ld-sig.org/lablog

A number of LD SIG members made the journey to Hong Kong last week for the two-yearly conference of the Independent Learning Association Conference, but for those who didn’t, here’s a very partial and subjective account.

Having decided (in retrospect, perhaps rather unwisely) that I needn’t cancel my Wednesday classes, I arrived in Hong Kong on Wednesday night and rolled up at HKPU on Thursday when the conference was already in full swing. I know I missed a great tour of self-access facilities at three Hong Kong Universities on Tuesday, and an amazing line-up of presentations on Wednesday. Perhaps other LD-ers who were there can fill this gap…?

First up on Thursday morning was keynote speaker, Claire Ellen Weinstein from the University of Texas at Austin. A professor of Educational Psychology, she gave us an overview of the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI) the assessment instrument she has developed that is now widely used in the US and elsewhere to support struggling and at-risk students, and a triangular Model of Strategic Learning incorporating skill, will and self-regulation. The key point she made (or that I grasped) was that this is a gestalt model, in other words, it is the interaction of skill, will and self-regulation that makes the difference for learners, rather than a focus on any one element. Applying this to my own work situation, this reminds me that I need to try and strike a balance, providing models and opportunities for my students to develop their language and critical thinking skills, and at the same time, giving them ways and means to enhance their motivation and take control of their learning.

Computers are clearly an indispensable tool for autonomy learning and are at the heart of self-access language centers. Jo Mynard’s presentation on the benefits and challenges of computer-based resources for self-access drew on three different metaphors for thinking about computers: the computer as a tutor (for example, language courses or resources designed as computer-based language learning materials), the computer as a tool (authentic materials which can be exploited by learners for language development), and computer as “mindtools” (interactive CALL). This may not have been the intention of the presentation, but my take on this was that there was some hierarchy of preference implied, with the “mindtools” image the most ideal, because it offers a way for learners to interact and to practice “knowledge representation” in the target language.

Again, applying this to my situation, I have always thought of my classroom as a language learning “environment”, where learners practice knowledge representation with each other, as well as discuss with each other the problems they encounter in doing this. I do expect my students to use computers as tutors (for example, Purdue University’s OWL site does a far better job of teaching bibliographic conventions than I can) and as tools (Pitt University’s database of folk tales from around the world, or the news media for a news story project). I also ask my students to email me their assignments and to write nice polite cover messages when they do so ;-) But I realize that I could do a whole lot more with computers, and the only reason I don’t is that I tend to use what I’m familiar with and what has worked before. I do try new things each year, but I hesitate to do more for fear of being overwhelmed. That’s one of the reasons I enjoy going to conferences so much - they give me the motivation and confidence to push myself outside my comfort zone.

A lot of the people I met and presentations I went to were concerned with the use of computers. Fiona Henderson from the University of Victoria reported on the development of computer-based materials aimed at engaging and empowering learners, particularly those in the university’s off-shore campus in China. The academic literacy program that they have devised draws on popular media (manga) and culture (Chairman Mao plays table tennis with Arnie Schwarzenegger) in order to hook learners and provide a bridge into academic discourse. What struck me most was the amount of time and money spent (though the presenter complained that this was barely enough and decreasing) on developing this resource and the commitment of the institution to finding new and creative ways to attract and keep its student base in an increasingly competitive market.

By contrast, Kerstin Dofs’ presentation right afterward showed the other side of the coin: Reporting on the somewhat mixed results of the first year of self-access in a language teaching program in New Zealand, it seemed clear that for the institution involved, self-access was regarded as just a supplement to a more orthodox curriculum. Students had “self-access” hour once a week when they used a small room with computer terminals where they were encouraged to work through language learning programs, consult web sites and contribute to blogs. Learning facilitators, who were proficient language learners, were drafted in to help out and give advice, but the regular teachers were not paid anything for any work they did on the Self Access Center and, consequently, had little or no interest in it.

