaged ina process of needs analysis, resulting in the formation of concrete learning goals. They then conducted adiagnostic, to identify their strengths and weaknesses and focus their goals, and decided on materials andstrategies to use. This process was supported by individual advising sessions to help each learner toexplore this plan critically through supportive questioning. I also gave suggestions for materials andstrategies where appropriate, which the learner was free to incorporate or ignore. Learners thenembarked on two separate learning cycles.
Learning Cycles
Each cycle lasted three weeks. One class per week was given over to self-directed learning, with students
completing at least 3 hours of self-directed language learning by following their plans. Each week theywrote a learning journal reflecting on their activities that was uploaded to a shared platform where it
could be read by peers, and was commented on privately by the advisor. In the remaining class, students
discussed their learning experiences in small groups, sharing ideas and encouraging each other.
At the end of each cycle, learners repeated their diagnostic activities as a form of evaluation to measure
their progress towards their goals.
Reflection Through “New Conversations”
Reflection was a main tenet of the course, and incorporated in a number of ways. Firstly, the language
learning beliefs activities were designed as reflective activities to encourage students to critically analyse
their previous experiences. Secondly, students attended three advising sessions throughout the course, inwhich reflective dialogue helped the learner to think more deeply about their learning (Kato & Mynard,2016). The same process took place in written format in the learning journals, and students were also
given the opportunities to reflect with peers in class discussions. Finally, on completing the two learning
cycles, learners used a reflective tool called the wheel of language learning (Yamashita & Kato, 2012), in
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Learning Learningwhich they visually represented their level of satisfaction with being able to use self-directed learning
skills in a wheel, which formed the basis for the final advising session, and was then written up in a final
reflective report. In this way, in both spoken and written formats, learners engaged in a “newconversation” with the advisor in order to reach a deeper understanding of their learning processes.
Katherine Thornton has an MA in TESOL from the University of Leeds and is associate professor
at Otemon Gakuin University and is the Program Director of the self-access centre there. She is aformer president of the Japan Association of Self-Access Learning (JASAL) and a column editor of
the Studies in Self-Access Learning Journal.

English Lounge: A New Perspective to Enhance Learning
Debjani RayL

earning is “a journey through landscapes of practices” and “through engagements” (Wenger,2010) and to enforce student motivation, engagement is extremely vital (Schilling & Schilling,1999). Non-classroom language learning spaces are a relatively new approach to enhancing
language learning but the rationale for them is based on concepts of self-directed learning, learnercentered learning, autonomous learning, and collaborative learning. In self-access learning centers,
students choose from different available resources to study independently (Klassen, Detaramani, Lui,
Patri, & Wu, 1998) and their active participation is the key (Gibbs, 1995, Carter, 1999). Brent and Felder(2008) say learning through activities engages students in meaningful tasks through which they learn.
This way it becomes an efficient way for learning as it encourages and engages students and through it
they can connect to the real world with their newly gained knowledge. In the English Lounge describedin this article, that was the focus, not just memorizing and storing of the information but using it in realcontext.
I started an English Lounge once a week five years ago at the university campus where I used to teach.
The idea was to give the students an opportunity to practice the language they were learning in theclassroom. As General English classes are non-communicative, some students protested vocally when aspecial communication class taught by me for advanced students got cancelled to make room for someother class. That gave me the idea that there was a need for it. I initiated the plan for an English Lounge
and the idea was supported by my supervisor but there was no financial support available. I gathered oldEnglish books and newspapers, some games that I owned, e.g., English Karuta, Checkers, Scrabbles etc.
for the Lounge. I also bought poster paper, pencil set, markers, glue, tape etc., as well as light snacks andtea and coffee with my own money. We managed to continue the English Lounge despite a number ofchanges in venues and times with all sessions lasting for about an hour and a half to two hours. Studying
at a science university, the students were all from diverse fields of science and technology. They chosefrom the available resources and did different kinds of activities, such as reading books/the newspaper,playing games, having conversation/discussion. Here I will discuss the group projects of a group ofArchitecture students who developed a project on different architectural landmarks.
At first, even though they were motivated enough to visit the English Lounge, the students were at a loss
as to what to do as it was not a class, nor was it a course to be followed. They were 13 second-year

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Architecture students with intermediate level of English and great interest in architecture. As a facilitatorof the group, I suggested they discuss some buildings or objects of architectural importance, in line with
their major, in English. This developed into group projects, which the students presented over a twoweek period.
The students formed groups consisting of 3 to 5 students and smoothly chose their themes of interest:
different landmarks in Tokyo. They visited the English Lounge once almost every week and worked
together on their projects there. They did extensive research on them both in and outside the English
Lounge. The students were assisted when they needed help, particularly with the language. I monitored
and kept notes on their progress throughout the process. It took about 8 weeks to research and prepare
and they kept the English Lounge as their common place to meet and work. Finally, the students
presented their work in both printed and electronic formats, speaking in front of many students whomthey had invited to attend.
Through conducting the English Lounge, I was able to see the benefits of a wholly student-centeredlearning approach in which students took part actively and engaged in activities that they chose
independently. Among the benefits of the English Lounge the most prominent ones might be:opportunities for using English, improvement of communication in English, self-motivation, developing
independent learning skills and self-management, improvement of student performance and selfconfidence. In the English Lounge, the Japanese students communicated with each other in English
without any hesitation, although they sometimes used Japanese to negotiate. Away from any course or
syllabus, they felt free to choose what they were interested in and used English to discuss what theyknew with each other. Through this process their knowledge and skills of the language became deeper
and broader and, at the same time, the content knowledge improved.
It can be safely interpreted that students try to work wholeheartedly for the projects when they are at thecenter of the task and they learn by doing. The students in the English Lounge were actively engaged ininvestigating the themes that they had chosen, and that helped them in gathering content knowledge andin enhancing their language skills as well.
Debjani Ray has been teaching at universities in Japan for more than 20 years. She teaches
communication skills to students science and engineering students at the Tokyo University of Science,
Kanamachi Campus. She teaches communication skills to Science and Engineering students. Her
primary interest is teaching communication in context. One of her research interests is social impact on
education.

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An Assisted-Writing Approach for Japanese College Students
Hiroyo Nakagawa

W

ith growing globalization, written communication is becoming more important for Japanese
students. However, since communicative language teaching has dominated English classes inJapan since the 1990s, there has been insufficient research on teaching writing. Recently,
educators have been conducting more research into the teaching of writing, but there is still a need to
improve teaching materials and approaches specifically for Japanese students. Educators should look
into teaching methods for students who have difficulty in writing even a single paragraph (Hirose, 2003;
Nakashini, 2006). The purpose of the present study is to examine how Japanese college students canimprove paragraph-writing skills with an assisted writing approach that encourages learner development
through reflective writing. In other words, students can engage in paragraph-writing activities to becomereflective writers capable of thinking about their own writing to reduce errors, improve organization andcontent. An assisted writing approach involves the teacher’s intervention in two aspects: giving explicit
instructions on paragraph structures and providing corrective feedback in a classroom where students
can discuss their ideas. I conclude by considering how such an approach can reduce students’ anxiety
about writing, achieve self-esteem, and build their confidence.
Based on the ideas above, I presented a practical research report entitled “Assisted paragraph writing forJapanese college students” in the LD Forum. In the research, 25 junior college second-year students,
whose TOEIC scores were about 440, wrote their thoughts and impressions on social issues they had
read in reading classes. They failed a compulsory writing class taught by native speakers of English when
they were in their first year, which made them discouraged regarding writing. Some expressed that they
did not follow those teachers’ guidelines; others had too many absences. Therefore, I believed that giving
the target students explicit instruction as well as encouragement was imperative.
At the beginning of the semester, a pre-writing test, and at the end, a post-writing test were administeredfor 30 minutes. During the semester, after providing explicit paragraph writing structures, such as topic
sentences, supporting sentences, and concluding sentences, the students practiced writing paragraphs ineach class twice a week for one semester. During those writing activities, they had to engage in prewriting exercises such as planning, mapping, brainstorming, and making outlines. Afterwards, during thein-writing stage they worked on drafting their paragraphs, reviewing, and revising. Once they figured out
how to do paragraph writing activities, they were assigned to practice over and over.
Preliminary findings indicate that these writing activities may be effective in enabling learners to develop
their fluency, understand basic paragraph structure, and be aware of controversial issues. Out of 25
students, 16 increased the range of their vocabulary and 24 increased the number of connectors they
could recognize. It seems that those students were able to understand at least what the paragraphorganization should be. Overall, their paragraphs became more logical with increased use of connectors.
Overall, the pilot study implies that paragraph writing activities helped their learner development.
Student feedback suggested that paragraph writing activities such as mind mapping are helpful ingenerating new ideas. Additionally, others mentioned that they were able to write a lot of supporting
details through making outlines. It may be true that planning is very important to reduce writing

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anxieties and develop fluency. Planning stages can provide students with opportunities to share theirown thoughts and can activate in-class discussion. Pre-writing discussions played a key role indeveloping their creativity and organizing their ideas. However, some of them still had writing
shortcomings in vocabulary, grammatical competence and writing experiences, which are issues to besolved in the future.
Hiroyo Nakagawa is an associate professor at Kansai Gaidai College and is interested in Japanese
EFL students’ writing and learner autonomy. She has written several TOEIC textbooks.

Mentoring for Professional Development: A Case Study of Undergraduates
Seeking Teaching Licenses
Greg RouaultM

entoring is generally accepted as a relationship in which a more experienced or more
knowledgeable person helps to guide a less experienced or less knowledgeable person. Farren(2006) elaborates further by describing mentoring as a learning and development partnership
between someone with vast experience and someone who wants to learn. Drawing largely from business
contexts, Kouzes and Posner (1993) have suggested that mentors look for “teachable moments” in order
to expand or realize the potentialities of the people in the organizations they lead.
Personal experience has shown that recommendations from respected people who I perceived as
mentors, even informally, can be very valuable. For example, the advice I have received to get involved
with professional development by attending conferences and taking on roles in academic societies has
fostered several career related opportunities. These suggestions created openings for networking andexperiential learning, which Silberman (2006) has called “learning by doing.” I decided to provide similar
guidance to support my seminar students in beginning their own careers as novice teachers. The goal forthis short term, situational mentoring (Hersey & Blanchard, 1982) was to introduce the learners tochances for further education and examples from practicing teachers, as well as to offer moral supportand inspiration.
While mentoring is certainly not a new concept, a scan of the index in popular teaching methodology
texts for ESL/EFL teaching did not reveal the term. Various forms of professional development andteacher training/education are listed, but not specifically mentoring. However, if the role of teachers infostering autonomy is as a facilitator or counsellor, then, the psycho-social support that is provided must
include raising awareness and motivating learners, as well as technical support for learners to plan, carryout, and evaluate learning (Aoki, 1999).
Considering this underpinning and my personal experience, I wanted to act as a formal mentor, even fora very short term, and recommend that my students take part in academic conferences. I believed this
could have a positive impact on their engagement in present learning as pre-service teachers and on theirapproach toward professional development in the future. I submitted a proposal to the LD SIG for an
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Outreach Grant to support senior undergraduate students in attending local teacher education
conferences. This section reports briefly on the initial outcomes of that project relating specifically to the
Pan-SIG LD Forum theme.
Two students in the teacher training program at a private university in Osaka were selected and agreed totake part in this case study into mentoring for professional development. I provided them with a survey
to be completed in two parts: (a) prior to and (b) after attending the teacher training conferences. Openended questions were used specifically to raise awareness, to focus planning, and to capture learning andreflections from this first-time, unfamiliar experience. The teacher training events proposed forparticipation included (a) the Spring Conference for JACET Kansai, (b) Pearson Education “Days”, and(c) the English Teachers in Japan Kansai event. Each student attended two of these, on their own,
without my involvement, and with only the survey questions as a guide.
In terms of contributing to the affective and behavioral goals as well as skill development for thesestudent teachers, there is hope to be seen in one subject’s answer to, “Whatdoesteacher/faculty
development mean to you?”
In current Japanese education, the teaching style where the teacher teaches students one-sidedly is no longer
accepted, so teachers are searching for various ways. I think this [training/workshop] is a good way to
study, acquire, and verify new ways of teaching that are different from conventional ones. [Translationfrom Japanese original]
While some may suggest that communicative language teaching has permeated English language classes
in Japan since even before these university students were born, when asked, “How has attending thisfirst set of conference presentations and workshops changed your thinking about professional
development or lifelong learning?” one subject responded:
I was surprised because the ways of teaching presented in the workshops were completely different from theones I have experienced … we should study new ways of lessons because the times are changing …
teachers should put the new ways into practice and whether the result is good or bad, they should takeactions against the challenges that they find. [Translation from Japanese original]
Mentoring as a concept is not new and may even be included under other terms in ESL/EFL language
teaching methods instruction. However, for the future teachers in this case study, the mentoring
nurtured to promote attending teacher training conferences opened a conversation for a new approachfor new learning.
Greg Rouault is an associate professor at Tezukayama Gakuin University who has taught in a wide
range of contexts in Japan for the past 18 years. He has a Master of Applied Linguistics and a
Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Business Management. His research interests include ESP,
experiential learning, and literacy.

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Learning Learning

Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017ConclusionJoël LaurierAs society continuously changes, learning needs and methods of learning also change, bringing
about innovations and “new conversations.” The necessity to regularly re-tool, re-formulate,and revamp the educational process keeps educators challenging their students and themselves
for better pedagogical results. The innovative processes have endless possibilities. This article brings tolight but a few of them. From self-learning management to engaging students in reflective decisionmaking, these five presenters have shown that innovation is an important part of the process, if not the
key point. Whether it be opening doors for students to answer the questions or making special courses
to help sustain autonomous learning, the innovative practices described in this article bring an interesting
dimension to the forefront. With these new conversations arising, what will the future of education bringus?
References
Aoki, N. (1999). Affect and the role of teachers in the development of learner autonomy. In J. Arnold(Ed.), Affect in language learning (pp. 142-154). Cambridge: Cambridge University press.
Benson, P. (2011). Teaching and researching autonomy in language learning (2nd edition). Harlow: Pearson.
Block, D. (2003). The social turn in second language acquisition. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Brent, R., & Felder, R. M. (2008). A professional development program for graduate students at North
Carolina State University. 2008 ASEE Annual Conference Proceedings, ASEE, June 2008.
Carter, B. A. (1999). Begin with beliefs: Exploring the relationship between beliefs and learner autonomy
among advanced students. Texas Papers in Foreign and Second Language Learning and Teaching, 4(1), 1–20.
Retrieved from ERIC database. (ED467863)
Chomsky, N. (1959). Review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior. Language, 35, 26–58.
Cook, G. (2015). Birds out of dinosaurs: The death and life of applied linguistics. Applied Linguistics, 36(4),425-433.
Cotterall, S.(1995). Readiness for autonomy: Investigating learner beliefs. System, 23(2), 191-205.
Farren, C. (2006). Eight types of mentor: Which ones do you need? Retrieved fromhttp://www.masteryworks.com/newsite/downloads/Article3_EightTypesofMentorsWhichOnesdoyouNeed.pdf
Gibbs, G. (1995). Assessing student centered courses. Oxford: Oxford Centre for Staff Learning andDevelopment.
Hersey, P., & Blanchard, K. H. (1982). Leadership style: Attitudes and behaviors. Training & Development
Journal, 36(5), 50-52.
Hirose, K. (2003). Comparing L1 and L2 organizational patterns in the argumentative writing ofJapanese EFL students. Journal of Second Language Writing, 12(2), 181-209.
Kato, S. (2012). Professional development for learning advisors: Facilitating the intentional reflective
dialogue. Studies in Self-Access Learning Journal, 3(1), 74-92.
Kato, S., & Mynard, J. (2015). Reflective dialogue: Advising in language learning. New York, NY: Routledge.
Klassen, J., Detaramani, C., Lui, E., Patri, M., & Wu, J. (1998). Does self-access language learning at thetertiary level really work? Asian Journal of English Language Teaching, 8, 55–80.
Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (1993). Credibility: How leaders gain and lose it, why people demand it. San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

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Larsen-Freeman, D. (2015). Complexity theory. In B. VanPatten & J. Williams (Eds.), Theories in second
language acquisition (pp. 227-244). New York, NY: Routledge.
Mulvey, B. (2016). Writing instruction: What is being taught in Japanese high schools, why, and why itmatters. The Language Teacher, 40(3), 3-8.
Nakanishi, C. (2006). A teaching approach to Japanese college students’ EFL writing. Tokyo: Keio University
Press.
Raimes, A. (1992). Exploring through writing. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press.
Schilling, K. M., & Schilling, K. L. (1999). Increasing expectations for student effort. About Campus, 4(2),
4–10.
Silberman, M. (2006). Active training. San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.
Stewart, A., & Ashwell, T. (2014). Clarifying terms. In T. Ashwell, M. Miyahara, S. Paydon, & A. Stewart(Eds.), Collaborative learning in learner development. Tokyo: JALT. Retrieved fromhttps://www.smashwords.com/books/view/503846.
Stewart, A., Miyahara, M., Paydon, S., & Ashwell, T. (2014). Theoretical underpinnings of collaborative
learning. In T. Ashwell, M. Miyahara, S. Paydon, & A. Stewart (Eds.), Collaborative Learning in Learner
Development. Tokyo: JALT. Available at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/503846.
Stewart, A., & Irie, K. (2011). Realizing autonomy: Contradictions in practice and context. In K. Irie & A.
Stewart (Eds.), Realizing autonomy: Practice and reflection in language education contexts (pp. 1-17).
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Thornton, K. (2010). Supporting self-directed learning: A framework for teachers. Language Education in
Asia, I(1), 158-170.
Van Lier, L. (2000). From input to affordance: Social-interactive learning from an ecological perspective.
In J. P. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural theory and second language learning: Recent advances (pp. 245-259).
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wenden, A. (1998). Metacognitive knowledge and language learning. Applied Linguistics, 19, 515-537.
Wenger, E. (2010). Communities of practice and social learning systems: The career of a concept. In C.
Blackmore (Ed.), Social learning systems and communities of practice (pp. 179- 198). London: SpringerVerlag.
Yamashita, H., & Kato, S. (2012). The wheel of language learning: A tool to facilitate learner awareness,reflection and action. In J. Mynard & L. Carson (Eds.), Advising in language learning: Dialogue tools andcontext (pp. 164-169). Harlow: Longman.
JALT PanSIG Conference May 19-20, 2018
Toyo Gakuen University, Hongo, Tokyo
Call for Proposals deadline: 15 January 2018
For more information <pansig.org>

