Reflections: 2nd Tokyo Area Get Together
March 11th, 2007
By popular demand from participants at the first Tokyo Area LD Local Get-together held in February, about 10 people got together again for lively informal discussions. Here are some reflections from the participants.
Jodie Stephenson: My first partner was Tomoko, who spoke about the listening journal homework assignments that she has been using in her classes. As I am using something similar with my students, I was particularly interested to learn how Tomoko explained the assignment to her students, and the online resources she recommended. We also discussed some of the problems of using such assignments ñ two major problems being the burden on the teacher to check the homework, and the burden on students to continually find new listening material. We thought that both of these burdens could be lightened by having students exchange listening material with each other, and perhaps even create tasks for each other based on the material, and by having students give each other feedback on their journals. Another problem that we discussed was the difficulty of showing that such listening journal homework helped students become more autonomous and increase their proficiency in English. We were just beginning to get into this topic when our time ran out.
My next partner was Alison, and her first questions to me were ìWhat kind of place is Dokkyo? Do teachers collaborate with each other?î I shared with Alison the desire that myself, Christopher Carpenter and Tim Murphey have to set up an informal lunch-time meeting where teachers can exchange ideas. As it turns out, Alison had created something similar at Waseda and it was useful to be able to learn about her experiences with that. Her main advice was to keep things informal, rather than have a different person ëlead' the meeting each week, as they had done at Waseda. Alison thought that all participants somehow needed to be invested in the meetings otherwise they would stop coming and the meeting would become a burden for the organizers. This discussion gave me a lot of food for thought about the type of format that would be most comfortable for participants and most conducive to the open sharing of ideas. I found this meeting very useful from a practical, professional and a personal point of view. It was very useful to exchange resources, and to discuss difficulties and concerns in an open and informal way. I look forward to the next meeting.
Kay Irie: The first meeting was a great get-together for meeting people. But the second meeting was even better for me as we were able to talk about what we are interested in with more depth. I think talking in pairs or a group of three worked well. Talking about vague concepts and interests aloud always forces us to define and think more clearly. Getting questions from others and trying to answer them are always helpful, too. There are many things that I gained at the meeting. One of them is what Mike Nix said about students' learner identity in the second group I was in. Students often cannot or don't want to view themselves as learners of English speaking to other learners of English in a foreign language learning setting. Many of them tend to imagine learners should be speaking to native speakers of English. The discrepancy between the reality and their identity seems to exist among those who don't try to speak English in classroom. I hadn't really looked at the issue from that angle.
Alison Stewart: The Sunday afternoon get-together was like an intensive work out at the brain gym, leaving me feeling exhausted but exhilirated. Stacey's suggestion to act as "mirrors" for each other, reporting back what we heard and understood was a really beneficial exercise for me. It stopped me from listening with only half an ear while thinking about what I was going to say next, and forced me instead to really listen and put myself in someone else's position. For me, this is the best way not only to hear new ideas, but to realise possibilities of putting them into my own practice. I heard some great ideas from Chris, Stacey and Jodie on improving communication with students, and listened to Yoko's and Nozomi's recent experiences accompanying their students on homestay trips abroad, which I hope they'll share with everyone else by writing it up as an article for Learning Learning.
Tomoko Kawachi (Fujita): The past two meetings have been quite inspiring for me in that I've been able to not only share and exchange ideas about issues that I've been interested in, but also to learn about different directions, dimensions, and possibilities that learner/teacher autonomy and identity themes hold. One theme that emerged as we were engaged in the small group discussion was the different levels of autonomy learners bring to the classroom and how much support we should provide in catering to the needs of our students. I think this is an issue that I will be exploring for a while, and I appreciate the exchange of ideas and inspiration that I gain from the LD Greater Tokyo members. I think we have been quite successful in building a nice community so far and look forward to continuing our on-going dialogue.
Andy Barfield: I wasn't quite sure what I was going to talk about, but my first round of co-operative development with Yoko Wakui led me to focus on three areas that I am interested in at the moment: the different interpretations that different parties and individuals make of autonomy and academic literacy within collaborative curriculum development; how learners see their second language collocation development, and how they talk about what they see; the very broad question of what knowledge construction is. It 's perhaps the last area that I'm the most interested in, and that's because it 's the one that I'm the least certain about. It's also the common link between those three different areas. Mike Nix mentioned in the whole-group discussion that, as teachers, we often ask our students to do very specific things for themselves, but our decisions as teachers and the principles that we enact in the classroom are often based on quite vague theorizations on our part. Similarly, Alison Stewart asked me later why I call it knowledge construction and not learning. Part of my response was that knowledge construction has a stronger image for me of people ëworking together' to develop their knowledge of what is they are engaged in. It also helps shift the focus for me from TEFL and language learning towards some kind of more critical position about using language and understanding the world. I said that I often talk about my students building their knowledge of social, political or legal issues through English. However, I realized there's a certain conceit in my believing at times that such knowledge-building happens only through English. In fact, I realize that I really don't have any ready-made answers to such questions, but I hope to develop my understanding further over the coming weeks!
Yoko Wakui: No or under control -- It was exciting to talk with old and new friends who shared our recent thoughts. I felt comfortable, yet a little shy (?) at the first get-together, perhaps because of its very first local one. It seemed no special plan was made and constructed as it went, ìorganically developedî as Alison commented. I thought it was a nice start. At the second meeting, I felt that our discussion went into more depth. It may be because, in advance, I was told to retell the story we shared to others. I had to listen more carefully, which meant the participants were more or less controlled this time. I could perceive my partners' insightful ideas and clarify my own idea as well. The more I attended, the more refined ideas I could get, thanks to organizers!
Masuko Miyahara: The ìmirror reflectionî exercise of reporting back to others on what we had talked about with our partners was a very interesting activity. I have done something similar with my students, but I didn't realize how stimulating it could be. But what makes the process so special? For one, it certainly requires a lot more concentration on the part of the listener. Another is that it involves a kind of reflective practice where you not only revisit your partner's story, but in the process, you also, consciously or unconsciously, attempt to learn or gain ìknowledgeî. For instance, by trying to understand my partner's ideas, I was relating it to my own experience, and re-formulating my thoughts on that particular topic. Each time you converse with different partners, you seemed to get a little more focused on the subject. A simple (?) exercise like this appears to hold a lot of interesting ramifications that needs to be explored. Thank you all for your insights!!!