Studies in Self-Access Learning Journal 1(1)

Special issue on principles and practices

SISAL Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1, June, 2010, 1-4 CONTENTS: Volume 1, Number 1, June, 2010 •

Editorial by Jo Mynard (1-4)

Perspectives • •

Some Self-Access Principles by Lucy Cooker (5-9) What Factors Encourage High Levels of Student Participation in a SelfAccess Centre? by Keith Barrs (10-16)

Articles • • •

English Language Writing Centres in Japanese Universities: What do Students Really Need? by Jim McKinley (17-31) An Investigation of Student use of a Self-Access English-only Speaking Area by Heath Rose & Roxanne Elliott (32-46) Integrating Self-Access into the Curriculum: Our Experience by Gene Thompson and Lee Atkinson (47-58)

Work in Progress •

A New Member of the Family: The Sojo International Learning Centre

by Jon Rowberry (59-64)

Reports •

Report on the Japan Association of Self-Access Learning (JASAL) Forum, at the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT) 2009 Conference in Shizuoka. by Jo Mynard and Diego Navarro (65-67)

Editorial Jo Mynard, Kanda University of International Studies, Japan Welcome to the very first edition of the journal Studies in Self-Access Learning, which will otherwise be known as SiSAL ( /si:sæl/ ). SiSAL began life as a modest project at an institution of higher education in Japan. Originally intended as an internal publication which would serve the team of administrative staff, teachers and learning advisors at Kanda University of International Studies and its associated institutions, the journal developed out of a desire to archive and share ongoing work with each other and also with interested colleagues. However, colleagues at Kanda and elsewhere expressed surprise that the initiative should have such a limited scope; surely this was a golden opportunity for professionals in the field around the world to learn from each other? !

After considerable reflection, it was agreed that SiSAL "!

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Journal should be launched as a peer review journal, providing articles, reports, reviews, perspectives and work in progress to educators and staff involved in selfaccess learning worldwide.

I am certain that SiSAL Journal has a significant role to play in the field of applied linguistics for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is a fact that relatively little has been published about self-access in recent years and it is both important and necessary to ensure that the practice of self-access learning remains within the consciousness of teachers and other practitioners.

Secondly, SiSAL will highlight the fact that in many institutions, self-access facilities continue to be an integral part of the learning experience for the study of languages. While in such institutions the importance of self-access facilities tends to be taken for granted, it must be remembered that in other institutions, colleagues are not so well-versed in what self-access learning is, beyond setting homework, nor are they altogether clear about what it is that distinguishes a Self-Access Centre from a computer lab or a library. Unless more ongoing research and descriptions of practice related to self-access are published, there is a real danger that these misunderstandings and misconceptions will continue.

What this journal has the potential to do is to show that SACs are very much thriving and moving in exciting new directions as practice continues to be informed by research as well as being enhanced by technological developments.

Another important role that SiSAL Journal can play is in promoting research and critical reflection in order to influence future directions in the field. SACs should always be a ‘work in progress’. There are always new materials to consider and new ways of using, presenting, adapting and organising existing materials. Learners’ needs and preferences change over time due to a number of factors and meeting these fluctuating predilections requires constant vigilance and alertness. It is also important to continue to pay attention not just to material resources, but to human resources too.

In what ways can learners be supported by staff, peers, teachers and learning advisors?

Innovations implemented at a SAC in one part of the world, however remote, may be incorporated into another SAC elsewhere and SiSAL Journal has a role to "! !

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play both in the cross-pollination of ideas and in the dissemination of this research and practice.

Upcoming Issues Readers will note that this first edition of SiSAL is mainly focussed on the Japanese context; this is due to the original scope of the journal and the fact that work had already begun on the submissions. Rather than delay the launch, we decided to go ahead as scheduled, feeling as we did that although the context being shared is that of Japan, the articles should still be of interest to those working in the field of self-access learning in general. We anticipate that future issues will have a more international flavour and with this view in mind, we invite you to submit articles, reports, reviews, perspectives and work in progress. The forthcoming issues of SiSAL will focus on particular themes which highlight various elements of self-access learning. It seemed appropriate that the first issue should have the theme of ‘principles and practices’ in order to define the field, while the next issue has the theme of ‘materials and activities’.

About this Issue Since the theme of this issue, as just mentioned, is ‘principles and practices’, we begin with Lucy Cooker’s article 'Some self-access principles'. Based on her experience in the field, Lucy outlines four principles which she finds are crucial for the success of a SAC. Following this, Keith Barrs, in his opinion piece, takes a look at two SACs that he has experience with. He discusses those elements that he noted as being present in a successful SAC and suggests what could be lacking in a less successful centre.

The scope of this journal includes skills support centres such as writing centres and conversation lounges, so we are delighted to feature two full articles which showcase research in these areas. Jim McKinley asks the question 'What do students really need?', in his article on writing centres. He challenges the assumption that a writing centre overseas should be modelled on centres in the United States and describes some research where he investigates students’ expectations and needs.

Heath Rose and Roxanne Elliot conducted a research study into how university

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students used an English-only conversation lounge and these results are shared in this article.

Another challenge faced by educators and programme coordinators is how to appropriately address the integration of self-access within a curriculum. Gene Thompson and Lee Atkinson describe some of the challenges that they faced when doing just that at their institution and outline some of the principles which they established in order to overcome them and meet the needs of the students.

Thus far, the articles describe programmes that are already underway, so it is useful to be able to feature a ‘work in progress’ piece by Jon Rowberry. Jon describes some of the ways in which his institution is addressing the many aspects involved in the establishment of a new self-access centre. The final piece is a report on the themes arising at the forum dedicated to self-access at the recent Japan Association of Language Teachers (JALT) conference.

I hope you enjoy this first issue and find applications which will be useful in your own work, no matter where you are in the world.

Notes on the editor Jo Mynard is the Director of the Self-Access Learning Centre and Assistant Director of the English Language Institute at Kanda University of International Studies in Japan. She holds an Ed.D. in TEFL from the University of Exeter, UK and an M.Phil. in applied linguistics from Trinity College Dublin. She has taught EFL in Ireland, Spain, England, the UAE and Japan, and has been involved in facilitating self-access learning since 1996.

Acknowledgments I would like to express my appreciation to Lucy Cooker and Carol Everhard for their comments and suggestions on this first editorial. I would also like to thank the authors and members of the review and editorial teams for helping to create this issue and set the pace for future issues. Finally, the journal would probably not have reached this stage had it not been for the encouragement given by Christopher Candlin and Tim Murphey. Thank you both! "! !

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Some Self-access Principles Lucy Cooker, University of Nottingham In this article, I will describe how the Self-Access Learning Centre (SALC) at Kanda University of International Studies (KUIS) was established, and discuss some of the personal philosophies of self-access centres (SACs) and self-access learning that I have developed over the eight years of being associated with this centre.

The idea for the SALC was born during my first semester teaching at KUIS in 1999. I had become frustrated with conferencing my students, and giving them advice about what they should be doing to improve their English, and not being able to direct them to any particular place where they could go to work on these skills. I was also frustrated by the fact that the English Language Institute (ELI) where I worked had many wonderful resources for learners such as graded readers, videos, and computers, but there was no system for maintaining these. This meant that the graded readers were often irretrievably missing, whilst the videos and the computers were locked away and students had to get special permission to access them. Having experienced a self-access centre for studying Italian at the University of Edinburgh, I felt that this was what was required at KUIS for our students. I had researched some of the self-access centres in Hong Kong, most of which had been established during the early 1990s. Educators involved in the running of those SACs had established a professional organization – The Hong Kong Association of Self-Access Learning and Development (HASALD) – to provide professional support and networking opportunities for its members. However, I knew of no other self-access centres in Japan, and there was certainly no network of professionals working in other centres from whom novices in the field, such as myself, could receive advice.

Not to be deterred I purchased a copy of Establishing Self-Access (Gardner & Miller, 1999), read it cover to cover, and then drafted a proposal to establish a self-access centre which was submitted to the university at the beginning of 2000. In November of that year we heard that the initial proposal had been accepted, funding had been allocated,

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space had been provided and we could start buying the equipment and resources to fill our space.

The SALC opened on 1st June 2001 and went from strength to strength. We were frequently full as learners came in to work on their listening or speaking skills, to practice for tests, or to borrow graded readers. The SALC was so frequently full that the university decided to construct a new building in part to house a new SALC. Together with the ELI management, many members of the SALC team were involved in designing the new building, which allowed us to incorporate into the construction some specific features to enhance this space for language learning purposes. We watched the new building grow and moved in at the beginning of the academic year in 2003.

Over the intervening years, the operation of the SALC has again gone from strength to strength. It continues to have the strong research foundation that existed from the very beginning and the large purpose-built space has allowed the development of the wide range of resources now available to learners. Our first formalised learning programme was BASIL – Be A Successful Independent Learner. This took learners through the stages of assessing their needs and developing a learning plan. In 2003 we started offering the SHM – the SALC Homework Module – an optional module of SALC-based work which learners could take to gain extra credit for their freshman (first year) English class grade (see Cooker & Torpey (2004) for further details on the SHM).

The limited success of this led us to develop the First Steps Module, a learner-training programme which takes learners through the first steps towards learner autonomy, and its sequel, the Learning How to Learn Module, in which learners implement the individual learning plan they wrote for themselves at the end of the First Steps Module. In addition, modules are now offered to sophomore (second year) students with an emphasis on developing autonomous learning skills while focusing on reading, media English, writing or speaking As the SALC is concerned with meeting individual needs of learners and working towards offering something close to a personal curriculum, such modules require an intense amount of one-on-one work with learners. Thus, these developments required extra learning advising support. The SALC now boasts a team of ten full-time learning 6

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advisors, plus five full-time administrative staff, and approximately thirty part-time student staff.

Over the course of my work in developing the SALC I have formulated a personal philosophy of self-access centres and self-access learning, the main tenets of which are as follows:

1. Self-access learning should be truly self-access.

Many institutions require students to use their self-access centre as part of a course of study. I believe that self-access learning should be truly self-access, and whilst a certain amount of guidance is necessary for learners to be able to use the centre and understand how it operates, at no other time should they be required to use the facility. In the SALC at KUIS, use of the centre is completely optional. Despite this, in the first semester of 2010 around 500 Freshman students signed up to take the optional First Steps Module.

This is just one indicator of how a truly self-access system can successfully foster motivation for learning.

2. Students should have an integral role in the running of the centre.

From the very beginning students have had an important role in the development of the SALC. Four KUIS graduates are now full-time administrators, and students continue to play an important role not just in staffing the SALC, but also in selecting and trialling materials and in promoting the centre. A recent innovation in terms of student involvement is that of the SALC Student Committee (SSC), a group set up by students who want to help promote the SALC and pass on students’ ideas to the SALC staff, advisors and administration. !

3. Language learning should be fun.

If a self-access centre is truly self-access, then learners need to be enticed into the centre, and the most effective way of doing this is to make language learning fun. The SALC is stocked with materials which aim to engage learners in ways which are fun and

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entertaining. For example, music and movie-based activities, and the genuine interactions in English between students themselves and between learning advisors and students, allow learners to see that effective language learning should be related to everyday activity, rather than something which is confined to classrooms and grammar textbooks.

In Japan, where English language classes are traditionally very teacher-centered and grammar-oriented, encouraging learners to understand that language learning can be enjoyable and worthwhile has always been one of the biggest challenges.

4. The learning environment is important.

From the very beginnings of the SALC, we aimed to create an environment which did not feel like a typical university classroom or library. Through the combination of the language policy, in which learners are encouraged to use English rather than Japanese for every day communication, and the careful choice of colour schemes, furniture, physical layout, displays, and décor, we succeeded in creating a space which felt “different”.

Learners commented that it felt like a “little piece of America” or that it was like a “reverse home-stay”. Through this relaxed ambience we aimed to provide a place where students would choose to hang out and speak English, and be enticed to use the facilities and materials.

Notes on the contributor Lucy Cooker is a PhD research student at the University of Nottingham. She is also an External Consultant for the SALC at Kanda University of International Studies.

References Cooker, L., & Torpey, M. (2004). From the Classroom to the Self-access Centre. The Language Teacher 28 (6) 11-16.

