Self-access Centers Research Articles

JASAL Online Student Conference 2021 From an Overseas Perspective

This paper reports on the insights gained during the 5th Japan Association for Self-Access Learning (JASAL) conference for students and the similarities shared by self-access centers (SACs) worldwide. A group of students from 13 universities shared their experiences, ideas, and the current issues faced by their SACs with the aim of, collaboratively, finding a solution to make them available to more language learners. The outcome of this exchange gives an insight into intercultural collaboration and the impact of self-access centers in the process of language learning.

Going Beyond Brick and Mortar Self-Access Centers: Establishing a Satellite Activity Self-Access Program

Providing self-access learning opportunities in the form of brick and mortar self-access centers has long been part of universities. However, other self-access learning program options are available for contexts where limited resources may not support such structures. Accepting this, this paper describes the creation and operation of an alternative model, a satellite activity self-access program at a North-East Asian (Taiwanese) university. The paper also discusses the model’s generalizability to other contexts and offers suggestions for further study.

Comparing Japanese and US Language Spaces: A Case Study

Language spaces worldwide have much in common. However, we believe that there is a meaningful difference between spaces that are considered “language centers” in the US (USLCs) and “self-access language centers” (SALCs) in Japan. These differences provide an opportunity for practitioners and scholars involved in language spaces to learn from each other. In the current article, we investigated the Global Commons at Kyoto Sangyo University for the characteristics of both USLCs and SALCs by collecting information about it from publicly available sources and from interviews with staff. We show that it can be considered an administrative SALC (Mynard, 2019) and show how it fulfills some of the USLC mandates (Lavolette, 2018) but not others. We discuss the implications of these characterizations, including how the Global Commons could be more useful to its stakeholders. Based on this case study, scholars of both SALCs and LCs can gain new ideas for services and roles that will benefit their stakeholders and facilitate change.

Editorial

We are pleased to announce the publication of Volume 4, Issue 2 of Relay Journal. On June 25, 2021, the Research Institute for Learner Autonomy Education (RILAE) at Kanda University of International Studies (KUIS) held its sixth online LAb session: Landmarks in SALC Contexts: Thinking Back, Moving Forward (incidentally, recordings of the session can be viewed at https://kuis.kandagaigo.ac.jp/rilae/lab-sessions/6th-lab-session-friday-june-25th-2021/schedulelab6/). The timing of the session was chosen to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Self-Access Learning Center (SALC) at KUIS, one of the most prominent self-access centers in Japan. The moment provided a timely opportunity to reflect on five decades of research in self-access language learning as well as other anniversaries of important milestones in the field of language learner autonomy, such as the 40th anniversary of the publication of Holec’s (1981) Autonomy on Foreign Language Learning. For this current issue of Relay Journal, in conjunction with the LAb session, we are fortunate to be able to present six articles focusing on the same themes as the event. Our two featured articles directly relate to the June event, and the other four articles address issues highly relevant to self-access contexts.

Modes of Identification Within a Language Learner-Led Community of Practice

Although the importance of communities for social learning within self-access centers has been recognized over the last decade, there has yet been little research exploring student-managed communities in a self-access learning center (SALC). This short pilot study investigates the ways in which members identify with the community of practice (Wenger, 1998) of a student-led learning community within a university SALC. Five members of the Learning Community (LC), an English conversation community, were interviewed three times over the course of one semester about their language learning histories and their experiences in the LC. This data was analyzed inductively and subsequently categorized according to Wenger’s (2010) modes of identification – engagement, imagination, and alignment. The findings of the study indicated that members’ identification with the practice of the LC was connected to a desire for an accessible learning environment, attaining membership in an international imagined community of English users, and the ability to negotiate sociocultural norms for their own purposes. This study highlights a bidirectional relationship between the “baggage” that members bring with them and the everyday practice developed over the course of the LC’s two-year history. Additionally, the insights gained from this exploration of the LC CoP have practical implications for SALC staff aiming to cultivate and support student-led learning communities.