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LD SIG 2017 GRANT AWARDEE REPORTS
研究助成金受賞者の報告
Takeaways and Practical Applications from JALTCALL 2017
JALTCALL 2017 における成果と実践的活用
Daniel G. C. Hougham ダニエル・G. C.・ホフム
Hiroshima University

T

he JALTCALL 2017 conference washeld at Matsuyama University in June,and I was fortunate enough to have had
the opportunity to attend numerous
presentations there, two of which stood out tome as being of particular relevance andimportance to learner development: (a) aninteractive poster presentation titled Online testing
for learner feedback and development by Blair Barr &Brett Milliner (of Tamagawa University) as partof the LD SIG Forum, and (b) a show-and-tellpresentation titled Building and learning together
with Quizlet by Blair Barr (of Tamagawa
University). This reflective report will focus onwhat the main takeaways from these twopresentations were for me, from a learnerdevelopment perspective, and how I havealready been able to make use of them, and planon making further use of them to encouragelearner development in my university teachingin the near future.
Learner development via online testing &timely feedback
As its title suggests, Online testing for learner
feedback and development by Barr and Milliner
looked at how online testing can be beneficial
for learners by providing them with helpful andtimely feedback. Sharing their numerous
experiences with viewing and interacting with
online test results, the presenters reported on
the results of a survey of their students’(N=190) impressions of doing online tests withimmediate feedback. The survey was conducted

TAKEAWAYS JALTCALL 2017

after students had completed several computerassisted language tests either via Blackboard
Learn or Google Forms, as well as M-Reader
quizzes. The findings provided some fascinating
answers to some very interesting questions
includingwhat
theadvantages
anddisadvantages of online tests/homework arecompared to the advantages and disadvantagesof paper-based tests/homework.
One of the main points I took away from thediscussion was that students clearly recognize
and appreciate the benefits of online testing,including convenience, ease/quickness ofcompletion as well as the immediacy of
feedback. Another takeaway for me was thatmany students responded that online tests are
not without some disadvantages, especially theirdependency on internet connectedness and thepossibility of submission or input errors.
Student responses also indicated that many ofthem see some advantages of doing paperbased tests/homework, particularly the positiveeffect that writing down their answers directly
has on memory. Respondents also mentionedthat paper-based tests have disadvantages suchas time commitment, greater requirement ofeffort, and inconvenience.
What was of particular note was that a large
majority (76%) of their students preferred doing
tests and homework online (with feedback),with an equal number indicating that they havetaken computer-assisted language tests again forrevision or self-study purposes. In other words,

GRANT AWARDEE ESSAY |25

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most of the students expressed a preference foronline tests over paper-based tests, and many ofthem found online tests beneficial enough to dothem again. For me, what stood out was that theuse of online tests can be an effective andefficient way not only for teachers to manage
assessment, homework, and other classroomtasks, but also, more importantly, for learners toreceive and reflect on the timely feedback.
Learning quickly from their mistakes, students
are better able to become self-directed andautonomous learners.
Encouraged by these insightful and promising
results, as well as the helpful related informationthat Milliner and Barr (2017) have recently
published, I am glad to report that I have since
been able to conduct some online tests andquizzes using some of the methods they
introduced, namely Google Forms and Google
Sheets with the add-on applications Flubaroo
and FormCreator, with much success andpositive student feedback. After several weeks
of doing weekly vocabulary quizzes via Google
Forms, I anonymously surveyed in the spring of
this year two classes of English majors (N = 45)
at a private university regarding the extent towhich they agree with the statement: “I like theGoogle Forms system which lets me know my score andanswers by email soon after doing each online vocabularyquiz” (Google Forms で Vocabulary(語彙)クイ
ズをした後、メールですぐ、点数や答えを 知 る シ ス テ ム が 好 き だ 。 ). Students
responded using a Likert-style scale from 1
strongly disagree to 4 strongly agree.

Figure 1. Student feedback about online testing (vocabulary quizzes) (N=45)
Figure 1 shows that a very large majority (84%)
of my students agreed or strongly agreed thatthey like the online testing system that was used
to conduct quizzes and provide immediate
feedback.

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In addition, after conducting various online
listening tests via Google Forms in the springsemester, I surveyed 3 classes of non-English
majors (N=94) at a prefectural university with asimilar question. Using a Likert-style scale from1 strongly disagree to 4 strongly agree, students were
GRANT AWARDEE ESSAY |26

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asked to what extent they agree with thestatement: “I like the Google Forms system which lets
me know my score and answers by email soon after doing

an online listening test” (Google Forms でリスニ
ングテストをした後、メールですぐ、点数や答えを知るシステムが好きだ。)

Figure 2. Student feedback about online testing (listening tests) (N=94)
Figure 2 shows that the vast majority (97%) ofstudents (N=94) agreed or strongly agreed thatthey like the online testing system that was used
to conduct listening tests and provide timely
feedback on those tests by email.
One of the reasons why the students and I
strongly like this system is that we have beenable to gain immediate insights into their scoresand vocabulary development. Figure 3 shows anexample of a summary of “insights” (Google
uses the term “insights” here to mean test
results) that was automatically and instantly
generated by Google Forms after the students
had completed their online quizzes.
I was able to display this summary on theoverhead projector so students could see
information such as the average score, median,

TAKEAWAYS JALTCALL 2017

and range as well as a bar chart showing how
many students scored how many points.
Another good thing about this system is that,with the add-on app Flubaroo, I was able to see
at a glance more in-depth information, including
whether any questions were low scoring andwhich, if any, students were struggling. Flubaroo
also enabled me to privately share individual
feedback with each student by email in a timely
manner, after grading them manually. Morerecently, I have also learned how to use
Flubaroo’s “Autograde” feature, which not only
automatically grades each test or quiz, but also
automatically sends each student’s test score to
their individual email inboxes as soon as they
have submitted their answers, thus further
streamlining the feedback process. “Autograde”
is an advanced feature which requires a few
extra set-up steps prior to each implementation,
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but it makes it possible for students to receive
their scores very soon after submission and see
which, if any, of their responses were incorrect,
thus creating the opportunity for them to very
quickly learn from their mistakes.
Based on these encouraging and promising
results, in the near future, I plan to continue
using these methods and tools for online
testing, designing, and implementing a wider

variety of quiz and test question types, toencourage students to deepen their vocabularyknowledge by becoming familiar with more
examples of use. Also, I aim to increase thequality and quantity of feedback to students, byproviding them with personalized reports suchas those described in Unser-Schutz (2017).

Figure 3. Screenshot of a summary of “insights” generated by Google Forms
It is well worth noting here that Google offers
free online, self-paced, guided courses aimed at
growing the practical technological skills thatteachers can use in the classroom. I recently
completed the Google Certified Educator Level 1
certification and, through doing so, gained
know-how and a working command of some of
the best strategies for integrating Google tools,
such as Google Forms and Sheets, in theclassroom. Milliner’s (2016) helpful article
introduced me to Google’s free, online training
for the classroom, and I wholeheartedly
recommend that language teachers who want toimprove their computer- and mobile-assisted
language learning/teaching skills consider taking
full advantage of what Google offers. One of

TAKEAWAYS JALTCALL 2017

the most helpful and enjoyable things about thiscourse is that, at the end of each short lesson,
there is a short quiz that serves to self-check
whether you have understood the main pointsof the lesson. After answering each quiz
question, you can immediately get feedback byclicking a button to check your answer and see
whether it was correct or not. If it was notcorrect, you can immediately try again and makesure you get the correct answer. It is also
noteworthy that, fortunately, Google has madethis free, online training available not only inEnglish, but also in many other languages, suchas Chinese, Japanese, and Spanish, thus making
it widely accessible to educators worldwide. To

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Learning Learning
learn
more
about
it,
go
https://edutrainingcenter.withgoogle.com

to:In addition to Google tools, some other online
and mobile learning tools have been steadily
gaining popularity in classrooms. One such toolthat has seen consistent success and growth
worldwide is called Quizlet. This has greatly
impacted my own development as a learner ofJapanese, helping me to achieve greater successon my Japanese Language Proficiency Tests(level N3 and N2). The instant feedback
provided by the customizable self-test feature in
Quizlet’s mobile app has been particularly usefulin enabling me to develop as a self-regulated
learner. Moreover, recent studies have foundthat Quizlet can help students improve theirlanguage test scores (e.g., Milliner, 2013; Barr,
2016), and that the in-class team-based Quizlet
Live game can create very high levels of
excitement and positive feelings among learners
who feel that it helps them actively learn
vocabulary in an enjoyable way (Wolff, 2016;
Hougham, 2017). Let us now turn to how
Quizlet can be useful for learner development in
the classroom.
Building and learning together with Quizlet
Building and learning together with Quizlet by Blair
Barr presented several of Quizlet’s features forclassroom use, one of which was Flashcards.
Barr showed that Quizlet can be used for Q&A,
with the Flashcards function being an excellent
way to display discussion questions and sample
answers. He explained that this helps because
you can include a picture with the question andyou can flip the card to reveal sample answers
when necessary. Additionally, you can change
partners, shuffle the deck, and redo thediscussions to recycle language.
Another key feature Barr presented was the inclass team-based learning game called Quizlet
Live, which involves learners working together

TAKEAWAYS JALTCALL 2017using their mobile or other devices in a race tocorrectly match a Quizlet set’s terms anddefinitions. Barr described several ways to getlearners involved in the development of Quizlet
flashcard sets to help deepen their learning,support the learning of their peers, and reap theinteractive benefits such as the motivational
excitement that Quizlet Live generates. In
particular, he showed how to collaboratively
create, edit, and interact with class sets that canthen be used together as a group. It is possible
to make Quizlet sets visible and editable bycertain classes, so that only members of certainclasses can use and edit certain sets. I am glad tosay that I have since tried out this technique, toextend a language-focused learning activity in acourse book, asking each of my students towork with a partner and add one English
adjective together with its Japanese translation
to a Quizlet set in class. We enjoyedcollaboratively creating a set together as a wholeclass, practicing the set together using
Flashcards mode, and then playing a few roundsof team-based Quizlet Live, so much so that I
certainly plan on using this technique again in
the future. Once students become familiar withthe procedure of adding items to a shared set, I
plan to ask them to do so for homework so that
we can make the most of our class time
together.
Encouraging learners to get involved in thecollaborative creation of word cards that can beused with Quizlet Live nurtures their motivationand interest. It also introduces them to Quizlet’s
most useful features including “Auto-define”
and “Add image.” “Auto-define” facilitates thecreation of word cards by enabling students touse definitions that have already been added byother Quizlet users, while “Add image” enables
them to add an image from the millions available
in Quizlet’s image gallery. From a learnerdevelopment perspective, the main takeaway
from Barr’s presentation was that the advantagesof Quizlet Live can be harnessed as a way to
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train students to become familiar with Quizlet’s
useful flashcard creation and self-regulated
learning capabilities, in hopes that students will
gain know-how to make use of Quizlet to takemore control of their language learning
independently.
There is however a need for attention toaccuracy. Some recent classroom research (e.g.,
Wright, 2017) has found that, although students
can create Quizlet sets within a reasonableamount of time, the accuracy of the sets theycreate may well be an issue that needs to beattended to by spending some class time onerror-correction.
Concluding reflections and suggestions for
future research
The online testing and online/mobile learning
tools described in this report have great
potential for facilitating learner development,
and the presentations and results that have been
discussed are very encouraging. I feel muchencouraged to make further use of these tools in
my classes, and I plan to continue to do so, witha view to exploring the impact that they canhave, especially from the learner’s perspective.
There is a particular need for collaborative
research between teachers that explores online
testing with Google Forms, and learner training
with Quizlet. Building and learning together
with Quizlet has great potential for encouraging
learners to develop and make use of a very
useful learning tool they have at their disposal,
especially with the ingeniously designed mobile
app in their smartphones. I encourage you toattend a JALTCALL conference in the futureand learn more about how Google and otherdigital tools such as Quizlet can be used tofacilitate learner development.

Acknowledgement
My sincerest appreciation goes to the Learner
Development SIG for awarding me the
JALTCALL 2017 Conference Grant andmaking my unforgettable journey to Matsuyama
University possible. I am deeply grateful for
their support. I would also like to offer myspecial thanks to Arnold Arao and Yoko Sakurai
for their constructive comments andsuggestions on earlier drafts of this report, andto Philip Head and Andy Barfield for their
meticulous help with proofreading.
References
Barr, B. (2016). Checking the effectiveness of
Quizlet as a tool for vocabulary learning. The
Center for ELF Journal, 2(1), 36-48. Retrieved
from
http://www.tamagawa.ac.jp/celf/research/p
df/celf_journal_final2-1.pdf
Hougham, D. C. G. (in review). Active learning(and real fun!) through Quizlet.
Milliner, B. (2013). Using online flash-card
software to raise business students’ TOEIC
scores. Annual report of JACET-SIG on ESP,
15, 52-60. Retrieved fromhttps://www.researchgate.net/publication/2
83332447_Using_online_flashcard_software_to_raise_business_students%
27_TOEIC_scores
Milliner, B. (2016). The Google Educator
accreditation process for language teachers.
The Language Teacher, 40(3), 22-24. Retrieved
from http://jaltpublications.org/node/27/articles/5164google-educator-accreditation-processlanguage-teachers
Milliner, B. & Barr, B. (2017). Computerassisted language tests for the English
classroom: Blackboard® Tests and Google
Forms. The Center for ELF Journal, 3(1), 67-79.
Retrieved fromhttp://libds.tamagawa.ac.jp/dspace/handle/
11078/474
Unser-Schutz, G. (2017). Increasing feedback
for students with personalized reports and

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Google Forms. In P. Clements, A. Krause, &H. Brown (Eds.), Transformation in language
education. Tokyo: JALT. Retrieved fromhttp://jaltpublications.org/node/4/articles/6072increasing-feedback-students-personalizedreports-and-google-forms
Wolff, G. (2016). Quizlet Live: The classroom
game now taking the world by storm. The
Language Teacher, 40(6), 25-27. Retrieved fromhttp://jaltpublications.org/node/27/articles/5528-

quizlet-live-classroom-game-now-takingworld-storm
Wright, B. A. (2017). Transforming vocabulary
learning with Quizlet. In P. Clements, A.
Krause, & H. Brown (Eds.), Transformation inlanguage education. Tokyo: JALT. Retrieved
from http://jaltpublications.org/node/4/articles/6075transforming-vocabulary-learning-quizlet

Daniel Hougham teaches at Hiroshima University, where he is a Visiting Lecturer. Originally, from
Vancouver, Canada, he has taught English in Japan for 10 years and earned his MA in
TEFL/TESL from the University of Birmingham. His research interests include extensive reading andlearner development through computer/mobile-assisted language learning.
Author correspondence: d.hougham@gmail.com

JALTCALL 2018
The JALTCALL SIG’s 25th Anniversary Conference“New Directions in Educational Technology”
8-10 June 2018
Meijo University, Nagoya, Nagoya Dome-Mae Campus
Call for Proposals deadline: 31 January 2018
For more information <conference2018.jaltcall.org>

TAKEAWAYS JALTCALL 2017

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Learning Learning
Developing Learner & Educator Identities at PANSIG 2017
Farrah Hasnain ファラ・ハスネイン
Hamamatsu Senior High SchoolT

his was my first time presenting at a
JALT conference, and the second JALT
conference that I had ever attended. As
an ALT, I wanted to contribute to this year’s
PanSIG conference at Akita International
University by presenting my research on how
effective team-teaching is in Japanese highschools. As a learner myself, I wanted to attend
as many presentations and panels as I could tobroaden my perspective on how other teachersand students have progressed in their learning
experiences over time. To me, the theme,“expand your interests,” meant taking theinitiative to share my own research interests
with a wider audience.
My first JALT conference was JALT2016 in
Nagoya. Luckily, I live in Hamamatsu, so it wasclose and inexpensive for me to attend. I wasonly there as an attendee, but I felt very
welcomed by the Learner Development SIG
and was encouraged by members of the LD SIG
and the Shizuoka JALT chapter to do researchand expand my knowledge on teaching English
as an ALT in the JET Program.
I started doing research on the effectiveness ofteam-teaching after attending JALT2016. The
programs chair of my chapter invited me to do apresentation at our local JALT chapter meetingon the current state of ALTs in Japan. At first, I
dabbled with many concepts such as lesson
planning strategies and pedagogy. In the end, I
decided to center my research on teacher
training from the ALT’s and JTE’s perspective
because I felt that it would be a good
opportunity to give a voice to the types of
instructors who usually could not present at
JALT conferences for various reasons, including
finances, overlapping work schedules, and theirunfamiliarity with JALT. I wanted to share what

DEVELOPING IDENTITIESkind of English education students in Japan
would have before they graduate high school
and create a dialogue with other educators about
what we can do to improve the students’English acquisition.
Since I joined JALT last spring, I have seen
many presentations by non-Japanese teachers
about how they perceive their agency inJapanese workplaces. The two presentations
that really stood out to me in my local chapter
were by Diane Nagatomo and Laura Kusaka. In
October 2016, Nagatomo presented on how
female native English instructors developed
their identities after moving to Japan. In
February, Kusaka presented on the idea of
Nihonjinron (a body of discourse which claims
that the Japanese race, language, geography,
culture, and psychology is entirely unique) andshared quotes from her interviews withJapanese-American
university
Englishinstructors in Japan over the course of three
years. After seeing their presentations, I decided
to go towards an ethnographic route andpersonally interview and survey ALTs and JTEs
nationwide for this presentation. To me,
statistics are important, but interviews can help
directly address and clearly illustrate the issues
that are implied in the collected data. Over 7
months, I surveyed 128 ALTs and 14 JTEs, andinterviewed 31 ALTs (4 former) and 8 JTEs (1former) in-person and over Skype. As I started
making the presentation, I began to thinkcritically about how ALTs and JTEs are being
trained to team-teach, and expanded myinterests in team-teaching: how satisfied bothparties actually are with their teacher training
and how aware other educators are about what’s
going on in the classroom before their students
enter university or vocational school.