Gardner, D., & Miller, L. (1999). Establishing self-access. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

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Notes A version of this article was originally published as: Cooker, L. (2008). Some self access principles. Independence 43, 20-21.

It will also feature in a forthcoming IATEFL volume edited by C. Everhard, J. Mynard & R.C. Smith.

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What Factors Encourage High Levels of Student Participation in a Self-Access Centre?!

Keith Barrs, Kanda University of International Studies Introduction The motivation to write about Self-Access Centres (SACs) comes from experiencing a marked difference in the frequency and depth of student participation at two separate centres; one in a university in Japan and one in a private language school in England. In this context 'frequency' means how often the students use the centre and 'depth' means in what ways and to what extent the equipment and resources are used. At the SAC in Japan, the facilities are continually exploited by a large number of students with many of them visiting three or four times a week, on an optional basis, for usually over an hour each time. The activities in which the students are engaged include listening to music while annotating lyrics, practising pronunciation in speaking booths, reading English language novels and graded-readers, and communicating in the target-language with other students and learning advisors. In contrast, the SAC at the institution in England is only frequented by a very small number of students and the activities are generally limited to the issuance and return of books and the use of computers for online social networking, which is usually conducted in the native languages of the students.

From experiencing this marked difference, I began to reflect on some of the factors which were contributing to the variation in frequency and depth of use at each centre. There are several articles and books of essential reading in this area which discuss in detail factors such as students’ role in the centre, the nature and use of resources, the integration of the centre in the curriculum and the need for a pedagogical rationale of the SAC (Gardner & Miller, 1999; Cotterall & Reinders, 2001; Benson, 2001; Cooker, 2008; Sekiya, Mynard & Cooker, forthcoming). This short paper

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presents my observations on three specific factors, related to the learning environment of the SAC, that I feel are important in encouraging high levels of student participation: the presence of a language policy, the availability of an orientation programme and an effective layout and design of the building.

Definition of a SAC In order to effectively evaluate the different situations in the SACs introduced above, it is necessary to consider what is actually meant by the term 'Self-Access Centre.' Cottarell and Reinders (2001, p. 2) propose the following definition, "A Self-Access Centre consists of a number of resources (in the form of materials, activities and support), usually located in one place, and is designed to accommodate learners of different levels, goals, styles and interests.� Gardner & Miller (1999) highlight the fact that it is not simply the existence of self-access resources and services which go into making up the SAC, but also how these materials are presented to the students. They then set out a detailed explanation of what equipment and resources could be included and how it should all be organised (pp. 145-155). Furthermore, Benson (2001, p.9) states that institutions often establish SACs "without any strong pedagogical rationale,� which means that a SAC should be firmly grounded in strong pedagogical principles.

When I considered the situation in the SAC in Japan and at the institution in England, in light of these considerations, I observed that the fundamental difference between the two centres is not in the physical resources or equipment, but in the type of learning environment which has been created and offered to the students. The following sections will discuss three specific factors which I believe significantly contribute to this difference in the learning environment: a language policy in the SALC, an orientation programme for new students and the layout and design of the building.

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A SAC Language Policy In my opinion, encouraging and supporting the use of a language throughout the SAC can help to create an environment which fosters and develops regular use of the target language. In the SAC in Japan there is a language policy whereby all student-student and student-staff communication is to be conducted in English and this helps to motivate many learners to achieve tasks and seek assistance through using the target language. In this way there is a supportive and encouraging environment for the use of English, which motivates many students to visit and use the facilities. It is true that some students, especially of a lower level, may be discouraged from using the centre because of the language policy. However, I have found from discussions with students that one of the main reasons for them using the facility is that it reflects the real-world situation of conducting activities in English, and this is something which is generally difficult to experience in Japan.

In contrast, the SAC in England has no language policy. This could be understood from the point of view that students are more readily able to immerse themselves in English speaking situations, but it is an unfortunate fact that many students, despite living in the target-language environment, create a life where they can live day to day without needing to use English. By not encouraging or supporting the use of the target-language, I feel that this SAC is missing an opportunity to construct an environment which is attractive to the students for developing their selfaccess learning abilities, and this could be one contributing factor to the centre being used for little more than borrowing books and checking emails (in the students' native languages).

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A SAC Orientation Programme In order for students to make appropriate use of SAC facilities, it is crucial that they know and understand what is available and how to use it. In my opinion, there should be a comprehensive orientation programme in place whereby students are introduced to what is on offer and guided in the use of the resources and equipment. As pointed out by Cotterall and Reinders (2001, p. 6), forcing students to use self-learning facilities may de-motivate them to learn independently, but it is important to establish links between what happens in the class and what is available outside (and how to use it) in order for the students to begin taking independence in their learning.

The SAC in Japan conducts a week of orientation activities for the Freshman students.

These activities include a tour of the SAC, assistance in setting up a SAC passport for borrowing resources and an in-class presentation into what constitutes 'self-access' learning and how this can be achieved in the centre. Furthermore, optional modules are offered whereby the students can gain extra credits for their course through independent learning in the SAC. For example, Freshman students are able to take an optional 'First Steps Module' which is designed to integrate their classbased Freshman English course with the facilities and resources in the SAC. This creates a supportive, encouraging and participatory environment where links are established between in-class and out-of-class learning. There is no requirement for students to visit or use the centre but there is encouragement and support for self-access learning which is created by integrating the SAC into the wider university context. As a result of this supportive environment, the majority of Freshman students independently visit the SAC on a number of occasions during their first few weeks and this sets a trend for their continued use of the centre. Taking just one class as an example, 21 students from 29 signed up for the optional self-study learner training module which they follow throughout their first semester. !

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In contrast, the SAC in the institution in England exists mainly as an adjunct to the main school. Although the centre is well-stocked with a range of resources and equipment and all new students are given a brief tour of the school and SAC, there is no explanation of how the centre can be properly utilised and integrated into the students' programme of study. In my opinion, this contributes to the student participation rate in the centre being very low and the ones who do visit it often do little more than use the computers to access social networking sites in their own language.

Indeed, end-of-course feedback surveys show that many students finish their course at the school never having used the centre. It can be seen that without an orientation programme, high rates of student participation in the centre are unlikely, no matter how well the centre is resourced and equipped.

The SAC Layout and Design In order to create an environment which is conducive to self-access learning, attention needs to be paid to the general design and layout of the building so that students can make effective use of the centre by themselves (Gardner & Miller, 1999). First of all, the equipment should be easily accessible and adaptable to a range of functional uses, such as stereos and TVs/DVDs for listening/recording and areas for private or group interaction. Integrated into this there needs to be a wide range of resources that are appropriately placed so that students can make effective use of the equipment and materials.

The SAC in Japan has been designed with a focus on maximising the use of space and encouraging a motivating working environment. The centre, whilst being one large open-plan room, is divided into areas specific to particular activities and the resources are appropriately arranged to coordinate with the equipment. There is sufficient division between private and public work areas and the centre has a general feel of openness achieved through the use of full-glass fronts on rooms "#! !

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and open-style seating plans around stereos and TVs. In this centre I have observed high levels of participation by students, using it for a variety of purposes from presentation practice in group rooms to individual writing exercises at desks or computer stations.

The centre in England, although well-resourced and equipped, has not been designed with a particular focus on fostering independent learning. There is a computer room with a square layout and students facing out to the walls, and a separate listening/speaking room with stereos in a similar layout. The equipment and resources are sufficient but there is nothing in the design to encourage a range of functional uses of the equipment; there is no space for group activities or private booths for speaking practice and, consequently, the learning environment which has been created is fairly restrictive. Most importantly, the learning advisors are in a separate room and there is very little contact between them and the students, making the environment unsupported. From my observations, I have found that in order to encourage high levels of student participation in a SAC, there needs to be appropriate consideration given to the design and layout of the centre.

Conclusion Although a facility might be advertised as a 'Self-Access Centre' in its accompanying promotional literature, that does not necessarily mean that a suitable learning environment has been created which will encourage students to use the resources for help with their self-directed learning.

Along with Benson’s observation that SACs are often established without having a particular pedagogical focus (2001, p. 9), it seems evident that SACs are often established without due care and attention to the learning environment offered to the students. If institutions are to encourage high levels of student participation in the self-access centre then it is clear that it is not enough to simply establish a centre that is equipped and resourced with self-access materials. Research shows !

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that many different factors are involved in encouraging this participation (Gardner & Miller, 1999; Benson, 2001; Sekiya, Mynard & Cooker, forthcoming) and in this short article I have presented my observations of those factors which I feel are particularly relevant to the two SACs where I have experience. I believe that having a language policy, an orientation programme and an effective layout and design are three factors which can help to motivate and encourage students to take responsibility for their own learning in the self-access centre.

Notes on the contributor Keith Barrs lectures in Freshman English and Advanced Reading and Writing at Kanda University of International Studies, Japan. His research interests include the uses and integration of technology in the classroom as well as the learner interaction patterns encouraged by different pedagogical approaches.

References Benson, P. (2001). Teaching and researching autonomy in language learning. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.

Cooker, L. (2008). Some self access principles. Independence 43, 20-21.

Cotterall, S., & Reinders, H. (2001). Fortress or bridge? Learners’ perceptions and practice in self access language learning. Tesolanz, 8, 23-38.

Gardner, D., & Miller, L. (1999). Establishing self access: From theory to practice. Cambridge: CUP. Sekiya, Y., Mynard, J., & Cooker, L. (forthcoming). !"#$%&'()*+,-./0,1 !" [Self-access learning which supports learner autonomy]. In H. Kojima, N. Ozeki & T. Hiromori (Eds.), 23456!789: 13 ;<$= 6 ;2>?*+34!"#ÂŻ !" #@AB%&!"97C DEF [Survey of English Language Education: Vol. 6.

Developing English learners: Learner factors & autonomous learning] (pp. 191-210).

Tokyo: Taishukan-shoten. "#! !

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English Language Writing Centres in Japanese Universities: What do Students Really Need?!

Jim McKinley, Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan

Abstract The installation of English language writing centres in Japanese universities is a relatively recent event—the first ones established with funding from the Ministry of Education in 2004.

Because of the EFL writing context, setting up a writing centre requires consideration of students’ needs and cultural expectations of writing and writing centres. In general, writing centres that have been established in Japanese universities follow a structure similar to those in the US. This raises the question as to whether or not this is appropriate for the particular needs of EFL students and the obstacles they face. For this study, in order to explore students’ attitudes toward writing centres and the role they play in writing education, interview data was collected from students of English composition in two different departments at a university in Japan well known for its English language education: the English department, which does not have a writing centre, and the liberal arts department, which has one of the first writing centres established in Japan.

Keywords: writing centre, Japanese university, EFL writing, peer editing, writer feedback

Introduction & Background to the Study In the early part of this decade, for Japanese students in English-medium universities overseas, there was a seemingly overwhelming lack of English writing ability. It seemed that many Japanese students had not had much or any previous academic writing education in English before heading overseas. According to the research at the time (e.g. Casanave, 2003; Connor, 2003), this was difficult to explain, as there was a great lack of scholarly investigation being done in writing classrooms in Japanese universities. In 2006 the results of an in-depth qualitative study conducted with English majors at a reputable university in Japan involving classroom observations, interviews, and analysis of students’ written texts showed that those students were provided with academic writing classes, but that the lack of emphasis on the importance of writing skills (in comparison to speaking skills, for example) seemed to greatly hinder their writing skills development (McKinley, 2006).

In an unpublished 2007 study carried out at the same university as the current study, there were similar findings, compounded by the fact that there was no writing centre of learning support resources (McKinley, 2007). What was most evident there was that students—with just one writing class per week—were not spending sufficient time and energy &/%

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developing their writing skills. The students who voluntarily attended writing workshops for the unpublished study did so gratefully, and all made requests to the department to have a writing centre established.

Historical Background In general, translation skills, grammar, and spelling accuracy are components of English writing that have held value in Japanese education since the Meiji restoration. Due to this origin of language education in Japan, language mechanics form the basis of assessment of English writing in Japanese educational systems today. In addition to this historical importance, Japanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s examination culture has been responsible for reinforcing this value.