On Fostering Learner Autonomy in Learning English

With the teaching of English being more and more communicative, the tradition teacher-centered approach is facing a big challenge and is being replaced by the learner-centered one. It means that learners will assume greater responsibility for their own English learning. Therefore, fostering learner autonomy is of the utmost importance in the teaching of English. Over the last ten years, fostering learner autonomy has become the chief concern in the field of English language teaching. As a result, many records have been obtained in different studies of learner autonomy. This paper aims at an exploration of fostering learner autonomy in the teaching of English and learners' attitudes, motivation and strategies. Because, serve as three important conditions for learner autonomy in the teaching of English. These conditions will largely influence the learning of learner autonomy. On the basis of the above exploration learner training for fostering learner autonomy, must entail two aspects. Firstly, setting up self-access centers can provide learners with an autonomy-supportive learning environment, which will contribute to enhancing learners' motivation and can strengthen their confidence in their English learning. Secondly, teachers themselves should reconsider their roles in fostering learner autonomy. They should act as facilitators, counselors and resource rather than classroom controllers. In this way, learners can feel more willing to accept responsibility for their own learning and strengthen their ability to do so.

Adapting a Checklist of Materials Evaluation for a Self-access Learning Center in Japan

Materials evaluation calls for a systematic and principled approach. In reality, however, materials evaluation in language-learning self-access centers (SACs) is significantly lacking in good models. This paper reports on a project undertaken by SAC facilitators in Japan to investigate whether/how a pre-evaluation checklist developed a decade ago at a SAC in New Zealand (c.f. Reinders & Lewis, 2006) could be adapted to their target context. A mixed methods approach was employed where data was obtained via a Likert-scale questionnaire and follow-up interviews. The survey was adapted from Reinders and Lewis and enrolled 103 Japanese university students. The interviews were conducted to eight randomly selected survey respondents. Results show that the modeled checklist can be used as a basis with modifications allowing for contextual differences. The results suggest that Japanese learners of English value visually stimulating materials and require more guided support for them to effectively use materials beyond the classroom. The article provides an adapted checklist designed for Japanese learners of English as well as suggestions for future research.

As If … A Game Theory Perspective on Self-Access Learning

The applicability of game theory (Osborne, 2004) to the design and management of learning activities within a self-access learning center is discussed in relation to encouraging unmotivated students to engage more with autonomous study. Through discussion of some basic principles of game theory and how they might apply to self-access learning, a theoretical example is used to demonstrate how the costs and rewards of activities can be balanced using game theory in such a way as to encourage students to complete activities in order to foster autonomy and motivation. Further examples from game theory are provided to show how it can explain some of the counterintuitive results often seen in self-access learning at Japanese universities. Possible future quantification metrics are briefly discussed in relation to the human-capital and social-capital costs and payoffs involved in student use of self-access learning centers. A game theory perspective on self-access learning may offer the potential benefit of providing a quantitative model that might allow the application of artificial intelligence and a complex dynamic systems approach to student usage data.

Exploring Facilitative and Debilitative Spaces: A Shift in Focus from Classrooms to Learning Systems

Physical classrooms are often overlooked in educational research. While teachers, students, materials, and methodologies have all been the foci of studies for many years, research into the spaces in which instructed second language acquisition takes place is, for the most part, absent in the literature. In Thomas (2018a, 2018b), I argued that exploring these spaces and the affordances they provide is a necessary endeavor if we are to offer a holistic view of learning. It should be noted that my discussion of learning spaces refers to formal education settings—classrooms—and not self-access centers. However, I believe that relevant work in the field of self-access learning can indeed inform classroom design in instructed settings. Therefore, I use this work to support my discussion. As a work-in-progress report, this short paper will first describe my work up until this point, and second, explain how my ideas about learning spaces have transformed over time. I will discuss a new direction in which this and other studies may take. This new direction involves viewing classroom spaces as complex language learning systems and harnessing successful strategies students use within these systems to allow learning to take place. This focus on learning spaces as complete systems, as opposed to just their physical characteristics, has implications for how students can be better prepared to learn beyond the classroom.

What Learning Advisors Bring to Speaking Practice Centers

Speaking practice centers are spaces where students can practice conversation in the L2 one-on-one with a language educator. While in some self-access learning centers (SALCs) the conversations in these spaces are facilitated by language teachers, at my SALC in Japan, this role is performed by trained learning advisors (LAs). This paper will discuss the speaking practice service at my SALC and, in particular, the unique perspectives and skills that LAs bring to this pedagogical practice. I employ Mynard’s (2012) dialogue, tools and context model of advising in language learning to frame the discussion.