GRANT AWARDEE ESSAY |32

Learning Learning
One of the local chapter members encouraged
me to present at PanSIG and share this researchwith a wider audience. Before presenting at
PanSIG, I was able to present at two local
chapter meetings in Hamamatsu and Shizuoka
and perfect my presentation in time for thisconference. Unfortunately, I had no access tofunding, so I was not sure if I could even afford
to attend another JALT conference. However,thanks to the LD PanSIG Grant, I was able tofly to Akita and share my presentation withmany people. Despite having taught in Japan forthree years, I was not a university professor, nor
had I published my research; so, at first I felt
more like a practitioner, someone who practices
teaching, than a researcher, who observes andanalyzes what is put into action.
Before I presented at PanSIG, I saw otherpresentations by AIU students and mentors.
After I attended the opening ceremony, I
watched the AIU students present Pecha
Kucha-style presentations on exploring theiridentities in English. Some that stood out to me
include a Zainichi Japanese student who
navigated Japanese, Chinese and Korean
perceptions of the Senkaku Islands dispute, anda Japanese AIU student who joined a group of
Christian migrants and wandered through Spain
with them. These students intersected the themeof this year’s PanSIG and the missions ofseveral of the SIGs by connecting their English
learning experiences with their expanding
intercultural awareness.
At the LD SIG Forum, I also attended several
poster presentations on how the members of
the LD SIG themselves created opportunities
for their students to think reflectively on theirlearner development. These presentations not
only expanded my interest in reflective activities
for my students, but they also inspired me tobecome more conscious of my own
development as a teacher. The LD Forum had arotation of about four different poster

DEVELOPING IDENTITIESVolume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017presentations. The methods that these
instructors used were especially helpful for
visual and auditory learners. Tree diagrams,interviews with native speakers, eikaiwa teaching
methods, and other reflective activities were
presented. Through these poster presentations, I
learned how to adapt these worksheets for myown students. One of the featured presentations
included a language learning tree diagram, which
was part of a collaboration between Mathew
Porter and an ALT. Seeing this collaboration
between ALTs and instructors in higher
education made me consider doing my own
projects in the future. After the LD SIG Forum,
I went to a poster presentation by Debra Occhi
about one of my favorite Sanrio characters,
Aggressive Retsuko. She’s an atypical Sanrio
character who is a clerical worker. She deals
with micro-aggressions in every episode, andDebra parallels the character’s experience with
common workplace issues in Japan. For
example, in one episode, she compared theMinistry of Health, Labor, and Welfare’s
initiatives for combating power harassment withthe character pressured to work overtime.
In the middle of the day, I did my presentation.
As it was my first JALT conference
presentation, I was very nervous. The time slots
between presentations were also very quick; we
had to set up our equipment as soon as the lastpresenter finished. The presenter before me
happened to be Melodie Cook, who presented
on adopted children Japan and the issues they
face in the foster care system. Her theme wasunique and informative. As I watched hersharing her own personal encounter with raising
adoptive children with traumatized pasts, I felt
in awe of the idea of presenting a topic that wasvery intimate with her identity as a mother and amentor. I’m also interested in research that
relates to me but is outside of TESOL, such as
immigration and the Asian diaspora. Seeing
presentations like Melodie’s helped meunderstand that as learners, our identities and
GRANT AWARDEE ESSAY |33

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Learning Learning
personal experiences can highly influence thetype of research area we would want to pursue.
There were more audience members in mypresentation than when I had given it twice
before. One member was from my chapter, andtwo were the presenters whom I had seen rightbefore. The rest were unfamiliar, but I felt
honored that I recognized some of my audience.
I clicked through each slide and put myaudience in the shoes of the modern highschool ALT and JTE. Time flew by quickly; itfelt surreal once I finished speaking. At the endof my presentation, the audience members gaveme such positive feedback and I ended up
making a few connections. One was acontributing writer for the Japan Times, whose
article I referenced in my presentation. I was
impressed at how responsive my audience andother attendees were at my presentation. It
made me feel validated, and this experience
encouraged me and made me realize that I canplay the role as a practitioner and a researcher at
the same time as I actively teach as an ALT.
I was unable to attend the banquet because I
didn’t pre-register; instead, I spontaneously
joined some members from the Speech, Drama,& Debate SIG next to whom I had sat on thebus from AIU. We had deep conversations
about learning how to teach. “Teaching is a
performance”, one of them said, “Whenteachers perform, they practice good teachingstrategies instead of only observing them.” This

person especially stood out to me. Like me, she
was a woman of color who was fairly young.
She and many of the other attendees were very
diverse and I felt more at home at thisconference. If I hadn’t attended, I would nothave known how diverse JALT is.
On the second day, I felt more relaxed. I
switched out my suit for jeans like some of theother attendees and checked out some morepresentations before flying back to Shizuoka.
This conference had such an amicableatmosphere. Even in the waiting area, it was soeasy for me to naturally have conversations withnew people. I also noticed that a few people
recognized my name and asked me about mypresentation. Attending this conference as afirst-time presenter was really worthwhile.
It was truly an honor to attend this year’s
PanSIG conference. I intend on attending (andmaybe even presenting again!) at next year’s
PanSIG. This conference embodied the themeof expanding interests as I interacted with manyfolks from different SIGs and bonded with ones
from my own. Attending the conference
allowed me to expand my practice, myexperience, and my own identity as a teacher. It
also helped me interact and connect with alarger community of diverse learner-educators,
providing a strong foundation from which I cantruly “expand my interests”.

Farrah Hasnain is an ALT with the JET Program at Hamamatsu Higashi Senior High School.
She is from Washington, DC. Her research interests include English education in Japanese highschools and ethnography of immigrant and minority communities in Japan and the US.
Author correspondence: farrahhas@gmail.com

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Short Articles 小論
Reflections on Learning and the Japanese Classroom
Matthew Hollinshead
Kanda University of International Studies
Abstract

The social nature of language is clear. However, for teachers concerned with the day-to-day runningof a classroom, this can sometimes be an aspect that slips into the background; not in the sense ofa failure to think about the pragmatic aspects of the language we are teaching, but rather in respect
to how our students are using an unfamiliar language to navigate through the society of theclassroom. This short research article looks at the reflective journal of an Assistant Language
Teacher (ALT) attempting to understand better what is being asked of students as they attempt tomanage themselves in a small but important social setting (the English classroom) using the tools ofa language with which they are not yet completely familiar. In this research article I identify the main
themes of the journal and then go on to examine these themes as they apply to a specific context.
要旨

言語の社会性は明確であるが、授業運営に携わっている教師にとって言語の社会性
は、時に忘れがちになりやすい側面でもある。それは我々が言語を教える際、語用論の側面を無視するということではなく、我々の生徒がいかに彼らにとって親しみのない言語を教室という社会的環境で使用しているかということである。この論文では外国語補助教員（ALT）による振り返り日記を通して、生徒が小さいながらも重要な社会的環境、つまり英語のクラスで、彼らが未だ完全に慣れ親しんでいない言語を使用しながらいかに教室内でコミュニケーションを図っているかを見る。この論文では日記に記された主要なテーマを明らかにし、そのテーマの背景となっている文脈について分析する。
Keywords: journal writing, teacher reflection, sociolinguistics, learner identity
ジャーナルライティング, 教師の省察, 社会言語学, 学習者のアイデンティティ

Sociolinguistics is the study of why people speak differently in different social contexts as well as
the social functions of language and how social meaning is conveyed (Holmes, 2008). In order tounderstand my role as a teacher better, I wrote reflective journal entries over the course of one
academic year teaching at a junior high school in Japan. My aim was to examine the dynamics ofclassroom-as-society and its interaction with language. The validity of such an approach seemed to me tolie in the nature of language learning which requires the learner to expose themselves in a way that ismuch more personal and potentially threatening than other fields of study. Language learning is social by
its very nature, as is teaching; therefore, a sociolinguistic approach appeared justified. My purpose in this

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short article is to examine those reflections, identify the major themes that occur throughout, andconsider how they might apply to the classroom.
The diary
Four personal diary entries were written at regular intervals throughout the course of the year. No strict
structure was imposed prior to writing, the intention being simply to note, as they arose, thesociolinguistic aspects that presented themselves for notice. These reflective journal entries (RJEs)
sought to examine what was being asked of the students, specifically as members of a social context andnot simply as isolated individual language learners. Two major themes emerged from the diary:••

identity
the role of the teacher.

Each of these themes will be looked at in more detail below.
Identity
Identity concerns how a person conceives of him or herself in the world and how they seek to convey
that message to others. Chryssochoou (2003) states that identity “is a particular form of social
representation that mediates the relationship between the individual and the social world…Its functions
are to inscribe the person in the social environment, to communicate peoples’ positions and to establish
relationships with others” (p. 225).
One aspect of identity that garnered a lot of attention in the RJEs was the use of the learners’ first
language in the classroom. I reflected that if language helps to convey identity, then by barring the useof the L1 in the classroom teachers are effectively negating the identities of the vast majority of theirstudents. The entries expressed a belief that the suppression of the learners’ identity is too high a priceto pay for any of the perceived advantages of an English-only classroom.
In addition to concern over learner identity, the RJEs made regular mention of the identity of theteacher. I expressed concerns about the extent to which the teacher is justified in imposing their identity
upon the classroom material and the learner. Summarized, the crux of my reflections on teacher identity
revolved around the question of balancing the essential need of the student to retain their identity while
they struggled to learn a second language, and the need for the teacher to remain mindful of thepotential for their own identities to become the dominating factor in the classroom by virtue of theircommand of the subject matter and their position of power.
The role of the teacher
Throughout the journal entries there is quite naturally a preoccupation with the role of the English
teacher: What is the traditional view of the role of the teacher? Is this view compatible with effective
language learning? How do I conceive of the role I must play in my students’ learning? Harmer (1995)
writes of a movement in language teaching towards shifting authority from the teacher to the student
and that this “has …been seen as a way of making students the investigators or discoverers of facts
about language rather than just recipients of information” (p. 337). This accurately summarizes my viewof the role of the teacher.

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The RJEs contain several mentions of the role of the teacher as a bi-directional conduit through which
language may pass as learners “discover” it, rather than as a source of knowledge dispensed to recipients.
The journal entries express particular concern with teachers becoming arbiters of language, judging whatis acceptable or even “good”, and what is inferior or unnecessary.
Common theme: Power
While the above constitute the two dominating topics as they present themselves throughout the journal,
one major unifying theme undoubtedly connects them both: power. There is an almost ubiquitousconcern with issues of power throughout the RJEs.
In terms of identity, much of the issue revolves around the power inherent in the position of teacher.
All teachers bring with them ideas about their own identity and the teacher-student relationship. In thejournal I was often concerned with the power of the teacher to impose their beliefs upon students. Moresignificant however is the crucial role that identity plays within all of us and the ability of the teacher tosignificantly diminish or even disregard those of his or her students through decisions made in theclassroom.
The role of the teacher is a topic so laden with issues of power that it might conceivably be called theunifying theme of these diary entries. The RJEs express concern with who decides which material tocover, who decides which forms of English are ok and which unacceptable, the necessity of students
being able to trust the teacher with providing their education, and the conception of the teacher as acompanion on the learners’ journey towards English acquisition.
The classroom
Having identified the major concerns shown in the journal, the next step was to examine those themes
in a specific context—as mentioned earlier, a junior high school located in a very small town in rural
Japan. The role of an assistant language teacher (ALT) is to assist a lead Japanese teacher and the role isincidental, in many ways, to the running of the class. Each of the 12 classes taught by the author
contains between 32 and 38 students and standards of behavior vary considerably between classes.
What becomes obvious upon even brief reflection is that a gulf exists between the theory and thepractice of the classroom—the most obvious fracture occurring around the role of the teacher, and so I
will cover this area first.
The role of the teacher
While it is easy and certainly useful to formulate a philosophy of teaching in isolation, the RJEs showedthat in doing so I had presumed a kind of “ideal learner”. This learner was mature, motivated,
responsible, and committed to the journey of discovery upon which I had conceived of the teacher as
being his or her companion. Unfortunately, this learner is often somewhat chimerical.
In the context of this junior high school a major role of the teacher is that of classroom manager. As
students move through the first year to the third, not only do they develop as people, but they undergo akind of evolution in their approach to English. Despite this, each year group, for differing reasons, isactively managed by the teacher. This proved quite instructive as I developed my conceptions of the role

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Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017of teacher.
Sometimes it simply is not possible to hold the learners’ hand on an idealized journey towards English
competence. Learners attend class for myriad reasons and not all of them include the learner’s own
volition. In this context, many of the most desirable practices in the role of teacher are often supersededby the need to maintain an effectively functioning classroom. A teacher may not always be able to takesuch a “companion” approach with a student who disdains English and is contemptuous of school in
general.
Similarly, my “ideal learner” had possessed a degree of competence that allowed the teacher to function
as a conduit rather than an origin of knowledge. Again, this conception needs reevaluating in the light ofthis specific context.
If we can conceive of the points between the “conduit” and “origin” as existing on a continuum, I
believe that all three of the lead teachers at my school swing too far towards the “origin” end. For
example, the first-year students are corrected incessantly by their teacher if their handwritten letters straytoo far from the prescribed norm of the textbook, even if the learner’s handwriting of Roman script
more closely approximates a natural, cursive style of writing. Here, the teacher, together with the
textbook, is the final word.
Having said this, there is obviously the need, at very elementary levels of study, for the teacher todispense knowledge. Low-level learners simply do not possess the necessary linguistic tools to advance ina way that allows the teacher to operate in the idealized way mentioned in my RJEs.
Identity
Very similar to the problems associated with classroom management are those linked to student identity.
The most obvious issue concerns class size. In a class of 38 fifteen- and sixteen-year-old students, thespace for making broad allowances for individual identity is minimal at best. It is not so much theindividual learners are not interested as other learners and their requirements make individualization
impossible.
A further set of issues compounds the problem—the curriculum as assessed by nationwide andprefectural exams leaves teachers with the bare minimum of space in which to improvise. The time
demands on teachers are extraordinary, and reliance on the textbook allows them to carry out all theother functions required of the role. Moreover, a culture of rote learning and teacher-as-origin-ofknowledge means that an approach that largely ignores individuality is the norm and, for the most part,
expected. Taken together, there is little possibility of allowing for individual learner identity and there
appears little inclination to do so.
The exception to all of this is the use of the students’ native language (L1) in the English classroom. In
all of the classes a rough estimate of Japanese spoken during class, by both students and teachers, would
be approximately 80-90%. Unfortunately, this is not done for such lofty and idealized reasons as
safeguarding learner identity, but rather because English is approached in much the same fashion as anyother school subject—a series of rules and problems able to be learnt and assessed through pen andpaper testing.

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Power

Undoubtedly in this context, the teacher remains the source of virtually all power. Teachers act as thebringer-of-knowledge, a role that helps explain the traditionally high esteem in which teachers havealways been held in Japan, but which also means that students have absolutely no input into the natureof their learning. Students remain passive “recipients of knowledge,” varying in their degree ofreceptivity by such things as interest and motivation. That this motivation remains sparsely spread isevidenced by the prevalent distraction and recidivist sleeping on show in most of the classes. There islittle allowance possible or expected for learner identity due to numerous factors, a frustration for me
when I can see learners keen to learn but am unable to offer them time to engage in the material on amore personal and meaningful level.
Conclusion
Keeping a reflective journal over the course of a year provided interesting insights into the dichotomy
between expectations and practice. However, such a confrontation can be of immense value to a teacher,whatever stage of their career they happen to be in. The practical necessities of real life may make ourconceptions and ideals regarding such things as the role of the teacher and the necessity of consideringlearner identity at times unworkable. However, such ideals can act as a spur in all aspects of life and thepresence of obstacles on the road to their attainment is a poor argument against the attempt. Life isseldom simple; there seems little reason to expect the language classroom to be different.

References
Chryssochoou, X. (2003). Studying identity in social psychology: Some thoughts on the definition ofidentity and its relation to action. Journal of Language and Politics, 2(2), 225–241.
Harmer, J. (1995). Taming the big ‘I’: Teacher performance and student satisfaction. ELT Journal, 49(4),337-345.
Holmes, J. (2008). An introduction to sociolinguistics (3rd ed.). London: Longman.

