In our time: what is a good self-access facility?

Hi everyone

In the UK, the University of Nottingham's Centre for English Language Teaching is setting up a new self-access centre, and I know that a team headed by Caleb Foale from Kanda University of International Studies is currently setting up a new SALC too, at Hiroshima Bunkyo Women's University, and that Garold has a new ILC up at Akita International University. This has made me think: what, these days, makes a good self-access facility? For example, is it having good levels of staffing (both advisors and administrators) in the centre? A good range of materials? A technology-rich environment? Authentic, interactivity-rich materials? A friendly ambience?

Do you think, in light of the previous entry about Clarity's newsletter and the slow death of self-access, that there are any traditional facets of self-access facilities which are no longer relevant to language learners?

Lucy

Clarity Newsletter - are self-access centres really dying a slow death?

Hi everyone!

It's really great to see that we have some new people joining this discussion, and although it's currently vacation time for a lot of you, I thought it was time to get a bit controversial!

If you click on this link you can download the latest newsletter from "Clarity". Clarity is a Hong Kong based software designer and provider which produces some great language learning software for use in self-access centres. If you don't already have their software in your centres, then you might want to take a look at their main website.

In this month's newsletter, there is an article called "The slow death of the self access centre?" Two people are giving their views on whether or not self-access centres are becoming defunct. The argument centres around two points: technological advances which allow learners to access both authentic and learner-specific materials in their own homes, and the importance of the learning advisor/educator in self-access centres.

What do you think about this? Is there still a place for providing resources (including human ones) in a dedicated physical space, or should we be letting our centres die?

Looking forward to your comments!

Lucy

Introduction

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.