学習者ディベロプメント研究部会
Greetings all,
Hope everyone has gotten off to a good start in the New Year. This year’s Talking Points Blog column will be a shared project by Nicole Gallagher and Hugh Nicoll.
An Interview with Masuko Miyahara For the December Talking Points, we interviewed Masuko Miyahara, who recently published a book called Emerging Self-Identities and Emotion in Foreign Language Learning: A Narrative Approach (2015). Masuko, herself, was educated in the UK, the US and Japan, so she offers a unique perspective on language learning and development. We … Read more
One Shot Learner Development Here Jim Ronald and Naomi Fujishima, with some input from students and from the Hiroshima LD Get-together participants, discuss whether a single lecture or meeting with students on the topic of learner autonomy can achieve anything worthwhile. Naomi: First of all, Jim, can you give some background? Why have you been … Read more
In this month’s Talking Points, Jim Ronald and Naomi Fujishima interview Darren Elliott, following his presentation at the BAAL conference on metaphors and learner autonomy.
Jim: Hello Darren, I’m not sure if you remember, but I first came to associate you with metaphors during the LD SIG’s 20th Anniversary conference.
In this month’s Talking Points, Naomi Fujishima and Jim Ronald report and reflect on a student-led JASAL social learning space-focused event held in July at Okayama University .
This month’s Talking Points, a foretaste of the JALT National LD Forum, focuses on listening to our students. Jim Ronald starts with a story that, for him, brought home the importance of learning from our learners, then he and Naomi Fujishima will introduce some of their students and their stories.
Jim: Here are the students’ stories, either of turning points for them and their language learning or of learning strategies that they have found to be successful for them. Before this, though, I would just like to tell our readers about an experience I had quite a few years ago at the JALT Conference in Kita-Kyushu. On one evening, three friends and I went to a Turkish restaurant for dinner. One of our group was living and teaching in Kita-Kyushu, and it turned out that the young woman serving us was a former student of his. We hardly talked with her, other than give our orders, but we noticed that her English was good, “Are you enjoying your meal?”, etc.
Just imagine! Imagination in second language learning This month we would like to share with you an interview we had with Garold Murray. Garold is one of the pioneers of self-access learning in Japan, setting up two self-access centers in Akita while he was at Akita International University from 2004 to 2009. He has authored a … Read more
Motivating Students through English Camp Naomi: Hi Jim! So, today we’re going to talk about an English camp that your students participated in at your university just recently. First of all, when was it? Jim: The camp was held over four days in the last week of March. We started after lunch on the first … Read more
This month, we have invited Mathew Porter to Talking Points. Mathew is a long-valued part of the Hiroshima LD Get-togethers, and of Hiroshima JALT, who has just moved to many new things in Fukuoka. As an English teacher who became a language advisor (LA), and is now returning to language teaching (note our awkward use of tenses below, reflecting these changes!), we thought this would be a good chance to learn what we can from him as he reflects on what he’s leaving and what he’s going on to.
Naomi: In our last column in February, we defined a social learning space to be a place where students or learners can come together to learn with and from each other. If you think about a traditional university classroom in Japan, this might be an unfamiliar concept to students. How would you explain it to them or how would you implement it?