Mathew Hollinshead is a lecturer at Kanda University of International Studies in Japan. Originally fromNew Zealand, he has been teaching in Asia for 10 years and has a Masters degree in TESOL from the
University of Auckland. His research interests include vocabulary, student autonomy, and motivation.
Author correspondence: hollinshead-m@kanda.kuis.ac.jp

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Exploring Effects of Socially Mediated Interactions on Learners’ L2 Motivation
Yuri Imamura 今村 有里
Kanda University of International Studies, Self-Access Learning Center (SALC)
神田外語大学 セルフアクセスラーニングセンター(SALC)
Abstract
The field of advising in foreign language learning has been attracting more attention in language
education. In self-access centres, learning advisors support learners to gain self-directed learning skills
and develop awareness about their learning. From a theoretical point of view, sociocultural theory andconstructivism emphasise the importance of socially mediated interactions and can be applied to thefield of advising in language learning (Mynard & Kato, 2016). Socially mediated interactions are an
important factor for language learners to reflect on their learning progress and develop both language
and learning skills. Ushioda (2003) states that interactive support from experts helps learners’ motivationand promotes learner autonomy. This research investigates how socially mediated interactions with alearning advisor support learners to be autonomous throughout a self-directed learning module in the
SAC at a university in Japan. In the process, they are guided by a learning advisor in both spoken andwritten interactions enabling them to discover more about themselves as learners. The analysis ofinterviews demonstrates how students became aware of their language and learning progress, as well asaffective aspects of the self-directed learning process, through socially mediated interactions with alearning advisor.
要旨
外国語学習アドバイジングの分野は、言語教育においてより多くの注目を浴びるようになってきている。自律学習センターでは、学習者が自己管理的学習（self-directed learning）を習得し、自らの学習に対する気づきを促進するようラーニングアドバイザーがサポートを行っている。理論的観点 において、社会文化理論と社会構成主義はともに社会的相互作用の重要性を強調しており、言語学習アドバイジングの分野においても適用できると言われている(Mynard & Kato, 2016)。相互作用は言語学習者が自らの学習成果を振り返り、言語と学習のスキルを向上するための重要な役割を担っている。さらに Ushioda（2003）は、学習者の目標に精通した熟練者による相互的サポー
トは学習者の動機を助長し、自律学習を促すと述べている。本稿では、日本の大学における自律学
習センターで提供されている自己管理的学習モジュールを通して、ラーニングアドバイザーとの社会的相互作用がどのように学生たちの自発性を促進しているのかを考察する。モジュールでは、ラーニングアドバイザーの口頭と記述両方からのサポートを通して、学生たち自らが、自身がどのような学習者なのかを知る機会を多く設けている。また、インタビューの結果をもとに、ラーニング
アドバイザーとの社会的相互作用を通して、学生たちが言語と学習スキルの成長、そして自己管理的学習の過程に起こる情意に関してどのように振り返ったのかも論証する。

Keywords: self-directed learning, self-access, learner autonomy, socially mediated interactions,motivation 自己管理的学習、自律学習、学習者オートノミー、社会的相互作用、モチベーシ
ョン

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his study aims to explore learner motivation in socially mediated interactions. Curry, Mynard,
Noguchi and Watkins (2017) stated that autonomous language learners are learners who possess“a good understanding of self-directed language learning (SDLL); that is cognitive,
metacognitive, affective and social processes that govern learning” (p. 17). Socially mediated interactions
play a crucial role in learner autonomy, and numerous researchers have researched the ability of sociallymediated interactions to help language learners be more engaged in their learning (Mynard & Kato, 2016;
Yamashita, 2015). This short research article aims to understand more about learners’ motivation
through socially mediated interactions with a learning advisor while taking an optional module offered at
a Japanese university.
The setting
Kanda University of International Studies (KUIS) is a private university specialising in the fields offoreign languages and intercultural communication. For all students, learning English is compulsory, andthe Self-Access Learning Center (SALC) provides various types of resources (such as self-learning sheets
and courses) and access to specialists (such as learning advisors) to support students to learn and practiceEnglish outside their classes. When I conducted this research in the 2016/2017 academic year, thelanguage policy in the SALC was English only.
The SALC’s mission in KUIS is to “foster learner autonomy by providing learners with opportunities toreflect and take charge of individualizing their language learning, and to develop skills for the learning
experience and making informed choices” (SALC, n.d.). That is, the SALC is a learning space wherestudents can explore their language learning journeys based on their own targets and goals with support
from learning advisors, friends, lecturers and others.
Learning advisors
The aim of a learning advisor in KUIS is to support learners to gain self-directed learning skills and anawareness of their learning through both spoken and written dialogue. Learning advisors offer various
forms of support, including 30-minute face-to-face advisory sessions, help desk support (learners candrop in with questions), and other informal advising that takes place in the SALC. In addition, the SALC
offers self-directed learning courses to support students to be more responsible for their learning outsideof class. Through both spoken and written advisory sessions, a learning advisor facilitates a learner’s
reflective processes in language learning in order for the learner to become more capable of planningtheir self-directed learning (Kato & Mynard, 2016).
How the module supports learner autonomy
The SALC module is a self-directed module that learners complete with the support of learning
advisors. At the time of the study (April 2016 to January 2017), the module was non-credit
bearing. Through the module, learning advisors encourage learners to think about their learning
processes actively to become more independent learners. Although the interactions between learners andadvisors are largely conducted through written correspondence, learners can book one-to-one advisory
sessions whenever required. The content of the module is as follows:
Week 1: Goal setting

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Week 2: Learning strategies
Week 3: Resources

Week 4: The SURE (study, use, review and evaluate) learning cycle and creating a learning plan
Weeks 5 - 8: Self-directed learning journal
In the first four weeks, the module introduces “the concept of self-directed learning by explicitly
teaching the learners about useful tools for taking charge of their language learning” (Mynard, Curry,
Noguchi & Watkins, 2016, p. 47). Later, they make learning plans based on their own goals, strategies,
and chosen resources and utilise self-directed learning journals for a month.
Motivation as an interactive process
Ushioda (2003, p. 90) drew on McCombs (1994) to say that “learners’ capacity for autonomy, theirmotivation must be viewed as an intrinsic part of human nature, yet one which needs supportive
interpersonal interactions and an optimal learning environment in order to grow in positive ways.” In
addition, Ushioda (2003, 2007) stated that the interactive support and scaffolding provided by experts
have an impact on increasing learners’ motivation. That is, as learning is a social and intrapersonal
process, socially mediated interactions are one of the key factors that support learners’ motivation andprovide scope for learner autonomy. For example, Yamashita (2015) focused on socially mediateddialogic interactions between a learner and a learning advisor and conducted a case study that considered
the learner’s affect as a resource. She analysed spoken advisory sessions in Japanese with a Japaneselearner of English and saw how the learner came to control (or understand) her affect over theperiod. Yamashita (2015, p. 79) summarized that “As the learner accumulated more dialogic interactions,the learner progressively became the central agent in utilizing her affective states, developing her
motivational and metacognitive awareness.” Her research indicated that the socially mediatedinteractions and support provided by an expert had a positive impact on the learner’s motivation andhelped in controlling her affect, leading her to develop her learner autonomy. Her research, however,specifically focused on the learner’s affective capacity as a resource through spoken interactions between
a learner and a learning advisor; in contrast, in the present study, I am interested in the broader reasons
why socially mediated interactions by an expert support learners’ motivation and I seek to investigate thefollowing research question:
How do socially mediated interactions with a learning advisor help learners on the module to get
motivated and sustain their language learning?
MethodSemi-structured interviews were carried out with four students who completed the module with theauthor as their learning advisor in the 2016/2017 academic year. All of them had booked advisory
sessions with their learning advisor regularly depending on their purposes, in addition to written dialogue
throughout the module.
The interview questions below were designed to address the questions:

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What made you continue your module every week?

●

How did you feel about the relationship between you and your learning advisor?

Interviews were conducted face to face in Japanese and audio-recorded. Each interview lasted
approximately 30 minutes. When the data were analysed, I found three elements of interaction between
a learner and a learning advisor: affective scaffolding, promotion of learner’s reflective process, andexploration of learning strategies.
ParticipantsStudent A, a second-year student studying international business communication in the International
Communication Department, had tried the module twice in his first year but could not complete
it. When he took the module with me, it was his third time attempting to learn about self-directed study.
Student B, a second-year student in the English Department, took the module to get more opportunities
to use the SALC and to improve her listening skills for TOEFL ITP, on which she needed a certainscore for a class on the Teacher Licence Course.
Student C, a first-year student in the English Department, took the module to develop her speaking
skills. She requested a Japanese advisor to advise her for the module.
Student D, a second-year student in the English Department, wanted to improve her speaking skills
through taking the module.
Findings
Through the interviews with the four module takers and subsequent analysis, I found that sociallymediated interactions between a learner and a learning advisor seemed to offer the following:●a means of affective scaffolding●

opportunities for a learner to reflect on their learning process●

an exploration of effective learning strategies.
A means of affective scaffolding

All participants pointed out that affective scaffolding was the most important form of interactive
support that they gained from their learning advisor through taking the module. Having an environment
where the learner feels comfortable with sharing their affective and emotional states with someone (i.e.,a learning advisor) is crucial to being more autonomous.
Student C – In class, not only me but also other classmates have equal opportunities to speak. On
the other hand, in a one-to-one dialogue with my learning advisor, as this is “my time,” I do notneed to be rushed, and I can focus on my speaking. Additionally, my learning advisor often
summarises and restates what I said, and that makes me feel she understands me. I feel less anxious

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about my speaking skills and silence when I talk with her. (translated from Japanese by theauthor)Student C noticed that having opportunities to voice her feelings and to feel relieved speaking her target
language had a positive impact on her learning experience outside class.
Student A – I realised that interacting with my learning advisor keeps my motivation high. Thismay be because I like to talk with people like a teacher and a learning advisor to develop myself
depending on my interests.
Through taking the module, Student A noticed that his preferred learning style, which was to get support
from teachers and learning advisors, helped him to develop his skills more than learning by himself. This
relationship is exactly what Ushioda (2003) stated: Interactive support from experts plays a critical role inincreasing a learner’s motivation.
Student B – Showing my learning advisor my weekly learning journals pushed me to study in agood way, and written feedback made me confident in my learning. In the one-to-one spoken advisory
sessions, I was not anxious about my linguistic mistakes because my focus was on increasing
opportunities using the SALC.
Student D – I looked forward to written feedback from my learning advisor (and fancy
stickers!). Though I thought that the SALC was a difficult place to go to, I have come to know
more people in the SALC, and that led me to go there more often after taking the module. The
module gave me a connection with not only my learning advisor but also the SALC.
As both Students B and D mentioned, one of the roles of a learning advisor is to give learners positive
experiences in the SALC and to provide a connection with the SALC. Why learners feel uncomfortable
going to the SALC needs to be considered in future research; it is clear that some learners desire to use
the SALC effectively and try to fulfil this need by making a connection with a learning advisor.
Opportunities for learners to reflect on their learning process
As the module and the learning advisor aim to encourage a language learner to gain self-directed skills,
the interview data clearly show that learners gain more opportunities to reflect on their learning process
though the module.
Student A – I noticed that my goal was vague when I was a first-year student. Because of that, I
was not able to use appropriate strategies to develop my language skills and ended up giving up themodule. Now, I am able to make a clear learning plan and study routine for improving my English
and learning skills.
Student A reflected on the reason why he could not complete the module in his first year at KUIS—
because he did not have enough time to consider what he wanted to focus on in his language
learning. While focusing on his academic writing skills, he tried academic writing practice and showed his
work to the Writing Centre, where students can get writing support (through English lecturers checking
structures, vocabulary usage, and grammar) once a week. In addition, he established spoken reflection
session with his learning advisor and that became his weekly routine. Based on his interview, continuing

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his learning plan for a certain period of time gave him a sense of achievement in his language learningand motivated him to continue to study.
Student B – The written dialogue helped me to discover different strategies to develop my English
skills, and I could spend more time on considering my learning process and looking back at what I
did based on the feedback. I recognised that having a clear goal keeps my motivation high.
As Student B mentioned above, one of the positive aspects of written comments is that both the learnerand the learning advisor can look back on the learning process whenever needed. While looking back on
her learning journal for the module, Student B noticed what was important for achieving her own
goal. Written reflection and interactions encourages learners to think deeply about their learning process
and develop metacognitive skills (Mynard & Navarro, 2010; Mynard & Thornton, 2012).
Student C – I learned both negative and positive aspects of my learning through spoken dialogue,
and that helped me to review my learning process and make my weekly target for the next
week. Before taking the module, I did not think about my learning deeply. Even in class, I
sometimes zoned out, but I started to try using English more consciously.
As Student C pointed out, she gradually became more able to think about her learning process. In bothspoken and written interactions with her, I noticed that the learner was able to answer powerfulquestions that were aimed at developing her metacognitive skills.
An exploration of effective learning strategies
In my own experience, learners who have less learning experience tend to use the same materials andlearning strategies that they have used before, such as the grammar textbooks that they used in highschool. Thus, socially mediated interactions with a learning advisor or other experts like teachers often
give them new insights for their language learning journey.
Student B – For my TOEFL ITP study, I only used the official study book and never tried otherresources. My advisor suggested to me that I try TEDed 1 , and I learned that there are many
materials for language learning. Though I am still exploring appropriate resources for my target, I
discovered different learning strategies using new materials through the module.
Student D – While I was trying out the self-directed learning journal, a teacher at the PracticeCentre (where a student can practise speaking English with an English lecturer for 15 minutes)
advised me to check what I could not say after having a conversation, and the strategy was very
useful for my goal.
The interview data show that the socially mediated interactions offered in the SALC help learners to
explore various learning materials and strategies to achieve their own goals. In the interview, bothStudent B and C reflected on the importance of building a relationship between them and experts suchas learning advisors and lecturers. A good relationship in socially mediated interactions encourages themto try new strategies and resources for their language learning.

1

TEDed is an online collaborative learning platform for teachers and learners. See https://ed.ted.com/

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Conclusion

Autonomy must come from within; yet, socially mediated interactions support the development ofautonomy (Ushioda, 2003). That is, SDLL is highly interpersonal. As Ushioda (2007) stated, theinteractive support and scaffolding provided by experts have an impact on increasing learners’
motivation; both spoken and written interactions are crucial factors that motivate learners to keep
learning English. Through the interviews with the students, I noticed that the learners had increased
engagement in their learning through the module, and both written and spoken dialogue gave them
deeper understandings of their learning process, particularly in reviewing their learning process andmaking plans for the future. Although most of the participants had had little previous opportunity tothink about their learning deeply, while or after taking the module, they clearly became more consciousof their learning processes. This suggests that socially mediated interactions are essential to thedevelopment of learner autonomy.
References
Curry, N., Mynard, J., Noguchi, J., & Watkins, S. (2017). Evaluating a self-directed language learning
course in a Japanese university. International Journal of Self-Directed Learning, 14(1), 17-36.
Kato, S., & Mynard, J. (2015). Reflective dialogue: Advising in language learning. New York: Routledge.
Mynard, J., Curry, N., Noguchi, J., & Watkins, S. (2016). Studying the impact of the SALC curriculum on
learning. 言語教育研究 [Language Education Research], 27, 45-58.
Mynard, J., & Navarro, D. (2010). Dialogue in self-access learning. In A. M. Stoke (Ed.), JALT2009
Conference Proceedings (pp. 95-102). Tokyo: JALT. Retrieved from http://jaltpublications.org/recentpdf/proceedings/2009/E008.pdf
Self-Access Learning Centre. (n.d.). Mission [Mission statement]. Kanda University of International
Studies, Self-Access Learning Centre. Retrieved fromhttp://www.kandagaigo.ac.jp/kuis/salc/aboutthesalc/mission.html
Thornton, K., & Mynard, J. (2012). Investigating the focus of advisor comments in a written advisingdialogue. Autonomy in language learning: Advising in action. Canterbury: IATEFL.
Ushioda, E. (2007). Motivation, autonomy and sociocultural theory. In P. Benson (Ed.), Learner autonomy
8: Teacher and learner perspectives (pp. 5-24). Dublin: Authentik.
Ushioda, E. (2003). Motivation as a socially mediated process. In D. Little, J. Ridley, & E. Ushioda(Eds.), Learner autonomy in the foreign language classroom: Teacher, learner, curriculum and assessment (pp. 90102). Dublin: Authentik.
Yamashita, H. (2015). Affect and the development of learner autonomy through advising. Studies in SelfAccess Learning Journal, 6(1), 62-85. Retrieved fromhttps://sisaljournal.org/archives/mar15/yamashita/
Imamura Yuri is a learning advisor in the Self-Access Learning Center at Kanda University ofInternational Studies in Chiba, Japan. She completed her MA in Teaching English as a Foreign Language
at the University of Birmingham, UK. Her research interests are L2 motivation, self-directed learning, andself-access management. Author correspondence: imamura-y@kanda.kuis.ac.jp

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Can Diary Exchange Lead Students to Become Engaged in English Writing?
Takeshi Ishikawa
International Christian University
Abstract
This study attempts to investigate to what extent writing an exchange diary on a regular basis influences
English language learners’ motivation, attitudes, and habits. This action research took place in auniversity writing class in Japan that met twice a week. In the first class of the week, after being
randomly paired up with a partner, students wrote a diary entry out of class that included questions forthe partner. In the following class, they exchanged diaries, then took home the partner’s diary and wrote
an entry that answered the questions. In the next class, they returned the diary to its owner. This seriesof procedures was called “one boomerang” and was the minimum weekly work assigned to each pair.
The boomerang procedure was repeated for a period of three months. The teacher maintained the roleof facilitator and did not intervene in the content of each diary entry. Data were gathered through twoquestionnaires with free comments. The results indicate that the diary exchange contributed to theincreased enjoyment and speed with which students wrote in English. Although the average motivationlevel towards writing in English did not show any great quantitative jump, most of the students reported
favorably about diary exchange in their comments.
要旨

本研究は学生同士で定期的に行う英語での交換日記が、英語を書くことに対する学生の動機づけや態度、習慣に影響を及ぼすのか、またその場合どの程度の影響があるかを明らかにすることを目的としている。アクションリサーチである本研究は、ある日本の大学のライティングクラス（週二回）で行われた。まず、学生は各週の最初の授業でカードによりペア分けされ、ペアの相手への質問も含めた日記を授業外で書いた。そして次の授業で、お互いに日記を交換し家に持ち帰り、ペアの相手の質問に対する返事を記入した上で返却した（これを１ブーメランと呼び、これを最低限のノルマとした）。この活動を実践した
３か月間、教師は進行役に徹し、日記の内容には介入しないと約束した。2 回のアンケー
トデータを分析した結果、英語での交換日記は学生達の英語を書くスピードの向上に役立つことが示された一方で、英語を書くことに対する動機づけに関しては数値上大きな伸びは見せなかったが、この活動に対する好意的な意見が多くの学生のコメントに見られた。