Ultimately, writing does not fit into Japanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s exam culture, a major reason being that it is regarded as difficult to assess (see Hamp-Lyons, 2007)1. The assessment of content in extended English composition requires knowledge that assessors cannot access easily, due to limited language proficiency on the part of the teachers, and thus this skill remains neglected in a culture that values examination scores over ability to communicate (Gilfert, 1999; Moore & Lamie, 1996; Taylor & Taylor, 1995).

Approaches to EFL Writing in Japan Today (from Product to Process) The continued reliance on the grammar-translation method is explained by teachersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; lack of training in other methodologies (Moore & Lamie, 1996). In universities, the importance of passing examinations is less emphasised, and according to Casanave (2002) in her book Writing Games, this is where the grammar-translation method (i.e. product approach) leads into the model-product approach (i.e. process approach). This shift in approach is related to the inclusion of genre theory and writing for specific purposes (Belcher, 2004). With the new focus on writing for specific purposes, genre studies (sometimes identified as English for Specific Purposes) led to a natural progression of the model-product approach.

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The model-product approach is a pedagogical method focusing on process writing that involves modeling, student-instructor negotiation, and autonomous composition. This approach coincided with developments in writing for specific purposes and genre studies as it allowed flexibility, making the writing process more accessible for both students and instructors and allowing instructors to work directly with students at various stages on the meanings they could create (Hyland, 2003).

Process writing became a popular approach in teaching L2 writing in the 1980s (Susser, 1994) at the same time that communication skills became the focus for curricula and policy-makers (Carroll, 1997). However, it has been suggested that the process revolution may never have actually happened in Japan (Casanave, 2003). Further, the debate remains whether process writing is actually more effective than product or form writing (Canagarajah, 2002). In traditional writing classes, the focus was on the typical (usually five-paragraph) essay form and writing style, not content or structure, as teachers were unable to provide feedback of any value on content (Shih, 1986).

A researcher and teacher of English language scholarship in Japan, Yoshimura (2001 as cited in Connor, 2003), conducted an experimental study echoing the work of Oi and Kamimura (1997), who found Japanese students were successful when taught Western argumentative essay patterns as well as organisational patterns and coherence structure.

Yoshimura acknowledges criticisms of teaching the form as opposed to the process and content of essay writing, but is convinced that the benefit for beginning Japanese writing students comes when they are comfortable with a form of writing. Yoshimura goes on to explain that their success with form can then be transferred to future writing contexts Yoshimura, as well as Matsuda (2001), suggest Japanese students are more comfortable with a form of writing because of a lack of familiarity with English writing strategies.

Anthony (2000) refers to the teaching of form as the teaching of a genre. In a study he conducted in a university in Japan, it was noted that students with considerable knowledge in their subject areas could develop non-formal aspects in written text. He maintains however, that if the learners had little experience with the target context, a course aimed at developing writing skills needed to operate in that context would be destined to fail.

In such cases, a focus on the more easily observable, formal features of the target genre would perhaps be more effective. (p. 1) %&2%

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Because English is a foreign language in Japan and not a second language, students do not sense any particular importance of English in their everyday lives. Also, the time frame for a foreign language course tends to be short in Japanese universities—usually fifteen 90-minute lessons over a period of one semester (Anthony, 2000). Although approaches in process writing pedagogy may be useful, Anthony (2000) explains that most have been developed in classrooms where the learners are either native speakers or approaching native speaker levels. In a foreign language classroom, on the other hand, few learners will be at an advanced level, and many will be struggling with even basic vocabulary and grammar points. To ask such learners to analyze texts and negotiate the writer's purpose, audience's assumptions, and so on components of process writing is clearly unrealistic. (p. 1) Based on Anthony’s observations, it seems that process writing did not necessarily have a place in Japanese universities due to a general lack of proficiency of the students.

Therefore, instead of taking up major changes in pedagogy as part of the process revolution, teachers of English writing in Japan have instead maintained product-based writing. Sensing that L2 writing pedagogy was in need of some innovation without taking up the apparently “unrealistic” efforts of process writing, scholars and researchers of the teaching of English writing in Japan have been looking more towards social and political aspects (content) instead of linguistic and textual aspects (accuracy) in finished written products. Casanave (2003), in her discussion of the debate over Japan’s position on the process and “post-process” movements, explains that a socio-political perspective needs to be expanded in order to explore the diversity of individual writers and writing contexts. This emphasis is centred on the basis that L2 writing education in Japan never caught on to the process movement.

Muncie (2000) suggests, however, that process writing exists in Japan but is ineffective in that students have no choice in using feedback from their teachers who are considered

. Students are in no position to negotiate with redrafts; they simply must

follow their expert teacher’s advice as closely as possible. The feedback therefore loses any value it may have had, he argues, had students been involved in it. In a trial conducted by Muncie (2000) with academic English writing students in a Japanese university, using peer feedback on mid-drafts and teacher feedback on final drafts encouraged writer autonomy.

The students were required to produce a summary using points from both peer and teacher -.% %

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feedback, which allowed the feedback to have more long-term effect on students' future writing.

Collaborative Writing, Teacher Feedback and Peer Response Japanese university students, with appropriate supervision, tend to respond positively to a more collaborative style or writing in which dialogue between themselves as writers and others helps them to achieve a final goal (Kubota 1999). As Clark and Ivanic (1997) point out, “With respect to the interactive/interpersonal aspect of writing, writing collaboratively is a very different activity from writing alone” (p. 83). Independent writing requires facilitation, and this is normally achieved through successful “dialogue” between writer and assessor through teacher feedback in various stages of the writing process. Student writers are able to incorporate feedback and response not only from teachers but also peers into the process of writing (Atkinson & Connor, 2008).

Peer response has developed from the social construction of knowledge (i.e. that knowledge is socially constructed, see Vygotsky, 1978), and is an important part of L2 writing instruction at the university level. Social relations may vary more widely based on students’ backgrounds with the target language, and although some earlier studies revealed negative reactions to peer response (due to embarrassment or shame of others seeing their work, as well as a lack of confidence in being useful as peer editors, see Falchikov, 1995), others showed that revisions based on peer response increased performance and confidence of responders (Leki, 1990). However, doubts remain on the validity of peer comments (Atkinson & Connor, 2008), particularly in consideration of meeting the expectations of native speaker teachers.

Attitudes to collaborative learning are ideological (Clark & Ivanic, 1997). The idea that collaborative writing would lend itself well to Japanese culture seems logical.

Individualism is often played down, so building a piece of writing collaboratively would seem appealing. However, traditional Japanese learning styles lead to hesitance and resistance to collaboration (Taylor & Taylor, 1995). Ideas that only the teacher (and often only a native English teacher) can provide useful feedback are not uncommon. In addition, students may resist peer work activities since they lack confidence, as there is a belief that the purpose of peer work is to be helped, and that can only be done by someone with more expertise %-&%

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(Falchikov, 1995). Thus it would seem that there would be great interest in receiving tutorial guidance in a writing centre.

Writing Centres – Politics and Other Obstacles It was around 1975 that writing centres changed from writing clinics to writing centres; conceptually they were no longer places for error correction, but rather places to discuss and receive advice on writing (Haswell, 2008). A significant point here is that the writing centre tutor became part of the teacher–student dialogue. This has been described as an “interruption” or an attachment of “an ancillary learning centre course to the lecture teacher’s classroom” (Haswell, 2008, p. 339). The fact is, the one-to-one, face-to-face conference that happens in the writing centre is a completely different kind of dialogue, one that follows the line of reasoning that university students receiving writing instruction are “conceptualized in terms of catch-up, remediation, or immaturity. Ultimately university writing teachers have taken on a repair role, and the writing centre tutors left with the truly incompetent” (Haswell, 2008, p. 339).

This raises the issue for writing centre tutors as to whether they should conform to the academic system—the set “writing program” within the department—or if they should critique the system in order to encourage students to understand the value of critique and learn to be effective critics themselves (Pemberton, 2006). It is a question of the goals of a writing centre. Should tutors be serving as teaching assistants, helping students to reach the expectations of the writing teachers? Or should they be guiding and offering students advice in order to help them become better writers in general? There are many factors to consider in the approaches a writing centre and its tutors take, but if they can agree on a community of practice in which writer identities are facilitated and everyone involved is a full participant (i.e. utilising Vygotsky’s social construction of knowledge framework where students can negotiate their learning and development with instructors and tutors), then everyone should be able to benefit (Geller, Eodice, Condon, Carroll, & Boquet, 2007).

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A Writing Centre in Japan The writing centre in the liberal arts department of the university where the study was held was established in 2004 (along with two other universities) as one of the "GP" (Good Practice) projects with funding from the Ministry of Education and was awarded in recognition of excellence in undergraduate education (Johnston, Cornwell, & Yoshida, 2008).

The centre provides students with one-to-one writing instruction in English only. Students can work with tutors on all aspects of writing, usually consulting the writing centre with course papers and application letters and essays. Although designed mostly for undergraduate students of the liberal arts department, some graduate students and faculty also use it. The group of tutors is made up of graduate students and two people with extensive tutoring experience (in 2008 there were ten graduate student tutors and two non-student tutors). The tutor training requires tutors to participate in a training session and read materials. The centre has one director who is a professor of English in the department.

The Study As part of any language curriculum, there is a certain focus on the skills of the target language, typically reading, writing, listening and speaking. For students in the English department, these skills are covered in compulsory or core curriculum courses. Listening and speaking are lumped together into one course, and reading is presumably addressed in the ever-unpopular writing course (although separate reading courses are offered in some departments). The writing teachers have the task of making writing appealing to students, and the obvious approach is the popular communicative style, where students can work in groups and spend time peer reading each other’s writing. (This Western approach to writing education coincides with the movement towards the process approach which although late, has been gradually replacing the product approach in English writing curricula across Japan.)

All of these ideas are built into a “writing program”—a seemingly mysterious part of the university curriculum.

This evasive concept of a writing program is most often associated with Writing Program Administrators—those people responsible for the writing curriculum. That person is usually a department chair or some other person in a leader role who may or may not have any interest in writing (L’Eplattenier & Mastrangelo, 2004). The “writing program” in these cases is for all intents and purposes left entirely up to the teachers. There are no guidelines, not even %-1%

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a standardized set of goals between writing teachers. There is no way to assure quality control unless students complain. This is the situation at the university of the current study where there are four different departments in which English writing is taught. This study was designed to investigate studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; attitudes toward the writing education offered by two of those four departments, and to explore how any awareness of a â&#x20AC;&#x153;writing programâ&#x20AC;? affected student attitude. While the liberal arts department has made efforts to assemble some kind of writing program (in comparison to the others that have not), and has established a writing centre, it has not been established within a documented writing program, per se. Students may receive widely disparate instruction depending on their teacher. Ultimately, and particularly for the English department students, the classes from which teachers receive the most positive feedback are student-centred, and focused on collaborative writing.

Data Collection Structured interviews were conducted with all students from four randomly selected compulsory English composition classes, two in the English department (all were second-year students of advanced-level proficiency) and two in the liberal arts department (all first-year students considered of native or near-native fluency). A total of 76 students from the four classes participated. All interviews were recorded using a digital voice recorder. There were eight interview questions as follows: 1. Have you ever lived overseas? Where? How long?

2. Have you ever studied in an international school or school that specializes in English language studies? If so, which school (where), and for how long?

3. Have you ever been to a writing centre for extra assistance on your writing (in any language)? If so, where, when and in what language?

4. Do you feel it would help you for the writing assignments you have now to work with a tutor in a writing centre? Why or why not? (Liberal arts students were asked to provide feedback on any experiences in their writing centre.)

5. Do you feel that you are a strong writer in English? Why or why not?

6. Do you believe your writing classes are providing you with sufficient writing skills development? Why or why not?

7. Do you believe peer reading in class is a valuable exercise? Why or why not?

8. Do you feel that you are able to work independently on your English writing? Why or why not?

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Analysis of Results The English department students and liberal arts students provided a variety of responses, but there were some significant trends noted. Typical of the students at this university, most had overseas experience. The interviews were conducted in English.

