Learner Development Sig AGM JALT2017 Tsukuba
Attended by: Mayumi Abe, Lee Arnold, Tim Ashwell, Paula Bailey, Andy Barfield,
Blair Barr, Paul Beaufait, Steve Brown, Paul Collet, Dexter Da Silva, Ann Flanagan,
Nicole Gallagher, Peter Joun, Ann Mayeda, Rob Morel, Jenny Morgan, FumikoMurase, Agnes Patko, Mathew Porter, Debjani Ray, Jim Ronald, Kris Sullivan,
Malcolm Swanson, Sami Yoshimuta
Chaired by Mathew Porter, minutes by Mayumi Abe and Andy Barfield

1. Announcement of new co-coordinators for 2017-2018
Yoshi Nakai (Kansai) and Koki Tomita (Yokohama) have agreed to be co-coordinatorsof the SIG. Neither Koki nor Yoshi were able to attend JALT2017, but had agreed byemail ahead of the conference. A warm welcome to Koki and Yoshi in their newroles. Alison, Andy, Fumiko, Hugh, Mathew, and Mayumi are in contact with Koki
and Yoshi by email to support them as they take on their co-coordinating
responsibilities.

2. Other officer positions that need people to step forward andvolunteer for(a) Learning Learning grant awardee essay coordinator(s)(b) Kansai get-together co-coordinator(s)(c) LD SIG webteam members and webmaster(d) other teams also welcome (grants, publicity, programmes, and so on) newteam members to join them and learn together.
If you are interested and would like to help with these positions, please contact Koki
Tomita (<tomita.koki@gmail.com>) and Yoshi Nakai (<uminchufunto@gmail.com>),the new co-coordinators. Many thanks!

3. Financial matters for 2017-2018
Agreed:(a) reimbursement of 75,000 JPY to Hugh Nicoll for numerous costs incurred
over a 15-year period (and longer) of webmastering for the LD SIG (and an
expression of deep gratitude to Hugh for all his work)(b) sponsorship of 70,000 yen for Chika Hayashi as the Learner Development SIG
speaker for the ILA2018 conference, Kobe, September 2018.
Steve Brown expressed his thanks on behalf of the ILA2018 conference for the SIG’ssponsorship of Chika.

4. Discussion of LD SIG website hosting and LD Journal website hostingWe voiced our hearty congratulations to Darren and Hugh on the launch of The
Learner Development Journal the day before. See
https://ldjournalsite.wordpress.com/
Questions about moving the LD website, as well as The Learner Development Journal
website (temporarily hosted by Darren Elliot as part of his own Wordpress website),to the JALT main website included:
Paul Collett (JALT webmaster) commented that migrating the LD and LDJ websites tothe main JALT website is definitely do-able. JALT’s overall plan is to have eachchapter and SIG have their own virtual space on the JALT server, and the charge
would be 5000 JPY a year (although this may change), which would be deductedannually by JALT Central Office (JCO) from the LD SIG account. JALT now uses
Wordpress, and as both of the LD websites (the main LD website and the LDJ
website) are Wordpress too, this should also facilitate the transition.
However, someone (presumably an LD SIG committee member, at present or in the
future) still needs to register the LD websites with Wordpress.
Earlier this year, Koki Tomita was willing to be webmaster for the LD Journal website,
so it is possible that Koki might be ready to become in due course “in name” thewebmaster for the LD website, but he would need to be asked about this. In any case
we need to find team members for the LD web team, so that Hugh can pass over
responsibilities.
We also agreed that LD committee teams (programmes, publicity, different gettogether team, Learning Learning, and The Learner Development Journal steeringgroup, for example) be responsible for updating their respective parts of the LD
website on an ongoing basis
At the end of this discussion we agreed to recommend that(a) the webteam be developed(b) a new webmaster be actively encouraged to step forward(c) the new webmaster take over from Hugh in the coming year(d) each team and the new coordinators be jointly responsible for updating thelist of officers for 2018 (so Koki and Yoshi would need to contact each teamsoon after JALT2017).

5. Restructuring of Learner Development grants
Kris explained that each year the different categories of grant attract variable
numbers of applications, with some categories getting several applications and othercategories zero.
To address this issue, Joel Laurier suggested last year the creation of one pool ofgrant money for which LD SIG members could nominate the amount of money they

would need for a particular purpose and explain how they would use the nominatedamount in a grant application.
One other important change would be to introduce a single deadline for all grantapplications, to replace the several different grant deadlines at the moment.
Furthermore there should be a cap on the maximum amount of money that any
single applicant could apply for.
Kris explained that the total amount of grant money offered by the Learner
Development SIG currently comes to 195,000 JPY (later it was agreed that this beincreased to 200,000 JPY for 2018). Jenny and Sami (who together with Kris make up
the grants committee) also expressed their support for the reform of LD grants.
Jenny mentioned that an earlier deadline in March or the start of April would help
teachers plan better and appealed to everyone at the meeting to help publicise thegrants to unfunded colleagues.
In this discussion, Kris explained that she deals with the emails from grant applicantsand communicates with awardees, then anonymizes their applications before
passing them to Jenny and Sami for them to evaluate. So, the grant applications areblind peer-reviewed. Again, the grants team would welcome other people to join it
and take part in looking at applications and evaluating them. One possibility here is
to invite LD committee members at large to help out.
At the end of this discussion we agreed that:(a) the total amount of money for LD SIG grants in 2018 should be 200,000 JPY;(b) all types of grant should be capped at 40,000 JPY maximum (this needs to be
re-confirmed because the implication is that the JALT international
conference would be reduced from 50,000 JPY to 40,000 JPY);(c) research grant applicants might be requested in future to give a presentationon their learner development research at a JALT conference that LD members
can go to, and/or provide (a) progress report(s) that could be published in
Learning Learning;(d) the single deadline moved up to March (the precise date to be decided);(e) LD conference and research grants will continue to be limited to LD SIG
members who don’t have access to institutional funding/are unfunded, while
LD project grants will remain open to all LD SIG members.