Keywords: diary exchange, learning strategy training, writing habits, learner development
交換日記, 学習方略トレーニング, ライティングの習慣, 学習者の成長

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Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017Though students recognize that English is an important communication tool, many still approach
English as a code to be deciphered, by analyzing the language and learning pattern sentences byrote. Fiercely competitive entrance exams and pervasive grammar-translation teaching practices
have only contributed to this mindset. It is not surprising that few students read English for pleasureand even fewer write English outside the classroom. As of 2020, Japan will start English classes in third
grade elementary school and make English a compulsory subject for fifth graders. I truly hope that thiswill create opportunities for educators to re-examine how English is taught in schools. Perhaps students
will come to a better understanding of English not only as a communication tool, but also as a vehicle ofdiscovery so that, rather than studying English for its own sake, they can use English to discover andexpand on their own interests and connect those interests with others’. This kind of meaningful learning
is an important principle of learner-interest driven language learning and teaching. It is crucial to“capitalize on the power of meaningful learning by appealing to students’ interests” (Brown, 2001, p. 57).
Brown also stresses the significance of risk-taking, mentioning that “successful language learners…mustbe willing to become ‘gamblers’ in the game of language” (p. 63). When developing productive skills
such as speaking and writing, making mistakes is inevitable. Naturally, students do not usually want tomake mistakes, but if the activity is related to what interests them, they might be able to get over theirunwillingness to take risks.
Overcoming this reluctance provides opportunities for students to engage in skill building. Nuttal (1996)
emphasizes the importance of building these skills, particularly reading skills to avoid the vicious circle
where those who are poor at reading are not willing to read much, and because they do not read, they do
not find reading enjoyable. Day and Bamford (1998) claim that you improve your reading skills only
through actual reading where you learn various pieces of knowledge prerequisite to be a fluent reader.
The same could be said for writing. Teachers should help students escape from the cycle where the lessthey write, the less they are able to write. The key seems to be encouraging students to write whatever
they want to write. This is where the activity of diary exchange comes in. In a diary exchange, students
can write whatever they want to write. Furthermore, students interact with peers of the same age andwho share similar interests. Unlike conventional writing assignments, diary exchange provides students
with more incentives to write in English.
In addition, diary writing is an effective learning strategy. Unfortunately, it is also an underutilized one.
Defined as “a range of specific learning techniques that make learning more effective” (Dörnyei, 2001, p.
95), learning strategy training “aims to make everyone more capable of independent learning”(Dickinson, 1992, p. 13). Learning autonomously is important for success in language acquisition
because the amount of time students can spend in the classroom is limited. Research indicates a close
relationship between the amount of teacher support for student autonomy and an increase in student
autonomy (see Noels, Clemet, & Pelletier, 1999). One challenge for teachers is to provide students
chances to try various learning strategies so that they can choose from them some that they want toadopt or adapt for future learning. However, there is some disagreement among researchers about theeffectiveness of learner strategy training. Some say that there exists no verifiable evidence that awarenessof strategies promotes L2 learning success (see Rees-Miller, 1993). There is no promise that students willcontinue using a certain learning strategy, as in this case of writing a diary, because there is no definitive
strategy that fits everyone. What teachers can do is to help students widen their repertoire of learning
strategies. Macaro (2006) suggests that “successful learning is…linked…to his or her orchestration of

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strategies available to him or her” (Macaro, 2006, p. 332) and that “strategies do not make learning more
efficient; they are the raw material without which L2 learning cannot take place” (op. cit.).
Specifically for writing, Ward’s (2004) blog project in a writing/reading class at an American university
revealed that the use of blogs contributed to the increased interest of students in reading and writing.
The feedback from students was mostly positive, saying that writing a blog assisted their learning.
Pinkman’s (2005) qualitative study using blogs in an integrated skills class at a Japanese university
showed that 7 out 15 learners admitted that the project improved their writing skills, saying the project
prompted them to use new vocabulary. Students in Pinkman’s study reported that they liked the activity
so much they wanted to continue blogging. More than half of the participants found the comments fromclassmates and the teacher motivating.
In the current study, I incorporated a learner training approach featuring diary exchange, with the hopethat students would feel that the more they wrote, the more they would want to write, and that theywould adopt English writing for their learning. In order to give them the maximum autonomy, I avoided
any intervention on the content of the dairy entries that they wrote. As diary exchange, compared withconventional writing exercises, requires another person, I thought that peer pressure through being
required to exchange their diary entries would work positively and encourage the students to become
more engaged in writing in English.
Learning from students’ perceptions of diary exchanges
When explaining Galileo’s law of inertia, people often give an example of a running train. Passengers on
a train continue to move in the same direction unless they are acted upon by an external force. What I
hoped to make happen in the classroom runs along the same line: The teacher gets the class in the moodfor diary exchange and creates a sense of camaraderie. As the diary exchange activity gains momentum,
students will get so used to it that they have it ingrained in them to the extent of feeling awkward
without it. With the help of positive peer pressure, a virtuous circle is formed, and students will keepexchanging diaries involving each other in a reiterative, self-propagating process. In other words, I
wanted to know if it was possible to attain something as hard as making students write for three months,
and if the completion of the activity would consequently change students’ perspectives about writing.
This study was conducted at a university in a Japanese metropolitan area. The participants consisted of
22 freshmen (7 males and 15 females) enrolled in an English writing class that met twice a week. In thefirst class, I gave the students a questionnaire consisting of five Likert-scale items intended to probe theirmotivation, attitudes, and habits of English learning (see Appendix A) in order to know to what degree
students enjoy writing as well as what attitudes, habits of or preoccupations with writing prevent themfrom experiencing the fun of writing. The students were asked to get hold of an A4 size notebook andbring it to the following class. In the second class, I explained the procedures of diary exchange before
the students wrote a diary entry (at least one fourth of a page) in their own notebook with somequestions for their partner. In the next class, they exchanged notebooks, took their partner’s questions
back home, and wrote another diary entry, but this time in their partner’s notebook and with answers to
the questions. I told the students that it was okay to write about anything ranging from what they did atuniversity, their favorite pastime, childhood memories, to their dreams. A single exchange was called“one boomerang”: Student A writes a diary entry, hands it to Student B, who returns it like a boomerangto Student A. I assured the class that it was not the content of the entry that counted but the number of
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diary entries that would contribute toward their final grade. The crucial thing for me was to make surethe students understood the importance and enjoyment of expressing themselves in English and thatthey did not have to be afraid of making mistakes.
From there on, in the first class of each week, the students were paired up using playing cards, and thepairs sat next to each other for occasional collaboration. These pairs lasted until the following week,
when pairs were re-shuffled. At the beginning of every class, I had the students open the newest page of
their A4 notebook so that I could simply and quickly check if they had an entry (no error correction orcomments were made). Finally, at the end of the course, the initial questionnaire was re-administered. I
also asked the students to count the number of diary entries (both their own entries and their partner’s).
Exploring student responses about diary entries
Quantitatively, an independent t-test was conducted to compare the students’ English writing
motivation, attitudes, and habits. Results showed a slight, non-significant, difference from Survey 1(M=3.04, SD=0.89) to Survey 2 (M=3.22, SD=0.92), as shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Changes in Student Motivation (Survey Question 3: “I like writing in English”)

Survey 1

N

Mean

SD

22

3.04

0.89

t
0.78 (p = 0.444)

Survey 2

22

3.22

0.92

In contrast, students’ writing habits (see Table 2 below) revealed significant difference from Survey 1(M=2.14, SD=1.04) to Survey 2 (M=2.82, SD=0.92). This finding featured a medium effect size
(d=0.70).
Table 2.

Changes in Student Writing Habits (Survey Question 6: “Writing in English
takes me a lot of time”)
N

Mean

SD

Survey 1

22

2.14

1.04

Survey 2

22

2.82

0.92

t
2.32 (p = 0.025)

By analyzing the students’ responses to the first questionnaire, with the aim of understanding what
habits prevent students from experiencing the fun of writing in English, I was able to identify somecommon perceptions across the class. First, even though all the students to some extent admitted thatwriting in English is a good way to improve English skills (Strongly agree 55%, Agree 40%, Slightly agree5%), 64% of the students more or less thought that writing in English is something they should do after
building vocabulary and improving grammar skills (Strongly agree 5%, Agree 36%, Slightly agree 23%). In
other words, they had put off doing what they believed they should do. Second, 77% of the students said
that when writing in English, they first think of a Japanese sentence and translate it into English (VeryDIARY EXCHANGESHORT RESEARCH ARTICLE |50

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Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017often 14%, Often 41%, Sometimes 22%), and 86% of the students agreed that writing English takes a lot oftime to a greater or lesser degree (Strongly agree 32%, Agree 36%, Slightly agree 18%). At the start of thediary exchange, they seemed to be unable to kick the ingrained habit of a word-by-word translation,
which naturally hinders them from writing fast, let alone having a positive image toward writing.
Changes in the students
Qualitatively, the majority of the students had favorable reactions toward their experiences with the diaryexchange. A number of students noted that the diary exchange helped them think in a different way
about communicating in English. Satoshi (all names are pseudonyms) commented, for example, that herealized the benefits of using common expressions in writing:“What has changed after this activity is that English phrases pop up in my mind more often than before.
Rather than translating Japanese sentences into English, I think it is better to use common English
expressions even if the intended meaning changes a little bit.” - Satoshi
Other students observed that, in addition to thinking differently, they enjoyed the interaction with peersthat the diary exchange facilitated:“I believe that writing in English is a good way to nurture the ability to think in English. However,unless you brush up vocabulary through extensive reading, it does not have enough effect because you tend
to write the same things again and again. So, it is important to gain a lot of input and use it when
outputting …What was good about this activity was that I was able to get to know my partners. It often
happened that conversations with them followed a lively course after the exchange of diaries” - Ryuichi“I liked it that with this diary exchange, I had an opportunity to write what I usually do not share withothers. Thanks to this activity, I was able to improve my writing skills while having fun of learning about
new aspects of my classmates. - Maiko“It was a lot of fun to write a diary. Talking about what happened during the day and my favorite things
helped me be on good terms with my classmates. This activity has given me not only a chance to review
English grammar but also a chance to check out ordinary English expressions and use them. - Ai
These comments reveal how the diary exchange contributed to the affective aspects of their writing, withthe power of camaraderie being the driving force of their completion of this activity.
Some explained what was happening while writing from a metacognitive standpoint, which shows thatthey had started looking at writing from new perspectives:“What I think is good about writing a diary is that you can visualize what you are thinking. If you
understand what weaknesses you have, you can work on them. Whenever I did not know how to saysomething in English, I looked it up in my dictionary, which led to expanded knowledge. Every time myhand stops, I know it is a sign of my inability to express it in English, which is really educational.
Unlike a conversation, there is no interlocutor in front of me, so I can write at my own pace. At first,
filling out one-fourth of a page was not easy, but after a while, it became easier to write. I find it a goodthing that whenever I read what I have written before, I can feel my growth as a writer.” - Hinako

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“At first I was worried that I might not be able to continue writing a diary in English because I hadn’t
even written a diary in Japanese. But to my surprise, after starting to do it, I found my pen moving moresmoothly than I expected. By occasionally consulting my dictionary, I was able to learn expressions that I
had not used before. I am happy that I have acquired a habit of writing English.” - Atsushi
Overall, many of the students recognized the benefits to this kind of interactive exchange between
writers and readers. Some even reflected on their performance and wrote about how they had been able
to improve their diary entries:“Initially, I had an awareness that I was not good at writing English, but I gradually got used to it. As
time went by, I found it a lot of fun to write what I am thinking. There are also some things I shouldhave done better. The questions to ask my partners were always basic.” - Yamato
Moving from inertia to engagement
The diary exchange seems to have prompted the students who participated in the class to improve theirwriting fluently to some degree. Furthermore, quite a few students reacted favorably toward this activity.
In the follow-up questionnaire, 95% of students strongly agreed or agreed with the statement “Receiving
feedback on my writing is a positive experience.” All students agreed or strongly agreed with thestatement, “I think keeping a diary in English will help me think in English,” and 86% of students either
agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “I will try to write in English as often as possible.”
What is worth noting is that nobody dropped out and the average number of diary entries in students’
notebooks during the semester (the combined number of diary entries of both owner and partner) was
25.5. This is surprising, considering the fact that if they completed one boomerang every week, thenumber of diary entries would be 24. By writing what they wanted to write, the students were able to go
beyond their own restricted linguistic resources and became “gamblers” who take chances and are notafraid of making mistakes. I must also unfortunately add, however, that there was one student who was
skeptical about learning writing in the classroom at all, saying that speaking is far more significant thanwriting. This student believed that there will be many more chances to speak rather than write in English
in the future. That said, he reluctantly admitted to the usefulness of exchange diary itself in that he wasable to find out his weaknesses in grammar.
Earlier, I likened this study to the running train used in explaining Galileo’s law of inertia; needless tosay, learning a language is different from physics in that it does not proceed as calculated. The degree towhich students benefit from the same activity differs significantly. Nonetheless, what is important is that
had it not been for this opportunity, some students would probably have graduated from university
without realizing the fun of writing about themselves in their own words in English. From exploring
how these students took to diary writing and diary exchange, I feel even more strongly now that as
writing teachers we should guide English learners to get out of the shell of their preconceived notions
that English is a mere synonym for boring analysis or wearisome word-by-word translation so that theycan engage with expressing themselves enjoyably through writing.

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References

Day, R. R., & Bamford, J. (1998). Extensive reading in the second language classroom. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Dickinson, L. (1992). Learner autonomy 2: Learner training for language learning. Dublin: Authentik.
Dörnyei, Z. (2001). Motivational strategies in the language classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Macaro, E. (2006). Strategies for language learning and for language use: Revising the theoreticalframework. Modern Language Journal, 90(3), 320-337.
Noels, K. A., Clément, R., & Pelletier, L. G. (1999). Perceptions of teachers’ communicative style andstudents’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Modern Language Journal, 83, 23-34.
Nuttall, C. (1996). Teaching teading skills in a foreign language (2nd ed.). Oxford: Heinemann.
Pinkman, K. (2005). Using blogs in the foreign language classroom: Encouraging learner independence.
The JALT CALL Journal, 1(1), 12-24.
Rees-Miller, J. (1993). A critical appraisal of learner training: Theoretical bases and teaching implications.
TESOL Quarterly, 27(4), 679-689.
Ward, J. M. (2004). Blog assisted language learning (BALL): Push button publishing for the pupils.
TEFL Web Journal, 3(1), 1-16. Retrieved from http://www.teflweb-j.org/v3n1/v3n1.htm

Takeshi Ishikawa teaches at International Christian University. He holds an M.S.Ed. in TESOL
from Temple University. He has written papers on diary exchange, reading aloud training, and e-learning.
His research interests include learner autonomy and learning strategies training.
Author correspondence: ishikawatakeshi@icu.a

DIARY EXCHANGESHORT RESEARCH ARTICLE |53

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Appendix A English Writing Motivation, Attitudes, and Habits Questionnaire
1. Writing in English is a good way to improve my English skills.
(英語で書くことは英語力を伸ばすための良い方法である。)□ Strongly agree□ Agree □ Slightly agree□Disagree□ Strongly disagree

2. Writing in English is something I should do after building vocabulary and improving grammar skills.
(英語で書くことは語彙力を付け、文法力を伸ばした後で行うべきことである。)□ Strongly agree□ Agree □ Slightly agree□Disagree□ Strongly disagree□Disagree□ Strongly disagree

3. I like writing in English.
(英語で書くことが好きだ。)□ Strongly agree□ Agree □ Slightly agree

4. I feel that reading English is a kind of deciphering a code rather than a way to get information.
(英語を読むことは情報を得るというよりも、暗号の解読のように感じる。)□ Strongly agree□ Agree □ Slightly agree□Disagree□ Strongly disagree

5. When I read, I move my eyes from left to right, without having my eyes go backward and forward.
(英語を読む際には前に戻ったりせず、左から右に語順の通りに読む。)□ Very often□ Often□ Sometimes□ Rarely□ Never□Disagree□ Strongly disagree

6. Writing English takes me a lot of time.
(英語を書くのにとても時間がかかる。)□ Strongly agree□ Agree □ Slightly agree

7. When I write in English, I first think of Japanese sentences and then translate them.
(英語で書く際には、まず日本語で考えてからそれを訳す。)□ Very often□ Often□ Sometimes□ Rarely□ Never

8. Receiving feedback on my writing is a positive experience.
(自分が書いたものに対して感想を貰うことは、プラスの体験である。)□ Strongly agree□ Agree □ Slightly agree□Disagree□ Strongly disagree

9. I think keeping a diary in English will help me think in English.
(英語で日記を付けることは英語で物を考えるための助けになると思う。)□ Strongly agree□ Agree □ Slightly agree□Disagree□ Strongly disagree

10. I think reading English will help me improve my writing skills.
(英語を読むことはライティングの力を伸ばす助けになると思う。)□ Strongly agree

DIARY EXCHANGE□ Agree □ Slightly agree□Disagree□ Strongly disagree

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11. I will try to write in English as often as possible.
(できるだけ頻繁に英語で書くようにしようと思う。)□ Strongly agree□ Agree □ Slightly agree□Disagree□ Strongly disagree

12. Writing in English is high on my agenda.
(私の中で、英語で書くことの優先順位は高い。)□ Strongly agree□ Agree □ Slightly agree□Disagree□ Strongly disagree