Compared with the two English department classes, the liberal arts students were generally more positive about what the university was providing them in terms of writing skills development. In addition, the liberal arts students were generally more positive about their own writing ability and about peer reading activities in their writing classes. They were also more positive about writing independently.

Although there is no writing centre available to English department students, some had past experiences with writing centres in their high schools. All responded positively about what a writing centre can offer, but negatively about the writing skills development offered by the university.

It would be ideal to make a link between the writing centre and students’ satisfaction with their writing skills development, but the comments by those liberal arts students who had used the writing centre were noteworthy. While most students were positive about the experience, with appreciative comments ranging from good advice to individual attention, nearly half of those students commented that the value of using the writing centre depended on the tutor, and two commented that they actually received bad advice.

Specific Cases Liberal Arts class 1 (15 students): One third had used the writing centre. Of those, all five students were positive about the writing centre, commenting that they received good advice and appreciated the individual attention. Of those students who had not used the writing centre, there were two negative comments: “I don’t need it,” and, “My friend had a bad experience.”

In this class, all students felt positive about their writing skills development in their classes. Three students (all who had never used the writing centre) gave a neutral or negative response about peer reading exercises. One commented, “Professor feedback is better.”

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There were a total of five students who responded positively about writing independently, none having been to the writing centre.

Liberal Arts class 2 (24 students): Fifteen of the students had used the writing centre.

Of those, nine were neutral or negative about the writing centre, mostly concerned that it depends on the tutor whether the writing centre is helpful or not. The positive responses ranged from helpful advice on grammar and overall writing skills to a general feeling of a need for the centre. The two negative comments were: “Bad advice,” and, “The tutor couldn’t help.”

In this class three students felt negative about their writing skills development in their classes. Of those, two had not been to the writing centre. The one who had been gave a neutral “depends on the tutor” response. Nearly all (21 students) were positive about peer reading. As for confidence in writing independently, the class was fairly evenly split with nine positive, seven neutral, and eight negative. Of the nine positive responses, only two had been to the writing centre. Of the fifteen students who had been to the writing centre, thirteen of them were neutral or negative about writing independently.

English class 1 (18 students): Only three students had experienced a writing centre before enrolling in university. Sixteen students suggested they would go to a writing centre if they could. Four students gave neutral or negative responses to their writing skills development in their classes, three of those being the students with writing centre experience.

Three students gave positive responses for writing independently, only one with writing centre experience.

English class 2 (19 students): No students had ever experienced a writing centre.

Nearly all (17 students) suggested they would go to a writing centre if they could. The one negative comment was: “[I would not go to a writing centre because] we need to think for ourselves.” This class had the highest ratio of dissatisfaction with their writing skills development in their classes with six giving neutral responses. There were three neutral and one negative response to peer reading. The negative comment was: “I can’t give advice.” Of the three students who responded positively about writing independently, one was neutral and one was negative toward using a writing centre.

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Conclusion The study found that in the English department where there is no writing centre, the students were found to be less positive about peer editing in class and working independently than their counterparts in the liberal arts department who do have a writing centre. Students in the liberal arts department who provided data were much more positive about peer editing and working independently with their own writing, but less positive about the writing centre.

Ultimately, there is much to consider in the installation of a foreign language writing centre. The idea of implementing a writing centre as a way of nurturing students’ ability to write independently seems to have been lost somewhat on the students in this study. This is not to suggest that the writing centre isn’t reaching the students and fulfilling a need. One issue is that students don’t have a clear idea of what the writing centre is supposed to do for them. Students’ expectations seem often to conflict with those of the tutor. For example, comments in the interviews included, “I wanted him to fix my grammar but he wouldn’t,” and, “I thought if I went to the writing centre I’d get an A on my paper… but I actually failed it!” One solution (put into practice as of April 2010 at the writing centre) is for students to complete a form that requires them to consider their needs specific to the writing they bring to the centre. The form was built using feedback from the writing centre tutors and is titled “The Writing Center Request Form” (see Appendix). It gives students a chance to review their writing, and be reminded that the tutors are not going to correct their writing, but will attempt to answer any particular questions raised by the student.

The other issue lies in the goals of the centre, students, and teachers. The tutors are currently serving more as teaching assistants, rather than guides to students’ writing skills development. The students are asking the tutors to help them meet the expectations of a particular task, rather than discussing general writing needs. It seemed clear in this study that it was the students who were able to indentify real writing needs who benefitted the most from the centre. For the others, particularly those who felt neutral about the centre, the issue was often that the tutor may not have been able to help explain the teachers’ expectations on a task. In those two negative responses from Liberal Arts class 2, it seems the tutors even gave advice that went against the task expectations. This is a dangerous path. It seems obvious that the centre needs to move away from this type of tutoring, and more towards general skills development. A strong recommendation would be for the centre to start writing workshops on specific themes in collaboration with the writing teachers. Some suggested workshop themes %-/%

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(borrowed from the University of Sydney’s Learning Centre and adapted for use in the unpublished 2007 study mentioned in the introduction) include: “Structures: Grammar and the Paragraph,” “Critical Writing,” “Reading for Effective Note Taking,” and “Critical Reading.”

These workshops could be several weeks long with at least one meeting per week. This should help assist students to become more independent and stronger writers.

Notes on the contributor Jim McKinley is an Assistant Professor of English and interim director of the Writing Center in the Faculty of Liberal Arts at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan. His research interests include EFL writing curriculum design and implementation, and critical writing pedagogy.

References Anthony, L. (2000). Implementing genre analysis in a foreign language classroom. TESOL Matters, 10(3),18.

Atkinson, D., & Connor, U. (2008). Multilingual writing development. In C. Bazerman (Ed.), Handbook of research of writing (pp. 515-532). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Belcher, D. (2004). Trends in teaching English for specific purposes. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 24, 165-186.

Canagarajah, A. S. (2002). Critical academic writing and multilingual students. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.

Carroll, T. (1997). From script to speech: Language policy in Japan in the 1980s and 1990s.

Nissan Occasional Paper Series.

Casanave, C. P. (2002). Writing games: Multicultural case studies of academic literacy practices in higher education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Casanave, C. P. (2003). Looking ahead to more sociopolitically-oriented case study research in L2 writing scholarship. Journal of Second Language Writing, 12, 85-102.

Clark, R., & Ivanic, R. (1997). The politics of writing. New York: Routledge.

Connor, U. (2003). Changing currents in contrastive rhetoric: Implications for teaching and research. In B. Kroll (Ed.), Exploring the dynamics of second language writing (pp.

218-241). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Falchikov, N. (1995). Peer feedback marking: Developing peer assessment. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 32(2), 175 – 187.

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Geller, A. E., Eodice, M., Condon, F., Carroll, M., & Boquet, E. H. (2007). The everyday writing center: A community of practice. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press.

Gilfert, S. (1999). Let's write in English: Teacher, we never learned that. ITESL Journal, 5(4), 1-6.

Hamp-Lyons, L. (2007). The impact of testing practices on teaching: Ideologies and alternatives. In J. Cummins & C. Davison (Eds.), International handbook of English language teaching, part one (pp. 487-504). Norwell, MA: Springer.

Haswell, R. H. (2008). Teaching of writing in higher education. In C. Bazerman (Ed.), Handbook of research of writing (pp. 331-346). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Hyland, K. (2003). Genre-based pedagogies: A social response to process. Journal of Second Language Writing, 12(1), 17-29.

Johnston, S., Cornwell, S., & Yoshida, H. (2008). Writing centers in Japan. Osaka Jogakuin College Journal, 5, 181-192.

Kubota, R. (1999). Japanese culture constructed by discourses: Implications for applied linguistics research and ELT. TESOL Quarterly, 33(1), 9-35.

Leki, I. (1990). Coaching from the margins: Issues in written response. In B. Kroll (Ed.), Second language writing (pp. 57-68). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Eplattenier, B., & Mastrangelo, L. (2004). Historical studies of writing program administration. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor Press.

Mastuda, P. K. (2001). Voice in Japanese written discourse: Implications for second language writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 10(1-2), 35-53.

McKinley, J. (2006). Learning English writing in a Japanese university: Developing critical argument & establishing writer identity. Journal of Asia TEFL 3(2).1-35.

McKinley, J. (2007). Diagnostic essay reveals major problems. Unpublished manuscript, Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan.

Moore, G., & Lamie, J. (1996). Translate or communicate? English as a foreign language in Japanese high schools. Commack, NY: Nova Science Publishers.

Muncie, J. (2000). Using written teacher feedback in EFL composition classes. ELT Journal, 54(1), 47.

Oi, K., & Kamimura, T. (1997). A pedagogical application of research in contrastive rhetoric.

JACET Bulletin, 28, 65-82.

Pemberton, M. A. (2006). Critique of conformity?: Ethics and advocacy in the writing center.

In C. Murphy & B. L. Stay (Eds.), The writing center directorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s resource book (pp.

261-269). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Shih, M. (1986). Content-based approaches to teaching academic writing. TESOL Quarterly, 20(4), 617-648.

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Susser, B. (1994). Process approaches in ESL/EFL writing instruction. Journal of Second Language Writing 3(1), 31-47.

Taylor, I., & Taylor, M. (1995). Writing and literacy in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese.

Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society. (M. Cole, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Yoshimura, T. (2001). Formal instruction of rhetorical patterns and the effectiveness of using L1 in argumentative writing in an EFL setting. Doctoral Dissertation, Temple University, Japan.

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SiSAL Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1, June, 2010, 32-46

An Investigation of Student Use of a Self-Access English-Only Speaking Area Heath Rose, Rikkyo University, Japan Roxanne Elliott, California Abstract This study examines students' use of an English-only area designed as a drop-in centre for students to practice English. The study investigated whether students' language ability, year of study or department of study influenced use of this facility. Data was collected through a log of student use of the area over a two-week period, and a survey given to 575 freshman students across three departments of study at the university (English, International Communication and Languages and Culture). The data showed no relationship between student language ability and feelings of satisfaction and comfort or desire to use the area.

These results challenged the assumption that higher-level students used the area more often and were more comfortable and confident than lower-level students. In addition to collecting data on student use of and attitude toward the English-only area, interviews were also carried out with all 42 instructors who worked in the area at the time of data collection. The interviews with instructors indicated that ongoing speaking tasks during the first semester, like those used in the International Communication department, could encourage more frequent use of the English-only area, resulting in continued use of the area in later years. This study indicates that the creation and trial of lessons that encourage student use of this English-only area could be an area worthy of further research. The interviews with instructors also highlight a number of issues connected to self-access speaking areas that will help inform other institutions that are considering setting up similar facilities.

Introduction and Background to the Study In the field of Second Language Acquisition, a number of factors have been considered to affect studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; language learning. Some of these factors, such as motivation and self-directed learning, have been explored over the past few decades, and more recently research has turned to self-access learning. In order to promote self-directed learning, selfaccess centres (SACs) have been established in many educational institutions (Malcolm, 2004). Despite this development of SACs in recent years, there has been little research into the evaluation of student use of these centres (Morrison, 2005). This study, therefore, aims to address this lack of research, by examining student use of a self-access conversation facility at a language university. The study also investigates studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; desire to use the facility because "motivation is a key factor that influences the extent to which learners are ready to learn autonomously" (Spratt, Humphreys, & Chan, 2002, p. 245).

The university in which the current study was conducted has placed a great deal of emphasis on the development of its students as autonomous learners, culminating in the opening of a SAC in 2003. According to Cooker and Torpey (2004), motivating students to "#! !

SiSAL Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1, June, 2010, 32-46

use the SAC at this particular institution and motivating them to become autonomous learners has been a central objective of the English curriculum at this particular university, especially in the freshman year. In their paper, Cooker and Torpey (2004) discuss the university curricula and highlight the importance the university places “on fostering the capacity of our learners to become autonomous and on conveying to them the opportunities for self-directed learning” (p. 16). As part of its commitment to communicative language teaching and crosscultural understanding, over forty native speakers1 of English were working as instructors in the university’s language institute at the time the study was conducted. As part of their teaching duties, these instructors were required to spend 3 hours each week in a conversation area – a lounge-like area adjacent to the SAC where students could drop in and speak to friends and instructors on duty in an English-only environment. It is important to clarify that although the conversation area was an official facility provided and operated by the language institute, rather than the SAC, it was indisputably a self-access learning facility.