6. Discussion points
In the last five minutes or so the meeting broke into pairs or small groups to shareideas about:(a) attracting more participants to LD forums at different conferences(JALTCALL, PanSIG, JALT International)(b) possible themes for The Learner Development Journal Issue 4 and Issue 5

(c) get-together development and ways of creating greater involvement andcontinuity of participation(d) sharing ideas about learner development publications and developing
writing together (see Appendix A).
Please share your ideas from these discussions on ld-comm (the discussion list of the
LD SIG committee) with the rest of the committee.

7. Thank you to Mathew and Mayumi
At the end of the meeting we applauded Mathew and Mayumi and warmly thanked
them for all their hard work as co-coordinators over the last two years.

Appendix A

Invitation to Share Ideas about Learner Development Publications andDeveloping Writing Together
Tim Ashwell, Andy Barfield, Darren Elliott, Hugh Nicoll, Alison Stewart
The launch of The Learner Development Journal invites discussion of the kind of writing that issuitable for Learning Learning, so that writing for Learning Learning is clearly distinguished fromwriting for The Learner Development Journal. Towards this end we’d love to hear your views
about the SIG’s main publications. Many thanks for sharing your ideas in person or by email.

Learning Learning - the newsletter of the Learner Development SIG
Regularly published twice a year In the Spring and Autumn (with special issues in some years),
Learning Learning explicitly aims for individual pieces of writing that are 2,500 words or less, withshorter pieces of writing designed to make writing for LL accessible to as many SIG members as
possible. Please see Page 2 for the formats and lengths that Learning Learning now prioritises. In
terms of content, the frame for Learning Learning is put as follows on the LD website: "We would
like to encourage new writing and new writers and are also very happy to work with you indeveloping your writing. We would be delighted to hear from you about your ideas, reflections,experiences, and interests to do with learner development, learner autonomy, and teacher
autonomy" (see http://ld-sig.org/learning-learning/).

Discussion Points
1. Does the frame for Learning Learning make sense to you?
2. In your view, is the frame suitable for Learning Learning? Why? Why not?
3. Which new formats and lengths particularly catch your interest? Why?
4. Are there other formats and lengths that you think should be included? If so, what?
5. Should Learning Learning continue to reflect the SIG's historical and primary focus on learnerand teacher autonomy? Why? Why not?
6. What other themes and puzzles are of primary interest to you (and to other SIG members) as far
as the special interest of learner development is concerned?

Learning Learning: Formats and lengths / 形式と長さ(see also “Format andLengths” here http://ld-sig.org/information-for-contributors/ )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, andso 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 learnerautonomy) 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 your research (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 particularinstitution 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）

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, to do withlearner 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 learnerdevelopment, and/or related to learner 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 learner development ：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。

The Learner Development Journal - the journal of the Learner
Development SIG (!)
Frequency and focus Published once a year, The Learner Development Journal (LDJ) is devoted topractitioner-driven research, reviews, and interviews exploring learner development issues insecond language education.
Text lengths Generally speaking, LDJ research papers are 5,000 - 8,000 words long, but otherwriting in an issue of the LDJ may be shorter, depending on the genre (see below).
Overview Each issue of The Learner Development Journal contains six to 10 papers of varying
lengths related to the common theme, reviews of key texts, an interview with or a contribution
from a key teacher/researcher in the field, and an introduction or conclusion written by the issue
editor(s) to provide an overview and context to the whole collection of work.
Genres Depending on the theme of the issue, contributors are encouraged to experiment andwrite in different genres, such as personal narrative, extended book review, dialogic exploration,
multimodal report, poetry, as well as include video and other hyperlinks in their writing.
Collaboration Rooted in a commitment to community, collaboration, and praxis, each issue of
The Learner Development Journal publishes work on a particular learner development theme thatthe contributors of that issue explore together, under the leadership of the issue co-editors.

Information for Editors If you are interested in editing (with one or more others) an issue on atheme relating to learner development, we would love to hear from you about your ideas andinterests. Possible themes for a future issue of the journal might include:•

action research•assessment•

content-based learning•

creativity•

critical literacy•

digital literacy•

globalization•international communities of learners•

learner autonomy•

learner development outside of formal education•

learner emotion•

learners as researchers•

motivation•

multilingualism•

reflection•

self-access•…,all of which have been mentioned by LD members as potentially interesting areas to research andexplore together.

2. You are welcome to propose other learner development themes too.
3. We are especially interested in practitioner research, student participatory research, and coauthored works.
4. If your proposal were accepted, the next step would be to prepare a Call for Papers.
5. The overall aim would be to bring together a group of contributors (6-10 papers, book reviews,
interviews, and so on) to collaborate under your leadership as co-editors.
6. For further details, please see

https://ldjournalsite.wordpress.com/

Discussion Points
1. Does the frame for The Learner Development Journal (LDJ) make sense to you? Please shareyour thoughts.
2. What particularly catches your interest about the LDJ? Why?
3. Are there other features/practices that you think the LDJ should highlight/promote/explore?
4. Would you be interested in co-editing a particular issue of the LDJ? If so, what particular theme
would you like to explore?

5. Would you be interested in writing for a particular issue? Please feel free to explain your LDJ
interests.