Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 22 (1): LD SIG Members’ Voices

LD SIG Members' Voices
LD SIG Members' Voices offers spaces for SIG members to introduce themselves to other membersof the SIG in a variety of accessible and personalised text formats and lengths:• a short personal profile of yourself as a learner and teacher (100-200 words or so)• a short critical reflection on your history as a (language) learner at (a) particular stage(s) inyour life (around 200-500 words)• a story of your ongoing interest in, and engagement with, particular learner development (and/or learner autonomy) issues (around 500-800 words)• a short profile of your learner development research interests and how you hope to develop
your research (around 500-800 words)• a short profile of your working context and the focus on learner development that a particularinstitution where you work takes and/or is trying to develop (about 800-1200 words)• some other piece of writing that you would like to contribute and that is related to learnerdevelopment.
Many thanks to the Hiroshi Nakagawa for sharing his voice with readers of Learning
Learning. We hope other SIG members will also contribute their voice to the next issue ofLearning Learning. If you are interested in doing so, please contact the Members' Voices
coordinator, James Underwood, at <jamesmichaelunderwood@gmail.com>.
“ＬＤＳＩＧメンバーの声”は、ＳＩＧ会員の皆様が他会員の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のスペースです。例えば、以下のような様々な声を歓迎しています：• ご自身の学習者および教育者としてのプロフィールを短く紹介したもの。（約100-200語）• ご自身の（語学）学習者としての経験で、特定の場における逸話を批判的に考察したもの。（約200-500語）• ご自身が現在取り組まれている、もしくは関心を寄せていることで特に学習者ディベロプメント（または学習者の自律）に関する問題についてのもの。（約500-800語）• 学習者ディベロプメントに関するご自身の研究についての短い概要と、今後どのようにその研究を展開していきたいと考えているか紹介するもの。（約500-800語）• ご自身の勤務環境の短い概要と、勤務される特定機関で学習者ディベロプメントに関し注目している、または取り組もうとしていることについて。（約800-1200語）• その他、学習者ディベロプメントに関する内容のもの。
今号の「学習の学習」で、お声を読者の皆様と共有していただきました、Hiroshi Nakagawaさんに大変感謝致します。次号の「学習の学習」でも、他の会員の方々からのお声をお待ちしております。ご興味のある方は、Member’s VoicesのコーディネーターJames Underwood（jamesmichaelunderwood@gmail.com） までご連絡下さい。

学習者ディベロプメント研究部会 <ld-sig.org/>

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Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 22 (1): LD SIG Members’ Voices
Utilization of learners’ cultural
backgrounds for the promotion of apositive learning environment in ELLclassrooms
Hiroshi Nakagawa,
Foreign Language Center at
Tokai University,
Hiratsuka,Japan
Hiroshinakagawa@outlook.com
Currently, I am interested in how theknowledge of our learners’ cultural
backgrounds can help us to create a sage
learning community. After several years ofteaching English as a second language in theUnited States, I have formed the belief that
culturally diverse students, such as students
from different family and socio-economic
background, are unique and need extra
attention. From my experience, thesestudents are most likely to expand andimprove their pronunciation, intonation,grammatical, lexical and cultural knowledgeof a target culture through communication
with their peers in a positive and supportive
learning environment. Thus, I have been
examining ways to support my EFL students at
Tokai University and help them succeed tohave a great responsibility for their academic
and social goals.
One of my recent challenges in myreading/writing classes is creating a learning
environment that fosters the students’autonomy. At the beginning of the fallsemester of 2014, I had 8 different classes
each with 30 sophomore students, who hadtaken mainly lecture-style courses before,
and were therefore used to taking a passiverole in their learning by quietly listening,taking notes, and memorizing new vocabulary
and grammatical forms that the teacher
recommended. According to Tomlinson (1999),
EFL learner’s performance can be improvedby working towards creating a positive
learning environment through recognizing
individual learner differences. By working

with these learners and arranging seating
according to their individual needs anddifferences and encouraging them to interact
with their peers by either teaching or simply
helping each other, I started to see positive
results. Students were becoming active
learners, and there was a greater focus oncommunication with each other rather than
only with the teacher. By talking with eachother, students were becoming able to workthrough their misunderstanding and,negotiate meaning. Through this experience, I
realized that if both the teacher and students
work together to construct a cooperative andmotivating learning environment, thestudents are more likely to realize theirlearning goals and rely on their peers more ina way to becoming more autonomous.
Since the fall semester of 2014, I havefocused on creating a positive learning
environment by adapting Paydon’s (2012)
model for developing a motivational learning
environment. Paydon (2012) hypothesizes that
there are 5 levels to classroom motivation:
the first four levels—Structure, Trust,Cohesion, and Performance, focus on building
and strengthening the group. The fifth —Personal Growth— focuses on supporting theindividual’s own development. At thestructure stage, students find theirinterpersonal relationship, which provides thebasic proximity, contact, interaction, andsecurity that facilitates the development oftrust (Paydon, 2012). In order to help
students build trust and feel safe interactingwith each other, I ask them to create apersonal résumé. Each student writes his/herbirthday, interests, hobbies, favorite sports,
and academic goals. Once created, it
provided a way for the students to form andstrengthen peer to peer relationships, as bysimply asking questions about the contents of
the resume they were able to show interest ineach other. In this way, students break thelanguage barrier while speaking English toothers. By creating a friendly social
atmosphere in the classroom, students will,over time, feel more at ease in taking risks toNewsletter of the JALT Learner Development SIG <ld-sig.org/>

9Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 22 (1): LD SIG Members’ Voices
speak out in English and to share their own
ideas, thoughts, and opinions. This enables
them to move on to the next stage, Cohesion.
The aim of cohesion is to make thestudents feel safe enough to take the risk ofsharing their own ideas, thoughts, andopinions with other members of the group,not just with those who are in close
proximity. For example, I utilize students’personal information from their résumé andidentify those who have common interests.
Once identified, I group them together. I also
vary their partners and change the seating 3
times during a class in order to provide
several different types of interaction andgrouping configurations in a given lesson withgreat success. By encouraging the students tofeel empathy towards all their peers throughthe sharing of both their similarities anddifferences, the class as a whole is able tobuild interpersonal relationships that enable
them to perform at their best. As cohesion is
the glue that binds a group of people
together, their strong relationship with eachother enables them to focus on motivating
not just themselves but each other, which isessential when moving on to challenging,authentic activities.
Authentic activities help students share
their life experience in discussion activities.
Tomlinson (1999) suggests that when teachers
teach new academic concepts to students it isimportant to consider how the students’
differing socio- economic statuses, culturalbackgrounds, use of the language, and otherpossible factors, affect their learning.
Therefore, I believe it is important to utilize
the students’ life experiences and ideas byhelping the students link them to theirlearning of new terms as they think critically,significantly apply, and emotionally produce
these in a variety of oral communication
activities. For example, in my discussion
activities, I always encourage the students toindividually reflect on what they learnt fromthe stories they have encountered in thelearning materials so that they can constructa personal definition. After sharing these
学習者ディベロプメント研究部会 <ld-sig.org/>

definitions as a group, I then encourage
students to apply what they have learnt sothat they connect these lessons critically with
their own life experiences, which they thenshare with their peers. Littlemore (2012) also
found that schema, the students’ cognitive
framework stimulated by their interests,
helped students organize and interpretinformation. Students’ learning styles may
also be shaped by their past learning
experiences and coded differently from theirpeers. My students’ personal résumés containmuch meaningful vocabulary and personal
information relevant to their life experience.
By utilizing the vocabulary in personal
résumés to describe life experience, students
are able to expand their semantic networks toshare with classmates in the discussions,presentations, debates, peer reviewing,commenting, and a variety of other in-classactivities (Dunn, 2012). Connecting existinglanguage ability and new concepts developed
during interaction and mediation with peers
and the instructor helps students learn core
concepts andallows them to fill the language gap(Jenkins, 2012), which resulted in improved
language ability. Thus, by contributing theirown unique examples, each student feels
they have an important role to play in coconstructing the classes’ understanding.
Brandt (1998) explains that second
language learners tend to equate their ability
with outcomes, and motivation becomes moredifferentiated and complex. Therefore, it isimportant for them to share with each otherthe products of their learning so that they cansee the results of their development. Also
when I have them work with students who
have different interests after gathering theirown thoughts and opinions in and outside of
the class, it seems that they develop a moreglobal sense of their second language
acquisition together. Their levels ofmotivation may change as they relate both totheir development and learning outcomes.
However, students are encouraged to work
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Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 22 (1): LD SIG Members’ Voices
together to set the goals themselves rather
than having the teacher set them. This leads
to them having longer-term motivation that isdeveloped and sustained through the positive
learning environment.
I believe it is important to promote apositive learning environment founded on thestudents sharing their backgrounds, interests,
ideas and opinions both with their peers inclose proximity and the class as a whole.
These actions can foster student autonomy.
This is my challenge, to research the specificaspects for learners with different levels ofEnglish proficiency that promote student
autonomy and language acquisition. I would
like to offer this advice to other language
teachers who are interested in assisting thedevelopment of learners’ English proficiency
skills in the same way.

Tomlinson, C. (1999). The differentiated classroom:	

Responding the the needs of all learners.	

Alexandria, VA: Association for	Supervision and Curriculum Development.

References
Brandt, B. (1998). Powerful learning.	

Alexandria,VA: Association for Supervision	

and Curriculum Development

One Research grant | 研究助成金

Dunn, J. (2012). Utilization of Semantic Networks
in the Teaching of Vocabulary. Language
Education in Asia, 4(2), 175-182. Retrieved
from:<http://dx.doi.org/10.5746/LEiA/13/
V4/I2/A07/Dunn>	

Jenkins, A. (2012). Neuroscience, psychology, andthe teaching of vocabulary, 静岡理工科大学紀要 (20), 65-68,.Retrieved from:<http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/40019397990>
Littlemore, J. (2012, October). Cognitive linguistics	

and second language learning. Paper	

presented at the meeting of the Japan	

Association for Language Teaching,	Hamamatsu, Japan
Paydon, S. (2012). Developing a Motivational	Learning Environment: JALT Learner	

Development SIG: Special Issue of	Learning Learning, 19(2).

LD SIG Grants 2015
YOU CAN STILL APPLY FOR
2 JALT 2015 National Grants
JALT全国大会参加助成金
Deadline ~ 申込締切日
25 August 2015 (2015年8月25日)
Two grants of ¥40,000 each are available
to Learner Development (LD) SIG members
who will attend the 2015 JALT International
Conference and are willing to write a conference
report, or another piece of writing to be
published in Learning Learning after theconference.

Deadline ~ 申込締切日
1 July 2015 (2015年7月1日)
One research grant of ¥25,000 is open to a
Learner Development (LD) SIG member who iswilling to write an article (1000-2000 words/3000 Japanese characters) about their research inLearning Learning.
Two LD SIG Outreach Grants |LD SIG アウトリーチ助成金
Deadline ~ 申込締切日
1 July 2015 (2015年7月1日)
The Learner Development (LD) SIG is offering
two ¥20,000 Outreach Grants to LD SIG
members conducting or leading educationrelated outreach projects or volunteer activities.
For more information please go to:<http://ld-sig.org/grants/>
Or send a quick email to:<learnerdevelopmentsiggrants@gmail.com>

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

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