The conversation area was designed to assist in the development of the students’ communicative competence as a supplement to classroom activities. Savignon (1997) asserts that communication is “a continuous process of expression, interpretation, and negotiation of meaning” (p. 15). If a teacher participates in a conversation in the area, teacher input can be most helpful in focusing on sociolinguistic competence, as that particular competence is perhaps the most difficult for many speakers to improve through peer interaction.

Sociolinguistic competence consists of understanding the appropriateness of language in context (Canale, 1983), and is “an interdisciplinary field of inquiry having to do with the social rules of language use” (Savignon, 1997, p. 41). Sociolinguistic competence involves skills such as knowing how to use language in different situations, and being sensitive to such factors as formality, register, style, and geographic or social language variation. Thus, the original rationale for the conversation area was that exposure to language in a cultural context would improve students’ communicative and sociolinguistic competence.

It was also hoped that the area would encourage learner autonomy in the university.

Dam (2003) outlines learner autonomy as a cumulative process which she summarises in “a learner’s four steps to learner responsibility” (p. 139): experience, awareness, influence, and responsibility.

1

Although the authors prefer the term “proficient user” as defined by Rampton (1990), the term native-speaker is used in this paper due to its widespread use in the literature. English was the native language of 37 of the 42 instructors. The remaining 5 instructors were proficient users of English, whose first language was a language other than English.

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1. Experience with and insight into useful and relevant activities, suitable partners, appropriate ways of organizing the work undertaken, and various ways of evaluating process as well as progress.

2. Awareness of what, why, and how to learn; awareness of one’s role in the learning process.

3. Influence on and participation in decision making as regards one’s own learning (choice of activities, partners, materials, etc.).

4. Responsibility for one’s own learning.

In short, Dam (2003) claims that a teacher can review his or her own role in the development of learner autonomy by asking the following questions:

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Have I prepared the students enough for autonomous learning?

•

Have I followed the four steps?

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Have I created a good environment for learning?

The English-only speaking area addresses this final question—that is, while the curriculum of the university helped guide the students toward learner autonomy, the speaking area was intended to provide a good environment for them to practise and engage in learning language outside the curriculum.

With three or four instructors on duty in the area at any one time from 9am to 4pm, Monday through Saturday, the area represented a considerable financial investment on the part of the institution. In fact this commitment worked out in excess of 42 million yen or $US450,000 a year in wages alone under the assumption that conversation lounge duties are performed in lieu of teaching duties. Despite this investment of instructor time and institutional resources, little research had been conducted into student use of the area, nor into attitudes towards the area from the perspectives of users and instructors. The purpose of the current study was, therefore, three-fold: 1. To investigate patterns of student use.

2. To explore student attitudes towards the area.

3. To explore teacher attitudes towards the area.

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Research Methodology and Data Collection Data were collected in three ways. Firstly, a logbook was implemented over a twoweek period where all students who engaged in conversation with an instructor on duty were required to sign in and out, with information pertaining to their year of study, department, and class number. From this, their language ability could be ascertained due to classes being streamed according to a proficiency test.

Secondly, a survey was given to all freshman students across three departments regarding their use of the English-only area. The survey was administered in Japanese and posed the following questions: 1. How comfortable do you feel visiting the English-only area?

2. How clearly do you understand when teachers are on duty?

3. How clearly do you understand which teachers are on duty?

4. How clearly do you understand the purpose of the area and how to use it?

5. Is there a teacher available at the time when you would like to use the area?

6. How often do you use the area to talk with a teacher?

7. Why do you use the area?

8. How satisfied are you with the English-only area?

Thirdly, all instructors who worked in the area were interviewed over a two-month period.

Instructors were asked the following questions in semi-structured interview format.

1. What do you enjoy most about your duty?

2. How would you like student visitors to approach/interact with you? (Please characterize your “ideal student visitor’s” behaviours.)

3. What kinds of conversations do you like to have/ which topics do you like to discuss in the area?

4. What do you find frustrating about your duty?

5. Are there any topics students commonly bring up that you don’t like to or would rather not discuss?

6. In what ways do you think the area is most useful to students?

7. Do you encourage your students to use the area? If so, how and how often?

8. Are the activities you encourage/assign useful in getting students to use the area? !

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9. Do you have any suggestions for how any aspects of the area could be improved?

Log Book (Traffic Report) Findings Results from the logbook of student use of the speaking area over the two-week period revealed information on the type of students who visited this area. The results (summarized in Figure 1) indicated that freshman students made up the majority of students who used the area, comprising 54 percent of the total visits made during the two-week period. These results also showed a decrease in use of the English-only area with each subsequent year level, with fourth year students comprising just 3 percent of the visits made to the area in this period.

Such results indicated that the English-only area was largely a freshman and sophomorestudent domain.

Figure 1. English-only area use according to students' year of study.

When the same data was analysed according to the language ability of the students in the freshman year, as indicated by performance of a proficiency exam, no relationship was found. That is, students from high proficiency classes used the area as often as students from the lower frequency classes. This challenged the assumptions of a previous study (Rose, 2007)

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that lower-level students may be less likely to use the English-only area than higher-level students due to nervousness, lack of confidence in ability, or shyness.

When the data were split according to the department in which the student belonged, there was a large difference between the percentage score. International Communication (IC) majors comprised 50 percent of visits, compared to the English majors at 43 percent while Language & Culture (ILC) majors were 7 percent. When these figures were adjusted according to student numbers in each of the three departments, IC majors averaged 1.4 visits per freshman student in this two-week period, compared to 0.3 visits per student in the English and ILC Departments. These results indicate that on average an IC Department freshman student visited the English-only area five times more often than the average English department student. Later interviews with instructors revealed this might have been the result of a regular speaking assignment in the form of a speaking journal being given to all freshman students in this department.

Student Survey Findings 550 surveys were collected from all freshman students across the three departments.

The surveys asked eight questions regarding student use of the English-only area. With regard to the first question, in which students were asked how comfortable they felt in using the English-only area, less than half of the students indicated that they were comfortable about using the area.

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Figure 2. How comfortable students felt using the English-only area.

Figure 2 shows these results divided according to the three departments. 67 (18 very and 49 somewhat) percent of IC department students stated they were comfortable in using the area, compared to 48 percent in the English department and 43 percent in the ILC department. These results suggest a relationship between department and level of comfort.

The sixth survey item investigated the frequency of visits students made to the English-only area. The results of the survey item are displayed in Figure 3.

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Figure 3. How often students used the English-only area.

The vast majority of students (67 percent) visited the area less than 5 times throughout the semester. 26 percent visited once every one or two weeks. Seven percent visited more than once a week. When the same results were divided according to the three departments, considerable differences were discovered, as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Frequency of use, according to students' department.

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In the IC department, 31 percent of students reported using the area more than once a week, compared to 7 percent in the English department and 15 percent in the ILC Department.

In the next bracket, 60 percent of IC department students reported using the area once every one or two weeks, compared to 26 percent in the English department and 32 percent in the ILC department. Similarly, while students who used the area less than 5 times throughout the semester represented the majority of students in the English department (67 percent) and the ILC department (53 percent), they made up only 9 percent of students in the IC department.

These results are consistent with the log book results which indicated the average IC department student visited the area almost five times as often as the average English department student.

The seventh survey item investigated reasons for using the English-only area and is summarized in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Motivation for going to the English-only speaking area.

Seventeen percent indicated the completion of course tasks as the primary reason, while two percent indicated an unwillingness to use the area. The vast majority indicated a desire to use the area as the primary reason for visiting.

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When the results were viewed departmentally, once again differences became apparent. As shown in Figure 6, while the English and ILC departments showed high levels of self-motivation to use the English-only area, with a third of students reporting they used it purely because they wanted to, this accounted for only nine percent in the case of IC students.

90 percent of IC students reported school tasks as a reason for using the area, 26 percent of those indicating course tasks as the sole reason. These results indicate that students of the English and ILC departments use the English-only area for different reasons than students of the IC department. For IC department students, course tasks were the prevalent reason for using the English-only area, although the majority of these students also expressed a willingness to go.

Figure 6. Motivation for using the speaking area, according to department.

The final survey item investigated student satisfaction regarding the English-only area.

Half of the freshman students reported they were unsatisfied (5%) or not very satisfied (46%), this compared with the other half who reported they were satisfied (34%) and very satisfied (15%). These results did not differ greatly across departments.

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Interview Findings Instructors were interviewed in a semi-structured interview format, where they were asked to comment on a number of questions concerning student use of the area. Data were transcribed and coded. The following findings emerged from the data: 1. Instructors recognized benefits that the speaking area provided students. Almost all interviewees commented that the area provided students with a less structured and more relaxed interaction than provided in language classrooms. Instructors agreed the area allowed students to practice language use and helped build cultural awareness.

2. Instructors saw a link between early use of the area and continued use. Instructors agreed that once students became regular users, it helped them maintain good habits in using the area. They felt usage patterns of the area are established during students' freshman year, and that if a student did not use the area in this first year, they were unlikely to use it at all throughout their 4-year degree.

3. Instructors from the IC department gave a regular homework task in the form of a speaking journal to their students, in which they were encouraged (but not required) to use the speaking area for its completion. Such comments from IC department instructors shed light on the different results concerning use of the area by the students in both the logbook and survey data.

4. Instructors mentioned student shyness as an area of frustration. One factor mentioned by nearly all instructors was that some students were very the shy and nervous resulting in apprehension to approach the instructor or excessive quietness once engaged in conversation.

5. Instructors mentioned unrealistic expectations from students as an area of frustration, especially in regard to the expectation that the instructor should be the centre of attention. Nearly all instructors commented that the student expected all conversation to be centred on the instructor and thus took a passive role in initiating and maintaining conversation. Some of the metaphors used by instructors regarding their

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perceived role in the area included “entertainer” (7 comments), “hub” (3), “focus” (2), and even “zoo animal” (1).

6. Instructors saw topic management as an area of frustration. According to almost all instructors, students did not seem to understand how to approach, initiate, sustain, and conclude a conversation. Students often came unprepared to the area, and did not know how to hit on a topic of mutual interest.

In summary, while instructors saw the benefit of students’ use of the area, there were a number of frustrations, which stemmed from what the instructors viewed as inappropriate or misunderstood use of the area by the students.

Discussion of Findings The results indicate that classroom activities had a huge impact on student use of the area. Students of the IC department who were given a structured and frequent speaking journal task, were more inclined to use the English-only speaking area due to having this purpose. This higher degree of use also equated with a higher satisfaction with the area, higher awareness of how to use the area, and higher levels of comfort when in the speaking area.

However, a large number of students from this department commented that they used the area solely to complete these tasks (26 percent). To some instructors, this brought into question the self-access nature of using the area to complete the tasks. However, such results indicate the positive benefits these tasks can have in familiarizing students with a self-access speaking area, but also warn against prolonged use of these tasks once these aims have been achieved.

The interviews further highlighted a problem concerning student misunderstanding of the purpose of the English-only area. Comments suggested that students expected that the instructor should be the “hub” of the conversation, and therefore often visited the area expecting the instructor to initiate and sustain the conversation. Instructors, on the other hand, viewed their role as a conversation participant. This differing view concerning roles indicates that awareness needed to be raised on how roles in the SAC are different from instructorlearner roles in the classroom. Such findings echo opinions of self-access researchers who assert that “a recognition of the changing roles of instructors in self-access is critical to the success of centres” (Sturtridge, 1997, p. 66). The instructors commented that they enjoy conversing with students who: !

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initiate conversation

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engage other students in the conversation

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come prepared with a topic to discuss

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know how to start and end a conversation

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are genuinely interested in having a conversation on a given topic

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are active participants in the conversation These results, therefore, can help inform similar institutions of ways in which they can

promote positive usage of their English-only areas. The results suggest materials should be designed to teach the students about instructor expectations of them when using such facilities. Resources could also be made to train students to become more active participants in conversations with the instructors. With regard to instructors, they should feel empowered both in the classroom and in the English-only area to tell students that the primary goal is student-driven conversation, and the instructor serves as more of a participant and guide than initiator. This conflict of roles both in and outside of the classroom also leads to the debate over whether use of instructors is necessary in the speaking area at all. Perhaps the role of native speaker on duty in the area could be more appropriately filled by employees who are not professional academic staff. Employing foreign language exchange students, peers, or English conversation instructors, where this pre-existing student-instructor relationship would cease to be problematic, may prove more fruitful for some institutions.