Later, I was talking to Joe Falout who described the inadequate resources for self-access at his university, and I realised that at my own university self-access is limited to a small guided readers library (which apparently took years of lobbying by my foreign language department colleagues to implement). Lucy Cooker, who set up the Self Access Learning Centre at Kanda University of Foreign Studies, and who now acts as a roving consultant while working on her PhD at Nottingham, agreed that Self-access requires a huge degree of commitment in terms of human and financial resources, as well as a paradigm shift on the part of the institution that goes down that route.

Probably many of us LD-ers in Japan work in universities or schools or language schools that haven’t (yet) made that paradigm shift. The places where I have taught have seemed to place their priority on the individual teacher over any idea of a curriculum. Learner development is assumed without any further inquiry; learner autonomy meets with raised eyebrows, and a suspicion that the teacher is not doing her job. Nanci Graves and Stacey Vye gave a presentation whose title, “More learner autonomy with less frustration”, expressed exactly this key conflict that I feel I face. Nanci and Stacey have loads of creative and practical ideas for teachers who don’t have the support of colleagues or an institution behind them, some of which I’ve heard in previous presentations and some of which I’ve incorporated into my own practice. The “frustration” in the title led me to expect that Nanci and Stacey would be addressing some of those institutional and ideological obstacles. The fact that they didn’t - or at least, didn’t in a way that I expected - has left me with more questions now than I had before. Which is a good thing :-) because Nanci and Stacey have a proposal with a remarkably similar title for an article in the new LD SIG book “Developing autonomy practices”. So I’m really looking forward to getting back to those questions when we meet again at the Writers’ Retreat on the 4th and 5th July in Tokyo (plug).

The last presentation I hit was, appropriately enough for a blog entry on the LD SIG website, Andy Barfield’s presentation on…. the LD SIG. Andy has been in the SIG since its first year and has been closely involved with it up until about a couple of years ago. Just before he left for his sabbatical year in the UK last spring, he interviewed four pseudonymous (!) SIG members about their reasons for joining the SIG and what they get out of it. In the presentation, Andy handed out pages of extracts from the interviews with each of the participants in his study with the aim of having us discuss what they meant and also to consider whether an Activity System model was helpful to understanding learner development in the LD SIG (I think). To tell the truth, I’m not a big fan of models. Give me a good story anytime. It always makes more sense to me than lines and arrows. Despite my small misgiving about the point of the model, Andy’s presentation was particularly thought-provoking to me as - let me confess it here and now - one of the participants in the study. Being interviewed was in itself a great opportunity to reflect on and articulate my expectations of the SIG, but being able to read other members’ stories showed me that the diversity of views and experiences within the SIG membership is a mighty asset both for each of us as individuals, and for the LD SIG as a whole.

Presentations mentioned

Claire Ellen Weinstein, “Strategic and self-regulated learning for the 21st century: the merging of skill, will and self-regulation”

Jo Mynard, “Benefits and challenges of computer-based resources for self-access”

Fiona Henderson, “Academic literacy: Modeling and empowering students for independent learning”

Kerstin Dofs, “Embedded self-study time in English as an Additional Language (EAL) programmes

Nanci Graves & Stacey Vye, “More learner autonomy with less frustration”

Andy Barfield, “Problematizing learning learner development”

PDF files of articles from the journal can be downloaded for your reading & research pleasures, courtesy of our friends at the University of Warwick.

About the journal -- from the website:

English Language Teacher Education and Development (ELTED) - ISSN 1365-3741 - is an annual peer-reviewed journal for the worldwide ELT community which is produced by the Teacher Education and Development Research Group of the Centre for Applied Linguistics, University of Warwick. It seeks to provide a medium for the exchange of ideas and information on theoretical and applied issues pertaining to English language teacher education. The journal is targeted at all those involved in English language teacher education and development worldwide, for whom, at present, there are few published journals dealing specifically with English language teacher education and development.

Posted by Hugh Nicoll at 06:17 PM. Filed under: Teaching & Learning

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Steve Davies of Miyazaki International College continues his wacky, wild and wonderful science fiction yarn in episode 3 of The Adventures of Magenta M.

