Hello! My name is Hisako and I work at the Self-Access Learning Center (SALC) at Kanda University of International Studies. I heard that members would like to have a space where we can talk about issues that we face in building / managing / improving self-access centers and in promoting learner autonomy in our institutions. Of course, it would be great if we can talk face-to-face, but that is not possible, so this blog can be a place where we can keep in touch. So please respond to the posts or if you have some questions or discussions you would like to throw to the JASAL community that would help everyone. There are no silly questions!
I hope we can all introduce ourselves so that we can all become the resource for others.
So let me introduce myself. This is my third year working as a Learning Advisor. I work with 7 other Learning Advisors. Although our SALC is large in scale, there are many issues that we face. For example, lots of students are using the SALC, but freshmen and sophomore students are the main users. Of course there are junior and senior students who have been using the SALC since they arrived here, but there are also students in their senior year who hesitate to come to SALC because they don't know how to use the SALC and they are too embarassed to ask (I hear that they feel guilty asking!). So we are thinking of ways to make the facilities in the SALC more accessible by providing workshops focused on say, "How to use the Speaking Booth to improve your pronunciation" etc.
I am looking forward to exchanging ideas and hearing from you all about where you work, what your endeavors are and what issues you face.
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Let's talk about the issues we face! All members are welcome to initiate a discussion!
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Do you have any questions you would like to ask other JASAL members? Do you have issues that you would like to talk about? Then, it is time for you to write a new post. Your comments will be greatly appreciated! Let's share our experience so that we can all move to a higher stage!
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9 comments:
Hi Hisako!
I think this is a great way for JASAL members to communicate and to discuss issues which are pertinent to all of us who are working in, or who have links to, self-access centres in Japan.
It would be great if we could all contribute to this blog with our ideas and issues!
Lucy
Hi Hisako,
I just want to say thank you so much, Hisako, for doing this. The day you made the first posting was an important day for JASAL. It marked the beginning of JASAL's ability to respond to the needs of its members on a regular basis.
Recently, through the ILA and JALT conferences I have met a number of people who have questions and concerns about self-access learning. Now those people who are genuinely interested in self-access learning can join our organization and benefit from the knowledge and experience of our members.
Once again, many thanks!
Garold
Hi Hisako
Garold has just helped me negotiate my way through the Japanese interface for the site which, I am ashamed to say, I still couldn't manage by myself.
I think it's great to see that JASAL has become more and more of a presence every year since 2005 (?)when it all started. I heard great things about the JASAL symposium at this year's JALT conference and was sorry I couldn't participate this time.
The website will now build on the name that JASAL is creating for itself.
Congratulations one and all!
Cheers
Sara
Hisako sensei and all
Thank you very much for all the work you have done. This is a wonderful idea. I hope we all get know each other more and more, and we can share more ideas related to SACs, how to research, and others.
Thank you very much again.
It is going to be sooooo exciting!!
Satomi from Nagoya
Hello! My name is Howard Doyle. I am at Kochi University in Shikoku. I sent off my details to joining JASAL this morning.
I am interested in autonomous learning both with and without SAC centers. Some universirsities (and langague colleges) in and out of Japan have wonderful SAC centers, and some have none. All the same, students normally wish to learn and often have to do so without dedicated support (and often even withoout having lessons). I am interested in ways to assist students do such learning outside of institutions as such.
But of course I aminterested in SAC centers too!
I hope I can hear from other people or read comments on this discussion board from time to time.
Good luck to our students and SAC users; and good luck to us too.
Howard
Hi Hisako
I am helping to set up a new SALC in Hiroshima Bunkyo Joshidai - we are officially opening it in Sept this year, so now we have the big job of installing all the furniture, equipment and materials, not to mention the systems - all very exciting. We have a special challenge here because our students are mainly non-English majors. Having said that, there is a growing number of motivated learners showing their interest in what's going on, so fingers crossed!
Anyway, lets stay in touch.
Hamish
Hi everyone
My name is Ben Shearon, and I work at Tohoku University in Sendai.
I have joined JASAL because I am interested in learner autonomy and promoting effective language learning. Right now I don't have any immediate plans but hope to learn from everyone else.
My university does not have a SALC but we do have mysterious 'practice rooms' that no-one really knows about. I am going to track them down and try to take one over ;)
All the best
ben
Hi Ben! Welcome to JASAL! Great that you were able to attend the JALT symposium. I hope you can help us to make this an active discussion community. :)
Hello!
I am happy Ben has enthusiasm to build a SAC or some kind of facility for self-access learning. I have 2 things I wish to point out.
First is that it is possible to make a self-access center independently, just in case someone like Ben is doing it without 'official' sanction from his institution. For instance in Japan there is far greater accessibility to 'sample' materials from publishers, etc. Also, depending on the institution, it is possible also to have students' work used, for instance as models - it works within the rationale of publishing, and having a consistant syllabus, student-centering etc. Thirdly, someone like Ben can supply the center himself, his own materials, old books, or soliciting these from other people, etc. And I haven't even started to mention audiovisual electronic or online yet. On this latter point, for instance in Ben's sought after 'practice rooms', I would make sure that internet connections are available. There is tons of self-access stuff online, lots of it explicitly 'self-access-language learning' stuff and the rest of it the whole internet. However, this leads onto the next point.
I did some research last year and have replicated it once at my own institution Kochi Uni)and also with a colleague at 2 high profile universities in Kyoto across about 5 faculties altogether, which was basically finding out from students their preferred ways to learn English out of class. This doubled as 'how do you learn Englsih out of class?'. Surprise! Um, the most extreme result was in Kyoto where in 2 different universities by coincidence, 2 classes had just finished orientation to a computer-center/LL when they did the questionnaires, and nobody (from about 65 students) mentioned libraries, SACs LLs, online, computers or anything. Beyond that, in my own university I had one student who wrote something like 'we can use computers and liik at internet and I can write emails to people and look at CD-ROMs and go to the library'. One dream student for autonomous learning, but about 48 others mentioned nothing like this at all. My point is that yes, some individuals will try to learn the way we JASAL members hope, but many or most will not. My take is that our students are not in or do not come from a culture of self-access learning, at least as we see may see it. Of course they may learn languages autonomously, but the ways students often choose are the ways they are used to, such as how they learned in their school experience. Individuals, such as my exceptional student this year, (and 2 individuals reported by Garold in a case study paper a few years ago), will turn up to learn languages in places such as 'practice rooms' Ben is seeking to set up some kind of SAC. But I have found that it simply does not occur to most students to do this, uless told to or forced.
I suppose that I am writing this because I do not want Ben to waste time, effort or to get disillusioned, especially if he does not have support or proper understanding from people around him at work. I just hope he can be prudent with the resources and opportunities he has whether they are sanctioned by his university or not. I run an unofficial low-key SAC in and out of my office - it works, but it is not for everyone. Just those who prefer this way. It costs perhaps 10,000 or 15,000 yen a year which I can only pay for out of my own pocket. But that is OK - it makes my life less difficult in my courses and there is far less accountability and paperwork.
So, good luck to Ben, and to anyone else who wishes to go down the same path.
Howard Doyle
PS I have also run small scale self-access centers just wiht materials on trolleys, which are great because of portability and premises are not needed. Alternatively, a webpage can work in the same way, even if it ust mentions links to other dedicated language-learning sites.
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