Conclusions and Implications for Further Research In conclusion, the data collected suggests many areas for positive change that can be made to improve experiences in the English-only area for both instructors and students at the institution. Further research into how to incorporate awareness-raising activities into the freshman curriculum would be beneficial to future positive use of the area. This report suggests the trial of tasks in the curriculum that promote correct usage of the English-only area and to provide scaffolding to enable students to become more active and prepared users of this area.

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The study also offers suggestions to educational institutions that are considering establishing similar English-only facilities. Firstly, the findings of the study suggest careful thought be made into how students are taught to use the area effectively. Secondly, students should also be made aware of expectations placed on them by instructors in the area so that they are able to leverage a maximum amount of benefit from the area. Thirdly, results show classroom activities that encourage use of the area have a positive effect on both use of the area and attitude toward this use. Finally, institutions should carefully evaluate the rationale behind hiring decisions in terms of who they want to be working in the area and what their role should be.

With regard to implications for future study, the authors acknowledge that the data for this study is relatively old, being collected in 2005-2006. For this reason, the institution already may have implemented many of the suggestions offered. Thus, a future study, which reported on the effectiveness of these suggestions, would be of research interest. Furthermore, as this study represents a single case of student use of an English-only facility, the findings would be further strengthened through investigation of similar facilities offered at other language institutions.

Notes on the contributors Heath Rose is an assistant professor at Rikkyo University, Japan. He first became interested in self-directed learning and learner autonomy in 2003 when he completed his masters dissertation in the field of strategic learning. He continued this vein of research in his PhD study in the fields of strategy use, motivation control and self-regulation in language learning.

Roxanne Elliott has taught and translated in Italy, Japan and California, where she now resides. Her interest in motivation and autonomy grew as she pursued her MA in TESOL from the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California. As an instructor at Kanda University of International Studies from 2005 to 2007, she developed and implemented selfaccess learning materials and teacher-led curriculum to encourage learner autonomy.

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References Canale, M. (1983). From communicative competence to communicative language pedagogy.

In J. C. Richards & R. W. Schmidt (Eds.), Language and communication (pp. 2-27).

New York: Longman.

Cooker, L., & Torpey, M. (2004). From self-direction to self-access: A chronicle of learnercentred curriculum development [Special issue]. The Language Teacher: Perspectives on Self-Access, 28(6), 11-14.

Dam, L. (2003). Developing learner autonomy: The teacherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s responsibility. In D. Little, J. Ridley and E. Ushioda (Eds.), Learner autonomy in the foreign language classroom: Teacher, learner, curriculum and assessment, pp. 126-150. Dublin: Authentik.

Malcolm, D. (2004). Why should learners contribute to the self-access centre?

ELT Journal, 58(4), 346-354.

Morrison, B. (2005). Evaluating language gain in a self-access language learning centre.

Language Teaching Research, 9(3): 267-293.

Rampton, M. (1990). Displacing the 'native speaker': Expertise, affiliation, and inheritance.

ELT Journal, 44(2), 97-101.

Rose, H. (2007). Jump-starting student motivation to use self-access learning facilities in high-anxiety learning environments. Kanda Journal, 19, 171-188.

Savignon, S. J. (1997). Communicative competence theory and practice: Texts and contexts in second language learning (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Companies.

Spratt, M., Humphreys, G., & Chan, V. (2002). Autonomy and motivation: Which comes first? Language Teaching Research, 6(3), 245-266.

Sturtridge, G. (1997). Teaching and language learning in self-access centres: Changing roles.

In P. Benson & P. Voller (Eds.), Autonomy and independence in language learning (pp. 66-79). London: Longman.

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Integrating Self-Access into the Curriculum: Our Experience Gene Thompson, Hiroshima Bunkyo Women’s University, Japan Lee Atkinson, Hiroshima Bunkyo Women’s University, Japan Abstract Linking self-access and classroom learning is a difficult and time-consuming business, but one which can lead to great rewards as learners develop independent learning skills and assume greater responsibility for their learning. This paper will outline the approach for encouraging independent learning employed in the first year English language curriculum at Hiroshima Bunkyo Joshi Daigaku (HBJD), a four-year women’s only university in Japan. Two different methods for doing this will be introduced: employing project-based learning activities and linking classroom activities with a Self-Access Learning Center (SALC). The design of the curriculum and the materials encourage individualized learning, while the project-based and independent learning activities promote learner responsibility and control of learning (Dickinson, 1987) through utilization of the SALC. This paper will outline the issues involved in shifting from a weakly linked curriculum and SALC to a more strongly linked curriculum-SALC relationship. It will provide specific examples of this challenge before also discussing examples of the successes and failures that have been faced by the curriculum design and self-access teams in attempting to create a curriculum which strongly promotes independent learning. It is hoped that sharing these experiences will provide some useful insights into the issues surrounding the encouragement of independent learning and how these issues can be tackled practically in a teaching situation.

Introduction The establishment of the Bunkyo English Communication Center (BECC) at Hiroshima Bunkyo Joshi Daigaku (HBJD) was a collaborative project between Kanda University of International Studies (KUIS) and HBJD that utilized the knowledge and skills of KUIS in helping HBJD to establish a new language curriculum and Self-Access Learning Center (SALC).

There were numerous challenges in creating the new center, and this paper focuses on efforts to integrate self-access into the curriculum in response to the new educational environment.

The paper will begin by briefly summarizing some of the key challenges faced in establishing the BECC, before introducing the rationale for encouraging autonomous learning capacity using a self-access approach. The paper will then outline the differences in the relationship between KUIS’s SALC and curriculum and the BECC’s SALC and curriculum before moving on to a discussion about the ways in which self-access is linked with the Freshman English curriculum at the BECC. Two methods for linking the SALC and curriculum will be discussed: 1) the use of self-access activities which supplement classroom work and 2) the use of SALC resources in projects that learners are required to complete as part of their %

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courses. Finally, the paper will conclude by suggesting areas for future research and development with respect to self-access integration into the curriculum based on the 1st year experience of the BECC team.

The BECC Project The BECC Freshman English curriculum was designed to develop language proficiency and autonomous capacity. The contents and philosophy of the curriculum reflect the KUIS Freshman English program which emphasizes individualization, interdependence, and interaction as key components in the learning process in creating a learner-centered curriculum1.

The majority of learners at HBJD major in psychology, nutrition, welfare or early childhood education with only a small number majoring in languages. Irrespective of their major area of study, all first year learners are required to complete the BECC Freshman English program. Research into learner beliefs and attitudes towards English language learning at the BECC (Foale & Gillies, 2008) indicated that a significant number of learners have negative attitudes towards language learning based on their prior experience and perceived failures. This has led them to believe they will never be successful language learners, and may be an example of how “pessimistic explanatory styles” (Peterson, Maier, & Seligman, 1993) can lead to feelings of helplessness. As a result, many BECC learners have little experience, or interest, in autonomous language learning.

Language Education Reform in Japan Debates about improving language education continue in Japan with reform movements including the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) “Action Plan to Cultivate Japanese with English Abilities” (MEXT, 2002, 2003)2 and the establishment of gakushiryoku or ‘General Graduate Competencies’ (see Figure 1).

Gakushiryoku is the term used to describe the MEXT’s advisory that university graduates should %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% 1

For more about the BECC project, see Thompson and Foale (2008), while for about the educational philosophies of the Freshman English curriculum at KUIS, see Johnson (1989), and Cooker and Torpey (2004).

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more about the Action Plan to Cultivate Japanese with English Abilities, see MEXT white papers and reports (2005, 2006a, 2006b).%

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have core competencies including basic foreign language ability, lifelong learning skills, problem solving skills, and sufficient autonomous learning capacity to be able to make decisions about future learning based on evaluations of past learning experiences. The BECC was charged with not only developing students’ basic English proficiency, but also their cross-cultural awareness and understanding, and skills for planning, and evaluating learning in line with the principles of gakushiryoku in developing lifelong learning skills. For HBJD, the gakushiryoku movement is one of the key drivers for instigating the collaborative project with KUIS to establish the BECC language program and SALC, given KUIS' strong support of autonomous learning and self-access, which was recognized as a “Center of Excellence” by the Ministry of Education in 2003.

Figure 1. Autonomous learning in gakushiryoku.

Developing Autonomous Capacity Through Self-Access As Benson (2001) explains, autonomy is usually considered to refer to three interdependent areas concerning the capacity of learners to take control of their learning. These three areas are the learners’ cognitive processes, the management of their learning, and the content of their learning. Regarding the practice of autonomy, Gardner and Miller (1999) explain how self-access centers are successful in providing structure for the development of autonomous learning capacity by providing a space which allows learners the opportunity to interact with the learning environment in unique ways in order to address their learning needs in %

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a personal manner. The two-part rationale for self-access is that it is a pragmatic response to the individualization of education and, ideologically, it promotes learner independence (Sheerin, 1997). The challenge for developing autonomous learning capacity is encouraging and equipping learners with the skills and confidence to start moving from teacher dependence towards a state of greater autonomy in which they are able to take greater control over their learning.

Gardner and Miller (1999) outline several possibilities as to how a SALC may be linked with the curriculum, ranging along a continuum from no direct links or integration between the SALC and curriculum to a fully integrated SALC and curriculum. At KUIS there is a weak link between the SALC and the curriculum. Although there are programs in place, such as extra learning modules which link the SALC and curriculum (Cooker & Torpey, 2004), learners are not required to participate in these programs or to use SALC resources as part of their curriculum. As the BECC SALC was originally based on the KUIS model, a weak relationship between the BECC SALC and the curriculum was initially established. However, it soon became apparent that the extent to which learners recognized the benefits of self-access learning was a unique part of the KUIS university culture rather than a universal trait. We were faced with the task of considering how to encourage autonomous learning behaviors for non-language majors, who had a wide range of abilities and were in “different stages of the life-long learning process” (Morrison, 2008, p. 126). This involved a re-conception of our place in their hierarchy of educational needs, as despite the availability of the BECC’s self-access learning center, usage data continued to show few learners making use of it. Our experience in this regard followed that of Hess (1996) and Benson (2002), as we also naively “thought that learners of English … would respond enthusiastically to self-access” (p. 3).

This led to the conclusion that we needed to develop clearer pathways (i.e. referring learners to specific resources or materials) into the SALC. As Kell and Newton (1997, p. 52) explain, pathways can operate as a “map” for “lost” learners, a “stepping-stone” for learners with low confidence, and a “release” for bored learners. Cotterall and Reinders (2001) explain that the SALC can function as a bridge between what Crabbe (1993) refers to as public-domain learning and private-domain learning by linking the shared learning that is carried out in class with the learners’ individual private learning. There was a need to highlight to learners the links between their public and private learning in order for them to see the benefit of using the SALC and to reduce their anxiety towards using the SALC. It was also felt that a more structured approach to encouraging autonomous learning development was required, as the HBJD learner group risked being overwhelmed by too much choice. Aldred and Williams (2000), appear to %2.%

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have experienced the same issue during the development of a self-access program in Hong Kong where they found there was “too much choice for students” (p. 86) and that giving more direction to learners in the form of recommendations or pathways helped to avoid paralysis of choice by learners. In the KUIS institutional culture, with a relatively sophisticated languagelearner population, this problem was not evident. However, in the BECC context, a more structured approach was seen as vital in developing learners' awareness of different ways of learning and of controlling their learning.

Approaches Towards Developing Autonomy While a strength of self-access learning is that it is flexible and can be tailored to match the needs of the learners (Gardner & Miller, 1999), doing so effectively presented a major challenge for the team charged with implementing the new curriculum and establishing the SALC. The first step identified by the BECC teaching and learning advisor team was to provide learners with more opportunities to take greater control of their learning, and as much as possible, a self-access approach (Serra Salvia, 2000) involving the use of the self-access center was the preferred means for providing these opportunities and developing autonomous learning capacity.

