New Directions in Teaching and Learning English Discussion

New Directions in Teaching and Learning English Discussion
Volume 3
Editors:
Jamie Lesley
Matthew Livingston
Takako Moroi
Matthew Y. Schaefer
Copyright©2015 Center for English Discussion Class

Table of Contents
SECTION ONE – Teaching Journals

Reflections on Activities Used to Increase Learners’ Autonomy ....................................... 3
Devon Arthurson
Engagement and Participation .......................................................................................... 7

Steven Drake
Issues of Learner Identity and Learner Investment in English Discussion Classes .......... 11
Natalie M. Gravillis
Evolving Monitoring Templates and Formative Feedback Checklists

used in Self/Peer-Reflection ............................................................................................ 18
Jamie Lesley
Yes, We Are All Individual ................................................................................................ 39

Aaron Francis Ward
SECTION TWO – Classroom Activities

Fostering Learner Autonomy through Group Goal Setting ............................................. 49
Brad Barker
The Language-Culture Connection: Intercultural Language Learning in EDC Discussion

Preparation Activities – Principles into Practice .............................................................. 57
Jonathan Buck
Familiarizing the Foreign: 10-Minute Cross-Cultural Reflections .................................... 64

Jianwen Chen
Start!: Increasing Willingness to Communicate in Discussion Preparation Activities ..... 70

Amanda Chin
Anarchy in EFL: Introducing Simple Activities to Develop Critical Thinking Skills in

Discussion Classes ............................................................................................................ 77
Carey Finn
An Activity to Increase Willingness to Communicate through the Collaborative
Negotiation of Meaning ................................................................................................... 86
Jeff Holtzkener
Corrective Feedback Design from a Noticing Hypothesis Perspective ............................ 95

Yifeng Hong
A Peer-Reflection Activity for Discussion Feedback ...................................................... 102

Ian Hurrell
Word Association ........................................................................................................... 107

Aaron James
No Vocabulary, No Discussions ..................................................................................... 114

Yurika Kambe
Facetious Language Play for Creative Repetition .......................................................... 118

Nick Kasparek
Generating Content in a 3/2/1 Fluency Activity with Low-Proficiency Learners .......... 128
Robert J. Lowe
Using Content Scaffolding to Improve Discussion Flow ................................................ 134

Mat McLaughlin
Promoting Autonomy in University Students ................................................................ 142

Brandon Narasaki
Fluency Activity with Function Phrases ......................................................................... 147

Chie Ogawa
Back Channeling and the “D” Word in a CLT Context ................................................... 157
Timothy A. Opitz
Weekly Charted Feedback of Japanese Students’ Oral Performance in EFL

Communicative TBL Classroom ..................................................................................... 165
François Ouellette
Conversational Shadowing ............................................................................................ 173

Matthew Y. Schaefer
iv
Developing Metacognitive Language Learning Strategies ............................................ 182
Ethan Taomae
The Minute Paper in EDC ............................................................................................... 189

Asca Tsushima
Increasing ‘Initial’ Focus-on-Form to Practice, Promote, and Automatize

Target Function Language Use ...................................................................................... 196
Matthew W. Turner
Developing Critical Thinking Skills in EDC ...................................................................... 204

Hiroaki Umehara
Asking More Questions in Fluency Activities ................................................................. 211

Jason Wan
Promoting Learner Autonomy through Self-Assessment and Goal-Setting .................. 215

Daniel Warchulski
SECTION THREE – Classroom Research

Teacher Attitudes to Humor in L2 English Discussion Classes ....................................... 225
Simon Aldrich
Self-Observation as a Means of Teacher Development ................................................ 235

Manna Aoki
Investigating How Student Perceptions of Discussion Class Change

During the Spring Semester ........................................................................................... 239
Paul Garside
Professional Development for Teachers through Self-Observation:

A Self-Reflection ............................................................................................................ 249
Cameron High
Collaborative Dialogue and Uptake: English Discussion Class ....................................... 256

Paul Landichio
Evaluating the Effectiveness of Self-Assessment in Discussion Classes ........................ 263

Shalvin Singh
v
Working Toward Better Discussions: Can Pre-Teaching Topic-Related Vocabulary
Positively Affect the Quality of Group Interaction? ...................................................... 273
Nicholas Smith
Investigating the Effect of the Learning Circle on Group Cohesion

and Lowering Anxiety in English Discussion Class (EDC) ................................................. 279
David Truxal
Measuring the Effects of Formulaic Language on Complexity in L2 Output

and Fluency Development ............................................................................................. 286
Samuel David Warren
Three Conceptual Orientations of Learner Goal-Setting ............................................... 295

Ian Wash
Small and Large Culture Conceptions of NS and NNS University .................................. 305
Matthew Wilson
The Nature of Supportive Teacher Talk in Communicative EFL Classrooms ................. 312
Kayoko Yamauchi
A Conversation Analysis of the Acquisition and Use of Turn-taking Practices

in an English Discussion Class ........................................................................................ 320
Davey Young
SECTION FOUR – Program Evaluation

Instructors’ Views on Tasks Outside the Classroom ...................................................... 333
Matthew Livingston and Takako Moroi
vi
SECTION ONE
Teaching Journals
Reflections on Activities Used to Increase
Learners’ Autonomy
Devon Arthurson
ABSTRACT
This paper is a reflection of activities and techniques used to foster learner autonomy. In English
Discussion Class (EDC) there is an English-only policy; however, some students, especially
those in lower level classes find this very challenging and resort to using their L1, Japanese. By
giving students control of tasks traditionally held by the teacher in a classroom with strong group
cohesion, I hoped to increase their independence giving them more accountability to this policy.
Through the teaching journal, I gained insight into the effectiveness of the activities which
increased students’ level of autonomy. In addition, the changes in the students’ performance will
be discussed.
INTRODUCTION
The focus of my teaching journal was the influence of fostering autonomy and creating a sense
of community as a way to reduce L1 in the classroom. Creating an environment and
opportunities where students had more responsibility could lead to them having more
accountability for themselves and their classmates (Benson, 2011). Another anticipated outcome
of the increased accountability could be that students would gain more confidence in their
English abilities thus resulting in a decrease on their L1 reliance. Keeping a teaching journal
causes teachers to analyze their actions and the ideologies that guide their behaviors and
attitudes (Richards 1998). My journal was on three lower-level or level IV classes from lesson 5
to 11 with individual entries following each lesson. These classes relied heavily on Japanese.
Two of the classes, hereafter known as class A and B, were enthusiastic and had good group
dynamics. Later it became apparent that the third class, class C, struggled not only with English
but also with group cohesion. These classes posed new challenges, and I felt that a teaching
journal could give me more insight into the learners’ needs and ways to provide assistance.
Benson (2011) defines autonomy as the student taking responsibility or control for his/her
learning. Previously I had taught at high schools and I had positive experiences with the
transference of the teacher’s jobs to students through activities such as creating lesson materials,
peer-checking and teaching lessons in classrooms where students felt comfortable with the
structure of the lessons and knew the tasks. In my first semester at EDC in spring 2014, activities
which foster student autonomy were adapted to fit the course’s format. For example, students
used self-check sheets to grade their performance in discussions, participated in peer-monitoring
of practice activities and did chorus-reading of the textbook and lesson materials. During the fall
2015 semester a more concrete plan for transferring more responsibilities to the students with
less dependence on the teacher was outlined with the final goal of having the students peer-teach
their classmates the final lessons.
DISCUSSION
Creating Community and Giving Students more Responsibility
Before starting the journal, the classes I chose to observe were often using Japanese and seemed
unconfident in their English abilities. To alleviate their anxiety, lessons had a set format with
tasks that essentially remained the same from lesson to lesson to provide students with structure.
3
Another way employed to decrease students’ apprehension was to lessen the isolation some may
experience due to their view of their English competency, by building community in the
classroom, which is an important component of Community Language Learning (Richards &
Rodgers, 2001). Instead of the teacher-fronted “Read and repeat”, chorus reading was used. This
caused the students to rely on each other to set the pace and take charge of word pronunciation
rather than depending on the teacher. The students were required to be more active. In Lesson 4,
in addition to self-check sheets focusing on communication skills, content, functions, questions
and language that were used after the two discussions, I introduced peer-monitoring for all the
classes. With this activity four students participated in a four-minute discussion while they were
each individually monitored by another student who listened to their performance. The monitors
did not take part in the discussion. These monitors used the same self-check sheets to assess the
discussion participants’ strong points and points to improve. After the discussion concluded,
monitors provided feedback for a one-minute period. Then I would provide feedback about the
discussion. Next the roles were exchanged following the same pattern as the participants became
the monitors and the monitors became the participants.
After the discussion test in lesson 5, classes A and B clearly demonstrated that they were
able to speak in English rarely using L1 and enjoyed discussing various topics with one another.
These classes seemed to form a community. They worked to support each other with English
vocabulary and grammar in the practice, fluency and discussion preparation activities. As a
result there were prepared for the discussions. However, class C had only four of eight students
present for the first discussion test. During the test, Japanese was used and students struggled to
produce content. Semester 2 was my first experience teaching lower levels and class C was the
first time I experienced students that did not seem to be able to create one cohesive group.
Activities and discussions in this class were often performed with hesitation and little motivation.
The students required much more time than other classes to cooperative together to complete the
tasks. Through keeping a journal, it became evident that activities and goals would need to be
modified.
Activities to Increase Learners’ Level of Autonomy

The activities used to increase learner autonomy were giving tasks traditionally held by the
teacher to the students with the final goal of having students teach their peers. Dӧrnyei &
Ushioda state preparing and assisting students with tasks they are well-aware of increases
success (2011). Methods and techniques used were making students more mindful of the
structure of lessons, having students share discussion content, giving peer-feedback and
directing the lessons. Starting from lesson 6, as a transition from one activity to the next I
asked them, “What does everyone do now?” to give them more awareness as to the structure of
the lesson. Additionally, this prompting would prepare the students for the final goal of
peer-teaching in lesson 10 and 11 when they would be responsible for directing the class. In my
journal, I noted that classes A and B were depending less on Japanese and were more active
starting tasks with little or no assistance from me. However, class C continued to be uncertain of
the lessons’ structure, exhibited low enthusiasm and seemed to be discouraged about their
English proficiency.
From lesson 7’s students began sharing content from the second discussion with members
from the other group. This activity also built a stronger sense of community and extended the
small group structure. Content-sharing from the discussion also prompted the students to reflect
on what they had said individually, as well as, their classmates’ ideas from the discussion. In my
4
Devon Arthurson
journal I wrote that class B was highly energetic and very eager about performing this task.
In lesson 8, students took part in the “Teach” component of “Test-Teach-Test”. On the
board, I wrote down their comments in the first “Test” to practice the lesson’s function or
communication skill. To begin “Teach”, I modeled the correct usage of the function or
communication skill with one of their comments. Next I would silently guide students to read
the second comment following the same pattern. Moreover, students had the opportunity to
correctly use the function or communication skill with their original comments in a structured
practice preparing them for the lesson’s following tasks; for example, two form-focused
practices, a fluency-building activity, discussion preparations activities and two discussions.
Again in the second practice activity peer-monitoring was used, however depending on the
number of students, it was adapted to give the students even more independence with less
teacher-guidance. In this adapted version, two pairs of students took part in a two-minute
discussion while the four other students were individual monitors. The students then gave the
same one-minute pattern for feedback using the self-check sheets. The roles were then reversed.
The journal entry for class A was their reliance on L1 was decreasing.
In lesson 10 and 11, half of the students directed the lessons’ activities. At the beginning
of each class, these students worked collaboratively to manage the classroom by transitioning
and timing all the activities. Prompts for the teaching group were on the board such as “Let’s
read.” and “What’s next?” As needed, I provided support. Students also participated in decision
making by choosing which group members were responsible for the teacher tasks and assigning
roles to other students. Classes A and B completed the teachers’ tasks successfully. Later in
lesson 14, students reflected on these tasks through a short group discussion. Some students said
the activity gave them a clearer understanding of the lessons while others felt nervous speaking
in front of the class in English. However, many students shared that they simply enjoyed being
teachers. Then I shared with them the explanation for the activity which was to increase their
independence and to create more balance in the classroom between the students and teacher.
Because of the unique needs of class C, this activity was not utilized.
Modifications
The focus of fostering autonomy with class C shifted from students’ performance of teacher’s
tasks to learners’ having more control of classroom dynamics. In the lesson 7 entry, I noted that
because more time was required for students to prepare for the discussion, content sharing could
not be done. From lesson 8 students were participating in “Teach” but the peer-monitoring
activity and peer-teaching were omitted. Also my role changed from facilitator to support
provider. Instead giving the students more opportunities for independence, I needed to be more
involved. In lesson 8, I solicited their ideas as to how I could be more helpful and their
suggestions were implemented. Furthermore due to comments made by some students, the
groups they set in the beginning of lesson remained the same in all activities except the fluency.
The anxiety previously experienced by some students due to incompatibility with others seemed
to decrease. As a result, class C produced more content in discussions and better assisted one
another. In the final discussion test the students had more content and rarely used Japanese.
CONCLUSION
Through the keeping of an ongoing teaching journal, more awareness was gained regarding
adjustments that needed to be made to my teaching style (Farrell, 2007). Rather than having a
universal system, I will be more sensitive to those classes who have special requirements. In the
5
future I want to use a reflective journal as a tool to record my increased transparency with
students regarding goals and the purpose of activities. Sharing the goals to decrease power
imbalances in the classroom and to support learner autonomy with the students sooner may
decrease their uncertainty about new activities and provide them with a better understanding of
the structure of the lessons. Reflecting on students’ responses to this transparency especially
concerning autonomy will be very beneficial to improving my teaching abilities.
REFERENCES
Benson, P. (2011) Teaching and Researching Autonomy, 2nd edition. Harlow: Pearson Education
Limited.
Dӧrnyei, Z. & Ushioda, E. (2011) Teaching and Researching Motivation, 2nd edition. Harlow:
Pearson Education Limited.
Farrell, T.S. (2007) Reflective Language Teaching: from reason to practice (p. 107-119).
London: Continuum.
Richards, J.C. (1998) Beyond Training (p. 153-170). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Richards, J.C. & Rodgers, T.S. (2001) Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching, 2nd
edition (p. 90-99). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
6
Engagement and Participation
Steven Drake
ABSTRACT
Classroom management tends to be, for many language teachers, something that is done
naturally and consequently the act is rarely explicitly analyzed. Therefore, much of what takes
place is implicit and difficult to articulate. This teaching journal task seeks to address one
instructor’s routine or automated responses to issues of classroom management. Moving beyond
instinctive responses to given situations, this study hopes to identify, analyze and seek solutions
to classroom management issues that occur over the spring semester 2014 in one instructor’s
EDC lessons at Rikkyo University.
INTRODUCTION
Student motivation has long been identified as a central factor in foreign/second language (L2)
learning (Cheng and Dörnyei, 2007, p.153). Motivation is not only the trigger that can ignite the
initial interest in learning a foreign language, but it can also be the engine that drives students on
the long and often arduous journey towards achieving L2 proficiency. One facet of motivation
regards the students’ willingness to participate and as the English Discussion Class (EDC) at
Rikkyo University was designed with improving students’ spoken fluency as its principal
objective, student engagement in the lesson is a prerequisite for success. However, as the EDC is a
compulsory course, which all freshmen students must take, varying levels of motivation and
indeed engagement can be expected across the board. Motivation in language learning is a
complex issue, which involves both internal factors such as intrinsic interest (arousal of curiosity)
and mastery (self-efficacy) and external factors such as significant others (teachers and peers) and
the learning environment (Williams and Burden, 1997). Wright (2005, p.17) discusses motivation
in terms of classroom management stating that, “engagement is a precondition to learning and
helps define the strength of motivation and individuals’ approach to learning.”
While classroom management is central to what every teacher does on a daily basis, there
appears to have been little discussion on this topic with regards to language education. Classroom
management is something that teachers tend to do intuitively rather than explicitly investigate.
Many teachers have spent their whole lives in and around classrooms both as a student and a
teacher. The classroom becomes their natural habitat. Yet, much of this accumulated knowledge is
stored away and given little conscious thought (Wright, 2005, p.8). Routine, automated and
instinctive are three words that can describe the vast majority of teaching practice in relation to
issues of classroom management. This makes it difficult to share or define knowledge. Therefore,
in order to better understand and articulate what was happening in his classroom the instructor on
this study opted to keep a teaching journal.
Teaching journals can help teachers to consciously analyze what they are doing both
inside and outside the classroom (Richards and Farrel, 2005). They suggest, prior to starting a
teaching journal, teachers should reflect on an incident that caused the teacher to stop and think.
The first few weeks of this study were devoted to informal observation of all classes and in
particular to student behavior and performance. By week 5, after careful consideration of all
classes, two classes were selected and particularly two students in each of those classes. The
teacher on this study noticed issues with student engagement and participation in two of his EDC
classes in the spring semester 2014.
7
As mentioned, at Rikkyo University, all of the freshmen students must take the EDC. They are
placed according to their TOIEC listening scores and assigned into four levels (I, II, III and IV).
Level I being the highest with IV being the lowest. Furthermore, students are grouped according to
their department.
Group 1 (4 males, 5 females) – Level II – College of Law:

Student A (male) TOEIC Listening 330
Student B (female) TOEIC Listening 270 –
Group 2 (8 males) – Level IV – College of Science

Student C (male) TOEIC 175
Student D (male) TOEIC 115 –
DISCUSSION
Wright (2005, p.17) argues that engagement is at the heart of classroom management process. It
helps define students’ motivation and how they feel during the learning experience. How students
feel can color their whole learning experience. Emotional issues must be considered when trying
to analyze issues of engagement and participation. The psychological approach to SLA has
focuses on three main areas: language and the brain, learning processes and learner differences.
However, it is the last of these three foci that is most useful for language teachers in terms of
implications for teaching. Emotional differences such as attitude, motivation and anxiety as well
as biological differences such as age and sex can play a part in determining why some learners
seem to do better than others. In terms of emotional involvement, Group 1 displayed more
outward signs of motivation, such as initiating conversation in L2 with the teacher before class
and creatively using the language for humor However, students A and B often reverted to L1,
which was inclined to affect others students’ participation in that they would also respond in L1.
Saville-Troike (2006, p.86) claims that for some students motivation can be instrumental in that
they desire increased occasional or business opportunities either in the present or for the future.
While all of the students in this study stated their desire to use English at work in the future, this
was not reflected in the effort they made during the first few weeks of the semester.
Students A and C's motivation would appear to be more integrative. Student A had
lived in England during his high school years, albeit at a Japanese high school, while Student C
displayed outward signs of confidence, especially in L1. Both tended to use English for humor
which might indicate that their motivation stemmed from a desire to foster friendships
(Saville-Troike, 2006, p.86). Students A and C appeared to be risk takers, in that they would
often try to guess answers to questions, and generally have an excellent attitude to study in terms
of attendance and punctuality, yet both were disruptive in their excessive use of L1. It might
be tempting to label them as problem students, but upon reflecting on his teaching journal the
teacher decided to note down each student’s positive attributes and consciously remind himself
of them before subsequent lessons. This helped to alleviate the inevitable or at least additional
stress felt prior to dealing with the management issues in the two classes.
Anxiety and attitude can also play a role in students’ SLA. Both Students B and D
seemed shy, especially with the opposite sex and student D seemed anxious about his ability to
produce L2. Students B and D were also inclined to use more L1 than other members of the class,
but they were much less willing to participate than students A and C. Much of their L1 use was
centered around exclaiming, “意味わかんない (I don’t understand!).” Therefore, the teacher
8
Steven Drake
decided to add a Lesson Objective (see appendix) section to his journal entry sheet. The previous
lessons reflections would now serve as the springboard to inform the next lesson’s objective.
Unfortunately, Student B was absent for this lesson, although focusing on instructional language
was a rewarding exercise which benefitted the teacher in setting up all activities for the rest of
the semester.
One salient theme that arose in all of this teacher’s classes was that the more the
students used the function phrases, the more confident they became and as a result, relied less on
L1. This was particularly true of phrases that took the responsibility to be creative off those that
uttered them (see Figure 1 for examples). During the review lesson 11, the teacher gave cards to
the less confident speakers encouraging them to use such phrases. Once the students had enjoyed
making their partners explain themselves in more detail, they seemed more willing to participate
when the tables were turned. Subsequently Students A, B, C and D started to use less L1,
preferring instead to contribute by using the function phrases to put their partners on the spot.
The function phrase and question “Sorry, I don’t understand. Can you explain?” was popular as
it forced the classmates of those that uttered it to either paraphrase what they had just said or
give a clear example. The quiet students seemed more willing to engage in the discussion once
they had initiated the ‘challenge’.
What do you think?

How come?
For example?
Does anyone want to comment?
Sorry, I don’t understand. Can you explain?
Figure 1.
CONCLUSION
The Rikkyo University EDC brings together an enormous body of students, although grouping
them by department and TOEIC listening score seems to negate immense differences in
personality and ability. However, levels of engagement and participation are bound to differ
depending on the varying degrees of motivation each student brings to the class. Keeping a
teaching journal is an excellent way of addressing and making explicit one’s methods of dealing
with such issues. The act of reflection can help develop a deeper understanding of the teaching and
learning process as a whole. As Farrell (2008) concludes, it might be unreasonable to expect
teachers to reflect on every class. However, the process of systematically reflecting on ones work
for one or two classes over the course of a semester can be a rewarding one.
The teacher involved plans, in subsequent semesters, to monitor students’ perceivable
motivation and participation over the first few weeks of classes. If any related issues which are
affecting the class are noticed then the teacher can try to identify the type of issue and better
support the student. For example, students who have a slightly lower level of linguistic
performance can be given the role of listener in initial practice exchanges, until they feel confident
enough to be more creative with the language. Another example could be, if a student is confident,
but disruptive in their use of L1, they can be given the role of “L1 monitor” in their groups’ activity.
This may raise awareness of the issue, though one must be careful in choosing students for this
role as it can be uncomfortable for less confident students.
For the teacher on this project it was the second time to keep such a journal and it was an
important reminder that action research can be taken at any point during a teaching career and help
9
to foster or challenge implicit teaching beliefs. In particular this project has given the teacher
involved the confidence to deal with classes that have problems concerning classroom
management. Fortunately, by working at top tier institutions such as Rikkyo University, issues
relating to low motivation are minimal. However, when they do occur it is important to recognize
that the students are not always to blame. Critically evaluating what is happening in ones’
classroom can help to understand the multi-dimensional nature of what occurs.
REFERENCES
Döernyei, Z. (2001). Motivational strategies in the language classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Cheng, H.-F., & Dörnyei, Z. (2007). The use of motivational strategies in language instruction:
The case of EFL teaching in Taiwan. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching,
1(1), 153-174.
Farrell. T.S.C. (Ed) (2008). Classroom management. Alexandria, VA: TESOL Publications.
Farrell, T. S. C. (2007). Reflective language teaching: From research to Practice. London:
Continuum Press.
Richards, J. C., & Farrell, T. S. C. (2005). Professional development for language teachers. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Saville-Troike, M. (2006). Introducing Second Language Acquisition. New York. Cambridge
University Press.
Williams, M. & Burden, R.L. (1997). Psychology for Language Teachers: A Social
Constructivist Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wright, T. (2005). Classroom Management in Language Education. New York. Macmillan.
APPENDIX
Teaching Journal Entry

Lesson Objective
Improve Instructions through modeling and concept checking
Date Period No. Of students

Level Lesson no.
Function
Before the lesson
Don’t forget to model with stronger and weaker students
After the lesson
Notes in class:
10
Issues of Learner Identity and Learner Investment in English

Discussion Classes
ABSTRACT
This critical reflection is based on the observations of a low-level English Discussion Class
(EDC) which were made over a ten-week period and recorded as entries in a teaching journal. As
lessons progressed, a variety of challenges emerged, namely students’ lack of proficiency,
unwillingness to speak in English and resistance to exercises which promoted autonomous
learning. However, this paper focuses on two main issues identified in one particular learner
from the group; a lack of motivation, or “investment” (Norton, 2000), and the struggle to
negotiate identity in the group. According to Hyland (1994), Norton (2000) and Morita (2004),
successfully managing such participation issues can help students to become more effective
learners and can foster constructive learning environments in which students feel they are valued
members. Finally, example teaching methods are outlined to offer insight into strategies which
encouraged positive behavior and enhanced performance in group discussion tasks.
INTRODUCTION
EDC lessons are designed to help students improve their discussion skills and interaction
strategies through learning functional language and communication skills. It is a compulsory
class which all freshmen take in their first year at Rikkyo University.
EDC students are placed into four different levels in line with their Test of English for
International Communication (TOEIC) listening and reading scores, which reflect their general
ability to understand spoken English and written English (ETS 2014). The highest level on the
course is Level 1 and the lowest is Level 4:
Table 1. Levels by TOEIC Scores
English Discussion Class (EDC) Groups Students’ TOEIC Scores

Level 1 680 or above
(990 is the highest possible score)
Level 2 679 - 480
Level 3 479 – 280
Level 4 Below 279
In my experience as an English as a Foreign Language Teacher, I have been able to

successfully instruct students with different proficiencies ranging from advanced to beginners.
However, during my first semester and at the start of my second semester at Rikkyo University, I
experienced difficulty staging effective Level 4 lessons. For this reason I decided to keep a
journal in an effort to analyze aspects of my classroom practices which may have been leading to
disruptive behavior in one particular Level 4 EDC class I instructed at Rikkyo University.
The aforementioned class consisted of eight students from the college of Economics. In
11
order to adhere to ethical guidelines concerning confidentiality (BERA, 2011), I will refer to the
learners as Student A – Student H. The participants’ TOEIC scores ranged from 195 (Student A
had the highest score in the group) to 120 (Student H had the lowest score). The student who I
will focus on in more detail later in the discussion is referred to as Student E, whose overall
TOEIC placement score was 175.
Within the first two lessons of starting the EDC course, all the learners in this group
showed signs of significant difficulty adjusting to the lesson format. One major issue was
behavior demonstrating a lack of enthusiasm which was a particular concern because if students
are not engaged in the classes from an early stage they may choose not to attend regularly and
consequently fail the course due to poor attendance. Another issue was that the students seemed
to struggle to negotiate their identities in class. They did not appear to help each other complete
the tasks and there were occasions when I felt some students were ostracized, which resulted in
unequal participation in group discussions.
Therefore, so as to ensure the EDC course objectives were being met and that each
student was able to participate actively in well-balanced, extended group discussions, I saw it
necessary to closely observe this group and critically reflect on my procedures in lessons in
order to find solutions to the problems. Farrell (2007, p.107) lends support to this remedial
measure by stating that making a record of events which occur when conducting lessons, as well
as other practices related to an instructor’s teaching approach, can be useful as it is possible to
“accumulate information that on later review, interpretation and reflection can assist [teachers] in
gaining a deeper understanding of their work”.
DISCUSSION
A Weak Start
At the start of the course, students were informed that they were all expected to speak in English
100% of the time in class and they should work collaboratively on tasks in order to construct
extended discussions of up to 16 minutes without teacher intervention (Hurling, 2012). I
immediately noticed in Lesson 1 that six of the eight students expressed a strong dislike for
studying English when they were introducing themselves; i.e. talking about their background
information, studies, hobbies and ambitions, which indicated there might be some resistance to
tasks in later classes.
Later in the same lesson, I introduced Communication Skills phrases and chorally drilled
expressions for “Agreeing and Disagreeing” and “Checking Understanding”, which went well
but then when students were asked to complete exercises and short discussions independently,
nearly all of them apart from Students A and G started to use Japanese. I gently reminded the
students that they should try their best to use English 100% of the time, to no avail. After 90
minutes, the lesson ended and as they were leaving the classroom, they said that they struggled
with the exercises and that they did not want to study English, which was discouraging to hear. I
therefore set out to ensure that Lesson 2 would be more interactive and engaging.
Problems
In Lesson 2, many of the students were reluctant to speak to each other in English and most of
them reverted back to using Japanese. Student E was a particular problem because he was falling
asleep in class, not volunteering any answers to any of the questions in a group discussion and
even when working with one partner, he failed to respond at times.
One reason to explain such behavior in Lesson 2 is, according to Hayashi & Cherry
12
(2004), language instruction in educational institutions in Japan generally favor a more

teacher-centered approach that does not usually require students to take an active role in lessons.
Learners can remain passive and may not be required to volunteer any information during the
lesson. On the other hand EDC lessons are aligned with Communicative Language Teaching
(CLT) methodology which means that students should play a more participatory role in lessons
and are required to be more autonomous in their learning.
Another reason why Student E may have been so reluctant to participate in the class was
due to his dislike of studying English. If learners feel forced to study subjects which do not
interest them, they are unlikely to do well (MacIntyre et al., 1998). Yet in such situations, Norton
(2000) adds that reaching the conclusion that students have a lack of motivation to study would
be imprecise because the term motivation ascribes inability to the learner. On the contrary, it is
suggested that the term “investment” is used instead. This term accounts for the extent to which
a student views a task to be worth doing. This means that if the student does not feel invested in
the course, in other words, if the learner does not understand exactly how studying can benefit
them, they will not be engaged in lessons (Norton, 2000; Morita, 2004).
To reflect the EDC principles and as a solution to these problems, I reminded Student E
after the class that his participation in the lesson would affect his grades and that if students do
not speak in discussions, they are unlikely to do well on the course. In addition, I reminded
Student E that English would be useful for him because he expressed that he would like to work
in an English-speaking country in the future. I also said that if he wanted to make friends with
foreigners or play sports internationally, he might need English too. Helping students in a
Japanese EFL context to understand why they should be invested in lessons is a concept which is
described as, “international posture” (Munezane, 2013).
Student E received 1 point, out of a maximum of 4 points, for participation in Lesson 2.
However, after taking these actions to help him to understand why he should try harder, through
explicitly linking his performance in class to his academic success on the course as well as
increased international posture, there was a significant change in his approach to the classes. For
instance, in Lesson 3, he received 3 points for participation and in Lesson 4, he received a
maximum of 4 points.
Fostering a Stronger Performance

I recognized that EDC lessons would be a culture shock for the students but it was difficult for
me not to become a little frustrated at times during Lesson 2. I felt that I had explained the aims
of the course very clearly in Lesson 1 but the students were not approaching the tasks effectively,
plus I did not anticipate Student E and others to struggle with basic vocabulary in the tasks such
as situations, borrow money, advice and solve problems. The students were only able to
complete one 8-minute discussion in the class because of the slow pace at which we had to go
through tasks.
This lack of proficiency can have a significant effect on a student’s willingness to
communicate (WTC), which MacIntyre et al. (1998, p. 547) define as being “readiness to enter
into discourse at a particular time with a specific person or persons using a L2”. In other words,
if a student has a lack of resources such as vocabulary, syntax and pronunciation and feels
embarrassed to make mistakes in front of other students, they are unlikely to want to speak in a
group discussion (Morita, 2004; Hulstin and Bossers, 1992). Furthermore, tasks that are
inappropriate for the level and are not aligned with students’ needs threaten learner investment.
After speaking with a Program Manager about my concerns regarding the low
13
proficiency and reticence in this group, it was recommended to give praise and positive
reinforcement for small efforts. Therefore from Lesson 3 onwards, I started to remind the
learners that using easy English, mistakes included was okay and to name students for good
contributions and shared specific examples of things they had said in their discussions. Plus,
when giving plenary feedback I included reformulated words and phrases from their discussions.
I also included these examples in the class comments after each lesson. I highlighted edited
expressions in an attempt to show students alternative ways to say what they wanted to explain.
Some students in this group were able to retain such expressions and use them in Discussion Test
2 and Discussion Test 3 to share their ideas more clearly. I ensured that my classroom language
was appropriately graded and that the tasks I asked students to complete were adapted when
necessary.
Lastly, I recognized that target Function phrases were not being used as much as they
could have been in discussions. In particular, I felt that perhaps, Student E was nervous about
using these expressions or that they may have been too difficult to pronounce without rehearsal.
As a solution to this problem, I introduced pronunciation practice through choral and individual
drilling of target Function phrases in Function presentations from Lesson 3 onwards. It seemed
to have a positive effect as Student E could use more target phrases confidently later in lessons.
For example, in Lesson 2 Student E gained a score of 1 for Function usage and in Lesson 3, he
received 3 points.
Managing Roles and Identities

In Lessons 7 and 8, another problem regarding students’ roles and identities in the lessons was
starting to surface. I noticed that when Student E was paired with Student D and Student B, the
students would go off the topic and start asking follow-up questions which did not relate to the
discussion questions given and Student E would become very quiet and stop contributing ideas.
These learners were more outgoing than Student E, they had a wider range of vocabulary with
which to express their opinions and they had a decent command of the Function phrases and
Communication Skills phrases. However, they would dominate discussions and often direct
questions to each other, rather than attempt to involve Student E.
I also noticed that when paired with Student H and Student C, who were generally less
focused and weaker at using the target language, Student E’s persona changed again. He would
almost give up and begin to speak in Japanese. It seemed as though he did not want to appear to
be studious if his partners were not concentrating on the tasks.
Unfortunately, Student E was absent from Lesson 9 (Discussion Test 2) and Lesson 10
(Possibilities – using “If… / If…?”). I questioned whether this was due to him struggling to
negotiate his role as an active speaker in Lessons 7 and 8 or even other factors such as being ill.
All factors considered, I wanted to ensure that he did not lose investment in the course; therefore,
I wanted to help him see that his participation in group discussions was important.
Consequently, in the lessons which followed, I reminded the class that they could help
quiet students to participate more in discussions by using the following Function phrases after
they finish sharing ideas: “What does everyone think?” / “Does anyone want to comment?” /
Does anyone want to ask a question?” which was quite effective. Nevertheless, what seemed to
be even more effective was using the visualization of a balanced discussion as suggested by
Barker (2014). I explained that the letters A – D represented four learners in one discussion
group and the sections were divided equally to show a balance of ideas shared and questions
asked in a discussion.
14
A B
C D
Figure 1.
I then introduced an additional diagram to illustrate an unbalanced discussion and asked the
students which of the two situations was better in a group discussion. They were able to
recognize that a balanced discussion was favorable and attempted to take turns more evenly in
many of their subsequent discussions.
A
D
Figure 2.
This method seemed to be particularly useful from Lesson 11 onwards when the students were
reminded that balanced discussions are better and might help them to do better in the final
Discussion Test.
Another strategy I adopted to help Student E play a more central role in group
discussions was pairing this learner with other quieter, well-invested students who were trying
hard in lessons. I noticed that although Student E still did not ask many follow-up questions in
discussions, he showed more interest and was willing to speak more when paired with Students
F, G and A. For the remainder of the lessons, I tried to ensure that he was working with at least
one of these students in exercises. This had a positive result because Student E had better
Participation scores by the end of Lesson 12 and he gained a maximum of 5 points in Lesson 13
(Discussion Test 3), which indicated that his WTC and ability to share several ideas during a
group discussion had improved.
Creating a Learning Community

Towards the end of the course I felt that I had established a stronger rapport with each of the
students than at the beginning. Swenson (2010, p.2) suggests that building rapport with students
is vital: “Building rapport with students is an important component to successful communication
especially when the subject is learning a second language”.
Some examples of small actions taken to promote trust and interest are as follows. Just
before the start of the class when distributing quizzes for the students to complete, I would ask
them about their journeys to the campus, find out if they had a busy week and ask them some
15
other general questions to help them warm up and start thinking about using English. Student E
arrived to class early for Lessons 12 – 14 and I had a chance to find out more about his interests
and academic experiences.
In addition, if students arrived late (i.e. during a Function Presentation), I would ask the
rest of the class to say good morning to him or her and ask the other students to try to include the
latecomer in discussion practice; this was a simple yet effective way to help such students feel
welcomed into the learning community and to feel as though they would not play an awkward
peripheral role in the rest of the exercises due to having missed one part of the lesson.
I also would say goodbye to each of the students and praise their efforts when they
worked well. I noticed that rather than rushing out of the classroom as quickly as possible as
they used to at the start of the course, some students started to spend a longer time talking with
each other before leaving the classroom and even approaching me to ask for advice about their
performance in class, which was a very encouraging sign that they were more interested in
spending time with each other and being part of the classroom community, which can in-turn
promote better involvement in discussions (MacIntyre et al., 1998).
Lastly, in feedback exercises later in the course I instructed the students to refer to given
Function Phrases or Communication Skills phrases and discuss questions to evaluate their own
performance as individuals and as a group. This involved giving them simple questions to
discuss such as:
Did everybody share ideas in that discussion?
Did everybody ask questions in that discussion?
What did you do well in that discussion?
What do you want to improve in the next discussion?
By asking them to talk about their roles in the exercises, I was encouraging them to become
more responsible for their own learning and accountable for the success or failure of the group
discussions. By the end of Lesson 13, each student understood the nature of the EDC lessons and
there was an overall improvement in the students’ approach to the discussion tasks.
CONCLUSION
In summary, this paper has outlined the importance of anticipating and reflecting on issues that
emerge when instructing lower level learners in EDC classes. When teaching Level 4 students
last semester, managing students’ willingness to communicate (WTC) was an incredible
challenge. However, carefully observing students’ responses to teaching approaches, evaluating
lessons in order to diagnose issues and altering procedures has been extremely beneficial this
semester. Furthermore, by recording journal entries after classes with this group of learners I
was able to better identify aspects of my classroom practices which had negative and positive
effects on learning outcomes.
As previously mentioned, a student’s WTC is connected to proficiency (MacIntyre et al.
1998) and although it has been useful to explore the links between a student’s WTC and limited
linguistic competence, the aims of the EDC program do not extend to the instruction of syntax,
morphology, pronunciation and other elements requisite to a student’s proficient command of the
language. Nevertheless, it was possible to adapt exercises to include pronunciation practice in
function presentations and vocabulary input in the class comments students were asked to read
for homework.
Other important points discussed in this reflection are techniques adopted to handle L2
learners’ passive participation in EDC lessons. As suggested by Morita (2004) and MacIntyre et
16
al. (1998), foreign language learners may have a lack of confidence in their perceived abilities
and may consequently want to avoid using the target language in front of others. So as not to
accentuate this anxiety among students, it is important not to openly ascribe identities to learners
in lessons. Instead, active participation can be nurtured by praising individual students with
specific examples of tasks they performed well in the group discussion and providing ample
support in practice exercises.
Finally, going forward, it would be beneficial to explore ways of incorporating more
needs analysis in lessons at the start of each semester so that instructors can discover vital
information about students’ needs, interests, expectations and their preferred learning styles.
Adapting language tasks in such a way can ensure students are more invested in lessons and that
they have a stronger desire to be a more active participant (Norton, 2000; Hyland, 1994;
MacIntyre et al., 1998).
REFERENCES
Barker, B. (2014). Unequal participation and willingness to communicate. New Directions in
Teaching and Learning English Discussion, 1 (3) 39-45.
British Educational Research Association. (2011). Ethical guidelines for educational research
(2nd ed.). London: BERA.
ETS TOEIC Website. Retrieved from July 30, 2014 from
https://www.ets.org/Media/Tests/TOEIC/pdf/TOEIC_LR_examinee_handbook.pdf
Farrell, T. (2007). Reflective language teaching: from research to practice. London: Continuum.
Hayashi, M. & Cherry, D. (2004). Japanese students’ learning style preferences in the EFL
classroom. Bulletin of Hokuriku University, 28, 83–93. Available at
http://www.hokuriku-u.ac.jp/establishment/library/pdf/kiyo28/mirai3.pdf
London: Pearson Education.
Hulstijn, J. H. & Bossers, B. (1992). Individual differences in L2 proficiency as a function of
L1 proficiency. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 4 (4), 341-353. doi:
10.1080/09541449208406192
Hurling, S. (2012). Introduction to EDC. New Directions in Teaching and Learning English
Discussion, 1, 1.2-1.9.
Hyland, K. (1994). The learning styles of Japanese students. JALT Journal, 16 (1), 55-74.
MacIntyre, P.D., Dornyei, Z., Clement, R. & Noels, A. (1998). Conceptualizing willingness to
communicate in a L2: A situational model of L2 confidence and affiliation. The Modern
Language Journal, 82(4), 545-562.
Morita, N. (2004). Negotiating participation and identity in second language academic
Communities. TESOL Quarterly, 38(4), 573-603. doi: 137.108.145.45
Munezane, Y. (2013). Attitudes, affect and ideal L2 self as predictors of willingness to
communicate. EUROSLA Yearbook, 13 (1), 176-198. doi: 10.1075/eurosla.13.09mun
Norton, B. (2000) Claiming the right to speak in classrooms and communities in Identity and
Language Learning: Gender, Ethnicity And Educational Change (pp. 133-156).
London: Pearson Education.
Richards, J. C. (1998). Beyond training: Perspectives on language teacher education.
Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
Swenson, E. (2010). Rapport in the classroom. Retrieved from
http://www.usma.edu/cfe/Literature/Swenson_10.pdf
17
Evolving Monitoring Templates and Formative Feedback

Checklists used in Self/Peer-Reflection
Jamie Lesley
ABSTRACT
This paper reports on a teaching journal maintained over 14 weeks from April to July, 2014 in
what was the writer’s first semester in an English Discussion Class (EDC) program at a private
Japanese university. Its focus is twofold: (1) to chart the progressive format changes and
effectiveness of monitoring templates used to document target language use and examples of
discussion content in teacher-fronted feedback; (2) to record changes in observed student
performance resulting from post-discussion self/peer-reflection checklists. As exposure to the
program increased, and classroom experience was gained by all participants, the writer was able
to provide clearer, more actionable feedback, while students became more actively involved in
appraising their own discussions and goal-setting. The paper concludes with a suggested cycle
for administering reflective check-lists on a systematic and deliberately limited basis to help
retain appreciation for their continued inclusion as part of a formative feedback process.
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this paper is to document my experiences of teaching English discussion skills to
first-year undergraduate students in what was my and their first semester at a private university
in Japan. A passing grade in the English Discussion Class (EDC) program is a requirement for
all freshmen students as part of the university’s general curriculum. These lessons take place
once a week for 90 minutes in both semesters of the first academic year. Class sizes are small by
design, and typically accommodate 7-9 students each. Given the low number of participants per
class, there is greater scope to attend to the needs of individuals through instructor feedback than
is otherwise possible or practical with far larger groups. In a bid to record my attempts at
providing meaningful feedback that could affect improved performances from one discussion to
the next, I selected two EDC classes and kept a teaching journal to record and reflect on the
strategies I applied to them over the 14-week period.
EDC students are grouped by faculty and then placed into one of four class levels
according to pre-course placement tests for TOEIC listening and reading. The two classes I
chose were a Level 1 Law group, comprising 2 males and 6 females with placement scores
ranging from TOEIC 725 to 800, and a Level 3 Mathematics group, consisting of 5 males and 2
females with placement scores of TOEIC 435-440. I wrote journal entries as soon as was
feasible after each lesson to chronicle what had transpired with a degree of immediacy and
hoped-for accuracy. Due to limitations of space, the account that follows focuses primarily on
the Level 1 class with references to the Level 3 class where relevant.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Reflecting critically on pedagogical methods and beliefs by reviewing or monitoring one’s own
and others’ classroom practice has long been considered a valuable part of a language teacher’s
ongoing professional development (Randall & Thornton, 2001 Richards, 1990). Such critical
reflection can take various forms, including lesson observations, case studies, classroom, teacher
and action research, and diary or journal writing (Bailey, 2014; Burns, 2010; Richards & Ho,
1998). Critical reflection encourages instructors to not only think deeply about what happens in
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Jamie Lesley
lessons and why, but also to contemplate where and how improvements might be made to
facilitate student progress. Through introspection and interpretation, instructors can cultivate an
enhanced understanding of methods and techniques, adopt a more principled, insightful teaching
approach, and hopefully guide students towards more positive learning outcomes (Harmer,
2007).
Journals provide a simple, systematic way to monitor what goes on inside the classroom
(Farrell, 2007). They allow teachers to “hold up mirrors to our own practice, making more
conscious what is beneath the surface” (Templer, 2004, para.1) since the writer must revisit
events in the process of trying to articulate them in written form (Harmer, 2007). Journals offer
instructors a routine platform to voice ideas, highlight responses (both their own and students’),
document successes, vent about failures, and generate thought-provoking questions (Brock, Yu
& Wong, 1992). These questions may lead to changes in attitude or application, which is perhaps
their greatest benefit to the writer. While journals can be tiring, time-consuming, hard to
interpret, and challenging to write in a way that is reflective rather than merely descriptive
(Richards & Ho, 1998), they can also be powerful consciousness-raising tools.
The decision to explore feedback in this journal stemmed largely from the important role
it plays in student-centred learning, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), and EDC
methodology. In educational contexts, it is typically defined as “information that is given to the
learner about his or her performance of a learning task, usually with the objective of improving
this performance” (Ur, 1991, p. 242). This information aims to increase leaner awareness and
deepen understanding of target language features. If delivered effectively, it can enhance
learning by answering three key questions: “Where am I going? How am I going? and Where to
next?” (Hattie & Timperley, 2007, p. 87). The significance of this is underscored when feedback
“occurs in response to [a] learner’s production with the intent of improving the learner’s
subsequent production” (Anderson, 2011, p. 26). In such cases, feedback is delivered with the
precise intent to modify future attempts or output, and is said to offer a formative rather than
summative assessment, i.e. it strives to reduce the gap between learners’ current and desired
levels of production (Black & Wiliam, 1998). Feedback of this kind is inherently actionable and
is noted for its powerful capacity to motivate (Shute, 2008). As such, it is recognized as one of
the “most commonly conceived classroom functions of teachers” (Nunan, 1991, p. 195).
Feedback is often envisaged as a top-down venture, flowing from teachers to students,
but it is not exclusively crafted this way (Nicol & Macfarlane-Dick, 2006). Besides the
traditional model of teacher-fronted feedback, students are increasingly positioned through
careful training and practice (Andrade & Valtcheva, 2009; Chen, 2008; Saito, 2008) to increase
learner agency, and take more active roles in class by appraising both their own and their peers’
language performance (Lyster, Saito & Sato, 2013; Oi, 2012; Patri, 2012). Feedback that
encompasses such reflection, assessment, and goal-setting may produce more independent,
autonomous learners able to adopt a more consciously strategic approach to their learning
(Brindley, 2001; Cook, 2008). This is evident in discussion-specific learning environments too
(Green, Christopher & Lam, 1997), although in certain cases, self-assessment tasks can be the
cause of anxiety for some learners (de Saint Léger, 2009).
Instructor feedback is a core component of EDC methodology and is pivotal to the stated
program aims of students being able to generate the cognitive, affective, and practical abilities to
participate in extended English discussions on contemporary topics with their peers for 16
minutes or more (Hurling, 2012). Across the full 14 week course, students are exposed to six
discussion-based target language items, known as Functions, as well as three Communication
19
Skills, which are used and practiced together to help support these goals. After Lesson 1, the
course structure offers two new Function lessons in succession, followed by a Communication
Skills review class, and finally, a Discussion Test lesson. This block of four classes establishes a
cycle that repeats two more times up to Lesson 13. The fourteenth lesson ends the semester with
a full course review and the chance to look over the last Discussion Test performance. Without
feedback to routinely confirm or redirect appropriate use of the program’s target language, it is
doubtful that students would gain the required competence or confidence to achieve these core
targets.
Teachers have multiple opportunities to provide feedback during EDC lessons, but in this
journal, I selected feedback given after each of the two extended discussions staged in the
second half of every class. In these, students are free to use any phrases to perform the Functions
and Communication Skills. How students choose to frame ideas and manage discussions in
response to the set topics and questions is entirely their choosing. During the first discussion
(D1), which is typically 10 minutes in length, students should ideally conduct matters without
teacher assistance, although intervention is possible if absolutely necessary (for example, in the
event of students running out of ideas early and being unable to yield further contributions).
However, in the second discussion (D2), students do not have the safety net of teacher support,
and must maintain and complete a 16-minute discussion in full, one way or another.
The onus of shared responsibility coupled with the weight of expectation to carry
discussions unaided in English is one I knew might take time for students to adjust to. Few, if
any, would have conducted any such activities in their previous English learning experiences.
The challenge was how to prepare students sufficiently to not only interact without my input, but
also improve on their D1 performance through goal-driven feedback. I also wished to revisit
those goals after each D2 so that students could judge improvements for themselves and feel a
sense of progress. I planned to finish lessons with a meaningful review of the day’s performance
in which to highlight gains and identify fresh targets for the next discussion – targets that would
be co-constructed and co-directed both by teacher and students. I wanted them to be active rather
than passive participants in the process. To achieve this, I first needed a way to monitor and
document their discussions so my feedback could be accurate and meaningful. A monitoring
template seemed an ideal choice. I also required a way to help direct students towards reviewing
their performance beyond me simply telling them to do so. For this, I settled on making a
post-discussion, goal-orientated checklist to use in self-reflection.
Howard and Major (2004) identify six design factors to consider when designing
teacher-produced materials: the learners they are intended for; the instruction curriculum and
context; available resources and facilities; the creator’s personal confidence and competence;
copyright compliance; and time. All of these (with the possible exception of copyright concerns)
would need to be carefully taken into account when planning. For instance, EDC students might
never have used reflection materials before so I would need a user-friendly design. My materials
would have to be explicitly connected to lesson aims too. I could make them on a computer
easily enough, but did not want to devote considerable time to their creation. Given my other
work duties, whatever I produced would have to be quick and simple both in production and
application. Fortunately, however, the creation of instructor-made materials is commonplace in
the EDC, especially for the purposes of feedback. Many of these are archived and stored in
digital form online for others in the program to access, reuse, and revise. This being so, I was
able to review some existing templates and checklists in the early stages of constructing mine.
Features shared by most of the monitoring templates I examined were predominantly a
20
Jamie Lesley
large grid or table with sections to identify students by name, and space to record specific
language use by ticking, checking, circling or otherwise highlighting items on lists of target
forms or phrases. Most templates also included areas to comment on individual performance or
record memorable contribution examples. The reflection checklists also had similarities, such as
a range of 4-8 Yes/No questions or statements pertaining to target language use or behaviour in
D1 and D2 presented in table form. Some addressed the individual, while others the group.
Examining such materials in advance and recognizing patterns common to the collective design
format was useful as I embarked on designing my own.
DISCUSSION
Lesson 1
The first EDC class of the academic year (Lesson 1) is designed to give students an overview of
EDC course contents, goals, and evaluation criteria. It offers the opportunity to get to know their
instructors and classmates, to experience some features of a regular lesson such as pair and
group work, as well as a first chance to practice three essential Communication Skills that are
recycled and required throughout the course. In Level 3 classes, these Skills are: Agreeing and
Disagreeing; Asking Follow-up Questions; and Checking Understanding. In Level 1, the first
two skills are the same, but the last is upgraded to the comparatively more difficult skill of
Paraphrasing (for what is effectively the same purpose of clarifying oneself and others). In
addition to Communication Skills, in Lesson 1 students are strongly encouraged to be active
listeners during all exchanges with their classmates, i.e. they should always react to what others
say.
With these aims in mind, I created a monitoring template of A4 size consisting of a basic
grid with two columns of four boxes (one for each student) in which to take note of
Communication Skills use, space to record examples of utterances, as well as a separate box
across the foot of the page labelled ‘Content’ for general comments on overall performance (see
Appendix A). However, in the actual lesson, I failed to make good use of the template during the
one and only extended discussion of the class. Put simply, my notes were completely ineffective
– one cursory entry of “Good comments” for a lone student in a class of eight for what was a
12-minute discussion across two groups of four! I had no examples of spoken output by the one
student whose contributions I had judged to be good, and what I was left with was a monitoring
template with a collection of named, but empty boxes.
How did this failure to utilize the monitoring template affect my feedback? Naturally, it
meant I tried to recall interaction aspects without any written evidence to refer to. Therefore,
specific discussion content and Communication Skill phrase examples I called attention to were
just paraphrased from memory. The same was true of isolated points for each group to try to
improve. This was not ideal; although, in hindsight, not entirely unexpected since this was my
first day teaching new students in a new job. Many things were unfamiliar. While not offered as
an excuse, experiencing a degree of information overload within a new environment and role
was my reality, as indeed it likely was for my students. I appreciated that practice and time in the
job would make monitoring easier, but I was keen to make progress on my first attempt. If I was
going to deliver feedback that would truly inform and benefit, I needed to attend to
record-keeping better.
My inability to document what I observed in my first Level 1 discussion led me to drop
the template entirely from the first Level 3 lesson, as I questioned whether I would actually use
it. It was not a case of me not recognizing the value of being able to record significant aspects of
21
performance in the moment of them transpiring, but I had not made the most of the template in
the Level 1 lesson to justify its use in another first class with another new group of students.
Balancing my need to watch and listen with the desire to record what was happening had
admittedly proved a struggle. I found myself pondering how I might resolve this issue to
effectively keep track of discussion content and frequency of target Functions and
Communication Skills as their focus shifted from week to week. It was time to make some
modifications.
Lesson 2
I created a monitoring template in the same format as the previous week’s to account for the
introduction of the first Functions of the course (See Appendix B). For Level 1, these were
‘Giving and Asking for Opinions and Reasons’ – essentially a combination of what the Level 3
students cover in two lessons rather than one. Speaker and listener sides were abbreviated to
‘Op…’ ‘Op?’ ‘Reas…’ ‘Reas?’ in each of the eight boxes of the template grid. The Functions sat
above the Communication Skills which were listed as: ‘Agree’, ‘Disagree’, ‘FQs’, ‘CU/Para’
and ‘Reactions’ and beneath these boxes, the same footer for general notes. I planned to make
tally marks next to functions and skills to quantify performance I could comment on in feedback.
To coincide with this template, I created a second to record specific examples of students’
utterances (see Figure 1). This was a double-sided sheet with a 2x4 box grid, small circles in
each box for names and lots of blank space. I wanted room to write more freely, believing this
might also have contributed to my not writing anything substantive the week before. I thus went
into the second round of lessons armed with two monitoring sheets in the hope of documenting
observed performance more accurately.
Discussion 1 Discussion 2
Figure 1. Lesson 2 Double-sided Monitoring Grid
In support of these revamped templates, I planned to introduce a self-reflection checklist

for students to complete after D1 and D2 (see Figure 2). The checklist was a simple table listing
Functions and Communication Skills with instructions to circle Yes/No items successfully used
22
Jamie Lesley
in each discussion. Beneath the checklist were two questions: ‘What were my strong points? and
hat were my weaker points’ By initiating this reflection and evaluation, I hoped to bring students
into the process of appraising discussions before setting themselves goals for future ones.
In this class, I was more successful at keeping tabs on Functions and Communication
Skills and recorded tally marks on the first template in seven of the eight named boxes. On the
same sheet, I also recorded examples of ideas and comments. For example: “I think it’s not that
good to have just online friends or Skype friends” for ‘Opinions’; “I partly agree. Not having a
job as an adult is a neglect of duty” for ‘Agreeing’; some successful attempts to ‘Paraphrase
others’ using “You mean..?”, as well as “How do you say … in English?” for a missed
opportunity to ‘Check Understanding’. Furthermore, I wrote instances of unwanted Japanese
usage indicated in my notes by “JP”; “Dominated” for the student who routinely spoke over
others; and “Struggled to speak” for a noticeably reticent student. Finally, I drew stars next to
three students’ names that had excelled as speakers and used sustained active listening. In this
way, I managed to garner the kind of specifics that were missing from Lesson 1, although the
majority of my notes for this discussion were written on just the one template originally intended
to keep count of Function or Communication Skill frequency. This was counter to my plan.
Check (O) the Functions and Communication Skills you used in today’s discussions
Functions D1 D2
ASKING FOR OPINIONS (e.g. What’s your opinion?)
GIVING OPINIONS (e.g. I’m not sure, but I think…)
ASKING FOR REASONS (e.g. How come?)
GIVING REASONS (e.g. One reason is…)
Communication Skills D1 D2
FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS (e.g. What kind of…? / When….?)
PARAPHRASING YOURSELF / OTHERS (e.g. I mean… / Do you mean…?)
AGREE / DISAGREE (e.g. I totally agree / I don’t think so….)
REACTIONS (e.g. Yes / Okay / I see)
- What were my strong points?
- What were my weaker points?
Figure 2. Lesson 2 Checklist
Despite my intention to use one template for frequency-keeping and another for example
utterances, I found I could not smoothly use each exclusively for its prescribed purpose in D1 or
D2. Instead, I was jumping frantically between both, mixing in tally marks and short-hand
content examples on one or the other template. In short, I was attempting to do too much. As a
result of such frenzied note-taking, I found it took too long to process what I had written before I
was in a position to articulate my feedback to each group.
The delay in giving feedback was problematic since it made students’ attention wane.
Equally, some of the positive energy generated in the discussion began to taper off. However, in
terms of feedback content, I was more satisfied with the specific detail of what I offered,
although less happy with the time-lag before delivering it. It struck me as poor time management,
even though it had been necessary to help gather my thoughts. I realized I would need to reduce
the gap between finishing discussions/monitoring and starting feedback. The pressure of feeling
time being lost while notes are hurriedly processed was also something I was keen to remove. I
23
wanted to offer 1-2 points of praise and goals to each group, but knew I was taking too long to
reach my conclusions. Overall, these revised templates were more effective than those I had
produced in the first week, but three sides of paper on which to take notes while monitoring two
discussions simultaneously over-complicated matters. I needed to make everything more concise
in design and easier to use to thereby manage timing more appropriately.
Timing in this lesson was mismanaged not only because of my slow transition from the
mid-discussion monitoring to the post-discussion feedback, but also due to my introduction of
the self-checklist. On the one hand, it was somewhat beneficial, since it accommodated my need
for processing time. However, the explanation of how and why the check-lists were used was
time-consuming. Students were caught off-guard at being asked to analyse their performance,
and too hesitant or modest to say “I was strong at x or y aspect”, tending instead to over-inflate
weaker features of their output and downplay what was genuinely done well. On the positive
side, students did manage to carry out the task as instructed and began D2 with precise goals to
pursue. They knew what a checklist was, what it was for, and how to complete it. I hoped this
would lead to faster completion in subsequent classes.
When reviewing my templates, I saw I had written 9 and 13 minutes on the double-sided
template to indicate each discussion’s duration. I used these figures in my teacher-fronted
feedback to reference the expected length of 10 and 16 minutes for D1 and D2 respectively. I
wanted students to buy into the idea that time management should be a collaborative pursuit. By
inviting students to share in valuing an expeditious approach, I hoped to keep better timing in
future activities so that neither my feedback nor any reflection tasks would be prematurely cut
short. In this class, I sacrificed time off each discussion to make way for feedback. While
students were in no position to know how long each activity should take, I was aware I had
fallen short of staging the lesson effectively. That being so, I also appreciated that as a new
instructor to EDC methodology it may be difficult to execute my lesson plans as intended.
Lesson 3
In this week’s lesson, I deployed a revised self-check sheet with Yes/No statements of
performance, the wording of which was more specific to the purpose of each
Function/Communication Skill than what I had used in Lesson 2 (see Figure 3). Students reacted
well and I was able to reinforce the benefits of each target item better. The monitoring template
was slightly different, although it retained the twin features of tallying instances of specific
language use alongside examples of discussion content. Perhaps due to my increased
automaticity, I was more accurate when tallying. I also used different coloured pens after the
discussion to isolate parts of the template notes to address while students self-reflected. The
simple choice to use colour proved effective. I made selections by reviewing the template in the
two minutes I gave students to assess themselves. This worked better than the previous week
when I had given teacher-fronted feedback first, and introduced the checklists after. My timing
and their attention benefited from the switch.
24
Jamie Lesley
Discussion 1: Talking to friends and family

 I used opinions phrases when I shared my ideas YES NO
 I asked other students for their opinions YES NO
 I used reasons phrases to explain my ideas YES NO
 I asked other students to explain their ideas YES NO
 I helped the group to keep the discussions equal YES NO
 I helped others to understand the ideas we discussed YES NO
In Discussion 1, my strong point was:
In the next discussion, I will try to…
The introduction of key topic words and abbreviations from the textbook’s D1 and D2 question
prompts in the Lesson 3 template helped document comments and ideas by removing the need to
write so much repetitive short-hand (See Appendix C). Topic words like “Money” and “Lies” in
D1, and abbreviations like “Easier - HS/Uni?” (for high school or university) in D2 were easily
circled on the template when introduced by speakers as talking points. This allowed me to
concentrate more on the details of what students said since I was under less pressure to chase the
topics of their ideas. When creating this template, I also chose to have the Functions and
Communication Skills listed to one side of each grid box in full, e.g. ‘Joining a Discussion’,
‘Changing Topic’, ‘Giving Opinions’, ‘Asking for Reasons’, ‘Agree’, ‘Reactions’ etc. as the
reduced forms I experimented with in Lesson 2 were distracting and it was not always
immediately obvious what they referred to. I was not yet familiar enough to recall all target
items quickly. Therefore, it was useful to have them explicitly written on the page. I hoped this
would soon be unnecessary so I could revert to the shorter forms and make my template less
visually cluttered. A more minimal approach might serve me better.
Lessons 4-7
I was absent in Lesson 4 from what was a Communication Skills review, and my class was
covered by another instructor. In Lesson 5, I taught the first of three assessed Discussion Tests in
the EDC course. The short break between Lessons 3-5 seemed to have had a positive effect.
Class dynamics felt stronger, and over the next few weeks, we settled into a feedback routine
that appeared to work. I gave increasingly more meaningful comments without wasting as much
time collecting my thoughts. I also become more proficient at taking notes to exemplify good
execution or otherwise of Functions and Communication Skills. The students were adjusting to
the demands of the lesson and the feedback process.
Generally, the students reacted to the self-reflection checklists in a way that suggested
value in their use. I noticed most (though, not all) attempting to act on the goals they set between
D1 and D2 with signs of success. I drew attention to these improvements, which appeared to
boost morale and help finish lessons positively. However, I didn’t always have time to complete
my feedback, as time management when staging activities was still somewhat inconsistent.
Furthermore, I was not getting all students to connect with the checklists to the same degree.
Some were getting more out of it than others. I considered how I might harness the interest of
the more motivated, self-aware members of the class to encourage the few who were less
inclined to engage in self-reflection. Consequently, I varied how I set up the checklist task, so
that sometimes students reflected on their individual performance and then explained their
assessments to a partner; at other times, I asked groups to appraise their collective performance.
25
This variety paid dividends with a more enthusiastic, collaborative response from all
participants.
During these lessons, I made small but significant modifications to my monitoring
templates, which also brought positive returns. For example, in Lesson 5, I added Yes/No
statements to my monitoring template to mirror the students’ checklists (See Appendix D). This
introduced greater continuity to the feedback materials, and helped me evaluate and compare
each group’s performance faster. In Lesson 6, I included underlined key words in the checklists
to add emphasis to important concepts.
Discussion 1: Everyday Technology