13. Please write how you feel about writing in English.
(英語で書くことについて、感じていることを書いて下さい。)

LEARNER DEVELOPMENT SIG GRANTS FOR 2018
学習者ディベロプメント研究部会 2018 年度助成金

The Learner Development (LD) SIG offers a variety of grants to support those in thefield of learner development. These grants are particularly targeted to those who are new
to the SIG, new to the field, or who do not have access to institutional funding.
学習者ディベロプメント研究部会（以下 LDSIG)は、言語教育において自律学習
について研究・活動を行っている方々に様々な助成金を支給しております。助成金支給対象者としては特に LDSIG 新規会員の方、自律学習に関する研究・活動を新たに始めている方、雇用者から研究費・出張手当が給付されない方が想定されています。
Anyone who meets the requirements is welcome to apply. However, we particularly
encourage applications from the following groups of teachers:
応募条件を満たしていれば、どなたでも応募ができます。以下の教育機関に所属されている教員からのお申込みを特に歓迎します。
§

§
§
§
§

Elementary school teachers/teachers of children ~ 初等言語教育（小学校、幼稚園、保育園、塾など）に関わる教員
Junior high school teachers ~ 中学校の教員
Senior high school teachers ~ 高等学校の教員
Language school teachers ~ 語学学校の教員
Teachers currently doing graduate studies ~ 大学院在学中の教員
For more details, see http://ld-sig.org/grants/

DIARY EXCHANGESHORT RESEARCH ARTICLE |55

Learning Learning

Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017

REVIEWS 書評
Book Review
Ellen Head ヘッド・エレン
Miyazaki International College
From Contempt to Curiosity:
Creating the Conditions forGroups to Collaborate Using
Clean Language and Systematic
Modelling.
Caitlin
WalkerPublished by Clean Publishing,
Portchester, England, 2014, 216 pages. ISBN:
978-0-9574866-1-4

I

was attracted to this book after watching
Caitlin Walker’s TEDX talk, Clean Questions
and Metaphor Models. Walker has worked asa consultant in contexts from schools touniversities, business, and local government andis an expert in training people to understandmetaphor, to be sensitive to metaphors ineveryday communication, and to work moreskillfully in situations where misunderstanding is
caused by conflicting metaphors. Her workbuilds on that of psychotherapist, David Grove.
Her book has much to offer to teachers anduniversity professors, both in terms ofprocedures, which I believe could be liftedstraight from the pages of this book and done ina classroom, and for anyone engaged incollaboration, management of a department,
training or curriculum renewal project.
This book is an autobiographical account ofeight projects Walker has led, with a chapter
devoted to each, plus an introduction and achapter for “taking stock” near the end. The
explanations are very clear and the index enables
one to go back over particular areas. The
anecdotal nature of the book makes it easy toread and ensures that the reader sees the process

FROM CONTEMPT TO CURIOSITY

in a real context in which it was developed orused.
A recurring theme is the development ofcollaborative autonomy in groups. The goal isto hand over procedures to a group that they
can use on their own. “... and I knew my work
was done” is Walker's signature line when thegroup starts to function well, establish its own
leadership, and have balanced interaction
patterns. In other words, these processes are allabout the development of intra-group
autonomy.
In an interesting example, Caitlin Walker shares
her experiences supporting a curriculum
enrichment project for sports majors at the
University of Liverpool. By teaching peer
coaching processes to the students, thedepartment was able to improve the program tosuch an extent that there were major gains in thenumber of students getting firsts or upper
seconds, and a reduction of the drop-out rate tonear zero. Though Walker mentions thisphenomenal result in her TED talk, the limited
time didn’t allow for deeper discussion. “Fromcontempt to curiosity” fills in some of the gaps
allowing educators to go away and set up such a
project.
Chapter 7, entitled “Inspiring Capability”,
focuses on the Liverpool project and has usefulrecipes such as Rough Guide to Me at My Best. In therough guide, lecturers were asked to think of a
metaphor for themselves teaching at their best;what an observer will see and hear when they
are teaching at their best, what supports orhinders them, what three areas they could
REVIEWS |56

Learning Learning
improve and three things colleagues could do tosupport them. Staff created an orientation video
for students with interviews investigating what
had enabled successful final year students to get
the most out of university. The areas they
focused on were: learning at your best, time
management, making good decisions, dealing
with setbacks and how to get motivated.
Students were given a handbook which wasused in group tutorials. Could developing
metaphors make a real difference? It seems so.
One example given is a student who was lazy
but brilliant, always had trouble with deadlines
but still passed the course. This student saidlearning was like being a cheetah: “I lie aroundall day in a tree sleeping, then something catches
my eye or I get hungry, I'm really fast, kill it, eat
it and then I'm back in my tree again.” For him,
time was like a cloud, and decisions were likefloating in a river. After working with thetutorial group, he found the metaphor of beingout in a theme park and making deliberate
decisions about where he wanted to go. The
workbook included a space where the group
could set developmental tasks for each other, andhis task was to use his cell phone timer for
activities during the day.
Some of the most telling passages relate tooccasions when Walker met resistance. “I don’t
do metaphors” announces one head of IT withwhom she has to work. Walker tells him her
metaphor of the project as white-water rafting,to which he says, “I can see I wouldn't want towork with you, I’d hate this.” To which she
replies, “If you know you’d hate this and we've
still got four minutes, what would an ideal
project be like for you?” “It be more likedesigning the blueprints for a building.” sheadopts his metaphor, asking if the blueprints canbe in pencil to allow for alterations, and heagrees. Throughout the book, relationships are
created with what she calls “exquisite attention”
to language, gesture and interaction. Such

FROM CONTEMPT TO CURIOSITY

Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017attention can bring clarity and respect insituations which seem to be deadlocked.
Chapter 6 “Getting too big for my boots”
describes how her team was invited to work in asecondary school by a board of education. By
training teachers and students to move awayfrom victim / rescuer roles and to use a cycle ofgiving feedback, focusing on outcomes andactions (a model she calls “the drama triangle”)
the behavioural norms were improved. But she
comments that the project was less effective andslower because the school management team
had not been consulted from the start: “Thechange processes should be led by the mostinfluential points in the system” and “Themotivation for change must come from within
the system” are two of the principles of her
approach.
Readers might need to be cautious about
applying these techniques in their own settings
but at the same time, I think many of themodels would work well in EFL classes andteachers' workshops and could be lifted more orless straight from the book.
Some members of the Learner development
SIG may remember that in 2010 the Learner
Development SIG forum focused on metaphorsfor language learning and using metaphors in
relation to autonomy. More recently Darren
Elliott (2015) has presented his fascinating,ongoing research in this area. Back in 2013,
after reading an excellent article in Learning
Learning (Sykes, 2011), I asked one of my classes
to discuss their metaphors for learning. What
was interesting was that students’ metaphorsrevealed defensiveness/aggression about theirlanguage learning, as six or seven people saidlearning a language was like having a weapon.
One of the more fluent members said language
learning was like being a sponge and absorbing
words, while another said it was like going on ajourney, meeting people on the way and getting

REVIEWS |57

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Learning Learning
various different views. Several students decided
to take up the journey metaphor instead of theweapon.
One question readers may have is “Aren't
students going to be having difficulty using
metaphor if they are not familiar with English?”
Having used this kind of approach with students
in Japan in 2014 and some European and Arabic
students in the autumn of 2014, I would say it
can help students to develop English whichreally belongs to them. Caitlin Walker’s bookwill be invaluable for anyone who wants to workwith this approach.

References
Elliott, D. (2016). I don’t like bad weather but I
still like camping: Learners’ metaphors andlearner autonomy, Learning Learning, 22(3),21-29. Retrieved from http://ld-sig.org/wpcontent/uploads/2014/11/FeaturedArticle.pdf
Sykes, J. (2011). Promoting self-awareness inlearners through metaphor elicitation.
Learning Learning, 18(1), 11-19. Retrieved
from http://ld-sig.org/LL/18one/Sykes.pdf

Ellen Head taught EFL/EAP at university in Kansai from 2000 to 2014. After a period as an
EFL assessment consultant and researcher for the British Council in China, she returned to Japan in2017 and is currently teaching at Miyazaki International College. Ellen’s recent research interests
focus on perceived fluency.

Whose Autonomy?
Voices and Agency in Language Learning

Independent Learning Association Conference 2018, Konan
Women’s University, Kobe, 5-8 September
The Call for Proposals closes 14 January 2018!
For more information <ila2018.org>

FROM CONTEMPT TO CURIOSITY

REVIEWS |58

Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017

Learning Learning
GETTING CONNECTED つながりを求めて
LOCAL GET-TOGETHER REPORTS
Kansai Get-together Report
Agnes PatkoWe have held our meetings every
month at a community centre in
Kyoto and provided continuous
professional support to each other. Due to a
new email communication system, we managed
to inform all members of the SIG in the area
about our activities. We had new participants
almost every month in the spring semester.
After the very successful first Kansai to theWorld Conference in the Autumn of 2016, thegroup decided to organise the event again. This
year it was held in June as the venue had alreadybeen booked by one of the SIG members foranother event, which had been cancelled. As
result, the rooms became available forus. Organising the student conference was mucheasier and quicker than last year. We received
positive feedback from both presenters andparticipants of the conference. At JALT 2017,
we had a meeting with the organisers of
ILA2018 and decided that K2W3 will be held at
ILA2018. It will hopefully attract a large numberof presenters. Although there is obvious student
interest, the Kansai group do not want toconcentrate solely on event organisation.
The biggest challenge that we have been
facing is attracting people to the get-togethers.
Even though we get new participants, it is hardto keep them active. Compared to people in theTokyo area, people in Kansai are less willing totake an hour or longer train ride to attend theget-togethers. Discussing current issues related
to teaching does not seem to satisfy members.
Also, discussions about the student conference
during the get-together time may prevent a
number of people from attending due to a lackof interest in the event.

LOCAL GET-TOGETHERS

We have been talking about joint research plans,but, owing to various factors, such as different
teaching contexts and research interests, andinconsistent participation in meetings, we havenot managed to make any concrete decision yet.
Participants have expressed interest in
holding mini-presentations or workshops inwhich they can introduce a classroom activity orreport about their most recent research
results. Having talked to the regular participants,
I would like to propose that we meet bi-monthly
with a set theme or agenda. To this end, we
could send out a call for presentations
and/or workshops at the beginning of the year.

Hiroshima 2017 Get-togethers
Jim Ronald

T

he Hiroshima LD Get-togethers havebeen happening now for a decade or
more, with some years of regularmonthly meetings, and some of less regular—
and also some where nothing happens. Apartfrom our looming Inter-university Scrabble
Contest, 2017 has been a “nothing happened”
year, at least this far. Maybe a fallow year in
preparation for a bigger harvest next year? Ormaybe a chance to think differently about how
to do things? For example, being reminded at
the JALT conference of the importance ofworkplace teacher groups, I wonder whether the
local group might work well as a supporter,
encourager of these at different schools oruniversities. Easier for many people to join, andostensibly more relevant to many teachers, too?
For me, over the decade of local LD Gettogethers, two benefits that stand out for me
have been the building of friendships, and theopportunities for languaging—giving shape andpurpose to fuzzy reflections. Certainly, thesecond could well work online—with a
Facebook group, like the Kansai LD gettogethers, or similar. And the first throughhelping to foster workplace groups—and just

GETTING CONNECTED |59

Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017

Learning Learning
being more sociable? Looking forward to what
we can do in 2018—and appreciating the
support of Tokyo and Kansai Get-togethers!

Tokyo
Get-togethers:
September 2017

January-

Andy Barfield, Ian Hurrell and Jenny MorganW

ith Ken Ikeda starting his sabbaticalin California and after many years ofholding the Tokyo Get-togethers at
Otsuma Women’s University, the get-togethers
moved to Rikkyo University Ikebukuro campus
from April 2017. Based on discussions andfeedback from participants at the January andFebruary get-togethers, we decided to moveaway from holding individual research-themed
workshops of the previous year’s get-togethers
to focusing on building continuity between gettogethers by encouraging the creation ofcollaborative groups that would meet anddiscuss over several get-togethers with a mind to
start a shared project at some point.
Accordingly, we followed this structure in April,May, and June:
14.00-14.15 Mingling and meeting in pairs
14.15-14.45 Talking about people’s working
contexts, research interests and goals; miniposter making about their Learner
Development interests
14.45-15.00 Sharing posters; finding possible
connections for group discussion
15.00-15.15 Short break
15.15-16.45 Pair and small-group discussions
exploring shared interests, puzzles, andpossible collaborations/projects
16.45-17.00 Whole group reflection circle toshare a brief summary of the focus of eachgroup’s discussion.
To further encourage continuity between gettogethers we also decided to try out a newprocess for the post get-together write-ups.

LOCAL GET-TOGETHERS

Each group created their own Google Doc torecord the content of their discussions anddevelop together a narrative of theircollaboration that they might refer to from one
get-together to another. Links to the groups’
Google Docs are then published in the generalwrite-up of the get-together on the LD website
so that they can be viewed publicly (seehttp://ld-sig.org/2017-tokyo-get-togethers/).
The spring semester started with our April
get-together attended by a dozen or somembers at LD Tokyo’s new venue at Rikkyo
University Ikebukuro Campus. The theme ofthis first gathering was “Beginnings: Ideas andPossibilities for Collaborative Learner Development
Projects: Sharing Interests and Starting Questions.”
Attendees spent time sharing with newmembers about their teaching contexts, researchinterests, learner-teacher puzzles, and goals forattending the LD get-togethers, and as well ascatching up with old friends since the winterbreak. Then, participants created and sharedmini-posters summarizing our individual LD
interests, challenge/puzzles, and goals looking
for possible connections for collaboration.
This led to people splitting off into smaller
interest groups that included: a motivational
strategies group; a reflection group discussing
reflective practices and processes in learner andteacher development; and a research analysis
group for teachers who wanted to discuss theircurrent personal research and writing projects.
We ended this get-together with a commitment
by group members to contribute to a shortreflective report about their discussions to beshared on the LD website.
The May get-together was attended by asimilar number of people, and had the theme of“Explorations: Sharing Possibilities for Collaborative
Learner Development Projects: Exploring Puzzles andFinding New Paths.” We hoped that people
would continue with the April interest groups,
forming or re-forming other interest groups—
the groups and projects are not fixed, and arealways open to new people joining in. Groups
discussed learner development projects theywould like to do in collaboration with (an)otherget-together participant(s). At that stage, we had

GETTING CONNECTED |60

Learning Learningin mind the informal afternoon conference,
Creating Community: Learning Together 4, tentatively
proposed for December 2017. At the end of the
May get-together, each group agreed to write up
a report of their discussions using Google Docs.
We also talked about keeping contact andmomentum for our projects through to the next
get-together in June.
A small but nonetheless lively group met for
the June get-together: “Progressions—Continuingwith Our Interest Groups and Learner Development
Issues.” One member shared a specificpresentation she was working on for a summer
conference. Then, in response to a member’squestion “What is learner development?,” welaunched into an extended discussion about
different aspects of learner development
processes and puzzles. An ongoing discussion
and work in progress!
At the end of July, the Tokyo get-together
coordination team (Andy, Ian, Jenny) met forreflection and discussion about the springsemester. We realise that while LD SIG
members have a strong interest in discussing
learner development issues, many are
increasingly busy and find it hard to attend gettogethers regularly and there has been a
noticeable a drop off in attendance at themonthly get-togethers. This has made it difficult
to cultivate collaboration and continuity
between get-togethers, which is the primary
purpose of the meetings. As a result, we decided
to put on hold the December CCLT4 informal
afternoon conference.

Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017

focus on identifying common issues of interest,
discussing collaborative research and writing
projects about learner development, andplanning how to put their researchideas/puzzles/questions into action in thespring semester. Then, in the interim period
from May to September/October, eachcollaborative group would meet decentrally to
discuss the implementation of their researchideas, according to group members’ schedules,
using online tools such as Skype and sometimes
meeting face to face for a bite to eat and drink
together, as and when people had space andtime to do so. In the final period of the year
“conventional” get-togethers in September
and/or October would let groups start toconsolidate their work with a view to sharing it
publicly by the end of the year (December) or
the start of the next (January).
• Would such a blended approach offer a way
forward for 2018?
• Are there other approaches that you feel
would be worth trying?
• How can the get-togethers be run so thatthey work for you?
We are looking forward to meeting with you
and hearing your views or by email at<ldsigtokyogettogethers@gmail.com>.

At the time of writing this in early September
we are looking forward to opening a discussion
among LD members in the greater Tokyo area
about how to re-energize participation in gettogethers or, indeed, whether to continue theget-togethers in 2018 or not. One alternative
might be to move towards a blended approachfor the get-togethers, for example, combining
face-to-face get-togethers in the first few
sessions of the year (say January, February,
April, and May) with decentralised small-groupmeetings from May to September, and wholegroup meetings in October and December. In
the initial months of the year participants might

LOCAL GET-TOGETHERSGETTING CONNECTED |61

Learning Learning

Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017LOOKING FORWARD 今後のイベント
Interviews with the Editors of the Learner Development Journal Issues
1, 2, and 3『The Learner Development Journal』誌（第 1 号、第２号、第３号）編集者との対談『The Learner Development Journal』誌は、JALT の学習者ディベロプメント研究部会発
行のオープンアクセスジャーナルです。同誌は、第二言語習得の学習者の成長に関する諸問題について、実践者主導による研究、各種レビュー・インタビューなどを中心に掲載。
2017 年秋に、創刊号をオンラインで出版する予定です。
ここでは、アリソン・スチュワート、ティム・アシュウェル、アンディ・バーフィールドの３氏をホスト役として、今後発行予定の３号それぞれの編集者との対談をお届けします。対談では、編集者間での協力、著者、査読者など、雑誌発行にまつわる人々とのエピソードなどについて伺いました。各号の編集チームは、それぞれ出版に向けて違った段階にありますので、会員の皆さんには、さまざまな編集過程に触れていただけると思います。また今後、編集者や投稿者、査読者などとして『The Learner Development Journal』
誌に携わっていただく際の参考となれば幸いです。
『The Learner Development Journal』誌について、詳しいことは学習者ディベロプメント
研究部会のウェブサイト：http://ld-sig.org/ld-journal-concept/ までどうぞ。

T

he Learner Development Journal is the online, open-access journal of the JALT Learner
Development SIG, devoted to practitioner-driven research, reviews, and interviews exploring
learner development issues in second language education. Its inaugural issue was published
online in the autumn of 2017.
Here, Alison Stewart, Tim Ashwell, and Andy Barfield of the journal’s steering group interview theeditors of the first three issues about their experiences of working together with each other and with thewriters, reviewers, and others involved in the issue’s creation. As each editorial team is at a different
stage along the path to publication with their respective issue of the journal, it is our hope that thesethree interviews will make the journal and editorial processes familiar to everyone in the Learner
Development SIG, as well as encourage SIG members to consider becoming in the future an editor,
contributor, reviewer, or member of the Journal Steering Group.
To find out more about the journal, please visit the current Learner Development SIG website at
http://ldjournalsite.wordpress.com/.