As Benson (2001) explains, "any practice that encourages and enables learners to take greater control of any aspect of their learning can be considered a means of promoting autonomy” (p. 109). Two approaches for fostering the development of autonomous capacity by linking the curriculum and SALC were selected for implementation:1) the creation of pathways into the SALC through extension activities, which were a part of curriculum materials and assessment, and 2) the provision of specific project support materials in the SALC, which provided learners with resources for completing in-class presentation preparation and planning.

While this “coercion” of the learners to engage in self-access learning can be seen as a contradiction of autonomous learning capacity development by “forcing” learners to become consumers of products selected by others (Benson, 1994; Malcolm, 2004), it was considered that in order to foster autonomous learning capacity, some orientation to the center (Navarro Coy & Brady, 2003) was required first in order to facilitate learner development later. As Sheerin (1997, p. 60) explains, “training” differs from “development” in that training involves “something that is done by someone to someone else” while development is cognitive and “involves accepting responsibility for one’s learning”, and we believed that development would not occur for most of our learners without some training to structure the process. %

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Towards a More Integrated Curriculum - Self-Access Materials For students who have never previously taken control of their learning, moving towards greater control is a very challenging process. To support this process, the classroom materials were directly linked with material and resources in the SALC through the use of extension activities and projects - with the goal of giving learners some choice and control over some of their language learning, ideally in a manner that reduced learner anxiety and resistance to a new learning environment.

The SALC Extension Activities were developed to connect to the learners’ classroom study and were designed to serve as an ongoing orientation to the SALC and its resources. These activities were completed outside class time and required learners to make choices about which activities to complete, when to visit the SALC, and who to work with. Some of the activities could be done individually, while others needed to be completed with a partner, in a group, or with a learning advisor or BECC teacher. For each activity different resources in the SALC were utilized and learners were directed to specific resources or areas. These activities built upon what the language learners experienced in class, and were designed to provide further practice in a freer environment.

Integrating the Curriculum - Project-Based Materials As Gardner and Miller (1999) explain, project-based learning can be an effective method for helping to move learners towards autonomy through cooperating with their peers and managing their learning, as “although a project may be started in class, learners could use selfaccess facilities and libraries to continue their work” and “in this way classroom-based learning can be linked with a self-access centre” (p. 167). It was considered crucial for integrating selfaccess to make it an authentic experience for learners and to encourage learners to use the selfaccess center by making it the obvious choice when researching projects without making the use of the center compulsory for completing the project. This was achieved by setting the learners’ project preparation tasks which could be completed using only web-based or other outside resources, but at the same time learners were made very aware of the print and multimedia resources available in the SALC in the hope that they would use these instead. Furthermore the center’s design - with “Group Access” areas and “Multi-purpose” rooms - provided ideal spaces for carrying out project work. Learners’ awareness of SALC resources and equipment was raised %2-%

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and developed through the self-access extension materials, so that when learners were presented with research projects, they had a foundation of understanding about the center which they could use to make an informed choice about using the center for their project work.

While identifying areas for encouraging autonomous capacity development by more strongly linking the SALC and curriculum was relatively easy, the process of implementing the initiatives varied. In order for such a system to be successful, the materials purchased, display policies and resources developed had to be reconsidered with a view towards supporting the curriculum materials. The project-based initiative was integrated smoothly and was immediately successful. However, with respect to the extension activities, the implications on the relationship between the curriculum and self-access center quickly become apparent. The challenges faced in moving from a weakly-linked SALC and curriculum to a strongly-linked relationship will be discussed in the next section.

What Happens When You Change the Relationship Between the SALC and Curriculum?

As Pemberton (2007) states, self-access must “support, but not direct, our students’ learning” (p. 42), and we found balancing “varying degrees of guidance” (Gardner & Miller, 1997, p. 17) difficult to manage at first. The immediate positive impact on the self-access center was a far greater number of learners using the center and materials. However, soon strains were observed on materials, staff time, infrastructure, and budget. These strains highlighted that changing the relationship between the curriculum and SALC had implications which affected the center as whole, and required attention in order to facilitate the change.

At a management level, the SALC needed areas for displaying materials for each subject, and these materials needed to match the requirements of the learners completing their projects.

Thus, greater communication between the teaching staff and SALC learning advising team was essential for ensuring the materials in the center matched the objectives of the curriculum.

In terms of materials, pathways act as a ‘controlled-access system’ (Miller & RogersonRevell, 1993) which introduce learners to the center. Providing specific pathways into the SALC gave even the most reluctant learners a clear reason and objective for using the center. However, with the introduction of such materials, the burden on certain sections in the SALC, and specific books, items, or resources within those sections, soon led to the realization that the pathways into the SALC materials had to be general enough to allow for a large number of users at one time, and also that choice was the crucial first element in encouraging autonomous learning development. %

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Staff time also became an issue, as supervision for the SALC extension activities involved requiring a learning advisor or teacher to initial the activity once learners had completed it - something which seemed reasonable to the materials design team. However, in practice this led to a steady stream of learners at learning advisors' doors, which meant they were too busy to help the learners interact with the materials in the self-access center, provide guidance for learners in need, and facilitate better understanding of the learning process - their core duties in helping to support learners in their self-directed learning (see Mozzon-McPherson, 2007, for more about Learning Advisor roles).

There was also an impact on infrastructure. The sudden increase in learner numbers led to long lines waiting for the photocopier, computers, voice recorders, or video cameras, and at busy times every seat in the SALC was full. It quickly became apparent that although the extension activities allowed learners a structured means of experiencing the SALC resources and controlling aspects of their learning, overly specific SALC activities were also reinforcing learners' poor experiences with language learning as the SALC resources and infrastructure were pushed beyond its limits. Usage soared, but the center became too crowded at peak times, and resources required to complete the activities were not always available.

The issues were (generally) resolved quickly by obtaining feedback from students, teachers and advisors which led to revised activities within 3 months that incorporated more choice, a greater range of generic activities, and required less overseeing by teachers and learning advisors. The final result is a curriculum-SALC relationship which matches the needs of the learning situation at the BECC more appropriately by introducing the SALC to our learners in a more controlled and ongoing manner, and helps them to see the benefit of using the SALC to extend their learning. However, our experience of moving from a weakly-linked to strongly-linked SALC highlights the importance of fully considering the implications of changes in educational philosophy on the â&#x20AC;&#x153;shop floor.â&#x20AC;?

Conclusion The process of establishing any curriculum or self-access center will necessarily involve a large amount of trial and error in meeting the needs of the local population. In moving from a weakly linked SALC-curriculum relationship to a strongly linked relationship through the use of SALC extension activities and project-based learning activities, the BECC program has moved the self-access center to a central position in the curriculum itself. Through the ongoing orientation to the SALC and independent learning that the extension activities provide, a much %2/%

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greater number of learners are using the SALC resources and being exposed to opportunities to take greater control over their own learning, and more learners are making use of the SALC in their project learning. However, more users of the SALC does not equal more autonomous learners, so the challenge for the project is to build upon the awareness raising measures outlined in this paper with further practices for fostering autonomy and finding some means for investigating what, if any, changes are occurring in learnersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; beliefs or behaviors.

Suggestions for Further Research: Does the Practice Help Learners to Take Greater Control Over Their Learning?

At the conclusion of its inaugural year, the BECC program is continuing to strive for the most effective means of introducing all learners to the concept of autonomy and providing them with opportunities to exercise greater control over their learning. These opportunities are introduced via the curriculum in the form of SALC extension activities and projects. However, more opportunities and practices for fostering autonomy continue to be considered, such as better utilizing the educational technologies available and working towards an individualized curriculum. While these opportunities are important, Benson (2001) reminds us that the key question to ask of any practice that claims to foster autonomy is, "How does this practice help learners to take greater control over their learning?â&#x20AC;? (p. 111) Therefore, research is required to examine how effectively the approaches introduced enable learners to take control over their learning and to determine whether they are able to recognize that they are developing their autonomous capacity. Research could also explore whether more learners are using SALC resources of their own initiative and for what purpose, whether their beliefs towards language learning are changing, and most importantly, if intrinsic motivation is being generated by providing learners with more opportunities to learn in different ways and take control of different aspects of their learning.

Notes on the contributors

Gene Thompson is the Curriculum Director at the Bunkyo English Communication Center at Hiroshima Bunkyo Joshi Daigaku. His research interests include curriculum development, selfefficacy, and beliefs about language learning.

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Lee Atkinson has taught English to speakers of other languages in Australia, Hong Kong and Japan. She has an M.Ed in TESOL and is currently teaching at a Hiroshima Bunkyo Joshi Daigaku. Her research interests include second language writing, CALL and autonomy.

References Aldred, D., & Williams, G. (2000). The need for a focused approach: A case study. Links & Letters, 7, 81-93.

Benson, P. (1994). Self-access systems as information systems: Questions of ideology and control. In D. Gardner & L. Miller (Eds.). Directions in self-access language learning.

Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

Benson, P. (2001). Teaching and researching autonomy in language learning. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.

Benson, P. (2002). Rethinking the relationship of self-access and autonomy. Newsletter of the Hong Kong Association for Self-Access Learning and Development, 5, 4-10. Retrieved from http://lc.ust.hk/HASALD/newsletter/newsletterSept02.pdf Cooker, L., & Torpey, M. (2004). From the classroom to the self-access centre: A chronicle of learner-centered curriculum development. The Language Teacher, 28(6), 11-16.

Cotterall, S., & Reinders, H. (2001). Fortress or bridge? Learnersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; perceptions and practice in self access language learning. Tesolanz, 8, 23-38.

Crabbe, D. (1993). Fostering autonomy from within the classroom: The teacherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s responsibility.

System, 21(4), 443-452.

Dickinson, L. (1987). Self-instruction in language learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Foale, C., & Gillies, H. (2008, November). Half full or half empty? In G. Murray (Chair), Interweaving Self-Access and Classroom Language Learning. Symposium conducted at the JASAL Forum at the JALT 2008 Conference, Tokyo.

Gardner, D., & Miller, L. (1997). A study of tertiary level self-access facilities in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong: ESEP, City University of Hong Kong.

Gardner, D., & Miller, L. (1999). Establishing self-access: From theory to practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hess, H. W. (1996). Computer-based support for foreign language learning. Foreign Language Teaching (Daxue Waiyu Jiaoxue Yanjiu), January 1996, pp. 102-107.

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Johnson, F.C. (1989). A new university, a new learning system, a new set of instructional materials – the Kanda experiment. Kanda University of International Studies Journal, 1, 31-53.

Kell, J., & Newton, C. (1997). Roles of pathways in self-access systems. ELT Journal, 51(1), 48-53.

Malcolm, D. (2004). Why should learners contribute to the self-access center? ELT Journal, 58(4), 346-354.

Miller, L., & Rogerson-Revell, P. (1993). Self-access systems. ELT Journal, 47(3), 228-233.

Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. (2002). Developing a strategic plan to cultivate “Japanese with English abilities.” Retrieved from http://www.mext.go.jp/english/news/2002/07/020901.htm Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. (2003). Regarding the establishment of an action plan to cultivate “Japanese with English abilities.”

Retrieved from http://www.mext.go.jp/english/topics/03072801.htm Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. (2005). FY2005 White Paper on Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Retrieved from http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/hakusho/html/06101913.htm Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. (2006a). FY2006 White Paper on Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Retrieved from http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/hakusho/html/hpac200601/index.htm Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. (2006b). !"#$%&'( )*%+, Retrieved from http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/kihon/about/06121913/002.pdf Morrison, B. (2008). The role of the self-access center in the tertiary language learning process.

System, 36, 123-140.

Mozzon-McPherson, M. (2007). Supporting independent learning environments: An analysis of structures and roles of language advisers. System, 35, 66-92.

Navarro Coy, M., & Brady, I. K. (2003). Promoting learner autonomy in self-access centers: The key role of material. ELIA, 4, 69-86.

Pemberton, R. (2007). Rethinking the relationship of self-access and autonomy. Independence: The Newsletter of the Learner Autonomy Special Interest Group, 42, 23-24. Retrieved from http://www.learnerautonomy.org/pemberton2007.pdf Peterson, C., Maier, S. F., & Seligman, M. E. P. (1993. Learned helplessness: A theory for the age of personal control. New York: Oxford University Press.