 I used examples to support opinions with specific information YES NO
 I used experiences to support opinions with specific information YES NO
 I used phrases to join the discussion YES NO
 I used phrases to change topics YES NO
 I used opinions and reasons phrases when I spoke YES NO
 I used opinions and reasons phrases to ask questions YES NO
 I used agree and disagree phrases to connect my ideas to other people’s YES NO
 I helped others understand the ideas we discussed YES NO
 I helped the group to keep the discussion equal YES NO
In Discussion 1, my strong point was:
In the next discussion, I will try to…
This checklist change would go on to influence how I articulated my own feedback since I began
to echo the wording of the checklists. For example, one Yes/No statement read: “I used
agree/disagree phrases to connect my ideas to other people’s.” When later referencing each
group’s use of Agreeing and Disagreeing, I adopted a very similar phrasing of the
Communication Skill’s purpose, which made my comments more concise and helped reinforce
the benefits of using this particular Communication Skill.
In Lesson 7, I made more revisions to materials to reduce time (See Figure 5). I took the
decision to change the wording of the final questions after the Yes/No checklist statements to:
“What was good?” and “What could be better?” to simplify task instructions and minimize
reading requirements. I also abbreviated the names of the Functions and Skills on the monitoring
template to create more space for notes on students’ ideas. I then added underlined key words to
my template’s version of the Yes/No statements to speed up my scanning and skimming of notes.
Discussion 1: Email vs. Face-to-face Communication
 I used examples to support opinions with specific information YES NO
 I used experiences to support opinions with specific information YES NO
 I used phrases to join the discussion YES NO
 I used phrases to change topics YES NO
 I used opinions and reasons phrases when I spoke YES NO
 I used opinions and reasons phrases to ask questions YES NO
 I used agree and disagree phrases to connect my ideas to other people’s YES NO
 I helped others understand the ideas we discussed YES NO
 I helped the group to keep the discussion equal YES NO
What was good?
What could be better?
26
Jamie Lesley
Lesson 8
My attempts to simplify and expedite the feedback process continued in Lesson 8, when I made
yet more format changes (see Appendix E). Firstly, I returned to the abbreviated target language
short-forms I had tried and failed to use effectively much earlier in the semester. In addition to
this, I changed the Yes/No statements from what was formerly two separate boxes at the foot of
the page (one for each group) to a combined box in the bottom left corner of the sheet to account
for both groups in two space-saving columns. I used the extra space this created in the opposite
corner for a general notes box for extra comments or reminders to myself. Doing so helped
organize my thoughts more clearly.
Before teaching Lesson 8, I originally planned to use the Yes/No checklist statements as I
had done previously. However, I found myself instead directing students to the reference section
at the back of their textbooks to review the full list of Function phrases and Communication
Skills. I asked them to consider what phrases they had/had not used often on that day or in recent
lessons, and then discuss with a partner what to focus on in D2. This unpremeditated change of
tack raised reflection interest. This may have been because the students had seen very similar
reflection checklists over a number of weeks and were growing tired of them. I wondered if the
students were more motivated by the introduction of something new; either way, overall
Functions/Communication Skills output increased in the next discussion with more varied target
language use. Specific Functions and Communication Skills most noticeably absent from D1 had
been Connecting Ideas (by naming someone else’s idea and commenting on it with further topic
development) and Paraphrasing. Each of these made sustained appearances in the D2 exchanges.
This was an interesting development. The checklists had steadily been growing longer week to
week as yet more statements were added to reflect new course content. I felt that perhaps
understandably, students were skipping items they had seen many times over. We may have
reached a point at which the checklists were losing their desired effect. The
Function/Communication Skill phrase lists at the back of the textbook had shifted focus and
were therefore a welcome change.
After eight EDC lessons, I was over halfway through the first semester, by which point I
had reached certain conclusions as to how to handle post-discussion feedback and involve
students formatively in the process. My current thinking was to administer self/peer-reflection
checklists with simple Yes/No statements after D1 to create individual and/or group goals for D2,
the success or failure of which could be confirmed at the end of class. This practice seemed most
appropriate for lessons in which new Functions were introduced. I felt confident in my assertion
that limiting checklists to new Function classes would help retain their impact.
The reasoning behind a proposed limitation on checklists was that using them in more
than two consecutive lessons appeared to reduce their appeal. In Communication Skills lessons,
students were conscious of the Discussion Test the week after. Perhaps providing a macro-like
reflective snapshot of all Function and Communication Skill phrases together on a double-page
textbook spread was motivating so close to the test. It’s difficult to know this without canvassing
their opinions, but this change seemed to suit them. However, it is quite possible that the
textbook phrase lists offered more of an aid to memory than checklists of Yes/No statements did.
Lesson 9
To cap off the four-lesson block described above, in the last class I made one further change to
the feedback focus for Lesson 9’s Discussion Test. The first half of class would involve
preparation for the actual tests coming in the second, and would not be in keeping with a regular
27
lesson structure. As such, I felt it better to shift the attention from Function/Communication Skill
phrases to the five criteria by which their Discussion Test would be graded: Functions; Content;
Communication (Skills); Questions; and Language (coherence and use of L1). These were also
featured at the back of the textbook under a section promisingly titled “How to Get a Good
Grade in Discussion Tests”. Again, I felt this shift in focus was warranted given the nature of the
lesson. I wanted to raise awareness going into the test that in addition to using all Functions
covered to date they also needed to: offer multiple ideas (Content); listen actively, negotiate
meaning when breakdowns occur, agree and disagree to connect ideas (Communication); ask
follow-up questions to develop ideas (Questions); use 100% English at all times, and do their
best to avoid saying anything incomprehensible (Language).
In the preparatory half of Lesson 9, students reflected on their performance using the five
test criteria and astutely identified two areas in need of attention: posing more follow-up
questions and offering more frequent, concise ideas to increase the number of speaking turns
each member could have. For my part, the new general notes box on the template allowed me to
draw my notes together to offer these final points of feedback prior to the test:
1) Using “What does everyone think?” would help open up the floor to all speakers when
segueing into new questions or topics.
2) Before changing topics, someone should ask, “Does anyone want to add something?” to
confirm closure.
3) Requesting permission prior to giving opinions or examples, by asking “Can I make a
comment?”, would help organize the discussion more smoothly.
4) When ending turns, asking “Does anyone agree with my idea?” was one option among
several that students could use to invite another person to take the floor.
In the subsequent Tests that followed, students in both groups were able to incorporate all
of the above points. They asked a high number of Follow-up Questions and scored highly for
content frequency of ideas and comments. The combination of self-directed targets and
instructor feedback had combined well in what it helped produce under subsequently assessed
discussion conditions.
By comparison with the Level 1 students, in my Level 3 Lesson 9 class, the general notes
box on my monitoring template again proved useful to summarize highlights of each group’s
weak performance points:
1) Speakers should expect to start and end speaking turns with questions.
2) Agreement/disagreement should be followed with a marked opinion and reason phrase, and
if possible, an example to illustrate the speaker’s idea.
3) Opening new topics or questions with “What does everyone think?” could be used by
anyone in the group to invite others to contribute, not just by the same person each time.
4) Closing turns with “Does anyone want to comment?” was one of several options available
to end turns and encourage others to connect their views to what had already been offered.
Students were tasked with reflecting on this practice discussion using the five test criteria.
They accurately identified Communication Skills to be deficient, as the majority of students
were quite reticent and did not offer much in the listener’s role. However, despite this awareness,
their ability to make good on their goals was largely unsuccessful. In one test group, students
recorded only nine reactions and four instances of agreeing/disagreeing across three speakers in
a 12-minute test. In the other group, there were seven follow-up questions in total, but six of
these had been turn-taking ones, i.e. not aimed at going deeper into any one speaker’s ideas.
Compared to the Level 1 groups, this was not such a successful display. The students may have
28
Jamie Lesley
felt overloaded and/or in need of more preparation after receiving feedback so they could attend
to the full range of Functions and Communication Skills more adequately in the tests. I would
need to be aware of this for future test lessons.
Lessons 10-14
In Lesson 10, I returned to the Yes/No checklist statements and gave my Level 1 students peer
consultation time after D1 to identify goals for D2. Many felt they had underused the listener
side of the new “If..?” function. Collectively, they set this as their target. In D2, I recorded many
instances of “if…”statements for almost all participants and I was able to reference a couple of
memorable ones in my content-based feedback. However, their specific goal to use “If…?” in its
question form was not achieved. Although the frequency of conditional clause usage went up,
they missed their expressed target. It seemed that while able to recognize needs, students could
not always act accordingly towards meeting them. This suggested that a controlled or
semi-controlled practice activity, perhaps built into the preparation activity preceding D2 would
have been beneficial. This added dimension of formative focus to build on the recommendations
of the feedback may have increased production of the sought-after “If…?” questions.
In Lesson 11, I felt settled with my feedback materials and had no desire to make
changes. After D1, my reflections on strengths and weakness married with those of the students.
There was a notable rise in the number of “If…? questions, but the newest and final Function of
‘Alternative Ideas’ was conspicuous by its absence. There had also been a distinct lack of
attention to the earlier ‘Examples and Experiences’ Function, as well as ‘Follow-up Questions’
that were not hypothetical interrogatives. After identifying these as goals, we moved onto the D2
Preparation stage with the intent of acting on them immediately. Students showed clear signs of
improvement by asking many more varied follow-up questions and referencing several examples
and experiences. This was pleasing, although they were not able to replicate the same success
with the ‘Assessing Ideas' Function. While it was good to attempt to make feedback more
formative by linking it directly to the next class activity, I possibly was being over-ambitious
asking for multiple targets to be attended to. The D2 preparation activity is after all primarily
designed to generate content for the discussion it precedes. Having all 6 functions to
accommodate, there were many points of focus. That said, progress was evident, and the
self-check sheets were useful when honing in on performance specifics. In the ‘Communication
Skills’ review scheduled for the next class, I planned to again shift attention away from
checklists towards the full Function and Communication Skill lists in the textbook’s reference
section to try to promote a wider range of phrases.
In Lesson 12’s D1 reflection, both groups remarked that their collective performance had
not been equally balanced. My notes confirmed who dominated each team’s discussion as I had
far more content written in their respective template boxes than others around them. As in
Lesson 8, I used the full textbook phrase lists instead of the checklists. On the whiteboard I
wrote the same questions from the self-check sheets: “What was good?” and “What could be
better?” The move away from checklists appeared to retain interest as before, adding strength to
the argument that their application in feedback may be best used sparingly rather than religiously.
In the D2 Preparation activity that followed, I encouraged students to end turns on a question to
facilitate a more balanced division of speaking. In the resulting D2, exchanges were more equal,
which came about as a direct result of the D1 feedback process and formative post-task practice.
For the final Discussion Test in Lesson 13, I used the five assessment criteria as the basis
for students’ reflection and my own top-down feedback. Students were less focused on specific
29
phrases and more concerned with achieving a cohesive, balanced discussion. The same two
reflection questions helped students evaluate their language production, this time in groups of
four, rather than pairs or individually, to emphasize the need for collaboration. By this stage in
the course, I was comfortable using my monitoring templates to record example utterances,
highlight language usage, and summarize each group’s +/ – points. Equally, I was content not
being able to record everything said or done, which had been a source of frustration early in the
semester. Importantly, what I was now able to document while observing students’ interactions
was improving the quality of my feedback, and as a consequence, students’ discussions.
In the final lesson of the course, I continued using the monitoring template and
introduced a variation on the self-check sheet for students to consider the full range of their
discussion skills. I tasked them with identifying two strong points and two weaker ones, and
used this as a precursor to teacher-fronted feedback on Discussion Test 3 performance. During
those tests, there had been a notable lack of listener functions and so these became the focus of a
formative review practice. In their final discussions, students were able to improve their weaker
areas to bring the course to a satisfying end.
CONCLUSION
This paper was based on a teaching journal kept throughout my first semester working in the
English Discussion Class program. The journal’s primary aim was to reflect and improve on the
week-to-week execution of post-discussion feedback. Through a process of review and revision,
I was gradually able to offer increasingly more relevant information about language production
by using monitoring templates. In addition, the inclusion of self/peer-reflection checklists to
involve students more consciously in post-discussion performance appraisal also brought noted
gains. As the templates evolved throughout the semester, I was able to detail strengths to praise
and weaknesses to address with greater clarity, meaning and conviction. The more often I used
the templates, the easier they were to use. In much the same way, as students became more
familiar and accepting of the checklists, the more impactful their self-reflection and
peer-analysis became. From this perspective, the overall experience of giving and receiving what
was increasingly more formative feedback was arguably successful for those concerned.
I resolved to use monitoring templates in every class for every discussion, the current
version of which has proved the most successful to date (see Appendix B). The general summary
box and mini-version of the Yes/No statements are useful to cross-reference and compare
different groups’ performances. The inclusion of key topic words from D1 and D2 questions in
the design of the template also served a valuable purpose in reducing my word count. Writing
one or two memorable verbatim/note-form examples is challenging but somewhat manageable
when key words are already there. However, accurately quantifying specific function phrase use
in two or more concurrent discussions is more difficult, and perhaps unnecessary. These
challenges are even greater in classes of 9 students, when the instructor has the unenviable task
of attending to three concurrent discussions.
Midway through the course, I came to the conclusion that reflection checklists are best
employed only during lessons in which new Functions are introduced. It is my belief that to
bolster their appeal, as well as students’ interest in reflection tasks generally, a degree of variety
is necessary to maintain motivation (Lightbrown & Spada, 2006). I was keen to avoid what
Dörnyei (2003) described as ‘the fatigue effect’ when answering questions perceived to be
boring, repetitive or tiresome, as it can negatively affect the responses given, which gradually
became evident in some students’ reactions to the checklists. My decision to drop the checklists
30
Jamie Lesley
from Communication Skills review classes to focus on the exhaustive textbook lists of
Function/Communication Skills phrases may therefore have been sensible, since it removed a
task that for a few was becoming arduous. This change generated a renewed appreciation for
target phrases students might otherwise have overlooked or forgotten.
In Discussion Test lessons, I found that a third shift in focus, this time toward the five
test criteria, was useful in getting students to think more laterally about discussions, i.e. the aim
was not just to use as many textbook phrases as possible, but to try and co-construct a balanced
exchange of ideas, in which cooperative speaking turns would be facilitated by, but not
exclusively dependent on, the target language in their textbooks. In the future, it would be
interesting to apply this cyclical feedback approach of learner-centred reflection incorporating
checklists in new Function lessons, full phrase lists in Communication Skills review classes, and
test criteria in Discussion Test lessons with a greater number of classes across all four levels of
the program. This might help confirm if there is value in its application. It would also be worth
investigating whether the goals students set themselves between D1 and D2 in
self/peer-reflection are actually capitalized on and achieved to any consistent degree.
Despite getting my students to self/peer-reflect on their own and peers’ performance, I
would question how consistently accurate, and therefore valuable, they were, and indeed ever
can be (Brown & Hudson, 1998; Gardner, 2000). Both types of reflection require time, training
and practice to do effectively (Andrade & Valtcheva, 2009; Cheng & Warren, 2005; Saito, 2008).
This, quite simply, is not available in a regular 90-minute EDC class. Furthermore, it is equally
questionable whether anyone, students or otherwise can genuinely partake in a discussion while
attending to the task of self-assessing the quality of their own contributions to it; engaging
properly in one appears to deny the other. However, from a view of classroom-management and
timing, asking students to evaluate their discussions was advantageous to formulate the contents
of my teacher-fronted feedback. It steered their attention away from me for a couple of minutes’
quiet contemplation. It is here that checklists proved their greatest practical worth in my lessons
– not so much for the self-regulated learning gains they offered (which in a different
environment and with the right kind of practice and training could indeed have been sizeable),
but practically to refocus attention momentarily away from the instructor. To call reflection
checklists a student distractor seems a disservice, but in some sense they were, as they afforded
valuable time within which to plan my next feedback steps.
Despite the moderate success I enjoyed, I would not claim that monitoring templates and
reflection checklists are the only way to handle feedback effectively in EDC classes. As Shute
(2008) points out, there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach when it comes to feedback materials,
means or methods. I believe I was somewhat fortunate with my group of Level 1 students at
finding a system we could all work with constructively. This was not the case in my Level 3
class. Completing reflection checklists, for example, was far less popular with these students,
and I suspect some did not appreciate being asked to do something they perhaps took to be
‘filler’. There is of course no guarantee that students’ views on the efficacy of the activities
chosen will coincide with those of their teacher (Brown, 2009; Sato, 2013), and this may have
been one such case. However, I do believe that the path of trial and error I embarked on was
beneficial to my teaching, and by extension, instrumental in the learning outcomes I helped
foster. As such, I recommend other instructors, particularly ones new to the EDC program,
attempt various ways to document student performance concretely in a bid to provide accurate
and meaningful teacher-fronted feedback, as well as to experiment with strategies that involve
students more in reflective post-task evaluation and goal-setting.
31
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Lyster, R., Saito, K., & Sato, M. (2013). Oral corrective feedback in second language
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APPENDIX A - Lesson 1 Monitoring Template

Level 1 2 3 4 Lesson 1 Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 1 2 3 ******* Date:
Name: Name:
 Agree  Agree
 Disagree  Disagree
 FQs  FQs
 Para Yourself  Para Yourself
 Para Others  Para Others
 Reactions  Reactions
Name: Name:
 Agree  Agree
 FQs  FQs
Name: Name:
 Agree  Agree
 FQs  FQs
Name: Name:
 Agree  Agree
 FQs  FQs
Content
34
Jamie Lesley
APPENDIX B - Lesson 2 Monitoring Template

Level 1 2 3 4 Lesson 2 Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 1 2 3 CDBAADAA Date:
Name: Name:
 Op…  Op…
 Op?  Op?
 Reas…  Reas…
 Reas?  Reas?
Agree/Disagree Agree/Disagree
FQs FQs
CU/Para/React CU/Para/React
Name: Name:
 Op…  Op…
 Op?  Op?
 Reas?  Reas?
FQs FQs
Name: Name:
 Op…  Op…
 Op?  Op?
 Reas?  Reas?
FQs FQs
Name: Name:
 Op…  Op…
 Op?  Op?
 Reas?  Reas?
FQs FQs
Content
35
APPENDIX C - Lesson 3 Monitoring Template

Lesson 3 Discussion 1 Friendship
Joining Discussion Joining Discussion
Changing Topic Changing Topic
Good Good
Friendship Friendship
Give Opinions Give Opinions

Ask for Opinions Ask for Opinions
Give Reason Give Reason

Ask for Reason Ask for Reason
Return Topic Return Topic
Follow-up
Joining Qu
Discussion Follow-up
Joining Qu
Discussion
Check Und/React
Changing Topic Check Und/React
Changing Topic
Good Good


Joining Discussion
Follow-up Qu Joining Discussion
Follow-up Qu
Changing
Check Topic
Und/React Changing
Check Topic
Und/React
Good Good


Follow-up Qu Follow-up Qu
Check Und/React Check Und/React
Good Good


Follow-up Qu Follow-up Qu
Check Und/React Check Und/React
36
Jamie Lesley
APPENDIX D - Lesson 5 Monitoring Template

Lesson 5 Discussion 2 University entrance exams and the recommendation system
Ask for Opinions Exams Ask for Opinions Exams
Ask for Reason Rec Ask for Reason Rec
Follow-up Qu Inter Follow-up Qu Inter
Agree Agree
Disagree HS Grade Disagree HS Grade
Check Understand Check Understand
Reactions Reactions
Agree Agree
Reactions Reactions
Agree Agree
Reactions Reactions
Agree Agree
Reactions Reactions
Group 1 Group 2
used agree/disagree to connect ideas to other people’s Y N used agree/disagree to connect ideas to other people’s Y N
used phrases to join the discussion Y N used phrases to join the discussion Y N
used phrases to change topics Y N used phrases to change topics Y N
used opinions and reasons phrases when speaking Y N used opinions and reasons phrases when speaking Y N
used opinions and reasons phrases to ask questions Y N used opinions and reasons phrases to ask questions Y N
kept the discussion equal Y N kept the discussion equal Y N
helped others to understand the ideas discussed Y N helped others to understand the ideas discussed Y N
37
APPENDIX E - Lesson 8 Monitoring Template

Lesson 8 Discussion 1 Part-Time Jobs
Con Con
Con? Con?
E.g. E.g.
E.g.? Jun: + E.g.? Jun: +
Com.Skills Com.Skills
Exp/Exp? Exp/Exp?
JD/Chg Aki: – JD/Chg Aki: –
Op/Op? Time/HW Op/Op? Time/HW
Re/Re? Re/Re?
Ryo: + Ryo: +
Money/Buy Money/Buy
FQ FQ
Ag/Dis Eri: – Ag/Dis Eri: –
Check Enjoy/Friends Check Enjoy/Friends
Con Con
Con? Con?
E.g. E.g.
Exp/Exp? Exp/Exp?
Re/Re? Ryo: + Re/Re? Ryo: +
Money/Buy Money/Buy
FQ FQ
Con Con
Con? Con?
E.g. E.g.
Exp/Exp? Exp/Exp?
Money/Buy Money/Buy
FQ FQ
Con Con
Con? Con?
E.g. E.g.
Exp/Exp? Exp/Exp?
Money/Buy Money/Buy
FQ FQ
Performance Grp 1 Grp 2 General
asked original follow-up questions Y N Y N
connected ideas to other people’s Y N Y N
used examples to support opinions Y N Y N
used experiences to support opinions Y N Y N
used phrases to join & change topics Y N Y N
used opinions & reasons as speakers Y N Y N
asked for opinions and reasons Y N Y N
used agree/disagree to connect ideas Y N Y N
kept the discussion equal Y N Y N
helped others understand Y N Y N
38
Yes, We Are All Individual
Aaron Francis Ward
ABSTRACT
The following reflection outlines my experience of encouraging low-level students to participate
more equally in extended English-only discussions. The students concerned were a group of
relatively low-level students, whose motivation to participate was quite mixed. Throughout the
semester a number of interventions were trialed with the aim of raising the students’ awareness
of how much they were each contributing to the discussions. These interventions met with
varying degrees of success. While they did raise the students’ awareness of how much each was
contributing to the discussions, the also tended to act as a distraction to the discussion tasks
proper. However, in the latter stages of the semester, the students’ participation improved
noticeably. The most apparent reason for this increased level of participation seemed to stem
from improvements in the students’ social relationships with each other. As such, the current
reflection suggests that in-class activities that encourage social interaction may be useful in the
facilitation of better lesson participation for some groups of students.
INTRODUCTION
Although Japanese students are all required to undertake six years of English language study at
school, there is often significant variation in their second-language competence. The success of
any student in the Second-Language-Acquisition (SLA) context is heavily dependent on their
motivation. Successful SLA is dependent not only on the motivation to acquire the target
language, but also on a willingness to identify with a different culture. From a
behavioural-cognitive psychological perspective, learner motivation is divided into either
integrative or intrinsic (derived from a genuine interest in the subject matter) versus
instrumental or extrinsic (where the learning is a means to some other end outside of the subject
matter itself). Research suggests that learners tend to be more effective and successful when
their learning is intrinsically motivated, as the learning process is inherently rewarding. However,
recent critiques suggest that these dichotomous explanatory constructs lack validity in that they
separate the individual student from their social contexts, are under-explained, and are not
in-and-of themselves causal. Recently, there has been an increased interest in the social context
of motivation, particularly the influence of significant others and the student’s broader context of
socialization. In particular, recent research has suggested that social practices constrain SLA
(Dewaele, 2011; Fromm, 2005; Ushioda, 2008).
Reflection Context
The current paper is primarily concerned with a reflection on the participation of lower-level
students in English Discussion Class (EDC) lessons. The context of one particular class
presented an opportunity to reflect on the practical and theoretical implications of student
backgrounds on participation in EDC lessons. This paper focuses in particular on the needs of a
particularly challenging class of low English level EDC students. In particular this reflection
focuses on: the challenges that arose from mixed degrees of participation within the class; the
impact of several student self-reflection interventions; and a theoretical understanding of why
motivation and participation can be problematic for some groups of students.
The impetus for this reflective paper came about from the very beginning of the semester,
39
as it was immediately obvious that some of the students were reluctant to participate in class
generally, but more specifically to contribute during discussions. The challenges faced in this
class seemed to stem from a particular mix of students with contrasting expectations and levels
of commitment to the aims and objectives of the course. The most cooperative and competent
student appeared to be misplaced, and should have been in a much higher-level class. Another
student appeared to be relatively motived to participate, but was frequently disorganized, had
trouble relating to the other students and difficulty articulating himself. The remaining students
roughly fitted the often used sports kid euphemism1. The latter group of students initially had a
great reluctance to participate in extended discussions, had issues with attendance and often
excused themselves from class due to university sports’ club commitments.
At the conclusion of the first lesson, the two more competent students approached me and
expressed their concern about the participation of their classmates. I suggested that as it was the
first week of class, the other students may need a little time to adjust to a new set of classmates.
However, the same two students approached me at the end of the second class with the same
concern. At this point, it seemed reasonable to try and leverage the skills of the better students to
encourage the others. I suggested to these two students that they could use the joining a
discussion functions that they had learnt in the previous semester to ensure that they were not
dominating the discussions, and to encourage their classmates to participate. While the two
students endeavored to use this functional language during discussions, their efforts met with
little success. When the two stronger students tried to encourage the others, they were typically
met with a wall of silence, and after awkward extended pauses were effectively forced to
re-enter the discussions by the non-participating students. It is important to make clear that from
the outset there were no behaviour management issues with this class. None of the students were
ever distracted or disruptive, nor did they speak Japanese during the lesson – except on relatively
rare occasions where there was a debilitating breakdown in communication. Rather, the
difficulty was a genuine reluctance, or lack of confidence to participate during discussions. As
was my experience in the first semester, the students in this class tended to deploy the functional
language taught relatively well in controlled practice activities. Thus, they understand the what,
how and why of each lesson’s language content.
There were a number of outside-lesson issues that also indicated that some of the students
lacked motivation to perform well in the EDC course. Almost all of the students had problems
with attendance, and two had dropped out less than halfway into the semester. Several of the
students had greater commitments with club or sporting activities. The class also tended to do
quite poorly on the weekly quizzes, and many were often reading the textbook in the time
between when they arrived in the classroom and the lesson commenced. Despite being reminded
after each quiz, at the end of each lesson, and in the weekly online class comments of the
importance of reading the homework materials carefully for both ideas and useful vocabulary,
the students’ performance in these regards never really improved. At no point did any of them
ask for clarification about each lessons’ homework or for any other help outside of the specific
demands of lesson tasks.
1 The euphemism sports kid implies that the students concerned have not legitimately earned their place in the
university – which is to say have not earned their place in the academic system through demonstrations of scholastic
competence, but rather through sporting scholarship. Also implicit in this moniker is the expectation that these students
will not be geared towards the kinds of academic skills and modes of manipulating culture that are normally predicated
upon for successful participation in the higher education system (c.f. Bourdieu, 1984b).
40
Aaron Ward
During each of the lesson’s extended discussions the same two students who had
approached me after the first lesson tended to make most of the contributions to the discussions,
as well as pose the majority of the questions, although they never deliberately dominated the
discussions. After two weeks of unbalanced participation from the students, it became clear that
some intervention was needed to help even out participation during class. During the first
extended discussion of Lesson Three, without interrupting the discussion I wrote the turn-taking
question (TTQ) ‘what do you think, ____?’ on the board while the students were talking. The
aim of doing this was to raise the students’ awareness of the need for everyone to participate in
the discussion. This met with immediate success, with all of the students using the questions to
switch speaker, ensuring that all of the students contributed at least something to the discussion.
As immediately successful as this strategy was it quickly back-fired. The students who had not
been contributing much to the discussions almost immediately started using the TTQ as form of
hot-potato game: meaning that when asked the question, they tended to add a very glib idea or
comment to the discussion, and then immediately use the TTQ to deflect the discussion away
from themselves. These same students tended to do this for the remainder of the semester to
varying degrees. In essence, rather than using the TTQ to facilitate the discussion, the students
used it to avoid it. To try and extend on the notion of equal participation, the third lesson finished
with a quick review and practice of the joining a discussion functional language.
In Lesson Four the students were given a self-reflection task to complete asking them to
gauge each other’s level of participation. The students were asked to complete this at the end of
the first discussion and then use it to monitor their own and the other students’ participation
during the second discussion. At the end of Lesson Four, as a reflective feedback, the students
were asked to discuss for five minutes whether each student was contributing equally to the
discussions, and what they could do to facilitate this this.
During the following lessons, the students were given a number of self-guided tools to
use during the discussions. These were then used at the end of each discussion to guide their
group feedback. These included: monitoring their own performance, monitoring the performance
of their discussion group-mates, as well as emergency question and idea cards. These were
generally unsuccessful and interrupted the natural flow of the discussions further. The students
either forgot to use the tools or adjusted their responses to reflect what they thought the teacher
wanted to hear. For the most part, the students who were already participating well used the tools
reasonably well and the others did not. I feel these interventions essentially reinforced the
underlying problems. These observations were potentially made worse by reflection activities
asking the students to reflect on their functional language use. It was interesting to note that the
effectiveness of the participation interventions paralleled the effectiveness of the controlled
practice activities used to present each lesson’s functional language. Although the students all
tended to use each lesson’s functions and skills within the lesson concerned, they typically did
not recycle them between each lesson, nor during the discussion tests. This was the case with all
of the students in the class, suggesting that the students had not made much if any effort to revise
between lessons. Similarly, while the participation tools highlighted the need for the students to
join the discussions more equally, they did not significantly change the students’ behaviour.
By Lesson Seven, there was a noticeable turn-around in the students’ general participation.
This change in the students’ motivation and participation seemed, at best, only indirectly related
to the interventions trialed in the previous lessons. However, there was one key factor that had
changed from the previous lessons: at the end of the lesson, rather than the usual spirited rush for
the door, the students stayed on and chatted with one-another in Japanese. Concurrent with this
41
increased social activity, the students’ overall participation improved markedly, and none of the
students were late for or absent from class from that point on. Perhaps surprisingly, all of the
students attended the final lesson, although only one of them needed to do so in order to pass the
course.
DISCUSSION
Key to the current reflection on student participation will be a discussion of motivation.
Although perceptions and attitudes are key substantive components of participation, the
relevance of either of these to classroom performance rests heavily on the motivation of students
to express these and expose them to edification and negotiation within the lesson setting.
Promoting motivation depends on understanding and establishing a close relationship between
lesson aims and individual student and peer-related goals. However, it can be the case that
teacher interpretations of student behaviour differs from students’ perceptions (Dewaele, 2011).
My experience with this particular class suggests that student motivation can come from
different sources for different groups of students. Understanding how student motivation is
constructed is important in being able to facilitate motivation in particular students in class.
The majority of SLA research into motivation takes a positivist orientation, and is aimed
at maximizing effectiveness by manipulating individual and classroom contextual variables.
Ushioda (2008) suggests that promoting self-awareness and agency in the learning process is key
to learners developing motivational skills. The view taken of motivation in the majority of
teaching practice is that it exists in a unitary, stable form, and can be molded via external
interventions to increase participation. However, such approaches often fail to take into account
the underlying reasons behind variations in motivation, and how this impacts the effectiveness of
particular interventions. Student motivations are not static, rather are a reflection of the students’
sociohistoric and learning contexts. Participation in-and-of-itself is the behavioural outcome of
an interplay of students’ perceptions, attitude and motivation. The relative lack of success with
the externally regulated tools which were trialed with the students indicated that such strategies
only had comparably short-term benefits because they did not necessarily match with the
students’ goals and expectations (Dewaele, 2011; Ushioda, 2008).
Bourdieu’s (e.g. 1984a) concept of social capital is gaining currency in SLA discussions
of motivation, as this perspective utilizes students’ sociohistoric context as a means to
understanding their linguistic competence and learning behaviour. Research suggests that
students’ orientation to education, their behaviour and competence are over-determined and
naturalized by their social class. Students enter the academic field and exploit their experiences
according to how their background and scholastic and linguistic competence predispose them to
participate, for the current purpose, in the university system (Allen, 2002; Bernstein, 2003;
Bourdieu, 1991; Dewaele, 2011; Hara & Seiyama, 2005; Ishida & Slater, 2010; Miller, 2004;
Slater, 2010).
To make better sense of what might motivate different EDC students it is important to
understand the range and dimensional aspects of learning orientation, language use, opinion
giving and group participation. Table 1 draws on the works of Bernstein (2003) Bourdieu (1984a,
1991) and Allen (2002), and shows the binary distinctions between working class and
upper-middle class cultural practices for some of the dimensions of relevance to participation in
EDC lessons. It is important to point out that the characteristics described in Table 1 represent
binary extremes, and do not particularly define a given student at a particular point in time.
Rather, depending on a student’s sociohistoric context, attitudes and behaviours along these
42
Aaron Ward
continuums are likely to be exhibited. Because these social orientations are acquired across the
course of a lifetime, they are naturalized, and people are inclined to reproduce them. In other
words, students are motivated by the way they understand the world, and are likely to focus on
activities which they understand to be indices of success.
Table 1. Categorical Binary Distinctions of Social Class Participation
Working Class Culture Upper-Middle Class Culture

Social Group cohesion Individual meritocracy
Orientation
World View Reserved, conservative, Opinionated, cosmopolitan,
practical, concrete, liberal, intellectualized,
physical abstract
Language Use Restricted, elliptical, Open, freer, euphemistic,
direct metaphorical
When the distinction is made between a sports kid and a good student, a distinction is essentially
being made between different social classes of people who exploit different forms of social
capital to gain access to the education and labour market. The key point is that a student’s
sociohistoric context enculturates them to engage socially in particular ways. In particular, the
in-class behaviour of sports kids tends to reflect a working-class background, in that these
students are: more likely to take an instrumental view of education; less likely to hold the kinds
of views and opinions that are rewarded within the EDC lesson setting; less inclined to voice
opinions which distinguish them from the group; and are more likely to prioritize activities
within the university context which reward their talents and are congruent with their world views
(for the current purpose, particularly sports’ club commitments). Conversely, good students are
more likely to be enculturated with the kinds of upper-middle class skills and attitudes required
in and rewarded by the tertiary academic system and EDC lessons: having a liberal view of their
education; be open to alternative and abstract ideas; and being prepared to take the social risk of
expressing and defending opinions that differentiate them from their peers. Thus, sociohistoric
circumstance has a determinant effect on students’ ability to participate in academic life
generally, meaning it is not coincidental that there are a larger proportion of sports kids assigned
to lower-level classes. However, it is not just that these kinds of students are more likely to end
up in lower-level classes that affect their participation, but also who their classmates are. Recall
that there were some significant differences in the aptitudes and willingness to participate in
earlier lessons. One cannot help but feel that the within-class salience of these differences
contributed to the unbalanced participation. As a corollary to this, I also taught another low-level
class, constituted entirely of sporting scholarship students. Although the linguistic and rhetorical
competence of this class was not significantly better, this group of students generally
participated much more enthusiastically and equally. There were two significant differences
between these two classes. Firstly, the latter class consisted entirely of men who got on well
together from the outset – some having been friends before the start of the semester. Secondly,
there were not such great differences in the linguistic and rhetorical competences of the students
in this class. In this class, it was much easier to facilitate communal interaction, and this
facilitated participation.
43
Put in the context of the above discussion, the change in motivation of the initially
less-motivated students focused on in this reflection begins to make more sense. In particular,
their increase in participation probably reflected the establishment of group rapport, rather than
an objective awareness of the scholastic need to participate, per se. Although the students’
participation improved significantly, their use of the functional language learned in class did not
particularly, nor did their performance in the substantive weekly quizzes. In essence, it appears
that these students did not put significantly more effort into their EDC studies outside of the
classroom, but did participate better because they began to find the lessons more socially
rewarding, having established a stronger group bond. The implication of this observation is that
for lower-level classes, there should perhaps be more emphasis on activities within the lesson
that foster group cohesion, rather than on functional language which tends to reinforce social
distinction based on individuality (i.e. giving ones opinion, and justifying it). Communal
participation may be facilitated through activities that focus on more concrete topics, and
encourage the exchange of personal experiences, as activities of this kind may better reflect
these students’ world views.
Recall again the distinctions outlined in Table 1, it is probably unreasonable to expect all
students to be or become good students in the course of the EDC programme, as this would
imply a reworking of the sum total of some students’ experience. However, a better
understanding of different students’ orientations to their studies and what motivates them can be
key to facilitating improvements in performance, while still achieving the broader aims and
goals of the EDC programme. While the majority of the students in this class did not perform
well from a functional standpoint, their fluency, willingness to engage with each other in English
and their participation did improve substantially. As a testimony to this, in the final lesson all of
the students were able to complete an unprepared 4-3-2 fluency monologue activity entirely in
English. Although the students did not recycle much of the language they had learnt or ideas
they had studied, their fluency was undeniably improved, and all who met the attendance
requirements passed the course. I mentioned in the introduction section, that successful SLA
relies not just on the acquisition of language proper, but also of a new culture. For some students,
this is not only true of the culture of the second language, but also of the culture other students
and of the university system. Within the constraints of the unified EDC programme, this means
that some groups of students are faced with greater pressure to perform to teachers’ expectations
- something that the students themselves are likely to be acutely aware of. However, this does
not mean that students have what Seligman describes as “learned helplessness” (Ushioda, 2008,
p. 27), rather that they are alienated from the learning process in the way it has been
contextualized. With this in mind, it is understandable that some students appear to be harder to
motivate than others.
The implication of the above discussion is that students enter into the Japanese university
system through different channels, and this has a distinct impact on their motivations to
participate in various aspects of their study time. However, this does not mean that particular
students are unmotivated, per se. Students are motivated by different sets of classroom
conditions, and motivation is contingent on a particular interaction of different sets of social
skills. My experience has suggested that placing a particular emphasis on group cohesion may
improve the motivation of students who may otherwise be alienated by the scholastic system
more generally. It is important as a teacher to be aware of one’s own biases with regards to
different groups of students, as well as one’s own relationship to scholastic culture. Different
students bring different skills to the lesson setting, and these need to be both recognised and
44
Aaron Ward
balanced with the demands of the study programme. As such, it may be advantageous to
approach some lower-level classes with the prospect of sacrificing the acquisition of some
functional skills and content in order to foster group cohesion and participation. This can be
done in particular by engaging the students in activities that promote social interaction more
generally.
CONCLUSION
My experience with this particular class has reinforced my contextualized view of SLA. In
particular, my experience has suggested that lesson activities which emphasize social interaction
may better facilitate participation for students whose backgrounds have not as well prepared
them for study within the university system. This reflection also suggests that it is important to
introduce such strategies early in the semester so that they can facilitate other learning activities
in EDC lessons. The ideas I have outlined above may also provide fertile ground for future
research. This could examine the effectiveness of the intervention strategies I have suggested,
and also how students’ perceptions of their own competence interact with their EDC
experiences.
REFERENCES
Allen, D. (2002). Toward a Theory of Consumer Choice as Socio-Historically Shaped Practical
Experience: Fits-Like-A-Glove (FLAG) Framework. Journal of Consumer Research, 28,
515-532.
Bernstein, B. (2003). Class, Codes and Control, Volumes I – IV (Vol. 1-4). London, UK:
Routledge.
Bourdieu, P. (1984a). Distinction: A social critique of the judgment of taste. USA: Harvard
University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1984b). Homo Academicus. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language & Symbolic Power. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard
University Press.
Dewaele, J.-M. (2011). Perception, Attitude and Motivation. In V. Cook & L. Wei (Eds.),
Contemporary Applied Linguisitics: Language Teaching and Learning (Vol. 1). London:
Continuum.
Fromm, E. (2005). To Have or to Be? : Continuum International Publishing Group.
Hara, J., & Seiyama, K. (2005). Inequality Amid Affluence (B. Williams, Trans.). Melbourne:
Trans Pacific Press.
Ishida, H., & Slater, D. H. (2010). Social Class in Japan. In H. Ishida & D. H. Slater (Eds.),
Social Class in Contemporary Japan. New York: Routledge.
Miller, L. (2004). Those Naughty Teenage Girls: Japanese Kogals, Slang and Media
Assessments. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 14(2), 225-247.
Slater, D. H. (2010). The "New Working Class" of Urban Japan: Socialization and contradiction
from middle school to the labor market. In D. H. Slater & H. Ishida (Eds.), Social Class
in Contemporary Japan: Structures, sortings and strategies. Oxon: Routledge.
Ushioda, E. (2008). Motivation and good language learners In C. Griffiths (Ed.), Lesson from
Good Language Learners. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
45
SECTION TWO
Classroom Activities
Fostering Learner Autonomy through Group Goal Setting
Brad Barker
ABSTRACT
This paper describes a group-oriented goal setting activity that was implemented in English
Discussion Class (EDC), a compulsory course for first-year students at Rikkyo University. The
activity was designed, in part, as an attempt to foster learner autonomy in a group context
through self-reflection, goal setting, and self-assessment. One unanticipated and positive
outcome of the activity was that it can significantly heighten students’ awareness of their chosen
goal due to its group nature. For example, during discussion tasks it was often observed that
when any student made a first attempt to achieve the group goal, it was immediately
acknowledged and later imitated by other group members. This contributed to a high degree of
goal achievement (88%).
INTRODUCTION
Self-assessment checklists are used widely by instructors in English Discussion Class (EDC) to
help students self-reflect, identify strengths and weaknesses, and improve performance though
goal setting (see Appendix A for an example). Realizing the undeniable importance of group
effort and group achievement to the success of students in EDC, I sought to design a similar
reflective activity, but one that focuses more on the group and less on the individual. Of course,
students have individual needs, strengths, and weaknesses and self-assessment checklists do well
attending to these individual differences. Group goal setting activities can be used in a
complimentary fashion to more individual reflective activities (see Appendix B & C). To
encourage greater autonomy, I also wanted students to generate their own strengths and goals
instead of choosing them from a list prepared by the instructor.
For this paper, I decided to focus on the teaching/learning principle of autonomy as the
primary way to draw connections between the literature and classroom practice (Brown, 2007).
The next section will cover key points from recent publications on learner autonomy and how
they relate to the group goal setting activity.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Autonomy, defined by Benson as “the capacity to take charge of one’s own learning,” first
entered the discussion in the field of language education in the early 1970s (2011, p. 10). In the
early days, learners were encouraged to become self-directed learners through the use of
self-access learning centers. It was hoped that by giving students access to a wide selection of
authentic second language materials they would take control and become more autonomous
learners. Initially, teaching learners how to go about self-directed learning was considered
counterproductive and it was hoped that learners would discover this for themselves. Although
learners might seek support from teachers or other learners, learning was highly individual
(Benson, 2011). Students were expected to be responsible for their own learning to the extent
that they would determine their own objectives; choose content, methods and techniques;
monitor their own progress; and evaluate learning outcomes. However, it was found that
self-access centers do not necessarily foster learner autonomy and it was difficult to gauge the
extent that students became autonomous learners based on their use of self-access learning
facilities (Little, 2004). Later, the scope of autonomy widened as teachers began experimenting
with the concept of autonomy within the classroom. Increasingly, the social aspect of language
49
learning was emphasized and the concept of autonomy expanded. Recently, researchers have
emphasized that “the development of autonomy necessarily implies collaboration and
interdependence” (Benson, 2011, p. 14). The group goal setting activity is in line with the
current understanding of autonomy. Rather than thinking of autonomous learning as a solitary
activity, autonomous learners can work together with teachers and other learners towards shared
goals.
Some scholars have questioned the relevance of autonomy for non-Western students and
in non-Western contexts. The argument is that autonomy is fundamentally an ethnocentric
construct grounded in Western thought and should not be considered universally appropriate or
desirable (Benson, 2011). Schmenk (2005) argues that autonomy is not universal or culturally
neutral and recommends deeper self-reflection by TESOL researchers and practitioners. She
maintains that intercultural dialogue would enable a negotiation of what autonomy could mean
in specific local contexts (2005). Instead of simply promoting autonomy as inherently desirable,
it is best to acknowledge its origins as a Western construct and remain sensitive to the
teaching/learning context. Based on my own observations, Japanese university students
generally respond positively to self-directed activities. Initially, it may seem unusual or
unfamiliar to some learners, but students usually become more comfortable after a couple
repetitions of the activity.
Cotterall (1995) argues that fostering learner autonomy is desirable for several reasons.
From a philosophical perspective, she introduces the belief that learners have a right to make
choices about their own learning. She also claims that there can be better learning outcomes
when students are able to take some responsibility for their own learning. Benson (2011) agrees
and asserts that “the development of autonomy implies better language learning” (p. 2). If it is in
fact true that developing autonomy can lead to better learning outcomes, it is essential that
teachers at least try to foster autonomy in the classroom.
When putting autonomy into practice, there are now several approaches that include
classroom-based approaches, curriculum-based approaches, and teacher-based approaches
(Benson, 2011). I have taken a classroom-based approach. Classroom-based approaches
“emphasize learner control over the planning and evaluation of classroom learning” (Benson,
2011, p. 125). Autonomy can be fostered in the classroom when teachers “deliberately surrender”
control of some decisions regarding students’ learning and the learners take on that responsibility
themselves (Candy, as cited in Benson, 2011, p. 163). Cotterall (1995) suggests that autonomous
learners could set their own goals, plan practice opportunities, or assess their own progress. The
group goal setting activity transfers some of this responsibility to students by reducing
teacher-fronted feedback and increasing self-reflection, goal setting, and self-assessment within
groups. Little (2004) contends that learner reflection and self-assessment play a key role in the
development of learner autonomy.
A paper by Rivers (2001) makes several important observations about autonomous
learning in a group of adult learners studying Georgian, Kazakh, and Kyrgyz intensively at a
university in the United States. These experienced language learners, who had all attained high
proficiency in Russian, exhibited several self-directed learning tendencies in courses which did
not especially seek to foster learner autonomy. Learners accurately assessed their individual
learner styles, learner-learner style conflicts, and learner-teacher style conflicts. For example, in
one case students intervened and resolved a conflict between a teacher’s preference for oral
drills and students’ preference for more written practice. Learners also made requests and
demands to modify multiple aspects of the course including the amount of homework, teacher
feedback, and content. In one instance, students appealed to the program’s administrators when
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Brad Barker
an instructor initially denied a request for independent study time. Importantly, this study brings
up the possibility that “a natural tendency to attempt to take control of learning is especially
characteristic of experienced language learners” (Benson, 2011, p. 229). It also caused me to
reflect on the degree that students are able to exercise autonomy in EDC. For example, learner
requests for less homework would certainly be denied by both instructors and administrators.
Nevertheless, there remains some room to foster learner autonomy in the context of a prescribed
curriculum, and the activity below represents one attempt to do so.
MATERIALS, AIMS, AND PROCEDURE

Materials for this activity have been included in Appendix B and C. The activity has two parts:
Activity Part 1 - How can students have a good discussion?

Activity Part 2 - Group Reflection, Goal Setting, and Assessing Goal Achievement
Activity Part 1 - How can students have a good discussion?
Materials
Prepare a handout similar to Activity Part 1 (Appendix B). Multiple questions can be printed out
on one page and cut up into slips. Prepare one slip for each student.
Aims
1. To encourage students to reflect on the qualities of a good discussion.
2. To evaluate how well students are able to independently come up with and discuss ideas about
effective discussions.
3. To scaffold learning and ensure students are prepared for Activity Part 2.
Procedure
1. Hand out a question slip to each student.
2. Students work individually to come up with five aspects of a good discussion. Any and all
ideas are okay at this point (2 - 4 minutes).
3. Students discuss their ideas with a partner (2 - 3 minutes).
4. Students read their ideas out loud to the class. The instructor can write students’ ideas on the
whiteboard.
5. Discuss students’ ideas as a whole class. The instructor can add other ideas to round out the
list.
6. Comment on some of the best ideas and highlight any points that are not so important for
effective discussions if they come up (e.g. using high-level vocabulary). This will vary
depending on the context and course.
7. Explain to students that in the next lesson they are going to think about their performance
during group discussions and choose good points and points to improve.
Activity Part 2 - Group Reflection, Goal Setting, and Assessing Goal Achievement
Materials
Prepare a handout similar to Activity Part 2 (Appendix C). Multiple questions can be printed out
on one page and cut up into slips. Prepare one slip for each student.
51
Aims
1. To encourage students to reflect on their performance during group discussions.
2. To improve performance through group goal setting.
3. To foster learner autonomy by giving students control of some decisions regarding their own
learning.
Procedure
1. Immediately following Discussion 1 (a 10-minute group discussion task), hand out slips to
students. Students have a short discussion to think about their performance in Discussion 1,
choose one thing that their group did well, and one thing that their group could do better in the
next discussion (2 - 4 minutes).
2. Discussion 2 preparation task is completed as usual (i.e. place students into different groups or
pairs).
3. For Discussion 2 (a 16-minute group discussion task), place students back into the same
Discussion 1 groups. One student reads the group’s goal out loud before starting the next
discussion (to review).
4. It may be helpful at this point for the instructor to briefly review key phrases related to student
selected goals.
5. Discussion 2 proceeds as usual.
6. Immediately after Discussion 2, students discuss and decide together if their goal was
achieved.
DISCUSSION
Activity Part 1 was conducted in week 2 of the fall semester. Six different classes completed the
activity (TOEIC scores: level IV below 279, level III 280-479, level II 480-679) in place of the
usual 3/2/1 fluency activity. Based on informal observation of student performance and
engagement, I believe it was a worthwhile reflective and awareness-raising activity. It proved a
useful way to cause students to reflect on the qualities of a good discussion and I think it was a
good way to scaffold learning and prepare students for Activity Part 2. Students independently
came up with a varied list of interesting responses (see Table 1 for a sample of students’
responses). Students’ responses are reproduced in Table 1 as is, including errors. Additions to
clarify meaning are within brackets. The fact that the activity was conducted in the fall semester
surely had a strong impact on students’ responses. It is clear that responses were strongly
influenced by instructor feedback and classroom activities during the spring semester. In
addition, some responses are likely echoes of points I covered during the introductory lesson in
week 1. It would be interesting to conduct Activity Part 1 early in the spring semester. I would
expect students’ responses to be quite different.
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Brad Barker
Table 1. Sample of students’ responses to the question: How can students have a good
discussion?
•use simple word and •talking balance is good •no quiet time, many
grammar •positive attitude questions, many opinions,
•thinking deep and have an •use function words many reactions, good skill
opinion •to make students who for listening to someone’s
•do reactions cannot join the discussion opinion
•say “agree or disagree” to participate •before discussion you
other’s opinion •big voice should [re]search about the
•don’t stop discussion •student listen to others topics
•help each other •use a lot of examples •Well, in my opinion, for a
•In my opinion, if we discuss •Every student should good discussion we need set
more deeply, we can have a respect each other so that the what object about it
good discussion. they discuss something clearly, second, we need to
•eye contact more freely because almost more speaking that for
•many reactions exist in all Japanese students are understand to each opinion
people shy and tend not to join finally, we should do lot of
•follow-up question discussion. reaction.
•opinion clearly •active responses
Activity Part 2 was conducted in weeks 3, 7, and 11 during the fall semester in level IV,
III, and II classes (TOEIC scores: level IV below 279, level III 280-479, level II 480-679).
Student handouts (see Appendix C), which were collected immediately following the activity in
each lesson, showed a high rate of goal achievement (See Table 2). In reply to the question, “Did
your group achieve your goal?” 88% of students indicated that their group had achieved their
goal. Although 13 individual “no” responses were collected, there were only four actual
instances of groups not achieving their goal. Interestingly, in three of those cases the students
had chosen the same goal: “speak more fluently.” Although students can make fluency gains
during a single activity such as a 4/3/2 fluency technique with time pressure and repetition
(Nation, 1989), it seems unlikely that students could show actual improvement in speaking
fluency within a simple discussion task. That being said, there was one instance when students
chose the goal of “speak more fluently and deeply’ and also indicated that they had achieved
their goal. Although I did not intervene when students selected a fluency goal, in my
post-discussion feedback I pointed out that it might be better next time to choose a better goal
such as “ask more follow-up questions.” In the majority of cases, students chose clear and
achievable goals, for example, “agree and disagree more” or “check understanding” (e.g. Do you
follow me?). A sample of students’ group goals can be found in Table 3. I have also included a
sample of students’ chosen good points in Table 4. Students’ responses are reproduced in the
tables as is, including errors. Additions and examples to clarify meaning are within brackets.
53
Table 2. Goal Achievement – Activity Part 2
Yes - 95 (88%)
No - 13 (12%)
Table 3. Sample of group goals - Our goal for the next discussion is...
•asking follow-up questions •agreeing and disagreeing •reporting information [e.g. I

•balancing opinions [e.g. •topic changing more read online that...]
One advantage is...] smoothly [e.g. What shall we •checking understanding
•speaking equally discuss next?] [e.g. Do you follow me?]
•asking for experiences [e.g. •speaking more fluently and •paraphrasing [e.g. Do you
Have you ever...?] deeply mean that...?]
•reaction [Uh-huh., Me too., I •using many function, •being positive
see., Okay., etc.] especially experience •speaking fluently
Table 4. Sample of good points - Our group did well...

•[using] last class’s functions •[using] many functions •starting discussion [e.g.
•because we have different •giving many opinions What shall we discuss first?]
idea [from] each other •checking understanding •balanced discussion
•using phrases [e.g. Do you follow me?] •changing topics timing
•use many “Asking for •reaction and speaking •many examples [e.g. One
Experiences” [e.g. Have you •function practice example is...]
ever...?] •talking a lot of advantages •different viewpoints [e.g.
•enjoy discussion and disadvantages [e.g. From young people’s
One advantage is...] perspective...]
One unanticipated outcome of Activity Part 2 was that the activity has the potential to
heighten students’ awareness of their chosen goal due to its group nature. For example, during
discussion tasks it was often observed that when any student made a first attempt to achieve the
group goal, it was immediately acknowledged and later imitated by other group members.
Students would often verbally acknowledge other students by saying something like, “You are
trying to check understanding” or “You are trying to achieve the goal.” At other times students
would laugh or show some kind of nonverbal recognition that a group member was attempting
to achieve the group’s goal. In contrast, when using individual self-assessment checklists I find
that students sometimes seem to forget about their chosen goals shortly after the discussion task
has begun.
CONCLUSION
This activity should be viewed as only a small part of the process of fostering learner autonomy.
Little (2004, p. 22) reminds us that “learner empowerment is the result not of a single act on the
teacher’s part but of a continuous process.” As mentioned in the literature review, early
proponents of autonomous learning found it difficult to gauge the extent that students had
become autonomous learners based on the use of self-access learning centers (Little, 2004). I
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Brad Barker
have found much the same problem. Based on one group goal setting activity, what impact, if
any, has the activity had on student autonomy? Benson (2011) explains that although we cannot
directly observe students’ capacity to control their learning, we can observe the exercise of this
capacity (p. 208). When attempting to measure learner autonomy, he recommends focusing on
particular aspects of learner control instead of the broader concept of autonomy itself. Due to the
limited scope of this study, the most that can be said is that students were able to reflect upon
their own learning and in a small way participate in classroom decision making. Future studies
could attempt to devise a more concrete way to gauge learner autonomy. Perhaps an instrument
or scale could be developed that attempts to measure students’ control over their learning.
Student questionnaires focusing on learner autonomy could also shed light on the topic. A
comparison could be done between students at the beginning and the end of the course.
REFERENCES
Benson, P. (2011). Teaching and researching autonomy. Harlow, U.K.: Person Education
Limited.
Brown, H.D. (2007). Teaching by principles. New York: Longman.
Cotterall, S. (1995). Developing a course strategy for learner autonomy. ELT Journal, 49(3),
219-227.
Little, D. (2004). Constructing a theory of learner autonomy: some steps along the way. In K.
Makinen, P. Kaikkonen, & V. Kohonen (Eds.), Future Perspectives in Foreign
Language Education. (p. 15-25). Oulu, Finland: Oulu University.
Nation, P. (1989). Improving speaking fluency. System, 17(3), 377-384.
Rivers, W.P. (2001). Autonomy at all costs: An ethnography of metacognitive self-assessment
and self-management among experienced language learners. The Modern Language
Journal, 85(2), 279-290.
Schmenk, B. (2005). Globalizing learner autonomy. TESOL Quarterly, 39(1), 107-118.
APPENDIX A – Example of a Self-Assessment Checklist
A: How was your discussion?

B: I did well ____ and ____, but next discussion I want to do more ____ and ____.
55
APPENDIX B – Activity Part 1
In your opinion, how can students have a good discussion?
• ________________________________________
• ________________________________________
• ________________________________________
• ________________________________________
• ________________________________________
APPENDIX C - Activity Part 2
1. Together with your group members, choose one good point from your discussion.
Our group did well __________________________________________
2. Together with your group members, choose one thing you could do better.
Our goal for the next discussion is ______________________________
3. Did your group achieve your goal?
Yes No
56
The Language-Culture Connection: Intercultural Language
Learning in EDC Discussion Preparation Activities –
Principles into Practice
Jonathan Buck
ABSTRACT
This article is about fostering Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) in the EDC context.
ICC are where skills which aid cross-cultural communication are developed. Writers such as
Kramsch (1993), Meyer and Kordes (1991) and Byram (2007) saw the purpose of such activities
as developing skills which help learners overcome cultural and linguistic barriers. Though not an
explicit feature of EDC methodology I set out to discover where an adjustment in a discussion
preparation stage of a regular EDC to incorporate an ICC approach would have a noticeable effect.
The activity would ask students to not only discuss where they would agree or disagree with an
sample opinion (as per a regular class) but also discuss why such a person would have such an
opinion in light of their cultural background. In general the sample classes engaged well with the
activity offering a variety of answers however it is very difficult to observe intercultural
development so as such results remained broad and tentative.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Theoretical Frameworks
Intercultural language teaching is an approach where skills which aid cross-cultural
communication are developed. It is based on the idea that language and culture are
interdependent (Marczak, 2010) and thus should be considered an important part of language
teaching. As learners of English are more and more often communicating with non-native
speakers along with native speakers, it is important to consider what skills are important to
succeed in such a globalized environment. Paitkowska (2014) postulates that intercultural
language teaching should not be teaching cultural facts to increase awareness of the target
culture but that there are both linguistic and cultural barriers which must be overcome to succeed
in intercultural communication. Kramsch (1993) called it “the third place” where learners
explore the connection between their own and others’ cultures, as such intercultural language
teaches skills which are not specific to any culture but allows learners to communicate across
cultures.
The three main models of intercultural communicative competence are Byram’s (2007)
model of five saviors, Meyer and Kordes’ (1991) three-level competence model and Risager’s
(2007) transnational paradigm. Byram (2007) argued that our own culture molds our experience,
knowledge and attitudes and thus creates our worldview. Such skills which foster the learners
ability to learn quickly about another culture moreover being to understand and analyze such a
culture are highlighted as being essential to successfully communicate across cultures.
Meyer and Kordes (1991) saw intercultural communicative competence as developing
over three stages.
 Stage 1- a monocultural level where learners can communicate with others
who do not share their culture however they lack awareness of the differences
in cultures.
 Stage 2- an intercultural level where learners are aware of the differences between
cultures yet cannot solve communication problems due to such differences.
57
 Stage 3 – a transcultural level where learners can understand and analyze

cross-cultural differences and solve communication problems when necessary.
Risager (2007) offers a similar model to Byram (1997) but goes further to introduce the
idea of the ‘transnational paradigm’. The key component of the ‘transnational paradigm’ is
‘linguaculture’ which “foregrounds the personal meaning resources and practices of the
individual in shifting contexts” (Risager 2008, p2). The paradigm is made of three dimensions –
1) semantics and pragmatics, 2) poetics and 3) identity. Risager (2007) believes that linguistic
knowledge is learnt by learners drawing on the languages that they already know and using such
knowledge to understand the linguaculture of the target language.
There are some relevant characteristics of the three models which inform an overall
concept of intercultural language teaching. Firstly that learning the target language is not enough
to be a high-level speaker. Secondly, learning facts about the target language culture is not
important in the learning and teaching of a target language. Finally, speakers need to be able to
communicate their own understanding of culture. As a result two essential skills need to be
developed – “the ability of critical cultural awareness and the ability to extend cultural
self-awareness into cultural openness towards differences.” (Piatkowska, 2014, p44).
The Methodology of Intercultural Language Teaching

Brown’s (1994) notes on the Language-Culture connection are somewhat connected the beliefs
underpinning Intercultural Language Teaching (IcLT). Though Brown calls for explicit teaching
of cultural understanding while IcLT highlights the importance of developing the skills
necessary to interpret culture, they both understand that culture is an essential parts of the
language learning experience. Over the last twenty years more and more research has been
dedicated to exploring the language-culture connection in the language classroom. Ho (2009)
explored at how this idea is implemented in English textbooks at a Vietnamese university and
formulated the types of activities which foster both awareness of cultural and intercultural
language skills. One of the aims of teaching IcLL is “to make learners’ invisible
culturally-shaped knowledge visible in learning so that they can explore self” (Ho 2009, p.69).
Three types of activities she lists are implementable in the EDC context – dealing with cultural
stereotypes, comparisons and reflections, and mediation between cultures.
By reflecting on the differences between the learners’ culture and other cultures, learners
can build awareness of other cultures and voice their own ideas about cultural differences thus
developing their critical cultural awareness. Ho (2009) outlines a speaking activity where
students discuss the similarities and differences between Vietnamese and English-speaking
countries’ family values. Once students become aware of and analyses the differences and
similarities, they expand their cultural knowledge while developing their ability to understand
and interpret another culture.
Though not explicitly called IcLL, Rose (1994) outlined consciousness-raising activities
for the EFL classroom which deal with use of specific language (much like the EDC ‘functions’)
in different cultural contexts. He suggests taking a bottom-up approach to presenting language
use by firstly presenting an example within the learners own culture as to ‘take a pragmatic
consciousness-raising approach to sensitize learners’ (Rose 1994, p.10). Next, provide
other-culture examples for discussion. Meyer and Kordos’s (1991) three stage model applies to
this approach as it takes the position that language-culture should be learnt from
inward-outwards.
McKay’s (2000) work on cultural materials in the classroom offers similar advice on
approaching this idea in the classroom he sees teaching culture as an interpersonal process and
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Jonathan Buck
as difference, thus he promotes the use of target culture materials and international target culture.
This highlights that authenticity should be a concern of the instructor when developing activities.
Holliday, Hyde and Kullman’s (2004) book Intercultural Communication is one of the
most prominent classroom textbooks in the teaching of intercultural language learner. It follows
the theories of IcLL moreover expands the approach into a single curriculum. Its approach is
simple; the learner is exposed to a cultural event and asked to reflect on it. In summation, this
instruction is what will be the basis of adapting IcLL to the EDC context.
TASKS AND MATERIALS

In the case of this study, I intended to adapt regular EDC materials to incorporate aspects of IcLT.
I took an approach similar to Holliday, Hyde and Kulliman (2004) by find a way for the students in
EDC classes to discuss the differences in cultures to foster the students awareness of differences in
culture. Firstly it is important to recognize that IcLT is not an explicit part of the EDC curriculum.
Furthermore, due to the requirements of the EDC unified curriculum one cannot replace stages of
the lesson and implement new IcLT materials for the purpose of research. As such a balance had to
found where IcLT methodology could be implemented but the overriding methodology of EDC is
not sacrificed. To achieve this, regular materials were adapted to incorporate features of IcLT.
The regular EDC class contains two extended discussions where students can practice
relevant target language and exchange ideas regarding that class’ topic. Each discussion activity
starts with a preparation stage where students can develop ideas which they can use later in the
discussion. For example students are usually given a simple binary choice of questions e.g.
yes/no, agree/disagree related to the topics of the discussion. After which the students discuss
their answers to generate ideas. I saw this stage as a good opportunity to incorporate IcLT
features. I decide to cultural encode the agree/disagree questions with the purpose of students
discussing why people from certain cultures would have such an opinion. Below I outline the
difference between the original and the IcLT-coded preparation activity.
This is the original Lesson 10 Discussion 2 preparation activity found in the level 3 EDC
text. The students are asked agree and disagree on four opinions regarding the death penalty.
1. Below are four opinions about the death penalty. For each opinion, decide if you
agree or disagree.
Jun: I think the death penalty should be used for people who do really bad
things, like killing children. If murderers are punished by the death penalty,
then ordinary people will feel safer. (agree / disagree)
Ryo: All criminals deserve a second chance. Even if people commit murder, they
can change in the future. The death penalty is wrong.(agree / disagree)
Eri: The death penalty is a good punishment because it prevents crime. Most
people will be too scared to commit murder if they know about the death
penalty.(agree / disagree)
Aki: Sometimes terrible mistakes happen, and innocent people are sentenced
to death. We should never use the death penalty because serious mistakes
can be made.(agree / disagree)
The opinions presented in this activity are encoded with a Japanese perspective. The
names of the people giving the opinion represent typical Japanese names. It is assumed that the
reason for this is that it to avoid cultural differences as part of the discussion and to make the
59
opinions more relatable to the students’ opinions.