In "Pedagogy for Autonomy and Educational Success – What Relation? A Multi-Disciplinary School Project" Isabel Barbosa of the University of Minho in Portugal reports on a collaborative multi-disciplinary project for developing learner autonomy in a secondary school setting.

Atsushi Iida's "An analysis of learner strategies and learner autonomy in Japanese books for English study" investigates learner autonomy in the Japanese context through a survey of Japanese books for English self-study.

In "Dear Advisor: A Look into the World of Advising" Tanya McCarthy of Kanda University of International Studies discusses her experiences as a language advisor at Kanda's Self Access Center.

Learning Learning, volume 16 no 1 will be published in PDF format and be available for download at the end of March. We would like to encourage SIG members to use the blog space to discuss four of the upcoming articles. Please watch this space. The four articles we're planning to discuss are:

• “What Advisors Do” by Tanya McCarthy


• “Analysis for Japanese Books for English Self Learning" by Atsushi Iida


• "Pedagogy for Autonomy and Educational Success: What Relation? A Multi-Disciplinary School Project" by Isabel Barbosa


• "The Adventures of Magenta M - Episode 3 - Dinner for Two" by Steve Davies

To protect against comment spam, you will need to enter the characters from the Captcha plugin when submitting your comment. Yoroshiku onnegai shimasu.

Kay Irie posted this brief report:

"The get-together on Sunday was great! A good mix of new and familiar faces. Deryn joined us as well and our talk stayed focused on scaffolding.

Here are the links I posted for the July Tokyo get-together in advance."

Lantolf, J. P. & Thorne, S. L. (2007). Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Acquisition. In. B. van Patten & J. Williams (eds.), Explaining Second Language Acquisition (pp. 201-224). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
http://language.la.psu.edu/~thorne/Lantolf.Thorne.vanpatten.2007.pdf

Yu, Guoxing. (2004). Perception, Practice and Progress - Significance of scaffolding and zone of proximal development for second or foreign language teachers. The Asian EFL Journal, vol.6, Article 9.
http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/december_04_GY.php

Larkin, Martha. (2002). Using Scaffolded Instruction to Optimize Learning. ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED474301.
http://www.vtaide.com/png/ERIC/Scaffolding.htm

If anybody knows other than these, let us know!

from Marlen Harrison

Bi-lingual professor wants to create a book of stories about the possible relationship between English and sexuality. Almost all of the published books about queer Japan are only about gay men, help change that! Tell your story about how learning or using English has influenced how you think about or perform your sexuality, or tell your story from the perspective of being a teacher or friend of queer Japanese...

WHO is the researcher (Marlen/Ma-chan)?: Marlen Harrison is both teaching in the English department and completing his PhD in Composition and TESOL at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Prior to this, he taught at Japanese universities and was the co-coordinator for JALT's Learner Development sig.

WHO can tell their stories? Information may be shared by both Japanese and non-Japanese alike - anyone is welcome to share their stories about the relationships between English language, intercultural communication and queer sexuality (within the context of Japan). For example, are you a teacher whose students have come out in the English classroom? Are you a Japanese lesbian or gay man who discovered her/his sexuality while studying English in Canada? Are you transsexual or bisexual and feel that it is easier to talk about your sexual self with English speakers? Maybe you feel that none of these standard labels apply and you’re simply “you”!

You can leave anonymous comments or share your stories by visiting http://DiscoveringVoices.wordpress.com

Who will read what I write? All names will be changed to ensure privacy; stories will be used in Marlen’s doctoral dissertation and possibly we will publish a collection of these stories.

For more information, visit http://DiscoveringVoices.wordpress.com. To talk to Marlen directly (all of his Japanese friends call him “ma-chan”), please email , you can also find him on Facebook at “marlen harrison”. Any and all assistance is greatly appreciated.