Augmented Reality and Crowdsourced Feedback to Help Learners Navigate Self-Access Materials

Learning is a life-long activity which neither begins nor ends with a learner’s time in formal educational environments. Many learners, however, have difficulty efficiently managing their own learning processes, and this includes knowledgeably selecting effective learning materials, particularly in skill-focused areas such as within language learning. Increasingly, self-access centers and other non-traditional learning environments act as a bridge between formal education and opportunities for life-long learning. This paper details a mobile app called Peer Scan, including what it is, these needs it was developed to address, decisions in the development process, and how it can be used by learners in self-access learning environments to help them select appropriate learning materials. The design and development of the app is meant to alleviate some of the difficulties faced by students in self-access centers in Japan in selecting effective materials. The ongoing design seeks to eliminate friction and barriers to use to support uptake, harnessing augmented reality object recognition technology to do so. Peer Scan is designed to allow learners to both see peer assessments of materials as an immediate means of support, and also to implicitly develop useful inner criteria for material selection that can aid them later as life-long learners.

An exploratory study on Turkish EFL learners’ readiness for autonomy and attitudes toward self‐access centers

This study investigated attitudes toward self‐access centers (SACs) and readiness for autonomous language learning among Turkish learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). It also explored whether learners’ attitudes toward the SACs and their readiness for autonomy were related to frequency of SAC use. The study was carried out with 250 Turkish EFL learners at a preparatory language school at a state university in Ankara, Turkey. The researchers employed a SAC attitude questionnaire and a learner autonomy readiness questionnaire to collect data. The results revealed a statistically significant difference between the attitudes of infrequent users and regular SAC users, suggesting that learners’ attitudes toward the SAC and the frequency of SAC use were interrelated. The findings of the study also show that Turkish EFL learners were ready to take responsibility for their own learning despite their inclination to accept the teacher's power and authority in the learning process. Additionally, the SAC users were not necessarily the autonomous learners who made decisions about their own learning. The findings suggest the necessity of training EFL learners for independent learning and raising their awareness about the advantages of SACs so as to increase the effective use of the centers.

Self-directed learning as related to learning strategies, self-regulation, and autonomy in an English language program: A local application with global implications

English language tutoring and/or self-access centers are services commonly offered as curricular support to English language program students in educational environments worldwide. This paper argues that the theory of self-directed learning (SDL) from the field of adult education should be considered alongside the equally-important areas of language learning strategies, learner autonomy, and self-regulated learning in the setup of these types of tutoring/self-access academic support centers. The proposition is examined by applying it to a particular case in an English language program of a major research university in the southeastern United States. The paper explicates the commonly-known theory of SDL (Grow, 1991) and relates it to models by put forward by Nakata (2010) and Oxford (2011, 2107). Empirical evidence from studies on encouraging SDL for English language study is summarized from a range of research projects conducted worldwide, and the author concludes by offering implications for educators in any institution-based, adult English language program.

Self-Access Centers and Autonomous Learning: Report on the Japan Association for Self-Access Learning (JASAL) Conference, 2017

JASAL (The Japan Association for Self-Access Learning) held their 12th Annual Conference/Forum on December 16th, 2017 at Kanda University of International Studies (KUIS) in Chiba. JASAL is a non-profit organization that fosters learner autonomy and self-access learning to a cross-section of educational institutions in Japan. This article contextualizes the plenary talk and selected presentations that captured the underlying themes of this conference: 1) necessity to become a social learning space for language learners, 2) necessity of structured support, and 3) necessity to assess and modify.