In the case of this study, I took these opinions are gave them encoded them with different
cultures. It should be noted that in this case, it is not greatly important to give a culture a
stereotyped or expected opinion as the purpose of the activity is get the students to connect their
knowledge of a culture with the opinion given. Below is the IcLT culturally-encoded activity.
1. Below are four opinions about the death penalty. For each opinion, decide if you
agree or disagree.
Chen (China): I think the death penalty should be used for people who do really bad
things, like killing children. If murderers are punished by the death penalty,
then ordinary people will feel safer. (agree / disagree)
Franz (Germany): All criminals deserve a second chance. Even if people commit murder, they
can change in the future. The death penalty is wrong.(agree / disagree)
Mike (USA): The death penalty is a good punishment because it prevents crime. Most
people will be too scared to commit murder if they know about the death
penalty.(agree / disagree)
Aki (Japan): Sometimes terrible mistakes happen, and innocent people are sentenced
to death. We should never use the death penalty because serious mistakes
can be made.(agree / disagree)
Though the opinions are the same, the speakers have cultural encoding (names and
nationalities). The activity also remains the same as not to affect the regular purpose of the EDC
lesson.
PROCEDURE
As previously outlined, the IcLT procedure in the class is brief due to this project’s anecdotal and
exploratory nature. As such after completely the above task students are given some time to
exchange ideas (as per regular EDC classes). After this stage students are given a further question
(IcLT element) to discuss for 4 or 5 minutes. The students are provided with a single question –
Why do Chen, Franz, Mike and Aki have these opinions? The purpose of this follows the principles
behind Ho (c.f. 2009) and Holliday, Hyde and Kulliman’s (c.f.2004) approach to IcLT but allows
leaners to consider how culture would lead to these opinions. Instead of asking a questions such as
Why would an American person have this opinion? I chose a less direct approach to this by asking
students to come to their own reasons why someone would have such an opinion. Rather than
make the stage explicitly about IcLT, I wanted to see if the students came to that conclusion by
themselves.
I chose three lessons during the curriculum and made similar changes in the lesson
materials with the intention of observing the results. During a regular teaching week I would teach
twelve classes. However I did not give all my classes the IcLT activity. Firstly, especially for
lower-level classes, it was more important for the students to work on other class objectives than
the IcLT activities. Secondly, the IcLT question is undoubtedly difficult for low-level English
speakers. As a result I choose my two strongest English speaking classes for this process.
Moreover, one of the classes was made up of International Culture and Communication majors
who I expected would show the most interesting results.
In summary I gave the IcLT activity three times to two different class. I took anecdotal
notes on the students output which I will discuss in the next section.
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Jonathan Buck
DISCUSSION
Moving along the ICC continuum
Firstly the learners had no problems performing the task. They understood the question and
offered various answers to the question. They showed signs of the process Meyer and Kordes
(1991) outlined. The learners shared cultural knowledge which helped them understand the
opinion, a possible example of the ‘transcultural’ process. I noted various occurrences where this
happened. I will demonstrate one example of this. Two students discussed why Mike thought the
death penalty prevents crime. One student said that the USA is dangerous country and that the
death penalty helps keep the crime rate low. They felt that Mike is worried about crime so he has
that opinion. The second student agreed and wondered whether many American feel that the
USA is a dangerous place. One asked the other how many people the USA executes each year.
Firstly in this case it is not important to concentrate on the content of the answer. One can
question whether it is a deep enough dialogue to really represent the ‘transcultural’ process.
However it should be noted that despite the slightness of the conversation the students were
actively engaged in the process of connecting the cultural to linguistic. Many other discussions
followed the same pattern of using the learners’ knowledge of a culture to explain an opinion. The
reasons were varied, sometimes deep and, most obviously, tentative. It was interesting for the
students. The challenge of drawing on their own knowledge to explain cultural differences was
something to which they rose.
However this approach is problematic. Firstly it was very difficult to know whether this
was beneficial for the students. They performed the task each time though as the task progressed
they did not seem any more adept or sophisticated in the answer. Of course this is expected most
studies of this kind are longitudinal where the students are expected to be monitored for an
extended amount of time. Furthermore I was not sure what to record. The students did the activity
and thus performed IcLT activity. However it is unclear to what benefit. It seems that in the future
this methodology needs some central rules to be effective and have noticeable benefits.
If I was to perform this activity again I feel that some features are necessary. Firstly the
teacher should take on the role of guide. Their role would be to provide cultural knowledge at the
students’ behest. I did not interfere or offer feedback based on their performance of the tasks which
is probably unhelpful from the students’ point of view. The teacher needs to give a cultural
knowledge framework to support the students by providing reinforcement. In the case of my
students their opinions seemed based on vague ideas rather than giving solid cultural evidence to
support their ideas. It seems in the future a teacher would need aid in this by support such activities
with cultural facts and knowledge however this leads to an issue on controlling the input
Secondly the activity could have been a little more streamlined. Students rarely discussed
each opinion; choosing to discuss one or two only in the time given. In hindsight just choosing one
culture (e.g. USA) and asking students to offer opinions on this across the course rather than
giving them the option of different ones may be preferable.
Benefits to the EDC curriculum

In the brief investigation of the IcLT in the EDC context I found tentative evidence that it could be
a useful feature of the overall curriculum. However considering the limited amount of the time
dedicated to EDC classes, it is easy to argue that it should not take precedent over other regular
stages of EDC. It is certainly an interesting diversion. Many students exhibited interesting ideas
which, most importantly, were reused in the discussions following the activity. This is probably
the most important benefit to EDC – generating ideas. The activity gave students different ideas to
discuss in their discussion. Furthermore they were armed with some cultural knowledge to support
61
their opinions which helped foster interesting discussions. One of the main goals of EDC
curriculum is that it intends to improve students’ ability to exchange ideas. Going alone with that,
IcLT developed the students cultural-linguistic knowledge which they applied to the subsequent
discussions.
CONCLUSION
Firstly, IcLT content is most likely too difficult for many EDC students. Secondly, the benefits of
IcLT need a lot of time to be fostered in students. Unfortunately, the perceived benefits of IcLT
cannot be fostered within these restrictions. Some of the explored EDC-related benefits such as
idea generating suggested that the methodology of IcLT does lend it to the purpose of discussion
preparation activities. It gave the students an opportunity to consider a topic from a different point
of view thus giving the learners more to talk about in their discussions. I would suggest that EDC
teachers consider the ideas underpinning IcLT when developing different approaches to discussion
preparation classes. To sum up I feel that IcLT may have some great benefit however the
transcultural process is too long to be implemented in EDC curriculum.
ICC on the other hand may be useful in the current EDC curriculum especially if one can
maintain a contemporary and culturally relevant curriculum students can develop their
awareness of other cultures. As Piatkowska notes ‘integrated approaches are in line with
negotiated learning, which is at the centre of intercultural learning.’ (2014, p.48). I agree with
this notion, especially in the case of EDC classes. The teacher should take a flexible approach to
culture with the class and provide information in response to student needs rather than planning
what culture knowledge needs to presented. .
REFERENCES
Bailey, K. M. (2011). Issues in language teacher evaluation. In M. H. Long & C. J. Doughty (Eds.),
The handbook of language teaching (p.706-725). West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.
Brown H. D. (2000). Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Byram, M (1991). Teaching culture and language: towards an integrated model. In D. Buttjes & M.
Byram (Eds.), Mediating Languages and Cultures (pp. 3-16). Clevedon: Multilingual
Matters.
Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence. Clevedon:
Multilingual Matters.
Byram, M. (2000). Assessing intercultural competence in language teaching. Sprogforum, 18(6),
8-13.
Byram, M. (2007). Language teaching for intercultural citizenship: the European situation. Paper
presented at the NZALT conference. University of Auckland.
Doe, T., Hurling, S., Kamada, Y., Livingston, M., Moroi, T. & Takayama, I. (2014). What Do You
Think? Interactive Skills for English Discussion Book III (3rd Ed.) Japan: DTP
Publishing.
Ho S. T. K. (2009) Addressing Culture in EFL Classrooms: The Challenge of Shifting from a
Traditional to an Intercultural Stance. Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching,
6 (1), 63-76.
Holliday, A., Hyde, M. & Kullman, J. (2004). Intercultural communication: An advanced
resource book. London: Routledge.
Hurling, S. (2012) Introduction to EDC. In Doe, T., Hurling, S., Livingston, M,. Moroi, T, (Eds.),
New Directions in Teaching and Learning English Discussion. Volume 1. EDC.
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Jonathan Buck
Kordes, H. (1991) Intercultural learning at school. In D. Buttjes & M. Byram (Eds.), Mediating
Languages and Cultures (pp. 287-305). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Kramsch, C. (1993) Context and Culture in Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Marzcak, M. (2010) New trends in teaching language and culture. In H. Komorowska & L.
Aleksandrowicz-Pedich (Eds.), Coping with Diversity (pp. 13-28). Warszawa:
Wydanwnictwo SWPS Academica.
Meyer, M. (1991) Developing transcultural competence: case studies of advanced foreign
language learners. In D. Buttjes & M. Byram (Eds.) Mediating Languages and Cultures
(pp. 136-158). Cleavedon: Multilingual Matters..
McKay, S. L. (2000), Teaching English as an International Language: Implications for Cultural
Materials in the Classroom. TESOL Journal, 9 pp. 7–11.
Piatkowska, K. (2014) A Review of Intergrated Approaches and Their Role in Teaching
Intercultural Communicative Competence in a Foreign Language Classroom.
International Journal of Pedagogical Innovations. 2 (1). pp 41- 50.
Risager, K (2007), Language and Culture Pedagogy. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Risager, K (2008). Towards a Transnational Paradigm in Language and Culture Pedagogy. Paper
presented at the American Association for Applied Linguistics 2008.Annual
Conference, March 2008, Washington D.C., USA.
Rose, K. R. (1994). Pragmatic consciousness-raising in an EFL context. In L. Bouton & Y. Kachru
(Eds.), Pragmatics and language learning [Monograph]. 5, 52-63. Urbana-Champaign,
IL: University of Illinois.
63
Familiarizing the Foreign: 10-Minute Cross-Cultural
Reflections
Jianwen Chen
ABSTRACT
Over the past semester, I have implemented my 10-minute “Cross-cultural reflections” activity
whereby students reflect upon the similarities and communication differences between Japanese
and English-speaking cultures. My goal was to motivate students to cultivate an interest in
cross-cultural communication and also help them see the practicality of learning the English
language as a means of international communication rather than simply as an academic subject.
In doing so, I believe that students will be more self-motivated to learn English or at the very
least, cultivate a positive attitude towards the English language and the English-speaking world.
INTRODUCTION
Languages are socially and culturally bound, their effective study requires a positive disposition
towards everything the L2 is associated with (Dornyei, 2001). Within the EDC context, not
every student is positively disposed towards English since the program is a mandatory course.
Therefore, I believe, it is crucial for EDC teachers to generate this ‘positive disposition’ towards
English and the English-speaking world in order to generate greater student motivation and
interest in the EDC program.
According to the literature, one of the ways to do so is “to increase intercultural
awareness and the acceptance of intercultural norms and their validity” Cogan (1995:38).
Therefore, I decided to adopt Kramsch’s (1993) approach to use materials in a way that students
are encouraged to “reflect on their own culture in relation to others, thus helping to establish a
sphere of interculturality”. In doing so, my project seeks to create this ‘sphere of interculturality’
by creating a positive disposition towards English and the English-speaking world through a
series of 10-minute intercultural reflection activity at the end of every lesson.
CONTEXT
From my experience teaching the EDC curriculum, many students seem to hold limiting mental
barriers about learning English language. Mainly,
1) Their English is not good enough.

2) They cannot communicate with ‘native speakers’.
3) The stereotype that English-speakers are of Anglo origin (e.g. America, Australia,
England etc.). Therefore, only people who need to communicate with this specific group
of people should learn English.
Such mental barriers prevent them from seeing themselves as effective English-speakers and this
creates a negative disposition towards English. Therefore, it is essential that I first create a
‘positive disposition’ towards English by helping students overcome the abovementioned mental
barriers that give rise to a ‘negative disposition’. After-which, I attempted to encourage students
to create a ‘sphere of interculturality’ by asking them to reflect upon the similarities and
differences in the way English-speakers and Japanese speakers communicate so as “to increase
intercultural awareness and the acceptance of intercultural norms and their validity” Cogan
(1995:38).
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Jianwen Chen
PROCEDURE
The project is divided into three parts: Part One (Lesson 5) involves a piloting stage. Part Two
(Lesson 6-9) involves the implementation of 10-minute self-reflection activities centered on the
theme of “English as an International Language”. This stage aims to help students challenge
some assumptions and stereotypes they might have about English and English-speakers in order
to mitigate any negative disposition students have towards learning English. Furthermore, the
self-reflection questions are crafted in a way that they can relate their own culture and language
to English-speaking cultures and the language. Part Three (Lesson 10-13) involves the
implementation of the 10-minute activities centered on the theme “Communication styles across
cultures”. The objective of this stage is to help students see the similarities and differences in the
way people communicate in English and in Japanese and help them develop effective strategies
to communicate cross-culturally.
Piloting Stage (Lesson 5)

In the piloting stage, I worked out the time needed to successfully conduct a self-reflection
activity. After trying out the self-reflection activity on a class from each level (i.e. lower level IV,
intermediate level III and advanced level II), I found that there is sufficient time for students to
discuss 2-3 self-reflection questions in pairs in 10 minutes if they read and thought about them
as homework from the previous lesson. Therefore, the self-reflection questions for the next week
will be handed out in the previous week and I named them the “10-minute self-reflection
activity”. Moreover, since the self-reflection questions are not related to the lesson topic, I
decided to do the activity at the end of the lesson so as not to confuse the students. In a nutshell,
the 10-minute self-reflection activity basically involves 2-3 self-reflection questions discussed in
pairs at the end of every lesson.
Part Two (Lesson 6-9):

This stage involved the implementation of the first series of 10-minute activities on two level II,
two level III and one level IV class. I designed 3 self-reflection questions for each lesson under
the topic “English as an International Language” (Refer to Appendix 1.1). The activities were
used right after the final feedback and in pairs because of time restrictions. The self-reflection
questions for the lesson were given and the questions for the next week were given to them as
homework.
Part Three (Lesson 10-13)

The procedures of this stage were similar to Part Two; the only difference is in the self-reflection
questions posed. The questions were aimed at helping students reflect upon their own
communication strategies and the communication strategies of English-speakers (Refer to
Appendix 1.2).
Self-reflection questions
Two sets of self-reflection questions were crafted to 1) help students reflect upon their own
language and culture and/or attitudes towards English and English speaking cultures 2) help
students develop effective cross-cultural communication strategies. For example, in Lesson 6-9,
students were asked to reflect on their own language and culture and then compare and contrast
it with the English language and English-speaking cultures (Refer to Appendix 1.1). In Lesson
10-13, students were asked to reflect on their own communication styles and then compare and
contrast them with the communication styles of English-speakers (Refer to Appendix 1.1).
65
RESULTS
Judging from the response of the students, the self-reflection activities seemed to have an overall
positive effect on helping them rethink their previous assumptions or stereotypes about English
and the English-speaking world. Below are some excerpts from the students’ self-reflections
about “English as an International language”:
i. “I didn’t know many Asian people also speak English”
ii. “I think British English is good English, other kinds of English are difficult for me to
understand but I will try to learn about them because I want to have many foreign
friends”
iii. “English is an international language, it is important for me to learn it for my future”
iv. “India has many English speakers but I don’t understand their English. I did not know
that so many people speak English as an official language, and first and Second
language. Maybe in the future, I need English.”
However, there were also students who did not change their views about the English language
and English-speakers:
i. “American English is the best. I cannot understand other kinds of English, many people
speak strange English”
ii. “My English level is too low so I don’t know the difference between American English
or other English”
iii. I know English is an international language, I did not learn anything new.
Excerpts from the students’ self-reflection about “cross-cultural communication strategies” also
have an overall positive effect in helping students think about developing effective cross-cultural
communication strategies:
i. “Giving reactions is important in communication, I need to give more reactions when I

speak in English”
ii. “I don’t know reactions are important in communication, I want to use more reactions
when I speak to English speakers”
iii. “Gestures are useful, but it is also dangerous, I want to learn more about gestures so I
can communicate well with people from other countries”
Overall, from the student responses, the project was successful in fulfilling its basic
objectives of encouraging self-reflection about students’ disposition and assumptions towards
English and English-speakers. Through the responses above, many students seemed to have been
encouraged to challenge their own assumptions and stereotypes. Moreover, the responses also
show that students also seemed to have learned new strategies to communicate cross-culturally
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Jianwen Chen
or become motivated to learn more about these strategies.
CONCLUSION
This project began with a simple desire to motivate students to cultivate an interest in
cross-cultural communication and also help them see the practicality of learning the English
language as a means of international communication rather than simply as an academic subject.
Using the 10-minute self-reflections, I was able to address an even greater variety of issues such
as stereotypes of English and the English-speaking world and the students’ insecurity about their
‘broken’ English. Moreover, the project also helped students see the relevance between English
and their daily lives by comparing and contrasting English and the English-speaking world with
their own language and culture.
However, the biggest limitation to this project is the time factor. Sometimes, I am unable
to complete the discussions in 10 minutes so I had to stop the discussions short and ask the
students to write their responses and submit them to me as homework. Nevertheless, as the
results show, overall, the project was successful in challenging and overcoming stereotypes and
helping students develop a positive disposition towards learning English. Additionally, students
also seemed to enjoy learning about different cross-cultural communication strategies, which
generated interest and self-motivation in learning English. Therefore, I believe this project’s
simplicity enables it to be transferrable in the other EDC contexts where students have a
negative disposition or low motivation towards English.
REFERENCES
Cogan, D.W. (1995) Should foreign teachers of English adapt their methods to Japanese patterns
of learning and classroom interaction?. The Language Teacher, 19(1).
Crystal, D. (2003). English Language as a Global Language. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Dornyei, Z. (2001) Motivational Strategies in the Language Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Kramsch, C. (1993) Context and Culture in Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
67
APPENDIX A - Self-Reflection questions: English as an International Language
Lesson 6
I. What variety of Japanese do you speak? (E.g. Kansai, Tohoku, Hiroshima etc)
II. What is different about these varieties of Japanese?
III. Do you think Japanese people should speak only standard Japanese?
Lesson 7
I. What kind of English do you know? (e.g. American English, British English,
Canadian English, Japanese English etc.)
II. What is different about these varieties of English?
III. Do you think Japanese people should speak only standard American English? Why?
Lesson 8
I. Circle all the

English-speaking
countries on the map
II. What is your
image of an
English-speaker?
III. Which countries
have the most
English-speakers?
Lesson 9
Country Number of English 1st Number of English 2nd
language Speakers language Speakers
United States 215,424,000 25,600,000
United Kingdom 58,190,000 1,500,000
India 350,000 200,000,000
Nigeria 60,000,000
The Philippines 20,000 40,000,000
Source: Crystal (2003: 62-63)
I. What is interesting or surprising about the information above?
II. What is your image of an English speaker now?
III. Do you think you have to speak native English to communicate well?
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Jianwen Chen
APPENDIX B - Self-Reflection questions: Cross-cultural communication strategies
Lesson 10
i. What kinds of gestures do you often use? What do they mean?
ii. What kinds of gestures do non-Japanese people use?
iii. Do you think gestures help you communicate better in English?
Lesson 11
Give short answers
I. Do you use reactions (aizuchi)?
II. When do you use reactions in Japanese?
III. Why do you use reactions?
IV. Do you think non-Japanese people use reactions?
V. Do you think reactions helps you communicate better in English?
Lesson 12
i. Are you a polite person?  
ii. In what situations do you use polite language (keigo)?
iii. Why do Japanese people use polite language?
Lesson 13
i. Do you speak in a different way to your juniors and seniors?
ii. Do you think English-speakers use polite language (keigo) too?
iii. What are some ways to be polite in English?
① Speaking Business English
② Eye Contact
③ Shaking hands
④ Giving Reactions
⑤ Your idea
69
Start!: Increasing Willingness to Communicate in Discussion
Preparation Activities
Amanda Chin
ABSTRACT
In the English Discussion Class (EDC) at Rikkyo University, students use English to
communicate with one another in group discussion tasks. Because of the intense communication
demands of the curriculum, not all students react positively, and some students are less willing to
communicate with peers in their L2 than others. Because of this, this paper focuses on the
teaching principle of “willingness to communicate” (WTC), a new construct in L2 motivational
research which observes that reducing language anxiety is one way of increasing overall ease of
communication. This paper reflects on this concept by discussing the nature of the discussion
preparation activities meant to prime students for group discussions. An adaptation in order to
more effectively increase WTC for these activities will be described, including a series of
variations, followed by an informal observation of the effectiveness of the activity and
suggestions for more formal data collection and analysis.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The English Discussion Class (EDC) at Rikkyo University is a mandatory freshman course that
follows the trend of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in EFL/ESL pedagogy,
encouraging meaningful output from learners as they participate in weekly group discussion tasks.
The course is very learner-centered, and encourages speaking fluency by maximizing oral output
from students. While the topics are designed to be engaging, and students often enjoy sharing their
opinions with their peers, there are also moments of silence or tension that could be attributed to
learner reticence. As research has previously shown, “speaking has been found to be the most
anxiety-provoking modality of L2 communication” (MacIntyre, Baker, Clement & Donovan,
2003, p. 602). Indeed, EDC instructors can often encounter a lack of communication from students
– the high amount of oral output expected causing higher levels of anxiety, and a reluctance to
speak.
One of an EDC instructor’s goals is to support students in this communication process, by
reducing language anxiety and increasing students’ desire to communicate with one another.
Thus, much of the pedagogical practices in the EDC have been informed by a recent construct
borne from L2 motivational research, known as ‘Willingness to Communicate’ (WTC), and
defined as “the probability of engaging in communication when given a choice” (Yashima, 2012,
p. 120). As MacIntyre (2007) has observed, through examining a student’s willingness or
unwillingness to communicate in an L2, researchers have been able to unravel the “micro-level
processes” that help or hinder their active participation (p. 564). Indeed, the two micro-level
processes found to majorly affect a learner’s WTC are their perceived language competence, and
their language anxiety (MacIntyre et al., 2003; MacIntyre, 2007; Yashima, 2012; Peng &
Woodrow, 2010; Alemi, Daftarifard & Pashmforoosh, 2011; Brown, 2007).
Language anxiety in particular appears to be a strong factor that restrains learners from
communication in certain situations. While research has shown that anxiety at the trait-level, such
as being a naturally anxious person, is not heavily correlated with how much a student is willing to
communicate, the anxiety produced by specific situational factors does cause L2 performance to
suffer (MacIntyre, 2007). Some studies have also revealed that while language anxiety may not
have a great affect on WTC in a classroom where communication demands are lower, the relation
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Amanda Chin
between anxiety and WTC is stronger in a context where L2 use is much more intensive
(MacIntyre, 2003; Yashima, 2012), such as in the EDC where learners are expected to conduct
activities in 100% English. While EDC instructors may not have as much influence over learners
who are naturally anxious, DeSaint Leger and Storch (2009) has asserted that anxiety produced by
a specific situation, such as activities conducted all in English, are possibly “amenable to
instructional intervention” (p. 270). Thus, by reducing anxiety borne from the individual activities
done in a 100% English environment, EDC instructors may be able to increase their students’
overall levels of WTC. The intent of this paper is to provide one actionable way for EDC
instructors to reduce situational language anxiety in one particular stage of the typical EDC lesson
– preparation activities for group discussions.
TASKS AND MATERIALS

In every EDC lesson, there are two group discussion tasks. In order to prepare for these tasks,
EDC instructors conduct shorter activities to help students develop ideas. These preparation
activities require students to first make decisions on some content, such as checking boxes in a
table or agreeing or disagreeing with a set of written opinions, before discussing their ideas in
pairs. The intent of these preparation activities – to help students generate and practice
expressing ideas before their larger group discussion task – is supported in research as a good
way to encourage high levels of WTC over the course of the lesson. Brown (2007) has suggested
sequencing activities in order of difficulty, and providing “reasonable challenges” (p. 74), which
is accomplished by having a short preparation activity with a small number of partners before
the larger group activity. In addition, the discussion preparation activities also give students
sufficient time to prepare their answers, as well as reduces the demands to process content on the
spot, which is in-line with recommendations from other studies (Aubrey, 2011; DeSaint Leger &
Storch, 2009).
However, while the discussion preparation activities in the EDC textbook provide ideas
for students to check or circle, the only instruction given when it is time to discuss, is to “discuss
your ideas with a partner” (Lesley, Livingston, Moroi & Schaefer, 2014 p.10). Some students are
able to quickly begin speaking after the instructor begins the activity. On the other hand, other
students wait to speak, letting some time pass in silence before attempting communication. One
possible cause of this reticence is that the activity is not actually a “reasonable challenge.”
Though students are given functional language to practice, such as “What do you think?” or
“Can I start?” some students may still struggle with understanding how to translate the
information they checked in text, into an opinion that begins a discussion. Prior to the EDC,
students may be more accustomed to classrooms where “correct” answers are emphasized and
“incorrect” answers have negative consequences, contexts which Brown (2007) has described as
common and not conducive to the kind of risk-taking required in a speaking class. This leads to
students who are unwilling to communicate for fear of losing face.
Because of this, I began to adapt the preparation activities by adding an easy “start” to the
discussion. This originally began by including a two or three turn dialogue at the bottom of a
preparation handout for students to discuss in pairs, which simply showed one effective way to
give the first opinion. Figure 1 demonstrates a general example of this adaptation:
71
Figure 1. Lesson 2 (changing topic), D1 preparation (“The Best Ways to Learn English”)
In this activity, students were asked to check a box to indicate what they considered to be
effective ways to learn different language skills. As the information that students interacted with
was in a table format with multiple columns and rows, some students had difficulty
understanding how to give the first opinion. Should they start by talking about each language
skill? Or should they start by talking about each way? Providing the starting language in a
limited series of turns gave students an easy way to begin talking about the ideas they had just
interacted with on paper, so that they could focus their attention more on the expression of their
ideas, rather than the processing of how to conduct the activity itself.
PROCEDURE
Thus, the material adaptation presented in this paper is relatively simple – taking an already
useful preparation activity and inserting an additional element to increase students’ WTC, and to
minimize the amount of silence between speakers. This adaptation can be used for any
preparation activity that an instructor feels may be challenging for students to begin immediately
discussing. Instructors could prepare their own handouts by transferring textbook content onto a
new handout with an added dialogue box. Alternatively, instructors could create the short
dialogue and print it out as a large poster to put on the whiteboard.
In either case, only the first few turns should be provided, with limited support for
formulating the first opinion. As in Figure 1, only the very initial opinion language is provided,
while trailing off for students to insert their own idea content such as reasons, examples, or other
detail. Though it is possible to lengthen the dialogue, and add more language to encourage
students to use function language, the purpose of this adaption was not to provide a dialogue
pattern for the first speaker’s entire turn. It was simply given to help students actively start
communicating with one another. By only supplying the first two or three turns, instructors can
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Amanda Chin
avoid encouraging this idea of “correctness” or “perfection” that Brown (2007) warns against.
Moreover, the following group discussion will have no patterns at all to help guide the task.
Providing a starting dialogue helps students to begin communicating, but also pushes them to
work through the minute details of how they want to express their ideas, and how they can
communicate with one another interactively after that first opinion was given. This follows the
principle of sequencing activities, also suggested by Brown (2007). Finally, an interesting
observation from Alemi, Daftarifard and Pashmforoosh’s study (2011) was that language anxiety
can affect not only how much output is produced, but also the quality of a speaker’s output.
Accordingly, should WTC levels be lower for a discussion preparation activity, the complexity
of students’ ideas decreases, making some ideas less transferrable to the group discussion. All of
these reasons encompass the idea of reducing anxiety so that students feel more capable to start
the activity.
VARIATONS
The material adaptation presented in this paper can be useful for EDC instructors in a variety of
ways due to its flexibility. For instance, the amount of language support provided in these short
starts can be as simple or complex to fit the needs and language levels in the classroom. For a
lower level class, the first three turns can be written out in full, with only a space for students to
fill in their original idea. For advanced learners, the turns can be simplified, where students are
required to fill in more of the linguistic gaps. Figure 2 provides an illustration of a simplified
start:
Figure 2. Lesson 5 (discussion test 1), topic preparation (“Japanese and Foreign Fashion
Brands”)
73
In this particular activity, rather than providing the full functional language, only the beginning
of each function phrase was given to help students figure out what topics to change. In addition,
only the initial opinion language was provided, without explicitly encouraging further functional
language use. This has the ability to encourage students to start the opinion, but leave it up to
them to use functions and communication skills in their own way.
While higher levels of students can sometimes be seen as not needing an easy start or
extra support in these preparation activities, research has suggested that actively reducing
language anxiety can be even more vital with advanced students, than with lower level students.
MacIntyre et al.’s study (2003) revealed that advanced learners often have higher levels of
anxiety than lower levels due to the nature of teachers challenging students in classroom
contexts (p. 602). Thus, it may still be important to provide an accessible start to the preparation
activity for even higher-level classes. In my own classes, I have always provided a start, but I
decide at any given situation whether or not to mention the start before beginning an activity. If a
class appears to be confident without, I have them start on their own to allow them the autonomy
to work through the ideas independently. Otherwise, I may simply point out the box on the
handout with a quick “if you need help” comment before beginning the activity. Most of these
immediate decisions depended upon what was determined to be a “reasonable challenge” for that
specific group of students at that specific time.
Another way of varying this type of preparation activity, and the type of start needed, is
when using the preparation activities as a fluency activity. The original concept for this adaption
was borne from the need to encourage pairs of students to discuss ideas together. However, some
discussion preparation activities can also be adapted into fluency activities, where a group of
speaking students talk at a group of listening students for 3-2-1 minutes (Nation, 1989). A start
can be provided for this type of activity, by simply providing the first opinion language. Figure 3
illuminates this variation:
Figure 3. Lesson 4 (agreeing and disagreeing), discussion 2 preparation (“Clothes and Rules”)
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Amanda Chin
Here, the first opinion language, as well as language to encouraging advantages and
disadvantages was given. The intent was to not only help students to process and explain the
content that they had just checked on the table, but to also avoid students simply listing which
people should have free choice or rules for clothing. Through adding the beginning of a function
phrase, students are given an easy way to deepen their idea, and produce more content without
having to struggle for more ideas. In this sense, while the start is not encouraging students to
communicative interactively, it is supporting the quality of ideas, as noted by Alemi, Daftarifard
and Pashmforoosh (2011) by providing an easy and effective way for students to talk about the
text content they checked or circled.
DISCUSSION
Adding short starts to preparation activities has seen a lot of success in class thus far. In the
beginning of the Fall 2014 semester I heavily highlighted the starts every lesson. However, while
starts were still important in most lessons, as the topic was always new, as students became
accustomed to jumping into activities quickly, I gradually began to simplify the start language
further and further. Moreover, I stopped announcing the start in class, to observe whether
students could conduct the activity without. Towards the end of the semester, even classes that
had begun as more reticent were quickly jumping into pair or fluency-based preparation
activities.
Yet, upon practicing these starts regularly, one unexpected point I became acutely aware
of was the way in which I transitioned from the preparation activity into the group discussion
task. By using the starts, I was setting students up in the right direction to discuss ideas and
easily practice the functions and communication skills that they were learning. However, for
group discussion tasks, only questions are provided, and not any initial opinion language. While
the discussion preparation content and opinion language can easily be transferred and usable in
the group discussion task, not all students were able to see this connection clearly. When groups
were not aware of how the preparation activity led into the larger scope discussion questions,
there were much lower levels of WTC at the beginning, which carried throughout the entire
group discussion task. This meant high quality preparation discussions, but stilted and more
reticent group discussions.
One way I countered this disconnect between the preparation and group discussion was
by clearly articulating how the group discussion questions could be answered via ideas discussed
in the preparation activity. For instance, in Figure 3 students were asked to check if different
types of people should have rules or free choice about what to wear. After that, the first group
discussion question following the preparation was: “Do you think students should have uniforms
at… A) Elementary school? B) High school? C) University? D) Vocational school?” While the
preparation ideas and group discussion question are essentially about the same topic, they use
different vocabulary to talk about the topic – “rules or free choice” and “uniforms.” Hence, for
lower level classes, I would point out how the group discussion question really basically meant
whether they thought these students should have rules or free choice about what to wear.
When I did not explicitly express this connection with some class groups, the level of
WTC was observably affected. Therefore, in the future I would highly suggest preparing easy
ways of explaining how the preparation activity questions and group discussion questions related
to one another. Again, this is a matter of sequencing activities and providing “reasonable
challenges” to lead students into more productive talk time.
75
CONCLUSION
Holistically speaking, through informal observation it appeared as though adding a simple start to
the discussion preparation activities was an effective improvement. To confirm these general
observations, formal data collection and research is recommended. One way suggested, would be
to implement this adaptation in a set group of classes, and choose another group of classes with
similar characteristics as a control group. Record both groups of classes and analyze the amount of
talking time in the preparation activities in comparison with each other, as well as the amount of
silence in between speaking turns. In addition, the same elements could be analyzed in the group
discussion tasks as well, to see whether students continue to display a strong WTC from the
preparation into the group discussion. Through this information, EDC instructors could more
effectively support students in reducing language anxiety, and increasing WTC.
REFERENCES
Alemi, M., Daftarifard, P., & Pashmforoosh, R. (2011). The impact of language anxiety and
language proficiency on WTC in EFL context. Cross-Cultural Communication, 7 (3),
150-166.
Aubrey, S. (2011). Facilitating interaction in East Asian EFL classrooms: Increasing students’
willingness to communicate. Language Education in Asia, 2 (2), 237-245.
Brown, H. D. (2007). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy.
San Francisco, CA: Pearson Longman.
DeSaint Leger, D., & Storch, N. (2009). Learners’ perceptions and attitudes: Implications for
willingness to communicate in an L2 classroom. System, 37, 269-285.
Lesley, J., Livingston, M., Moroi, T., Schaefer, M. (2014). What do you think? Interactive skills
for English discussion book III (5th Ed.) Japan: DTP Publishing.
MacIntyre, P. D., Baker, S. C., Clement, R., & Donovan, L. A. (2003). Talking in order to learn:
Willingness to communicate and intensive language programs. The Canadian Modern
Language Review, 59 (4), 589-607.
MacIntyre, P. D. (2007). Willingness to communicate in the second language: Understanding the
decision to speak as a volitional process. The Modern Language Journal, 91 (4), 564-
576.
Nation, P. (1989). Improving speaking fluency. System, 17 (3), 377-384.
Peng, J., & Woodrow, L. (2010). Willingness to communicate in English: A model in the
Chinese EFL classroom context. Language Learning, 60 (4), 834-876.
Yashima, T. (2012). Willingness to communicate: Momentary volition that results in L2
behavior. In Mercer, S., Ryan, S., & Williams, M. (Eds.), Psychology for Language
Learning (pp. 119-135). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
76
Anarchy in EFL: Introducing Simple Activities to Develop
Critical Thinking Skills in Discussion Classes
Carey Finn
ABSTRACT
The teaching of critical thinking skills in the EFL context is a controversial issue. Many
instructors oppose the idea on the grounds that such skills are not necessary in foreign or second
language classrooms. Others disagree, arguing that critical thinking is an integral part of
communication and learning. A source of consternation is the frequency with which university
students in freshman English discussion classes fail to critically engage with the topics and
content of the lessons. Drawing on theories of critical pedagogy and guided by principles of
meaningful learning and learner autonomy, I explore simple activities that show promise in
remedying the above and can be performed within the limitations of a unified curriculum. I
detail the logic, structure and adaptability of these activities after discussing teaching principles
and situating my study within the relevant literature and existing research on the development of
critical thinking skills in the EFL field.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Brown (2007) explains that teaching principles are the elements comprising one’s approach to
language teaching. Of the 12 potential principles he outlines 2 , the principles of strategic
investment, meaningful learning and learner autonomy have the greatest influence on my own
approach. However, Brown’s definitions of the latter two principles are somewhat limiting; to
Brown, meaningful learning simply entails learners making associations between their existing
knowledge and experiences and new material. Another interpretation might see meaningful
learning going beyond this; challenging students to reflect critically on their knowledge and
experiences, as well as the new material. Similarly, the principle of autonomy, described as
learners being able to take charge of their own learning, could be viewed as one which both
necessitates and facilitates the development of critical thinking skills. This understanding is
found in the writings of Kumaravadivelu (2001), who suggests that an aspect of autonomy is the
shaping of learners into critical thinkers. Terming this “liberatory autonomy”, he calls, perhaps
idealistically and not uncontroversially, for language teachers “to help learners recognise
sociopolitical impediments to realisation of their full human potential” and provide them with
“the intellectual tools necessary to overcome those impediments” (p.547). Kumaravadivelu
defines the sociopolitical impediments as not only overt political oppression (such as draconian
governments), but also subtler forms of discrimination based on race, religion, class, gender or
sexual orientation.
Brown’s principles of meaningful learning and learner autonomy mirror two maxims
outlined by Richards (1996); those of encouraging learning, and learner empowerment. Richards
notes that teachers’ beliefs and goals concerning lesson content and teaching processes, as well
as their understanding of the systems in which they work and their roles within these systems,
2
Brown’s 12 principles comprise the Cognitive principles of Automaticity, Meaningful Learning, The
Anticipation of Reward, Intrinsic Motivation, Strategic Investment, and Autonomy; the Socioaffective principles
of Language Ego, Willingness to Communicate, and the Language-Culture Connection; and the Linguistic
principles of The Native Language Effect, Interlanguage, and Communicative Competence.
77
shape the decisions that they make in the classroom. Informed by critical pedagogy3, and a
proponent of transformative education4, which sees learning taking place through classroom
dialogue about real, relevant issues to inspire positive change (Crookes and Lehner, 1998), it is
my opinion that the development of critical thinking skills is required across disciplines.
Kumaravadivelu writes of the capacity of teachers to transform sociocultural realities, and a
need for deeper awareness of both these realities and teachers’ potential as agents of change
(2001). Crookes and Lehner (1998) note that the ESL/EFL field largely concerns itself with
language only, with teachers shying away from sociopolitical issues and seeing themselves as
doing their bit for society simply by helping people to communicate with others. Nowhere in the
literature is there a call to drag soapboxes into the classrooms, turning them into arenas for
propaganda and political rallies. What critical pedagogy in ESL/EFL does call for is “the
simultaneous development of English communicative abilities and the ability to apply them to
developing a critical awareness of the world and the ability to act on it to improve matters”
(Crookes and Lehner, 1998, p.320). In critical pedagogy, the teacher neither dictates, nor defers
to, the views of students, but challenges their opinions, reflecting student-generated issues back
to them as problems to consider (Crookes and Lehner, 1998). Critical pedagogy is a broad theory
with multiple facets; the fostering of critical thinking skills being just one – but one key – part of
it.
Echoing Kumaravadivelu (2001), Crookes and Lehner (1998) and many other scholars,
Birjandi and Bagherkazemi (2010) too highlight the potential of teachers to be agents of change
in a world rife with problems.5 They argue that critical thinking, in their understanding of which
the identification and challenging of assumptions is integral, is essential for students to perform
well both at school and in future workplaces, as well as in other social and interpersonal contexts.
They (Birjandi and Bagherkazemi, 2010, p. 137) list nine traits which they see as characteristic
of a critical thinker. These are: having a strong intention to recognise the importance of good
thinking; being able to identify problems and focus on relevant topics and issues; distinguishing
valid and invalid references; suspending judgment where evidence is lacking; understanding the
difference between logical reasoning and rationalisation; awareness that one’s understanding is
limited and that there are degrees of belief; differentiating between facts, opinions and
assumptions; and watching out for authoritarian influences and specious arguments.
Atkinson’s paper (1997) on the teaching of critical thinking skills in ESL/EFL is one of
the most widely referenced pieces of literature on the subject. It is also one of the most criticised.
Atkinson, reflecting the above-mentioned trend of distancing ESL/EFL from global issues, sees
critical thinking as a culturally-based social practice that is slippery to define and consequently
difficult, if not impossible, to teach; and also expresses concern that it is not clear whether such
skills are transferable. He suggests that the practice of critical thinking is an individualistic,
white, middle-class, masculine practice that is not only absent in many other “cultures”, but may
in fact be disempowering, especially for oppressed groups; advocating caution in attempting to
3
Crookes and Lehner (1998) offer a basic description of critical pedagogy as an approach to teaching that is
informed by critical social theory, and one that has the goal of rethinking and improving both schooling and
wider society.
4
In contrast to “banking education”, which is a teacher-centred transferral of knowledge model of education
(Crookes and Lehner, 1998).
5
In a study in Iran, they found a strong correlation between the critical thinking abilities of EFL teachers
themselves and their professional success, as evaluated by EFL learners. This suggests that learners value critical
thinking ability.
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Carey Finn
teach such skills in the ESL/EFL context. In response, Davidson (1998) agrees that instructors
should have a clear concept of critical thinking in mind if they want to teach it, but disagrees that
it is difficult to define and does not consider it a social practice. Showing the overlap of various
existing definitions, he explains that critical thinking boils down to rational judgement, with
critical thinkers being skeptical and able to provide solid reasons for their ideas (p.121)6. He
argues that critical thinking is of relevance to all, and present at least to some extent in societies
the world over. He concludes with evidence that critical thinking can indeed be taught to
ESL/EFL students, referencing a study he did using the Ennis-Weir essay test with Japanese
college students (Davidson and Dunham, 1997).
Benesch (1999) also makes a strong argument against the anti-critical thinking sentiment
evident in Atkinson (1997) and other similar papers from the same period, pointing out that such
an attitude is an obstacle to students reflecting on their ideas and behaviour and challenging the
status quo. She expresses concern at Atkinson’s condescending response to comments on his
1997 paper, in which he claims that humans becoming aware of how they think would lead to
“disastrous consequences” and that “mundane life can proceed only when its vast tacit
machinery remains by and large under wraps” (Atkinson, 1998, p. 133). Benesch (1999)
positions herself as an educator “committed to fighting injustice and inequality in society and the
classroom” (p.577), reflecting my own stance7, and proposes that dialogic critical thinking,
which includes a consideration of various viewpoints on a topic, can be used to uncover hidden
assumptions, prejudices and fallacies in arguments. She argues that through expanding learners’
understanding, tolerance and social justice can be promoted; while choosing not to teach critical
thinking is in itself a political decision that may have the consequences of “unquestioning
acceptance of prevailing conditions, limiting possibilities for dissent and change” (p.579).
Benesch also reminds us that students are not passive receptors of culture, but have agency and
actively shape their realities. Related to this concept of agency is Kubota’s (1999) criticism of
the essentialist, deterministic, dichotomous West-Other representations of Japanese culture and
learners she says can be found in, amongst others, the Atkinson text referenced above. She warns
against constructing Japanese EFL learners as a fixed group who do not possess and will
struggle, or not be able, to develop, critical thinking skills. To Kubota, who advocates a critical
multiculturalism approach to language education, with social transformation as a goal, a good
teacher must “set high standards, (and) challenge all learners by pushing them to think” (1999,
p.29).
Davidson and Dunham’s (1996) study, using the Ennis-Weir Critical Thinking Essay Test,
found that Japanese college students who received training in critical thinking in addition to
content-based English instruction outperformed a control group who only received the latter
instruction. The results indicate that critical thinking skills can be both taught as part of
academic ESL/EFL classes, and beneficial. The pressing question is what other ways there might
be to faciliate the development and practice of critical thinking skills in the classroom. While not
concrete research, Benesch (1999, p.577-578) describes a discussion she facilitated as part of an
English for Academic Purposes class, offering a useful model for developing critical thinking
skills. She had the students talk about the then recent hate crime in which an openly gay
university student was murdered in Laramie, America. Benesch played the role of both
conversation facilitator and, where necessary, intervener – asking the students to question the
6
This understanding of critical thinking, in combination with the above nine traits identified by Birjandi and
Bagherkazemi (2010), will be used as a broad definition for the purpose of this paper.
7
The title of this paper is a response to the quote from Atkinson (1998) above.
79
assumption of which many of their contributions to the discussion seemed to be based, and
challenging them to consider the social origins of their fears as well as alternatives to violent
ways of dealing with such fears. Here we see the use of strategic questions to encourage students
to reconsider their assumptions.
Halvorsen (2005) notes that discussion questions in ESL/EFL classes are often simply
used as tools, or even seen as hurdles that teachers and students need to overcome in order to get
to the next chapter or pass the course. He (Halvorsen, 2005, para.9 )writes:
“It is much easier of course, if the questions just pass by with the students simply
regurgitating some information from a reading … but think about the long-term
message this sends to our students. We are telling them, in effect, that the content is not
really of any importance.”
He then suggests three classroom techniques to improve interaction with the texts and
subsequent discussions: debate, media analysis and problem solving. Elements of each can be
applied to English discussion classes. Halvorsen encourages teachers to consider bias and
different viewpoints, and this can be done in class through the use of well-timed questions and
harnessing function phrases. The function phrases included in the set textbook (Doe, Hurling,
Kamada, Livingston, Moroi & Takayama, 2014) for English Discussion Class at Rikkyo
University lend themselves to this well, helping students to delineate their opinions, provide
supporting reasons and examples and consider various sides to situations. The question forms of
these functions, as well as the inclusion of follow-up questions as a graded communication skill
in the course, can also promote critical thinking, if used correctly and effectively. Further, the
strategic use of Socratic questioning (Paul and Elder, 2006) can also help learners to
investigate assumptions and consider alternative viewpoints. Kabilan (2000) urges teachers to
pose questions to students while strongly encouraging them to ask questions of their own. He
cautions against underestimating the capabilities of one’s students. At the same time, when
planning activities it is important to keep in mind the English language proficiency of the
learners. Zainuddin (2003) reminds teachers interested in fostering critical thinking skills in their
ESL/EFL classes of the need to use language that is manageable for their students, or they may
not be able to focus on abstract concepts and higher levels of reasoning. Zainuddin also
emphasises that students must be reminded that disagreement does not equate to a personal
attack.
Function phrases, questions and disagreement have great potential as tools for critical
thinking and meaningful discussions, but they are often misused by students; tossed around
almost randomly, with little regard for the content that follows the tag phrases. Davidson and
Dunham (1996, p. 14) caution that students who have a basic understanding of rhetorical modes
such as definition, illustration and argumentation may accept ideas that are lacking in strength
and logic simply because they are presented in a proper, learned format. Weak, unsubstantiated
opinions may seem to be the opposite purely because of correct use of the functions. This is
where the supplementation of argument mapping can be useful. Van Gelder (2005) explains how
cognitive science demonstrates that students’ critical thinking skills improve quicker with the
sue of argument mapping; put very simply, it is an activity where reasons for opinions are laid
out diagrammatically. Argument mapping is something that can be done quickly on the board,
verbally or on paper. It comprises one of the activities I have employed to bolster critical
thinking skills in discussion classes; I detail how below.
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Carey Finn
ACTIVITIES: OVERVIEW AND PROCEDURE

After considering the above literature, research and ideas, I devised a simple three-pronged
approach for developing critical thinking skills in discussion classes. Each aspect is outlined
below.
Distinguishing Discussion from Conversation

The first “prong” needs to be done once at the beginning of the course (in the first lesson) and
possibly 1-2 more times towards the middle and end sections of the course (to remind students).
It is a short talk about the major differences between a conversation and discussion (formality,
depth, structure); this can be phrased as a question and completed as a pair activity, or a
teacher-fronted approach can be taken. Alternatively, students can compare a pre-recorded or
printed conversation and discussion to identify the differences. The goal is to ensure students
understand that discussion class requires better use of logic and more formal, structured
presentation of ideas than a mere chat in English with friends.
Argument Mapping
The second “prong” is the use of the aforementioned argument mapping to guide students to
comprehension of structural and logical flaws in their arguments. This is most easily done in a
teacher-centred way, as post-discussion feedback, with the instructor either verbally or visually
quickly going through the students’ main opinion(s), supporting reasons and examples, drawing
attention to problematic elements. Misuse of set function phrases can be addressed while going
through the argument map. However, in keeping with principles of learner autonomy, rather than
explaining directly, issues of logic should be reflected back to the students for consideration
through pair talk. Visually, a simple argument map might look something like this:
Further
Opinion Reason
Reasons/Examples
Figure 1.1. Standard argument map.
Using a hypothetical example to illustrate the use of argument mapping in feedback, after a
discussion on the topic, “Is Japan eco-friendly?” one of the students’ common ideas or threads
from the discussion could be summarised verbally or written on the board, like this:
And many Japanese

Yes, Japan is eco- It's mainly because
people recycle PET bottle
friendly. Japan has "Cool Biz".
caps.
Figure 1.2. Standard argument map with specific examples.
The instructor could begin by pointing out missing function phrases (for example an opinion
marker, a second reason marker). They could then pose one or two questions to the students:
“Why is “Cool Biz” eco friendly?” Or perhaps “Is Cool Biz really eco friendly?” to consider
whether the dress code might merely be an example of ineffective greenwashing. Another
possible question could be, “Are there any environmental problems with using PET bottles?” or
for more advanced learners, “Do the benefits of recycling PET bottle caps outweigh the negative
impact of using PET bottles?” The questions can be simplified and tailored to the level of each
class. Students could discuss the questions with partners for 2-3 minutes, with the instructor
81
acknowledging their ideas when the time is up, and then guiding the class on to the next activity.
The argument mapping activity can also be done by the students themselves (with the instructor
taking a hands-off approach), as post-discussion feedback or even as a preparation activity,
where they would use a print-out like the above to structure their opinions, reasons and examples.
Students can be asked to critically reflect on their discussions by looking at the maps and talking
in pairs about the strengths of their arguments.
Strategic Questions
Challenging the students with provocative questions outside of the argument mapping activitiy is
the third “prong”. The instructor themselves can ask and promote the asking of short, powerful
questions like “Why?” and, drawing on Kabilan’s (2000) suggestions, “How did you decide your
opinion?” and “How do you know that is/you are correct?” “Why?” is a simple question that
students of all profiency levels can ask, and is undeniably one of the core questions in critical
thinking. The other questions need to be adjusted according to the level of each class, but can be
used, in basic forms, to prompt students to continue talking if they announce that their
discussion is “finished”. These questions can also be printed out as posters and stuck up in the
classroom, allowing the instructor to remind the students in a non-invasive way, simply by
pointing at the papers.
The activities in the three-pronged approach do not generally require the preparation of
any specific materials; it is sufficient if instructors preview the texts provided to students for
discussion preparation and highlight areas where logical fallacies look like they can be
anticipated. Used regularly and efficiently, the activities can help to develop critical thinking
skills in classes, making for more meaningful and engaging discussions. I describe my
experiences below.
DISCUSSION
I used the three-pronged approach over the course of the university’s second semester in 2014.
To begin with, as part of the course introduction in the first lesson, I provided a 3-4 minute
teacher-fronted explanation of the key differences between a conversation and discussion to all
classes. I pointed out that conversation is typically more casual and less structured than
discussion, and the topics tend to be less serious; discussion, on the other hand, is more formal,
structured and serious, requiring clear reasoning and explanation thereof. For classes with lower
level comprenhension skills, I restricted my focus to the casual versus formal distinction; while
simplistic, it did seem to get the point across.
I reminded several classes once or twice during the course when discussions deteriorated
into casual chats that did not answer the set questions. I always did this as teacher-fronted
post-discussion feedback. When reminded, students nodded and laughed, indicating that they
understood and were aware that they had not been meeting expectations. In the final lesson
students were allowed to select their own topics for one of the discussions; while they were
writing their ideas down I reminded them once again that what they were about to do was a
discussion and not a casual conversation and urged them to choose appropriate topics. Students
who had expressed interest in talking about such generic, broad topics as hobbies, food and
university clubs quickly changed their choices to things like weighing up whether it is better to
join a university club or circle, by considering the respective advantages and disadvantages of
each; others suggested pertinent, complex topics such as whether it is okay to continue eating
tuna and eel (the marine stocks of both of which are in danger of collapse), the proposed
increase of Japan’s consumption tax to 10 percent, the Japanese education system, the future of
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Carey Finn
North Korea, and whether or not God exists. Although the students generally lacked the
vocabulary to sustain such discussions, their topic selection and concerted efforts to talk about
them indicates that they had a good understanding of what constitutes a discussion, and that the
first prong had been effective.
I used the second prong, argument mapping, as and when the opportunity to do so arose
(and time allowed for it). I introduced it in the third lesson, the theme of which was studying
abroad, not as post-discussion feedback but as feedback on the preparation activity for the
second discussion. The students were asked to express whether they agreed or disagreed with
four opinions on studying abroad from the textbook; one of these opinions opposed studying
abroad on the grounds that there was no time to relax. All of the students unquestioningly and
unfailingly agreed with this. I did a quick verbal map of their argument (which was exactly the
same as the textbook’s) and asked them to to consider whether studying abroad literally meant
studying every minute of the day for the entire duration of the stay. They spoke about it for a
minute, some of them changing their stance. In the following lessons I used argument mapping
as post-discussion feedback 1-3 times per class (of students), minimising my use thereof for the
lowest level classes, where increased effort in ensuring topic comprehension meant tighter time
constraints. I found that the latter topics of the course – specifically the death penalty and gender
equality - lent themselves better to the argument mapping feedback activity. In a discussion on
an appropriate punishment for a fictitious elderly woman who had repeatedly shoplifted food
from a supermarket, the majority of students elected to send her to prison, because she would
have access to food and shelter there. After the discussions, I asked them to talk in pairs about
whether using this logic meant that all poor people ought to be imprisoned. They could not
answer in the affirmative. In discussions on gender equality, many male students took issue with
the fact that some train lines set aside a carriage for female commuters during rush hours,
repeatedly citing this as an example of inequality and discrimination against men in Japan. I
asked them to discuss the advantages and disadvantages (prescribed functions) of this system, as
well as the reasons behind its existence, in pairs and they soon admitted that not only was it
necessary, but a reaction to more serious problems and threats facing women in day to day life.
For the third prong, I focused on the question, “Why?” taking every opportunity to
prompt students to ask their partners (and sometimes intervening and asking it directly myself in
the case of prolonged silences) during preparation activities for the discussions. At first, many
students would seem to perplexed and say that they had no reason for their idea (despite the
asking for and giving of reasons being a major focus of the first semester course). However,
some students soon picked up on my endless repetition of the question and declarations that
there was always a reason; these students would then imitate me and insist on reasons from their
partners. As the semester progressed, I found myself needing to prompt or intervene less and less
frequently.
Reflecting on the students’ progress over the course of the second semester, it would
appear that the three-pronged critical thinking activity had a positive impact, albeit a small one,
on the performance of the students in the discussion classes. However, their improvements in
reasoning and discussion could be attributed to their other courses and the general expected
intellectual growth of the students as they progress through their university education. Further
observation and research is needed to make any sort of conclusive statements about the efficacy
of the activities.
CONCLUSION
In this paper, I have presented arguments for the fostering of critical thinking skills in EFL
83
classes, outlining the limited literature that exists on the topic, as well as various language
practitioners’ suggestions for classroom activities. I have detailed a three-faceted activity plan to
promote critical thinking skills and meaningful engagement and exchanges in English discussion
classes. The activities have proven to be successful where I used them over a 14-week freshman
English discussion course. Based on my own informal observations, they had a positive impact
on the depth, logic and meaningfulness of student discussions. However, it is difficult to
objectively evaluate the success of the critical thinking activities. In order to strengthen this
study, it will be necessary to employ more formal, accurate means of measurement. To this end,
students could be asked to complete a survey in English and/or Japanese at the end of certain
lessons or at the course, sharing their impressions on the critical thinking activities and the
impact thereof on their thinking. Another option could be to use the critical thinking activities in
all of the classes (of students) but one or two, creating a control group of sorts. Ideally, though
somewhat of a gargantuan task, discussions before and after the activities could be recorded for
each class (including the control groups), and analysed with the help of colleagues. Such
assessments may be undertaken in future semesters.
REFERENCES
Atkinson, D. (1997). A Critical Approach to Critical Thinking in TESOL. TESOL Quarterly,
31(1), 71-94.
Atkinson, D. (1998). Comments on Dwight Atkinson’s “A Critical Approach to Critical
Thinking in TESOL”: The author responds … TESOL Quarterly, 32,(1) 133-137.
Benesch, S. (1999). Thinking Critically, Thinking Dialogically. TESOL Quarterly, 33(3), 573
580. doi: 10.2307/3587682.
Birjandi, P. and Bagherkazemi, M. (2010). The Relationship between Iranian EFL Teachers’
Critical Thinking Ability and their Professional Success. English Language Teaching
3(2). Retrieved from
http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/elt/article/view/6255/5022.
Brown, H.D. (2007). Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy.
Third Edition. White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.
Crookes, G. and Lehner, A. (1998). Aspects of Process in an ESL Critical Pedagogy Teacher
Education Course. TESOL Quarterly, 32(2), 319-328.
Davidson, B.W. and Dunham, R. (1996). Assessing EFL student progress in critical thinking
with the Ennis-Weir Critical Thinking Essay Test. Paper presented at the Annual
International Conference of the Japan Association for Language Teaching, Nagoya,
Japan. Retrieved from files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED403302.pdf.
Davidson, B.W. (1998). A Case for Critical Thinking in the English Language Classroom.
TESOL Quarterly, 32(1), 119-123. doi: 10.2307/3587906.
Doe, T. Hurling, S. Kamada, Y. Livingston, M. Moroi, T. and Takayama, I. (2014) What Do
You Think? Interactive Skills for Effective Discussion. 5th Edition. Tokyo: Center for
English Discussion, Rikkyo University.
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Courses. The Internet TESL Journal, 11(3). Retrieved from:
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Kabilan, M.K. (2000). Creative and Critical Thinking in Language Classrooms. The Internet
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Kubota, R. (1999). Japanese Culture Constructed by Discourses: Implications for Applied
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Linguistics Research and ELT. TESOL Quarterly, 33(1), 9-35.

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Richards, J.C. (1996). Teachers’ Maxims in Language Teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 30(2), 281
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Controversila.html.
85
An Activity to Increase Willingness to Communicate through
the Collaborative Negotiation of Meaning
Jeff Holtzkener
ABSTRACT
The following paper introduces an activity intended to increase Willingness to Communicate by
encouraging students to rely on the collective communicative competence of the group through
collaborative negotiation of meaning when communicating their ideas. Students both gain
experience and insight into the process of negotiation of meaning in a group context, and practice
facilitating the understanding of a speaker's idea for the benefit of other listeners. The relationship
between WTC and state-communicative self-confidence is explored. The activity is explained in
depth and some of its potential benefits and weaknesses are described.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Willingness to Communicate (WTC) is a fundamental concept for the English Discussion Class
(EDC) classroom; it is both an important goal of the program and a prerequisite for developing
language communication skills. This is true both for the learners themselves and in the sense that a
student’s WTC provides their classmates with opportunities to develop their skills. One key factor
that affects whether students will or will not speak is the potential speaker's estimation of how
likely it is that their idea will be understood. If they think it unlikely, they will be less likely to
speak. When discussion groups are in the habit of facilitating each other’s understanding through
the collaborative negotiation of meaning, i.e., one listener explaining a speaker's idea to another
listener, they can leverage the collective communicative competence of the group and in this way
increase their confidence that their ideas can be understood, thus increasing their WTC.
MacIntyre, Dornyei, Clement and Noels (1998) broadly define WTC as “readiness to enter
into discourse at a particular time with a specific person or persons using a L2” (p. 547) and
provide a widely used heuristic model that describes various factors that contribute to WTC and
how these factors interact with and impact upon each other. The MacIntyre et al. model builds on
McCroskey and Richmond's (1991) earlier work which presented WTC as a trait-like quality,
similar to an aspect of a person’s personality. In contrast, MacIntyre et al. present a situated model,
which takes into consideration trait-like WTC, but expands it to consider how an individual might
behave in a specific situation. MacIntyre et al. present their model as a six-layer pyramid, with
each level influencing the level above. The bottom three layers address relatively stable trait-like
characteristics such as personality, intergroup attitudes, communicative competence and crucially
L2 self-confidence, while the top three layers address more situational factors, which can vary
from moment to moment, and most crucially for our purposes 'State Communicative
Self-Confidence'. State Communicative Self-Confidence largely depends on 'state perceived
confidence' which they define as “the feeling that one has the capacity to communicate effectively
at a particular moment. It would arise when one is in a situation that has been encountered
previously, provided that one has developed language knowledge and skills.” (p. 549). Along with
the desire to interact with a specific person at a specific time, they describe state self-confidence as
“the most immediate determinants of WTC”(p. 549).
How does this play out in the EDC classroom? Imagine a student engaged in a typical class
discussion. Let's assume that the student is at least somewhat interested in the topic and has her or
his own ideas that they want to communicate. At any given moment the student has a choice to
speak or remain silent; if the student has a low estimation of their communicative abilities (i.e.,
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Jeff Holtzkener
they don't feel confident in their ability to make their idea understood), we would expect that that
student would be less likely to choose to speak. When a student is directly questioned, remaining
silent is perhaps not a viable option. Here, the student's choice might be between providing the
minimally acceptable response 'I agree' - or giving a more involved response. Again, the student's
estimation of whether or not their idea will be understood will play a significant role in this choice.
A useful insight in the MacIntyre et al. (1998) model is that this estimation of self-ability is
not fixed, but depends on the situation. In a second language classroom, a crucial part of that
situation is the classroom environment in general, and in the case of EDC more specifically, the
group currently engaged in the discussion. We should keep in mind the extent to which
communication is an inherently collaborative process that is distributed throughout a group of
participating communicators, not merely a speech act on the part of the speaker. That is, successful
communication does not depend merely on how the speaker articulates her or his idea, but on what
the group understands in the interaction between the speaker and the group. The group’s
communicative competence is a crucial factor here, both in their abilities as listeners and
especially their willingness to negotiate meaning when necessary. This is something that, in
their anxiety about communicating successfully, the students as speakers might not be taking into
consideration. Many students naturally assume that the burden of successfully communicating
their idea lies with them as speakers. This can be seen frequently in situations when speakers will
apologize to their group if their group fails to understand their idea - even if their ideas were very
clearly and appropriately articulated. Helping students understand how the responsibility for
successful communication is, in fact, distributed throughout the group, should both lower the
speaker's anxiety and increase the likelihood of successfully conveying their idea by making use
of the group’s collective abilities. Knowing how to work well in a group, and make use of the extra
communicative resources that the group communicative situation pools together can help the
students on many levels. As Fushino (2010) states:
Communication apprehension in L2 group work and self-perceived communicative
competence in L2 group work can change as students experience L2 group work. If
students become more confident in L2 group work, their increased confidence will
presumably make them more willing to engage in L2 group work. (pp. 703-704)
Negotiation of meaning (NoM) is at the heart of constructing meaning in a group context.