Posted by Hugh Nicoll at 10:55 PM. Filed under: General

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"Critical Aproaches to Teaching Writing: Mindfulness and the power of 'no.'"
Marlen Harrison presentation to Gunma JALT, 7 June 2008
reported by Barry Keith, Gunma JALT

Does a student feel rejected when told by the teacher that her written work is "wrong." That question is at the center of Marlen Harrison's presentation and workshop, "Critical Aproaches to Teaching Writing: Mindfulness and the power of 'no.'" Using Thich Nhat Han's 14 precepts of Mindfulness, Marlen offered insight to how instructors can provide more constructive feedback to students who may feel a deep rejection by seeing their returned work covered in red. Also very important is, why is some language considered correct, and by whose authority? Marlen described the difficulty of fulfilling his role as an academic writing instructor while respecting the student's voice, and how to effectively communicate his feedback. He introduced samples of student academic writing at an American university and candidly described his struggle with giving helpful input while not rejecting student work out of hand. Finally, participants were asked to consider how Mindfulness Training might apply to the Japanese context of teaching writing.

If you are free and in the Tokyo area March 9th, please come and join us for a chance to create and renew connections with each other locally and talk together about what all our different interests in learner development, learner autonomy and teacher autonomy are, and perhaps what they might not be - and bring a friend if you like. To get an idea of the kinds of discussions we've been having, please see participant reports in the Resources section on the Community Page.

Come join us for food and drinks after the get-together too!

Greater Tokyo Area LD Regional Get-Together Details:

Date: Sunday March 9th, 2008
Time: 2pm to 5pm
Venue: Teacher's College Columbia in Suidobashi
Mitsui Seimei Bldg. 4F
2-21-2 Misaki-cho, Chiyoda-ku
Tokyo 101-0061, JAPAN
Phone: 03-3221-9771 Fax: 03-3221-9773
Nearest Train Stations: JR Suidobashi (one minute walk)
Mita-line Suidobashi (three minute walk)
Jimbo-cho (ten minute walk)
Map and directions: http://www.tc-japan.edu/map.html

RSVP to stacey.vye@gmail.com (for those who have already no need to resend :)

Cheers!

Mike Nix, and Stacey Vye
LD-SIG Local Get-together Coordinators

PS: The May Get-together will be at TC May 11th from 2pm to 5pm

Richard Beal and Dwayne Cover from Kanda University of International Studies shared results of an exploratory study comparing teacher’ and learners’ perceptions of learner autonomy. Questionnaires were given to 10 new teachers at KUIS and follow-up interviews were conducted. 94 first year students completed the same questionnaires (in Japanese) and student volunteers participated in focus group discussions (also in Japanese).

The questionnaire was a modified version of one that Littlewood (1999) used in an Asian context. The 10 items on the questionnaire focused on assumptions about Asian learners, class activities and perceptions of students’ and teachers’ responsibilities.

The main findings were as follows:

The teachers assumed that students prefer student-centred classes.
The students viewed the teachers as the source of all knowledge.
The students indicated that they preferred to work with other students and favored small group activities over whole class activities.
The teachers tended to over-generalize and perceive their students to be shy.
The students themselves did not perceive themselves to be especially shy or typical Asian students.
The students’ main motivation for learning English was to get a good job.

The results suggest that there is sometimes a mismatch between what teachers and students think is happening in the classroom. Teachers were familiar with promoting learner autonomy, but were unfamiliar with a Japanese context. Teacher-training at KUIS could include ways in which teachers could employ reflective tasks in order to better gauge students’ thoughts and preferences. Richard gave an example of using online discussion forums in order for teachers to get feedback from students on how they felt about an activity.

I would be interested to hear about any follow-up studies. Richard and Dwayne mentioned further research which includes interviewing second year teachers and students, and also the participants of this initial study one year later.

Reference

Littlewood, W. (1999). Defining and developing autonomy in East Asian contexts. Applied Linguistics, 20, 71-94.

For the second year running I attended the JASAL (Japan Association of Self-Access Learning) forum at the annual JALT conference. Last year’s forum featured presentations about self-access centers at Akita International University (Sara Cotterall, Garold Murray and Ingrid Johnson), Sugiyama Jogakuen University in Nagoya (Juanita Heigham) and Kanda University of International Studies in Chiba (Lucy Cooker). This year participants learned more about the work going on in these centers plus two others.