LDJ EDITOR INTERVIEWSLOOKING FORWARD |62

Learning Learning
An Interview with the Co-Editors of
Issue 1 of The Learner Development
Journal,“Visualizing
LearnerDevelopment”
Darren Elliott and Hugh Nicoll, with Alison
StewartA

lison: Thank you, Darren and Hugh,for taking part in this email interview.
I’d like to start, if I may, by asking
about your particular interests in learnerdevelopment issues, and what appeals to you
about the theme of the issue 1, “Visualising
Learner Development.”
Darren: Some of my recent research has
been into learners’ metaphors for learning, andways in which those metaphors connect toautonomous actions and beliefs, so when thistheme was suggested I saw an instantconnection. Of course, metaphor is just one wayof “visualizing.” I wanted to see how otherteacher-researchers in different contexts
interpreted the theme. I am really happy withthe diverse range of ideas and voices we will bepresenting in the first issue.
Alison: Thank you, Darren. How about
you, Hugh?
Hugh: Visualising Learner Development asa theme for the first volume of the journal feels
like a natural fit for me in several senses. First ofall, I suppose, because I was aware through my
firstteaching
experiencesofthecyclical/reciprocal
natureoftheteaching/learning continuum, and that theyliterally and metaphorically made me aware oflearning environments as new worlds that I
needed to imagine fully in order to navigate andunderstand. I am remembering first my workwith elementary school children who lived in
the neighborhood of the church my family

LDJ EDITOR INTERVIEWS

Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017attended in Washington, D. C. in the 1960s. We
had moved to D. C. from rural Maine, so acting
as a reading and writing tutor (as a junior highschool student myself) with mostly 8 to 10 year
old African American boys constituted achallenging and engaging introduction to thecomplexity of the world. My second shaping
experience began just after I graduated fromhigh school, when I started training to become amountaineering instructor.
Those experiences took me back to thewoods of my early childhood, but also triggered
efforts on my part to link the physical,
conceptual, and leadership challenges ofworking in outdoor education to ideas of an
intuitive sense that my natural way of framing
learning and teaching questions is essentiallykinaesthetic, and having become a professor of
American literature and cultural history, I see allof the key issues in learner development as partof a great interdisciplinary continuum, where,
like Darren the centrality of metaphor isfundamental to the journeys we undertake aslearners and as teachers.
Alison: So, whereas Darren, your interest in
this theme is the natural continuation of theresearch you’ve been doing recently, Hugh, yourinterest has very deep roots that extend backthrough your long career as a teacher: an
interesting contrast. But both of you see
metaphor and other ways of visualizing orexperiencing learner development as crucial to
its realization, right? I share your views about
the importance of metaphor, but I’ve tended tothink of it more as abstract concepts rather thanconcrete images. So I’m looking forward to
discovering some of the different approaches
that you have been working with for this firstissue.
But first, as this is the first issue of a newjournal, I’d wonder if you would briefly describe
the process of starting a new publication fromLOOKING FORWARD | 63

Learning Learning
scratch? And can you give us an idea of how
many people are actually involved in thisprocess?
Darren: I came into the process a little after
the decision had been taken to start the journal,
although as is usual with the LD SIG, theconsultation process has been fairly transparent.
As I understand it, the concept behind thisjournal goes back to previous LD SIG
publications like Autonomy You Ask! (AYA) andMore Autonomy You Ask! (MAYA) (which I readin the UK as a graduate student) and Realizing
Autonomy (to which I contributed). That is, weare hoping to offer writer-researcherpractitioners a chance to collaborate much moreclosely than they would on a regular journal. We(Hugh and I) have worked fairly closely with thewriters of each paper, and at various stages eachof the writers have read and commented onother papers submitted to the first issue. A
couple of the papers we received were almost
complete, but have been rewritten after
commentary from other writers. Some of thepapers started off as research notes or proposals
and have taken a lot more work to build into thefinal versions we will see published soon.
We also have a Review Network drawn
from the LD SIG membership who havelooked at later iterations of each paper andgiven yet more useful feedback. Each paper will
have been seen by at least half a dozen people,
all of whom have made astute observations,
before completion. Fundamentally, we hopethat this journal will be supportive andcollaborative. We aim to develop papers, rather
than accept or reject submissions.
I’ll be honest… I don’t really enjoy thefiddly bits at the end of the process, but we havea great team of proofreaders, reviewers, andtechnicians sweating over the final product.
Being curators of the first issue is both
especially onerous and a great privilege. On the

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Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017
one hand, we have to do everything fromscratch, but that enables us to shape the journal
as we would like to see it (to some extent, atleast).
Hugh: Not a lot to add to Darren’s
description of the process above, though ofcourse, having been involved in LD SIG
projects since 1994, I have benefited from thecollaborative processes by which AYA, MAYA,
Realizing Autonomy, and other more recent
projects have been brought into the world.
Like Darren, I find the “fiddly bits” a big
challenge, especially now that I am retired, but
as too-busy adjunct faculty, trying to juggle
research writing and editing with the realities of
my current part-timer’s life. That said, thesometimes hard slog of engagement in others’
re-writing challenges is both tough andinspiring.
Alison: That sounds like quite a mammoth
venture, and I know that you are both still hard
at work on the “fiddly bits” involved in
finalising all the articles as well as the new
website for the journal. I wonder if I could
home in on the various stages that you describe
in order to find out more about the concept of
the journal and the way you are attempting torealize it in the first issue.
First of all, your work with the authors: I
notice you use the term “writer-researcherpractitioner”—one step up from the morefamiliar “researcher-practitioner”! How does
writing become part of the process of researchand practice, and how do you see your role aseditors in this process? Furthermore, when you
say, Darren, that some of the papers were
submitted as almost complete and thenrewritten in response to reviewers’ comments,
whereas others were submitted as research notesor proposals and required a lot of work todevelop, could you tell us a little more about
what worked well and what you hope thatLOOKING FORWARD | 64

Learning Learningprospective writers (and editors) in future issues
could aim for?
Darren: I added writer to the term as it wasalways our intention to work with the writing
more closely if required. The usual process is tocomplete the research, write up the paper, andsubmit it to various journals. Most of the time,
editors will only accept papers which need little
revision. However, because each issue of ourjournal is themed fairly specifically it is unlikelythat an “off-the-peg” article would fit—actually,
we rejected several good papers because they
didn’t match our theme (although we did takethe trouble to suggest more appropriate homes
for each of them).
The paper we worked on the most was one
which came to us as a proposal rather than apiece of completed research. For various
reasons, the research didn’t go entirely to plan...
but the process of reworking the goals wasreally interesting. It’s actually rare that research
DOES work out exactly as intended, of course.
What was particularly interesting for me froman editorial perspective was assisting the“writer-researcher-practitioners”
inrepositioning themselves within the data they
had and coming up with a paper which wasquite different from the one they had originallyproposed.
Alison: You mention the Review
Network—members of the SIG with a special
interest or expertise in the subject of the issue—
who got involved in reading the articles in thelater stages of the process. Can you tell us more
about their role and how they contributed to thearticles?
Darren: After the writers had commented
on one another’s papers and revised their own
on that advice, we distributed the papers
amongst a network of LD SIG members. Eachof the papers was reviewed by two of the

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Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017
Review Network members. As far as possible, I
tried to match “contrasting” reviewers to each
paper—that is, I hoped that by choosing two
reviewers with different backgrounds we may
get wider perspectives in the feedback. The
Review Network is fairly diverse in nature so wewere able to achieve that, I think.
Hugh: I’m going to jump in and write alittle about the upcoming stages as we movetoward the completion of the project: Final
proofing and layout, then uploading (actual
publication) to the web. It looks like we’re goingto need to complete a two-step move, forpractical reasons, which will involve moving thecurrent SIG web site <ld-sig.org> to a new
WordPress install on the JALT server, and thencreate a subdomain for the journal. This isperhaps tediously technical as a subject for somemembers of the SIG, but in the interests oftransparency, it may be good for people tounderstand that beyond the conceptual andlogistical challenges of editorial communications
and policy discussions, there are further
logistical and aesthetic challenges in creating thefinal draft files in pdf format and creating a website for sharing the articles.
Alison: So, the publication of the newjournal still involves a whole range of important
decisions to be made about what it should look
like and where it should be kept. From my own
position in the sidelines as a member of thesteering group with Tim and Andy, I know thatmany of these “fiddly” processes have beencollaborative and consensual, even though thatis not easy, especially as we get closer to the dateof publication.
But, all credit to you, Hugh and Darren, theissue is on target to come out as scheduled next
month. No spoilers, but can you give us apreview of what we will find in it?

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Learning Learning
Darren: Sometimes English teachers canfind themselves tucked away in their own
parochial pockets so personally I want this to be
an international journal. I can tell you that wehave papers from Italy and Finland in the firstissue, which I am very happy about. Hugh and I
are still working on our introductory paper so
we are picking out the threads that run throughthe articles and tying them together. One pointthat stands out is that the papers are largely
research that has emerged from practice, rather
than research conducted for its own sake. Thisis also very pleasing, and I think accessible andinspirational for other teachers considering
dipping their toes into the murky waters of
research.
Hugh: I couldn’t agree more about how
pleasing it is to be working with teachers whoare committed to research writing that is
growing out of their exploration of the
dynamics of the teaching-learning relationship.
We are also looking forward to the final chapter,a reflection on the issue as a whole, from Alice
Chik. Some LD SIG members may remember
theworkshoponvisualizing
learnerdevelopment that she led at the JALT 2015
international conference.
Alison: Yes, I remember it! A reallystimulating session that opened up new
possibilities for exploring identity and learning.
It’s wonderful to see the project of creatinga new international, practitioner-based journal
coming to fruition with this issue. I have no
doubt that the articles in it will be met with agreat deal of interest in the Learner
Development SIG and beyond, and perhaps
lead to new practices with new puzzles andproblems for further research.
Darren and Hugh, thank you both so muchfor taking the time to talk about your work on
the journal, and good luck with the final stages!

LDJ EDITOR INTERVIEWS

Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017

An Interview with the Co-Editors of
Issue 2 of The Learner Development
Journal, “Qualitative Research Into
Learner Development”
Chika Hayashi, Masuko Miyahara and Patrick
Kiernan, with Tim AshwellFor the second issue of the journal theeditors are Chika Hayashi, Masuko
Miyahara and Patrick Kiernan. At thetime of writing, they are working with thecontributors as they approach the deadline for a
first full draft of their papers. All three editors
are based in Japan, but Patrick is away on an
extended sabbatical at the University ofBirmingham in the UK. I wanted to start theemail interview with them by asking what
appeals to them about the theme of Issue 2 of
the journal, “Qualitative Research into Learner
Development.”
Tim: Chika, Masuko, and Patrick manythanks for doing this email interview when thedeadline for the first full drafts for Issue 2 islooming.
I wonder if we could start with your own
interests in learner development issues, andwhat personally and professionally appeals toeach of you about the theme of issue 2,“Qualitative
Research
into
LearnerDevelopment.”
Chika: A decade ago, I carried out aqualitative research study on learnerdevelopment. It was very impressive to me not
only because it was my first longitudinal semiintervention research but also because I myself
realised the dynamic process of qualitative
research. In addition to interview andobservation, the data collected through adouble-entry journal that I constantly exchanged
with a teacher connected me to the core of her

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Learning Learninginternal aspects and helped me to understandhercomplexlyinterwoven
identity.
Triangulating the data, I felt that the wholeprocess of qualitative research is like a catalytic
activity between participants and researcher aswell as among data. Reflecting on my researchhistory, qualitative approaches are somethingthat I have been fascinated by and also desired
to explore for a long time. I am looking forward
to engaging in another catalyst activity with
Masuko, Patrick, and all the contributors in thisissue!
Masuko: The idea of learner development
and autonomy in language education has been
fairly well established now. There are currently agreat deal of research studies that examine LDfrom various perspectives and in a diversity ofcontexts, and a large number of them appear totake a qualitative approach. However, when weread these published works, only a few attempt
to discuss the methodological challenges of theresearch itself. I thought it is now time to stop,and reflect on these issues before moving
forward to the next stage of LD research.
Patrick: The thing that excited me about
the topic of this issue was the focus on
qualitative methodology. Although learning
development has of course been studied
quantitatively and qualitatively, it seems to me
that the issues that are of real interest, at least toteachers like myself, are the ones that can only
really be explored qualitatively. The way learnerautonomy is tied up with personal identity andrelationships inside and outside the classroom
means that there is much to be learned from thekind of fine grained analysis that qualitative
methods provide. Qualitative approaches also
potentially offer a more natural role for theteacher-researcher. At the same time, qualitative
research has tended to be misunderstood or
misrepresented as something inferior toquantitative research or as merely a stage

LDJ EDITOR INTERVIEWS

Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017
towards quantitative verification. Hopefully, as
Masuko suggests, this issue will be an
opportunity to take stock and celebrate therewards of qualitative approaches. Also, as
Chika points out, there are real rewards fromsharing ideas with contributors and fellow
editors.
Tim: It seems as if all three of you havedeveloped an interest in qualitative research(QualR) over a number of years and that you
see your involvement in this issue of the LD
Journal as a way to take stock and to share yourown experiences with others. Maybe you also
see this as an opportunity to expound some ofthe strengths of a QualR approach as well as
challenging some of the misconceptions thatyou feel surround it?
Patrick: Yes, certainly in my case, I would
agree with that assessment.
Tim: I wonder if I can move on to a second
set of questions? Could you each tell me about
getting this issue of the Journal off the ground?
How did you organize the call forcontributions/proposals and how did you go
about inviting a guest contributor (AnneBurns)? Also, could you explain why you choseto hold a one-day retreat for all the contributors
and tell me how that went?
Patrick: Well, although this is an editorial
team, I think teams always work best with aleader and Masuko both invited me to join theissue after volunteering herself and has been
instrumental in coordinating everything
including inviting Anne Burns as a guest
contributor. She has incredible charm withgetting people to do things! Meanwhile, among
other things, Chika did an amazing job oforganizing a retreat for the contributors to shareinitial thoughts face to face. Sessions on SkypeLOOKING FORWARD | 67

Learning Learningand email communications have also made it
feel a very collaborative process.
Chika: I joined the team after almost
everything had been organised, so the retreat
was the first collaborative activity I engaged inwith the other editors and contributors. To mysurprise, all the contributors joined the session
although we were based in different places andeven countries! Before the retreat, we created a
set of outlines about the proposals and shared itwith all the contributors so that they could readit beforehand. At the retreat, each contributor
explained about their research proposals andthen received feedback from the othercontributors as well as the editors. It was aserious but friendly atmosphere and somemembers went out for dinner afterwards. Afterthe retreat, some of them expressed their desire
to have social/academic gatherings on a regularbasis! It was a pity that Patrick could not join us
for the retreat, but he was there for emotional
support as well!
Masuko: After the proposal had been
accepted by the Journal Steering Group (JSG),
the first thing was to get a line-up for theeditorial team—a group of people who would
not only be interested in the topic, but also
editorial work. Secondly, they would draft up
the CfP, and at the same time decide theschedule or flow of the project. We tossed
around the draft for this with the members of
the JSG several times, and I believe it was
through this process that things became clearer.
Setting up the deadlines was quite tricky.
Our first major event was the retreat. I was
skeptical at the beginning because we had arange of contributors from different parts of theworld, and was not sure if things would work.
Overseas authors and people who were not able
to join us in person participated through Skype.
The time difference was a bit tricky, but wewere able to pull it off. It was great in the sense

LDJ EDITOR INTERVIEWS

Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017that we not only were able to talk to each otherabout our projects, but it gave us an opportunity
to get to know each other. I believe this made iteasier to communicate. Chika, thanks for taking
the lead in organizing the event. For this issue,
we were very fortunate to have Dr. Anne Burns
as a guest contributor. I happen to know her
through her work, and when I met up with her
at JALT 2016, I talked to her about our project
as well as the possibility of writing a shortcommentary for the issue. To my surprise, shevery generously agreed to this.
Tim: The retreat (both face to face andonline) sounds like a really great idea! You seemto have been able to forge a bit of a group
identity and, as you say, this has probably helped
a lot with communications since.
Masuko: Yes, I think if you can put a face
to a name, it gives people a sense that they areindeed interacting with another human being, so
to speak, and not just talking to a ‘machine.’
This is really important especially when you
have a group of people from all over the world
with different expertise and experience. For me,
this is the most fun and interesting part in a
project like this.
Tim: OK, so moving on to the writing
process itself: Could you tell me how you havefound working with writers on their first drafts
and scaffolding writer-to-writer interaction?
Patrick: Well, of course, everyone isdifferent and so far, after settling on the initialoutlines, I have found one writer sharing thewhole process with me and another keeping mein suspense (laughs). But yes, seriously, thediscussion I have had with one writer has
allowed me to see how intimidating it can seem
to present an intimate study as “Qualitative
Research.” At one point, I thought we mightend up with one less contributor, but it has been
impressive to witness how pushing beyond such