Regardless of where problems occur within the discourse, e.g., the speaker might mispronounce a
word, or choose an incorrect word, or perhaps use a word or idiom that some of the listeners do not
know; the speaker's idea might be highly unconventional, complex or unintuitive; or perhaps there
is street construction work going on outside the classroom: NoM is the process by which problems
in communication can be repaired and overcome.
While all EDC students are routinely encouraged to use NoM to repair breakdown in
communication (and 4 of 7 of the affective goals of EDC listed in Hurling (2012) directly relate to
NoM), there is significant variety in the ways that students make use of NoM. Most students can
easily use phrases such as ‘Do you understand?’ and ‘I understand’. Although these phrases can be
important for facilitating the discussion, it is not rare for some students to use a phrase like ‘I
understand’ or ‘maybe I understand’ in situations when it seems unlikely that they do indeed
understand. In such a situation they might be using a NoM phrase precisely to avoid engaging in
genuine NoM. In such situations, I would suggest that students feel little confidence in the process
of NoM, or that they feel it unlikely that the value of understanding a classmate’s idea would be
worth the effort of trying to understand the idea. In such an environment, students would be
hesitant to try and share complicated ideas.
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And yet NoM has amazing potential as a communicative tool. When speakers are having
difficulty expressing their ideas and their classmates make use of NoM strategies such as using
paraphrasing to concept-check or asking for examples to clarify ideas, the speakers are essentially
leveraging the communicative competence of their group to get their idea across. As instructors
we often witness students who become highly frustrated trying to repeatedly explain an idea when
one or more listeners fail to understand. Once a speaker is fixated on one particular mode of
explanation, it becomes very difficult to see how easily an explanation might be found by
changing modes. Listeners in the group can often make these lateral jumps with much more ease
than the original speaker. And when a group is primed to pool their communicative competence,
they will have a greater chance of being able to communicate their ideas.
Returning to the model of WTC, we can easily see that this increased confidence in the
group’s collaborative NoM capacity can translate into a boosted State Communicative
Self-Confidence. Individual group members become familiar with and gain experience in
expressing their ideas to a group with their group’s facilitation. They know that, in this situation,
they can leverage the communicative competence of their group. The speaker will feel that they
have a greater chance of communicating their idea - or similarly a greater chance of
communicating a complex or particularly hard to communicate idea - and will be more likely to
take the risk to do so.
The activity which follows attempts to increase State Communicative Self-Confidence in
two ways: it both gives students an opportunity to practice in the role of facilitator, gaining
experience and developing strategies to help explain others' ideas, and gives groups a chance to
practice and experiment with collaborative negotiation of meaning, understanding how the burden
of communication can be distributing among the group as a whole, hopefully building confidence
(and increasing WTC) through this experience.
TASKS AND MATERIALS

There are two versions of the activity, referred to here as Stage 1 and Stage 2. Samples of Stage 1
cards can be found in the appendix. The activity is used three times in total, each with a set of
(approximately) 8 cards. The first time only Stage 1 cards are used. The second time, the first half
of the cards are Stage 1 and the second half are Stage 2. The final time the activity is conducted,
only Stage 2 cards are used. The cards should be laminated and care should be taken to make sure
that the target phrase cannot be seen from the back of the card when the card is held up (I attached
a post-it note to the back of the cards before lamination so that the cards could not be seen
through).
PROCEDURE
Conducting the activity
First, Stage 1 will be described in depth; a description of how Stage 2 differs will follow.
Students are put into groups. Ideally, each group would have three members (different
group sizes are discussed in the section on variations.) Each group is given a set of 8 cards, and
each student has a role: A (the speaker), B (the facilitator) and C (the listener). A and B take one
card and look at it together. The card is hidden from C. The card contains three sections. At the top
(printed in red) is the target word that C must guess. The next section contains a short script for A
to read. The target phrase in this script is replaced by the phrase blah-blah-blah (also printed in
red). The third section contains a paraphrasing prompt, followed by B’s script. C then must use a
paraphrasing function phrase and guess the target. If C is unable to give the target phrase, both A
and B should provide additional hints. The exchange might proceed as follows:
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(TWITTER is the target)

A: I often send my friends messages on blah-blah-blah. Do you follow me? (read from script)
B: In other words, the social networking service that can send short messages? (read from
script)
C: Do you mean Line?
B: No, he means the app with the bird
C: Oh, you mean Twitter?
For the next card, the roles are rotated: B becomes A, C becomes B, A becomes C.
In the Stage 2 version of the activity, the card structure is identical except that B’s section does not
contain a script, only a paraphrasing prompt. In this version of the activity B (with A’s help) must
provide paraphrases and/or examples that allow C to guess the target phrase. Again, B and A can
revise their explanations in response to the guesses that C makes.
(ONE PIECE is the target)

A: I love to read blah-blah-blah. Do you understand? (read from script)
B: Do you mean. . . (read from script) the famous story about pirates? (not read from script)
C: Do you mean Pirates of the Caribbean?
A or B: No, it's the comic with Luffy
C: Oh, you mean One Piece?
Introducing the Activity in Lessons 6, 8 and 12

The activity is used in Fall Semester Lesson 6 (Paraphrasing - Stage 1 only), Lesson 8 (Review
lesson, as a review of paraphrasing - Stages 1 and 2), and Lesson 12 (Review Lesson, as a review
of Checking Understanding, Stage 2 only). Groundwork for the activity is set in Lesson 1 with the
widely used Checking Understanding practice activity in which students read sentences like “My
hometown is blah-blah-blah” or “My favourite food is blah-blah-blah” and they practice using
phases such as “Sorry, I don’t understand”. This prepares the student to think of “blah-blah-blah”
as a nonsense placeholder used to substitute for another word.
The activity is first introduced in lesson 6, as a practice for the paraphrasing function. The
introduction could be done as follows: Students at each table are given a set of 8 cards. One group
is chosen as the model. The order of cards is not important here except that the top card (the card
used to model the activity) should be the same for each group. For the group that is not modelling
the activity, the instructor turns over the top card so that all members at the table can see it, and the
instructor points to the target phrase to draw their attention to this word.
With the group that is modelling the activity, the instructor assigns one student as A, their
neighbour as B, and asks the remaining one or two students to listen carefully. The instructor gives
the card to A and B in a way that indicates that remaining students should not see the card. A is
instructed to read A’s script, B reads B’s script, and the remaining students are guided to use the
paraphrasing function phrases written on the whiteboard. Usually, once the remaining students
understood what was expected of them, A and B had to repeat their lines, but I had no problems
getting any of the classes to understand the task. If C has trouble getting the target phrase, then the
instructor encourages A and B to provide more information. If they are unable to do so, the
instructor could provide a model, as if the instructor were B. After the target is correctly guessed,
the instructor assigns a new A and B in a way that indicates that the roles will rotate. The instructor
goes over to the other group(s) and makes sure that they understand what has happened and get
them started with the next card. The activity continues until one of the groups has finished all of
89
their cards.
In Lesson 8, as a review of the paraphrasing function, the cards are re-introduced. The
activity is modelled again precisely as in Lesson 6. Once again the top card in the pile should be
the same for each group. The difference in lesson 8 is that the top 4 cards are for the Stage 1
version of the activity, and the bottom 4 cards are for the Stage 2 version of the activity, i.e., there
is no script for B; B must use her or his own ideas to communicate the target to the listeners. It
was not necessary to warn the students that the cards would change half way through. When the
first card with no script was encountered, most students intuitively understood how to proceed.
Some needed to be prompted to provide their own hints to the listener.
In Lesson 12, the activity is again modelled, but this time with the Stage 2 version, so it is
important for the instructor to select a B who is likely capable of providing a good paraphrase or
example to communicate the target.
VARIATIONS
The activity is ideally suited for a group of three, but also works well in groups of four. In the case
of groups of four, two students act as listeners. Having two students trying to guess the target
phrase allows them to share the burden of the task; distributing the burden of communication is
one of the main goals of the activity, so in this sense, a group of four has definite advantages. But
in the case of the Stage 2 activity, groups of four mean that students have fewer opportunities to
take role B, the facilitator. Classes with five students do pose a problem. In these cases, two
approaches could be taken. One possibility is that the group could be set up as a single group of
five, with three students guessing the target. The other possibility is that there could be one group
of three and another group of two with the instructor taking the A role each time and the two
students alternating between B and listener. The main disadvantage here is that it becomes very
difficult for the instructor to monitor and intervene in the group of three without abandoning the
group of two. But overall, this solution seems preferable to the single group of five.
The primary variation natural for this activity are the two stages described above, namely
Stage 1 when the burden is primarily on the listeners to guess the target phrase, and Stage 2 when
there is a strong burden on B to provide the initial hint to the listeners for guessing. The difference
in the level of difficulty between the two tasks is substantial, especially if A is not providing
additional input beyond their script or if B has trouble understanding some crucial vocabulary, or
is generally finding it difficult to provide a helpful hint. The focus of the two variants is also
different. In Stage 1, the roles of A and B are largely mechanical if they do not choose to provide
further hints to the listener in response to the listener’s guesses (in cases when the listener guesses
easily, providing extra hints is unnecessary, but hints become helpful if the listener cannot guess).
In Stage 2, much more is expected of B, and the group will find it very hard to proceed if B is
unable to offer helpful paraphrases or examples. For groups in which the Stage 2 activity might
prove too difficult, the Stage 1 version could still be used later in the term.
Another possible variation to scaffold the difficulty of the second Stage is to provide some
suggestions or cues for B on the bottom section of the Stage 2 cards. I did experiment with such
cards in a few groups, but for some students it proved confusing. Since the Stage 1 version had B
initially reading the material in the B section, it was difficult to convey that these suggestions were
cues to help B think of a way to explain the target to the listener rather than just more material to be
read directly. In the cases where a concept could best be communicated by means of an example,
the card might contain the additional cue “Do you mean. . . for example. . . ", which would be
unlikely to add confusion.
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DISCUSSION
In observing how the different classes handled the activity, there was one very salient detail that
came through, namely, that there did not seem to be a strong connection between the English level
of the group (as measured in the TOEIC IP placement test) and the group’s ability to smoothly
perform the activity. These observations are basically subjective, as the groups were not being
measured or timed, but one of the groups that was most successful with the activity was an
extremely low level 4 class (TOEIC placement scores were between 155 and 190). In contrast, two
of my high level 2 groups found the activity extremely challenging. In the low level 4, the
behaviour that the activity is attempting to develop, i.e., reliance on the group to facilitate
communication was a regular characteristic of the group. They very much needed each other’s
assistance to communicate, they appreciated receiving each other’s help, and the students who
excelled at providing support seemed to enjoy doing so. Thus it was entirely natural for them to
collaboratively negotiate meaning, as one or two of them would have been entirely left behind if
the stronger members of the group did not try to facilitate. When they did the activity, they
naturally built on each other’s ideas and worked together very smoothly. When B had difficulty, A
would almost always try to assist.
In other groups, even relatively high level groups, the person in B’s role sometimes became
completely at a loss for an idea, and if A did not come to their assistance, the activity would
essentially come to a standstill. In the time allotted for the activity, where some groups might
successfully complete six or seven cards at Stage 2, these groups that had difficulty would
complete only one or two (and these sometimes only with instructor assistance). Thus the groups
who were most in need of developing the skills at issue here were, in reality, the groups who were
likely getting the fewest opportunities to practice these skills in the context of the activity. If there
was more time available then this perhaps might have been overcome, i.e., some breakthrough
moment might have occurred. But there are many things that need to be focused on in the EDC
class, and as important as this behaviour is, it can’t be practised to the exclusion of the more
immediate classroom goals. And like many of the behaviours that we hope to see in the language
classroom, students will not adopt them unless they want to. Realistically, if the students are
unmotivated or uninterested, this activity is unlikely to suddenly motivate them. Intergroup
attitude and group cohesion are also significant factors here. Some students are much more
inclined to help their classmates and gain satisfaction from providing support, while other students
simply want to get through the class. For some groups it seemed to be acceptable to move on to a
new topic even if only one or two members understood a speaker’s idea, while in other groups it
would only be possible to move on if all members made it clear that they understood. The activity
has the potential to spark the realization of how the students can help each other through NoM, but
whether this happens or not depends significantly on the student's attitude and relationship with
fellow group members.
Here are some additional key benefits and weak points that became clear to me in conducting the
activity:
Benefits and positive outcomes

The activity worked well as an introduction to paraphrasing. The activity was effective as a first
practice activity for the lesson 6 function of paraphrasing. The Stage 1 version of the activity gave
a number of models and examples demonstrating how to construct a paraphrase, and at the same
time provided purely form-focused practice for checking understand and using the paraphrasing
function phrases. The paraphrasing lesson is great opportunity to encourage students to think
about how they engage in NoM.
91
There were a few classes that clearly took this notion of teamwork and mutual support to
heart. There were some students in these classes that very clearly grasped the behaviour that the
activity was trying to promote. These students would routinely try to facilitate when another
student had problems communicating their ideas. They would often change the paraphrasing
function phrase slightly to indicate they were trying to facilitate (e.g., 'I think she means. . . ' or 'I
think what he's saying is. . . '). Once they instigated this behaviour in a discussion, other group
members seemed more inclined to collaborate in their NoM. This is precisely the behaviour that
was encouraged by the activity, and it did occur more frequently in the later part of the term after
the activity was introduced. But I strongly encouraged this behaviour in other ways too and often
singled out examples of collaborative NoM from discussions during feedback, so it is not clear
how much of a role the activity played in encouraging this behaviour. At the very least, the activity
put this idea of the facilitator into context and gave many students a chance to try acting as
facilitator.
Another potential benefit of this activity is that it allows students a chance to focus on and
practice group-dynamic behaviour outside of the discussions. The activity provided concrete
practice on how to handle communication breakdown as it might actually occur in a group
discussion. Most of the form-focused practice that is done in the EDC classroom is done in pairs,
and the kinds of breakdown that occur in dyads are different than those that occur in groups. In a
dyad, it is clear that the single listener must work to repair a breakdown. In a group, because there
are multiple listeners, breakdowns often persist awkwardly with no one actively working to repair
them. Situations when a group decides to move on to a new topic after a speaker shares an idea that
some - but not all - listeners have understood is likely to be demotivating for the speaker. The
activity provides students with a model for how to proceed in that situation.
Weaknesses and Drawbacks

The major weakness of the activity is that the Stage 2 version can be highly time-consuming.
Small glitches, such as misreading a word in A's script sometimes caused extended problems that
took a long time to resolve (at minimum, they often needed to restart the turn). And in general,
NoM can be a time-consuming activity, even when it is going well. It necessarily involves, as the
term 'negotiation' suggests, a certain amount of back and forth. The speaker and facilitator often
need to understand why a listener has misunderstood their hints in order to provide a clearer
explanation. It is very difficult to predict how long it will take to resolve breakdowns. The
experience of going through these extended NoM sessions is beneficial for the students much of
the time. In these situations students can get a clearer sense of what causes misunderstanding and
can develop strategies such as knowing when using an example will be more helpful than an
explanation. But these extended breakdown resolutions are generally opportune only when they
occur in regular extended discussions (i.e., when students can take the time necessary to work
through the problem without pressure).
Another problem that became apparent when trying out the activity is that it crucially
requires the engaged participation of at least the facilitator and listener. In particular, in the Stage 2
version of the activity, if either the facilitator or the listener is not engaged in their task or is
finding it too difficult, the activity grinds to a halt for the entire group. When the activity could not
be accomplished smoothly, it might have created a negative association with NoM. Students might
come to find it difficult, frustrating, and bothersome - and of course this undermines the intention
of the activity. In any case, there were some groups that did not seem to benefit from the activity.
Finally, the nature the behaviour the activity has the intention of encouraging makes it very
difficult to judge the effectiveness of the activity. Firstly, even if we could objectively identify and
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Jeff Holtzkener
quantify instances of collaborative NoM (e.g., as NoM involving more than 2 participants, or
perhaps a member paraphrasing after implying or making it clear that they understood the idea),
what we really want to know is not just how often they use collaborative NoM, but how regularly
they use it in situations to help classmates who are having difficulty. The need for it does not
necessarily arise in every single discussion, but rather in situations when it is clear that one or
more listeners are unable to understand the speaker's idea, but one or more listeners at least
partially understands it. If a discussion group makes use of this collaborative strategy perhaps
twice in a sixteen minute discussion, I would generally characterize that group as being good at
using collaborative NoM. But there could be other discussions with the same participants when
these kinds of breakdowns don't occur and so collaborative NoM would not be necessary. Despite
this, the fact that the situation might occur two or fewer times in a sixteen minute discussion does
not diminish its importance. I am postulating that WTC will increase merely from knowing that
the group will help when a problem occurs.. But this low frequency occurrence makes it virtually
impossible to collect data. To further complicate this, the behaviour is also being encouraged by
other means such as positive reinforcement in post-discussion feedback, and it is likely the
combination of these factors that convinces students that facilitating other students is a helpful and
effective strategy. I cannot see a realistic way of meaningfully assessing the impact of the activity
independently.
CONCLUSION
After conducting this activity with 13 classes and observing changes in behaviour related to how
these groups used NoM, I am quite convinced that for many students, the confidence that members
of their group will come to their assistance if they are having difficulty expressing or
understanding ideas does translate into an increase in WTC. On the other hand, I am not sure that
the activity outlined above will necessarily lead to an increase in the confidence that their group
will assist them. It is not a one-size-fits-all solution. In some cases, it might have benefited the
group, and in particular, members of the group with low WTC who had classmates that frequently
came to act as facilitators. At the same time there were other groups for whom the activity
repeatedly came to a standstill, and it was clear that it provided little or no benefit. On the basis of
these observations, it seems that the activity might be most effectively employed selectively.
Nevertheless, it would be hard to determine beforehand which classes would be most likely to
benefit from it. Certainly there was at least one class where I predicted the activity to be helpful,
but the group seemed effectively unable to proceed smoothly through the activity. And since the
time that the activity takes is largely dependent on how smoothly the activity proceeds, one must
be judicious in determining how much time to spend trying out the activity, especially if it doesn't
seem to be going well. One strategy would be to try the activity with all classes once, and
eliminate the groups who either do not seem to need extra practice on this front, as well as those
groups who do not seem to be able to proceed smoothly with activity.
REFERENCES
Fushino, K. (2010). Causal Relationships Between Communication Confidence, Beliefs About
Group Work, and Willingness to Communicate in Foreign Language Group Work TESOL
Quarterly 44(4) 700-724.
Hurling, S. (2012). Introduction to EDC. In Doe, T., Hurling, S., Livingston, M., Moroi, T., (Eds.),
New Direction in teaching and learning English discussion. Tokyo: EDC.
MacIntyre, P. D., Dornyei, Z., Clement, R., & Noels, K. A. (1998). Conceptualizing willingness to
communicate in a L2: A situational model of L2 confidence and affiliation. The Modern
93
Language Journal, 82 (4), 545-562.

McCroskey, J.C. And Richmond V.P. (1991). Willingness to communicate: A cognitive view. In M.
Booth-Butterfield (ed.), Communication, Cognition, and Anxiety (p.19-37). Newbury
Park, CA: Sage.
APPENDIX A - Two Example of Stage 1 Cards
DANGEROUS TWITTER
A: I think that New York is very A: I often send my friends messages
blah-blah-blah city using blah-blah-blah. Do you follow
me?
B: Do you mean that it is not safe? B: In other words, the social

networking service that can send short
messages?
APPENDIX B - Two Examples of Stage 2 Cards
PACHINKO ONE PIECE

A: My brother plays blah-blah-blah A: I love to read blah-blah-blah. Do you
every day. Do you understand? follow me?
B: Do you mean. . . B: So what you’re saying is. . .
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Corrective Feedback Design from a Noticing Hypothesis
Perspective
Yifeng Hong
ABSTRACT
This paper discusses comprehensive corrective feedback methods that were synthesized for the
communicative English Discussion Class at Rikkyo University from a Noticing Hypothesis
perspective. Through numerous of empirical studies, a handful of scholars believe that noticing
is critical or at least helpful as an initial step of second language acquisition (Long, 1991;
Schmidt, 2010; Nunan, 1991). The designed classroom feedback activity is composed of various
feedback methods in order, such as recast, checklist, FonF activities like fill-in-blanks, and peer
feedback in different stages of classes, catering to specific teaching objectives and syllabus
designs of EDC classes. Through careful classroom observations, detailed student behaviors and
learning outcomes were documented to examine the effectiveness of the mentioned feedback
methods, specifically, whether the feedback activities raised students’ notice on the target
language and further fostered the acquisition of the target forms, which are Functions in EDC
context, through communicative classroom activities.
LITERATURE REVIEW
From Input, Interaction, Output to Noticing
L2 learning is believed to be a systematic process of non-linear development and acquisition of
underlying rules, sounds, words and discourse features in the target language (Selinker, 1972).
The evolving system itself of Interlanguage is believed not a byproduct of language learning
towards the target language (TL). Also, scholars believe that successful interlanguage
development is partially a result of utilizing feedback from others (Brown, 2000). In light of the
concept of Interlanguage, 3 critical influential hypotheses in SLA were proposed: Krashen’s
Input hypotheses (1985), Long’s Interactional hypotheses (1985) and Swain’s Output hypotheses
(1995). All of the linguists believe that second languages are learned through meaningful
interactions and communications. However, there are a few discrepancies: Krashen emphasizes
the primary significance on what he proposed as Comprehensive Input. Only and only if with the
understanding of Comprehensive Input can a second language learner’s language competence
advance. However, critics argue that only comprehensive input does not guarantee language
acquisition, with more steps need to be taken. Specifically, if a learner wants to turn input into
intake, he or she has to notice a gap between a L2 I +1 form and the IL rules that the learner
controls. Reformulated interactional hypothesis also believes that selective attention plays an
important role of comprehensive input processing during negotiation of meaning. Similarly, the
Output hypothesis also emphasizes that one of the 3 functions of output is to notice and to
trigger IL development. Output contributes to consciousness rising that enables learners to notice
a gap between “what they want to say and what they can say, leading them to recognize what
they do not know or what they only know partially.” (Swain, 1995:125). Following the thread,
Schmidt further proposed the Noticing Hypotheses, according to which, the emergence of new
forms shall be preceded by their being notice in the input. In other words, attending to specific
aspects of the input is the key to learning these aspects of the input, claiming that noticing is a
necessary and sufficient condition for input to become intake in SLA and arguing that “intake is
that part of input that learners notice.” (1990, p139) Specifically, there are 2 key points in
noticing: 1) the amount of L2 learners’ attention to form may influence the extent to which L2
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input and interaction actually produce L2 intake. 2) Noticing is the process of bringing some
stimulus into focal attention whether voluntarily or involuntarily. L2 learners need to only
comprehend the input but also to notice “whatever features of the input are relevant for the target
system” (p.209). According to Schmidt, noticing involves 2 components: detecting with
awareness of a gap between “how others are saying it” and “how I would say it”, and rehearsing,
facilitating encoding in long term memory. Rehearsal suggests that learners must make some
conscious effort to memorize new forms they have noticed, which could be silently repeating a
phrase, reading a few times or any other forms of practice that help commit the linguistic feature
to long term internalization. Schmidt (1990) further identifies 3 aspects of consciousness
involved in language learning: awareness, intention and knowledge. Awareness refers to a
particular state of mind where an individual has undergone specific subjective experiences of
some cognitive content or external stimulus. Intention means the learner deliberately attend to
the specific form or knowledge. Knowledge refers to the specific linguistic form the learner
attends to or noticed, in other words, comprehended input.
Pedagogical Application to Noticing

The Noticing hypothesis has inspired various directions of research on pedagogy: Input
Enhancement (Smith, 1991), Processing Instruction (Van Patten, 1996) and Focus on Form
(Long, 1991). As proposed by Schmidt that without noticing, language learners are not able to
achieve the target form, Smith argues that teachers shall provide extensive repetition of the target
language and use multiple discursive features including verbal and nonverbal ones to enhance
input. On the other hand, Van Patten claims that in order for the language learners to fully
acquire the target language, L2 teachers need to teach students how to process the input to
integrate it cognitively into interlanguage. Therefore, explicit explanation and drill practices on
forms in classes are vital to the success of second language acquisition. Similarly, Long (2007)
believes that learners shall be aware of the target language features that they are using in
authentic interactions, either through explicit or implicit clarification. Empirical studies have
lead researchers to argue that corrective feedback promote learner’s noticing of the gap between
TL and IL, which is essential to IL development.
However, when it comes to the types of corrective feedback, such as explicit or implicit,
peer feedback or instructor-centered, positive or negative, it remains debatable in SLA research,
posting a delicate challenge to teachers. For example, implicit negative feedback has drawn
numerous researchers’ attention since it indirectly informs language learners their non-target-like
interlanguage features without sacrifice of meaning of communication. Interactional feedback,
such as recast, repetition, confirmation checks and clarification requests, all provide implicit
feedback. A large quantity of research on recasts as an implicit feedback method has been
undertaken, finding both positive and negative evidences. Some studies found that recast as a
corrective feedback are facilitative to L2 development, subjecting to learner-internal variable
such as proficiency and developmental readiness (Mackey et al, 2002) and learner-external
variable such as learning contexts and types of target language features (Sheen, 2004). Long
(2007) claims that implicit feedback including recast seems most promising among corrective
feedback delivered in classes. However, Han (2004) holds a conservative attitude towards recast
as an implicit corrective feedback, warning that there may be a mismatch between learner’s
perception of the corrective feedback and the intention of the feedback provider due to dual
functions of recast of negotiation of contents and correction on errors, impeding the IL
development and fostering fossilization. Following a different thread, there is another body of
studies investigating the learner-to-learner corrective feedback. In early research, scholars found
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that there was inconsistence in terms of the amount and the type of peer corrective feedback
being observed in empirical data (Garcia, Mayo & Pica, 2000; McDonough, 2004). In more
recent studies, Adam (2007) discovers that 60% of the learner-learner corrective feedback in his
data promoted learning of linguistic features. However, Adam et al (2011) discovered that there
is no strong empirical evidence to show the positive effect of student-centered corrective
feedback.
Specifically in my classroom where it is a highly communicative course that focuses on
teaching students to integrate specific linguistic forms, in EDC context “Functions”, into
authentic interactions to promote fluency and creativity of thinking with the teaching objective
of extended intervention-free group discussions on various topics at the end of each lesson, there
are some unique challenges of providing constructive corrective feedback that have been
witnessed in previous semesters. For example, to raise students’ awareness of their language use
in TL, checklists of functions were offered to students in review lesson. On one hand, the
checklist draws students’ attention to the target forms, “functions” in EDC, directly and
explicitly, and possibly rises the noticing of TL. However, there are few issues administrating
checklists in classes that have been observed. Another issue is the balance of FonF feedback and
meaning focus feedback. In my classes, each lesson starts with FonF tasks that introduce
functions, and gradually phases out FonF scaffoldings as classes move on to different stages of
lesson plans. The change of the nature of task characteristics from FonF to meaning focus,
incoherent empirical research results, and learner’s individual differences post challenges to
instructors on what types of corrective feedback shall be offered and how to present the feedback
at different stages of lessons. Therefore, a systematic design of corrective feedback catering to
students’ needs and teaching objectives could be beneficial to instructors teaching at the same
context.
PROCEDURES
1. Function Practice
1.1 Pair activity one: implicit recast from the instructor
While students were doing the first FonF practice in pairs, the instructor walked around and
monitored students’ performances. When there was an error in students’ utterance of
function phrases, the instructor intervened and offered implicit recast feedback.
1.2 Pair activity two: explicit instructions or explanations from instructors.
After the second pair practices, instructor wrote the students’ inaccurate utterance of target
functions on the blackboard. Then, instructor-led instructions and explanations were
presented in front of the whole class, ending with read-out-loud drill practices.
1.3 In review lessons, a fill-in-blank drill practice of target functions was given to students
prior to pair discussions, to help them reinforce the TL forms accurately in written forms.
2. Discussion One (D1)

2.1 Checklist with open-ended questions
After Discussion One, a checklist with target function phrases was given to the students. Then
students checked on the checklist based on their performances individually.
2.2 Peer corrective report on function usage or explicit peer feedback to correct the written IL on
the white board into TL
If the performances of the students in D1 were observed positive, a student-centered peer oral
report based on the checklist was conducted in pairs or groups. If the performances of the
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students in D1 were observe negative, then examples of students’ utterances with errors were
jogged on the blackboard, and the students in pairs corrected the error.
2.3 Goal setting: students choose and circle the functions that they desire to practice more in the
following activities.
3. Discussion Two (D2)

3.1 Checklist
After D2 preparation activity, students individually checked the function phrases on the same
checklist that was given to them, based on their performance after D1.
3.2 Goal checking and peer report on the discussion ideas
After D2, students checked on the checklist to see if they accomplished the goals they set after
D1. Afterwards, in pairs, students report their discussion ideas to each other for 2 minutes.
DISCUSSIONS
1. Function Practice
In this stage of class, students focused on the highly controlled practices on forms of the TL
items in each lesson, therefore the feedback provided was FonF that repeated the TL forms and
possibly reinforced the TL into learners’ long term memories through rehearsal (Long, 1991).
Mainly 2 ways of corrective feedback from the instructor were offered: implicit recasts in pair
activities, and explicit FonF instructions as a whole class for students to reformulate the IL into
TL. The rational for implicit feedback of recast is that since students have just learned the use of
TL in FonF function presentation activities (TTT or Dialogue Comparison) before this activity,
there is no need for further explicit explanation. Also, researchers discover the recast help
students to raise the notice on the gap between the IL and the TL (Long, 2007). However,
according to the class notes, although some students were able to notice the errors or the gap
between IL and TL and further took the uptake to self-correct the error, there were some students
being observed to have difficulties noticing the error. 2 exerts are listed below:
Exert 1:
Student: I think English is very important, but studying abroad is expensive, so studying
abroad is not a good idea. (Silent for 6 seconds, student looking at the partner, nodding
heads)
Instructor: Do you want to add something?
Student: Hmm? No. Finished. (Looking at instructor)
Exert 1 shows that the student forgot to check if anyone want to add something after
finishing the ideas. Therefore, the instructor offered a recast to repair the utterance. However, the
student did not notice the difference of the IL and the TL and misunderstood my recast as
negotiation of meaning, as me checking if the student himself or herself had finished utterance
or not. Therefore, recast here was observed as a failure, which was also observed by Han (2004),
arguing that recast in spontaneous interactions may be misunderstood as negotiation of meaning
due to the characteristics of the utterance.
Exert 2:
Written on the board: I think eating bad smell things on the train is no good, such as fried
chicken. However, small things like candy and gum, I think is ok.
Instructor: Some of you said these ideas in the discussion. I think it is a really good idea,
but what shall we said when we finish saying our ideas in discussions?
Students: Aww…Hmm
Instructor: What shall we say to invite others to join the discussion?
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Yifeng Hong
Students: Aww, does anyone want to add something?

Instructor: Yes! Great.
On the contrary, the explicit FonF instruction that students collaborated to correct the IL
into TL turned out to be successful in the class. Oftentimes, students were able to provide the
instructor the TL forms. Even when students failed to notice the gap between IL and TL in the
beginning, after explicit illustrations with examples, the performances of students were observed
improved. Furthermore, behaviors of self-correction on the illustrated TL forms were also
observed in later class activities, showing evidences that students noticed the gap between IL
and TL after this feedback. This is supported by Foster and Ohta (2005) that noticing of
language forms occurs when learners work collaboratively to solve linguistic problems. Also, the
written form of feedback is claimed positive when providing corrective feedback on language
structures (Sheen, 2006; Lee, 2011).
2. Discussion One
At this stage of activities, the focus of classroom practices shifted from FonF pair work to
authentic meaning generating discussions with the aid of the TL forms to generate creative
discussion contents. Accordingly, the feedback was primarily on TL forms in authentic
discussions and discussion content ideas. To raise the students’ notice on the TL forms, a
checklist with function phrases were distributed to students to review and assess their
performance. However, there were a few issues related to checklist administration that were
observed. For example, some students sometimes would not be able to recall specifically what
functions or wither they use functions or not in group discussions, ending up struggling to check
accurately. The problem may be due to the nature of the discussions where students were highly
engaged in spontaneous meaningful interactions, subsequently lowering their cognitive capacity
for short-term memories. Another issue was that sometimes students were witnessed checking all
the items on the checklist despite of their actual performances, resulting from reluctance in
self-evaluation, low cognitive ability of short-term memories and disaffection towards text
reading.
Therefore, a few alternatives were adopted in the checklist assessment. First of all, other
than just yes-or-no checklists, open-ended questions such as “please write down the sentence
with functions that you said” were added to the checklist when checklists were administrated in
week 2, 3 and 4. The open-end question might raise students’ awareness of the TL forms more as
they need to retrieve the utterances with TL from their working memories. However, it was
time-consuming, taking about 3 to 4 minutes or more for students to navigate through the
checklist, to recall their speaking, to write down the utterances of TL and to complete the
checklist. Therefore, I further combined the Checklist with oral peer reports. In replace with
having the students writing down their utterances of TL in person, I requested them to repeat
their TL utterances in the previous group discussion orally to their peers. Having students to
report the function usage to peers orally instead of writing after checking on the checklist, it was
observed that the engagement of the corrective feedback was higher than solely checklist,
leading to possible higher awareness of TL. Secondly, different form-focused assessments that
require spontaneous actions in discussions were introduced in week 7, 8 and 11, such as flipping
function phrase cards that turned out to be very successful in classes, since flipping the function
cards as a task drew students attention to the target function forms in discussion, namely
noticing the gap between IL and TL. Not only did the frequency of the target function usage
were observed, but also the variety of the used target function phrases were being witnessed,
owing to the possible reason that students were able to notice the function usage differences
99
among different target functions with the aid of the function cards, namely that students were
able to distinguish the used functions and the yet-to-be used functions with the function in
discussions. Lastly, students circled the functions they want to use more in the following
activities as goal setting.
3. Discussion Two
At this last stage of lessons, the teaching objective of classroom activities shift from FonF
practices to a more realistic and authentic meaning generating discussions using the target
functions without external interventions for an extended 16 minutes. Therefore, the feedback
was a balance of FonF and meaning focus. The first step was to check if they have achieved the
targeted goal of function usage. At this stage of class, most of the students were able to apply
target function phrases in discussions to some extent. Therefore, the instructor tended to provide
positive feedback after the goal checking. Not only raising the awareness of the TL, as argued by
Wong and Waring (2009) that positive feedback also provides good examples of expected target
forms and boost leaners’ confidence and motivations. The second step was to report content
ideas to peers. Not only does the oral repetition of the discussion contents make the classroom
activities more engaging and meaningful, but also raises students’ awareness of the TL through
reproduction of TL, and this has been reported as the most desirable feedback method by the
students in classroom interactions.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, not a single corrective feedback method is suitable to all activities, contexts and
students. Hereby I argue that ESL instructors need to adopt a post-modern constructive method
when deciding what feedback and how to deliver feedback to students in every class. This study
is merely built on informal observations. Consequently, more detailed investigation shall be
conducted to manifest the dynamics and effectiveness of different feedback methods in EDC
classes, such as questionnaires with following interviews on students’ experience of different
feedback methods and quantitative analysis of students’ performances after different feedback
treatments.
REFERENCES
Adams, R. (2007). Do second language learners benefit from interacting with each other? In A.
Mackey (Ed.), Conversational interaction in second language acquisition: A series of
empirical studies. (pp. 29–51). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Adams, R., Neuvo, A., & Egi, T. (2011). Explicit and implicit feedback, modified output, and
SLA: does explicit and implicit promote learning and learner-learner interactions? The
Modern Language Journal, 95, 42-63.
Brown, H Douglas (2000). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. White Plains, NY:
Longman. pp. 77.
Foster, P., & Ohta, A. (2005). Negotiation for meaning and peer assistance in second language
classrooms. Applied Linguistics, 26, 402–430.
Garcia Mayo, M., & Pica, T. (2000). Interaction among proficient learners: Are input, feedback
and output needs addressed in a foreign language context? Studia Linguistica, 54,
272– 279.
Han, Z-H. (2004). Fossilization in adult second language acquisition. Clevedon, UK:
Multilingual Matters.
Krashen, S.D. (1985). The Input Hypothesis: Issues and Implications, New York: Longman
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Lee, L. (2011). Focus-on-form through peer feedback in a Spanish-American telecollaborative

exchange. Language Awareness, 20(4), 343-357.
Lightbown, P., & Spada, N. (1990). Focus on form and corrective feedback in
communicative language teaching: Effect on second language learning. Studies in Second
Language Acquisition, 12, 429-448.
Long, Michael (1985). "Input and Second Language Acquisition Theory". In Gass, Susan;
Madden, Carolyn. Input in second language acquisition. Rowley, Mass: Newbury House.
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Long, M. H. (1991). Focus on form: A design feature in language teaching methodology. In K.
de Bot, R. Ginsberg, & C. Kramch (Eds.), Foreign language research in cross cultural
perspective (pp. 39-52). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Long, M. H. (2007). Recasts in SLA: The story so far. In Long, M. H. (Ed.), Problems in SLA
(pp. 75-116). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
McDonough, K. (2004). Learner–learner interaction during pair and small group activities in a
Thai EFL context. System, 32, 207–224.
Nunan, D. (1991). Language teaching methodology. Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall
International.
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Blum-Kulka (Eds.). Interlanguage pragmatics (pp. 21-42). New York: Oxford
University Press.
Schmidt, R. (2010). Attention, awareness, and individual differences in language learning. In W.
M. Chan, S. Chi, K. N. Cin, J. Istanto, M. Nagami, J.W. Sew, T. Suthiwan, & I. Walker,
Proceedings of CLaSIC 2010, Singapore, December 2-4 (pp. 721-737). Singapore:
National University of Singapore, Centre for Language Studies.
Sheen, Y. (2004). Corrective feedback and learner uptake in communicative classrooms across
instructional settings. Language Teaching Research, 8, 263-300.
Sheen, Y, (2006). Exploring the relationship between characteristics of recasts and learner uptake.
Language Teaching Research, 10, 361-392.
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Smith, M. (1991). Speaking to the many minds: On the relevance of different types of language
information for the L2 learner. Second Language Research, 7, 118-133.
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Language Acquisition 15: 165–179.
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the connection? Modern Language Journal, 73, 150-159.
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UK: Oxford University Press.
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A Peer-Reflection Activity for Discussion Feedback
Ian Hurrell
ABSTRACT
There is a growing body of literature that suggests peer-reflection activities can help students to
develop into more active and independent learners. This paper outlines a simple and flexible
activity which incorporates Nicol and McFarlane's (2006) Seven Principles of Good Feedback
Practice to help students effectively reflect with their peers after discussions. Through
developing and using this activity over one academic year, several interesting effects have been
observed, such as students taking a more active interest in feedback, boosting the students’
self-esteem, as well as providing the instructor with useful insights into the students’ thoughts
and feelings on various aspects of EDC classes.
INTRODUCTION
The aim of the EDC is to develop confident communicators who can hold fluent and interactive
discussions in small groups and who value the opinions of others (Hurling 2012). This is done
through the development of various communication skills and discussion skills or functions
during the course. One of the most important methods of helping our students to evaluate and
improve their performance is through feedback after discussions. This feedback can be
teacher-fronted, but there is much literature that suggests self-assessment and peer-reflection are
much more effective in developing a sense of ownership, self-efficacy and personal
responsibility in students (Nicol & McFarlane 2006, Birjandi & Masood 2010, Min 2006).
Therefore, if learners in the EDC can be encouraged to deeply reflect on their performance in
discussions with their peers, instructors might be able to help their students develop intrinsic
motivation and a deeper understanding of how the skills taught in EDC classes can be utilized to
have better discussions.
However, if self-/peer-reflection activities are to be effective in EDC classrooms, the
materials need to be developed in such a way that they encourage the students to provide
effective feedback to themselves and their peers. Nicol & McFarlane-Dick (2006) outline seven
principles of good feedback practice which should be considered when designing feedback
activities. According to these principles, good feedback should:
1. help clarify what good performance is (goals, criteria, expected standards);

2. facilitate the development of self-assessment (reflection) in learning;
3. deliver high quality information to students about their learning;
4. encourage teacher and peer dialogue around learning;
5. encourage positive motivational beliefs and self-esteem;
6. provide opportunities to close the gap between current and desired performance;
7. provide information to teachers that can be used to help shape the teaching.
(Nicol & McFarlane-Dick 2006, p206)
It was using these principles that the following task was developed and the ways in which
these principles were incorporated in the activity will be referred to in the following sections.
This activity has been designed to be used primarily in lessons where new functions are
presented to not only help students to evaluate their use of the function in their discussions but
also to help students to gain a deeper understanding of how the functions might be used to
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Ian Hurrell
improve the quality of their discussions.
TASK AND MATERIALS

This task is designed to be used in pairs or groups of three. The materials are simply one
question sheet to be given to each pair or group after Discussion 1. It can also be used after
Discussion 2 if there is enough time. As the functions differ from class to class, the questions
used for the activity will also vary slightly from lesson to lesson depending on the function being
presented. The activity is designed to be completed in around five minutes and each class’
activity consists of four questions used to guide the student’s reflections. Below (Ex 1) is an
example of the peer-reflection questions used in lesson 3 for the Balancing Opinions function.
1. What topics did your group talk about in your discussion?
2. What advantages and disadvantages did your group say for each topic?
3. Did discussing both sides of the topic help you to have a deeper discussion?
4. What could you improve in your next discussion?
Figure 1. Example of a peer-reflection form for Balancing Opinions in lesson 3
Although the questions may differ slightly from class to class, the purpose behind each
question is consistent. Question 1 is identical in every class. When introducing this activity for
the first time, I noticed that students often had trouble remembering specific examples from the
discussions without a warm-up. Therefore the purpose of this question is simply to activate the
student’s memory of their discussions so that they can more easily discuss the next three
questions. Question 2 is designed to have students reflect on their group’s performance of the
function. Rather than focusing just on frequency of use, this question also encourages the
students to remember specific examples of using the function in their discussions. Question 3 is
designed to have the students consider how the function might have (or might not have, as the
case may be) improved the quality of their discussion. This is intended to reinforce the ‘Why’ of
the function which was highlighted in the function presentation.
Both questions 2 and 3 incorporate several of Nicol and McFarlane’s principles of good
feedback practice. Firstly, they help students to clarify what good performance is by considering
the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of the function. Secondly, they provide the instructor with invaluable
information about the students’ attitudes toward the new functions. Finally, by putting the focus
on group rather than individual performance, it allows all students to consider examples of good
performance even if they had not used the function themselves, which it is hoped will encourage
positive motivational beliefs.
Finally, question 4 is designed to have the students consider areas that they might improve
in the next discussion. This does not necessarily have to be connected to the function and is
intended not only to have the students decide on goals to improve performance in the next
discussion but, like questions 2 & 3, also provide information to the instructor as to what the
students consider to be deficiencies in their discussion skills. When designing questions for
peer-reflection in other classes these factors should be considered.
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PROCEDURE
This task is designed for 5-7 minutes. The procedure for this task is as follows:
1) After students finish Discussion 1 make a make a short positive comment about their
discussion and introduce the peer-reflection task.
2) Have the students read out the questions to the class and check understanding. If there are any
problems with understanding the questions address them by paraphrasing the questions or
modelling answers.
3) Have the students discuss the questions for a maximum of three minutes. This time can be
reduced if the students finish discussing the questions within the 3 minutes.
4) Whilst the students are discussing the questions, the instructor should:
a) walk between the groups monitoring the discussions and providing assistance and additional
guidance questions if students are struggling.
b) give praise for any insightful comments that you hear in the students’ reflections and, where
possible, encourage them to develop their ideas by asking them some follow-up questions.
c) take the chance to give focused feedback if there are particular issues with individual students.
d) Take notes for a post-reflection summary.
5) After time is up, the instructor should lead a summary of the reflections, highlighting the
salient points from the students' discussions and listing up to three focus points for the next
discussion on the board. This can be done entirely by the teacher or can be elicited from the
students, depending on the level of the class and time constraints. If there are any major issues
that did not come up in the reflections, the instructor can cover these issues at this point.
However, this should be kept to a minimum in order not to override the ideas that came out of
the students’ own reflections.
6) In preparation activities for Discussion 2, and just before Discussion 2 itself, students should
be encouraged to focus on the feedback points highlighted in the reflection session.
Time permitting, points 1 to 5 of this procedure can also be carried out after Discussion 2 as
well.
VARIATIONS
The questions in Ex1 and procedure outlined above are typical for an average class. However,
this activity can be easily adapted to suit both higher and lower level classes.
For higher level groups, where performance of the functions is less of an issue, you might
want the reflections to have a strong formative focus by asking more open questions, such as
simply "What were the strengths and weaknesses of your discussion?" This not only gives the
students more freedom to discuss issues they personally feel most important in their reflections
but can also provide the instructor with interesting insights into the students' thinking that might
not be revealed in a more structured reflection.
Conversely, for lower level classes, you might provide model answers or an example
dialogue that the students can follow to help structure their reflections. In addition, you might
remove the more complex formative questions from the question card and simply have the
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students focus on performance by remembering examples from their discussions. On a related

note, research indicates that a period of learner training is useful when introducing reflection
activities (Birjandi & Masood 2010, Min 2006), so this approach might be beneficial to all
classes at first. Then more complexity can be added as the students become more comfortable
reflecting with their peers.
Therefore, we can see that this activity is highly flexible and allows instructors to focus
on the areas that they feel important for individual classes. However, when adapting this activity,
two important factors should be considered. Firstly, how much the students can be expected to
discuss within the time constraints of the class. Secondly, do the adapted questions still adhere to
Nicol & McFarlane's (2006) Principles of Good Feedback Practice.
DISCUSSION
The purpose of this activity was to design a reflection exercise that conforms to Nicol &
McFarlane's (2006) Principles of Good Feedback Practice, with the aim that this form of
learner-centered feedback would lead to a sense of self-efficacy and personal responsibility in
the students. It was also hoped that this would in turn develop intrinsic motivation and a deeper
understanding of how the skills taught in EDC classes can be utilized to have better discussions.
With regard to creating an activity that conforms to Nicol & McFarlane's Principles of
Good Feedback Practice, the activity is quite successful. By its very nature, the activity
facilitates the development of self-assessment in learning and encourages teacher and peer
dialogue around learning, which aim to encourage positive motivational beliefs and self-esteem.
It also provides information to instructors that can be used to help shape teaching. In addition,
through discussing the questions with their peers in tandem with a teacher-led summarization of
their reflections, this helps to clarify what good performance is by delivering high quality
information to students about their learning, and also provides opportunities to close the gap
between current and desired performance.
However, regarding the effectiveness of the activity in developing a sense of self-efficacy,
personal responsibility and a deeper understanding of the functions, I have observed that
performance of the activity varies between classes, but not necessarily between levels. Some
higher level classes have struggled to share their thoughts with their peers. On the other hand,
some lower level classes are able to enthusiastically reflect with their peers by utilizing the
limited language resources at their disposal. Based on these observations, it seems that group
dynamics and willingness to communicate have more impact on the effectiveness of the peer
reflections than linguistic ability and vocabulary knowledge.
Having said that, I have been able to successfully use this activity in the vast majority of
my classes and I have observed several interesting impacts on my students. Firstly, when using
purely teacher-fronted feedback, I often noticed that some students seemed disinterested or
sometimes struggled to understand what I was saying, but this activity requires the students to
take an active role in feedback and I can focus on helping individual students deal with problems
in their reflections.
Secondly, praise from peers sometimes seems to have more impact than from the teacher.
Despite the fact that I personally praise the students for expressing good ideas, using the
functions, and contributing well to the discussions, I have found that many are highly critical of
their own performance and seem to have trouble accepting my praise as sincere. However, when
I hear students praising each other’s ideas, I often notice that students are surprised and
sometimes elated that their peers found their ideas interesting. As a result, I have observed that
this can boost self-esteem, particularly in the case of quieter, more nervous students and can also
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lead to more active performance in subsequent discussions.

Finally, after listening to the students discussing the functions with their peers, I have
found that I can gain insights into problems that individual classes are having, which allows me
to structure teacher-fronted feedback more effectively in the summarization phase. In addition,
through listening to the students’ reflections over the course of the week, I can gain insights into
common difficulties that students seem to face when dealing with new functions which helps me
to improve my function presentation, as well as helping me to better empathize with my students.
Therefore, this activity has not only had benefits for the students but also my own development
as an instructor.
CONCLUSION
There is an increasing body of research which indicates that by having a greater involvement in
the feedback process, learners can become more active and take more responsibility over their
learning. Through utilizing Nicol & McFarlane's (2006) Seven Principles of Good Feedback
Practice, I was able to construct a simple and flexible activity to effectively guide my students'
reflections after discussions. Since using this activity, I have been able to observe several effects
with my students, such as a greater interest in the feedback process and a boost to self-esteem in
nervous students, as well as providing me with useful insights into my students' thoughts and
feelings that have helped me to develop as an instructor. However, at this stage these are only
observations and I would be interested into doing a more rigorous study into the impact of
peer-reflection activities in EDC classes.
REFERENCES
Birjandi, P., Masood, S. (2010). Self-assessment and peer-assessment: A comparative study of
their effect on writing performance and rating accuracy, IJAL, 13(1), 23-45.
Hurling, S. (2012). Introduction to EDC. In T. Doe, S. Hurling, M. Livingston, T. Moroi (Eds.),
New directions in teaching and learning English discussion. Volume 1. Tokyo: EDC.
Min, H. (2006). The Effects of Trained Peer Review on EFL Students’ Revision Types and
Writing Quality. Journal of Second Language Writing, 15, 118-141.
Nicol, D. J. & McFarlane-Dick, D. (2006). Formative assessment and self-regulated learning: A
model and seven principles of good feedback practice. Studies in Higher Education, Vol
31(2), 199-218
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Word Association
Aaron James
ABSTRACT
The generation of original ideas to communicate in the L2 often appears to be a difficulty for
learners who are attempting to engage in meaningful discussions. The design of the English
Discussion Class (EDC) offers opportunities for learners to be exposed to ideas and use them in
the discussion, but some learners still have not seized the opportunity to use ideas from the
homework reading and pre-discussion activities in the general discussions. This article describes
an activity based upon the principle of learner autonomy that uses the psychoanalytical
technique of word association, in conjunction with the maxim of learner involvement and
principle of schema activation, to attempt to stimulate learners’ ideas relevant to the discussion
topics and related to the learners’ own life experiences.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The central teaching principle which will be the focus of my activity is Learner Autonomy.
According to Brown (2007) the Principle of Autonomy is described as follows: “Successful
mastery of a foreign language will depend to a great extent on learners’ autonomous ability both
to take initiative in the classroom and to continue their journey to success beyond the classroom
and the teacher” (pp. 70-71). This is the central principle due to the fact that the design of the
English Discussion Class (EDC) requires students to generate content on their own in order to
communicate ideas about a specific topic in the discussions. In my view this necessitates a
degree of learner autonomy and so my activity intends to use this principle as a foundation.
Additionally, Brown (2007) said that learner autonomy includes a capability for the learner to
control one’s own learning and this is the theory behind shifting the focus from a teacher-led
methodology to a procedure that puts more of an onus on the learners to be creative and
productive in the target language.
Scholars have attempted to identify what learner autonomy actually is when considered in
the educational domain. Benson (as cited in Schmenk, 2005) has posited three versions of
learner autonomy, namely technical, psychological, and political. For the purposes of my
activity’s theoretical foundation, I have chosen to apply the psychological version which Benson
(as cited in Brown, 2007) defined thusly, “…a capacity—a construct of attitudes and
abilities—which allows learners to take more responsibility for their own learning” (p. 70).
Therefore, this “capacity” that learners have to use their world knowledge in conjunction with
their limited English speaking ability will coordinate their attitude or outlook on concepts and
thereby generate output appropriate to the topic they will discuss.
Furthermore, I thought it necessary to locate literature on applications of this principle
and its reported success or failure. One such method based on this principle is self-directed
language learning (SDLL). Wenden (2002) observed that “Early proponents of SDLL were
explicit that learner autonomy, generally defined as the ability to take charge of one’s learning,
was their basic educational goal, with self-directed learning being seen as the realization of a
learner’s potential for autonomy…” (p. 36). Essentially, SDLL requires that learners, among
other things, plan their learning which is believed to promote learner autonomy (Wenden, 2002).
However, even though I am not using SDLL as a method to realize learner’s autonomy, I am
using the concept in a way that can make the learner more responsible for generating ideas or
content to develop further in the discussion preparations. In this manner, I think that I am
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employing the principle of learner autonomy by requiring students to do their due diligence in
bringing their own imagination and points of view to the discussions.
Learner autonomy has also been researched in formal studies in order to identify the
factors which contribute to fostering learner autonomy in the classroom setting. In a study by
Balçikanli (2008) the role of the teacher was observed to be fundamental in promoting learner
autonomy among the students. Balçikanli stated, “In order for self-access language learning to
be successful, teachers must prepare their students to accept more responsibility for their
learning than they may be accustomed to” (p. 281). He suggests that this is partly done if
teachers “become aware of their own and their learners’ beliefs and attitudes” (Balçikanli, 2008,
p. 281) (about language learning). Creating an atmosphere for learner autonomy to be expressed
as well as being attentive to learners’ needs and interests were further provisions suggested by
the study. Balçikanli asserted that this must be done in conjunction with activities that help the
learners display more autonomy. Opportunities for implementing these recommendations are
present in the current design of the EDC and this activity will present a way for students to
actualize the autonomy of learning within the context of a communicative language teaching
method and student-centered approach.
Supplementary support for the modified role of the teacher in relation to effectuating
learner autonomy comes from Sheerin (1997, cited in Benson & Voller, 1997:63, quoted in
Thanasoulas, 2000) who said “teachers—have a crucial role to play in launching learners into
self-access…” (p. 4). Thanasoulas further warned that learner autonomy is not “teacherless
learning” (p. 4). In addition to a redefined role of the teacher, other circumstances are required
for the promotion and implementation of learner autonomy activities in the language learning
context. Thanasoulas additionally stated that “cognitive and metacognitive strategies on the part
of the learner, motivation, attitudes, and knowledge about language learning” (p. 4) are
conditions under which it can be achieved. Considering the multiplicity of factors which are
relevant to a successful program of learner autonomy, I have augmented my central principle
with subsidiary principles to address these other prevailing conditions in the successful
execution of activities to generate more learner autonomy in EDC.
The first subsidiary principle is the “maxim of involvement” (Richards, 1996, p. 287). It
is a principle that is perfectly situated to be a corollary to learner autonomy because it essentially
prescribes teachers to “follow the learner’s interest to maintain student involvement” (p. 287).
This adjunct principle partially fulfills the recommendation by Balçikanli for teachers to become
aware of the learners needs and interests to maximize learner autonomy in the classroom
environment. This principle also gives teachers the flexibility to create activities and materials
that are based on the stated interests of learners. Materials and activities can also be based on the
success of other materials and content used in teaching, or based on an event which occurs in the
lesson that provides a choice to the teacher to pursue a more interesting direction within the aims
of the lesson. Richards (1996) quoted Woods (1996) when he describes how one teacher in a
case study reported his belief about the value of this principle as follows: ”the primary belief
which influenced his approach to the course centered on the importance of student involvement
in the content of the course and the notion of student responsibility” (p. 287). I completely
concur with this position and although personally I seldom deviate from my lesson plans, it is an
option that I regularly preserve due to the benefit of maintaining learners’ interest and trying to
do so by continuously infusing and presenting representations of ideas and subjects that they
value in their everyday lives.
Interest is inherently conjoined to general motivation to learn a subject. Studies of learner
motivation and motivational strategies abound. However, for the purpose of this project, I have
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looked at a few conceptualizations of interest with the purpose of stimulating more involvement
from learners to be active in their learning. Dörnyei (2001) offered numerous ways to create
interest in learners. He recommends to “arouse the students’ curiosity and attention” (Dörnyei,
2001, p. 53). Additionally, he advises to “connect L2 learning to activities that students already
find interesting…” (Dörnyei, 2001, p. 53). Furthermore, because of the ease of participation,
certain tasks often have better involvement and afterwards can be built upon for more complex
language production. Hence, using this maxim of involvement in a manner which follows
learners’ interests should soundly complete the multilateral confluence of principles I have
collected for this classroom activity.
In relation to this, I have chosen a third principle which is also subsidiary to learner
autonomy and serves as the final constituent in this tripartite approach, namely, schema
activation. Brown (2007) described schema as having two categories, content and formal
schemata. He said, “Content schemata include what we know about people, the world, culture,
and the universe, while formal schemata consist of our knowledge about language and discourse
structure.” (Brown, 2007, p. 259) Basically, schemata is the knowledge of the world the learner
brings to the language learning setting and schema activation is the employment of this
knowledge for use in language production in the language learning classroom. The theory
supporting the activation of schema is that it is then a short distance from recalling a familiar
concept, idea, or fact in the learner’s mind to the learner using the target language to
communicate information they have about their pre-existing knowledge.
Schema activation has repeatedly been shown to be essential in promoting reading
comprehension (Grabe, 2004; Chen and Graves, 1995, as quoted in Grabe, 2004). Information of
a culturally relevant nature, or information which has some applicability to the general
knowledge in a course of study, professional discipline, or practical and/or vocational knowledge,
especially enhances the likelihood of readers to apprehend a particular text. It has been
demonstrated that text previewing significantly increases comprehension, and what is more,
activation of specific information relevant to the text has a direct effect on reading
comprehension ability (Chen and Graves, 1995 as cited in Grabe, 2004, p. 50). Although these
findings more directly describe some salient components of reading comprehension, reading is
still an essential component of the design of our EDC classes. So I think applying this provision
to activate schemata through the activity to be described below, would be beneficial in
increasing comprehension of the topic; thereby improving the fecundity of ideas that can be
generated in the discussion. This should be especially true since the schemata are specifically
focused on information related to the homework reading and pre-discussion tasks. Schema
activation stimulates the responsibility required of learners’ initiated by the teacher’s awareness
of learners’ beliefs and attitudes which Balçikanli (2008) suggested is vital for increasing learner
autonomy. This should facilitate a better attempt at developing fluent speech or at the very least
generating content about a particular subject or topic.
Consequently, the principles that I will be using to create this activity will be founded on
somewhat disparate principles that will be interrelated to facilitate the achievement of
completing an activity which requires the utilization of multi-dimensional cognitive factors such
as interest, schemata, and most importantly, the ability to work autonomously.
TASKS AND MATERIALS