(1) Juanita Heigham of Sugiyama Jogakuen University in Nagoya began with a presentation about challenging traditional assumptions about passive Japanese learners. Juanita told participants about an independent project course where 3rd year students planned and organized their own learning based on a needs analysis. They set goals and designed activities to complete alone or in a group. The students met with a teacher 3 times a semester. They struggled initially, but the project was a success and the students felt confident about future independent study. Teachers were pleasantly surprised by the students’ ability to take control and to make good learning decisions.

Partly based on the success of this project, the learner training curriculum for 1st year students was revised to include more opportunities for the students to think about their learning, more activities were made available for students to chose from, and more opportunities were given for students to talk about their learning.

Juanita came to understand that Japanese students are often used to playing a passive role in a classroom, but this does not mean that the students are passive. Teachers should remember that “classes are filled with individuals” and if those individuals are guided, they can become active independent learners.

(2) Ann Mayeda shared an encouraging story of the setting up of a self-access facility at Osaka Shoin Women's University. Ann was initially employed in 2002 to team-teach and to be a "lounge teacher." As a lounge teacher she led optional group and independent study activities in a small room. As the informal learning centre became more popular with students, she got a bigger room and began to stock it with materials donated by teachers. There were no staff allocated to the centre initially and Ann would do what she could during her lunch hour and during free periods. Soon afterwards, she started to get some help from students acting as peer counselors and teachers. They requested a budget to remodel the room and create a proper learning center. The money was obtained (unfortunately half of it was needed to fix the air conditioning unit) and the result was a small, but beautiful self-access center run by volunteers.

The center was a success due to three main factors. Firstly, it was a bottom-up change and all the suggestions came from the students. Secondly, the timing was right because the university was moving towards a stricter grading system and the English program needed a way to give weaker students extra help and to give more advanced students more challenges. Ann's colleagues were open to change and were very supportive. The center is now staffed full time and is developing its range of activities and materials.

Ann gave four pieces of advice for those hoping to start a similar center:

1. aim high
2. talk to colleagues
3. be persistent
4. listen to students

(3) Robert Croker from Nanzan University in Aichi talked us through a “resource-light, activity-heavy” center where the students themselves are the main resource. The center is called “World Plaza” and was created because teachers and students realized that there were not enough English speaking opportunities. World Plaza is defined as “a space on campus outside the classroom where the focus of activities is on students interacting in the target language.”

Students become members of World Plaza by collecting stamps in a passport. To get stamps, they need to arrange an event, lead a discussion or give a presentation. World Plaza welcomes around 120 students each day and is staffed by one full time and two part time employees. The activities are described as “pull” and “push” activities.

Pull activities are ones which attract students into World Plaza. For example, they could be activities arranged at lunchtime by students on various topics. Other activities are led by teachers, foreign students or guests. More examples of activities include TOEIC workshops, travel English workshops, an English advisory service, English news and DVDs, or general English chit chat.

Push activities are ones which require students to attend in order to fulfill a class assignment and might include interviewing another students in World Plaza, practicing for a speaking test, making a voice recording or completing homework with another student (or alone).

Robert told us that there was evidence that students (even those with a pre-intermediate level of English) at Nanzan University were moving along the continuum from the Instructor-led end to the learner-led end.

(4) Garold Murray (also presenting on behalf of Sara Cotterall) discussed how commonly held assumptions about language teachers are problematic. The context being discussed is the Akita self-access centre which is open to the general public. 30% of the visitors are business people, 30% are retired, 30% are housewives and 10% are students. The centre offers them four things; a learning environment, a learning plan, ongoing support and access to a community of learners. It does not offer language lessons and there are no teachers at the centre.