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Learning Learning
worries can really generate a lot of energy. This
has also fed into my own thoughts about learner
identity as well as inspiring me to get things
done myself.
Chika: So far, I regularly contact thecontributors to see how things are going andprovide support whenever necessary. Once I
receive their first draft, I will work more closelywith them. Also, some members from LD
Journal Review Network will join later, so I am
looking forward to seeing how the collaborative
process will be expanded and even transformed
throughout the whole process of the project!
Masuko: We are just about to start
receiving first full drafts. Since people are all
busy with their daily things, I think it isimportant for editors to give gentle reminders,and ask for outlines, etc. This helps not only theauthors to consolidate their ideas, but also gives
us, the editors, a chance to see how things areproceeding, and give our feedback whenevernecessary.
Tim: So, plenty of reminding and cajolingmixed in with “support”…?! But, interesting
how interacting with people who are writing
about qualitative research requires a lot of
sensitivity and how it can help you reflect onsome of the knotty issues for people engaging in
QualR. I wonder if this is one of the more
rewarding aspects of being an editor—being
challenged to understand the topic from anotherperspective and to expand your own
understanding as a result.
Finally, could you tell me how you work
together as co-editors? Has it been easy to keep
yourselves and the other contributors to a fairly
clear schedule? What have been the joys andchallenges of working as a team of three? Etc.
Patrick: For me the biggest concern has
been the issue of working at a distance. I am not

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Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017
entirely comfortable with Skype and missing out
on the retreat, altogether, I was afraid that I
would end up out of sync with everyone.
However, in spite of being very obviously busy
with work and many other commitments Chika
and Masuko have done an amazing job of
keeping a line of communication and keeping
on top of the schedule and communication withboth me and the writers. A case in point wasthat after the retreat they prepared a detailed
report, which really put me in the picture. I feelthat both Masuko and Chika are people I canreally trust with similar outlooks making forwhat feels like a harmonious team.
Chika: This is my first time to work as an
editor, but Masuko and Patrick invited me tothe team in a natural and friendly manner, so I
could join the team smoothly. We regularly
contact each other and report on what is goingon between the contributors, so I can see that
we are moving on at our own pace, keeping ourschedule in mind. More importantly, I believethat a mutually supportive environment that
Masuko and Patrick naturally co-constructed
before or at the initial stage of the issue is oneof the key elements for a novice editor like me
to embark on a new collaborative project withexperienced editors.
Masuko: As the chief editor, I think mymain job was to keep things rolling, so to speak.
This is, thus, what I have been doing: providing
updates, sending out reminders, etc. Patrick andChika are the ones that are really doing the“job.” We have created a very friendly, warmand supportive atmosphere, and I am certainly
lucky to be working with them. We have juststarted, but I am looking forward to working
with them.
Tim: It sounds like a dream team! A blendof experience and energy! It is great that Chikafeels comfortable in her first editing role. It is

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Learning Learning
exactly what we hope the Journal will do:
nurture new editors and writers. I hope yourexample will inspire others both within andoutside the SIG to step forward and join in thedevelopment of the Journal. Thank you to all
three of you for sharing your thoughts so
openly. And, of course, good luck with Issue 2!

An Interview with the Co-Editors Of
Issue 3 of The Learner Development
Journal, “Learner Identities andTransitions”
Christina Gkonou, Jim Ronald & Yoshio Nakai,with Andy BarfieldFor the third issue of the journal theeditors are Christina Gkonou, Jim
Ronald, and Yoshio Nakai. At the timeof writing in August & September 2017, they are
working on developing the Call for Papers andsharing ideas about how they want to approachdeveloping their work with each other together.
While Jim and Yoshio are based in Japan andare active members of the Learner
Development SIG, Christina is the director of
the MA TESOL programme at the University ofEssex in England and is the SIG's guest at
JALT2017. I wanted to start the email interview
with Christina, Jim, and Yoshio by asking about
their particular interests in learner development
issues, and what appeals to them about thetheme of the issue 3, “Learner Identities andTransitions.”
Andy: Christina, Jim, and Yoshio, manythanks for doing this email interview at the sametime as you are starting to get know each otherand work on the Call for Papers for issue 3 ofthe journal. Perhaps a good place to start would
be with your own interests in learner

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Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017
development issues, and what personally andprofessionally appeals to each of you about thetheme of issue 3, “Learner Identities andTransitions.”
Christina: I have always been interested in
how learners “change” throughout the processof learning a foreign language; and by “change”
here I refer to changes to and shifts in boththeir level of cognitive and linguistic
development and also their personalities andidentities, i.e., who they are as learners and as
individuals. A number of transitions take placewhen learning a foreign language (for example
that of becoming a speaker or user of a new
language, getting to know more about a new
culture etc.) which are fascinating to investigate
and reflect on.
Jim: The two sides of this theme, learner
identities and transitions, have become
increasingly important to me as I’ve noticed
how changed identities, even just titles, canmake a massive difference. For example, atconferences last year I noticed a great difference
in student helpers: ones I’m sure were labelled“sign holders” did just that, while others who
realized that they were the welcoming face ofthe conference really took on that role. Just asmall example, but it reminded me how
important these issues are, and how I need tolearn more about them!
Yoshio: Building on what Christina and Jim
have said, speaking of learner identities reminds
me that “learner” is just one of aspects ofsomeone appearing in the context of language
learning. So, I always think and see learners ascomplex organisms with various kinds ofidentities trying to realize different identities
through learning and using languages.
Andy: You all point to many questions notjust around how learners see (and think about

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Learning Learning
seeing) different identities and transitions thatthey can create and perform, but also about how(and why) others create, assign and enable orconstrain the development of identities andtransitions for learners too ... as well as
questions of focus on individual learners and/or
groups of learners …
Christina: Yes, it would indeed be very
interesting to look at learner identities andtransitions individually and as a coherent whole,that is to say how they are shaped in thelanguage classroom and also how learners andtheir identities function with connection toother environments they are embedded in.
Yoshio: Raising questions about learner
identities and transitions for me is about how
language teachers and supporters may betterknow the complexity of learner and language
learning and explore what and how we can dofor them through teaching and supporting, forinstance in the language classroom.
Jim: I’m also very interested in learningfrom the various ways that language teachers
and learners view and deal with these issues—inthat way being an editor is at heart a fairly
selfish activity!
Andy: You each have a great sense oflearning from working with a group of teacherresearchers together. As you are getting to knoweach other, I was wondering how you feel about
working together as editors in this project,
developing communities of practices withwriters, responding to them, and seeing things
through to publication...
Christina: Jim, Yoshi, and I have only met
virtually, but I am sure we all look forward tomeeting in person very soon. Working withthem will be a wonderful opportunity to
exchange views on a topic that is of greatinterest to us all and also work towards

LDJ EDITOR INTERVIEWS

Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017supporting our writers and ensuring that the
papers that will be part of this special issue
inform each other and lead to a better
understanding of learner identities acrossdifferent contexts.
Jim: As Christina mentions, we have nevermet (but I’m looking forward to it!), and that
adds a dimension that I hope we are gettingused to. Anyway, to me the heart of language
use is not how we get things done, but how we
can build good relationships as we work
together. We’ll make mistakes, misunderstandeach other, maybe let each other down attimes… but our challenge is to deal with all
that—to work well as a team, to get the job
done, and to appreciate each other better!
Yoshio: I really appreciate that I can havethis wonderful opportunity. Working with
Christina and Jim as editors is a big challenge
for me as a researcher on learner autonomy anda language user as well. This seems to me that I
am exercising autonomy to realize what I want
to be as a researcher using English.
Andy: It’s great to see those challenges
from such a proactive perspective. And
speaking of challenges, how is drafting the Callfor Papers going?
Christina: We are nearly there with the Callfor Papers, and I think Jim and Yoshi havewonderful ideas about how best to describe thecontent of this special issue and what we, as
guest editors, would envisage for it. More tofollow soon so stay tuned!
Jim: We’re getting there! (As British Railonce lamely claimed…) Making it a cooperative
venture from the start does take more time thanhaving just one person do a first draft, but we’rehoping it’ll be worth it for everyone involved in
Issue 3. Contributions won’t follow quite the

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Learning Learning
same path, but we hope that the shared venture
element will be true for all of us.
Yoshio: As working has just started, any
clear ideas doesn’t hit on me at the moment, but
I hope that we can create the communities ofpractices of learner autonomy researchers andpractitioners where we can discuss our ideas
freely about learners.
Andy: Are there particular reviews andinterviews that you feel might be an integral partof issue 3 too?
Jim: Just a thought, but a kind of annotatedbibliography would be a very useful part of themix—whether as one person’s contribution oras a kind of shared reading project. Any takers?!
Yoshio: I’m really looking forward to seeing
how everyone involved in this issue reachtowards new understandings through discussing
from various perspectives with autonomous andcooperative practitioners. As Jim said, I think it
is because contributions will go along different
kinds of path, and this will bring new discovery
of issues of learner identities and transitions.
Christina: It’s difficult to tell at this stage,and it will largely depend on what proposals andcontributions we will receive to ensure that we
maintain cohesion in the issue, but overall it
would be interesting to also interview
practitioners and researchers who work on thetheme of learner identities. They will bringdifferent perspectives to the topic as well assuggestions for researching and addressing
learner identities in the classroom, as Jim andYoshi also highlight.

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Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017
Andy: Yes—things are still unfolding as you
talk through your ideas with each other andimagine different possibilities for this project.
It’s fascinating to see this sense of emergent“co-understanding”
and“co-imagination”
developing between you. Many thanks,
Christina, Jim, and Yoshi, for sharing the startof your collaboration, as well as your hopes inwanting to bring together a group of teacherresearchers to explore “learner identities andtransitions.”
We’re looking forward to hearing morefrom you as the Call for Papers takes shape—
and as potential contributors start imagining
how they may take part in such explorations
with their learners, with you as editors, and withother teacher-researchers (or “writer-researcherpractitioners” to use Darren and Hugh’s term)in the group that forms and works together on
Issue 3 of The Learner Development Journal. I hope
you have the chance to talk with many different
people at JALT2017—and with each other too.

To read the completed Call for Papers
for Issue 3, please visit
https://ldjournalsite.wordpress.com/
issue-three-identities-and-transitions2019/
Initial inquiries and proposals should bedirected to Jim Ronald at jmronald@gmail.com.

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Volume 24 Issue 3 Winter 2017

SIG MATTERS インフォメーション
Learner Development SIG Financial Report
Huw Davies, SIG Treasurer
The SIG’s finances are currently in good health, with total revenue over expenses so far of 111,145 JPY.
Some minimal administrative outgoings are expected in the current financial year, but we can expect tocarry forward a strong balance into next year.
SIG fund balance, December 1, 2017 / SIG 資金残高 2017 年 12 月 1 日
Balance in bank account / 銀行口座の残高
Reserve liabilities / JALT 本部預け金
Cash on hand / 現金
Balance / 合計

331,383
200,000
5,402
536,785

Revenues: April – November, 2017.
Annual grant from JALT National
PanSIG program fee
Book sales
Balance / 合計

219,276
52,3381,000
272,614

Expenses: April – November, 2017PanSIG grant
JALT CALL grantKansai event costs
Research grant
Bank fees
JALT International conference grant
Balance / 合計

(40,000)(40,000)(6,161)(25,000)(308)(50,000)(161,469)

Next financial year (running from April 2018 to March 2019), we can expect similar revenues from
JALT and similar expenses on LD SIG grants with a total grant fund of 200,000 JPY for 2018. In
addition, expenses of 145,000 JPY have been earmarked for sponsorship (70,000 JPY for the Learner
Development SIG Speaker at ILA 2018) and a web-servicing reimbursement for 15 years (75,000 JPY).
This will leave some money available for other projects.
If you would like to join me in administering the SIG’s finances, please do contact me, as I would like towork in an LD SIG treasury team, rather than doing this solo.
I’m looking forward to hearing from you,
Huw
Email: <h.davies1@gmail.com>

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Writing for Learning Learning 『学習の学習』応募規定Learning Learning is the Learner Development SIG newsletter and is published online biannually, in the Spring and Autumn. It has a specific ISSN number (ISSN 1882-1103), andfeatures cutting edge articles in various formats that relate to people’s ideas, reflections,experiences, and interests to do with learner development, learner autonomy, and teacher autonomy.
Many different SIG members contribute to each issue of Learning Learning, and, by doing so, create asense of shared community and learning together. Please feel free to contribute too and makeconnections within the SIG and beyond.
『学習の学習』は LD SIG のニュースレターで、年に２回（春と秋）オンライン出版されています（ISSN 1882-1103）。学習者の成長、学習者と教員の自律に関するアイディア、省察、経験や興味に関連したさまざま形式の原稿を収録しています。SIG の多くのメンバー
が『学習の学習』に寄稿し、共同体の意識を築き共に学習しています。どうぞ奮ってご投稿され、SIG 内でのまたそれを超えた繋がりを築いてください。

Contributions / 寄稿
We encourage new writing and new writers and are happy to work with you in developing your writing.
We would be delighted to hear from you about your ideas, reflections, experiences, and interests to dowith learner development, learner autonomy, and teacher autonomy.
これまでにない形式のもの、また新しい方々からのご投稿をお待ちしております。内容についてもぜひご相談ください。みなさまのご意見やお考え、ご経験、そして学習者の成長、学習者と教師の自律性に関することなど、ぜひお聞かせください。
For more details about formats and lengths (形式と長さ) of writing suitable for Learning Learning,please see below. To upload your writing to the editorial team of Learning Learning, please use this linkor go to http://ld-sig.org/information-for-contributors/ .
Many thanks.

Formats and lengths / 形式と長さ
Learning Learning is your space for continuing to make the connections that interest you. You are warmly
invited and encouraged to contribute to the next issue of Learning Learning in either English and/orJapanese. In order to provide access and opportunities for Learner Development SIG members to takepart in the SIG’s activities, we welcome writing in different formats and lengths about issues connectedwith learner and teacher development, such as:『学習の学習』は会員の皆様に興味ある繋がりを築きつづけるスペースです。次号の『学習の学習』への日本語（もしくは英語、及びニ言語で）の投稿を募集しています。メンバ

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ーの皆様に SIG の活動にご参加いただきたく、形式や長さを問わず、学習者および教師の成長に関する以下のような原稿をお待ちしております。

Short articles on issues to do with learner/teacher development and autonomy / 学習者と教師の成長・自律に関する小論#1: short individual articles (1,200 – 2,500 words)： 小論（単著） (約 3,600-7,500 字)#2: short group-written articles (1,200 – 4,000 words)： 小論（共著）(約 3,600-12,000 字)

Reflective writing about learning for learner/teacher development and autonomy / 学
習に関する省察 ー 学習者と教師の成長・自律を目指して#1: particular puzzles that you and/or your learners have about their learning, practices, development,
autonomy, and so on, and inviting other Learning Learning readers to respond (1,000 words or more)：ご
自身や学習者の悩み（学習、実践、成長、自律など）に関して、LL 読者と一緒に考えましょう。(約 4,000 字)#2: dialogue with (an)other SIG member(s) (1,000 to 2,000 words)：SIG メンバー同士の対話 (約4,000 字-8,000 字）stories of learners becoming autonomous (about 500 to 1,000 words)： 自律・成長する学習者に関する話 (約 2,000 字-4,000 字)#3: stories of your learning and teaching practices: success and failure (about 500 to 1,000 words)：学
習・教育実践の成功談・失敗談 (約 2,000 字-4,000 字)

Members’ voices / メンバーの声#1: a short personal profile of yourself as a learner and teacher and your interest in learner development(about 500 to 1,000 words) ：学習者・教員としての自身のプロフィールと学習者の成長に関する興味 (約 2,000 字-4,000 字)#2: a story of your ongoing interest in, and engagement with, particular learner development (and/or
learner autonomy) issues (about 500 to 1,000 words) ：学習者の成長や学習者の自律に関する興味や取り組み (約 2,000 字-4,000 字）#3: a short profile of your learner development research interests and how you hope to develop yourresearch (about 500 to 1,00 words) ：学習者の成長に関する研究内容と今後の研究の展望 (約2,000 字-4,000 字）#4: a short profile of your working context and the focus on learner development/learner autonomy
that a particular institution takes and/or is trying to develop in a particular curriculum (about 500 to
1,000 words)：教育環境の紹介、所属機関やカリキュラムにおける学習者の成長や自律に関する取り組み (約 2,000 字-4,000 字）

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Research & reviews / 研究 & レビュー
#1: summaries and accounts of new graduate research (1,200 – 2,500 words) ：大学院での研究内容の要約やその振り返り (約 2,400 字-5,000 字）#2: proposals for a joint project/joint research (about 500 to 1,000 words)： 協働プロジェクト・リ
サーチの提案 (約 2,000 字-4,000 字)#3: reports (of a conference presentation, research project, particular pedagogic practice, and so on, todo with learner development) (about 500 to 1,000 words)： レポート（学習者の成長に関する学会
発表、研究プロジェクト、教育実践など）(約 2,000-4,000 字)#4: reports of research in progress (about 500 to 1,000 words)： 研究中間報告(約 2,000 字-4,000 字)#5: book, website, article reviews (about 750 to 1,500 words)：書籍、ウェブサイト、論文の批評(約 3,000 字-6,000 字)Free space / フリー・スペース#1: photographs, drawings, and/or other visual materials about learner development, and/or related tolearner autonomy：学習者の成長や自律に関する写真、絵、視覚資料#2: activities and tips for learner development/autonomy (about 500 to 1,000 words) ：学習者の成長・自律を促す活動やヒントの紹介 (約 1,000 字-2,000 字)#3: some other piece of writing that you would like to contribute and that is related to learnerdevelopment ：その他の学習者の成長に関する執筆#4: poems… and much more： 詩、その他。

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