Minimal materials are needed for this activity, but some preparation is required. The textbook is
significant to the creation of the materials because it serves as the reservoir of schemata which
will be drawn upon for successful completion of the activity. Words will be selected from the
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homework article which students must read to pass a weekly quiz about the discussion topics.
Moreover, related lexical items can be chosen based on the discussion preparation textbook
activities. Words are selected for pairs of learners so each student in the pair has a small index
card with four words. (See Appendix A, B, & C) Next to each word on the index card is a blank
line and the cards are designated for either “Student A” or “Student B”.
In addition to these specific materials for the activity, materials should be developed for
the discussion preparation activity. I commonly use an activity design called “conversation
stations”. The stations are taken from the preparation activity in the textbook in which four
opinions about a topic are listed in the textbook and students must make a dichotomous choice to
“agree” or “disagree”. This is the situation in which I will choose related words from the
preparation activity itself. If the preparation activity is a ranking exercise or in a table format
directing the students to make a dichotomous or trichotomous selection, I will select words from
the homework reading material which are generally related to the overall topic to be discussed in
groups after the preparation stage.
PROCEDURE
Essentially, I will be using a therapeutic activity from the field of psychology called word
association. Word association operates on the method of eliciting the first word or phrase that
comes to mind upon hearing a particular familiar word. The purpose of this activity is for
learners to generate ideas that they can then discuss with a partner during the discussion
preparation.
Each student will have a small paper with four numbered words or phrases from the
reading and/or the preparation activity itself. Students in pairs will play word association and
each student in the pair will have different words or phrases on their paper. One student utters a
phrase and writes down his or her partner’s reply. Students then switch roles and repeat the
process. Students have one minute each to complete the word association activity totaling two
minutes for the activity. Each word or phrase in the word association activity will correspond to
an idea in the discussion preparation activity. Students will then exchange papers so each student
has the ideas they generated. I will then pair students with a new partner so they can discuss their
ideas anew. The second pairs will rotate to different conversation stations at which are posted the
statement or opinion from the discussion preparation activity in the textbook. Each station
prompt corresponds to a number on the index card next to the word. Pairs use the card as a
reference to generate an idea in relation to the prompt which is affixed to the wall. Using their
word or phrase, they can then communicate an idea about the statement and from there; the
partner can ask follow-up questions to discuss more details about the topic. This allows students
to start immediately in their discussion preparation without having to dedicate more time to
thinking of something relevant to say at the conversation station as allotted time for discussion
expires while they think.
The concept behind using word association is to provide learners with an idea that they
can use to initiate a discussion concerning the topics in the discussion preparation stage. Ideally,
learners will then be able to utilize their discussion and communication skills to ask follow-up
questions or other function phrase questions (i.e. reasons, examples, advantages, disadvantages,
experiences, etc.) to continue the discussion preparation further. By these means, learners should
have a fuller and richer exchange of ideas that can later be used in the formal discussions.
VARIATIONS
Although this activity is focused on augmentation of the discussion preparation activity, if
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bolstering student content generation in the discussion preparation activity is not an instructor’s
goal, the activity could still be used to instill the principle of learner autonomy in the lessons.
Instructors can use a variation this activity in the function practice stage to practice the usage of
various function phrases. Learners can perform the word association routine as described above
or think of related words on their own and record them on the index cards. The learners can then
use the ideas, words, or phrases they wrote to do form-focused practice as a listener or speaker
with a partner using the target functions. For instance, if the prompt is “restaurant” and the
learner wrote “delicious food”, then during the function practice session using the “reasons”
function, after a learner gives an opinion, the listening partner could ask for a reason and the
speaker could reply with a reason function phrase using the idea written on the index card.
e.g.
S) I think going to restaurants is great.
L) Can you tell me why?
S) One reason is restaurants have delicious food.
In this variation, leaners are still responsible for their autonomous generation of content,
however, when they practice the function, they can use more of their cognitive faculty to
specifically practice the functions. This reduces the difficulty of thinking of a reason to say and
lessens interference with using the functions. Preferably, this would promote fluency and
accuracy rather than a disfluent search for an idea to connect to the prepared function phrases.
DISCUSSION
The initial effect of the activity was overwhelmingly positive. All of the classes appeared to
enjoy the activity and had a lot of fun engaging with a partner to think of new words and phrases
to associate with the prompt word. Only two learners out of the six classes in which I trialed the
activity did not finish associating a word to the four prompts before the minute expired, but
overall the time limit was adequate to smoothly complete the word association game. Regarding
the effect it had on student performance, it was limited even though during the discussion
preparation stage leaners did seem to need less time to think of ideas. Some learners did not refer
to the index card at all as they rotated around the room to different conversation stations.
In the discussion that followed the preparation activity, some leaners did use words they
had written on the cards. This was gleaned from samples of speech data recorded by hand during
the discussions themselves. For example, on some of the students cards were written the
following words: [Online chat  Twitter]; [Fashion  Expensive]; [Movies  TV] These
words were used in the discussion that followed but “Twitter” and “Expensive” were also part of
the statements themselves used in the discussion preparation. So it is unknown at this time
whether the learners applied their ideas to discussion based on the activity, or if these words
were used by happenstance in the context of the discussion questions.
CONCLUSION
In future, if one is inclined to assess the effectiveness of this activity, formal data collection
could be proficiently achieved in one or more of the following ways. An instructor or researcher
could count the frequency of words used which were generated by the word association itself.
One could further evaluate utterances which contained the new words versus the prompts or
related words in the textbook activity to discover whether this activity is indeed contributing to
ideas being generated and used based upon the learners’ autonomous acts and the schemata that
have been activated. An evaluation could also be made concerning the words generated in the
activity and their use in the discussion preparation versus their use in the discussion to determine
111
if there is an increase, decrease and/or to measure the quality of utterances based on prearranged
criteria such as the length of the speaking turn and the amount of details described in the
expressed idea. To analyze these data, recordings of the discussions could help identify the
frequency of usage of the generated ideas, words, and phrases from the activity to ascertain
whether these are carried over into the discussion with any consistency. Additionally, a
controlled experiment could be designed to measure the amount of time elapsed before learners
speak about the topic. This could investigate whether learners respond quicker once the time
period is started using the ideas from the activity as opposed to a control group.
REFERENCES
Balçikanli, C. (2008). Fostering learner autonomy in EFL classrooms. Kastamonu Education
Journal, 16(1), 277-284.
(3rd ed. pp. 70-71 & 359). New York: Pearson.
Dörnyei, Z. (2001). Motivational strategies in the language classroom. Ernst Klett Sprachen.
Grabe, W. (2004). Research on teaching reading. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 24 (pp.
44-69)
Richards, J. C. (1996). Teachers’ maxims in language teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 30(2),
281-296.
Schmenk, B. (2005). Globalizing learner autonomy. TESOL Quarterly, 39(1), 107-118.
Thanasoulas, D. (2000). What is learner autonomy and how can it be fostered? The Internet
TESL Journal, 6(11).
http://iteslj.org/Articles/Thanasoulas-Autonomy.html
Wenden, A.L. (2002). Learner development in language learning. Applied Linguistics, 23(1),
32-55.
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APPENDIX A
Topic: Environment 2. Discussion Preparation 2 spring 2014 textbook
Student A Student B
1. Separate garbage ___________ 1. Recycle ___________
2. Bicycle ___________ 2. Crowded trains ___________
3. Cigarettes ___________ 3. Volunteer ___________
4. Electric cars ___________ 4. Parks & forests ___________
APPENDIX B
Topic: Fashion 1. Discussion Preparation 1 spring 2014 textbook
Student A Student B
1. Comfortable ___________ 1. Relax ___________
2. Fashion ___________ 2. Fashion model ___________
3. Japanese Rock ___________ 3. J-Pop ___________
4. Expensive ___________ 4. High price ___________
APPENDIX C
Topic: Media 1. Discussion Preparation 2 spring 2014 textbook
Student A Student B
1. Email to friends ___________ 1. Online chat ___________
2. Cram school ___________ 2. High school ___________
3. Library ___________ 3. Books ___________
4. Movies ___________ 4. Music videos ___________
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No Vocabulary, No Discussions
Yurika Kambe
ABSTRACT
This paper examines vocabulary activities for lower-level students (LLS) at Rikkyo
University who take an English-only discussion course (EDC). An aim of the course is for
students to discuss topics in English without instructor intervention. To achieve the goal, LLS
often negotiate meanings of words and try to convey ideas in simple English. Unfortunately, it is
often observed that LLS fail to find appropriate English words to discuss topics smoothly.
Casual conversations about the course with LLS often result in feedback where LLS lack
confidence to join English-only discussions just because they do not know English words to
express their opinions. In other words, the feedback may imply that LLS have frustration or
anxiety to discuss topics in English.
From LLS’ point of view, gaining vocabulary knowledge to express their ideas is
essential to engage in various activities in the course. However, while EDC does not particularly
focus on acquisition of vocabulary, the instructor can arrange minimal but effective vocabulary
activities to satisfy the students’ needs. This paper introduces two different vocabulary categories
that LLS learn and relevant activities for LLS.
LITERATURE REVIEW
LLS seem to learn two different categories of vocabularies. The first category (C1) contains
words related to contents of discussion topics. C1 words can be introduced at the early stage of
the lesson to help LLS understand topics. The second category (C2) involves vocabulary which
can show each LLS’ ideas so that individuals can use the words in an actual discussion. It would
be ideal if LLS were equipped with C2 words before they start discussions in English. However,
their proficiency level leads us to assume that LLS have a limited range of vocabulary to join
English-only discussion programs (cf. Steward, 2009).
This follows an argument on how the instructor can select appropriate words as C1 and
C2 words. There are various theories to set up vocabulary activities in the literature, but C1 and
C2 vocabulary satisfy three criteria proposed by Boers and Lindstromberg (2007), henceforth
B&L (2007), and Nation (2001). The first two criteria from B&L (2007) would be appropriate to
select words for Category 1 (C1):
1) target words should be frequently used by learners
2) target words should be learnable by learners.
As for Category 2 (C2), the target words should satisfy the two conditions above, plus a criterion
from Nation (2001) that learners should learn words which they can use to show their personal
needs and thoughts.
The instructor also has to find effective strategies to boost LLS’ confidence about their
use of vocabulary. It may be efficient to recycle some learning strategies that students are
already familiar with. Matt (2013) surveys strategies on how university students in a Japanese
university learn new lexis. One of his findings is that regardless of students’ gender, proficiency,
motivation and study history, university students found “L1 (Japanese)-L2 (English) translation”
the most useful among others such as rote copy, memorizing English definition, etc. If the
strategy is applicable to the EDC context, LLS can use L1-L2 counterparts for C1 and C2 words.
L1 intervention for the vocabulary activity seems necessary and beneficial for LLS,
although this clashes with the English-only policy of EDC. Nevertheless, the use of L1 lets LLS
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Yurika Kambe
grasp ideas of C2 counterparts quickly and clearly. This helps all participants of a lesson (LLS
and the instructor) save time and avoid paraphrasing explanations or simplifying instructions
many times over in the limited time of lesson.
PROCEDURE
C1 words and C2 words are introduced at different stages of a lesson, because each category is
likely to be used in different activities. C1 vocabulary consist of topic related words. LLS are
expected to understand C1 words in every lesson from an initial activity called fluency. The
instructor prepares two activities for LLS to learn C1 vocabulary. Firstly, the instructor uses the
last five minutes of a lesson. She pairs up LLS, and asks each pair to discuss the fluency activity
questions for the following week for three minutes. LLS are encouraged to use English for the
pair work. But, if LLS find it difficult to discuss the questions in English, they are allowed to use
their L1 in the pair work. The instructor reminds LLS to remember Japanese words which they
cannot express in English. When LLS finish the pair work, the instructor asks them what
difficult concepts they were not able to describe in the L2. The instructor asks the whole class if
any LLS can find the target words in English. As LLS locate English lexical counterparts, the
instructor makes an English word list on the board. If not, the instructor shows sample L2
alternatives to LLS as a vocabulary resource. After checking the word list, the instructor lets
LLS repeat each word from the list.
The second activity is introduced in the early stage of the following week. The
instructor writes the same word list on the board from the previous week before the lesson starts.
Then, the instructor starts the fluency activity, reminding LLS that they can use words and
phrases from the list which the students created in the previous week. The activity aims to let
LLS become more familiar with C1 words at the earlier stage of a lesson, and thereby decrease
anxiety.
As for C2 words, LLS need them before they start English-only discussions. LLS have
two discussions in a lesson and they have preparation activities prior to each discussion. One of
the purposes of the preparation activity is to let LLS generate ideas related to discussion topics.
This seems a challenging task for LLS in that they need a stock of vocabulary to express their
opinions, and the words do not often appear in their textbooks. Furthermore, it is highly
skeptical to assume that LLS have a rich reservoir of vocabulary through their leaning
experience of English (cf. Council of Europe,2001). Therefore, it would be beneficial for LLS to
check if they can use prepare a set of C2 words so that LLS can move onto a discussion
smoothly.
The instructor introduces LLS C2 vocabulary activity as a part of preparation activities
for discussions. The instructor normally organizes a pair work exercise (about six to eight
minutes long) as a preparation activity so that LLS generate their ideas about topics in English.
In the pair work, the instructor allows LLS to use L1 only when they cannot find appropriate
English words. When LLS do use L1 words, the instructor writes them on theboard. After LLS
finish pair work, the instructor asks them if any of them know the L2 counterparts. The
instructor encourages LLS to help each other to find possible words. If necessary, the instructor
joins LLS to give them sample vocabulary. When LLS find L2 counterparts, the instructor erases
L1 words from the list and writes additional words in the L2 so that LLS can easily refer to them
during discussions (as mentioned above, the instructor and LLS use L1 during the checking
activity for the convenience of the lesson procedure).
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VARIATION
The vocabulary activity might be modified for upper-level students and extremely lower-level
students respectively. For the former, the instructor can introduce more advanced or authentic
vocabulary as alternative words that students can use in preparation activities. For much
lower-level students, it would be preferable to alter the last five-minute vocabulary activity as
detailed below.
The instructor prepares word cards for C1 words. Extremely low-level students have
few ideas about discussion topics and need some basic key words to understand what discussion
topics are. To let students get some gist about the next discussion topic, the instructor can select
key words from the textbook reading. For example, the instructor creates ten words for flash
cards which involve L1 words and L2 translations on each side of the cards. LLS use the L1-L2
word cards, and learn the key words in pairs in the last five minutes of a lesson. The following
week, LLS use the same word cards again before the fluency activity.
The instructor tried this activity for eight weeks in the first semester, and some extremely
low-level students successfully used the key words repeatedly from the fluency activity toward
the end of the lesson.
DISCUSSION
The recorded data of the lesson shows that LLS use C1 words from a word list many times.
Most LLS can use the key words and phrases without relying on the list by the time they finish
the fluency activity. However, a C1 word list contains words mainly for the fluency activity,
which LLS tend not to use in other activities during the lesson. It also might result from natures
of other activities where students focus on using specific sets of function phrases of that week
(for example, One (dis)advantage is that…, Are there any other advantages of…?) in a
meaningful context as well as expressing their personal ideas about discussion topics..
When LLS finish the fluency activity, they need C2 word knowledge to be ready for
discussions. LLS refer to the word list which contains supplementary C2 vocabulary for C1
words during a discussion. Making a word list aims to help LLS understand individual opinions
as speakers and listeners. The instructor sometimes erases words from the list when she finds
LLS can use them confidently without looking at the word list.
Using a word list may be effective scaffolding for LLS to discuss topics smoothly. On
the other hand, the list might lead LLS to have fewer chances to practice negotiation of meaning
in the L2. The instructor also has to pay close attention to how big a word list can be. As the
course does not focus on vocabulary activities, the instructor cannot create an exhaustive word
list. Thus, the instructor sometimes needs to carefully select which words should be included in a
word list.
CONCLUSION
The vocabulary activity described above was introduced into three classes in one semester where
twenty-four students were enrolled. It would be important to see how the activity would be
effective in other environments in the future. It would be also essential to examine if the activity
is beneficial from LLS’ point of view. Such future investigation would require different data
collection and analysis methods for this activity, for example, asking LLS to answer pre and post
questionnaires, which might add further insight as to the activity’s effectiveness.
REFERENCES
Boers, F. and S. Lindstromberg. (2007) How Cognitive Linguistics can Foster Effective
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Yurika Kambe
Vocabulary Teaching, in Gitte K., M. Achard, R. Dirven., and F.J. Ruiz de Mendoza
Iba´n˜ez. (eds.) Cognitive Linguistic Approaches to Teaching Vocabulary and
Phraseology. Mouton De Gruyter: Berlin.
Cook, V. (2001) Second Language Learning and Language Teaching. London Hodder Arnold.
Council of Europe (2001). Common European Framework of Reference for
Languages (CEFR): Learning, Teaching, Assessment, Modern Language Division,
Strasbourg.
Matt, J. S. (2013) Vocabulary Study Strategy: Prevalence among L2 Learners, Ritsumeikan
Center for Asia Pacific Studies 25. 19-26.
Nation, I S P. (2001) Learning Vocabulary in Another Language. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Saito, Y. (2014) Japanese University Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices Regarding
on English-only Policy, The Journal of Rikkyo University Language
Center 31, 29-42.
Steward, T. (2009) Willing the New English Curriculum for 2013 work?, The Language Teacher
33 (11), 9-13.
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Facetious Language Play for Creative Repetition
Nick Kasparek
ABSTRACT
This paper reviews the literature on language play and its potential benefits for language
teaching and learning from three interconnected theoretical foundations: sociocultural, dialogic,
and principled communicative. Language play is presented not as an off-task behavior or
inauthentic use of language, but as a potential learning tool. Humorous or facetious language
play can reduce learner anxiety, while creating positive pressure to produce target language. This
play can furthermore maintain learner interest in repetitive practice tasks by providing an outlet
for creativity. This paper presents one practice activity that seeks to promote creative repetition
through facetious language play in English discussion classes. It then discusses the activity’s
effects based on the author’s informal observations, suggests possible variations and
improvements, and presents a plan for future research.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Informal student feedback of Rikkyo University’s English Discussion Class (EDC) often seems
to include “fun.” This is the case despite the fact that the topics discussed are generally serious
social issues and that most students are facing the anxiety of communicating at length in a
foreign language for the first time in their lives. Thus, the fun involved in the class seems at first
to be just an incongruous by-product of the students’ serious learning of English discussion skills.
While this paper does not attempt to explain students’ enjoyment or prove that it is a central
element of their language learning, it does seek to explore, formalize, and promote one aspect
that might be involved in this fun: language play.
Language play (LP) has received some attention as facilitating second language
acquisition. Verbal humor is one important type of language play (Forman, 2011), and
facetiousness is a relatively easy form of this humor. Bell (2009) acknowledges the common
association between types of humor and language proficiency levels, embracing the idea that
humor is highly complex. But she and many other researchers (e.g., Broner & Tarone, 2001;
Bushnell, 2008; Pomerantz & Bell, 2007) have pointed to numerous examples of students of all
ages and at all proficiency levels exploiting all “the linguistic and non-verbal resources at their
disposal to create humor” (Bell, 2009, p. 245). Cook (2000) likewise argues that although there
is a varying degree of complexity within LP, it “can take place at all levels of proficiency,” and
suggests that it is patronizing to claim LP as the reserve of language users with native-like
proficiency (p. 204). It is therefore less helpful to delineate levels for LP abilities than to
recognize the types of humor that encourage sustained language play. For instance, fantasy
sequences have been found to be among the most likely type to encourage others to play along
(Bell, 2011, p. 150), and these could include facetiousness in that the participants are not
restricted to serious reality or actual opinions.
Rather than a disruptive, off-task, or inauthentic behavior in language classrooms, this
humorous LP can have positive affective, sociocultural, and linguistic effects (Forman, 2011).
Indeed, the functions of humor can be divided into three categories: “(1) cognitive and social
benefits of the positive emotion of mirth, (2) uses of humor for social communication and
influence, and (3) tension relief and coping” (Martin as cited in Bell, 2011, p. 145). Cook’s
(1997) seminal article presents a further, more fundamental rationale for including this ludic, or
ordered but fun, language play in a larger language pedagogy: LP is ubiquitous among people of
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all ages as part of the complexity of language, and the classroom is par excellence “a play world
in which people can practice and prepare” (p. 230). It is true that the classroom is an artificial
environment, but Cook (2000) notes that artifice can be “more authentic than reality” (p. 196).
Cook (2000) draws on van Lier’s conception of authenticity as being essentially about “a
personal process of engagement” (p. 202) and suggests that LP is a way for focus on form to
take on this personal and social significance. While play certainly does not replace the work of
language learning, it becomes such an integrated element that distinctions between “work” and
“play” break down.
As the above introduction suggests, there are interconnected theoretical foundations for
language play in second language acquisition research, drawing from sociocultural theory,
dialogic theory, and principled communicative language teaching. From a sociocultural
perspective, LP can be seen as fostering the construction both of novel thought and positive
social milieus for language learning (Swain and Deters, 2007, p. 823). At the individual level,
the creative language use in LP encourages greater internalization through deeper engagement,
and it maintains an openness to the new (Poehner & Lantolf, 2005, p. 237). Indeed, many
scholars have suggested a positive impact on memory thanks to the deeper processing and more
elaborate, stronger traces that LP and humor enable (Bell, 2012; Bushnell, 2008; Forman, 2011).
While this suggests elements of a cognitive model of SLA, it also relates to sociocultural theory
in that LP pushes students into their particular zone of proximal development (ZPD). Tin (2013)
suggests that the creativity involved in LP can “initiate the ZPD, helping learners to ‘stand a
head taller than they are’ even in the absence of scaffolding” (p. 388). Similarly, other scholars
note the benefits of humorous LP for enabling scaffolding through collaboration (Bell, 2005;
Bushnell, 2008; Pomerantz & Bell, 2011). Although the use of humor is dependent on some
degree of prior feelings of solidarity, it is especially powerful at promoting greater solidarity in
groups (Coates, 2007), which suggests that it would be a positive element of cooperative
learning. When teachers create affordances for play, it can help everyone construct relaxed,
participatory classroom cultures (van Dam, 2002). Research suggests that learners themselves
recognize some of these positive effects on the language-learning atmosphere (Murphey, Falout,
Fukuda, & Fukuda, 2014), although there is also evidence that if it is not explicitly sanctioned,
students view LP as an elicit, off-task behavior (Pomerantz & Bell, 2007).
Language play offers further benefits from a dialogic perspective. Dialogic theory
derives from the work of Bakhtin, who saw all language utterances as having both an addressor
and an addressee. In this model, language is learned through social interaction, and people create
and recreate their identities through these dialogues (Swain & Deters, 2007). The Bakhtinian
model also importantly views language as a “continual interplay between conformity and
creativity” (Pomerantz & Bell, 2011, p. 157). Language learners thus find themselves
appropriating different voices and recontextualizing them to make them their own (Bushnell,
2008).
Scholars of ludic LP have drawn upon several of these aspects of dialogic theory to
discuss how LP expands the possibilities of language use within the limited realm of the
classroom. Although all language use involves a tension between normalizing and creative
forces, LP especially encourages creative exploration beyond known forms and a stifling
overemphasis on accuracy. Language play might encourage this exploration by lowering
affective barriers (Bushnell, 2008) and reducing foreign language anxiety (Forman, 2011)
through both positive affect and coping strategies. This has important implications for students’
willingness to communicate (WTC) and intrinsic motivation, which relies in part on a “balance
of both cognitive and affective euphoric tension” (Spielmann & Radnofsky, 2001, p. 273).
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Language used to entertain oneself and others has the key feature of deniability, such that one
can claim to be “just kidding” and therefore protect one’s “true” identity or “save face”
(Pomerantz & Bell, 2011). Humor can thus help to create “safe houses,” that is, sites that foster
L2 development through their openness to experimentation and risk-taking (Pomerantz & Bell,
2011); by using humor, learners can commit face-threatening acts while remaining “‘off-record’
in the context of play” (Bushnell, 2008, p. 51). Bushnell (2008) found that LP “functions to
provide affordances for learners” both to internalize target language and develop sociolinguistic
competence (p. 51). Bushnell (2008) notes that in more transactional tasks, learners often neither
negotiate meaning nor accomplish the expected task, but when learners can jointly frame the
task as play, there is greater use of target language forms. Broner and Tarone’s (2001) study of
an immersion classroom revealed a similar interweaving of “play and work” (p. 371). Indeed, it
is in the “interactive juggling between play and seriousness” (Rampton as cited in van Dam,
2002, p. 258) that students can find authentic engagement in otherwise less engaging topics.
Moreover, in LP, learners experiment with a wide variety of play voices through mimicry
and parody that enable an appropriation and ownership of new language (Bushnell, 2008).
Language play helps learners learn to ventriloquate in order to become communicatively
competent; they can experiment with different styles, registers and social varieties of language
(Bell, 2005; p. 200). Learners can practice “double-voicing” to create script oppositions through
their different resonances. Language learners, even beginners, have been shown to recycle other
speakers’ prior utterances in creative, playful ways, both through intertextual play and through
role appropriations (Cekatte & Aronsson, 2004). This establishment of a play frame also
encourages secondary jokes and play.
Dörnyei’s (2013) proposed revisions to communicative language teaching, the Principled
Communicative Approach (PCA), also point to reasons for an increased role for language play.
PCA involves the addition of several principles to the Communicative Approach while retaining
as primary the meaningfulness and personal significance of classroom language use. Namely, he
adds the need for controlled practice, declarative input, focus on form, formulaic language,
language exposure, and focused interaction. In short, he brings back some of the elements of
traditional language teaching, but only as these work in service of meaningful communicative
goals. This compromise approach is less thoroughgoing than Cook’s (1997) call for greater
openness to elements of older forms of language teaching, but it nonetheless shares many
similarities. While Dörnyei (2013) retains the terms “meaning-focused” and “meaning-based,”
Cook (1997) points out that language play is sometimes nonsensical and fantastical, but still
meaningful in a broader sense. Carter (2007) suggests that there is a danger in language use
becoming overly transactional, utilitarian, and mechanistic if this is forgotten. Authentic
conversations full of play and banter among friends may convey little information, but they
involve language for its own sake, for the enjoyment of the interaction. Welcoming this language
creativity and play into communication-focused classrooms would thus mean allowing for this
equally “authentic” language use in meaning-focused or transactional tasks. Cook (1997)
suggests that we integrate the best elements of different forms of language teaching to better
respond to the complexity of language learning.
Likewise, Pennycook (2007) creatively recasts an old saying to emphasize the same idea:
we should not throw out the “mimetic baby” with the “behaviourist bathwater” (p. 590).
Repetition and recontextualization, rather than being old-fashioned and stultifying, can instead
be framed as creative acts. Pennycook’s model of creativity challenges its conflation with
originality and difference, arguing instead that it involves just as much repetition and
recontextualization as it does minor differences. Thus, he can claim that “language creativity is
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the common stuff of everyday language use” (p. 583). Tin (2013) suggests that imposing
constraints is one way to encourage this move toward creativity and play. Having a strict form
allows for the language users’ focus to shift to creative content and creative repetition of others’
content. Language play thereby enables a focus on form that remains meaningful and engaging.
As Cook (1997) notes, LP focuses students’ attention on the formal and semantic levels of
language, as they must play by these rules. In other words, LP rarely comes from nowhere, but
connects directly to the task. This in turn is credited with disrupting learners’ interlanguage,
again pushing them into their ZPD (Bushnell, 2008).
Research into LP has followed two related but different definitions of its core concept,
which Broner and Tarone (2001) helpfully distinguish as “language play as rehearsal” and
“language play as fun.” These can overlap, as repetition is often a key feature of both types, just
as Pennycook’s (2007) model suggests of creativity more generally. As Bell (2012) notes, both
“see language play as the repetition and/or manipulation of L2 forms and meanings” (p. 238). In
a related vein, Tin (2013) suggests that language creativity be defined as “the playful use of
language to construct new and surprising meaning” (p. 387). While rehearsal is often a solitary
act, though, ludic LP is typically social, and indeed is primarily co-constructed by multiple
participants collaborating through improvisation like jazz musicians (Coates, 2006). Rikkyo’s
EDC involves many opportunities for this fun language play through student-to-student
interaction, especially in the rapid exchange of facetious ideas. Maximizing repetition of target
phrases and forms, while keeping it fresh and authentic, is a challenge in EDC classes, which are
otherwise highly meaning-focused. Thus, the practice stage not only presents many opportunities
for LP, but also could benefit from the engaging focus on form that LP can provide. This
repetition in turn could help develop creative automaticity and improve long-term recall and
transfer of the target language. It is hoped that with the constraints of the target language,
provided topics, and activities, students can be encouraged to playfully riff on creative content
and thereby explore the limits of the form together.
TASKS AND MATERIALS

As the above literature review suggests, language play is most easily conceptualized as a
naturally occurring phenomenon in language learning and authentic language use, but it is one to
which teachers can be open rather than resist or stifle as “off-task.” This openness is akin to an
approach to language teaching or a guiding principle for all aspects of teaching. For instance,
teachers can use feedback to recognize students’ positive, on-task LP, use humorous LP in their
teacher talk to signal its acceptance, and demonstrate a risk-welcoming openness to content and
form when monitoring students. Thus, while the focus of this paper is the purposeful fostering of
LP within a specifically-designed activity, it is important to recognize the broader foundations
that invite play and sanction it is as a productive learning strategy. In other words, the proposed
activity is unlikely to work in total isolation.
The long-term preparation in my class involved a peer-idealizing discussion in the first
lesson, in which students imagined together and discussed what they hoped their classmates
would do to help them have a positive learning experience throughout the course. The
preparation for this discussion involved agreeing and disagreeing with opinions taken from
Murphey, Falout, Fukuda, and Fukuda’s (2014) repeated peer-idealizing activities with Japanese
university students. One of these opinions involved the use of language play, fun, and humor
(Appendix A). Students were nearly unanimous in their agreement that this was something that
they hoped their classmates would use in their class. In my feedback, I noted this agreement and
explicitly sanctioned this behavior for future classes; moreover, I provided the phrase “Just
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kidding” as an additional classroom English phrase to provide a tool for future language play. I
did not use a control group, so I cannot draw many conclusions about the efficacy of this
foundational activity. Nonetheless, I did observe students using “Just kidding” in future lessons,
and I think there was a general openness to playfulness that may have been otherwise more
limited.
The specific task seeks a balance between the pressure to produce language rapidly and a
reduction of anxiety about this foreign language use. In Spielmann and Radnofsky’s (2001)
terms, the activity seeks to promote “euphoric tension.” To accomplish this, this practice activity
uses a “scoreboard” (Fink, 2013) to help students track their own use of the target phrases, and it
invites students to join a teacher-constructed play frame or create their own. I used poker chips
as manipulatives that students placed on a laminated card to create a record of their language
production (Appendix B). Establishing a play frame was the more challenging aspect, and one
that requires still more modification and experimentation. In some lessons, students read aloud a
simple humorous model dialogue that used well-known Japanese comedians as characters
(Appendix C). In one lesson, the function presentation deviated from the lesson topic for greater
dramatic and humorous effect. In future lessons, I plan to introduce potentially humorous
constraints (Appendix D). Primarily, however, I encouraged LP in my introduction to the activity
itself. This will be discussed further in the sections describing the procedure and the variations
of the activity.
PROCEDURE
This practice activity follows a presentation, ideally with an element of play or humor, and then
students reading aloud a model or gap-fill dialogue, again preferably involving some LP. The
teacher gives each pair of students their laminated scoreboard (Appendix B) and a stack of
color-coded chips. For this illustrative case, I used the balancing opinions function; red chips
represented disadvantages, and blue chips were advantages. The teacher models the use of the
chips with a brief demonstration, ideally using student ideas if done after an initial test without
these materials. In this case, I used a big version of the scoreboard on the board with red and
blue magnets for the chips. The teacher then (re-)emphasizes the two general rules for this type
of practice activity: 1) students must use an appropriate target phrase whenever they place a chip
on the scoreboard, and 2) wild, funny ideas are great too because the goal is just to say as many
phrases and ideas as they can. For the balancing opinions function practice, the teacher also
stresses that students keep a good balance between advantages (blue) and disadvantages (red),
for example, at least two of each for every topic. The teacher can then remind students that a
funny idea might help them think of the other side.
The teacher monitors students for three to four minutes of this practice, ensuring that
students use the target phrases and collecting playful or other good examples for feedback. The
teacher then praises the success evidenced by the students’ scoreboards (e.g., pointing out that
there were at least two chips of each color before students changed topics) and highlights a
particularly interesting example observed (i.e., an instance of language play or other creative
use). The teacher then states that there were many other interesting ideas and that students
should share some of their groups’ best examples as quickly as possible with a new partner.
Students then switch partners and repeat their groups’ most interesting examples in half the time
given for the initial practice, again repeating the target phrases. Students thus have two chances
for recognition for their successful LP, first in teacher feedback and then in a kind of peer
feedback that doubles as continued practice.
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VARIATIONS
The basic procedure described above allows for a great deal of variation. The scoreboard does
not need to consist of manipulatives such as poker chips with a laminated graphic organizer, but
could involve a checklist or some other form of counting. The scoreboard aspect provides the
primary structure of the activity, while language play is encouraged primarily through the
framing of the activity and the focused repetition of the most interesting examples. This,
however, may not be enough for many groups of students, especially early in the semester, to
co-construct their own play frames.
Thus, an idea bank (Appendix D) could be added for each topic, and one of these
example ideas for each topic could serve as prefabricated play frame for students to join. For
instance, a one- or two-word idea that is ambiguous about whether it is an advantage or
disadvantage could be given. The less playful ideas could also serve as a helpful content aid for
lower-level students who might otherwise feel all of the pressure to produce language without
being able to take advantage of the anxiety-reduction of LP. Similarly, one playful advantage or
disadvantage could be given on the scoreboard itself for students to start with (Appendix E).
DISCUSSION
This activity stemmed from observed student behavior in a discussion the previous semester,
namely, a group of lower-level students engaging in language play as they challenged each other
to contribute facetious and creative examples of how to use technology for heating and cooling.
Students used the target phrases for both asking for and giving examples and then supported
these examples with reasons, thus reviewing previous target phrases. It was in this discussion
that I observed the highest group-wide use of target phrases. This on-task LP seemed to arise
from a practice activity that challenged students to creatively use examples they had generated
prior to seeing the practice questions. They were asked to use their list of technologies as
examples with the target phrases, sometimes to comic effect. After reviewing the literature and
learning of the various potential benefits of language play for language learning, the question
then became how to foster this positive LP more formally and for other practice activities.
In my informal observations, the scoreboard element of the activity seemed to ensure its
success in achieving its goals of generating a great deal of target language. This was
unsurprising, but it remains important to note. In my observations, students had little difficulty
using the chips, and they seemed to reference it and push each other to generate at least two
advantages and disadvantages for every topic. In short, this helped to recreate the
student-to-student challenging pressure that I observed in the naturally-occurring language play.
This pressure also did not seem overly anxiety-producing, despite the activity being introduced
relatively early in the semester.
However, evidence of clear language play was harder to find. As noted in the discussion
of possible variations, the structure of the activity did not provide its own play frame; rather,
there was only the teacher’s encouragement and the general playful atmosphere inviting students
to co-create their own language play frames. Future implementation of such activities will need
to include prefabricated play frames for a true test of their efficacy. Despite this limitation, I
nonetheless observed significant student laughter during the activity, and this carried over
somewhat into the discussions and peer feedback activities as well. This was especially
pronounced in three types of classes: those that already seemed to exhibit a great deal of group
solidarity, those with students who first seemed uninterested in the topic (in this case, it was
study abroad), and those with especially quiet and reserved students. While the already-bonded
groups may not need this additional encouragement to engage in on-task play, this activity seems
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promising for quiet groups with only nascent feelings of solidarity and for students who might
not otherwise engage with the topics.
Thus, while it remains unclear whether LP can be credited with creating the conditions
for the successful repetition of target phrases with a variety of content, there remain reasons to
suspect that it played a role in helping the scoreboard element produce euphoric pressure rather
than debilitative pressure.
CONCLUSION
There is therefore a need for continued research into the specific effects of introducing language
play in distinct ways. The activity needs to be designed with at least three variations: 1) a control
group who complete the task without explicit reference to play or fun, 2) a group who are
primed for play with a humorous example and encouragement to play within the target form, and
3) a group who are both primed for play and are provided possible prefabricated play frames.
This would allow for comparisons of the frequency of target language use and comparisons of
instances of laughter. Both could be observed with a simple observation checklist (Appendix F),
and simple correlations could be suggested. For the activity sample, random pairs could be
selected from two classes completing each type of variation of the activity. Observations of the
group discussions following the activity could use the same type of checklist for additional
comparisons among the three different treatment groups, which could suggest differences in
internalization and creative automization.
While this more robust study still would not attempt to uncover the deeper processes
involved in how language play affects language learning, it would attempt to provide some
evidence for LP’s general effects on the frequency of target language use in practice activities
and discussions. This could have implications on how teachers view and respond to observed LP,
possibly leading them to see this as a positive, on-task learning strategy rather than an off-task
disruption or distraction. Moreover, it could lead to greater appreciation for this authentic use of
language for pleasurable social interaction; and in turn, this appreciation of how language
acquisition can be serious fun could be strongly motivating for all involved and have a
significant impact on future learning.
REFERENCES
Bell, N. D. (2005). Exploring L2 language play as an aid to SLL: A case study of humour in
NS-NNS interaction. Applied Linguistics, 26, 192–218.
Bell, N. D. (2009). Learning about and through humor in the second language classroom.
Language Teaching Research, 13, 241–258.
Bell, N. D. (2011). Humor scholarship and TESOL: Applying findings and establishing a research
agenda. TESOL Quarterly, 45, 134–159.
Bell, N. D. (2012). Comparing playful and nonplayful incidental attention to form. Language
Learning, 62, 236–265.
Broner, M. A. & Tarone, E. E. (2001). Is it fun? Language play in a fifth-grade Spanish immersion
classroom. The Modern Language Journal, 85, 363–379.
Bushnell, C. (2008). “Lego my keego!”: An analysis of language play in a beginning Japanese as a
foreign language classroom. Applied Linguistics, 30, 49–69.
Carter, R. (2007). Response to special issue of Applied Linguistics devoted to Language Creativity
in Everyday Contexts. Applied Linguistics, 28, 597–608.
Cekatte, A. & Aronsson, K. (2004). Repetition and joking in children’s second language
conversations: Playful recyclings in an immersion classroom. Discourse Studies, 6, 373–
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392.
Coates, J. (2007). Talk in a play frame: More on laughter and intimacy. Journal of Pragmatics, 39,
29–49.
Cook, G. (1997). Language play, language learning. ELT Journal, 51, 224–231.
Dörnyei, Z. (2013). Communicative Language Teaching in the twenty-first century: The
“Principled Communicative Approach.” In J. Arnold & T. Murphey (Eds.), Meaningful
action: Earl Stevick's influence on language teaching (p. 161–171). Cambridge, U.K.:
Cambridge University Press.
Fink, L. D. (2013) Creating significant learning experiences, revised and updated: An integrated
approach to designing college courses. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Forman, R. (2011). Humorous language play in a Thai EFL classroom. Applied Linguistics, 32,
541–565.
Pennycook, A. (2007). “The rotation gets thick. The constraints get thin”: Creativity,
recontextualization, and difference. Applied Linguistics, 28, 579–596.
Poehner, M. E., & Lantolf, J. P. (2005). Dynamic assessment in the language classroom.
Language Teaching Research, 9, 233–265.
Pomerantz, A. & Bell, N. D. (2011). Humor as safe house in the foreign language classroom.
The Modern Language Journal, 95, Supplementary Issue, 148–161.
Pomerantz, A. & Bell, N. D. (2007). Learning to play, playing to learn: FL learners as
multicompetent language users. Applied Linguistics, 28, 556–578.
Spielmann, G., & Radnofsky, M. L. (2001). Learning language under tension: New directions
from a qualitative study. The Modern Language Journal, 85, 259–278.
Swain, M. & Deters, P. (2007). “New” mainstream SLA theory: Expanded and enriched. The
Modern Language Journal, 91(s1), 820–836.
Tin, T. B. (2013). Towards creativity in ELT: The need to say something new. ELT Journal, 67,
385–387.
van Dam, J. Ritual, face, and play in a first English lesson: Bootstrapping a classroom culture. In C.
Kramsch (Ed.), Language acquisition and language socialization: Ecological perspectives
(p. 237–265). London: Continuum.
APPENDIX A - Preparation for Peer-Idealizing Discussion (Relevant Section)
I’m not sure, but I think good classmates sometimes play and joke. I mean they are not
always totally serious. For instance, they laugh and help everyone have fun while we
practice English. This helps everyone learn better. What do you think of my idea?
APPENDIX B - Scoreboard Graphic Organizer for Balancing Opinion
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APPENDIX C - Example Playful Model Dialogue for Pre-Practice Review

(Recontextualizing Well-Known Japanese Comedians and One of their Jokes)
Read this good short dialogue with your group to review the target phrases.
Hamada: WSWDF?
Barbie: WDWD being fashionable? Can I start?
Everyone: Sure!
Barbie: I always try to be fashionable because one + of being fashionable is we can
meet cool people. And then ♡ fall in love ♡. Are TA other +?
Matsumoto: Really? IPA with Barbie. I usually try to be fashionable. Another + is we
won’t look old and old-fashioned. But WA the –?
Hamada: Hmm. One – is fashion changes very fast. So we have to buy new clothes
every year. Sometimes I like to wear my old favorite clothes. DAWT add something?
Barbie: Can I AAQ?
Hamada: Go ahead.
Barbie: Are your old clothes fashionable?
Hamada: I think they show my personality more. Is that C?
Everyone: Yes!
Matsumoto: So DAH any OI?
APPENDIX D - Idea Bank for the Topic of Going Abroad (Imposing Further Creative
Constraints and Providing Possible Prefabricated Play Frames)
Millionaire Criminals Romance Pets

Sick Rainy
Sushi Famous
APPENDIX E - Scoreboard with Example Playful Ideas
Travel
Is traveling abroad a good idea?
+ –
You can escape from the local police
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APPENDIX F - Example Checklist for Observing Practice Target Language Performance

and Language Play
Student A B
Speaker Target Phrase Use  
Listener Target Phrase Use  
Laughter or “Just kidding”  
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Generating Content in a 3/2/1 Fluency Activity with
Low-Proficiency Learners
Robert Lowe
ABSTRACT
In classes at the Center for English Discussion Class (EDC) at Rikkyo University, students are
usually required to take part in a 3/2/1 fluency-based speaking activity, in which the students are
required to speak on a topic three times, with a shorter time limit for each turn. This activity is
intended, through the repetition of ideas, to promote the automatization of language which can
be drawn upon in later discussions. However, for low-level learners it can be a challenge to
produce the necessary amount of spoken language during the initial three minute part of the
3/2/1 for this activity to be effective. This paper describes an activity in which listeners were
allowed to ask a limited number of questions to their partner during the three minute turn, in
order to help them generate enough content for effective repetition in the following two turns.
Some data is also presented showing how effective this activity was.
INTRODUCTION
In classes conducted at the Center for English Discussion Class (EDC), it is usual for the
students to engage in a fluency activity at some point in the lesson in order to help them build
their speaking fluency. Nation (1989) notes that “the goal of fluency-directed communication
activities is to enable the learner to integrate previously encountered language items into an
easily accessed, largely unconscious, language system as a result of focusing on the
communication of messages” (p.378). The goal of carrying out fluency activities in EDC classes
is to build the fluency of utterances among learners so that they will be able to draw upon this
language during their discussions at later stages.
The most commonly used activity for building fluency in EDC classes is what Maurice
(1983) terms the “fluency workshop”, but which is more commonly known as “the 4/3/2
technique” (Nation, 1989). In this activity, students are required to speak on a subject three times,
each time to a different partner (or “listener”) and with a shorter time limit on each occasion.
While both Maurice (1983; 1986; 1994) and Nation (1989) recommend time limits of four
minutes, three minutes, and two minutes per turn, in EDC classes this is usually reduced to three
minutes, two minutes, and one minute, in order to allow time for the other stages of the lesson to
be fully implemented. The 4/3/2 technique is intended to help build student fluency, through
what Gatbonton and Segalowitz (1988) argue is one of the main principles guiding the
construction of fluency-based activities within a communicative framework; the repetition of
ideas, leading to the automatization of utterances.
The 4/3/2 technique (3/2/1 in the EDC context) adheres to this principle. In this activity,
the students are required to repeat their ideas three times, allowing them to move from a focus
on content to simply increasing the fluency with which their ideas are communicated. Nation
(1989) notes that because the speaker has a different audience each time they speak, they will
not be attempting to add new information in each turn in a bid to keep their partner interested,
and so “[their] attention will be on communicating the message” (p.378). Therefore, speakers
will be able to focus on repeating their ideas and building their fluency, leaving them with a
store of automatized utterances to draw upon in their discussions. De Jong & Perfetti (2011)
have lent evidential weight to this notion, finding that students who repeated their ideas in a
4/3/2 activity maintained their fluency on posttests, much in the way that EDC students are
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hoped to retain ideas from their 3/2/1 activity and fluently express them during their discussions.
In sum then, the 3/2/1 activity is employed in EDC lessons to help students build their
fluency and create a store of automatized language which can be drawn upon in their discussions,
which take place in later stages of the lesson. However, in order for the 3/2/1 activity to be fully
effective, students must first possess the linguistic skills and confidence to speak for three
minutes, and generate enough content to repeat in the following two and one minute turns. In
EDC classes, this can sometimes be problematic, as low-level students often do not have the
required level of linguistic knowledge or confidence to speak for the initial three minutes. In this
paper I will describe an activity which can be used to tackle this problem, and, through a
presentation of data, show how effective this activity can be. This is an activity in which the
“listeners” are allowed to ask three follow-up questions during the initial 3 minute talk in order
to prompt more information from their speaking partner.
CONTEXT
In the English Discussion course at Rikkyo University students are divided into four levels based
on their English proficiency. Students are assigned to each level according to the scores they
achieved on the TOEIC test taken after being accepted into the university. Learners displaying
high levels of English proficiency are placed in level 1 classes, with increasingly lower TOEIC
scores resulting in students being placed in levels 2, 3, and 4, numbered according to descending
levels of proficiency. Students in level 4 have, in nearly all cases, the lowest level of English
proficiency of each of the groups, although the proficiency in level 4 classes is perhaps the most
variable – ranging from those with relatively good communicative skills to those who have very
little linguistic knowledge, understanding, or skill. Students in less competent level 3 groups
may have also similar problems. For students in these categories, it can be difficult to speak for
the full three minutes during the first part of the 3/2/1 activity, and as such these learners may
fail to generate a suitable amount of content to repeat in the following turns. Because of this,
students will not be able to adequately automatize their ideas, and there will be little in terms of
pre-existing content or structures available for them to draw on in their discussions.
The activity described here is intended to help low level learners generate content and
ideas during the first part of the 3/2/1 activity. Ideally, this activity should be carried out at the
beginning of the lesson, because this will give the students the chance to develop their ideas and
content in preparation for discussions occurring later in the class.
MATERIALS
In order to carry out this activity successfully, the teacher needs to prepare a number of fluency
questions. These are questions that the students will answer during their speaking turns, and
which will prompt them to generate content. In each lesson in the EDC textbook, two questions
are provided which the teacher may write on the board or use to prompt the students in some
other way. With low-level classes, the students may need to have the questions simplified in
order to aid comprehension and reduce time spent on concept and information checking in the
class.
Aside from these questions, this activity does not require any additional materials,
although it does require a small amount of set up. This will only be the case for the first few
times the lesson is taught, however, as the students will soon become acclimatized to the routine
of the activity.
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PROCEDURE
In this section, the procedure for conducting this activity will be described. It should be stressed
again at this point that this activity should only be used with learners who are of a relatively low
level of proficiency, and are struggling to generate content in the first 3 minute turn of the 3/2/1
activity. Using this activity with higher-level learners would be largely redundant and may well
contribute to a lack of effort on the part of the students. The activity will be described in five
steps, with some rationale given when necessary.
Step 1: Set up the 3/2/1 activity with the students as usual, dividing the class into two and
designating half of the students as “speakers” and half of the students as “listeners”. The
students should then stand in two lines facing each other.
Step 2: Draw the students’ attention to the questions on the board (or in whatever way you
choose to present them). Check that all the students understand the questions, and then explain to
the students who will be speaking first that they must answer the two questions on the board, and
talk about them for three minutes.
Step 3: Tell the students who will be listening to hold up three fingers on one of their hands.
Explain that while their partner is speaking they are allowed to ask three follow-up questions,
and that each time they ask a question they should put down one of their fingers. When all of
their fingers are down they may not ask any more questions. Explain that they are not allowed to
interrupt their partner, and should only ask a question if their partner is having difficulty thinking
of more to say. Also stress that they do not have to use all three of their available questions (see
example instructions in APPENDIX A). The number of questions should be limited to three in
order to stop the talk turning into a conversation.
Step 4: When the first three minute turn has finished, ask the students to change partners and
repeat their information for two minutes. This time, stress that the listeners should not ask any
questions, and should only listen and react to their partner. If listeners try to ask questions during
this period, either step in and remind them not to, or point this out at the end of the turn. Repeat
this procedure for the final one minute turn.
Step 5: Change the listeners and speakers around, and repeat steps one to five described above
with the new speakers and listeners.
DATA COLLECTION
To assess the effectiveness of this activity, some data was collected from two discussion groups;
one which was engaged in the activity (GROUP A), and one which was not (GROUP B). The
groups were selected on the basis that the students were at roughly the same level of ability (both
were low-proficiency level 3 groups) and confidence, and that therefore any differences in
performance could more likely be put down to the single variable of the activity. This decision
was made after the first three weeks of the course, so that the judgment over the similarity of the
groups could be made with a level of confidence backed by observations of student behaviour.
The students in the two groups chosen performed similarly and consistently in the 3/2/1 activity
in the first three weeks of the course, and so it was felt that they would be appropriate groups to
use as a trial and as a control.
The purpose of this activity was to help the students to fill the first three minute speaking
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turn of the 3/2/1 activity, in order to generate sufficient content to continue speaking for the
following turns. In order to measure the effectiveness of the activity, it was decided that each
student in the two groups would be monitored during their fluency activity, in order to see how
much time elapsed before they fell silent. In the trial group this included any speaking time
which occurred after follow up questions had been asked. As the students spoke, the instructor
listened to them, and noted down at what point each student stopped speaking. Small pauses in
speech were not included, and the times recorded were the times at which students stopped
speaking and did not restart, or the point at which the language they generated began to consist
of fillers and summaries of what they had previously said. Often students would stop speaking at
the same time, or at very similar times, making exact timing occasionally difficult to record. In
these instances the times noted were as close as could be approximated.
RESULTS
The following tables show the amount of time which elapsed before each of the students in
GROUP A (those engaged in the activity) and GROUP B (those not) fell silent during their
initial speaking turns over an 8 week period (weeks four to eleven of the course). The number
given is the amount of time in minutes and seconds the students spoke for before stopping,
including speaking time facilitated by follow-up questions. For example, if a student stopped
speaking after 90 seconds, the number in the table will read ‘1.30’, meaning the student stopped
speaking after a minute and a half, leaving a further minute and a half of silence. If the students
did not stop speaking, either uninterrupted or with the assistance of follow-up questions, this is
recorded in the table as DNS (Did Not Stop).
Table 1. GROUP A
Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Student 2.40 DNS DNS 2.37 DNS DNS DNS DNS
1
Student DNS DNS DNS DNS DNS DNS DNS DNS
2
Student DNS 2.33 DNS 2.46 DNS DNS 2.51 DNS
3
Student 2.32 2.36 2.38 2.52 DNS DNS 2.33 DNS
4
Student DNS DNS DNS 2.46 DNS DNS DNS DNS
5
Student 1.58 1.50 1.52 2.14 2.01 2.37 2.35 2.18
6
Student 2.54 DNS 2.48 DNS DNS DNS DNS DNS
7
Student 2.39 2.42 2.38 2.52 DNS 2.55 DNS DNS
8
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Table 2. Group B
Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Student 1.56 2.13 2.04 2.23 2.17 2.31 2.42 2.44
1
Student 2.37 2.40 DNS 2.38 DNS DNS 2.51 DNS
2
Student 1.35 1.50 1.43 1.58 2.33 2.18 2.27 2.32
3
Student 1.18 1.36 1.25 1.41 1.40 2.03 1.57 2.21
4
Student 2.42 2.46 DNS DNS DNS DNS DNS DNS
5
Student 2.22 2.24 2.38 2.45 DNS 2.33 DNS 2.47
6
Student 2.37 DNS 2.44 DNS 2.40 2.47 DNS DNS
7
Student 1.42 1.48 2.13 2.11 2.36 2.28 2.42 DNS
8
It can be clearly seen from these two sets of data that the students engaged in this follow-up
question activity spoke for a longer amount of time, on average, and were far more likely not to
stop at all, than those who were completing their three minute speaking turns unsupported by
follow-up questions their listening partner. To summarize the results, in GROUP A there were
thirty-nine instances of DNS, compared with only seventeen occurrences in GROUP B, and
while both groups increased the number of DNS speaking turns as the semester progressed, this
change was more rapid, more universal, and more consistent in GROUP A than GROUP B. It
should be noted that the students in GROUP B improved their performance over the course of
the 8 week data collection period, and toward the end of this period were more likely to continue
speaking for the full three minutes than they were at the start of the period. However, the
positive effects of the activity on GROUP A’s performance suggests that this activity has some
clear utility for improving the performance of students, and helping them to generate sufficient
content both to complete the activity, and possibly to support their discussions during later stages
of the lesson.
CONCLUSION
This activity presented and trialed here was intended to help low-level learners generate enough
ideas and content during the first three minute turn of their 3/2/1 activity to repeat in the
following two speaking turns, and to automatize for use later on in the lesson during their
discussions. Nation (1989) states that in a 4/3/2 activity “the listener does not interrupt and does
not ask questions” (p.378), due to the fact that asking questions during the two- and one-minute
turns would change the content and thus negatively affect the automatization through repetition.
However, in this paper it has been argued that by limiting the number of questions and by
stipulating the circumstances in which these questions can be asked (during only the first
three-minute turn), the teacher can stop the interaction from mutating into a discussion or
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conversation. Furthermore, the data presented in this paper has lent support to the notion that
asking a limited number of follow-up questions can help the learners to come up with suitable
amount of content to fill the following two turns and to repeat at later stages of the lesson. In this
study, the performance of both a trial and control group were monitored, and the results,
presented in the previous sections, suggest a benefit from this activity on student performance.
The research presented here was carried out with only two small sets of students, and in
order to produce more robust and reliable results it would be necessary to test the activity with
larger groups of students. In addition, this study focused only on the effect of the follow-up
question activity on the completion of the 3/2/1 fluency practice itself. While it has been
speculated in this paper that this will also have a beneficial effect on the discussions occurring
later in the lesson, this cannot be directly inferred from the data presented herein. This would be
an interesting area for future research to focus on.
REFERENCES
De Jong, N. & Perfetti, C. A. (2011) Fluency training in the ESL classroom: An
experimental study of fluency development and proceduralization. Language
Learning 62(2), 533-568.
Gatbonton, E. & Segalowitz, N. (1988) Creative automatization: Principles for promoting
fluency within a communicative framework. TESOL Quarterly 22(3), 473-492.
Maurice, K. (1983) The fluency workshop. TESOL Newsletter August 1983.
Maurice, K. (1986) Speed up your speaking class: Two techniques aimed at fluency. In
Prapphal, K., Wongbiasaj, S., & Maurice, K. (eds) Methods and
Techniques that Work – 1986 Convention Papers (Thai TESOL), 73-86.
Maurice, K. (1994) The fluency workshop. In Bailey, K. & Savage, L. (eds) New ways in
teaching speaking. Alexandria, VA; TESOL.
Nation, P. (1989) Improving speaking fluency. System 17(3), 377-384.
APPENDIX
Sample instructions for step 3 of the procedure:
“Listeners, please hold up three fingers (teacher models by holding up three fingers). You can
ask three follow-up questions to your partner. Each time you ask a question, please put down one
finger (teacher models by putting down one finger). After you have asked three questions, you
cannot ask any more questions. Do not ask a question when your partner is speaking. Only ask a
question when your partner has no more ideas. You don’t have to ask all three questions, so only
ask when your partner needs help.”
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Using Content Scaffolding to Improve Discussion Flow
Mat McLaughlin
ABSTRACT
Scaffolding is a form of assistance provided in the language-learning classroom. Based on the
tenets of social constructivism, it aims to ‘bridge the gap’ between language learners’ current
abilities and the resources which they lack but require to complete an in-class activity. First-year
Rikkyo University students enrolled in the English Discussion Class sometimes encounter
problems with recalling or generating content spontaneously during in-class discussions. Word
sheets featuring vocabulary items from students’ reading homework or taken from previous
discussion class notes were used in class to provide students with content scaffolding, with the
aim of reducing the number of pauses which interrupt the flow of students’ discussions. Informal
observations made throughout the semester indicated that while vocabulary scaffolding was used
by approximately one-third of the students in classes in which the activity was introduced, there
seemed to be other factors at play which affected the overall flow of the discussion.
INTRODUCTION
Cooperative learning is a key principle within the theory of social constructivism. In modern
terminology, it is often referred to simply as ‘scaffolding.’ It is my belief that when teachers
provide students with scaffolding (a form of assistance), students are able to complete tasks or
perform them better than they would if the assistance were withdrawn. In this paper, I will
outline one activity that I have designed based on these theoretical constructs and have
introduced to my discussion class students, with the aim of improving the overall flow of
students’ discussions.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Within the area of social constructivism, much emphasis is placed upon the concept of
cooperative learning (Brown, 2007, p.13). One concept which tends to surface quite frequently
in the literature is the notion of a zone of proximal development, which was first proposed by
Lev Vygostky. The zone of proximal development (or ‘ZPD’) is defined as “the distance
between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the
level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or
in collaboration with more capable peers.” (Vygotsky, 1978: p. 86)
In pedagogical practice, the ZPD is more or less synonymous with the term ‘scaffolding,’
a term first coined by Wood (1976). This theory holds that when the student is ‘within the ZPD,’
the assistance or scaffolding provided to the student will give a sufficient “boost” (McLeod,
2010) to help him or her complete the task. The role of scaffolding, essentially, is to ‘bridge the
gap’ between a learner’s current ability and their potential. As Wood (1976) points out,
sometimes elements of a language-learning task can involve “a degree of skill that is initially
beyond” learners (Wood, 1976, p. 89) and therefore scaffolding is required to help the student
complete the task. Through observation, teachers are able to discern which language skills or
resources students might be lacking in order to complete an in-class exercise or activity (in this
case a 10-minute or 16-minute discussion). Based on this information, the teacher is then able to
prepare and provide some form of learner support in the classroom.
This theory also posits that scaffolding is most effective when the support provided is
closely matched to the students’ needs (McLeod, 2010). In the language-learning classroom,
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various forms of scaffolding can be provided to assist students in their execution of a language
exercise or activity. Within the context of an English discussion class at Rikkyo University
(Tokyo, Japan), I shall argue below that one form of scaffolding that is matched to the needs of
the learner is the provision of content scaffolding, or in layman’s terms, providing vocabulary
assistance.
The Use of Scaffolding in SLA

Within the field of second language acquisition (SLA), various studies have been conducted to
date to determine the efficacy of using scaffolding in the language-learning classroom. In a study
on the effects of scaffolding to assist students with a reading class, Beed, Hawkins and Roller
(1991) discovered that often a scaffold may also have other beneficial effects on the L2 learning
process. They also describe how in the final stage of scaffolding, assistance is gradually removed,
thereby encouraging students to become more independent and autonomous.
Copple and Bredekamp (2009) outline several ways in which effective scaffolding can be
provided to language learners, such as modeling a skill, providing hints or cues, and adapting
materials or activities. Adapting materials is sometimes essential, especially when the assigned
teaching materials (for example, the textbook) are not closely aligned with the student’s current
abilities and proficiency.
Furthermore, VanPatten & Benati (2010) provide another simple example, which
highlights the essential point of scaffolding - “the NS (native speaker) talks to fill in what the
NNS (non-native speaker) can’t do” (p. 145). They also mention how NSs or whoever is
providing the scaffolding (often teachers) can help with “key linguistic information, such as
vocabulary (my emphasis), at particular points” (p. 145).
In the next section I will discuss in more detail the types of scaffolding and how the
scaffolding of content can be applied to the context of an English discussion class.
Types of Scaffolding
Beed et al. (1991) loosely divide scaffolding into two categories: incidental scaffolding and
strategic scaffolding. In the former, scaffolding is provided to the learner on an ad hoc basis
while in the latter, scaffolding attends to more specific problems that learners are experiencing.
Silver (2011) outlines several examples of types of scaffolding, which can be provided to
assist learning. One of these forms of scaffolding, using verbal cues and prompts to assist
students, is of particular interest because discussion content is another area, in addition to form,
which I have sometimes found to be problematic in discussion classes.
In our discussion class, some students have shared some of their difficulties, which they
have experienced during an in-class discussion. The frustration felt by some students in being able
to spontaneously generate ideas within a class discussion and under time constraints (10 minutes
or 16 minutes), including trouble with recalling ideas from their reading homework, has been
particularly salient. Therefore, the type of scaffolding which I have provided in this study could be
categorized as a form of strategic scaffolding. However, this study differs in one important way
from conventional scaffolding – ongoing scaffolding will be provided (whereas in conventional
studies on scaffolding it is usually withdrawn to encourage autonomy) with the goal of either
helping students recall homework ideas or presenting them with new ideas which they can then
contribute towards the discussion in order to reduce the frequency of pauses (both within and
between speaking turns) and thereby improve the overall flow of the discussion.
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TASK
I will now provide an overview of the task that I have introduced to some of my English
discussion classes, which provides content scaffolding for students. The aim of this activity is to
help students recall and repeat familiar ideas (from their homework reading) or help them
generate other ideas (‘new ideas’) within a 10-minute or 16-minute discussion in English. My
decision to focus on content scaffolding is in direct response to feedback from some of my own
students who voiced their frustration in being unable to spontaneously produce ideas during the
discussion. It should be pointed out that some students have never discussed these topics before,
even in their L1 (Japanese). More specifically, students claimed to have trouble coming up with
words or ideas on the topic, despite the fact that students had been assigned the pre-task of
reading an article featuring key terms and ideas related to that week’s discussion topic.
While students taking the English discussion class are made to read a text on the discussion
topic before coming to class each week and are tested on the content of this reading in a weekly
quiz, students sometimes fail to reproduce these ideas during the actual discussion (sometimes as a
result of not doing their homework). This may be a cognitive issue, in which the words that the
students were exposed to in the reading homework, although probably familiar to them to some
degree (as the vocabulary used in the reading materials has been aligned to the students’
proficiency in English), may not simply be active in the student’s working memory, and hence
‘inaccessible’ during on-line processing.
Therefore, I decided to devise an activity in which sheets of paper containing words from
the assigned reading homework task were placed between each pair of students at a discussion
group table (each discussion group usually consists of 4 students on average), to serve as cues or
hints for possible discussion content or as a way to ‘reactivate’ the words and ideas in students’
working memories. Additional self-check items were added onto the regular self-check sheets to
determine why students opted to use the word sheets, if at all (refer to APPENDIX below). As a
form of content scaffolding, it is my hope that this activity will help students recall familiar words
and ideas, thereby reducing the number of pauses (both within and between speaking turns) and
hence improving the overall discussion flow.
All observations were conducted informally. Pauses of approximately 10 seconds in length
or longer which occurred in any class discussion were noted as a ‘significant pause’. At the end of
the semester, I tallied up the total frequency of significant pauses among classes in which the
content scaffolding activity was not used and classes in which the activity was used to see if there
was any difference between the two types of classes in terms of the overall flow of the discussions.
In the English Discussion Class (EDC) taught at Rikkyo University (Tokyo, Japan),
students are placed into four levels (Levels I-IV) based on their scores upon entering the program.
In the Fall 2014 semester, I taught levels II and III and therefore decided to introduce the above
scaffolding idea to approximately half of the classes for each level. In each class, I assessed: 1) if
the word sheets were used at all; 2) which words from the list were used by students during the
actual discussion; and finally, 3) why students decided to use the word cards. Students circled: 1)
‘to recall ideas from the reading homework;’ 2) ‘to get new ideas;’ or 3) ‘other.’
Materials
Word sheets (A4 size) were prepared featuring both key vocabulary items from the assigned
reading homework as well as additional vocabulary items prepared by the teacher designed to
stimulate the generation of other ideas. The list of additional vocabulary items was determined by
reviewing the main ideas from my previous discussion class notes taken in 2013. I identified
which of these ideas recurred most often and then added them to the list on the word sheet.
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Secondly, three self-check questions were added to the regular self-cheek sheet (refer to
Appendix below).
Aims
1. To remind students of some key vocabulary from their assigned reading for that week to
reduce the number of pauses during a discussion, thereby improving the overall flow of the
discussion.
2. To provide students with other ideas not featured in the reading homework, which they can
refer to and use, to reduce the number of pauses and thereby improve the overall flow of the
discussion.
Procedure
1. First of all, I prepared the word sheet materials prior to each class (see Materials above).
2. Secondly, I prepared self-check sheets containing new word-sheet self-check items. (See
Appendix below)
3. In the first class, I explained through simple demonstration how students could use the word
sheets during the discussion. (Note: If any student is absent from the first class, further
explanations were provided if those students attended subsequent lessons).
4. Just before Discussion 1 began (in the past, I have observed that a large number of pauses
occurred either at the beginning of the discussion or when students began discussing a new
question), I gave students 30 seconds to peruse the list of words in front of them.
5. Next, I gently reminded students of the purpose of the word sheets by saying, “everyone, if
you are trying to remember some ideas from the reading homework during the discussion or
if you are having trouble producing your own ideas, please feel free to refer to the word
sheets on the table in front of you.”
6. After Discussion 1, I distributed the self-check sheets, and asked students to circle the
questions regarding the word-sheet activity and collected their responses after Discussion 2.
(Please note that all the word sheets were collected anonymously. Only the level of the
students and the day and period of the class were recorded).
7. After class, I tabulated and compared how many students in each class used the word sheets,
the reason for using the word sheets (i.e. ‘to recall’ or ‘to get new ideas’), and which specific
words the students used.
VARIATIONS
There are several ways in which this activity could be varied to meet the needs of the students. If
this activity were used with lower-level students (i.e. students with a lower proficiency in English),
for example in a Level IV class at Rikkyo University, it might be wise to consider including
Japanese equivalents alongside the English words provided on the word sheets. However, in this
case it would be important to emphasize to the students that the Japanese equivalents have been
provided to facilitate their understanding of the content and there may be a need to remind
students that the discussions must be conducted in 100% English.
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DISCUSSION
In classes where the word-sheet activity was used, one-third (33%) of all students used words
from the vocabulary sheets during either Discussion 1 or 2 or both discussions. Use of vocabulary
scaffolding was highest during Lesson 4 (52%) and lowest during Lesson 2 (24%).
I would like to point out that although it had been my initial intention to observe students’
usage of vocabulary scaffolding in classes for Lesson 10 as well, as a result of the difficulty of
the topic, I decided that all students would benefit from vocabulary assistance during this lesson
and therefore I have excluded the results of Lesson 10 from the final analysis. Furthermore, no
vocabulary scaffolding was used during discussion test weeks (lessons 5, 9 and 13) in any class,
in order to avoid giving those classes who usually had access to vocabulary scaffolding an unfair
advantage on the test.
The total number of students who referred to vocabulary sheets during discussions for
Lessons 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11 and 12 has been summarized in Table 1 below.
Table 1. Total Number of Students Who Used Vocabulary Scaffolding
Total Number of Students Who Used Vocabulary Scaffolding

343 students 113 students (33%)
Among Level 2 students, the use of vocabulary scaffolding was slightly higher (34%)
than among Level 3 students (32%). Level 2 students referred to the vocabulary sheets most
often during Lesson 4 (56%) but least often during Lesson 3 (17%). The results have been
summarized in Table 2 below.
Table 2. Total Number of Level 2 Students who Used Vocabulary Scaffolding

Among Level 3 students, the usage of vocabulary scaffolding was slightly lower (32%)
than among Level 2 students (34%). Level 3 students referred to the vocabulary sheets most
often during Lesson 4 (50%) but least often during Lesson 2 and Lesson 12 (17%, respectively).
The results have been summarized in Table 3 below.
Table 3. Total Number of Level 3 Students who Used Vocabulary Scaffolding

Although one of the main reasons for designing this vocabulary scaffolding activity was to
decrease the number of pauses that affected the flow of the discussion, the total number of
‘significant pauses’ (pauses continuing for 10 seconds or longer) which I informally observed
over the semester was higher in the classes in which vocabulary scaffolding was provided (9
pauses) than in the classes in which it was not provided (6 pauses).
Among students who used vocabulary scaffolding during discussions, the most common
reason for referring to the words sheets was ‘to get new ideas’ (57%), followed by ‘to recall
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Mat McLaughlin
words from the reading homework’ (26%), with ‘other’ (19%) as the least common reason.
(Please note that each student was allowed to choose more than 1 answer per class if they
referred to the vocabulary sheets in both Discussion 1 and 2. Therefore the total represents the
total number of responses, not the total number of students). The results have been summarized
in Table 4 below.
Table 4. Reasons for Using Vocabulary Scaffolding
Reason Number of Responses

To recall ideas from the reading homework 30 (26%)
To get new ideas 65 (57%)
Other 19 (17%)
Total 114 (100%)
One of the main reasons why this vocabulary scaffolding activity was designed was in direct
response to a number of students last year voicing their difficulties and frustrations with
recalling certain words spontaneously or with generating original ideas under the time
constraints of an in-class discussion.
Within the classes in which vocabulary scaffolding was provided, one in three students
referred to the word sheets on their tables during discussion. Therefore, this seems to suggest
that while most students chose not to refer to the vocabulary scaffolding materials, at least a
certain number of students either a) needed some form of scaffolding or assistance; or, b) at the
very least, found the vocabulary sheets useful during the discussion. Although the percentage of
students who referred to the vocabulary sheets was almost the same among Level 2 and Level 3
students, the results of the self-check sheets showed that Level 2 students used words from the
vocabulary sheets slightly more often (34%) than Level 3 students (32%). This is a surprising
finding considering that an average Level 2 student is generally thought to possess a higher
vocabulary than an average Level 3 student. I would like to point out that I do recognize the risk
that vocabulary scaffolding may be used as a ‘crutch’ by some students and therefore in future
will contemplate withdrawing this assistance at some point throughout the semester, to
encourage autonomy.
According to the results of the self-check sheet returns, the main reason students used the
word sheets during discussion was ‘to get new ideas’ (57%). Just over one-quarter of students
(26%) used the word sheets ‘to recall ideas from the reading homework’. This does suggest that
at least some students are having problems recalling key vocabulary from the reading homework
and therefore this vocabulary scaffolding activity could be useful for such students who wish to
recall and use this vocabulary during the discussion.
The number of ‘significant pauses’ was higher in the classes in which the content
scaffolding was provided than in the classes in which it was not. However, I should point out that
in many instances I observed pauses in the discussion when the same individual student struggled
to continue speaking about his or her ideas. Therefore, the implications of this finding are that
although the vocabulary scaffolding activity failed to directly reduce the number of pauses during
discussion, there also appear to be other factors involved, which may affect the discussion flow.
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CONCLUSION
Cooperative learning is a key principle within the field of social constructivism which holds that
learning occurs when students receive assistance from peers or teachers, when the student has
insufficient knowledge or resources to complete the task alone. One of the most common forms
of cooperative learning used in the classroom is ‘scaffolding,’ in which peers or teachers help
‘fill in the gap’ so that students can complete tasks or improve their current performance of those
tasks.
While the use of vocabulary scaffolding was used by one-third of the students (33%) in
which the activity was conducted, this activity failed to reduce the number of pauses which
commonly interrupt the flow of a discussion. In this study, students used vocabulary scaffolding
more for assistance in generating ideas than in recalling words and this finding suggests that
some students may possibly need more brainstorming time prior to discussion for generating
ideas which they are unable to produce spontaneously during on-line processing. This is also a
slightly puzzling finding considering that students performed a pre-discussion preparatory task
in which they were given time to generate ideas first in pairs which they could then carry
through to the group discussion afterwards.
In conclusion, as one-third of all students referred to the vocabulary scaffolding provided
in class, this seems to indicate that some students either need some form of scaffolding while
conducting an English discussion or find the content scaffolding a useful form of support.
However, the majority of students chose not to use the word sheets.
Based on my observations over the semester on how and why students used vocabulary
scaffolding in class, I have concluded that there is strong evidence to suggest that there are other
factors at play influencing the flow of a discussion conducted by L2 learners of English. The
English language learner’s ability to retain and retrieve vocabulary (in other words, their ability to
access words during what is called ‘on-line processing’ in real time) or their ability to generate
other ideas spontaneously may indeed be factors which affect the flow of the discussion, but they
do not appear to be the only ones.
The environment of the language-learning classroom is admittedly very complex and there
are many factors which may have a beneficial or detrimental effect on the process of L2 learning.
Some of these other factors that may affect students’ discussion performance include student
confidence, the students’ culture, individual factors, willingness-to-communicate (WTC) and
motivation among others and therefore further studies are needed to determine more specifically
which of these factors (or other factors) inhibit or improve the flow of a discussion.
REFERENCES
Beed, P. L., Hawkins, E. M. & Roller, C. M. (1991). Moving learners toward independence: The
power of scaffolded instruction. The Reading Teacher 44(9), 648-655.
Brown, H. D. (2007). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. Pearson Education: New
York.
Copple, C., & Bredekamp, S. (2009). Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood
Programs. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young
Children.
McLeod, S. (2010). Zone of Proximal Development. Retrieved from
http://www.simplypsychology.org/Zone-of-Proximal-Development.html.
Richards, J. C. (1996). Teacher’s maxims in language learning. TESOL Quarterly, 30(2),
281-296.
Silver, D. (2011). Using the ‘zone’ help reach every learner. Kappa Delta Pi Record, 47(sup. 1),
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28-31.
VanPatten, B., & Benati, A. (2010). Key Terms in Second Language Acquisition. London:
Continuum International Publishing Group.
Vygotsky, L. (1978). Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Webb, S. (2007). The effects of repetition on vocabulary knowledge. Applied Linguistics, 28(1),
46-65.
Wood, D. Bruner, J. & Ross, G. (1976). The role of tutoring in problem solving. Journal of Child
Psychology and Child Psychiatry, 17, 89-100.
APPENDIX
Self-Check Sheet (Lesson 2)
Functions and Communication Skills D1 D2
Does anyone want to comment?

Checking if Everyone’s
Finished
Does anyone want to ask a question?
What shall we discuss first / next?