Disseminating a Learner Voice through Collaborative Reflection

This paper reports on a series of collaborative work on weaving and disseminating a personal narrative presented at the annual conference of the Japan Association for Self-Access Learning (JASAL) in 2017. The authors of this paper, Ota and Yamamoto, have engaged in advising dialogue in the self-access learning center in their institution since 2016. After completing one year of study abroad in the United States, Ota was passionately sharing her experience with her advisor, Yamamoto, in advising sessions. Her willingness to share her voice encouraged them to showcase her journey in overcoming hardships during study abroad at JASAL 2017. Drawing on Ota’s study abroad experience, they discussed emerging themes in her written work throughout the continuous advising dialogues. Simultaneously, taking a reflexive approach, they actively shared their views and background as a crucial dimension of co-constructing Ota’s personal narrative. Reflecting on their collaborative work, the authors illuminate the active roles of self-access learning centers and the educators in empowering learners to disseminate their voice as a form of activating their agency.

English Language Supports for Technology Learners

Understudies in their utilization of PC based materials (CbMs) past the classroom, incorporating into Self Access Centers (SACs). Polls and semi-organized meetings in center gatherings and coordinated were used to assemble data. The information recommends that understudies made standard and broad utilization of an extensive variety of materials in both their local dialect and the English dialect. Understudies perceived the significance of getting to and transmitting data in the English dialect. They seemed to make extensive utilization of CbMs for presentation to and the oblivious procurement of the English dialect, especially past a SAC. Where cognizant learning of English was accounted for the part of SACs has all the earmarks of being profoundly noteworthy. The paper finishes up by suggesting that we have to go past conventional systems of PC helped dialect learning (CALL) for comprehension and examining the part of innovation in dialect instructional method and that the term versatile helped dialect utilize (MALU) might be more suitable.

A Nested MOOC Elective Course: MOOCs for Learner Development, and Learner Development for MOOCs

This paper is a prospectus, reflecting on an elective course at Kanda University of International Studies (KUIS) and the opportunities it affords for both students and the institution. The course is centered on both language learner development and learner development at large, using massive open online courses (MOOCs) as an opportunity for experience and reflecting on learning processes and self-regulation in learning. It highlights both the place of self-access centers (SACs) in an era of digital resources, due to the strengths of its advising services, and the parallel to the value a physical institution can bring in an era of MOOCs.

Learners’ Work in a SALC: A Longitudinal Study

Self-access centers (SACs) became popular in Mexico in the 1990s with the purpose of allowing learners to make decisions about how to learn languages. The following study is qualitative and longitudinal and was carried out in the SAC at the University of Sonora in Mexico. It was designed with the purpose of understanding learners’ performance as they direct their own learning in a SAC. By focusing on learning experiences, activities, and materials, the results show that learners understand the idea of language learning in SACs in a limited way. However, the participants view learning in a SAC to be an effective approach to learning languages due to the progress and growth they noticed.

Peer Tutoring: Active and Collaborative Learning in Practice

The mandate of self-access centers is to provide a venue, materials and support for self-directed learning; taking learning outside of the classroom. The Academic Achievement Center (AAC), on which this paper focusses, is a support service offered within a self-access center at a university in Japan. Students who receive support do so on a completely voluntary basis, in a self-directed effort to support and enhance their classroom learning. This paper was written as a collaboration between the coordinator of the AAC and three peer tutors, who were employed in the center. At the time of writing, one of the authors was a student in the Graduate School of Japanese Language Teaching Practices, while two were undergraduate students in the Faculty of International Liberal Arts; taking their learning outside of the self-access center and sharing it with a wider audience. This paper was motivated by the desire on the part of the peer tutors to share what we are doing in the AAC with those thinking of, or in the process of, creating a tutoring center, especially in Japan. Additionally, it was written to give readers an insight into how a tutoring center in an international university in Japan is run, as well as its successes and challenges. The paper itself is a co-authored publication by a professor and a few student-tutors, representing the vast possibilities of active and collaborative research which can be done in a university setting.

Book Review: Reflective Dialogue: Advising in Language Learning by Satoko Kato and Jo Mynard

Reflective Dialogue: Advising in Language Learning is a comprehensive guide on understanding the field of advising in language learning. Language educators who are interested in exploring how to facilitate learner autonomy can learn the A to Z of advising in language learning from this book. The book provides practical resources for improving advising skills, recruiting and training learning advisors, as well as researching advising. Therefore, this book will be useful for new and experienced learning advisors who work with learners on a one-to-one basis and/or in classroom settings, as well as those who are involved in managing self-access centers.