Sara and Garold have been conducting a study over the past two years which investigates the experience that visitors to the centre have through interviews, portfolios, observations and e-mails. They draw on the literature in the area of social identity constructed in and through discourse (Riley, 1999) and explained the term “membershipping”. Membershipping is categorizing people or assigning identities to them and expecting them to behave in certain ways. A problem that occurred in Akita was that learners incorrectly membershipped the learning advisors as teachers. Garold suggested that the discourse needs to be clarified so that learners can see themselves as more as independent learners. Perhaps new terms are needed to define who learning advisers are and what they do.

(5) Lucy Cooker (straight off the plane from London!) questioned how learning in self-access environments is assessed. She began with some very good questions: should we attempt to assess such a difficult concept as autonomy? If we are promoting autonomy in order to further language learning, then should we only assess language learned? Sometimes administrators of universities need justification for continuing to fund a self-access centre, but how can we show that self-access centers are advantageous for language learning? Barbara Sinclair addressed this slippery issue in her 1999 paper and approached the topic by attempting to comment on how autonomous learners by identifying their probable stages of metacognitive awareness.

Lucy drew on her work in the SALC at Kanda University of International Studies where students can take a module on learner training. They are evaluated on evidence of reflection on learner diaries and verbal interviews, on their ability to plan learning activities and produce a learning plan. The evidence is assessed according to grading bands, but questions arise such as what is it that learning advisors are assessing? Is it really learner autonomy or is it the ability to use the right language to give assessors the impression that reflection is occurring? Are the learners really taking the concepts on board? Lucy suggests that the process should be more learner-centered. She even questioned whether or not it should be assessed at all.

There was some time at the end for questions and answers and then Garold closed the meeting reminding us to join JASAL. Their website is http://www.jasal.net


References

Riley, P. (1999). On the social construction of ‘the learner’. In S. Cotterall & D. Crabbe (Eds.), Learner autonomy in language learning: Defining the field and effecting change (29-42). Bayreuth Contributions to Glottodidactics, Vol 8. Frankfurt am Main: Lang.

Sinclair, B. (1999) ‘Wrestling with a jelly: the evaluation of learner autonomy’, in B. Morrison (ed.) Experiments and Evaluation in Self-Access Language Learning, Hong Kong, HASALD, 95-110.

Wheeeeeeeeee! Just got back from the JALT conference and am still on a post-conference high. I’ve been trying to figure out what the highlights were for me: amazing plenary speeches, great new ideas and directions from speakers in workshops and presentations, the LD party, passionate conversations (!), meeting up with old friends, making connections with new… I can’t decide.

My conference started with coffee in the Friends café on the second floor with Hugh. It didn’t take long to get onto Hugh’s passion for jazz and poetry. We both agreed that there is something special about musicians and their devotion to continually improving their ability to perform, and I was wondering whether and how this relates to language learning. Intrigued, I went along to Hugh’s presentation ‘Poetry in language classes: Whys and hows’ the following evening. Now, I must confess that I have never used poetry in any of my language classes, although I often use film and have this year been teaching a class on contemporary British fiction. I do read poetry, but for me, it’s a solitary, intellectual, meditative exercise – not something I can imagine putting out there and messing about with. In fact, I’ve come across articles that have described using poetry in ways that are not only creative and fun, but also darn good pedagogy. And yet, I still hesitate… Going to Hugh’s presentation not only confirmed the whys and hows of using poetry to teach English, but, perhaps more inspiringly, put me in a room with a number of people, apart from the speaker, who were clearly passionate about poetry and pedagogy, and I could see (or rather feel) in an instant how that kind of energy can light up a whole class of students.