Changing Topics
Why don’t we discuss <TOPIC>?
Checking Understanding
Follow-up Questions
Agree/Disagree
Reactions
Word Sheets
1. Did you use any of the words on the sheet? YES NO
2. Which word cards did you use? #_________________________________________________
3. Why did you decide to use the word cards?
a) To recall words from the reading homework
b) To get new ideas
c) Other: _____________________________________________________________________
Word Sheet Example
Lesson 7 Vocabulary
1. Private life
2. Charity events ([e.g.] charity concerts)
3. To copy someone’s behavior
4. Bad behavior
5. Role model
6. Hard-working
7. To influence people
8. The 2011 Tohoku Earthquake
9. Teen idol
10. Scandalous clothing
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Promoting Autonomy in University Students
Brandon Narasaki
ABSTRACT
This paper will introduce the implementation of a self-reflective activity designed to promote
learner autonomy through self-monitoring and evaluation in the Fall 2014 semester. In Rikkyo’s
English Discussion Class (EDC), a student-centered approach to learning is adopted and fostered
in weekly lessons. With the focus taken away from the lecture-based structure many Japanese
students are accustomed to, EDC instructors are trained and encouraged to use a more “hands-off”
approach to teaching. The move from a teacher-centered to student-centered method pushes these
first-year students into a role of being more responsible for their own progress and development.
This creates an ideal context for developing learner autonomy. Before explaining the setup and
implementation of the activity itself, this paper will cover a brief overview of the history of learner
autonomy in the field of language education, and highlight key theories and models relevant in
current research.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The term autonomy for learning originated in the 1960s when politicians were debating the
development of learning skills and independence (Boud, 1981). Twenty years later, Holec (1981)
coined learner autonomy as, “the ability to take charge of one’s own learning” (p. 3), and this
concept started becoming more widely used in the area of language education and research (Dang,
2012; Jingnan, 2011). Over the last thirty years, learner autonomy has become a prominent area of
research in both general education and foreign/second language education, leading to a vast
number of models and practices. Learner autonomy has taken on many translations and variations,
but seems to be focused on four main abilities in language research: (1) a general ability of
knowing how to learn (Wenden, 1991), (2) an ability to ‘control’ one’s learning activities
(Cotterall, 1995), (3) an ability to learn without the involvement of a teacher (Dickinson, 1987,
p.11), and (4) an ability to make and carry out choices (Littlewood, 1996, p. 428).
In Holec’s (1981) study, ability and responsibility are seen as a combination of five
crucial operations for developing autonomy: (1) determining objectives, (2) defining content and
progressions, (3) selecting methods, (4) monitoring procedure of acquisition, and (5) evaluating
what happened (Dang, 2012). These areas comprise a learner’s ability and willingness in
developing responsibility for one’s own learning, and Little (1991) argues that this acceptance of
responsibility for learning is at the core of learner autonomy. By promoting learner autonomy in
the classroom, instructors are helping students to find ways to improve their language abilities
without the constant support of a teacher.
With the belief that learners should have the capability of taking charge of their own
learning, an autonomous cycle of developing, implementing, monitoring, organizing, and
assessing one’s own plan can be created (Dornyei, 2001). Dornyei (2001) continues this idea by
arguing that learners should have the desire to take responsibility for their own learning with the
above cycle in place, and that they should find appropriate methods to help promote positive
language values and attitudes.
Smith and Ushioda (2009) point out the need for attention to socio-cultural factors by
urging researchers and educators to keep in mind the effects of trying to develop autonomy in
learner’s who may have no, or minimal, experience in a more autonomous educational method. In
the context of English foreign language (EFL) education in Japan, autonomy is an area that has
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had little prevalence. Tagaki (2003) states that, “Japanese students are often seen as passive and
teacher-dependent in the language classroom” (p. 130). Even though Aoki (2001) urges caution to
educators and researchers who use generalizations of Japanese students, she goes on to explain
that the origins of Western (Socratic) and Japanese (Confucian) education styles may be the reason
for the challenge Japanese students face when adapting to autonomous learning. While Socratic
philosophy focuses on the need for debate and individual thought, Confucian principles
emphasize an imitation of the words and deeds of a good teacher (avoiding challenges to the
all-knowing teacher). With this being said, implementing a course of action for developing
autonomous learners in the Japanese EFL context may be difficult (considering their underlying
beliefs and practices in proper education and learning). However, Scharle & Szabo (2000) explain
that simply “raising awareness is the starting point” (p. 9) for developing learner autonomy and
encouraging students to consciously examine their own contribution to learning. In other words,
taking small steps towards developing a sense of autonomy is needed, since pushing highly
dependent learners too fast may bring about a resistance or avoidance of autonomy. But hopefully,
“if learners believe that they are capable of managing their own learning and can rely on
themselves, their dependence on the teacher will decrease” (Scharle & Szabo, 2000, p. 7), thereby
directly increasing autonomy.
PREPARATION AND PROCEDURE

The only material needed for this self-feedback activity is the Self-Reflective feedback sheet (see
Appendix). For each week, the target function/communication goal and topic are provided for the
students (so that they can recall the focus of the lesson upon review in a subsequent class). In each
lesson box, a space for strengths (marked by a “”) and weaknesses (marked by a “”) is
provided so that students can easily organize their own comments. In order to prevent problems
with students losing their feedback sheets over the semester, it is probably best that the instructor
distribute the sheets at the beginning of class, and collect them before the students leave. This is
also a good chance for the instructor to give students individual feedback when first implementing
this activity. As the semester goes on, instructors can choose whether or not to continue providing
feedback (and how to do so). Taking time after class to look over how each student assesses
his/her own work in each group discussion throughout the semester will help the instructor track
self-feedback progress or problems.
The Self-Reflective feedback sheet for each student (see Appendix) aims at helping learners
accept the idea that their own effort and input are crucial to the process of learning. Students are
instructed to keep track of their strengths and weaknesses in each group discussion, aiming for
improvement between Discussion 1 and Discussion 2 every regular and test lesson (lessons 2-13),
as well as overall progress from week to week. The weaknesses from the previous week’s
discussions become goals for the students to work on in the following lesson. This means that
students should be given time to read any teacher comments written on their feedback sheet, as
well as review what they had written themselves. Since this will be a new activity for most, if not
all students, the instructor will initially guide and facilitate this activity by providing
teacher-fronted feedback as well as giving suggestions for what kinds of strengths and weaknesses
each student can choose to write on their self-feedback sheet. With learner autonomy being the
primary goal, teacher-fronted feedback will decrease as the semester progresses, aiming for a
completely self-reliant system of feedback and improvement on the students by the end of the
fourteen-week course. This will help to provide more meaningful individual feedback for each
student, which is often too difficult and time consuming with teacher-fronted feedback used in
EDC classes. Even though instructors will ideally be giving less feedback throughout the
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semester, it is possible to continue observing the way in which students track their own progress
by reviewing the students self-feedback every week. Students may continue to write the same
strengths or weaknesses, so the instructor may need to see what the reasons are for the repetitive
self-feedback. This scaffolding technique comes from Smith and Ushioda’s (2009) claim that it is
important to keep socio-cultural factors in mind, and remember that most Japanese students are
not accustomed to autonomous learning.
VARIATIONS
This activity is fairly general in nature, and is designed to give students the freedom to write
down their own personal feedback based on group discussion performance. One possible
variation attempted during the implementation of this activity in the Fall 2014 semester was the
focus on different kinds of strengths and weaknesses for different levels of students. For
example, the lower level IV students were only required to comment about the use (or non-use)
of target functions and communication skills, while higher level students were asked to reflect
on what they found easy or difficult for each new function and topic (e.g. expressing deep ideas
in difficult topics such as “The Right to Life?”). The feedback sheets were designed to be very
simple so that both teacher and student could use the activity in varied/unique ways. Although
there is more than one way to adapt this activity, these were ways in which the activity was used
in these Fall 2014 classes.
DISCUSSION
Based on in-class observations, as well as tracking each student’s use of their own individual
feedback sheet every week, one common trend seemed to occur: many students gradually
became more aware of their own performance, and wrote strengths and weaknesses that matched
teacher notes. Even though most students did not seem to know their own strengths and
weaknesses before teacher feedback (both oral and written) at the beginning of the semester,
many of them became more aware of what they did well and what they could work on more.
However, one important point learned from the first trial of this class activity from the
Spring 2014 semester was that the points students focus on in their self-feedback tend to closely
align with suggestions/feedback the instructor points out. For example, in the spring semester,
teacher feedback focused mainly on target functions and communication skills, which resulted in
almost every student writing strengths and weaknesses based solely on their use of functions and
communication skills. Hence, in the Fall semester, teacher feedback was broadened to more than
just the target phrases from the textbook, adding comments about students’ ability to create deep
discussions, develop group cohesion and support, enjoy the discussions, etc. This resulted in a
direct transfer in many of the students’ written self-feedback. As a result, it is strongly
recommended that you consider what kind of focus (if any) you give the students for how they
decide what to write for their own feedback.
Another point to make clear is that not all students take the activity of self-feedback
seriously, so some students who may either copy the same points other students chose, or repeat
the same points from previous weeks’ comments. Instructors who use this activity may find it
useful to check each student’s written feedback before collecting them, as well as review the
feedback sheets and possibly make small comments. This can increase the usefulness of the
activity itself, since each student will see that the teacher is checking self-feedback in class each
week, as well as making written comments as a type of individual teacher feedback. Although
this activity did take more time to do outside of class, informally asking several different classes
about their experience with the Self-Reflective feedback sheets helped to validate that most
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students found it useful, and enjoyed having a space (i.e. feedback sheet) to track their own
progress in class every week.
CONCLUSION
This paper started with an overview of the major research in the field of learner autonomy, and
how a range of different definitions have been used since the original term was coined by Holec
(1981). The activity explained in this paper made use of a Self-Reflective feedback sheet for each
student to keep a written record of their personal performance in weekly group discussions. It was
planned in a way that decreased the amount of teacher intervention and feedback as the semester
went on to encourage these first-year university students to take charge of their own learning for
possibly the first time in their academic careers.
However, this initial study only made use of informal observations and teacher notes
collected during class activities, as well as reviewing completed student Self-Reflective feedback
sheets outside of class. To understand the effects of this activity more deeply, the use of focused
student observations (either using video recordings or focusing on an individual or small group
for each discussion to collect more accurate and detailed notes) or quantitative note taking (e.g.
counting the exact number of times a student uses each function or communication skill) could
provide more details into how beneficial self-reflective feedback can be to a student’s
development in autonomy.
REFERENCES
Aoki, N. (2001). The institutional and psychological context of learner autonomy. AILA Review,
15, 82-89.
Boud, D. (1981). Toward student responsibility for learning. In D. Boud (Ed.), Developing
student autonomy in learning, (pp. 21-37). New York: Nichols Publishing Company.
Cotterall, S. (1995). Readiness for autonomy: Investigating learner beliefs. System, 23(2),
195-205.
Dang, T. T. (2012). Learner autonomy: A synthesis of theory and practice. The Internet journal of
Language, Culture and Society, 35, 52-67.
Dornyei, Z. (2001). Motivational Strategies in the Language Classroom. Cambridge University
Press.
Holec, H. (1981). Autonomy in foreign language learning. Oxford: Pergamon.
Jingnan, Shen. (2011). Autonomy in EFL Education. Canadian Social Science, 7(5), 27-32.
Scharle, Á. & Szabo, A. (2000). Learner autonomy: A guide to developing learner responsibility.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Smith, R. & Ushioda, E. (2009). 'Autonomy': under whose control? In R. Pemberton, S.
Toogood & A. Barfield (Eds.), Maintaining control: Autonomy and language learning
(pp. 241-253). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Tagaki, A. (2003). Learner autonomy and motivation in a cooperative learning class.
In A. Barfield & M. Nix (Eds.), Autonomy you ask! (pp. 129-142). Tokyo:
Learner Development Special Interest Group of the Japan Association for Language Teaching.
Wenden, A. L. (1991). Learner strategies for learner autonomy. Hemel Hempstead: Prentice
Hall.
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APPENDIX
Self-Reflective feedback sheet

Lesson 2: English in Japan / Changing Lesson 3: Studying Abroad / Balancing
Topics Opinions
   
Lesson 4: Young People and Fashion / Lesson 5: Popular Japanese Fashion

Agreeing & Disagreeing Brands / Discussion Test 1
   
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Fluency Activity with Function Phrases
Chie Ogawa
ABSTRACT
In this project, I implemented three types of instructions in order to help students engage in the
3/2/1 fluency activity more effectively. The first instruction is an awareness raising activity,
which helps students to learn and understand how to engage in the 3/2/1 fluency activity more
properly. The second instruction is using visual aids of target function phrases, which remind
students to use and practice them while engaging in the 3/2/1 fluency activity. The third
instruction is a function activity, which pushes students to practice and automatize the function
phrases through the 3/2/1 fluency activity. By having activities in different stages throughout the
semester, it seemed that students gained more self-efficacy toward the 3/2/1 fluency activity as
well as speaking fluency and function usage.
LITERATURE REVIEW
One objective of the EDC program is that students gain oral fluency and acquire function
phrases because both oral fluency and function phrases are essential to conduct an efficient and
effective group discussion. One of the theories that can be related to learners’ fluency
development is the Skill Acquisition Theory. According to Skill Acquisition Theory (Anderson,
1983), learners gradually transform their performances from controlled to automatic. For
example, these processes happen through practice and many trials. Through repetition,
controlled processes become automatized. In other words, through proceduralization, declarative
knowledge will become implicit knowledge, which leads to automatization. This theory implies
that lots of repetition will help learners to gain oral proficiency.
In order to help learners improve their oral proficiency through proceduralization, the
3/2/1 fluency activity is implemented every lesson in the EDC curriculum. In the 3/2/1 fluency
activity, one speaker talks about two topics to a partner for three minutes. Then, the same
speaker retells their talk to a different partner in two minutes. Finally, as a third time, the speaker
retells for one minute to another partner. Afterwards, the speakers and listeners change roles. De
Jong and Perfetti (2001) found that the 3/2/1 fluency activity is effective to develop automaticity
and procedurelization through repeating the same topics over and over.
In spite of the effectiveness of this activity, students in my class found this activity rather
difficult. One problem was that students did not understand the proper way to do this activity.
For example, some students did not repeat the same information but they added new information
or skipped some of the information that was told. When engaging in the 3/2/1 fluency activity,
the key point to develop procedualization is to repeat the same talk rather than giving a different
talk (De Jong & Perferri, 2001). Another example is that students did not try to speak faster
when they spoke for a shorter time (2 minutes or 1 minute). Not recognizing the importance of
speaking faster, the 3/2/1 fluency activity might be considered as repeating the same talk without
any fluency improvement. A final example is that some listeners started asking questions to a
partner. If listeners are allowed to ask many questions, speakers do not have to practice speaking
but they would merely answer the partners’ questions. These issues disturb the speakers from
developing proceduralization. Therefore, it is necessary to raise students’ awareness to
understand how to engage in the 3/2/1 fluency activity more correctly.
The second issue, which was commonly seen in my class, was that students paused a lot
and discontinued their speech very quickly. I hypothesize that there are two reasons behind it.
147
One reason is that students have not generated their ideas about what to talk about. If students
were not provided enough planning time in advance, they usually engage in “online” planning
(Yuan & Ellis, 2003). Students might take time to think while they speak. Another reason why
students had a lot of pauses might be because students did not know how to extend their speech.
Students were not taught explicitly how to elaborate their ideas during the 3/2/1 minute fluency
activity. For example, when students were given the topic of “Which celebrity do you like?”,
some of them gave the names of their favorite celebrity without any detailed elaboration and
moved to the next topic (e.g.. In my opinion, I like Lady Gaga because she is cool. Okay… next
topic…). However, if students knew how to elaborate and extend more, they would not have any
problems of discontinuing their speech. For instance, “It’s mainly because she is a famous
celebrity in the world. For example, she became more famous when she wore a unique dress on
the stage. I think it is very cool to express her own styles” If students had a lot of things to say,
they would need to speak faster to repeat their talk. On the other hand, if students paused a lot
and spoke little, they did not have to speak faster to repeat everything in a shorter time, which
defeats the point of having a shorter time. Therefore, it was essential for students to learn how to
extend their speech. In order to help students to elaborate their speech, Warren (2014) used the
four functions (opinions, reasons, examples, and possibilities) during the 3/2/1 fluency activity.
He found that when students try to learn how to elaborate with the function phrases, students
could use these during the group discussion. This implies that students’ proceduralization
occurred.
To solve the above problems, I implemented three different activities. The first activity is
an awareness raising activity, which was conducted on the first day of instruction. This activity
aims to solve the first problem (students do not understand how to conduct a proper 3/2/1
fluency activity). In order to solve the second problem (students pause a lot and finish their
speech very quickly), two activities (visual aids and a function pair-check activity) were
implemented. I hypothesize function phrases would be one of the useful ways to help students to
elaborate their speech as Warren (2014) showed. The visual aids and pair-check activity were
created to push students to elaborate by practicing function phrases through the 3/2/1 fluency
activity.
MATERIALS AND PROCEDURE

Context
The project was conducted in four classes (three Level III classes and one Level IV class). These
activities were designed for all the levels. Classes were selected based on their proficiency and
motivation. Students in Class A (Level IV) had difficulty in speaking fluently and had low
self-efficacy toward speaking English. Students in Classes B and C (Level III) had an
intermediate level of proficiency and sometimes they seemed less confident about speaking
English. Students in Class D (Level III) had high intermediate proficiency and high motivation
to study abroad in the coming year.
Activity 1 (awareness raising activity)

On the first day of instruction, I spent quite some time to explain about the 3/2/1 fluency activity.
Although students already knew about this activity from the previous semester, it was essential
to remind students of its purposes and procedures because different classes did this activity
slightly differently. There are two reasons why the awareness raising activity was conducted.
The first purpose was to confirm that students understand why they do this activity. Particularly,
I emphasized the importance of speakers’ goals by using a handout (Appendix A). Some of the
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rules that were mentioned were:

1) Speakers need to speak as much as they could.
2) Speakers need to speak faster as time goes by (3 minutes -> 2 minutes -> 1minute).
3) Speakers need to repeat the same content without adding new information or skipping any
information.
4) Listeners do not ask any follow-up questions.
Next, students practiced how they could speak faster to repeat everything that they said
previously. I provided students a handout of a model speech (Appendix B). Due to the time
constraint, instead of doing the full 3/2/1 fluency activity, students practiced 1 minute - 45
seconds - 30 seconds for this awareness-raising activity. Students read aloud the model passage
for 1 minute for the first time by themselves. Students were instructed to mark the last word to
which they had read. Then, students read the same passage from the beginning one more time
for 45 seconds and were asked to reach the same word that they read for the first time. The third
time (30 seconds) was conducted in the same manner. By using the model passage, students
were expected to understand that they should try to speak faster in order to repeat the same talk
without skipping information.
After this reading activity, students told their own ideas on the same questions as the
model passages with the full 3/2/1 minute activity. Since it was their first time, I provided them
with a short planning time. After they finished the 3/2/1 minute fluency activity, I provided
discussion questions to check whether students understood the concept of the 3/2/1 minute
activity. Most students answered, “How was your performance during the 3/2/1 minute activity?”
by saying that the 3 minute was the most difficult due to its length. For questions such as “What
should speakers/listeners do during the 3/2/1 minute activity?”, most of the students answered
correctly saying that “Speakers should speak faster, repeat the same talk and do not have pauses.
Listeners should only react but should not ask questions.” Their answers imply that they
understood how to do the 3/2/1 fluency activity correctly.
Activity 2 (Visual aid for function phrases)

The purpose of this activity is to help students to extend their speech and procedurelize
the function phrases. Most of the fluency topics asked students their personal opinions. For
example, “Do you think that English is important to learn?”, “Is fashion important for university
students?”, “Where would you like to travel?”, “What types of media do you often use?” and so
forth. Therefore, it was essential for students to use the function phrases to state their opinion (In
my opinion,… / I think… / Personally speaking,…), followed by reasons (It is because… / One
reason is…). They could also use examples (For example,… / For instance,…) to elaborate more.
Lastly, they could say some possible situations using “if.” These functions were taught in the
first semester, therefore I assumed it would be easier for students to use the function phrases
during the 3/2/1 fluency activity. However, students did not necessarily use the function phrases,
which caused them to finish their speech too quickly without any elaboration.
I created a laminated poster, each of which has a function phrase on it (Appendix D). First,
I posted the visual aids on the whiteboard. After introducing the 3/2/1 fluency questions (e.g.
“Do you think it is important for you to learn English?”), I showed an example of how to
elaborate their speeches with function phrases (e.g. In my opinion, I think it is important to learn
English. It is mainly because I want to make a lot of foreign friends. To be a global person, I
think making friends with international friends is important. For example, my sister has a lot of
international friends because she can speak English very well. She has friends from Mexico,
Korea, America and Australia. If I speak English like her, I can make a lot of friends). When I
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demonstrated with the visual aids, I pointed at each function poster so that students could
understand what phrases they were expected to use.
After I demonstrated, students stood up and made pairs. Speakers were allowed to look at
the visual aids on the whiteboard while they talked. However, when speakers were talking, I did
not scaffold anything such as reminding them of using the functions or pointing at the visual
aids.
Activity 3 (Function Pair-check activity)

The purpose of this activity is to push the students more to practice the function phrases. I
developed a check-card for pairs to use (Appendix E). While a speaker was talking, a listener
checked whether their partner was using each of the function phrases. By the time of introducing
this activity, students had learned new function phrases (e.g., balance opinions, report
information, different viewpoints, experiences), I started to incorporate these new functions for
the 3/2/1 fluency activity. However, I thought it would be more suitable to use the discussion
topics rather than general fluency topics to use the new functions. This is because some of the
general fluency topics (e.g. “What mangas do you like?”, “Which celebrity do you like?”) might
not be suitable for using new functions such as different viewpoints (e.g. From ..’s point of
view,…) or balancing opinions (e.g. One advantage is…).
On the other hand, a discussion preparation topic is more relevant to new functions. For
example, in Lesson 11, students discussed what public manners were necessary to follow. For
discussion preparation, students first put check marks on the textbook and answered whether
they think it is okay to do each thing (e.g. talking on the phone, putting on make-up, eating and
drinking) in three different public situations (on the train, on the street, in a café and restaurant).
Based on their answers, students told their opinions for 3/2/1 minutes. I showed an example of
how to use the function phrases during the 3/2/1 fluency activity. As a teacher-led modeling, I
said:
“In my opinion, talking on phones is not okay on the train. One disadvantage is that it is very
noisy. Yesterday, when I was on the subway, a businessman was calling. It was so annoying
because I wanted to sleep. However, from a busy businessman’s point of view, maybe, it was an
emergency call so he needed to call to his office. My foreign friend said that making noises on
the public transportation is not a big problem in her country. So, when she came to Japan, she
was surprised that most of the train cars were quiet.”
After I demonstrated the model passage, students started the 3/2/1 fluency activity in pairs.
Speakers were allowed to look at their textbooks when they talked. Listeners put a check mark if
their speaker used a function. For example, when a speaker used, “One advantage is…” the
listener checked the box of “advantages/disadvantages” one time. When a speaker used
“Another advantage is..”, the listener checked one more time. Whenever a speaker was using a
function phrase, the listener put a check mark. In this way, it was possible to show the frequency
of the function usage more clearly. Table 1 summarizes the activities and their purposes.
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Chie Ogawa
Table 1. Activities throughout the semester
Time Activities Purposes

Lesson 1 Awareness raising activity  Students will be able to
(Appendix A-C) understand how to engage in
the 3/2/1 fluency activity.
 Students will be able to learn
the goal of the 3/2/1 fluency
activity.
Lesson 2 – Lesson 7 Whiteboard visual aids  Students will be able to
(Appendix D) elaborate and extend their
speeches without any
follow-up questions.
 Students will be able to
practice the function phrases.
 Students will be able to
organize their speeches more
coherently.
Lesson 11 – Lesson 12 Function Pair-check activity  In addition to the purposes of
(Appendix E) the function activity 1, this
activity pushes students more
to use function phrases.
VARIATION
This project went well for the students in all the levels. Prior to introducing the pair-check
activity to Class A (Level IV), I was not sure if lower level students could engage in this activity
properly. However, the speakers were very focused on using the functions and the listeners were
trying their best to catch what phrases the speaker was using. Especially, these low-level
students seemed to be motivated to accomplish using all the functions because the goal was
clear.
A minor change needs to be done for the functions that students should use. I included
paraphrasing for speakers to paraphrase themselves, “I mean…” However, not so many students
were able to paraphrase themselves. Therefore, instead of focusing on all the function phrases,
teachers can pick some of the main function phrases so that students might feel less pressure
toward the pair-check activities.
DISCUSSION
Over all, it was a new challenge for me to implement these activities. I have heard students’
voices that they felt difficulty in the 3/2/1 fluency activity. I have wanted to do something to help
my students to maximize their fluency and self-efficacy development. The 3/2/1 fluency activity
usually takes around 15 minutes in each class, which means that in total students spend 210
minutes (15 minutes x 14 weeks) on fluency training throughout the semester. Students can
maximize their procedurelization and automaticity with that much training time.
For the awareness raising activity, students seemed to understand what they were
supposed to do during the activity. Because of the explicit instruction of the 3/2/1 fluency rules
in the first lesson, speakers tried to say the same things without adding new information and
listeners did not try to ask follow-up questions, which were sometimes seen in the previous
semester. However, even after the awareness raising activity to encourage students to speak
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faster, I still observed that some students did not seem to speak faster when it came to two
minutes and one minute. It might be advisable to find a good way to urge students to speak faster.
One possible way is training them with a time management strategy. For example, students
should keep their eyes on the timer so that they know how much time they have to repeat all the
content that they said previously.
For the visual aids, I observed that some students were trying to practice all of the
function phrases by looking at the visual aids on the white board. These students were able to
extend and elaborate their speeches without too many pauses. Interestingly, students in Level IV
were trying more to follow the visual aids. I hypothesized that the lower-level learners needed
scaffolding because they found it difficult to organize and create their speech without any
scaffolding. On the other hand, I also observed that many students still did not use function
phrases during the 3/2/1 fluency activity. I realized that using only visual aids was not sufficient
for all the students to practice function phrases.
When I introduced the pair-check activity, all of them started using the function phrases.
Indeed, speakers tried to use the function phrases more than when they had only the visual aids.
It is because the goal was so clear that students knew what to accomplish. Interestingly, this
activity generated more reactions among students. When the time was up after each speaking
time, students said, “Oh, no! It finished already!”, “I couldn’t say all the functions” or “So
difficult!” with lots of excitement. I never observed this kind of students’ reactions after the
3/2/1 fluency activity.
This pair-check activity was effective in the following points. First, students were able to
continue speaking throughout the three minutes. One of the major concerns was that students felt
that three minutes was too long to continue speaking. However, I changed an approach to
conduct the 3/2/1 fluency as a group discussion preparation activity during weeks 11 and 12.
There are quite a few things to say on the discussion topics in the textbook. Compared to the
general fluency questions in the textbooks, which was usually two questions, there were more
than five questions that students could talk about for discussion preparation. In addition to the
number of questions, students needed to elaborate their speech using function phrases. Therefore,
students never finished early because of having nothing to say.
Second, students were likely to repeat the same content compared with when they had
only visual aids. One problem of the 3/2/1 fluency activity was that students sometimes skipped
information or added new information when they engaged in the second and third round of
speaking. With the pair-check activity, students could see their textbook and clearly understand
what they have to accomplish to say within the allotted time. This observation is supported by
Skill Acquisition Theory (Anderson, 1983). Students gradually transform their performances
from controlled to automatic. As students were repeating the same content, they were able to
speak more fluently and smoothly by using the function phrases with fewer pauses.
Third, students were also using function phrases more frequently in the group discussion
after the 3/2/1 fluency activity. Students were able to pay attention to using the function phrases
in the group discussion. The reason why students were able to use the function phrases more
fluently may be because they had already rehearsed prior to the group discussion.
Fourth, listeners were able to engage in the 3/2/1 fluency activity more proactively rather
than just listening to their partner. In the previous semester, some students looked bored when
they listened to their partners, which influenced speakers’ motivation. Plus, some listeners
started asking follow-up questions. With the pair-check activities, listeners were able to pay
more attention to their partners’ talk, which influenced speakers’ motivation more positively.
Despite the effects of the pair-check activity, one thing needs to be considered when
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Chie Ogawa
implementing the pair-check activity prior to the group discussion. Students were more
automatized with function phrases due to the repetition and procedurelization. However, when
students practiced by giving a monologue on the discussion topics, they tended to talk for longer
without much interaction or negotiation of meaning with other members during the actual group
discussion. In the EDC, students are encouraged to take turns many times so that students can
have more interactions. Practicing individually before the group discussion can cause diminished
interactions and negotiating for meaning. Nitta and Nakatsugawa (2014) found that students who
planned and wrote what they would talk about before interactive activities tended to speak
longer and had less interactions because they already knew what they would say. A similar thing
was also observed in my classroom that students were likely to speak for long turns in the group
discussion after the 3/2/1 minute discussion practice. Therefore, the timing for 3/2/1 fluency
activities should be flexible so that students also know the importance of interacting with each
other in a group discussion.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the semester project was overall effective in helping students engage in the 3/2/1
fluency activity more effectively. I believe that students should know how and why the activity
is useful so that students can be more autonomous learners without teachers saying what to do
each time. For future usage, more implementation with different topics, different timing and
different students are encouraged.
In the future, we can assess the effectiveness of this activity more formally. For example,
we could record students’ oral speech and analyze the data based on Complexity, Accuracy, and
Fluency (CAF). Also, we could create a rating rubric to assess students’ oral speech to
understand how well students can elaborate their speech. I hope these activities can help learners
to improve their oral fluency.
REFERENCES
Anderson, J. R. (1983). The architecture of cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
De Jong, N., & Perfetti, C. (2011). Fluency training in the ESL classroom: An experimental
study of fluency development and proceduralization. Language Learning, 61, 533-568.
Nitta, R., & Nakatsuhara, F. (2014). A multifaceted approach to investigating pre-task planning
effects on paired oral test performance. Language Testing, 31(2), 147-175.
Warren, D. (2014). Formulaic language and the 3/2/1 fluency activity: Scaffolding L2 fluency
through the development of linguistic complexity. New Directions in Teaching and
Learning English Discussion, 2, 243-249.
Yuan, F., & Ellis, R. (2003). The effects of pre-task planning and on-line planning on fluency,
complexity and accuracy in L2 monologic oral production. Applied Linguistics 24, 1-27.
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APPENDIX A - Explanation sheets for the 3/2/1 minute fluency activity
3-2-1 minute fluency
The goal of this activity:

You will be able to speak more fluently.
1. Speaker
 Try NOT to stop.
 Try to speak in a natural speed.
 Try to use 100% English.
Try to speak a lot!!! Speak the same content. Speak the same content.
3 minute 2 minute 1
minute
2. Listener

 This is a good practice for speakers to improve their speaking
skills.
 Please don’t ask questions. Only react.
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Chie Ogawa
APPENDIX B - Modeled passage for 3/2/1 minute fluency activity
Let’s practice 3/2/1 minute fluency activity!

Questions:
1. Do you like your hometown?
2. If you could live anywhere, where would you live?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I will talk about question one.
In my opinion, I like my hometown very much. My hometown is Shiga, Japan. It is mainly
because the nature there is beautiful. One example is the Lake Biwa. When I was a child, I
liked to go to the lake with my father and my sister a lot. In the lake, we can catch a lot of fish.
But these days, the Lake Biwa is getting dirty. So I don’t want to swim there. But the north
part of the lake is still clean.
Another reason I like Lake Biwa is because it is convenient to access a big city. For example,
it takes one hour to get to Kyoto or one hour and half to get to Osaka. When I was a high
school student, I often went to Kyoto for shopping. Another example is that Shinkansen stops
in Maibara station, Shiga. So, it is also easy to go to Tokyo. It takes two hours to get to Tokyo
from Shiga by shinkansen. However, it is very expensive to use a shinkansen. It costs more
than 10, 000 yen for a ticket.
I will talk about question two. Personally speaking, I think I want to live in Hawaii. It is mainly
because there are beautiful beaches. I like to swim. If I live in Hawaii, I can go swimming
every day! If I live in Hawaii, I want to try surfing. I like to watch a surfing video. I heard that
surfing is very difficult but I want to try.
I also want to live in Hokkaido. It is mainly because I like driving. I heard that roads Hokkaido
are very wide. So, I think it will be exciting to drive in Hokkaido. But I heard that sometimes I
have to be careful about car accidents with wild animals. It is because these animals are
sometimes dangerous. Another reason is that Hokkaido has a lot of delicious food. One
example is Sushi. In Hokkaido, fish is so fresh. I love salmon sushi so much. I want to eat as
much sushi as possible everyday.
Personally speaking, I also want to live in Daikanyama. It is mainly because Daikanyama is
very fashionable. If I live in Daikanyama, I can go to my favorite shopping a lot. There are
many bakeries and good cafes. I like to read books at a café. So, if I live in Daikanyama, I
would like to go to cafés often.
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APPENDIX C - Discussion questions for awareness raising activity
1. How was your performance during the 3/2/1 minute activity?

2. What should speakers do during the 3/2/1 minute activity?
3. What should listeners do during the 3/2/1 minute activity?
4. What kind of skills will you improve through the 3/2/1 minute activity?
APPENDIX D - Visual aids
Opinion Reasons Example Possibility
Paraphrase
Different Report
Experiences
Advantage viewpoint information
APPENDIX E - Pair-check card
Lesson 11 ( / ) Name ( )
Topics: Public manners
3 minutes 2minutes 1 minute
1. Advantages/disadvantages
2. Paraphrasing
3. Report information
4. Different view points
5. Experiences
Comments
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Back Channeling and the “D” Word in a CLT Context
Timothy A. Opitz
ABSTRACT
The aim of this paper is to explore potential benefits of drilling, the “D” word, within the context
of a CLT classroom. Drilling as a classroom technique has fallen out of favor in the modern
post-method era of second language pedagogy. However, a survey of theoretical underpinnings
situated within a particular context leads one to believe that there may be benefits for the
learners. After reviewing the literature about back channeling and the needs of the students in
this context, a classroom technique which implemented drilling of back channels was designed,
implemented, and observed. The results of drilling back channels were mixed with both
positive and negative examples of pragmatic use, frequency, and variety.
LITERATURE REVIEW
SLA Theory
The post-method era of language teaching generally embraces an approach that draws off the
full range of approaches, methods, and techniques in order to best satisfy the needs of the learner
depending on the given context. Brown’s (2007) informed eclectic approach and
Kumaravadivelu’s (2006b) pedagogy of particularity are frequently cited advocates of a flexible
and adaptable approach which caters to a context. However, there appears to be a hesitancy to
endorse a place for rote drilling within CLT classrooms citing the failures of the audio-lingual
method of the 1950’s. Even among proponents of automatization, drilling as a pedagogical
technique is avoided. Gatbon and Segalowitz (1988) recommend “automatizing certain aspects
of performance in order to free up attentional resources” (p. 475), but caution against
decontextualized drilling pointing to “unsuccessful experiences with traditional automatizing
activities” (p. 478). Early experiments with automatizing activities, such as rote repetition and
drilling, primarily focused on lexical items or grammatical features and were rooted in
behaviorism. The underlying shift in SLA thinking from a behaviorist approach which viewed
language acquisition as memorizing patterns and stamping out errors to a communicative
approach which prioritizes language in use as both a means and an end has resulted in rote
drilling being nearly abandoned as a pedagogical technique. In the spirit of the modern eclectic
approach, repetition or drilling as a pedagogical technique should be viewed from cognitive and
socio-affective principles in order to evaluate its potential.
Cognitive Principles
Pertaining to individual language acquisition and production, automaticity is a desirable feature
of fluency that allows for “a rapid movement away from focus on the forms of language to a
focus on the purposes to which language is put” (Brown, 2007, p. 64). A number of cognitive
processing models of language acquisition exist rooted in the idea that automaticity can be
inhibited when learners are asked to focus on form and meaning simultaneously. Gass and
Selinker (2008) break it down in terms of declarative knowledge (that) and procedural
knowledge (how) stating “processing resources are limited and must be distributed economically
if communication is to be efficient” (p. 230). A lot has been written about the interface
between the two ranging from Krashen’s (1985) Monitor Theory which holds to a weak or even
zero interface, meaning declarative and procedural knowledge do not interact, to DeKeyser’s
(1997) strong interface which supports the idea that the declarative becomes procedural through
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practice. It is the latter strong interface model that has been embraced by the CLT methodology
commonly implemented in classrooms today. The implication for the CLT practitioner is that
asking the learner to focus on declarative knowledge (collocation, pronunciation, prosody, and
meaning) and execute procedural knowledge (in this case using a back channel appropriately
during discourse) may be too large of a cognitive load for the learner while they are attending to
the meaning of a discussion.
There are a number of advocates who endorse separating the introduction of declarative
knowledge before expecting learners to experiment with forms procedurally. Laufer (2005)
suggested FonFs (focus on forms) as a term for pedagogical techniques for non-communicative
vocabulary activities such as matching or fill-in-the-blank to allow students attentional resources
to make a form meaning link. Peters (2014) echoed the sentiment saying non-communicative
activities may be an appropriate way of establishing form meaning connections. Thornbury
(2012) further makes a strong case for building automaticity in production in order to take part
in real-time conversation.
Further theoretical support of FonFs classroom activities lies in exposure to input and
noticing the gap (Swain, 1993). Frequency of exposure to input is commonly held as a
prerequisite to second language acquisition. Peters (2014) examined frequency of exposures
and retention of lexical items in reading and concluded more is better. While there are some
pitfalls to comparing study results across skills, it stands to reason that more exposures on
separate occasions will increase the likelihood of retention. If for no other reason than it will
increase the odds of the learner recognizing that a form is not currently part of their lexicon,
Swain’s (1993) noticing the gap. Duff (2000) summarized the need for repetition by saying
“frequency of exposure to input is a fundamental factor in determining its saliency and
likelihood that it will be noticed” (p. 129).
Without getting too bogged down in the debate over the value of output in language
acquisition, it is widely held that output does play some role in language acquisition if for no
other reason than “production engages syntactic processing in a way that comprehension does
not” (Ellis, 2003, p. 112). The implication for classroom pedagogy is that repetition can
routinize the production of language and free up cognitive resources to focus on the meaningful
use of language.
Socio-affective Principles
The socio-affective benefits of drilling back channels in this case are heavily influenced by the
context and needs of the learners. This study was conducted with primarily homogenous
groups of Japanese university freshmen in a classroom with discourse related fluency aims as the
primary desired curricular goals. A lot has been written about the perceived short-comings of
the Japanese English education approach. Although the typical Japanese university freshman
has been exposed to years of compulsory English education, oral production, discourse level
language skills, and inter-cultural awareness are relatively low. These students are a product of
a language education curriculum that has trained them as if they are linguists studying about
language rather than as language users. Meyer (2011) points to the negative washback effect of
the test driven approach, an education system that is obsessed with accuracy and form, general
output deficiency, and speaking skills rarely if ever being tested. Makarova (2004) also
identified the poverty of opportunities for oral production and called for more specific
pronunciation training which would implicitly necessitate some kind of de-contextualized
drilling. Neustupny and Tanaka (2004) repeated these concerns about the lack of focus on oral
production and communicative competence in their call for an overhaul of the language
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Timothy A. Opitz
education approach in Japan. The lack of focus on oral proficiency has left the modern
Japanese English learner ill prepared to communicate effectively. Makarova (2004) made note
that the learners themselves are acutely aware of their shortcomings and desired more practice
with authentic communication. Yashima (2002) further established a clear relationship
between Japanese students’ self-perceived confidence and socio-affective variables that lend to
WTC.
In light of these findings, drilling back channels was chosen as a suitable language focus
to drill. Foremost, back channels, even when presented and drilled in FonFs manner, retain high
surrender value (Edwards, 2000). In other words, the students will be able to immediately put
the back channel phrases in to use during the same lesson. Also, back channeling is one of the
universal elements for framing and structuring discussions (Goffman, 1974). While back
channeling provides several important discursive functions (Maynard, 1997; Duncan & Neiderhe,
1974; O’Keefe & Adolph, 2008), the Japanese students in this context are unfamiliar with the
pragmatic inter-cultural differences in usage since it is heavily culturally and contextually
specific (Cutrone, 2005). Inappropriate usage can result in miscommunication or appearing
deceptive to native speakers such as in cases where native Japanese speakers use continuers
(yeah, ok, uh-huh) in instances where they don’t understand or disagree (Cutrone, 2010).
Given the perceived difficulty for the learner in executing the procedural “how” of
backchanneling in English, it stands to reason that a little bit of oral FonFs drilling would give
the learners a chance to sort out their declarative “that” knowledge of the backchannel forms
before they are expected to use them in discourse.
Additionally, presenting and drilling back channels can serve several socio-affective
principles. Intrinsic motivation may be increased through the student feeling that they are
being taught authentic language and not “test English”. Simply getting the opportunity to
orally produce the phrases should bolster self-confidence and lessen communication inhibition.
Furthermore, students’ receptive awareness of the broader use of back channeling in English
may increase even if they are unable to produce (Duncan & Neiderhe, 1974). Repair strategies
that can prevent communication breakdown may become automatized for quick recall. Given the
previous formal accuracy focused learning experiences of the students in this context a, little rote
drilling can also function as a tether to their previous learning experiences. The safety of the
group repetition in the early stages of a lesson can serve to build solidarity among group
members and facilitate a positive inter-group climate that leads to an open willingness to
communicate (MacIntyre, P. D., Clement, R., Dornyei, Z., & Noels, K. A., 1998).
THE CLASSROOM TECHNIQUE

Materials
In accordance with Cutrone’s (2010) suggestion that “JEFL learners would benefit from trying to
use a more diverse repertoire of back channels” (p. 29), cards with four functional categories, a
variety of back channels, and short descriptions of functional use were prepared (Appdx. 1 and
Appdx. 2). Before preparing the cards, suggestions for useful functional categories and common
back channel words or phrases were solicited from instructors in the same teaching context with
the intent of avoiding cultural bias. By surveying the suggested backchannels and getting
feedback from participants about functional use, four primary functional categories were
identified as: continuation (simply signaling to the speaker that you want them to keep speaking),
showing surprise (this category could have been called emotive responses), showing sympathy
(again this could also fall under emotive), and understanding (phrases which ask the speaker to
repeat or in other ways demonstrate degree of understanding). With the assistance of a native
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Japanese speaker, these functional categories were translated in to Japanese with the intent of
making the form meaning connection as accessible as possible. For each functional category,
four or five phrases were supplied. The cards were printed in color and laminated. Attention
was given to not overlap with the back channels supplied in the text book and to provide more
casual, daily-use English examples in order to facilitate the student perception of being taught
authentic English.
PROCEDURE
In order to facilitate the greater aims of the curriculum and mitigate the negatives associated
with decontextualized drilling, the technique was embedded within the Fluency Practice of the
standard lesson. The Fluency Practice provides an immediate need for listeners to back
channel. Typically, students are assigned listener and speaker roles and provided with a
speaking prompt written on the white board at the front of the class room. The speakers are
given three minutes to talk about the topic and the listeners are told to give English reactions.
For this class room technique, after the listener and speaker roles are assigned, the listeners are
each given a back channeling card. The listeners are instructed to practice and repeat the back
channels led by the instructor. A tertiary benefit of this activity is that it gives the assigned
speakers a bit of time to think and prepare before they have to speak. The listeners perform
oral repetitions in chorus for roughly thirty seconds and again are encouraged to practice their
backchannels while they are listening to their speaker. In this context, the curriculum has
specifically recognized the importance of back channeling to develop discourse skills.
However, the functional categories and language are slightly different. The students are
familiar with the curricular requirement presented as Communication Skills which includes
English Reactions, Agree/disagree, Follow Up Questions, and Checking Understanding. There
is clearly considerable overlap with the back channeling functional categories recommended by
Maynard (1997), Duncan and Neiderhe (1974), and O’Keefe and Adolph (2008), but for
the sake of simplicity and clarity, all of the backchannels are collective referred to as Reactions.
The students are encouraged to use the backchannels simply by instructing them to “Be a good
listener, help your speaker, and practice your reactions!” The process is repeated when the
students change listener and speaker roles.
VARIATIONS
Ordinarily, a primary consideration for adapting an activity is the proficiency level of the
students. However, it seems that proficiency level is not always the best indicator of students’
WTC, inter-cultural competence or ability to use effective communication skills such as back
channeling. Therefore, the variations of the activity typically were in the timing and frequency
of the drilling as opposed to different versions of functional categories or phrases on the cards
themselves. Although, depending on the performance and needs of the class, altering the
functional categories or phrases may be beneficial. Classes which demonstrate high back
channeling proficiency could benefit from new categories and phrases as a means to expand
their repertoire.
For all classes, the activity was repeated as described above for the first five lessons with
the primary intent of fostering intergroup solidarity and facilitating WTC as well as creating
some awareness of inter-cultural back channeling differences. The drilling can be phased out
for classes which exhibit strong willingness to experiment with and use the back channels. For
these groups, simply distributing the cards and reminding the students to practice and
experiment is enough to facilitate performance. For classes that exhibit communication
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Timothy A. Opitz
apprehension and do not experiment or practice the back channels, the drilling can be repeated
after the first cycle of the Fluency Practice. In some cases, skipping the initial chorus repetition
and waiting until the second phase of the Fluency Practice may serve to heighten the saliency
and need for effective back channeling skills.
DISCUSSION
The effects of the activity on student performance are difficult to assess since there is no control
group and variations in performance may be related to any number of socio-affective factors
such as group dynamic or intrinsic motivation and individual idiosyncrasies which can vary
widely. However, casual classroom observations, a review of class notes taken during
discussions, and referring to discussion test results indicate a generally positive trend. Effect
use of back channels can be assessed in terms of frequency, range, and pragmatic
appropriateness.
Frequency, not surprisingly for students accustomed to extrinsic test driven motivation,
tended to peak during discussion tests. Virtually every student was able to achieve the full
points in the “English Reactions” portion of the discussion test which essentially is a broad
encompassing term for back channeling. Additionally, the vast majority of students far
exceeded the minimum quantity of reactions to achieve full points. By this measure alone, the
activity would appear to be extremely effective. However, the frequency of back channel use
in the Fluency Practice and regular class discussions was a mix of successes and failures. In
the Fluency Practice, a percentage of students referred to the cards and gave an adequate,
sometimes excessive, number of back channels. Many students needed to be prompted and
reminded to give English style back channels instead of using the Japanese style back
channeling. In every class, there were one or two students who simply did not feel comfortable
back channeling in English or Japanese. Additionally, back channeling frequency seemed to
dip during regular class discussions. While some students continued supply ample back
channels, others felt comfortable taking a back seat and not actively participating. The only
time this did not happen was during the discussion tests.
The range of back channel use also varied considerably between individuals and different
stages of the lesson. By far, the widest range of use and experimentation came in the initial
stages of the Fluency Practice in the early stages of the semester. As the semester wore on,
there was clearly attrition in the range of back channel use. It appears that the students started
to settle in to a pattern of mapping their Japanese L1 pragmatic strategies on to the English back
channels. For instance, basic continuation back channels such as “yeah” and “ok” were by far
the most used. A number of students did grasp on to some other continuation back channels
like “tell me more” and “and…” but the use of these exemplars were almost exclusively limited
to the Fluency Practice. The second most frequently used type of back channel was the
emotive “showing surprise” functional category. Many students used “really”, “wow”, and
“unbelievable” with some frequency. Very few students experimented with other expressions
like “seriously” or “no way”. It may be that “seriously” presents some difficulties in
pronunciation for native Japanese speakers and “no way” intuitively feels negative. The largest
range increase appears to be in the emotive “expressing sympathy” category. Although the
frequency was not as high as would be expected, instances of back channels expressing
sympathy, specifically “that’s too bad” were manifested in all stages of the lesson. However,
there did seem to be some aversion to expressions with intuitively negative words such as “that’s
no good” and “oh no”. The least used functional category was the understanding, specifically,
any kind of back channel that would indicate lack of understanding to the speaker. Some of the
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students would use “one more time” when they needed to tell the speaker that they didn’t
understand. However, there were very few instances of students using “I don’t understand”.
In most cases, the students would back channel their lack of understanding Japanese style by
saying “eh?” with rising intonation. When pressed to use the English back channels, many
students would resort to “I can’t understand” instead of using the “I don’t understand” as
presented on the cards as well as in the text book. This appears to be a manifestation of the
cross-cultural competency issues facing Japanese students mentioned by Cutrone (2010) rooted
in a deeper cultural expectancy of not performing face threatening acts. In short, many students
exhibited some increase in range by picking up a few back channels that were not previously in
their lexicon, but very few students grasped on to a full range of functional use.
Generally, the pragmatic effectiveness of the back channels was very good. Students
seemed to grasp the functional categories well and implement the back channels procedurally
effectively. There were very few instances of pragmatic misunderstanding with two exceptions.
First, there were several instances of the “understanding” functional category being used as an
avoidance tactic when students were asked a question that they did not want to answer. For
instance, a student was asked “Do you have a boyfriend?” and responded with “I don’t
understand” presumably as an indirect way of back channeling that she did not want to answer
the question. Second, although convergence tokens (O’Keefe & Adolphs, 2008) don’t appear
on the activity cards themselves, agreeing and disagreeing is a back channeling skill actively
promoted in the class and almost all students exhibited hesitancy to disagree. Many students
would resort to saying “I totally agree, but…” in instances where they clearly disagreed. This
is most likely another example of mismatched cross-cultural pragmatics and the perception in
Japanese culture that disagreeing with an opinion, no matter how innocuous, is viewed as face
threatening. Again, these examples appear to be manifestations of the need for back
channeling instruction to include “dimensions of intercultural competence, which deal with
conversational satisfaction, expectancy, and perceptions across cultures” (Spitzberg, 2000).
CONCLUSION
The effectiveness of the experimental activity remains inconclusive. While the intuitive
observations of the instructor may be useful to the instructor for this particular context, they
provide little evidence concerning the success or validity of the drilling activity. The
pedagogical efficacy of the activity could better be assessed through a step-by-step empirically
based methodological approach. First establish control and experimental groups for
comparison. Then, record and transcribe student-student discussions for analysis. Establish
guidelines for what constitutes a back channel and identify all tokens. One point of comparison
between the control group who did not receive the rote drilling pedagogic technique and the
experimental group who did is simply a raw frequency count. The back channels can then be
grouped in to functional categories and variation in number of tokens and functional range can
be made. After identifying the functional purpose of the back channel tokens, individual
instances can be contextualized in the discourse and qualitatively analyzed for pragmatic
effectiveness. The data can be compared across proficiency levels and longitudinally over time
as well to gain insight into the durative effect. By combining techniques from discourse
analysis and conversational analysis traditions to analyze the collected data, the effectiveness of
drilling back channels as a pedagogical technique in this context may become clearer.
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APPENDIX A - Back channels categorized by pragmatic use.
English Reactions
相づちを打つ時驚いた時同情する時繰り返してほし
い時
OK Really? That’s too bad One more time
Right No way Sorry to hear that Can you say it
again?
Sure Wow That’s no good I don’t
understand
Uh-huh Seriously? Oh no Tell me more
Yeah Unbelievable I don’t follow
you
APPENDIX B – Back channels categorized by pragmatic use (version 2)
English Reactions II
相づちを打つ時驚いた時同情する時繰り返してほし
い時
I’m Listening Unreal That’s a shame Sorry?
And… You’re kidding Unlucky What?
Of Course What!? Tough Break I didn’t catch
that
cool No way! That sucks What do you
mean?
I don’t get it
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Weekly Charted Feedback of Japanese Students’ Oral
Performance in EFL Communicative TBL Classroom
François Ouellette
ABSTRACT
Feedback is widely used in Rikkyo’s English discussion class (EDC), but sometimes students
lack the resources or motivation to understand and apply feedback to their second language (L2)
performance. EDC lessons are conducted once a week, so students often forget feedback on
performance from previous lessons despite receiving written feedback after each lesson.
Feedback charts are a tool that can help students clearly identify their strengths and weaknesses
in the EDC context and help to extend feedback across lessons. A feedback chart also simplifies
teacher feedback by limiting the length of teacher feedback while providing written visual
support. Moreover, charting students’ progress can give students clear goals to focus on while
tracking their performance within the lesson and from week to week. Finally, the charts can be
used in students’ written feedback so they can identify which aspects of their performance they
can focus on for the following lesson.
LITERATURE REVIEW
There are many benefits to charting students’ performance in an English as a Foreign Language
(EFL) speaking classroom. Charts can help motivate students by setting short- and long-term
goals while giving students discrete feedback on their spoken performance. To narrow the scope
of feedback and motivation, my classroom activity focuses on using feedback charts after group
discussions. The feedback is meant to be clear for students to use in the subsequent activity or
next week’s lesson via a transcription in their weekly written feedback. The literature review will
first explore student motivation to learn EFL, then feedback in the L2 classroom.
Research on motivation is extensive among psychology and education researchers who
have focused on many subjects like intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, psychological factors and
emotional factors. As research began to explore motivation, it became clear that motivation
was more complex than rewards and punishments as stated by Dörnyei (1998). Generally
speaking most researchers would agree that motivation energizes human behaviour and gives it
direction (Dörnyei, 1998). Dörnyei’s literature review Motivation in second and foreign
language learning is a comprehensive article about motivation in language learning and will
serve as the primary source for research cited in this article unless otherwise stated.
Participation in the EDC is focused on contributing ideas, speaking equally with
partners, being an active listener (i.e. asking follow-up questions, paraphrasing partners’ ideas,
using English reactions), and reading written feedback. Sub-goals for motivating EDC students
include promoting a positive image of using English to build students confidence to use English,
and generally to help them to become autonomous learners and speakers of EFL. Motivation and
willingness to participate in the classroom is an essential component of the EDC because
communicative TBL requires students to contribute in order for the teaching model to function.
In the EDC there are some intrinsically motivated students, for instance they enjoy
speaking in English for the fun of it. Many of the topics in the EDC are fun and relevant to
Japanese student life and students tend to enjoy speaking with their classmates in small
classrooms. Vallerand (1997) broke down intrinsic motivation to learn into three categories: (a)
to engage in the activity for the satisfaction of understanding a new topic, (b) to reach an
achievement such as challenging oneself to learn to do something new, (c) to experience
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stimulation, such as a learning activity that is pleasant for the student. For students who are
intrinsically motivated to learn an FL, teachers can support students’ efforts with goal-setting
tasks. For example, classroom self-reflection activities can assist students to create language
learning goals and help them achieve those goals. Intrinsically motivated students tend to benefit
from charts because the feedback defines expectations and assists them in reaching their L2
goals.
Extrinsic motivation is a more common experience among students in the EDC. In
many cases students perform well and satisfy the requirements for EDC lessons and tests, in
spite of the fact they state they “do not like English”. A sentiment that is echoed in Chen’s
(2008) master’s thesis, which found that freshmen Taiwanese EFL students had similar EFL
achievements whether they were intrinsically motivated to learn the language or if they were
‘perfectionists’ who strived for academic achievement (i.e., high grades). Extrinsic motivators
include: grades, teacher feedback, future career opportunities, and TBL activities. Such extrinsic
motivators can be effective in motivating students to participate in EFL classes, but may lack the
students’ agency because the motivators are all external. Extrinsic motivators can be further
categorized into more specific varieties of motivation, for example self-determined motivation.
Deci, Vallerand, Pelletier and Ryan, (1991) propose Identified regulation (IR), which takes place
when an individual understands and values the usefulness of an activity. Broadly defined, IR
could apply to learning a FL because it is useful for a student’s future career. Additionally, IR
reinforces the notion that tasks in TBL need to be compelling for the student in that the student
understands the positive benefits of the classroom task. Students should understand that by
participating in speaking or reflective activities that they can improve their FL skills. Therefore,
it’s important to establish the purpose and value in using a chart to monitor performance to set
L2 goals. The initial steps towards intrinsic motivation can occur, if students can identify with
the value in communicative TBL and the respective classroom activities. For instance by
charting classroom performance from discussion 1 (D1) to discussion 2 (D2), students might be
motivated by seeing improvement in their performance or may be motivated to improve upon
their weak points. Ultimately, teachers hope that students will contribute more in discussion
classrooms by providing students with agency in their learning. Thus, improved participation is
achieved by demonstrating the value of a classroom activity.
Student agency can come from leading discussions, sharing their own opinions or from
student-driven reflection and feedback. Including students in their own learning process can give
students a sense of ownership of the EFL experience. Dörnyei points to Deci and Ryan (1985)
who expanded on the theories of motivation to include autonomy. Deci (1992) proposed the
self-determination theory, which states that autonomy is an innate human need, referring to the
desire to be self-initiating and self-regulating of one's actions. Therefore self-determination, that
is, engaging in an activity “with a full sense of wanting, choosing, and personal endorsement” (p.
44). The self-reflection activity would aim to partly fulfill students’ personal endorsement.
However, asking students to appraise the quality of their group discussions may be too broad and
difficult for students to do. Thus, teachers can initially support a self-reflection process by
providing students with criteria with which to evaluate their FL discussion performances, but
students should not feel constrained to only focus on ‘functions’ and ‘communication skills’
from the EDC curriculum. Ultimately, as students become more familiar with self-reflections of
their group discussion, students should generate their own opinions regarding their performances,
for instance commenting on the quality or originality of ideas, or students’ reflections on their
ability to support one another when discussing complex ideas. The self-reflection process is a
useful approach for students to set their own goals from D1 to D2. With the aid of charting their
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François Ouellette
progress during the semester, goals and feedback can crossover from week to week, thus
extending feedback beyond the current lesson.
Self-reflection activities in the EDC is a common tool used by teachers; my classroom
activity is concerned with extending feedback activities to link between groups discussions and
lesson to lesson rather than confining feedback only to the immediate task. It is meaningful to
note, students receive written feedback based on their performances in class. In some cases,
students do not read the teacher’s written post-lesson feedback. The goals set by students in the
classroom can be charted in their textbook, which ensures that students have succinct goals that
were mutually decided upon by the teacher and the student. The notes that students make
regarding their feedback are often short and easy to understand for the student, since they wrote
the feedback for themselves. It is important for the teacher to draw the learner’s attention to the
previous week’s goals; otherwise students may overlook what they had written. Furthermore,
teachers should judge when they should remind students of their previous week’s feedback.
Generally, I give students a few practice turns to prepare for D1 and to become familiar with that
week’s function. Next, I have the students practice the previous week’s feedback once, before
beginning D1.
Setting FL learning goals can help motivate learners to achieve benchmarks while they
improve their interlanguage. Goals can help students gauge their progress as well as give
students a closer goal to reach like passing a test as compared to a very challenging goal like
‘mastering an FL’. Moreover, FL acquisition takes a long time, so smaller and nearer goals can
help sustain motivation on the path of FL improvement. According to Pintrich and Schunk
(1996) “motivation is the process whereby goal-directed activity is instigated and sustained” (p.
4). Therefore, goals should incite and sustain learner’s motivation to use the FL and to try and
improve his or her present proficiency level. Guilloteaux and Dörnyei (2008) state that goals are
the engine, which influence a learner’s efforts and guide that energy in a specific learning
direction. The authors go on to explain four mechanisms in which goals affect performance.
(a) they direct attention and effort towards goal-relevant activities at the expense of
actions that are not relevant; (b) they regulate effort expenditure in that people adjust their effort
to the difficulty level required by the task; (c) they encourage persistence until the goal is
accomplished; (d) they promote the search for relevant action plans or task strategies.
(Guilloteaux & Dörnyei, 2008, p. 120).
Self-reflective goal setting throughout the semester can help sustain intrinsically and
extrinsically motivated students to improve their FL speaking skills, while giving students
specific goals to achieve. At least one goal is achievable within one class, while other goals can
be set for the following week’s lesson. It is clear that there are varied levels of motivation within
an EDC classroom and that motivation is an essential component of L2 performance. Feedback
that is understandable and actionable is also important to learners’ L2 performance.
A multisensory approach to feedback can improve students’ comprehension of feedback.
Listening in an L2 is a difficult task and having written support can improve their
comprehension of instructions. For instance, many Japanese university students have a large
written vocabulary, but may have never heard those words pronounced in a different accent from
Japanese English. Written feedback therefore supports the students’ listening skills. Furthermore,
the students’ working-memory is taxed when they are asked to produce content, attend to form
and implement feedback. Feedback examples on the whiteboard can reduce the cognitive load
and allow students to recall their instructions more easily while discussing topics in the EDC.
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TASKS AND MATERIALS

The chart is a rubric with the list of functions and communication skills placed on the
whiteboard. See the appendix for examples of sample charts. A teacher can bring laminated
copies of the function phrases and use magnets to keep them up in order to save time. Three
different coloured markers are ideal for distinguishing student group performance of each phrase.
Finally, it is useful to have a smart phone, camera, or pen and paper to make a record of the chart
after it has been completed to use as a reference for students’ written comments.
PROCEDURE
Prepare a chart on the whiteboard, which includes all the functions and communication skills
that have been learned from the current point in the semester. There are four columns in the
chart: phrases, D1, D2, Improvements. During the group discussions the teacher should take
notes and make a record of all the function phrases that are used. When there is about 2 minutes
left in the group discussion, the teacher can start filling in the chart for frequency of use of the
EDC phrases. For frequent function use (more than 60% of the students used the phrase) put a
blue happy face : ) next to those phrases. For average functions use (40-55% of students use the
phrase) put a black triangle ∆ next to those phrases. For limited function use (less than 40% of
students used the phrase) put a red sad face : ( next to those phrases. Write the :) ∆ :
( in the appropriate D1 or D2 column. Next to each of the phrases with limited function use,
write an example on the board outside of the rubric. Once the discussion is complete, the teacher
can highlight the strong points from the discussion and the points to improve. A teacher can
praise students for the phrases they often used and can use humour to highlight the weak points.
Further, the teacher can highlight the examples from the weak points by using their hand to
underline the corrective feedback examples while they are reading out loud. The combination of
listening and reading can help focus students’ attention and keep the teacher’s oral feedback
succinct. If this is after D1, have the students write down a goal from the weak points in their
textbook between the D2 Prep and the D2 discussion questions. The teacher should refer back to
the feedback and emphasize one weak point after each speaking turn during the D2 preparation.
Before D2 begins erase all of the examples of phrases, but leave the : ) ∆ : ( symbols on the
board to help guide students’ use of phrases.
After D2, it is important to highlight the progress that students have made from D1 to
D2 and praise them for their improvements. Under the column for ‘Improvements’ write a check
mark √ if there are any improvements from D1 to D2. The purpose of the chart is to show
progress, so if the class goes from a sad face to a triangle, then they would still receive a check
mark for an improvement in their performance.
Table 1.
D1 D2 Improvements
Advantage/Disadvantage : ) :)
Paraphrasing :( ∆ √
Check if Finished :) :( X
Generally, if students achieve a happy face in D1 and D2 then there is no mark for improvement.
One exception occurs if the students performed poorly in both discussions and only made one or
no improvements from D1 to D2, but there were double happy faces for one function phrase,
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François Ouellette
then a check mark is given. Conversely, if students perform worse from D1 to D2 on a given
function then an ex X can go in the improvement column. The use of Xs for diminished
performance is up to the discretion of the teacher and can alternatively be ignored without any
identifying symbols. During the oral feedback from D2, the teacher can assign goals for next
week based on the weak points from D2. Teachers should emphasize the importance to read the
online comments because the teacher will write specific tips to improve upon the weak points
from D2.
After the lesson is finished the teacher should transcribe the chart to use in the written
feedback. The chart is both effective for the students and the teacher because the teacher can
quickly create corrective feedback tips for the next lesson based on the class’s performance data.
The completed chart can also be rewritten in the online comments.
VARIATIONS
In the first example of the chart activity, the teacher gives all the feedback. Teacher fronted
feedback is generally best at the beginning of the course so that the students can become familiar
with the EDC feedback procedures. However, later in the course it is recommended to involve
the students in assessing their own performance. The same chart can be prepared on a handout
and students can complete a self-assessment after a group discussion. Alternatively, students can
work in pairs or in groups to assess the frequency of phrase use in group discussions.
Another variation of the self-assessment chart is to include categories that are not
functions phrases. It can be valuable to give feedback to student on other discussion skills apart
from EDC phrases. For example, speaking equally, helping each other with difficult ideas, and
asking a series of follow-up questions. Generally, I include one of these extra categories per
lesson based on the class’s performance after D1.
The last variation of the chart is to have groups of students complete the table on the
board after D1. This last variation emphasizes autonomy, teamwork and accuracy. One group of
four can do a group self-assessment of their phrase usage. Meanwhile, the other group of
students can complete the D2 textbook preparation work. Once both groups have finished their
written work, have them switch. The new group of students can write examples of the seldom
used phrases on the board while the first group finishes their D2 textbook preparation work. The
student self-assessment variation of the chart is more interactive for the students and helps them
remember unfamiliar phrases from the course. One limitation of this strategy is both groups
generally do not finish their task at the same time. For instance, one group will either finish the
board work or the D2 textbook preparation work before the other group and sometimes students
will chat while they wait.
DISCUSSION
The purpose of the activity was to motivate and assist students to use the function phrases more
often and to extend feedback from lesson to lesson. Specifically, the chart shows students their
frequency of function use in group discussions and provides goals to achieve in future activities.
Specific practice examples are used to assists students in improving their weak points. The chart
almost always showed that students had progressed from D1 to D2. Note: it is likely that
students would show improvement without the chart, but students would refer to the chart in D2
preparation and D2 to remind themselves of their goals. The chart was an effective way to
summarize the students’ progress during one lesson. Students often expressed happiness when
their progress was visualized in a chart, which gave students a sense of accomplishment at the
end of a lesson.
169
The second purpose of the chart was to extend feedback from lesson to lesson. The chart
was included in the written comments for students to refer to and get specific corrective
feedback on weak points. I hoped that the chart would be simple to understand and would
motivate students to read the comments and use the feedback in the class. Classroom polls
regularly showed that few students read my comments so the activity was not successful in
motivating students to read the comments. One possible reason for low readership could be the
similarity between in class comments and written comments, so students may have assumed
nothing new or useful would appear in the comments. Another reason could be that the activity
took place during the second semester of school and students tend to invest less effort in the
EDC course for varied reasons. As a result of low readership of my comments, I adapted my
comments as a tool that I could use in the classroom. I would bring up the previous week’s chart
using my laptop and talk about last week’s strong and weak points and demonstrated how my
comments could be used in the current lesson to improve their performance. Sometimes students
were surprised, which lead me to believe that students may need some training on how to use my
chart and comments to improve their performance in the following lesson. Ultimately, one
limitation to motivating students to read the comments is that students are capable of passing or
achieving a high score in the class without ever needing to read the comments. The comments
can serve as a useful tool for students who were absent from class, potentially give extra
assistance to lower-level students, and serve as a resource for intrinsically motivated students.
Another benefit from the chart was that oral feedback was supported with written
examples. It can be difficult for students to focus on a speaking task while remembering their
feedback. So students would sometimes refer to the board to remember their goals or how to
accurately say a phrase.
The chart also helped the teacher to be concise. I found my feedback talk time became
shorter and clearer and served as a reference point to give feedback. For instance, after D1 the
class may have had 3 weak points, but it is not useful to try and comment on all three weak
points at once. Alternatively, after each D2 preparation turn I could refer to the chart and address
one point of feedback at a time. This saved class time because I did not have to repeat myself
and it was also easier for students to understand because the feedback was divided into
comprehensible chunks with written support.
The chart self-assessment activities revealed that students sometimes did not know the
phrases when a student was expected to write the phrase on the board. The examples that
students wrote on the board also revealed errors in the accuracy of the EDC phrases. For
example: “What does anyone want to comment?” which is a combination of “What does
everyone think?” and “Does anyone want to make a comment?” Lastly the students’ board work
showed that some students did not understand the meta-language for EDC phrases, which is
important to know if teachers are using meta-language in oral and written feedback. Group
self-assessments were the most effective variation of the chart activity because students had fun
and were engaged. The self-assessment fostered autonomy, group cohesion because students
helped each other to complete the table and improved students accuracy and knowledge of
meta-language.
LIMITATIONS
The variations of the group discussion assessment each have their own advantages. The group
assessment provides general feedback for the whole class. The advantage of this type of
feedback is that groups develop collective goals and they can help each other to reach their goal
while making the target functions more salient. However, students will not receive specific
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feedback on their own performance. If 20 percent of the students use the target function, then the
class would receive a sad face : ( for rarely using the function. So giving general class feedback
does not always accurately reflect each student’s performance. Also, because only one group
does the self-assessment sometimes the students’ function performance can vary between each
group. Although, both groups generally have similar performances in D1. Next, sometimes
students’ group-assessments are not accurate, so it is important to monitor their assessments
because groups sometimes under- or over evaluate their performance. Monitoring group
self-assessments has an advantage in that the teacher can monitor the students’ self-assessment,
whereas when students do pair or individual self-assessments, it is more difficult for the teacher
to monitor the students’ accuracy of their self-appraisal. The self- and pair assessments have the
advantage of being more specific to the individual student’s performance. The limitation of self-
and pair assessment is that there is not a group common goal. In group discussions there will not
be a collective goal for the group to achieve and the saliency of the target goal may be less than
if there were group goals.
CONCLUSION
In sum, the chart was successful to motivate students to use the EDC phrases and was most
effective when students lead a group self-assessment. The chart clearly demonstrated the
students’ strong and weak points and facilitated giving students a sense of accomplishment at the
end of the lesson. Other unexpected benefits of the chart were that students improved their
accuracy of EDC phrases and gained a heightened awareness of meta-language. Additionally, the
chart can assist teachers to give succinct corrective feedback for students after group discussions.
The chart was not effective in motivating students to read written feedback. However, the
comments were a useful tool that could be adapted for use in the following lesson and created an
opportunity to train students on how to use written feedback in subsequent EDC lessons. The
limitations of the group chart are that feedback can be too general and does not give specific
students feedback. The individual and pair variations are limited by inaccuracy in
self-assessment and do not benefit from having a common group goal. For research purposes,
the chart was effective in providing some informal data because the purpose of the chart was to
show progress in frequency of phrase use from D1 to D2. As such, future research could record
outcomes of strong and weak points of all the lessons in a semester to provide a more accurate
picture of the benefits from charting performance and goal setting.
REFERENCES
Chen, K. T., & Kuo Y. C. (2011). Intrinsic/Extrinsic Motivation and Perfectionism of EFL
College Freshman Students in Taiwan. (Unpublished master’s thesis) Chaoyang
University of Technology.
Deci, E. L. “The relation of interest to the motivation of behavior: a self-determination theory
perspective.” Vie role of interest in learning and development. Ed. K. A. Renninger, S.
Hidi & A. Krapp, 1992. 43-70. Print.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human
behaviour. New York: Plenum.
Dörnyei, Z. (1998). Motivation in second and foreign language learning. Language Teaching, 31,
3, 117-135.
Guilloteaux, M. J., & Dörnyei, Z. (2008). Motivating Language Learners: A Classroom-Oriented
Investigation of the Effects of Motivational Strategies on Student Motivation. TESOL
Quarterly, 42, 1, 55-77.
171
Pintrich, P. L., & Schunk, D. H. (1996). Motivation in education: theory, research, and
applications. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Vallerand, R. J. (1997).Toward a hierarchical model of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 29, 271-360.
APPENDIX A - Sample Written Feedback in EDC comments
X D1 D D1-D2 Strategies
2 Improv
e
Asking for : ) :( X Have you ever eaten on the train?
experiences Did you sleep on someone’s shoulder on the train?
Giving :) :) It’s my experience, last week…
Experiences When I
was…
Giving Points ∆ :) √ How about from ___________’s perspective?
of View
Reporting :( :( X For example, I heard from my friend/family…
Information I saw on tv (that)….
My friend said that…
Paraphrasing :( :) √
Advantages :( ∆ √ For example, One advantage, from __________'s