Serra Salvia, O. (2000). Integrating a self-access system in a language learning institution: A model for implementation. Links and Letters, 7, 95-109. %

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Sheerin, S. (1997). An exploration of the relationship between self-access and independent learning. In P. Benson & P. Voller (Eds.). Autonomy and independence in language learning. Harlow: Pearson.

Thompson, G. R., & Foale, C. J. (2008). Adapting the BEPP model: The BECC project. Studies in Linguistics and Language Teaching, 19, 253-289.

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SiSAL Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1, June, 2010, 59-64

A New Member of the Family: The Sojo International Learning Center Jon Rowberry, Sojo University, Kumamoto, Japan The Sojo International Learning Centre (SILC) is a new facility which has been developed jointly by Sojo University and the External Language Consultancy Centre (ELCC) based at Kanda University of International Studies (KUIS). This report aims to explain the rationale for the SILC project and to briefly outline the services offered by the centre before going on to describe some of the practical challenges that were encountered in getting the SILC up and running.

The SILC Project Sojo University is a private university in Kumamoto city with a focus on Engineering, Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Sciences. In 2009 a partnership was established between the university and the External Language Consultancy Centre at KUIS to deliver an English proficiency programme, initially targeting first year students, as well as a self-access learning centre (SALC) for the use of the entire university community. The Sojo International Learning Centre (SILC) formally opened in March of this year in time to deliver the first year English requirement to students from all five faculties.

The SILC is housed in a three-floor building which has been completely refurbished to facilitate six teaching rooms, the SALC, the SILC cafe and all staff offices. The building has been designed with a focus on comfort and usability so as to make it as accessible as possible. In order to ensure that SILC users have an opportunity to actively develop their language skills through communication, the second and third floors of the SILC operate an â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;English-onlyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; policy. However, Japanese is permitted on the first floor to provide a comfort zone for learners who may initially feel overwhelmed by the English only environment and need a space to relax and build up confidence.

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There are nine full-time teachers (including the SILC Director and Assistant Director for Curriculum), two learning advisors (including the Assistant Director for the SALC), a full-time SALC manager assisted by a number of part-time staff, and a SILC general manager.

The 11 teachers and learning advisors come from the United States,

the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and Japan. They each have extensive teaching experience and at least Masters level qualifications in the field of EFL and seven of them were previously based at Kanda University of International Studies in Chiba, Japan.

Although focusing superficially on English language education, the function and potential benefits of the SILC go well beyond language learning. For example, it is anticipated that the communicative approach to language teaching and learning adopted in the taught curriculum will allow students to develop their interpersonal skills and to participate more actively in class, while the focus on independent learning will encourage them to become more autonomous in all aspects of university life. Ultimately it is hoped that improved English language skills combined with a high degree of learner autonomy will help students to bridge the gap between graduate and postgraduate courses as well as significantly enhancing their future employment prospects in an increasingly competitive jobs market.

The Self-Access Learning Center In order to realise these goals, establishment of a self-access centre was very much at the heart of the initial proposal for the SILC project and the Sojo SALC officially opened for business in June 2010. It is a state-of-the-art facility with a huge variety of resources including custom-made worksheets, movies, music CDs, speaking booths, computer software, graded readers and a wide range of books, magazines and newspapers. At the heart of the SALC is the Conversation Lounge, where students can talk informally to teachers and to each other, play board or card games in English, use an English version Nintendo Wii, make comments or create sentences using a magnetic poetry board, watch BBC World and access the Internet via a 50inch plasma TV screen.

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The lounge also hosts a number of regular events including a monthly film night, weekly discussions on sport and music and a computer-mediated communication project with students in Alaska.

Moreover, in common with the SALC’s sister institutions at KUIS and Hiroshima Bunkyo Women’s University, a learning advisory service is available for students across the university in order to help learners to set manageable targets, find appropriate resources and evaluate their own performance. In order to reinforce the belief that independent learning does not just mean learning on your own five ‘Multi Purpose Rooms’ are available in which groups of up to six students can meet to work collaboratively on their learning in English. In this way, learning goals and methods are determined by the learners themselves in collaboration with peers, learning advisors and teachers according to their own individual needs.

Curriculum English classes in the SILC are designed to help students increase confidence and motivation for using English by activating what they may have already learnt in school. They work in small groups on a variety of fun and engaging language-based tasks and learn to communicate effectively, research and present information in English and find out about other cultures. The curriculum has been built around a set of proficiency descriptors adapted from the Common European Framework for Languages and students are assessed continuously through regular quizzes, homework activities, lesson participation and presentations as well as through a speaking test at the end of each semester.

SILC teaching rooms are not traditional teaching rooms but are referred to as ‘Blended Learning Spaces’ (BLS). Desks and chairs can be moved freely around the room to accommodate a variety of groupings and activities while state-of-the-art audiovisual equipment facilitates audio, video and web-based learning. Each BLS is equipped with a full set of student computers with English operating systems and headphones for listening activities. The computers allow the students to undertake research and compile documents and presentations in English as well as to communicate

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electronically via ‘Sojo-M’, the SILC’s online interactive learning community hosted by Moodle.

Research The English Communication curriculum is constantly evolving on the basis of action research being conducted in the SILC. Institutional research within the center focuses primarily on the implementation and evaluation of SALC resources and practices, the use of Sojo-M and other electronic tools to support students’ learning and the effectiveness of the curriculum itself in meeting the needs of the students and faculties.

Moreover, there are a number of more specific projects currently being pursued

by SILC lecturers. One of these focuses on student motivation, another is looking at attitudes towards language learning while a third is investigating the potential benefits of computer mediated communication.

Challenges As with any new project, there have inevitably been teething problems. One of the biggest headaches was in ensuring the design of the building as well as the furniture and equipment were fit for purpose and ready on time. This was a massive undertaking even given the invaluable assistance from the teams at KUIS, Bunkyo and KIFL (Kanda Institute of Foreign Languages). Thankfully, the Sojo University senior managers were thoroughly committed to the project from the outset and have been very supportive in getting the center set up on schedule. Nonetheless, accommodating the various expectations of academics, students, designers, budget holders and other stakeholders has been a major challenge.

Of course, the opening of the building itself was only the beginning of the process and this has been another source of frustration for many at the university.

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Although classes began in the SILC in April, the Self-Access Learning Centre was not originally due to open until the end of May with the remainder of the first semester scheduled for setting up systems and working practices, conducting student orientations and rolling out the various services before opening fully from September. The reality of course, was that students and staff expected everything to be up and running as soon as the building opened its doors back in March and since then the SALC team has been working frantically to complete the ordering, database materials and get them out on the shelves. Although the majority of services and resources are now available (ahead of schedule) there was initially some confusion and frustration from students and staff who visited the SALC in the opening weeks only to be told that they could look but not touch.

Another thing we have had to grapple with has been making the centre accessible for students with very full schedules. At our parent institution, KUIS, students tend to have very busy lives but committed learners can usually find opportunities within the working day to visit the SALC and make use of the facilities.

At Sojo, however, the working day for most students begins before 9 in the morning and continues until 6. If they are lucky they may have one free period, usually the last one of the day, but more often than not they will be in lessons or laboratory research until they go home. To compound this issue, students from the Pharmacy department, who also happen to be those with the greatest motivation for studying English, are based at a separate campus more than a kilometer from the SILC. At present, the centre is only open until 7pm and it has not been possible to remain open later than this or on weekends because of insufficient staffing levels combined with security concerns. It is difficult to schedule teachers to work late in the evening given that they are often in the classroom at 8.50am teaching the first class of the day. However, with our proposed expansion in 2011-12 it should be possible to extend our opening hours to better accommodate the needs of all Sojo students.

Despite these challenges we feel that overall the establishment of the SILC has been as smooth as can realistically be expected. Although fraught at times, it has been a relatively uncomplicated birth thanks in no small part to the wealth of experience on hand from mother KUIS and big brother Bunkyo as well as the Sojo ante- and postnatal teams. As any parent will tell you, however, there is a long way to go yet and there will

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no doubt be many a sleepless night before we see those tentative and wobbly first steps turn into an assured and erudite swagger.

Notes on the contributor Jon Rowberry is from England where he completed an MA in TESOL from the Institute of Education while working in further education. He subsequently spent three years at KUIS in Chiba, before returning to the UK to teach and manage EAL provision at a London secondary school. Now enjoying his third stint in Japan as Director of the SILC, his research interests include student motivation, learner autonomy and CALL. !

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Report on the Japan Association of Self-Access Learning (JASAL) Forum, at the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT) 2009 Conference in Shizuoka.

Jo Mynard, Kanda University of International Studies Diego Navarro, Kanda University of International Studies

Forum theme: The teaching-learning dialogue in self-access learning The theme of the JALT 2009 conference was The teaching-learning dialogue: An active mirror. In the area of self-access language learning the teaching-learning dialogue primarily takes place in the language advising situation. In this forum, educators from different universities in Japan addressed the following questions: What form does the teaching-learning dialogue take in your centre? How has this dialogue informed the practice of learners and educators working in your centre? For a fuller discussion of the role of dialogue in self-access learning (based on presentations at this forum), see Mynard, J., & Navarro, D. (2010).

Jo Mynard and Diego Navarro (Kanda University of International Studies) described the types of interactions which occur in the language advising services offered at the Self-Access Learning Centre (SALC) at their institution. They described how the approach to advising draws on sociocultural theory and constructivism, emphasizing the promotion of critical reflection through social interaction and on creating opportunities for learners to reconstruct meaning. Interaction takes the form of face-to-face meetings and is also facilitated through a written dialogue via weekly journals between learning advisors and students.

Greg Lindeman (Soka University) described the â&#x20AC;&#x153;English Forumâ&#x20AC;? at his institution which is a programme that provides students with opportunities to discuss a variety of topics with other students. The interaction is unique as the entire process is !

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managed by the students themselves rather than teachers or administrators. The self-access centre employs around thirty students who facilitate one hour discussions with groups of between six and ten people. The discussions run three times a day with as many as six discussions occurring simultaneously.

Daniel Sasaki and Yukiko Ishikawa (Soka University) discussed three different approaches to the advising service offered at their institution. Initially advising took the form of strategy advice. This was later replaced with a system where the learning advisor set tasks that required follow-up on the part of the learner.

Currently, the learning advisors are trialling a dialogue approach which stresses the importance of negotiation and discussion. The learners are encouraged to take more responsibility for their own learning and set short-term goals for themselves.

Stacey Vye (Saitama University) described a peer mentoring system operating at her institution. Learners have opportunities for casual exchanges, and also to attend workshops and advising sessions. These kinds of interactions give learners access to multiple perspectives in addition to practicing the target language. Students are involved in running the self-access centre and a scenario exists where learners are teaching and teachers are also learning.

Herman Bartelen and Hisako Sugawara (Kanda Institute of Foreign Languages) discussed developments over the past few years in the advising services at their two year vocational collage in Tokyo. The demand for advising services has been steadily increasing and the success has been attributed to a number of factors: the opening of a new self-access centre, the hiring of a trained, experienced learning advisor, an increase in the number of orientation sessions for students, and additional

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advertising. The advising sessions are all face to face and take place in the learnerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s choice of language (English or Japanese).

About JASAL JASAL aims to promote self-access learning in Japan and to support educators in their efforts to provide self-access language learning opportunities at universities and high schools. To learn more about JASAL, or to become a member, visit the JASAL website (http://jasalorg.wordpress.com).

Notes on the contributors Jo Mynard is the director of the Self-Access Learning Centre and assistant director of the English Language Institute at Kanda University of International Studies in Japan.

She has been involved in facilitating self-access learning since 1996.

Diego Navarro has been teaching English for over ten years in a variety of settings. In his current position as a learning advisor at Kanda University of International Studies, he is involved in promoting learner autonomy and effective learning strategies.

Reference Mynard, J., & Navarro, D. (2010). Dialogue in self-access learning. In A. M. Stoke (Ed.), JALT 2009 Conference Proceedings. Tokyo: JALT.

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