That same evening, I had several more inspiring conversations. Over mountains of turkey and mashed potato, I got talking with Naoko about her idea to base an article for Learning Learning on Harry Potter, and Stephen Davies about another article idea, which would entail a complicated plot involving a research student and supervisor at a University of the Galaxy several thousands of years hence. Neither of these ideas that I would have thought of in a million years. But they are certainly exciting, and far be it for me to block such creative energy. Moving over to the bar for my second drink, I found myself talking to Tim about his research area of teacher motivation. Somewhat to my surprise, he told me he’d stopped finding the term ‘motivation’ useful, and now prefers a concept of ‘energy’ instead. Well, that works for me too. I don’t how you would go about observing it empirically or measuring it, but energy is exactly what seems to make the difference between a good class and a bad one; it’s something that I try and bring to every class, and I can feel it when students respond and contribute their own. That’s why the best classes generate so much energy that you leave the room more wired that after ten cups of espresso. Thinking in this way makes me realize that we often tend to focus on either learner autonomy or teacher autonomy, which means we are missing a crucial co-dependence that perhaps is a necessary component of learning. Or is it?…. Hmmm…

Still on the subject of highs, I must mention the three plenary speeches I managed to attend, all of them absolutely brilliant in quite different ways:

Ron Carter gave an amazingly polished speech on differences between written and spoken language and how corpora have uncovered frequencies of certain lexical items that rarely, if ever, appear in textbooks and other learning materials. I liked the fact that the top 40 most used items include things like: ‘mm’ (no. 15), ‘er’ (no. 17) and laughter (somewhere in the 20s). Mind you, I’m still not convinced that this means that these items should all be taught as a matter of priority. I’m a big fan of Henry Widdowson who has said in various publications that linguistic description isn’t the same as linguistic prescription, and so with him, I think that the priority for learners should be the written or formal mode. But I also think that learners could benefit from being exposed to more varieties of the language and being shown alternative (formal and informal) versions of a single text.

Amy Tsui was another star turn, showing us how students collaborating together to create an alternative ending to a story suggests that language learning – by which she meant mediating or reconstruing experience – can take place through the discussion process alone. Which led her to the quite radical idea that ‘scaffolding’, something that most of us probably feel we should be providing or at least thinking about most of the time, really isn’t necessary. Well, I’m not sure that I would agree with her there. But what really got my attention was her video footage of four sixth graders working together to produce a story. Amazing to see their confidence and commitment to working entirely in English. I’ve always thought that I’m pretty lucky with the students I get to teach – they’re generally motivated and able. But I wondered how they would react if they were to see Amy’s video too. Not that I blame Japanese students in the least. Wouldn’t it be amazing if Monkasho had the same level of commitment to English language education as the Hong Kong/Chinese government?

Paul Nation was the last of the star speakers and unlike the previous speakers I’ve mentioned, conducted his whole talk without the aid of power point or any other visual aid. I for one was riveted the whole hour. Also unlike with the previous speakers, I don’t know so much about the field he was discussing – vocabulary - but what he said made perfect sense to me intuitively. Daunting as it is, it is good to hear about the research findings that prove that to become fluent readers students need to know eight or nine thousand words. It’s good to see support for the idea that explicit vocabulary teaching is perhaps the only way to achieve that goal. I give my students vocabulary lists before listening activities and I ask them to keep vocabulary logs. I also test vocabulary in one of my classes. But I don’t think I have ever had a particularly principled approach to teaching vocabulary. From this speech though I feel that I can develop one and I’ve already been thinking of some ways I can address this from the moment I go back to the classroom.

… Which happens to be first thing tomorrow morning. Monday morning I expect my feet will be back on solid ground. It’s approaching the end of the academic year, so there aren’t too many major adjustments that I can make. But JALT 07 has left me with enough energy to make some small adjustments and to really do some serious thinking and planning for next year.

I’m looking forward to more opportunities to share energy with you all again soon!

Alison

Blackwell Synergy is offering complimentary access to “The Concept of Fundamental Educational Change” by Leonard Waks in Volume 57, Issue 3 of Educational Theory. From the abstract:

In this essay, Leonard Waks contributes to a reconceptualization of "fundamental educational change." By distinguishing sharply between educational change at the organizational and the institutional levels, Waks shows that the mechanisms of change at these two levels are entirely different. He then establishes, by means of a conceptual argument, that fundamental educational change takes place not at the organizational, but rather at the institutional level. Along the way Waks takes Larry Cuban’s influential conceptual framework regarding educational change as both a starting point and target of appraisal.