Disadvantages point of view is...
Choose :) :)
Change
Topics
Agree :( :) √ Connecting ideas
Disagree Do you mean…? Yes
I agree with you, another
(dis)advantage is…
I see your point but, one
disadvantage is…
Questions ∆ :) √
Checking :( :) √
Understanding
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Conversational Shadowing
Matthew Y. Schaefer
ABSTRACT
While the “strong” and “weak” forms of the Interaction Hypothesis differ in terms of viewing
language learning as a process or a product, they both agree that meaningful interaction is a
necessary component of developing a learner’s communicative competence. The most obvious
way that interaction is said to be of benefit is that it provides practice of the skill that it is trying
to promote. In addition, it allows for multiple instances of not only expressing and interpreting,
but also negotiating meaning – a necessary skill in any real-world language use. Conversational
shadowing is an interaction strategy that leads to negotiation of meaning and is relatively easy to
introduce into an English discussion class through quick, controlled practice activities. This
paper shows both how to integrate it into freer speaking activities and how it may aid
communication in a variety of ways.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The Interaction Hypothesis, at its simplest, states that language proficiency is improved through
face-to-face interaction and communication (Johnson & Johnson, 1999). Although some
researchers have challenged this idea by claiming that other factors may be of greater
importance in terms of overall proficiency, it seems commonsensical to assume that the specific
improvement of a learner’s ability to interact in spoken discussions will be greatly enhanced
through actual interaction.
Early approaches to looking at the primacy of interaction in language learning put
emphasis on the need for, variously, comprehensible input, negotiation to repair communication
problems, noticing of new language, and comparison of the learner’s knowledge with the input
(Ellis, 1991). However, these were very much focused on development of a learner’s linguistic
competence, i.e. how new forms (e.g. grammatical, phonological) could be acquired. Long
(1996), on the other hand, created the Interaction Hypothesis, which views acquisition in terms
of overall communicative competence and therefore considers how learners can improve their
ability to use language in communicative contexts. A crucial ingredient is the presence of
negotiation of meaning, in the form of interactional adjustment, through which interlocutors
work together to fix communication problems and, possibly as a result, collaborate to construct
meaning in a way that would not have been possible had the participants been working alone.
This allows for the possibility that learners can become more competent users of the target
language in terms of taking part in true communication, defined here as the expression,
interpretation, and negotiation of meaning (Savignon, 1997).
Although language learning has thus far been described alternately as “development [of
competence]” or “acquisition [of skills]” (Ellis, 2012), the difference between the two reflects
the two forms of the Interaction Hypothesis: the “strong” form and the “weak” form. The strong
form comes from a sociocultural theory perspective, which says that language learning is a
process, not a product, and one that begins on the social plane (intermental) before developing
into something that can be managed independently (intramental). This view treats language use
among more than one participant as the language learning itself; in other words, when a learner
has to interact in the target language, the attempts to communicate despite deficiencies in
communicative competence result in development.
The weak form represents interactionist-cognitive theories of language learning, which
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say that interaction provides learners with input to process. This, potentially, leads to acquisition
of more advanced features and skills that can be put into practice in later opportunities for
communication. Crucially, the input provided by interaction is made “richer” because of the way
linguistic features are made more noticeable (for example, through negotiations of meaning) and
the way cognitive processes are activated to encourage acquisition.
Although it is not clear to this author which model of language learning through
interaction is more persuasive (i.e. development equals use, or acquisition comes from use), what
does seem convincing is that interaction is a key to improving language use, especially when the
target use is spoken discussions. In EDC lessons, whose overall aim is to improve learners’
fluency, student-student interaction is a necessary feature. The goal for the instructor, then, is to
make this interaction as beneficial as possible in terms of allowing students to improve their
discussion performance. From a sociocultural theory perspective, this means encouraging
collaboration among participants so that they are co-creating meaning and, potentially, a higher
level of language use. From the perspective of interactionist-cognitive theories, it means giving
students tools with which they can make the input they provide each other with as rich as
possible in order to facilitate better acquisition of language skills through the “noticing” of
particular language items. From both points of view, negotiation for meaning can be considered
an important aspect of strategic competence that will contribute to improved interaction.
Swain (1997) describes “collaborative dialogue” as the joint construction of language, or
knowledge about language, that takes place during, and because of, interaction. (Note: Although
“dialogue” clearly refers to a situation with two speakers, there is no reason to suggest that the
theories described here would not also apply to interactions among slightly larger groups of
speakers.) This is considered somewhat different to the ways that input and output may effect
improvements in communicative competence (although both, of course, feature in interaction).
The main difference is that the two or more interlocutors involved will share linguistic resources
to move beyond their current linguistic and/or cognitive state. If a focus on communication is
maintained, each speaker is constantly being held accountable for, and simultaneously being
supported in, the meaning that they are attempting to express. This requires skills that, for most
language learners at least, can not be easily practiced individually. Swain (2000) illustrates this
with several samples of learners’ performance, in which they each contribute separate “pieces of
a puzzle” that together provide a clearer picture of what they are trying to achieve. Although
many of her examples feature learners discussing grammatical knowledge (i.e. the forms of
language), she makes it clear that collaboration also includes joint development of both semantic
knowledge (i.e. how those forms convey meaning) and the ideas those meanings are being used
to express (i.e. content).
Mackey (2006) explains how certain interactional processes, such as requests for
clarification and recasts, can lead to modified output, chiefly by helping the speaker notice
insufficiencies in their initial output. Modified output by the speaker can equal richer input for
the listener. In this context, “richer” means input that is more communicative (i.e. the meaning
being conveyed is more easily understood) and that contains more noticeable features, which a
learner can use to acquire more advanced skills. Mackey reports on research whose results show
a clear, positive relationship between in-conversation feedback and noticing of linguistic items.
Although the referenced study featured dialogues between native speakers and non-native
speakers, it may be inferred that similar results could come out of interactions among only
non-native speakers as authentic requests for clarification and recasts would be expected to
naturally occur (and have been informally observed in class by the author). In this setting,
learners who use appropriate listening strategies are creating the opportunity for input that is
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Matthew Y. Schaefer
more likely to be noticed by all participants involved. As a result, acquisition of new ideas, and
the language forms used to express those ideas, may occur.
Interaction, as seen by both sociocultural theory and interactionist-cognitive approaches,
is not simply a matter of one interlocutor expressing an idea and another interlocutor interpreting
that idea. Whether language development happens during the interaction or acquisition arises out
of it, a common feature is that, during a communication problem, the speakers work together to
arrive at meaning that is understood by both. This is said to happen through negotiation for
meaning. Pica (1992, p. 200) defines negotiation for meaning as “an activity that occurs when a
listener signals to the speaker that the speaker’s message is not clear and the speaker and the
listener work linguistically to resolve this impasse.” Foster and Ohta (2005) point out that this
linguistic problem-solving is of particular benefit according to the Interaction Hypothesis as it
creates opportunities for input and output to be connected in creative ways. They also identify
ways that speakers can negotiate for meaning, focusing on the three ‘C’s (Comprehension
checks, Clarification requests, and Confirmation checks), and look at research into how their use
affects learners’ interactions. Comprehension checks are defined as expressions used by the
speaker to establish whether or not the listeners have understood the speaker’s original utterance
(e.g. Do you understand?). Confirmation checks are expressions used by the listener to check
that they have understood the speaker’s original utterance (e.g. Do you mean…?). Clarification
requests are expressions used by the listener to ask the speaker to make their original utterance
more easily understood (e.g. Can you explain?). Foster and Ohta examined research to look at
how often a group of learners initiated negotiation for meaning during a task and how this
caused modified output to be produced. They found that there was little evidence for the flow of
interaction being interrupted because of learners trying to verify the meaning of what was being
expressed. They did, however, find that the participants would consistently repair their own
output and help each other arrive at a satisfactory way of expressing meaning. From a
sociocultural perspective, this was seen as instances of collaboration in which learners assisted
one another in order to move the interaction forward. From an interactionist-cognitive point of
view, it was viewed as learners creating input that they could use to acquire forms that would
push their interlanguage forward.
The activity chosen to reflect the teaching principles above is conversational shadowing,
which is defined as “the partial to complete repetitions by listeners of a speaker’s utterances”
(Murphey, 2001). An example is presented in context below, with the actual shadowing in bold:
Speaker A: I think the best reason to study abroad is to learn a new culture.
Speaker B: Learn a new culture. I see.
This example shows selective, out loud shadowing, although it can also occur elsewhere on
continuums leading to complete shadowing or silent shadowing. Conversational shadowing is
often classified as a communication strategy (Dornyei & Scott, 1997), although it can serve a
variety of purposes.
The first purpose is as a reaction, which means that it is simply indicating to the speaker
that the listener is listening to (and possibly interested in) what is being said. In this case, it has
little impact on any negotiation for meaning, but it can build rapport among interlocutors,
encouraging the speaker and thereby encouraging further interaction. Another purpose is as a
confirmation check, which involves the listener checking with the speaker that they have
understood what was said. This can be considered negotiation for meaning as it deals with the
potential for communication problems. If the shadowing matches what the speaker wanted to
175
express, there is no need for any clarification; if it doesn’t, the speaker can repeat or paraphrase
the idea so that communication is achieved. A third purpose is as a clarification request, which is
also negotiation for meaning. Here, the listener is clearly signaling to the speaker that the
original utterance was not understood and would therefore like further explanation. For this
purpose, the shadowing is in the form (i.e. using the intonation) of a question. It is also often less
complete as the listener likely did not comprehend the full utterance. For example:
Speaker C: I think the best reason to study abroad is to learn a new culture.
Speaker D: Learn a new…?
This can often be more effective than other types of clarification requests (e.g. Could you repeat
that, please?) as it focuses the speaker on which part of the utterance needs to be clarified.
Shadowing is also described as a type of listening strategy and the active listening it
promotes can aid comprehension in two key ways. Firstly, it forces the listener to notice more
carefully what the speaker is saying. If a learner is asked to shadow during an activity, they must
allocate cognitive resources to be able to do so in a way that promotes at least an attempt at
comprehension. Of course, it is possible to shadow without comprehension, but it does increase
the possibility of successful interpretation of meaning. Secondly, shadowing is one way to
regulate the speaker’s length of utterance; in other words, it creates a natural break in a speaking
turn. Shorter utterances are generally easier to understand than longer ones. These two effects of
shadowing can be seen as further ways of making input more comprehensible and noticeable.
Finally, it should be noted that shadowing is a highly interactive process. It is, by its
nature, directly connected to another speaker’s utterance and may elicit a direct response (as in
the case of clarification requests). It may reduce the number of instances in a discussion of
participants simply waiting their turn to speak before giving their own idea, and encourage them
to listen more attentively and collaborate to develop new ideas.
TASK & MATERIALS

In order to not take too much time away from the main aims of the EDC course, it was decided
to integrate the introduction of shadowing into the 3-2-1 fluency activity that is a required stage
of each EDC lesson. This activity has students divided into speakers and listeners, with the
speakers repeating the same topic-based monologue three times, with increased time pressure, to
three different listeners. The listeners are told to not ask questions or talk about the topic
themselves, but are encouraged to use rejoinders (e.g. I see, Really?). The speakers are prompted
by two topic-based questions, the answers to which are the starting point of their monologues. In
order to help some (usually lower-level) students roughly prepare the content of their
monologues, they may be given time to think about the question prompts before beginning to
speak. While the activity introducing shadowing to students was not based on any specific topic
(in order to focus on the mechanics of the strategy), subsequent shadowing activities were
conducted as a starting point for content generation for the 3-2-1 fluency activity. As in the
example above, “selective, out loud” shadowing was taught to students, with the focus on
shadowing key words or phrases. Shadowing was introduced to Level II, III, and IV classes.
To introduce the concept of shadowing to students, handouts are used for controlled and
semi-controlled practice activities (see Appendices A-C). Once students are aware of how to
apply shadowing to their interactions, no additional materials are required to encourage their use.
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Matthew Y. Schaefer
PROCEDURE
Week 1
This can be done at any appropriate stage of the Introduction Lesson. Students are given a
handout (Appendix A) and asked to complete the sentences. In pairs, they take turns reading out
their completed sentences, and their partners then shadow the key words (i.e. the inserted
words/phrases), followed by a rejoinder. For example:
A: My favorite food is pizza.
B: Pizza! I see.
The instructor can then identify and label the strategy as ‘shadowing’ to the students, as well as
explaining its benefits, so that it is easier to reference in future lessons.
Week 2
Before the 3-2-1 fluency activity, students are given a handout (Appendix B) and asked to
complete the sentences. These sentences are directly related to the topic-based fluency questions
(1. What foreign languages have you studied? What foreign languages do you study now? 2. Do
you think learning foreign languages is important?). Once again, students in pairs take turns
reading out their completed sentences, and their partners then shadow the key words/phrases,
followed by a rejoinder. For example:
A: I want to study Polish.
B: Polish! Really?
They then complete the 3-2-1 fluency activity as normal, with two provisos. First, pairs from the
shadowing activity should be put together as either speakers or listeners; this is to ensure that
they do not speak to each other, which might have the effect of reducing the communicativeness
of the activity. Second, before each speaking turn, the instructor reminds the listeners to shadow
their speaking partners’ key words, in addition to the regular use of rejoinders.
Week 3
Again, before the 3-2-1 fluency activity, students are given a handout (Appendix C) and asked to
complete the sentences, which are connected to the topic-based fluency questions. As before,
students in pairs take turns reading out their completed sentences, and their partners then shadow
the key words/phrases. However, this time, they are asked to shadow with question (i.e. rising)
intonation, even if they fully understood the key word or phrase. The speaker should then
respond by further explaining. This explanation can take the form of either further describing the
key word or phrase, or explaining why it was chosen. For example:
A: My favorite foreign food is a burrito.
B: Burrito?
A: Yes, it’s a kind of Mexican food with meat, vegetables, and rice wrapped together.
B: I see.
A: A foreign country I want to visit is Russia.

B: Russia?
A: Yes, because I am very interested in Russian culture and history.
B: That’s great!
The instructor then explains how shadowing can be used not only as a rejoinder, but also to show
that the listener has not understood or wants more information. The 3-2-1 fluency activity is then
done, again with previous pairs separated from speaking to each other and the instructor
encouraging shadowing (as either a rejoinder or as a question). Students are also reminded that
177
they can repeat any of the content from the previous activity during their speaking turns.
Weeks 4-5
Similar preparation is done (i.e. completing the gapped sentences), but students do not do the
controlled shadowing practice. Instead, they are only reminded to shadow between each
speaking turn of the 3-2-1 fluency activity. The instructor listens to how often students use
shadowing and gives feedback on their frequency of use.
Weeks 6-14
Students are reminded to use shadowing during the 3-2-1 fluency activity, but only when its use
becomes less frequent. Positive feedback is also given to students when they use shadowing
during other stages of the lesson (i.e. function practice activities, discussion preparations,
discussions).
VARIATIONS
The above activities have all used partial shadowing, but it would also be possible to have
student do complete shadowing. For example:
A: My hobby is reading books.
B: Your hobby is reading books. I see.
This may be especially useful for lower-level students as it would require them to pay closer
attention to what is being said, as well as providing them with more opportunities to produce
target forms.
Another variation would be to allow students to do silent shadowing, rather than the out
loud shadowing featured so far. Silent shadowing means that the repetition happens only in the
listener’s mind, with no actual vocalization, although it may be accompanied by lip movements.
Although there would be no certain way to check whether or not students are actually silently
shadowing, it might be an option for quieter students who would not yet feel comfortable doing
out loud shadowing, and may even act as a stepping stone towards it. Silent shadowing would
still have the effect of having students listen more carefully to their interlocutors, and it might
encourage some kind of signaling of a lack of comprehension.
DISCUSSION
The effect of the shadowing activities, in terms of acquisition of this strategy, varied a lot among
my students. While all students were able to use it well during the controlled activities, some
used it a lot during the 3-2-1 fluency activity, while others did not use it at all. Similarly, some
students began applying it to other stages of the lesson (e.g. discussions) very early in the
semester, while others began applying it later in the semester; there were, of course, some who
did not use it all after week 5. This is possibly due in part to the fact that I did not encourage
shadowing outside of the 3-2-1 fluency activity, beyond providing positive feedback when it was
used in discussions.
Among the students who eventually were shadowing regularly throughout the lessons, its
use by the end of the semester appeared to have become quite natural, i.e. they seemed to be
doing it without too much conscious effort and, when used as a rejoinder, it did not break the
flow of the interactions. I informally recorded several instances of this kind of shadowing use.
For example:
Student C: Last month, I went to Germany with friends.
Student D: Germany! That’s great!
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Matthew Y. Schaefer
Student C: Yes, we stayed there for two weeks.

There were also several noted instances of students using shadowing as a clarification request.
For example:
Student E: They don’t ring the bell.
Student F: Ring the bell?
Student E: Yes, to make a noise at the front door.
In addition to the above examples, there were instances when incorrect shadowing signaled
miscommunication, which also led to clarification. For example:
Student G: My neighbor hit the wall.
Student H: Hit a ball?
Student G: No, hit the wall.
Student H: Oh, the wall.
All of these examples show that shadowing has improved the communication in these
interactions, either through confirmations or by creating opportunities for clarification. It is
therefore the supposition of this article that the acquisition of the communication strategy of
shadowing and its use is beneficial for the kind of communicative interactions that occur in EDC
lessons.
CONCLUSION
Although there were several noted instances of shadowing use in the author’s lessons (see
above), it is not clear how many (if any) were due to the controlled practice shadowing activities
done early in the semester. In other words, students may have already been familiar with this
strategy (either procedurally or declaratively) before taking this course. In addition, it may have
been something that they naturally began doing after having completed many hours of classroom
interaction. One important part of formally assessing the activities described in this article would
be to determine at the beginning of the course whether or not students are already familiar with
shadowing and/or if they already use it in their spoken interactions. This could perhaps be done
through a questionnaire and recording of students’ discussions. It would also be beneficial to
have a control group to determine if it is a naturally occurring strategy among certain students.
In order to assess students acquisition and use of shadowing during and subsequent to the
controlled practice activities, recording of 3-2-1 fluency activities, pair discussion preparation
activities, and discussions could be made and analyzed for instances of shadowing. The type of
shadowing being used (e.g. confirmation checks or clarification requests) could then be
determined. In addition, it could be beneficial to track how clarifications are responded to, i.e.
whether or not the communication breakdown has been repaired. Finally, it may be of interest to
see if shadowing is more common during interaction between pairs or among groups.
REFERENCES
Dörnyei, Z., & Scott, M. L. (1997). Communication strategies in a second language: Definitions
and taxonomies. Language learning, 47(1), 173-210.
Ellis, R. (1991). The Interaction Hypothesis: A Critical Evaluation. Paper presented at the
Regional Language Centre Seminar. Singapore, April 22-28.
Ellis, R. (2012). Language Teaching Research and Language Pedagogy. Wiley-Blackwell.
Foster, P. & Ohta, A. S. (2005). Negotiation for meaning and peer assistance in second language
classrooms. Applied Linguistics, 26/3, 402-430.
Johnson, K. & Johnson, H. (1999). “Interaction Hypothesis”. In Encyclopedic Dictionary of
Applied Linguistics: A Handbook for Language Teaching. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers,
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174.
Long, M. (1996). The role of the linguistic environment in second language acquisition. In W.
Ritchie & T. Bhatia (Eds.), Handbook of Second Language Acquisition (p. 413-468). San
Diego: Academic Press.
Mackey, A. (1999). Input, interaction, and second language development. Studies in Second
Language Acquisition, 21(04), 557–587.
Murphey, T. (2001). Exploring conversational shadowing. Language Teaching Research, 5,2,
128-155.
Pica, T. (1992). The textual outcomes of native speaker – non-native speakernegotiation. In C.
Kramsch & S. McConnell-Ginet (Eds.), Test and context: Cross-disciplinary
perspectives on language study (p. 198-237). Lexington, MA: Heath.
Savignon, S. (1997). Communicative competence: theory and classroom practice. McGraw-Hill.
Swain, M. (1997). Collaborative dialogue: Its contribution to second language learning. Revista
Canaria de Estudios Ingleses, 34, 115-132.
Swain, M. (2000). The output hypothesis and beyond: Mediating acquisition through
collaborative dialogue. Sociocultural theory and second language learning, 97, 114.
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APPENDIX A
1. My hobby is _____________________________________________.
2. My favorite food is _______________________________________.
3. My birthday is ___________________________________________.
4. My favorite season is _____________________________________.
APPENDIX B
1. What foreign languages have you studied?

“I have studied ____________________________________________.”
2. What foreign languages do you want to study?
“I want to study ___________________________________________.”
3. “I think / don’t think learning foreign languages is important.”
APPENDIX C
1. “I have been to ___________________[foreign countries].”

2. “A foreign country I want to visit is __________________.”
3. “My favorite foreign food is ________________________.”
 Where would you like to study abroad?
_______________________________________________________
 Where would you like to work abroad?
_______________________________________________________
181
Developing Metacognitive Language Learning Strategies
Ethan Taomae
ABSTRACT
The amount of contact that instructors have with students is quite limited and thus it is important
to consider how best to maximize the time spent in class. The teaching of language learning
strategies can ensure that what is taught in the classroom can also have a lasting impact with the
learner as they continue learning the language. This paper reviews the literature in language
learning strategies and introduces two tasks to develop metacognitive language learning
strategies that can be integrated in the English Discussion Class (EDC) curriculum. The first task
aims to get students to identify the purpose of a language activity prior to its undertaking. The
second task aims for students to evaluate their own progress of language learning. Finally, the
discussion will examine the instructor’s observations as to the effectiveness of the two tasks and
suggest points for improvement.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Our goal, as English teachers, is for our students to be proficient users of English. With only 90
minutes a week of instructional contact, it is important to consider how that time is spent if we
are to truly have an impact on the students’ overall development. A great deal of language
learning usually happens outside the classroom so one question for instructors to consider is
“What can we do in class that students can take with them when they leave our class?” Brown
(2007) offers the principle of “strategic investment”. This is the idea that learners largely acquire
language through their own individual strategies of noticing and using language. Therefore,
teachers need to be able to address these individual differences and help learners become aware
of the various strategies they could employ to further their learning of the language. The answer
to the earlier question, “What can we do in class that students can take with them?” is the
explicit instruction of language learning strategies.
A review of the literature suggests that there is no consensus on a definition for language
learning strategies. In synthesizing many of the concepts that came before, Griffith (2013)
states that language learning strategies are “activities consciously chosen by learners for the
purpose of regulating their own language learning” (p. 15). This definition highlights some of
the key features of language learning strategies; they are active, conscious, goal-oriented, used
for regulation of oneself, and focused on learning. Some scholars distinguish language learning
strategies from language-use strategies, which are strategies that help to facilitate
communication (Cohen, 2011). However, as Oxford (2011) points out, strategies that allow a
learner to use more language (e.g. avoiding a topic that a learner is unfamiliar with and choosing
one that is within the learner’s vocabulary level) are valuable for learning and makes such
distinctions unnecessary. The important aspect then is that the intent of the strategy is for
learning. Such gray areas also make agreement on classifying strategies increasingly difficult.
Attempts at classifying often include cognitive, metacognitive, and socio-affective components.
Oxford’s (1990) Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) is one of the most popular.
Part of the difficulty of defining and classifying strategies is that they are mental
processes which are largely unobservable (Chamot, 2008). The only way for researchers to
observe this process is if the learner makes it known by self-reporting. While some researchers
disagree with the construct validity of language learning strategies (Grenfell & Macaro, 2007),
there is pedagogical value attached to language learning strategy instruction. Studies have shown
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Ethan Taomae
that language learning strategies can be taught and there is a relationship between learning
strategies and success in language learning (Green & Oxford, 1995; Griffiths, 2013; Nakatani,
2005). Green and Oxford (1995) found that successful language learners used more strategies
than others; however, this was not true for all cases as Plonsky (2011), in a meta-analysis, found
a curvilinear relationship between frequency of strategy use and level of proficiency (i.e. higher
strategy use by intermediate learners than both high and low level learners). What this shows is
that low proficiency learners do use language learning strategies; in fact, they may actually use
them as frequently as high proficiency learners.
One thing that can be highlighted from the literature is that the difference between
successful language learners and less successful ones is not necessarily caused by the sheer
number of strategies used but rather how they are used (Chamot, 2008; Griffiths, 2013). Using
SILL (Oxford, 1990), Griffiths (2013) found that higher level learners were better able to
effectively orchestrate strategies whereas lower level learners tended to rely on certain “base”
strategies (e.g. memorization). Furthermore, in her analysis of learner strategies, Griffiths found
groups of strategies that were particular to high level learners, low level learners, and those that
pertained to all learners. Strategies that high level learners used significantly more frequently
than their lower proficiency counterparts were called “plus strategies” and they include
strategies relating to interaction, function, vocabulary, writing, tolerance of ambiguity, language
systems, affect, and reading. As mentioned before, lower level learners relied on what were
called “base strategies.” Interestingly, she also found strategies commonly used among students
of all levels which Griffiths called “core strategies”. A great deal of these core strategies include
metacognitive ones such as “I try to find how to be a better learner” and “I think about my
progress in learning English” (p. 61). This research suggests that since metacognitive strategies
are found most in the core strategies and not in the base strategies, they play an important role in
successful language learning. However, since high level learners used the plus strategies most, it
also signifies that metacognitive strategies by themselves are not enough to become successful
language learners.
Noticing that the usage of strategies by learners of different levels was not stable,
Griffiths put forth the hypothesis that strategy development was the result of a tornado
effect—“strategy development is spiral (like a tornado) rather than linear. It suggests that, as
proficiency increases and confidence increases, more and more strategies become accessible to
the learner, increasing exponentially in strength into a powerful force for learning” (p. 168).
With this in mind, the goal of teaching language learning strategies is for students to be aware of
the numerous strategies available to them so that as they develop, they are better able take
control of their learning and travel on the path toward learner autonomy, self-regulation, and
self-direction (Cohen, 2011).
With EDC lessons having such a tight schedule, it may seem like a waste for instructors to
spend time on language learning strategies. Instructors may instead prefer to give their students
more time to practice. However, Nakatani (2005) found in a study at a Japanese university that
students who were given training sessions in oral communication strategies improved
significantly more on the oral communication tests after 12 weeks than their counter-parts who
were given extra time for oral communication activities (equal in length to the training sessions).
The strategy training sessions were designed to help build the students’ metacognitive skills in
using oral communication strategies particularly “achievement-based” strategies (e.g.
help-seeking) as opposed to “reduction-based” strategies (e.g. abandonment). The students in the
training group were given a list of achievement-based strategies and the training consisted of
five phases: review, presentation, rehearsal, performance, and evaluation. The results showed
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that the strategy training group were able to use more achievement strategies and relied less on
the reduction-based ones and demonstrated overall improvement in proficiency. Based on the
research then, it seems it would be worth spending the time to make language learning strategy
instruction a part of the class.
Within the EDC, a number of language learning strategies have already been implicitly
integrated into the curriculum particularly in the form of the communication skills (Hurling,
2012) with the most obvious strategies being asking questions and negotiating meaning.
Learners can become better at using language learning strategies through explicit practice and
also by doing activities where strategy-use is implicitly embedded into activities. The key
features of successful strategy instruction are raising the awareness of available strategies,
integrating them into the content of the normal lesson, and giving maximum time to practice
(Griffiths, 2013). If teachers are able to make students aware of their own learning processes and
metacognition, only then will the students be able to transfer these strategies to other tasks
outside the classroom (Chamot, 2008).
TASK AND MATERIALS

As stated in the literature review, there are a number of language learning strategies already
being implemented in the EDC curriculum. Many of these strategies are compensatory and are
used to negotiate meaning (e.g. the checking understanding phrases). Other strategies such as
asking follow-up questions play a social-affective role of mutual learning and bond-building.
This paper will now introduce two tasks that target language learning strategies which promote
metacognition. The two language learning strategies involved are identifying the purpose of a
language activity and evaluating the progress made as a language learner. Both of these tasks,
which will be explained in more detail later, should be done in every class session. The task of
identifying the purpose of a language activity is best done prior to and after both the fluency and
function practice sections of the lesson. The second task of evaluating the progress made as a
language learner is essentially a reflection and should be done at the very end of the lesson. Both
tasks require the use of a log sheet. To make things easy for both instructor and student, the two
have been combined on one sheet (see Appendix).
PROCEDURE
Identifying the Purpose of a Language Activity
The purpose of this task is to have students become conscious of why they are doing an activity
in class. Because the majority of the EDC course is spent doing discussion, most students focus
on the exchange of meaning. However, two sections in the lesson, fluency and function practice,
are not primarily meaning-focused but rather focus on improving fluency and form respectively.
Many students either ignore or are unaware of this and thus don’t engage in the activity properly.
There are two parts to address here. The first is that teachers need to make sure that students are
aware of why they are doing an activity. This means making the purpose of the activity very
clear to the students. The second is the development of the learning strategy of “identifying the
purpose of a language activity” by the students. The first step to develop this strategy is to check
that students know the purpose of the activity. Immediately prior to doing the fluency and
practice activities, the instructor should ask one individual to state how the students can achieve
the goal of the activity. For the fluency activity, you can ask, “How can we improve fluency in
this activity?” If students don’t remember, you can prompt them with, “Do you speak the same
speed for each round or do you try to go faster?” For the function practice, you can ask, “Do you
focus on having a deep discussion or do you focus on practicing the new phrases many times?”
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Each week try to rotate the student who says the goal. The thinking is that if the students are able
to express how they will achieve their goal (or if they are reminded of it) then it will be fresh in
their mind and they will make it a point to do it.
After the activity, as a way to confirm and self-monitor that the student thought about and
tried to achieve the intended goal of the fluency/practice, have students fill out a check sheet (see
Appendix). This can be a simple checkmark or “yes/no” response to indicate that the student
thought about the purpose and was able to achieve it. See the variations section below for more
involved responses.
Reflection sheet
The aim of this activity is for students to evaluate the progress they have made in learning the
language. At the end of each class, students will write a short reflection (1-2 sentences) about
what they learned that lesson or what they were able to do better compared with previous lessons.
This is recorded every week (see Appendix). The instructor collects it at the end of every lesson
and returns it at the beginning of the following lesson. Instructors should check to see that
students are writing what they learned and can offer advice for choosing things that are in line
with the broader goals of the course.
VARIATIONS
One variation in the self-monitoring is that instead of using a checkmark, more detailed
information could be used to indicate that the student thought about the purpose and was able to
achieve it. In the case of the fluency activity, students could write down what percentage of the
original talk, they were able to do in both the second and third rounds. As they try to speak more
quickly in each round, it would be a good goal for students to try and repeat 100 percent of the
details from their original talk. This same type of detailed description could be applied to the
function practice. For example, students could indicate how many times they were able to use
the various phrases in the given practice time or write down which phrase they felt they
mastered. While these variations would take more time, it would help make the strategy clearer
to the students. One problem this instructor faced with the original marking was that students
were putting checks without thinking about what it was they were doing. This will be expanded
on further in the discussion section.
Reflection sheet
One possible variation for the reflection sheet is to have students reflect on what they learned
and also set goals for the next lessons. While the instructor did not encourage this variation, it
was a natural outcome for many students as they reflected on things they wanted to improve
upon. As part of this, the reflection sheet could have an added section of indicating whether they
were able to achieve their goal from the previous class.
Another variation is to have students reflect in Japanese. The main purpose of the activity
is for students to evaluate their own progress; therefore using the native language might prove to
be more efficient and effective. To share the instructor’s experience, this option was given to a
level 4 class. The instructor found that the majority of the students used English and for students
that chose Japanese, the quality of the reflections did not differ between the languages.
DISCUSSION
As mentioned in the literature review, one of the difficulties in assessing the effectiveness of
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language learning strategies is that they are mental processes and not wholly observable. With
this in mind, the two tasks presented in this paper were assessed based on the observations of
student engagement with the task and feedback from the students.

The results with this activity were mixed. The main goal of this activity was for students to be
conscious of how they could maximize the effectiveness of a given activity. For the fluency, this
meant trying to push faster on each round so that they could retell most of their original talk. For
the function practice, this meant using the individual phrases numerous times. Based on
observations in class, less than half of the students made a conscious effort to do these things.
This could partly be due to the cognitive difficulty of balancing both meaning and speed in the
case of the fluency activity as well as balancing meaningful discussion with form practice.
Although encouraged to focus on the primary objectives (i.e. fluency, form-practice), meaningful
exchange was still a major motivator in the activities. Furthermore, based on feedback from the
students, the self-monitoring (i.e. marking whether they thought and achieved the goal) was not
well-received. Here are some example comments:
“I don’t often use it. I just wrote”

“I don’t know how to use this checksheet well”
“Sometimes I forget to check”
“I don’t understand why we do that”
These comments would indicate that the check sheets were not effective for all students. Some
students did not understand the point of this activity. It is not clear whether this is due to an
unclear explanation by the instructor or difficulty in understanding the concept. Perhaps an
explanation in the native language would be more appropriate. Another factor was the
implementation of the activity. While the instructor made an effort in the first five weeks to have
students diligently complete the check sheet immediately after the task, there were times when
the instructor assumed the students would do it automatically as a habit which proved to not be
the case. In such cases, students would often fill them out at the end of class. Occasionally, the
instructor would see students indicate that they thought about the purpose of the fluency activity
even in lessons where there was no fluency activity (e.g. in a test lesson). This clearly indicates
that students are not really understanding what they are doing but are filling the check sheet as a
matter of task. In order for this activity to be effective, it is important to get the students more
involved in the process. The suggestions given in the variation section (e.g. indicating percent of
detail repetition in the fluency) would be a good starting point for improving this activity.
Reflection Sheet
The weekly reflection was much more successful than the previous task. A large number of
students made positive comments with regards to doing the activity. The purpose of this
activity was very clear for all students and most students found it useful. Here are some of the
themes that their comments fell into: they knew what they did well and what they had to
improve, they could review what the content of that lesson was, and they got a better
understanding of what they learned. However, some students did indicate that they did not
review what they wrote in prior weeks. Because this is a key component of the strategy of
evaluating progress, this action needed to be better implemented in the class. Students were
often given their reflection sheets prior to the start of class and left to look at it on their own.
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One way to ensure students are doing the review is by setting aside time at the beginning of the
lesson for students to reread what they learned and perhaps set a goal for the lesson. Another
idea is to have students reread their previous reflections in weeks 5, 9, and 14 and reflect more
broadly at those times.
CONCLUSION
Much of the data here regarding the effectiveness of the activity was based on the instructor’s
in-class observations as well as mid-semester feedback from the students regarding the
usefulness of doing these activities. In order to get more robust data, formal data-gathering is
necessary. The purpose of the activities presented here is to develop the metacognitive awareness
of those particular language learning strategies thus it is necessary to have students self-report.
The easiest way to get data is through quantitative methods. Students can fill out a survey with
Likert scale items measuring the extent to which students use related language learning
strategies. Some example items could be “I identify the purpose of a language activity”, “I try to
use the function phrases many times during the practice section” and “I think about how to
improve week to week.” In the survey, the students indicate how frequently it was true of them.
This survey should be administered on the first day of the course and on the last day of the
course. Although the tasks described here can be done from the start of the course in the spring
semester, ideally, the effectiveness of the tasks would be assessed in the fall semester as students
will be much more familiar with the format of the English Discussion Class and the parts of the
lesson referenced in the survey. In addition to the quantitative data, qualitative data can be
collected from several classes. In such cases, each class would only focus on one of the activities
(i.e. Class A focuses on the task of identifying the purpose of a language activity while Class B
focuses on the reflection task). The best format for this collection would be short answer
reflection questions. An example question for the reflection sheet activity is “Was it useful to
write what you learned each week? Explain.” Using a combination of the quantitative and
qualitative data may give instructors a good idea as to the effectiveness of the tasks described in
this paper.
REFERENCES
White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.
Chamot, A. U. (2005). Language learning strategy instruction: Current issues and
research. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 25, 112-130.
doi:10.1017/S0267190505000061
Chamot, A. (2008). Strategy instruction and good language learners. In C. Griffiths (Ed.), Lessons
from good language learners (pp. 266-281). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press.
Cohen, A. D. (2011). Strategies in learning and using a second language. Harlow, England:
Pearson/Longman.
Grenfell M., & Macaro, E. (2007). Claims and critiques. In A. D. Cohen, & E. Macaro (Eds.),
Language learner strategies: Thirty years of research and practice (pp. 9-28). Oxford,
UK: Oxford University Press.
Griffiths, C. (2013). The strategy factor in successful language learning. Bristol, Great Britain:
Short Run Press.
Discussion, 1, 1-2-1-10.
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Nakatani, Y. (2005). The effects of awareness-raising training on oral communication strategy

use. Modern Language Journal, 89(1), 76-91. doi:10.1111/j.0026-7902.2005.00266.x
Oxford, R. L. (1990). Language learning strategies: What every teacher should know. Boston:
Heinle & Heinle.
Oxford, R. L. (2011). Teaching and researching language learning strategies. Harlow, England:
Pearson Education.
Plonsky, L. (2011). The effectiveness of second language strategy instruction: A meta-analysis.
Language Learning, 61(4), 993-1038.
APPENDIX
Did you achieve the goal of the
What did you learn?/ What could you do today?
Week activity?
(e.g. I was able to ask many follow-up questions)
Fluency 3-2-1 Function Practice
10
11
12
13
14
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The Minute Paper in EDC
Asca Tsushima
ABSTRACT
This paper discuses the development of a classroom activity, The Minute Paper (Angelo & Cross,
1993), in an English discussion class. The activity involves collecting reflection papers which
include comments on the lesson and/or questions hindering them from understanding the new
knowledge introduced in class. The activity is considered to be effective particularly with a
group of reticent and unresponsive students when an instructor requires an additional assessment
tool besides classroom observation and discussion tests. The Minute Paper activity was
implemented following an instructional principle, Meaningful Learning, to improve learners'
long term discussion knowledge retention.
INTRODUCTION
One of the roles that a teacher carries is to check if students received the information they
learned accurately in various ways, such as by observing students' performance in group/ pair
work, checking their reactions or facial expression, creating a quiz to assess students'
comprehension, simply asking them if they have any questions, or a combination of everything.
The importance of comprehension checking in the language classroom is widely accepted. As
long as an instructor has understood what was clear and what was not for students, the instructor
can reorganise and develop lesson plans to suit the students' needs in the following class. In
English Discussion Class's case (hereinafter, EDC, a mandatory class for all first year students at
Rikkyo University), the popular methods to assess the learners' degree of comprehension level
would be with classroom observation and discussion tests. Each lesson consists of several
student-centred activities, including pair and group work. This gives an instructor plenty of
opportunities to monitor and assess if students can demonstrate better understanding of the
subject matter of lessons. However, even an experienced teacher sometimes finds it challenging
to judge if students understood the content of a lesson as intended or if they are having a burning
question in their mind. What makes it more difficult, in the current teaching setting, is that it is
hardly expected to receive feedback or questions verbally from students in class. Culturally,
most students do not find it comfortable to speak out actively in class, especially in English.
In this paper, the Minute Paper activity-- also known as the One-Minute Paper-- was
implemented and developed based on one of instructional principles, Meaningful Leaning. The
main aim of the Minute Paper is to assess if the new knowledge taught in class is attained and
interpreted successfully in the learner's knowledge base. To be more specific, it can tell us- what
students learned most and questions they are having after the lesson. The instructional principle,
Meaningful Learning, emphasises that students can successfully store the new information and
recall it even at a later time if the learner could relate the new information with the existing
knowledge he/she already has. Brown (1994) described "Meaningful Learning" as" a process of
relating and anchoring new material to relevant established entities in cognitive structure” (p.91).
As a supplementary assessment tool to regular classroom observation, the Minute Paper activity
was introduced to particularly quiet beginner group in EDC. The activity attempted to evaluate,
after the lesson, whether students learned what they were supposed to be learning (Richards &
Lockhart, 1996). If the activity result shows that students could not receive the information
accurately, then an instructor can arrange the following week's lesson plan to re-send the
information until it will make more sense to them.
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The next section describes the aim of EDC and the target learners of this paper. It follows with
the material and procedure of the activity in detail. The final section discusses the target group's
reactions towards the Minute Paper activity and how the activity contributed to their learning
development within the framework of EDC.
CONTEXT
EDC aims to develop the skills for having interactive discussion in English for 16 minutes. In
order to achieve this goal, the course is designed to teach various types of discussion skills over
two semesters, a whole academic year. At the beginning of the first semester, students are first
taught the basic discussion skills, such as how to give your opinion and how to ask others to give
opinion. As the course progresses, they learn more advanced knowledge to make discussions
deeper and more interesting. In theory, by the end of the academic year, after building up a
wealth of discussion knowledge, the students will be able to achieve the course aim mentioned
above. In reality, it is not always the case that all students can intake the knowledge at the same
speed. Some students find a certain class more difficult than others and they thereby require
more explanation and time to understand the new information. This is because the individual's
existing knowledge varies one to another.
The activity was tested with various types of learners over two semesters. In the autumn
semester as a trial, the activity was tested with four groups of intermediate and
higher-intermediate first-year students. Each group consisted of six to eight students. After the
trial period, the amended activity was conducted in the beginner level class for 8 first year
students in the spring semester. The group was chosen for this paper as the students were
particularly quiet and unresponsive in the first three lessons. For those students, it seemed to be
too much to ask for demonstrating, in English, what they understood and what they wanted the
instructor to explain again. The first minute paper result showed that many students in the group
were experiencing the difficulty to discuss in English as follows; "How can I build up my
vocabulary?", "What is the best way to improve my speaking skill with which I can speak
English confidently?", "How long does it take to be able to speak better English?", "How can I
express myself well to be understood by others" or "How can I come up with English words
easily?". Hence, the Minute Paper was used to receive students' feedback and questions at the
mid-semester to promote better learning.
MATERIAL AND PROCEDURE

The Minute Paper only requires a piece of scrap paper on which each student can write down
their comments and questions freely. If you prefer to have a more formal sheet, a small
‘reflection sheet’ could be prepared. In either case, students are asked two major questions; 1)
what is the most important thing you have learned today? and, 2) what is the question that is
uppermost in your mind? The activity was implemented following the suggestions by Angelo
and Cross (1993) as below.
Step 1: Before Implementing the Activity

Before implementing the Minute Paper activity in language classroom, clarify with the students
that the feedback will not be considered as a part of their grading. Thus, it should be anonymous
to receive their honest feedback.
Step 2: Upon Implementing the Minute Paper (One week before review lesson)
Make sure that you have enough feedback sheets and give it to students at the end of the class.
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Asca Tsushima
Allow them to write, for one minute or so, in the language they feel most comfortable with,
either in Japanese or English.
Step 3: After the Minute Paper

After collecting the reflection papers, check through each response carefully, comparing with the
teacher’s notes from classroom observation. Elicit any relevant questions which need to be
discussed in the following class to facilitate their learning. Create a handout to make it easier to
conduct a follow-up activity in a shorter time. If necessary, amend lesson plans for the following
classes accordingly.
Step 4: Follow-up Activity (Review Lesson)

Ideally, in the following week, conduct a follow-up activity to share the students' comments and
questions in the reflection paper.
It needs to be thoroughly planned how often the Minute Paper can be conducted in a semester
before implementing the activity. Angelo and Cross (1993) state that; “If Minute Papers are
overused or poorly used, students will begin to view the technique as a gimmick or pro forma
exercise in polling” (p.153). Considering the fact that EDC encourages teachers to teach lessons
under the unified syllabus set by university, it is not feasible to conduct the activity in every
lesson. In this paper, Minute Papers were given to the students a week before the review lessons,
which are co-ordinated in a university curriculum to have students prepare for discussion tests.
Their Minute Papers helped the instructor prepare more relevant and suitable classroom
activities and material for the group at review lesson as students provided the necessary
information- what they understood and they could not- through their Minute Papers in advance.
Step 4, a follow-up activity of the Minute Paper, is a fundamental part of this paper to
maximise the obtained information. The follow-up activity can be conducted either as a
teacher-fronted style or student-student discussion- or both of them if time permits. In teaching
EDC, a key issue to be considerd is how to squeeze an extra activity like the Minute Paper into
a tight time slot of the university course curriculum. In fact, the follow-up activity, in either
teacher fronted or student centred style, usually took only a couple of minutes as long as handout
with students' feedback and questions (see Appendix) has been prepared. If the lesson schedule
is tight, have students read through the comments and questions on a handout and then give
them feedback and advice for that. If you are concerned about reducing the time for
student-student interactions, the follow-up activity can be turned into a learner-learner
discussion. As shown in the Appendix, students discuss ideas to solve a particular discussion
problem raised by their classmate(s) in previous week. During the discussion, the instructor
should closely monitor and take notes in a same way as the regular discussion in class. After
completing a quick discussion, the instructor can sum up the students' ideas and, if necessary,
add advice.
VARIATIONS
The activity was originally designed to be conducted several times during a semester to see the
changes and development in the students' discussion ability. The Minute Paper can be also used
as a one-off activity. While teaching a 14-week course, you might experience a sudden change of
classroom dynamics or students' attitude/performance in the middle of the course. Then that
would make you wonder "What happened to those students? They used to respond and
perform very well at the beginning of the course". Carrying out the Minute Paper activity can be
191
a good way to approach students by involving them into creating a better classroom environment.
The Minute Paper provides a means by which learners can participate in course development.
Nunan (1988) claimed that “one important outcome of involving learners in ongoing curriculum
development is that not only does it increase the likelihood that the course will be perceived as
relevant, but learners will be sensitised to their own preferences, strength and weakness” (p.53).
Of course, there is a limit to what extent an instructor can modify classroom materials and
content to suit the students' preference due to the unified university syllabus. Despite this
restriction, the activity might help an instructor gain better understanding of students'
performance change and, hopefully, how to deal with it.
If time is an issue, an alternative way, such as an on-line written feedback, can be
considered to respond to the students' questions. In EDC, all instructors send a written feedback
on a university portal website every week. This can become a possible place to share the
students' comments and also instructor’s feedback to the reflection paper. In this way, it leaves
enough time for conducting the scheduled classroom activities in regular lessons.
REFLECTIONS
Firstly, this section explains how the target group of students reacted to the Minute Paper and its
follow-up activity. Then it will discuss how the implemented activity contributed to a particular
group's learning development. When the Minute Paper activity was conducted, students
undertook the activity seriously- some students reflected what they learned looking at the board
work or flipping through the textbook to write their comments. For students, it did not seem to
be an overwhelming task to write it up in their own language. The reflection paper included
students' frank comments- what they understood and what they want the instructor to explain
again to facilitate their learning. This was the information the instructor would not gain solely
with the classroom observation.
As discussed in the Context section earlier, the Minute Paper was implemented in a class
of a group of 8 beginner students. In total, the activity was conducted three times, at lesson 4, 7,
and 11, in the spring semester. The result from a series of activities depicted some positive
changes associate with the students' discussion skills. The first Minute Papers’ result showed that
students found it most valuable to learn the basic discussion skills, such as how to give reactions,
agree with others, or negotiate the meaning to be understood by classmates. The second result
(see Figure 1) showed that the students acquired the skill to have a better and smoother
discussion with the new knowledge, "Joining a Discussion" phrases. The final result (see Figure
2) assured the instructor that students were able to intake the new knowledge, "Connecting
Ideas" and also to understand various types of discussion structure by the time of Lesson 11.
Figure 1: Sample feedback from lesson 7

 I learned how to start a discussion by saying "Can I start?"
 Our discussion went smoothly with the use of today's function phrase
 It makes easier for listeners to listen to my opinion/ question if I said "Can I make a
comment?" or "Can I ask a question?" at first
Figure 2: Sample feedback from lesson 11

 I learned how to comment on the last speaker's idea along with my own idea
 I understood a new pattern of discussion- listening to other people's comment and add my
opinion to it
 I learned we cannot connect our idea to others unless we listened to their opinion carefully
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Asca Tsushima
The activity was slightly modified in the second semester to make good use of the trial period. In
the trial, during the autumn semester the obtained information from the Minute Paper was
looked through by the instructor to mainly adjust the following lesson and classroom activities to
suit the learners' needs. As a result, a questionnaire, conducted at the end of the trial period,
showed that most students did not find the Minute Paper activity particularly beneficial or useful
to promote their learning. This result was fair for students because all the collected information
was used effectively behind the scenes. For students, it was not transparent how the activity
was used. This may have led to the learner's hesitance or unwillingness to fill out the Minute
Paper in the trial period. For this reason, the collected data through the Minute Paper was openly
shared and discussed as a follow-up activity in the second semester.
Follow-up activities were implemented in every review lesson of the second semester. In
each activity, a handout was provided to students. On a simply created handout, students'
comments and questions were listed in Japanese along with the English translation as shown in
the Appendix. During the follow-up activity, students seemed to be genuinely interested in
reading through their classmates' response. In particular, the follow-up activity worked quite
well in a discussion style. At the follow-up activity, students were asked to have a quick
discussion to come up with the ideas to a certain language learning issue. The questions' content
differs from one to another- some questions were about the function phrase, for instance "Am I
using the phrase, such as 'Can I start?' correctly?" or "How can I associate my idea with others
well?". Other questions were seeking for advice on a specific issue which occurred during their
discussion, such as "What should I do if my group members could not understand my opinion?"
or "How should I continue my sentence after I said 'I think so too'? ". These questions showed
that learners were aware of further needs to hold a better discussion in English. Taking these
questions into consideration, some of the classroom activities in the review lesson were designed
to reinforce the weak points.
As a feasible assessment method, the final discussion test result was used to measure
whether learners retained clear language knowledge taught in this course. This particularly
focused on the function phrase section of the discussion test where it assesses the learner's
ability to use all the six discussion skills; opinion, reason, example, joining a discussion,
connecting ideas, and possibilities taught over 13 weeks. The results concluded that all students
in the group could use, at least, five discussion skills while five, out of eight, students were able
to perform all discussion skills taught in the semester. The limitations are acknowledged in
measuring how the activity directly contributed to students’ language learning, and especially
improving their long-term knowledge retention. The course only lasts for 3 months and there is
no way to track down the same students' learning development afterwards. However, the final
discussion test result is considered as the most applicable assessment method in this paper.
To successfully conduct the Minute Paper in class, there are two points to consider; 1)
how to deal with irrelevant comments and questions on reflection papers and 2) language use on
the paper. It is ideal if students write comments and questions relevant to, specifically, the
development of discussion skills. As the Minute Paper asks open-ended questions, students
usually wrote genuine questions, including how to improve their pronunciation, grammar, and
listening skills. As the discussion class puts a particular emphasis on fluency and not accuracy, it
is not preferable if students start paying too much attention to grammar and pronunciation. It is
advised to “let the class know in advance that you may not be able to comment on every
important point and question submitted” (p.153) (Angelo & Cross, 1993) in order to avoid
unnecessary disappointment. If the instructor did not explain this point to students clearly, they
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might feel frustrated about the unanswered questions in time.

Another point to be noted upon implementing the Minute Paper activity is language use.
It is encouraged to let the students choose the language, either Japanese or English, they feel
more comfortable with. If your class includes both Japanese and non-Japanese speakers, the
instructor should be aware of the sensitive issue surrounding the language use. In this research,
most learners wrote the reflection paper in Japanese as expected. This did not cause a major
problem to prepare the follow-up activities as the instructor speaks the same language. If the
instructor is not a proficient Japanese speaker, as long as students are capable of writing their
thoughts in English clearly, allow enough time to reflect the class in English. Yet, this may lose
the essence of the activity if some students find it overwhelming to write their comments in
English. The Minute Paper is especially designed for reticent or unresponsive students. If the
activity becomes a burden, and then it is against the purpose of the activity. The intention of the
activity is to assess how well students understood the class and identify the issues to help their
learning. Thus, if the instructor does not speak Japanese, it is preferable to seek for translation
support in order to receive the valuable feedback directly from the learners.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the Minute Paper activity was implemented especially for a quiet and
unresponsive group of learners in EDC to assess students’ comprehension. The activity intended,
for the insructor, to quickly and easily receive a written feedback, at the mid-semester, to adjust
on-going lesson plans. The students’ voice has contributed to improving the quality of teaching
on many levels to suit the particular student's needs and learning level. This process- making
sure if all students received the new information in class correctly- was believed to help students
retain the information for a long time according to the the instructional principle, Meaningful
Learning, reflected to the activity development in this paper. Further research is required to
provide the evidence if the Minute Paper activity directly lead to students’ long term knowledge
retention in a discussion class. However, the Minute Papers provided valuable inforamtion
about students’ language learning, which could not be obtained solely from classroom
observation and discussion test scrores. Thus, the activity is recommended to be used for those
students who cannot respond actively in class to promote a better communication between
students and the instructor, and hopefully it helps the instructor create a meaningful learning
environment as a result.
REFERENCES
Angelo, T. & Cross, P.(1993). Classroom assessment techniques: a handbook for college
teachers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Brown, H.D. (2001). Teaching by principles: an interactive approach to language pedagogy.
New York: Longman.
Nunan, D.(1988). The learner-centred curriculum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Richards, J. & Lockhart, C.(1996). Reflective teaching in second language classroom.
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Asca Tsushima
APPENDIX - Handout for Follow-up Activity
Lesson 8
Thank you for completing the reflection paper (感想用紙) last week.
Question 1: What is the most important thing you have learned today?
(今日の授業で一番ためになったことは、何ですか？)
 I learned how to start discussion with “Can I start?” (“Can I start?” というディスカッシ
ョンの始め方を学んだ).
 Our discussion went smoothly (会話の流れがスムーズになったこと).
 I learned that it makes easier for listeners to listen to my opinion/ question by asking first
"Can I ask a question?" or "Can I make a comment?"（前置きを入れることで相手が聞き
やすいことが分かった）.
Question 2: What is the question that is uppermost in your mind?

(今一番疑問に思っていることはなんですか？)
 Am I using “Joining a Discussion” functions correctly? (フレーズを使うタイミングはあ

っているか)
 What should I do if my group members did not understand my opinion? (自分が理解でき
ていても相手が理解できていないときはどうすれば良いか？)
Discussion
Q1: What should I do if my group members did not understand my opinion?
(Discuss your ideas about the question above using the "Joining a Discussion" phrases).
 Can I start?/ Can I make a comment?/ Can I ask a question?

 Does anyone want to comment?/ Does anyone want to ask a question?
195
Increasing ‘Initial’ Focus-on-Form to Practice, Promote, and
Automatize Target Function Language Use
Matthew W. Turner
ABSTRACT
Functions are directly-taught conversation skills that facilitate deep communicative interaction
by helping learners perform direct pragmatic speech acts. On the author’s course, functions are
operationalized through limited sets of pre-packaged language, positioned as formal input.
Although discussion tasks are highly meaning-focused occasions, functional language is
introduced to support, plan, and aid in the interchange of ideas. However, as learners may enter
the program with a declarative knowledge of how to express themselves, given their prior
experiences of 8 years of EFL education, learners may lack the ability to deliver messages using
a heightened variety of forms that perform extended functions.
This paper will introduce an approach to practice that encourages an intensive, overt, and
pre-emptive ‘focus-on-form,’ that extends and maintains accurate target form-function use
amongst learners. The writer will argue that initially removing the burden of content
development can support these aims.
LITERATURE REVIEW
‘Focus-on-form,’ according to Long (1991) involves drawing “students’ attention to
linguistic elements as they arise incidentally in lessons whose overriding focus is on the meaning
of communication” (pp. 45-46), while Ellis (2005) believes that focus-on-form pedagogically
involves “attempts to intervene in the process of acquisition by inducing learners to pay attention
to a particular form while they are primarily concerned with decoding or encoding message
content” (p. 9). This appears to be in contrast to ‘meaning-focused’ instruction, which is argued
as being “predicated on the assumption that linguistic knowledge is acquired through
communication rather than through direct instruction” (Ellis, Basturken, and Loewen 2002, p.
407). In the classroom, a focus-on-form approach can be either planned or unplanned, with a
planned focus-on-form utilizing a specific pre-selected form for attention prior to the lesson. The
authors’s program largely follows what could be considered a notional-functional approach, in
that “an inventory of functions are covered at different levels of a language teaching program”
(Robinson, 2009, p. 297), with a synthetic exposure to a “deliberately limited sample of
language” (Wilkins, 1976, p. 2). Therefore, a planned focus-on-form appears to correspond to
the nature of the course, as interactive tasks are developed to provide a context for use of the
planned form (Shintani, 2012). In discoursal terms, Ellis (2005) states that a focus-on-form can
also be said to use pre-emptive devices in the way it draws interlocutors’ attentions to form in
meaning-prioritized interaction. Explicit instruction such as corrective feedback (Lyster and
Ranta, 1997), and communicative drills (Richards, Platt, and Weber, 1985), all help towards
learners’ noticing linguistic forms. In addition to being both planned and explicit, Doughty and
Williams (1998) describe how activities can be obtrusive and unobtrusive, “reflecting the degree
to which the focus on form interrupts the flow of communication” (p. 258). An obtrusive focus
helps learners to understand early on that they are attending to a specific form, and not on the
interchange of meaning. Ellis, Basturken, and Loewen (2002) claim that adult learners lack the
same access that children do to language acquisition, and that learners “need to call on general
inductive learning mechanisms” (p. 409) to give conscious attention to linguistic forms. This
view is underpinned by Schmidt’s (1994) ‘Noticing Hypothesis’, which stipulates that learners
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need to notice forms consciously that would otherwise be ignored, and that noticing is a
conscious process that needs to be induced.
Studies into the nature of pre-task planning have sought to establish the effectiveness of
various approaches to practice, affording educators the clarity and impetus to pedagogically
manipulate classroom processes (Pica, 1997). Three aspects of speech have been established as
measurements of oral production in relation to task characteristics: complexity, accuracy, and
fluency (Ellis and Barkhuizen, 2005). Complexity describes a speaker’s “willingness to use
more challenging and difficult language” (Skehan, 2001, p. 5). Accuracy, according to Lambert
and Kormos (2014), relates to the “ratio of errors in a text to some unit of production,” and to the
“proportion of these units that are error free” (p. 609). Finally, fluency can be measured through
the “number of filled pauses and unfilled pauses,” as well as “words or syllables per minute”
(Nation and Newton, 2009, p. 151). Skehan’s (2001) ‘Trade-off Hypothesis’ argues that
cognitively attending to one area may draw attention away from another, and that ultimately a
task that focuses on one area may detract from others, for example aspects of complexity,
accuracy, fluency. Skehan’s hypothesis therefore assumes that learners possess a limited
processing capacity, manifested in a trade-off. In contrast, Robinson (2001) proposes a
multiple-resources view of processing, which views “structural complexity and functional
complexity not in competition,” but “closely connected,” resulting in “increased output” (Ellis,
2005, p. 16). Ortega (2005) provides a counterargument to both Skehan’s and Robinson’s
models, claiming that tasks alone are not solely responsible for producing the conditions for oral
L2 production. Ortega asks educators to “consider the full landscape of variables contributed by
task, learner, and linguistic outcomes” (p. 108) as interrelated components. Assessing the learner
variable to planning activities, Ortega found through post-interviews that learners showed an
ability to “utilize various funds of explicit knowledge that guide their conscious attentions
towards areas in which they are well aware of holes and gaps” (p. 105). Therefore, form and
meaning may not be separated in a dichotomy, but learning can take place by attending to
‘form-in-meaning.’ Sangarun (2005) feels that tailoring practice tasks to having
form-in-meaning, or a combined form/meaning focus, provided the “optimal balance of attention
between the planning of meaning and the planning of form” (p. 132). Sangarun’s beliefs are
based on analyses of learner speech quality in undertaking planning tasks that were meaning-,
form-, or meaning/form-focused.
Both Ortega (2005) and Sagarun (2005) appear to reflect an earlier concept devised by
Gatbonton and Segalowitz (1988). The writers address automaticity as being a component of
fluency, in that “knowing what to say, to whom and when” and “producing utterances rapidly
and smoothly” (p. 474) marks a successful and proficient language speaker. If an interlocutor
needs an “inordinate amount of time to formulate an utterance”, it could be said they lack
fluency. However, to reach a level of fluency where one can operate without an “investment of
psychological resources” (p. 475), Gatbonton and Segalowitz call for particular tasks that
promote the ‘Creative Automatization’ of routinized utterances, not as grammatical wholes, but
with an awareness of appropriate uses in particular communicative situations. Activities that
“enable learners to practice (repeat) many tokens of target sentences while they are engaged in
real communication” (p. 479) can be said to be characteristic of the approach that the two writers
advocate. The challenge for teachers then is to create in the learners “a need to use target
utterances repetitively while conveying genuine messages” (p. 480) and allow for “consistent
speaking practice with the selected utterances” (p. 482). In the latter sections of this essay, the
writer will introduce a tentative plan for a practice activity that focuses on the target form, before
allowing for further creative automatization of the newly presented target phrases.
197
Summarizing the studies in field, it appears that a planned and pre-emptive focus-on-form
aids in the acquisition of target linguistic forms amongst adult EFL learners (Schmidt, 1994). In
addition, pedagogical manipulation on the part of the teacher may go some way to maintaining
and facilitating realisation and use of specific forms. However, studies have shown that form
with meaning can bring about positive effects on oral production (Ortega, 2005; Sagarun, 2005),
but that creative automatization must be undertaken before form can be realized and operated
with meaning (Gatbonton and Segalowitz, 1988). It appears then, that the target forms of the
lesson (in this case, direct pragmatic functions), should be arguably the central aim of ‘initial’
practice, affording learners ample opportunities to attend to the form-function at the start of the
pre-task lesson stage.
TASK AND MATERIALS

As functional language can be regarded as directly-taught conversation skills, which are
operationalized through limited sets of pre-packaged language, this approach can be applied to
any form that has been pre-selected for specific input and practice in a contextual environment
of the reader’s choosing. In this example, the author has chosen the discussion-related functions
of ‘Reporting Information,’ and ‘Asking Others to Report Information.’ With forms such as ‘I
heard…’, ‘I saw…’, and ‘(x) said...’ performing the former function, and interrogatives like
‘Where did you hear that?’ and ‘How do you know about that?’ operating the latter. This
function facilitates the use of exterior information in discussions to support participants’
opinions and beliefs around a topic.
There are three main stages to this form-focused approach. The first requires learners to
be made aware of a form to be practiced through a dialogue comparison. This involves the
learners noticing how the inclusion of a new form-function can improve and enhance an
interactive scenario, by making its omissions clear and easy to realize. As a dialogue comparison
is already an established approach amongst instructors teaching on the writer’s program, this
will not be detailed in the following procedure; however, the author feels a dialogue comparison
to be more conducive to effective form-focused practices, and for the most part functions as the
first stage of noticing target forms.
The second stage of this form-focused process is designed to encourage repetition of the
specific form focused on (see Appendix A). Here, the function phrases have been removed
multiple times, allowing for two things to happen: (1) The learners notice the gap and realize the
pragmatic location in an example interchange; (2) The learners are induced into repeating the
function phrase multiple times. In the final stage, posters (see Appendix B) are used to provide
freer use of the function phrases; however, content is still provided, and repetition of the form
encouraged. As was mentioned previously, this activity can theoretically be used with any
number of target forms; however, the author has chosen a particular group of functions to
demonstrate the process. The materials provided should give a clear indication as to how the
theory reviewed in the previous section relates to classroom practice.
PROCEDURE
1) Upon the learners being made aware of the communicative shortcomings through the use of a
dialogue comparison and being formally introduced to the function phrases both through teacher
explanation and whiteboard presentations, arrange the group into pairs and hand out one
worksheet between two (see Appendix A).
2) Assign one learner as ‘A’ and the other as ‘B’ with the former being the speaker and the latter
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Matthew W. Turner
the listener. Encourage the learners to read the first dialogue together; as they do so, they will
realize there are blank spaces. Briefly gesturing to the board, encourage the learners to complete
the gaps with a suitable speaker or listener phrase accordingly from the board.
3) Encourage the learners to swap roles and complete the second dialogue in the same manner.
As the dialogues continue through 3 to 5, the emphasis changes to focus on extended use of the
target function; however, repetition within the dialogues continues to remain intense throughout.
4) Having focused on form through targeted repetition of the phrases sought for completion of
freer discussions later in the lesson, the learners are now ready to use the phrases in a more
creative, yet still controlled manner. Encourage the learners to stand up in two lines facing one
another. Assign one side as listeners and the other as speakers.
5) Hand the listeners a different poster each (see Appendix B), making sure that their poster is
facing towards the speaker. Prompt the speakers to read the information written on the poster.
This should induce the listeners to ask for the source of such information by using one of the
target phrases on the board. At this stage, the speakers must then look at the visual prompt
provided to them on each poster before reporting the source of information. For instance, if the
information is enclosed within a television screen, the speaker should say, “I saw it on TV.”
6) Repeat this process so that everyone has the chance to both ask for, and report, information
with different partners and different sources of information.
7) At this stage, the learners have had the chance to focus on form in a highly controlled and
repetitive manner, and have additionally automatized the target phrases in a follow-up activity
that encouraged the learners to convey genuine messages to one another. The final stage of this
practice process is to have the learners discuss a topic under time constraints and conditions so
that all participants use the target phrases in a freer manner.
VARIATIONS
Regarding stage 5, added structure could be provided to this activity to further maintain repeated
and extended use of all function phrases by both the speakers and listeners. However, as the aim
of this stage is to provide an opportunity for automatization of the target forms, this variation
should be used selectively. Firstly, gauge how well the learners use the target language in stages
3 and 4, before monitoring how the learners initially take to using the function forms in stage 5.
If the learners appear to need more form-focused practice, the following example structure could
be presented on the board for the speaker and listeners to briefly follow. This variation has been
tested with a variety of the writer’s classes over the previous semester:
A: In my opinion, ________ is / isn’t

a kind / hard-working celebrity.
B: How come?
A: It’s mainly because, I heard. . .
B: Really! How do you know about
that? / Where did you hear that?
A: I . . .
Figure 1. Variation of Stage 5
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DISCUSSION
The writer decided to place a great emphasis on ‘initial’ focus-on-form during the pre-task
practice stages of the lesson for a variety of target-functions that were introduced on his program.
These pedagogical shifts came about in response to the writer’s earlier attempts to provide an
opportunity for the learners to use newly presented form-function immediately in
meaning-focused activities. Previous studies in the field (Skehan, 2001; Robinson, 2001; Ellis,
2005; Long, 1991) suggest that this may not be the optimum approach for helping learners
automatize target forms. Even though studies by Ortega (2005), Sangarun (2005), and Gatbonton
and Segalowitz (1988) claim and provide some evidence for the benefits of a form-in-meaning
approach, reaching this stage must be gradual, with extensive and repetitive, content-restricted
practice of the target-forms coming just before.
Although more extensive studies may need to be carried out to test the reliability and
validity of claiming that an ‘initial’ focus on form may be of greater benefit than practicing the
use of functions ‘on-line’ (Ellis, 2005), whilst developing content, casual classroom observations
conducted by the author attempt to add some weight to his beliefs. The following table shows
the frequency of target function use amongst four classes, two of which took place prior to the
author changing his approach. The data from the two ‘Spring 2013’ groups were recorded by the
author observing class notes taken during the lessons, while the ‘Fall 2014’ data was collected
by the author physically listening to instances of function use during the class. The data was
collected from the first discussion tasks only, with the ‘total instance of use’ collectively
referring to accurate instances of speaker and listener varieties of each target function:
Table 1. Total form-function use before and after ‘initial’ focus-on-form activities
Semester and Year Function Total Instances of Use Learners
1 Spring 2013 Reasons 7 instances 8
2 Spring 2013 Joining a Discussion 19 instances 8
3 Fall 2014 Reporting Information 30 instances 7
4 Fall 2014 Experiences 32 instances 8
This data shows an increased use of target functions in discussion one amongst all class
members. The writer also observed far more equal use of both speaker and listener sides of the
function, with instances of function use spread evenly amongst all learners. Although more
expansive and substantial analyses must be sought to support the writer’s claims, ‘initial’ focus
on form activities have had a decidedly positive effect on the performance of the learners that
the author used this approach with.
CONCLUSION
According to Ellis and Barkhuizen (2005), functional language can be used as a measure of
language complexity. In particular, form-function analyses can be undertaken to “provide
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Matthew W. Turner
another tool for examining and explaining variability in learner language,” while striving to
examine “form with a view to explicating the functions it maps on to” (p. 120). However,
Nemeth and Kormos (2001) believe that “very little is known about the pragmatic aspects of
task-performance” (p. 214), with the exception of a handful of studies. For example, Brown
(1991) found the function of ‘hypothesizing’ to be prevalent amongst a variety of group-work
activities. The writer included this as a category of analysis that aimed to “tally the occurrences
of participants emitting a hypothesis,” before expressing these instances as percentages within
token unit (T-unit) in each task (p. 7). Amongst other results, Brown found that 12.4% of total
task utterances performed the function of hypothesizing. Therefore, it appears that using the
aspect of form-function to reflect language complexity can be used as an approach to measure
the effectiveness of various pre-task planning conditions. However, more detailed data would
need to be collected in potential studies. Reporting instances of use alone does not take into
account other variables of task performance and planning. However, what this study has
attempted to argue is that an ‘initial’ focus-on-form can help learners not only notice target forms
more easily, but promote more frequent use when carrying out meaning-focused discussion
tasks.
REFERENCES
Brown, R. (1991). Group work, task difference, and second language acquisition. Applied
Linguistics, 21, 1-12.
Doughty, C., & Williams, J. (1998). Issues and terminology. In C Doughty & J, Williams (Eds.),
Focus on form in classroom second language acquisition, (pp. 1-12). Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press.
Ellis, R., Basturken, H., & Loewen, S. (2002). Preemptive Focus on Form in the ESL Classroom.
TESOL Quartely, 35(3), 407-429.
Ellis, R. (2005). Planning and task performance: Theory and research. In R. Ellis (Ed.). Planning
and Task Performance in a Second Language (pp. 3-36). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Ellis, R., & Barkhuizen, G. (2005). Analysing Learner Language. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Gatbonton, E., & Segalowitz, N. (1988). Creative Automatization: Principles for Promoting
Fluency Within a Communicative Framework. TESOL Quarterly, 22(3), 473-492.
Lambert C., & Kormos, J. (2014). Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency in Task-based L2
Research: Toward More Developmentally Based Measures of Second Language
Acquisition. Applied Linguistics, 36 (1), 1-9.
Long, M. (1991). Focus on Form: A design feature in language teaching methodology. In K. de
Bot, R. Ginsberg, & C. Kramsch (Eds.), Foreign language research in cross-cultural
perspective (pp. 39-52). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Lyster, R., & Ranta, L. (1997). Corrective feedback and learner feedback. SSLA, 20, 37-66.
Nation, I. S. P., & Newton, J. (2009). Teaching ESL/EFL Listening and Speaking. Abingdon:
Routledge.
Nemeth, N., & Kormos, J. (2001). Pragmatic aspects of task performance: The case of
argumentation. Language Teaching Research, 5, 213-240.
Ortega, L. (2005). What do learners plan? Learner-driven attention to form during pre-task
planning. In R. Ellis (Ed.). Planning and Task Performance in a Second Language (pp.
77-110). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Pica, T. (1997). Second language teaching and research relationships: A North American view.
Language Teaching Research, 1, 48-72.
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Richards, J., Platt, J., & Weber, H. (1985). Longman dictionary of applied linguistics, Harlow:
Longman
Robinson, P. (2001). Cognition and Second Language Instruction. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Robinson, P. (2009). Syllabus Design. In M. H. Long, & C. J Doughty (Eds.), The Handbook of
Language Teaching. (pp. 294-310). Chichester: Blackwell Publishing.
Sangarun, J. (2005). The effects of focusing on meaning and form in strategic planning. In R.
Ellis (Ed.). Planning and Task Performance in a Second Language (pp. 111-142).
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Schmidt, R. (1994). Deconstructing consciousness in search of useful definitions for applied
linguistics. AILA Review, 11, 11-26.
Shintani, N. (2012). The Effect of Focus on Form and Focus on Forms Instruction on the
Acquisition of Productive Knowledge of L2 Vocabulary by Young Beginning-Level
Learners. TESOL Quarterly, 47(1), 11-26.
Skehan, P. (2001). Tasks and language performance. In M. Bygate, P. Skehan, & M. Swain
(Eds.), Researching Pedagogical Tasks (pp. 167-185). Abingdon, England: Pearson
Education Limited.
Wilkins, D. (1976). Notional Syllabuses. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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APPENDIX A
APPENDIX B
203
Developing Critical Thinking Skills in EDC
Hiroaki Umehara
ABSTRACT
Living in rapidly changing societies, students have been encouraged to acquire various 21st
century skills including English language and critical thinking skills (Suto, 2013). Although a lot
of studies have shared activities that include an element of critical thinking development, there
are few practical activities that I am aware of that could be utilized in English discussion classes.
Therefore, this paper attempts to propose one way to equip students with English language
competency and critical thinking skills. English discussion prompts and questions are developed
so that students can discuss questions critically and be responsible for their opinions. Students
are also asked to complete check-sheets to evaluate reasoning processes. Informal observations
of students’ discussions suggest that the materials and tasks are helpful to promote students’
critical thinking skills. Details of materials, preparation, and procedure are provided.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Language practitioners often find prevailing SLA theories incompatible with their teaching
contexts due to context-specific constraints. Theories generated by language experts are often
difficult to implement when it comes to the actual teaching context (Kumaravadivelu, 1994). For
example, although communicative language teaching (CLT) has been well researched and highly
praised, there are numerous concerns reported, such as the cultural appropriateness for EFL
contexts (Coleman, 1996; Holliday, 1994), ideological imposition (e.g., Canagarajah, 2005), and
differences in the socio-cultural context (Gorsuch, 2000).
Addressing these issues with SLA theories and practices, Kumaravadivelu (1994, 2001,
2003) suggests a framework called a postmethod pedagogy. It does not provide any specific
method, but offers principles that language teachers could follow. This enables language
practitioners to create their own context specific pedagogy that is not bound by any specific
language teaching methods. A postmethod pedagogy consists of three principles or pedagogies
namely: particularity, practicality and possibility.
A pedagogy of particularity emphasizes the importance of giving full consideration to a
particular group of learners, in a particular context, aiming for particular goals (Kumaravadivelu,
2001). It claims that a meaningful pedagogy has to be catered to specific learners’ linguistic,
social and cultural needs. Teachers can only gain particular pedagogical knowledge by
continuously engaging in observation, reflection, and action. Practitioners have to be willing to
constantly reflect on their teaching, and modify their teaching accordingly.
A pedagogy of practicality is closely related to a pedagogy of particularity. This principle
aims at empowering a teacher-generated theory because according to Kumaravadivelu, “no
theory of practice can be useful and usable, unless it is generated through practice” (2001, p.
541). Practitioners are encouraged to develop their own theory, that is, personal theories. They
are encouraged to use personal theories, instead of accepting generalized theories and methods
constructed by language experts, and professional theories, which are often inapplicable to real
classrooms.
A pedagogy of possibility attempts to connect language education to “sociopolitical
reality” (Kumaravadivelu, 2001, p. 543). A pedagogy of possibility states that particular
language contexts are influenced not only by education stakeholders, but also by broader social,
economic, and political realities. Through language learning, learners construct and alter their
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Hiroaki Umehara
identities and subjectivities (Weedon, 1987 as cited in Kumaravadivelu, 2001). Proponents of a

postmethod pedagogy are required to acknowledge the complex realities of learners, both inside,
and outside the classroom. This principle attempts to incorporate the larger societal needs, such
as learning skills, collaboration skills, and critical thinking skills into language teaching
contexts.
The main purpose of learning English amongst the majority of my students is not to
master the language itself, but to develop practical language skills, and use English to attain their
particular goals. Following a postmethod pedagogy, I would like to try to teach my students not
only the English language, but also other skills that they will need in society. Although it would
not be sensible to consider all the goals and needs of all learners, it is essential to equip students
with the necessary skills that society requires. In order to explore the skills that students need to
acquirer to succeed in education and the workplace, several conceptualizations of the so called
21st century skills are reviewed.
While there is no consensus on what skill sets are needed in the 21st century, it is notable
that the various skills that are proposed by professionals and organizations considerably overlap.
One of the largest research institutions is the Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills
(ATC21S). They provided a model that categorized ten significant 21st Century Skills into four
broad categories: (1) Ways of Thinking, (2) Ways of Working, (3) Tools for Working, and (4)
Living in the World. Although the term “21st Century Skills” is not widespread in Japan, there is
a Japanese version of 21st Century Skills called “ikiru-chikara” (Shiramizu, 2014). The Japanese
version of the 21st century skills set, similarly, emphasizes the importance of critical thinking,
problem solving, metacognition, collaboration and self-direction skills. Based on a postmethod
pedagogy, especially a pedagogy of particularity and possibility, I would like to infuse my
English discussion classes with some of these skill sets, so that students can learn not only
English discussion skills, but also other skills that will help them succeed in life.
Although there are many studies that have reviewed conceptualizations, and
categorization of the 21st Century Skills, there are few studies I am aware of that have studied
how 21st Century Skills can be incorporated into EFL classes. Suto (2013) introduces several
approaches that could be used to develop 21st Century Skills in different contexts. However,
many of these approaches seem difficult to be carried out in my context, namely discussion
classes, for example, “developing a curriculum covering 21st Century skills explicitly,” and
“cultivating 21st Century skills through independent research projects” (p. 12). Among the
different 21 Century skills, the most suitable skill for English discussion classes seem to be
“critical thinking,” which is under the category of “ways of thinking.” English Discussion
Classes (EDC) are designed to improve speaking fluency and teach a variety of discussion skills.
I believe that critical thinking skills could be integrated into the class, so as to complement
discussion skills.
Critical thinking is a well-established field, and the term is a buzz word in Japanese
society (Iwasaki, 2002; Davidson, 2006). It has been suggested that owing to advancement in
technologies and rapidly changing societies, 21st century citizens need to assess, analyze, and
create information (Ledward & Hirata, 2011). They need to be able to articulate their ideas while
paying attention to others’ ideas in a fundamentally different way than before (Suzuki, 2006).
Another important reason to incorporate a critical thinking approach into English classes is that
the Japanese society often discourages independent and logical thinking. This creates a cultural
handicap for Japanese people when competing with English speakers who come from societies
which tolerate or encourage controversy and free discussion (Takemae, 2006). It has been well
recognized and problematized that Japanese people often lack not only English language
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proficiency, but also the critical thinking ability to successfully collaborate and engage in
constructive discussions with people from different cultural backgrounds (Suzuki, 2006).
Warschauer (2001) states that English language educators in an information technology society
have to develop activities that learners would encounter in the future. Considering Japanese
culture, and the type of education imparted to students across Japan, it becomes evident that
teaching critical thinking skills to Japanese students is necessary.
Numerous studies have explored how critical thinking skills can be integrated into EFL
classes, providing a list of the various activities and techniques for fostering critical thinking
skills (Davidson, 1996; Masduqui, 2012; Stroupe, 2006). Before creating any critical thinking
task or activity, it is necessary to identify what critical thinking is. According to Scriven and Paul
(2013), “critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully
conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from,
or generated through, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a
guide to belief and action” (p. 1). A variety of definitions of critical thinking has been offered
(Kubota, 2010; Stroupe, 2006), but many of them seem to overlap with each other (Davidson,
1996). Therefore, the tasks and materials are created to develop these skills.
A range of pedagogical ideas and activities in EFL contexts have been developed to foster
the above mentioned skills (see Davidson, 1996; Stroupe, 2006; Suzuki, 2006), but many of
them appear very familiar to current language educators, like debate, media analysis, problem
solving activities, and group discussions. In English discussions classes, many of these activities
are already included, so what should be done is to have a more explicit focus on developing
critical thinking skills, ensuring that these activities will help in actually developing the
necessary skills. I have often noticed that the majority of students tend to regurgitate ideas from
a textbook or from classmates in discussion classes. They tend to accept their classmates’ ideas
or information of the textbook too easily, and it makes it look like they did not fully engage with
the reading or with their classmates. Following the postmethod pedagogy, if society is going to
require critical thinking skills from my students, such skills should be implemented in my
discussion classes. The task is developed emphasizing reality in order to make students feel
discussion questions are relevant, and materials are created to help students to realize and reflect
on how they form their ideas.
TASKS AND MATERIALS

As critical thinking requires students to elaborate, analyze, defend, and modify their thinking,
tasks have to create conditions for active participation, meaningful interactions among students
and with material (Garside, 1996). In order to encourage students to engage with tasks and to be
responsible for developing their ideas, an imaginary but realistic situation was set up for
discussion questions, and some questions were reworded without changing the main points of
the questions (See Appendix A). A check-sheet was also designed to provide the opportunity to
investigate their thinking paths after discussions (See Appendix B). The check-sheet poses six
questions that should help students to realize and internalize five aspects of critical thinking
skills: functions, purpose, clarity, breadth, information, and depth. The first item refers to the
target function phrases that students learn in the lesson. Each week students learn one function,
such as paraphrasing and reporting information [e.g. “How do you know about that?” “I
heard…”] or one communication skill (such as agreeing and disagreeing). Because effective
usage of the target function and communication skill would help students engage in discussion
critically, questions about functions/communication skills were included in the check-sheet. The
second item, purpose, is about whether a discussion maintains focus on the question. Clarity is
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Hiroaki Umehara
about taking the whole discussion process into account rather than thinking about their own
opinions. Breath is pertaining to identifying their viewpoints on a topic. The information is about
determining the reliability of the sources and depth is about looking at a topic from different
viewpoints and considering problems in the question.
PROCEDURE
In this discussion class, students have two opportunities to discuss a variety of issues in small
groups (between three and four members) for 10 minutes (Discussion 1) and 16 minutes
(Discussion 2). To maximize the chances to enhance the students’ critical thinking skills, the
following procedure was implemented in Discussion 2.
<Preparation>
1. Create a meaningful situation for which discussion questions can be treated as relevant and
realistic.
2. Examine discussion questions to check if the questions seem stimulating, and rephrase them
if necessary.
3. Print out one question sheet that describes the gist of the developed story and the discussion
questions for each discussion group.
4. Print out two check-sheets for each discussion group.
< In Class>
5. Provide the question sheet to each group telling why the developed story is important to
students.
6. Students participate in Discussion 2.
7. After Discussion 2, teacher gives two check-sheets to each group.
8. Students discuss the questions on the check-sheet in pairs.
9. Instructor takes notes on the students’ discussions on the check-sheet.
10. Instructor provides feedback.
VARIATIONS
There are a variety of ways this activity can be altered for students with different levels and
needs. Instructors could develop stories according to students’ majors and interests. It has been
found helpful to take notes on topics that often come up during discussions in each class. For
example, it has been noticed that many of my students enjoyed talking about hypothetical
questions, thus, for these students a story like “Imagine if you were…” worked very well getting
them actively responding to the questions. Many times discussion questions did not have to be
reworded as long as stories were inviting. The check-sheet can also easily be adapted based on
the students’ needs. Some questions could be eliminated or more questions could be introduced
based on their performance during discussions and the teacher’s goals for lessons. Higher level
students were sometimes informally asked additional questions, such as “How could we find out
if that is true?” Instructors could also ask some groups to share their answers on the check-sheet.
For lower level students, instructors could specify which question they should discuss, such as
“Please discuss the questions about clarity and depth.” If students really struggle to just complete
discussions, they could talk only about the question regarding functions, although almost all of
my students could successfully talk about questions about “function” “purpose” and “clarity.”
For some students, questions about “Breadth,” “Information” and “Depth” seemed challenging.
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DISCUSSION
This task and material has been used in almost all of my classes over the course of semester two.
Throughout the second semester, the students progressively became accustomed to the
discussion setup and using the check-sheet. At first, not many students could make full use of
discussion opportunities or the check-sheet. They simply skimmed the prompts and questions,
and engaged in discussions without fully analyzing their and classmates’ ideas. They tended to
accept their peers’ opinions and media information without evaluating them appropriately. They
approached the check-sheet in a similar manner. It appeared challenging for them to analyze
their thinking paths. As Knight (1992) suggests, it is obvious that critical thinking skills can only
be fostered over a long period through a step-by-step process. Thus, it was sometimes inevitable
for the instructor to intervene and introduce some example ideas about the topic and explain why
the topic was relevant and significant to students. Though many students constantly were
challenged by the instructor and by discussing the questions on the check-sheet, students seemed
to gradually develop their critical thinking skills. The transcript below provides one instance of
students’ demonstration of critical thinking skills in a discussion.
Excerpt 1. Topic: Gender Equality (Lesson 12)

Question: Is gender equality important?
1 Takuro: Can I start?

2 Ryouta and Jyunichi: Go ahead.
3 Takuro: Okay. Why do you think some people say there is no gender equality?
4 My friends and teachers do not act differently.
5 Have you ever felt there is no gender equality?
6 Ryouta: No. I think we are equal, but this is maybe because we are all men. We don’t know.
7 Jyunichi: Can I ask a question?
8 Ryouta: Yes.
9 Jyunichi: What kind of gender inequality do you think girls feel?
10 Ryouta: Ummm… Maybe not equal working chances.
11 Takuro: How do you know about that?
12 Ryouta: I heard on the news that some women said that it is more difficult for women to get
13 jobs.
In this excerpt, the students are demonstrating some key elements of critical thinking
skills. In line 3, a student raises a question about the topic in order to identify the meaning of the
question. After stating his opinion, the student seeks other points of view in line 5. As a response
to this question, another student attempts to restrict their opinions and suggest that their ideas are
the ideas from one of the many perspectives by saying “this is maybe because we are all men.
We don’t know.” Following this, another student asks a question from a different point of view
in line 9. Then, Ryouta shares his opinion without indicating his information source. Noticing
Ryouta’s information might not be reliable, Takuro asks a question “How do you know about
that?” to evaluate the information. In the next line, Ryouta tells that his information is from a
news program. This short except suggests that the students try to share and challenge ideas
meaningfully and somewhat critically. After introducing this discussion set-up and the
check-sheet, students have started asking more questions to each other. Some students even ask
questions from the check-sheet during discussions, such as “What are some of the complexities
of this question?” This activity seemed an effective way to help students to have “real”
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Hiroaki Umehara
discussions in which students share their genuine opinions and consider different perspectives.
Another interesting observation was that many groups used target function phrases frequently.
This might be that students realized that the effective usage of function phrases, such as
“Examples” “Possibilities” and “Different Viewpoints” [e.g. “How about from {X’s}
perspective?”] is crucial to support their opinions, and to justify their ideas rationally.
CONCLUSION
Given the emphasis on critical thinking skills in professional and personal life, this paper
suggests one way to incorporate critical thinking elements in English discussion lesson plans.
This paper illustrates how discussion classes can attach more importance to evaluating thoughts
in the language instead of their language skills. After having introduced this technique, many
more students engaged in discussions critically and meaningfully. Although no formal
assessment was conducted to gauge the utility of this task, multiple instances were recorded
where students identify weaknesses of their peers’ ideas, raised questions about each others’
opinions, and identified one-sidedness of thought or discussion questions. As many students
hinted at the utility of this activity, there were also many instances where discussion
situation-set-up failed to interest students or was too difficult for students, consequently, students
could not interact with others or materials critically. A trial and error approach was taken to find
ways to incorporate critical thinking elements in lessons. There is not one exclusive or proper
way to teach critical thinking skills in EFL contexts because students’ needs and levels differ in
different classes. Thus, instructors themselves have to apply their critical thinking skills to
discover and develop lessons plans to teach critical habit of thought.
REFERENCES
ATC21S. (2014) Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills. Retrieved from
http://atc21s.org
Canagarajah, A. S. (Ed.). (2005). Reclaiming the local in language policy and practice. Mahwah,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Coleman, H. (Ed.). (1996). Society and the language classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Davidson, B. W. (1996). The hows and whys of critical thinking education in an EFL context.
Hokuseidaigaku Bungakubu Hokusei Ronsyuu, 33, 77-98.
Garside, C. (1996). Look who's talking: A comparison of lecture and group discussion teaching
strategies in developing critical thinking skills. Communication Education, 45, 212-227.
Gorsuch, G. J. (2000). EFL educational policies and educational cultures: Influences on teachers'
approval of communicative activities. TESOL Quarterly, 34(4),
Holliday, A. (1994). Appropriate methodology and social context. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Iwasaki, T. (2002). Critical thinking. Jyouchi Tankidaigaku Kiyou, 22, 85-99.
Knight, C. (1992). Teaching critical thinking in the social sciences. New Directions for
Community Colleges, 77, 63-73.
Kubota, Y. (2010) Donoyouna jyugyoude critical thinking wo osierareruka. Nagoya
Koutoukyouiku Kenkyu, 10, 253-268.
Kumaravadivelu, B. (1994). The postmethod condition: Emerging strategies for second/foreign
language teaching. Tesol Quarterly, 28(1), 27-48.
Kumaravadivelu, B. (2001). Toward a postmethod pedagogy. Tesol Quarterly, 35(4), 537-560.
Kumaravadivelu, B. (2003). A postmethod perspective on english language teaching. World
209
Englishes, 22(4), 539-550.

Ledward, B. C., & Hirata, D. (2011). An overview of 21st century skills. Summary of 21st
Century Skills for Students and Teachers, by Pacific Policy Research Center. Honolulu:
Kamehameha Schools–Research & Evaluation.
Masduqi, H. (2012). Critical thinking skills and meaning in english language teaching. TEFLIN
Journal: A Publication on the Teaching and Learning of English, 22(2), 185-200.
Scriven, M., & Paul, R. (2013). Defining critical thinking. Retrieved from
http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/defining-critical-thinking/766
Shiramizu, H. (2014). In Griffin, P., McGaw, B., & Care, E. Assessment and teaching of 21st
century skills (N. Miyake, H, Masukawa, & T, Mochizuki, Trans.). Kyoto, Japan:
Kitaohji Shobo. (Original work published 2012).
Stroupe, R. R. (2006). Integrating critical thinking throughout ESL curricula. TESL Reporter,
39(2), 42-60.
Suto, W. M. I. (2013). 21st Century skills: Ancient, ubiquitous, enigmatic?. Research Matters: A
Cambridge Assessment Publication, 15, 2-8.
Suzuki, K. (2006). Critical thinking kyoyuiku no rekishi. In K. Suzuki, K. Ooi, & F. Takemae
(Eds.), Critical thinking to kyoiku: Nihon no kyoiku wo saikouchiku suru (pp. 4-21).
Kyoto, Japan: Sekai shishou sya.
Takemae (2006). Critical thinking kyoyuiku no rekishi. In K. Suzuki, K. Ooi, & F. Takemae
(Eds.), Critical thinking to kyoiku: Nihon no kyoiku wo saikouchiku suru (pp. 22-50).
Kyoto, Japan: Sekai shishou sya.
Warschauer, M. (2001). Millennialism and media: Language, literacy, and technology in the 21st
century. AILA Review, 14, 49-59.
APPENDIX A - Lesson 12 Discussion Question Sheet
Situation
You are members of the student council at Rikkyo University, and you need to discuss some issues about gender equality
because some students think there is no gender equality on the campus.
Questions:
1. Is gender equality important?
2. Should gender roles change
A) On the campus?
B) In the workplace?
C) At home?
APPENDIX B - Lesson 6 Check-Sheet
A Checklist for Good Discussion Function: Reporting Information

(Function:
How well did you use the function to have interesting discussion? Paraphrasing)
Did the question(s) get answered well? (Purpose)
What was your group's main idea? (Clarity)
From what point of view did you (and your group )discuss the issue? (Breadth)
What information and experience did you use to support your claim? (Information)
What are some of the complexities of this question? (Depth)
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Asking More Questions in Fluency Activities
Jason Wan
ABSTRACT
The Language Ego Principle is an important concept that may help or hinder students as they
strive to learn another language. If students feel enfeebled and helpless when learning another
language, this may impact student performance negatively. Conversely, if students feel
empowered as they learn another language, they may adopt a more positive approach. This
article examines one such attempt to help the students feel more empowered. More questions are
given to students at the beginning of the semester to help them generate more content during a
fluency activity. The number of questions is slowly reduced over the course of the semester in
the hopes that students are able to retain content generation skills. However, the results show
that while students can speak more if they are asked more questions, they do not retain these
content generation skills lesson to lesson.
LITERATURE REVIEW
There are a number of reasons language learners have difficulties mastering the language they
study. One possible reason is a lack of intrinsic motivation. Another possible reason is the
development of a shy, hesitant second identity that emerges as learners study another language.
Brown (2007) refers to this as The Language Ego Principle: “The new ‘language ego,’
intertwined with the second language, can easily create within the learner a sense of fragility, a
defensiveness, and a raising of inhibitions.” (p. 72). As one can imagine, this sense of fragility
and defensiveness can hinder students’ performance in a lesson. The lack of confidence that
students may have in their second-language ego can negatively impact how students perform in
discussions for the rest of the lesson. Thus, it is imperative for EDC teachers to find ways to
improve students’ confidence levels so that they may participate fully throughout the lesson.
The idea behind The Language Ego Principle is simple: when learning another language,
no one desires to feel humiliated or crippled. Such feelings can be extremely detrimental to
motivation and willingness to communicate. As language teachers, if we can find a way to
soothe a second-language ego, then we can expect that students will be more willing participants.
In boosting students’ confidence and second-language egos, we are enabling students to
maximize their learning potential.
There are many areas of the EDC lesson which can cause students to suffer a crisis in
confidence. One area of distress for some students is the 3-2-1 fluency activity done near the
beginning of every EDC lesson. While some students understand the purpose of the 3-2-1
activity being to improve their fluency and its importance to second-language acquisition, the
performance of the 3-2-1 can leave many students feeling powerless and unconfident. In
particular, the first 3 minutes can be challenging for some students as they feel that they cannot
possibly speak for such a length of time answering only one question or speaking about only one
topic. Consequently, when students run out of things to say, they may become silent. As the
length of silence increases, students may become aware of their inability to speak, which
damages their second-language ego. Once this ego has been damaged, students may perceive the
rest of the lesson as being too difficult and lose their motivation to try. Consider the opposite
case: students who have a confident language ego are more likely to participate in the lesson and
be willing to try even though they may make mistakes. Thus, their output in a lesson will be
greater than those students who have an unconfident second language ego.
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Therefore, an approach that bolsters students’ confidence (and, in so doing, appeals to

their language ego) by helping them realize more achievable goals could go a long way in
improving students’ fluency and willingness to participate in the rest of the lesson.
TASKS AND MATERIALS

The materials needed for this activity are additional questions that can be asked during the 3-2-1
fluency activity. Typically, these extra questions will be related to the topic of the lesson so that
students can connect the content of the fluency activity to the rest of the lesson. The students can
be asked many questions in the fluency activity, but based on this research, five questions is
enough for almost all students to continue speaking for the entire 3-2-1 activity. These additional
questions can be presented to the students in the same way that the other, given fluency
questions are presented.
PROCEDURE
This is how to conduct a 3-2-1 activity in a language classroom.
1. Have the students stand up.
2. Arrange the students in two lines facing each other.
3. Inform the students that one line will be speakers; the other line will be listeners. Thus,
students will be paired up (one speaker with one listener).
4. Give the speakers the fluency questions that they will speak about for three minutes.
5. Explain to the students that listeners should only listen. They should not make any
comments or ask any questions. They can, however, show that they are actively listening by
reacting appropriately.
6. Start the activity, telling the speakers that they should answer the fluency questions for three
minutes with as little silent time as possible.
7. After three minutes have elapsed, shift the lines so that each speaker will have a new
listener.
8. Tell the speakers to repeat everything that they have just said to their new listener. However,
this time, the time limit will be reduced to two minutes, so the speakers should speak more
quickly and smoothly.
9. After two minutes have passed, shift the lines one more time and repeat the speaking task
again with a one-minute time limit. The students should speak as fast and as smoothly as
they can to repeat all of the information in the time limit.
10. Switch the two lines so that the previous speakers are now listeners and the previous
listeners are now speakers. Repeat the activity.
For the purpose of my research, one class (the control) was always given only two
fluency questions. Another class (the experiment) was given a varying number of fluency
questions throughout the semester. Initially, the experimental class was given five fluency
questions as opposed to two. After two lessons, the number of fluency questions was reduced to
four. After another two lessons, the number of fluency questions was reduced to three. This
continued until the experimental class had the same number (two) of questions to discuss in the
3-2-1 activity as the control class. At this point, both classes were given only two questions to
discuss in the 3-2-1 fluency activity for the rest of the semester.
VARIATIONS
For different levels of students, different questions could be asked. In addition, a different
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Jason Wan
number of questions could be asked. For example, with low-level students that have trouble
coming up with enough content to speak for the full three minutes, more questions can be asked.
Easier questions, such as binary questions, can be asked to help the students start speaking.
Furthermore, possible answers (like multiple choice) can be given in the question so that
students can have some ideas for their speaking turn. The main idea here is that lower-level
students can feel like they have more support.
However, for higher-level students, perhaps less support is needed. Thus, fewer questions
can be asked in the 3-2-1 fluency activity. As higher-level students are more proficient with their
language skills, more challenging questions can be asked. In some instances, perhaps just giving
higher-level students the lesson’s topic is enough to get them speaking for the full three minutes.
DISCUSSION
Based on informal observations, the modified 3-2-1 activity had little effect on student
performance. While the experimental group had less silent time when they were given more
fluency questions at the beginning of the semester, by the time the number of questions was
reduced to the same as the control group (two), there was no marked difference between the two
classes; the amount of silent time between the two classes was comparable.
Initially, both classes started off with eight students each (in one of the classes, that
number was lowered to seven in subsequent weeks). In terms of ability, both classes were fairly
equal; they were both level three (intermediate) classes. Both classes consisted of two females
and six males. The biggest difference between the two classes was probably their willingness to
communicate. At the beginning of the semester, it was difficult to gauge the willingness to
communicate of each class, but as the semester went on, the control class was perceived to have
a slightly higher willingness to communicate than the experimental class.
At the beginning of the semester, the control class struggled to complete the three-minute
speaking task with only two fluency questions. Many speakers finished speaking 20-30 seconds
before the end of the task; this was easily recognizable by the long silences. Even in the
two-minute speaking task, the speakers struggled sometimes to speak for the full time limit. This
was a direct contrast to the experimental class. Presented with five fluency questions to speak
about, not a single speaker was quiet for an extended period of time; each speaker was able to
speak for the full three minutes and the subsequent two-minute speaking task. Both classes were
able to do the one-minute speaking task without any periods of extended silence.
As the semester continued, however, the experimental class did not maintain this level of
speaking proficiency. As the number of fluency questions was reduced (from five gradually
down to two), there was a directly proportional decrease in speaking proficiency. By the time
both classes were given only two fluency questions to answer, the amount of silent time in both
classes during the 3-2-1 activity was similar. While speakers had few difficulties speaking in the
final one-minute task, there were periods of silence (10-15 seconds) during the two-minute and
three-minute tasks in both the control class and the experimental class.
These results seem to indicate that even if students are provided with more fluency
questions at the beginning of the semester, they cannot sustain the same level of performance
without having the same number of questions over the course of the semester. In other words,
students are not able to pick up any skills they may have acquired in earlier lessons and apply
them to later lessons when it comes to content generation in fluency activities.
CONCLUSION
The results of this research come from informal observations of student performance as they do
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the 3-2-1 fluency activity. There are other ways to assess the effectiveness of this activity more
formally. One possible way is to record the students as they do their 3-2-1 activity. This will
provide a more formal method of collecting data. Another possible way to measure student
performance is to count how many words students are able to produce given a varying number
of fluency questions. One more possible way is to increase the sample size; with more
participants, more accurate results may be observed.
Moreover, this research only focused on student performance of the 3-2-1 activity. An
interesting follow-up to this would be to see if there is any connection between student
performance in the 3-2-1 activity and student performance throughout the rest of the lesson. Is it
possible that students who feel that they perform better during the fluency activity at the start of
the lesson gain a sense of confidence which then enables them to participate more in
discussions?
In any case, what seems clear is that there is a direct relationship between the number of
fluency questions asked in the 3-2-1 activity and the ability of students to speak for the entire
time limit without extended periods of silence.
REFERENCES
Brown, H.D., (2007). Teaching by Principles. New York: Pearson Education ESL.
Hoshino, H., (2012). Developing Fluency in English Speaking for Japanese English Learners.
Academic Reports, Vol. 35, No. 2, 52-7.
Nation, P., (1989). Improving Speaking Fluency. System, Vol. 17, No. 3, 377-384.
Richards, J., (1996). Teachers’ Maxims in Language Teaching. TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 30, No. 2,
281-295.
APPENDIX - An example of extra fluency questions for a particular lesson
Two fluency questions given in the EDC textbook (fall semester, lesson 2):
1. Is it important for you to study English?
2. Do you think everyone in Japan should study English?
Four fluency questions for the same lesson:

1. Was the homework reading interesting? Why or why not?
2. Do you think studying English is fun? Why or why not?
3. Should everyone in Japan study English?
4. When do you think children should start learning English?
214
Promoting Learner Autonomy through Self-Assessment and
Goal-Setting
Daniel Warchulski
ABSTRACT
This paper describes how autonomy was promoted through a self-assessment/goal-setting
activity. This included a process whereby students were asked to assess their in-class
performance according to three grading criteria – function use, communication skills use, and
participation. Based on their perceived performance, students then set individual goals. As such,
learners were given an opportunity for personal self-monitoring in a manner that allowed for
self-reflection and immediate personalized feedback. Of particular interest was the ability of
students to accurately assess their performance and abilities since this helps ensure that
assessments and goal-setting are meaningful and beneficial in a variety of ways. Overall, both
the activity and student performance were positive. The results indicate that although students
tended to slightly underestimate their performance, they were relatively consistent and accurate
when compared to the instructor’s perception of students’ performance, thereby benefitting from
the activity.
INTRODUCTION
Within the field of language education, the notion that autonomy is or ought to be a component
of everyday classroom practices is widely supported by researchers and instructors alike. Given
the importance attached to autonomy, this paper outlines and describes a
self-assessment/goal-setting activity that was implemented at Rikkyo University in the EDC
department. The paper begins with a literature review where some current theoretical
representations of autonomy are outlined and how they relate to self-assessment/goal-setting
activities. Next, the activity, and procedure for its implementation, are discussed in some detail.
Finally, the paper concludes with a brief discussion of its effects, including the results of
students’ performance.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Many scholars and researchers have attempted to articulate autonomy, as it pertains to language
education, in a variety of ways. This has resulted in a wide range of definitions and theoretical
frameworks, which in turn have contributed to and influenced much of the broader theory and
practice in language education today. In other words, the concept of autonomy seems to have
had a profound impact on theory and pedagogical practices, resulting in a radical restructuring of
language pedagogy. Within this context, the basic notion of autonomy is often defined in terms
of learners taking some form of responsibility for their learning.
The introduction of autonomy as a central feature of language education began with
Holec (1981), who defined autonomy as “the ability to take charge of one’s own learning” (p. 3).
Inherent in this are the management of various aspects of the learning process, including, for
instance, the monitoring of one’s learning progress, setting goals, and self-assessment. Although
numerous other definitions have been proposed since this time, many of them vary only in
semantic terms and seem to be grounded in or tied to Holec’s conception in some way. A key
component of definitions of this kind is that autonomy is an attribute of the learner, as opposed
to learning situations, since learners don’t simply develop the ability to self-direct their learning
by being put in situations where they have no other option (Benson, 2006). While much of the
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literature generally seems to accept this definition as a starting point, there is, at the same time, a
high degree of variation among researchers, and a considerable degree of difficulty defining the
precise nature of autonomy exists (Little, 2002). This, in turn, has resulted in a range of potential
meanings and theories regarding learner autonomy and how it should be represented in practice.
Consequently, numerous definitions, models, and theories exist to account for learner autonomy.
The difficulty in defining autonomy is perhaps best demonstrated by the vast number of
definitions that actually exist within the literature. For instance, Little (1991) defines autonomy
as “a capacity for detachment, critical reflection, decision making, and independent action.” (p.
4). Meanwhile, Dickinson (1995) views autonomy as “an attitude towards learning in which the
learner is prepared to take, or does take, responsibility for his own learning.” (p. 167). Despite
the difficulty in reaching a consensus on a precise definition, there appears to be a general
agreement within the literature that autonomous learners are those who understand the purposes
of their learning, accept responsibility for their learning, share in the setting of their learning
objectives, implement appropriate learning strategies, and regularly evaluate their progress
(Cotterall, 2000; Dickinson, 1995).
Among some of the more important concepts related to the wide range of theories,
models, and perceptions that have emerged are notions of varying levels of autonomy, cultural
variation (i.e. Western vs. Eastern conceptions), and different versions of autonomy. For instance,
there appears to be a dichotomy within the literature between strong versions of autonomy and
weaker forms. Here, the stronger versions tend to be associated with some of the earlier
theoretical frameworks, whereas the weaker forms have emerged more recently as a response
and attempt to balance and account for variation among learners and educational contexts
(Benson, 2006). For example, Smith (2003) points out that strong pedagogies view autonomy as
a trait that learners already possess with the focus being the co-creation of conditions that allow
students to exercise this autonomy. Conversely, weak pedagogies are based on the idea that
autonomy is something that students lack in some manner and need training in.
The idea of cultural variation has also played an important role in some of the literature.
Among the issues is the notion that we must be weary of implementing and promoting autonomy
universally in all learning environments. Here, Pennycook (1989) warns us of some of the
potential dangers of attempting to apply a theory that was conceived in a Western cultural
context, in learning contexts such as those found in the East, pointing out that this can result in a
form of cultural imperialism. In spite of this perceived risk, Littlewood (1999) argues that this
view is largely unfounded so long as we match the different aspects of autonomy with the needs
and characteristics of learners in specific learning environments. In fact, he goes on to point out
that learners in Asian contexts are not necessarily passive learners and are often active and
autonomous in a variety of ways, and we must be careful of setting up stereotypic notions of
East Asian learners.
With respect to the extensive range of models of autonomy that exist within the literature,
perhaps one of the more useful conceptions is that of Littlewood (1996) since it accounts for
varying levels of autonomy and as such, appears to be appropriate in its application to most
cultural contexts, including Japan. Within this framework, instructors are provided with a basis
for developing practical strategies utilizing three broad domains that can be further broken down
into more specific strategies that allow instructors to implement both stronger and weaker
versions of autonomy. These main domains include autonomy as a learner, autonomy as a
communicator, and autonomy as a person.
Most of the research in language education seems to support the position that autonomy
ought to be promoted in classroom practices and in the wider educational context. In particular,
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much of the more recent research holds the position that cultural variation is an indispensable
factor in this process (Guilloteaux & Dornyei, 2008; Cheng & Dornyei, 2007). In this regard,
different cultures appear to define autonomy in their own culturally-appropriate terms, including
the degree of freedom that learners are given in the overall educational process.
Littlewood (1999) provides a useful conception that allows instructors and course
designers in different educational contexts to decide what the optimal degree of learner freedom
ought to be. A distinction is made between “proactive autonomy” and “reactive autonomy”, the
latter often being more appropriate in an Eastern educational setting, such as Japan. Whereas the
notion of proactive autonomy puts an expectation on learners to be actively engaged in all
aspects of the learning process, such as the design or choosing of instructional materials, and
often requires a radical change on the part of teachers and learners, reactive autonomy does not
necessarily create its own direction and allows for a more gradual and culturally-sensitive form
of autonomy. Further, reactive autonomy is often seen as a preliminary step towards the
proactive form or a goal in its own right since, “once a direction has been initiated, it enables
learners to organize their resources autonomously in order to reach their goal” (p. 75).
A particularly effective manner of promoting autonomous learning is through the use of
self-assessment (Harris, 1997; Gardner, 2000) and goal-setting activities (Guilloteaux & Dornyei,
2008). Both activities are generally regarded as being beneficial for a variety of reasons and
enable students to have a higher degree of control of their overall learning while encouraging
them to reflect in a deeper and hence, more meaningful manner. This is especially true in formal
educational settings, such as Rikkyo University’s EDC program. It is widely believed that
self-assessment helps learners to be more active through a process of self-reflection that allows
them to locate their own strengths and weaknesses by urging them to think about what they need
to do and helping them to view their learning in personal terms (Harris, 1997). In other words,
students are likely to realize (or begin to) that they have the ultimate responsibility for learning.
Another significant advantage of allowing students to assess their progress and set learning goals
is the increase in their overall motivation – particularly intrinsic motivation (Guilloteaux &
Dornyei, 2008; Cheng & Dornyei, 2007; Dornyei, 1994).
An example of a useful theoretical framework for conceptualizing self-assessment and
goal-setting within the context of autonomy is Deci and Ryan’s (2000) self-determination theory.
A basic premise of this theory is that actions or behaviors that are self-determined become
internalized within the learner and lead to higher levels of motivation. More specifically, various
types of regulations exist in different learning contexts and these can be placed along a
continuum between self-determined (i.e. intrinsic) and controlled (i.e. extrinsic) forms.
Depending on which form is internalized by learners will lead to varying and different types of
motivation. Here, more internalized forms lead to higher levels of intrinsic motivation.
Conversely, less internalized types are believed to affect and lead to extrinsic motivation. In this
sense, it would seem that allowing students to assess their performance and progress, as well as
set goals, will lead to more internalized forms and thus, to higher levels of intrinsic motivation.
However, an important issue within the literature regarding the use of student
self-assessment that requires consideration is the degree of students’ accuracy with respect to
being able to assess themselves in the context of language learning. The results in the literature
are mixed with some studies reporting a high degree of accuracy, while others arguing that
learners are generally unable to accurately assess their language abilities (Gardner, 2000; Harris,
1997; Blanche & Merino, 1989). However, it is also suggested that so long as teachers do their
part where required by properly by, for example, explaining the purpose of self-assessments and
providing the necessary guidance and awareness raising when required during the process, the
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low levels of accuracy can be mitigated and students will likely be able to assess themselves
fairly accurately.
ACTIVITY AND PROCEDURE

Allowing students to assess their perceived in-class performance in a manner similar to how
their grades are calculated, as per EDC grading criteria, is in line with the overall notion of
autonomy. In this sense, it was hoped that students would be given an opportunity to act in a
self-deterministic way which is supported by much of the research and literature pertaining to
autonomy as outlined above. It seems reasonable to think that the process of self-assessment
likely helps facilitate students’ self-reflection and judgment pertaining to their actual
performance, thus acting as a form of student-generated feedback which enables them to set
personalized and meaningful goals in an informed and accurate manner. Accordingly, beginning
in week 2, all classes were asked to assess their overall performance after both discussions 1 and
2 using a self-assessment/goal-setting worksheet.
Figure 1.
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When creating an assessment activity, to optimize its benefits Gardner and Miller (1999) suggest
that they contain the following: the purpose of the assessment, benefits to the students, a
procedure for conducting and marking it, a suggested marking scale, and a choice of follow up
actions related to the score achieved. Accordingly, in both the creation and implementation of
the self-assessment/goal-setting activity, the instructor ensured that these criteria were taken into
consideration and included in the activity. Additionally, Harris (1997) suggests that to be
effective, self-assessment must be practical in terms of time and should be integrated with
everyday classroom activities. As such, the self-assessment/goal-setting activity was used as part
of the regular procedure during the feedback stages of discussions one and two.
Using clear instructional language and providing guidance where necessary, students
were asked to determine their scores for each of the items for which they normally receive
weekly grades (i.e. function use, communication skills use, and participation). Students utilized a
numerical grading system (i.e. 1 through 4) which is the same as the marking scheme that all
EDC instructors use on a weekly basis to grade their classes. It is hoped that this process allowed
students to self-monitor and reflect on their performance, thereby allowing them to set realistic
goals that are directly related to their performance while allowing them to experience a sense of
success and autonomy in their learning. To determine if this was the case, the instructor carefully
monitored all students during all stages of the activity. In particular, an effort was made to ensure
a balanced degree of guidance and facilitation on the instructor’s part. Further, the instructor
initially explained the overall utility of the activity, including the overall course objectives to
ensure that students had a sufficient degree of understanding with respect to how the two are
related. Additionally, students received various forms of guidance, awareness raising, and
support throughout the process.
The following procedure was followed in implementing the student
self-assessment/goal-setting activity:
1. After the completion of discussion 1, students received a self-assessment/goal-setting
worksheet.
2. The teacher provided instructions, explained the purpose of the activity, and clarified any
potential issues.
3. Students reflected on their performance in discussion 1 and assessed their performance as per
checklist. Based on this score, students chose one or two goals (i.e. areas that they believe need
improving) to complete in discussion 2.
4. Students wrote their goal(s) on the checklist and if time permitted, discussed their results
collaboratively in a group.
5. The instructor gave appropriate feedback and students prepared for discussion 2.
6. Following discussion 2, students reflected on and assessed their performance. Based on this,
students chose and wrote one or two goals for next class.
7. The instructor gave appropriate feedback and asked students to remember and try to achieve
their goals during the next class.
8. At the end of class, the instructor collected students’ self-assessment/goal-setting worksheets
to compare students’ perceived scores with the instructor’s scores.
9. The activity was administered for all weeks where students learned or reviewed a function or
communication skill (i.e. weeks 2-4, 6-8, 10-12), but not during the other classes.
Although this activity was generally used with higher level students (i.e. levels 3 & 4), it
can be used with lower level students with very few changes required in both the activity and
procedure for its implementation. For instance, an instructor may need to change or omit some
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of the function or discussion skill phrases so that they are in line with those that lower level
students learn. Additionally, a teacher would be advised to spend more time explaining the
activity and its objectives and perhaps a change in instructional language may be required to
ensure that students fully understand the activity. It is likely that using self-assessment activities
with lower level learners would be particularly beneficial in helping them self-reflect and
monitor their progress while helping them focus on course objectives by allowing students to set
meaningful and achievable goals.
DISCUSSION AND RESULTS

Generally, the students’ performance was encouraging and they responded positively to the
self-assessment/goal-setting activity, thus likely benefitting by being able to optimize many of
the advantages inherent in assessment activities. In a sense, the students were given the chance
to assess their own progress which in turn provided an opportunity for them to take some
measure of responsibility for their own learning and thus allowed them to act as autonomous
learners.
From the beginning, most students seemed to find the activity helpful and were quick in
assessing their strengths and weaknesses, which enabled them to set personalized and
meaningful goals by allowing students to focus on clearly defined objectives. In most cases,
observations revealed that students were relatively successful in assessing their strengths while
at the same time, identifying areas that needed improving. Consequently, in most cases, this
process resulted in students being able to achieve their goals, thereby improving their overall
performance in subsequent discussions. It has been suggested that combining self-assessment
with teacher-fronted feedback means that the latter is likely to be more effective (Harris, 1997).
As such, instructor-fronted feedback seemed to complement and help reinforce students’
assessment and choice of goals. For instance, quite often the instructor-fronted feedback
included goals that coincided with students’ goals, which acted as a form reinforcement and
enabled students to feel a sense of accomplishment and success during the activity.
Although this activity was generally successful and helpful to students in a variety of
ways, the issue of students’ accuracy was of particular concern. It has been noted that the lack of
reliability with respect to students being able to accurately assess their language performance
and abilities can potentially negate some of the benefits of using assessment activities (Gardner,
2000). To ensure that the activity had the desired effect, the accuracy of students’ assessments
was taken into consideration. Accordingly, students’ assessment of their performance was
compared to that of the instructor’s to help make sure that the activity was indeed highly
beneficial, as intended.
A comparison of students’ perceived performance with that of the instructor’s scores had
very encouraging results. The students tended to assess themselves positively which was in line
with the instructor’s overall impression of their performance. Although the students generally
scored their performance lower than the scores given by the instructor, the difference was
minimal. In fact, over the duration of the semester, the students’ scores appear to be highly
correlated with the instructor’s perception of students’ performance for both function use and
communication skills use, but not for participation. As such, the results seem to indicate that
during the course of the semester, students were able to assess themselves consistently and
accurately with respect to their language related performance, thereby likely benefitting from
this activity in a variety of ways. And perhaps most importantly, it allowed students to choose
goals in a meaningful manner in a way that promotes self-reflection and autonomy.
It is believed that most of the students benefitted from the activity in quite diverse ways.
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Daniel Warchulski
For instance, Gardner (2000) suggests that some of the advantages in promoting autonomy
through self-assessments include opportunities for the following: individualization, reflection,
motivation, evaluation, monitoring, and support. Accordingly, the self-assessment/goal-setting
activity likely benefitted the students in many of these ways. For instance, informal observations
of students suggest that students were motivated during most classes as evidenced by their high
levels of voluntary participation and effort. As well, it appears that students were able to reflect
deeply with regards to their performance since they were quite accurate in their assessments and
ability to set meaningful goals.
On a final note, Harris (1997) points out that since systematic self-assessment provides
an individual focus by allowing students to view their learning in personal terms, learners are
more likely to be active, as opposed to passive, because they will realize that they have the
ultimate responsibility for their learning. It is the instructor’s belief that the students’ overall
eagerness and active participation throughout all classes can be partially attributed to the
self-assessment/goal-setting activity and the manner in which it was implemented. Indeed,
students were given an opportunity to act as autonomous learners.
CONCLUSION
Assessment and goal-setting activities have become an important component of autonomous
learning in the L2 classroom and are utilized and endorsed by many instructors. This paper has
demonstrated that there are numerous advantages to using such activities as part of a daily
routine. In addition to the benefits discussed, self-assessment activities can also assist teachers in
other ways such as providing a guideline and assisting instructors in the formal grading of
learners. Here, however, instructors would be well-advised to ensure that students are able to
accurately assess their abilities and performance.
So while this paper examined some of the advantages of such activities in an informal
manner within the context of EDC classes, future studies can be conducted to examine and better
assess the effectiveness of such activities. For instance, using appropriate formal qualitative and
quantitative data collection methods can be utilized to shed light on students’ perceptions of such
activities. As well, results can be measured and assessed numerically in a number of ways which
can ensure that self-assessment/goal-setting activities are of the greatest benefit to learners.
REFERENCES
Benson, P. (2006). Autonomy in language teaching and learning. Language Teacher, 40, 21-40.
Blanche, P. & Merino, B. J. (1989). Self-assessment of foreign-language skill: Implications for
teachers and researchers. Language Learning, 39.3, 313-340.
Cotterall, S. (2000). Promoting learner autonomy through the curriculum: Principles for designing
language courses. ELT Journal, 54.2, 109-117.
Cheng, H. & Dornyei, Z. (2007). The use of motivational strategies in language instruction: The
case of EFL teaching in Taiwan. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 1.1,
153-174.
Deci, E. L. & R. M. Ryan (eds.) (2000). Handbook of self-determination research: Theoretical and
applied issues. Rochester: University of Rochester Press.
Dickinson, L. (1995). Autonomy and motivation: A literature review. System, 23.2, 165-174.
Gardner, D. (2000). Self-assessment for autonomous language learners. Links & Letters, 7, 49-60.
Gardner, D. & Miller, L. (1999). Establishing self-access: from theory to practice. Cambridge:
Guilloteaux, M. J. & Dornyei, Z. (2008). Motivating language learners: A classroom-oriented
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investigation of the effects of motivational strategies on student motivation. TESOL

Quarterly, 42.1, 55-77.
Harris, M. (1997). Self-assessment of language learning in formal settings. ELT Journal, 51.1,
12-20.
Holec, H. (1981). Autonomy and foreign language learning. Oxford: Pergamon.
Little, D. (1991). Learner autonomy 1: Definiions, issues and problems. Dublin: Authentik.
Little, D. (2002). Learner autonomy and second/foreign language learning. In The guide to good
practice for learning and teaching in languages, linguistics and area studies. LTSN
Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies. Retrieved from
http://www.lang.ltsn.ac.uk/resources/guidecontents.aspx on 7/20/2014.
Littlewood, W. (1996). Autonomy: An anatomy and a framework. System, 24.4, 427-435.
Littlewood, W. (1999). Defining and developing autonomy in East Asian contexts. Applied
Linguistics, 20.1, 71-94.
Pennycook, A. (1989). The concept of method, interested knowledge, and the politics of language
teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 23.4, 589-618.
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SECTION THREE
Classroom Research
Teacher Attitudes to Humor in L2 English Discussion Classes
Simon Aldrich
ABSTRACT
This paper describes an investigation into the attitudes of instructors teaching L2 English
discussion class (EDC) at Rikkyo University to the use of humor in their classes. A survey was
conducted which aimed to discover whether use of humor was widespread in the program, and if
so, whether this was supported by pedagogic or personal reasons. It was found that the majority
of teachers do either actively try to use humor, or take opportunities to do so when they arise. In
contrast, respondents were mostly undecided or in disagreement as to whether students should
be responsible for generating humor. There was agreement that teacher-generated humor (TGH)
contributes to an enjoyable learning atmosphere and that students are more likely to learn when
they enjoy their class. However, many respondents felt that humor was not a prerequisite of an
enjoyable class. Further reasons for humor use that were selected in the survey showed that in
addition to learner outcome oriented goals, teachers also have personal motivations for
generating humor in class. These findings will be further discussed below and some personal
perspectives shared on the implementation of TGH in class.
Keywords: control, shift, escape*
INTRODUCTION
What is humor? We all know when we find something funny, the effects are clear, a smirk, a
laugh, or a backrush of tea flooding the nasal cavity; however, the catalysts for such physical
responses are so many and varied that people have struggled to coin a single word capable of
covering them all. For the time being, we have settled on ‘humor’ (see Martin, 2007 for a
detailed history), which in this paper is taken to mean any interaction, verbal or otherwise, that
results in laughter or amusement. The notion of interaction is especially important to this
definition in the context of the EFL classroom, where initiation, intent, and response are under
such close scrutiny. Any communication initiated by teachers or students is goal directed, so
whether this is focused on influencing the classroom atmosphere, constructing or enhancing
one’s identity in the group (this includes the teacher), or on achieving the course aims, it is clear
that there is something at stake in every interaction. Consequently, there is risk involved when
we embark upon any kind of communication, due to the possibility of failure and any negative
outcomes of this with respect to our intended goal. In the EFL classroom, this risk is magnified
when we choose to communicate with humor. Indeed, even when attempting to be amusing
amongst those with a shared L1 and similar cultural background we are mindful of the fact that a
misunderstanding could occur, or in the worst case, offence could be taken. Furthermore, the
success of humor is said to depend on simultaneous appreciation of the expected and the absurd,
when the audience is instantaneously shifted from a “goal-directed” or “telic” state to a “playful”
or “paratelic” state, as in my poor attempt above*, allowing a comical comparison of the
expected and unexpected to resonate in the mind (Martin, 2007 p.6). In an environment such as
the EFL classroom, where both linguistic and cultural comprehension can be significantly
reduced, it is therefore even more of a challenge for the teacher to smoothly manufacture such
moments. For this reason, if we are going to initiate humor in class we must be mindful of the
risks involved, and what is more, prepared to turn the situation to our advantage should our use
225
of humor fail. If we are unable to do so, there is a very real chance that damage could be done to
both the classroom atmosphere and the relationship between students and teacher.
BACKGROUND
Humor is commonplace in most forms of social interaction and it seems reasonable to assume
that this is true in exchanges between students and teachers. Classes are often evaluated,
officially or not, in terms of whether they are ‘fun’ so again one would think that humor plays a
part in achieving this. One of the aims of the survey was to ascertain whether the use of humor
was indeed common, at least at the institution in question. Beyond this necessary first step, it
was hoped that a clearer understanding of teacher motivations for using humor would be reached.
Prior to discussing the results, it is important to provide some background on what constitutes
in-class humor and a brief introduction to some of the reasons why teachers may use humor that
formed the basis for questions included in the survey.
What forms does humor take in class? As mentioned above, humor comes in many forms. It may
be planned, such as a formulaic joke e.g. “Two Japanese students of English work into a bar…”,
a funny anecdote, or humorous images included in supplementary materials. Conversely, it can
be spontaneously produced like an impromptu play on words, a comical gesture, or a sound
effect (see Banas et. al, 2011 for more examples). There is less need to be apprehensive about
what kinds of humor students can enjoy than many teachers think, for as Bell (2009) states, “any
type of humor can be constructed at any level of sophistication’ and that seemingly challenging
forms of humor such as wordplay can be appreciated, and sometimes produced by even lower
proficiency learners. For instance, I recall one of my own students incapacitating his classmates
by poking fun at his own propensity for humor while taking a swipe at university attendance
rules with, “Three jokes is one absence.” (three (sic)‘lates’ being the original). Hence, as long as
the teacher has a good appreciation of what students can comprehend, avoids formulaic jokes
that are culturally specific, keeps humor within a frame of reference that is known to them, and
avoids offensive humor, or that which may ridicule others (see the formulaic joke above for an
example of failure on all points), then the available repertoire for use in class is significant.
Why use humor? Studies seem to prove that students have a positive attitude towards the use of
humor in class, for example, Aboudan (2009) reported that 88% of a group of 160 female ESL
students surveyed at the United Arab Emirates University felt that it made the learning
environment more enjoyable, while Stroud’s (2013) survey of Japanese high school students
found that a majority considered relaxation and increased participation to be additional benefits
of in-class humor. With respect to language acquisition, there is less empirical evidence to
support claims that learning can be solely attributed to the use of humor. For while it may be
possible to demonstrate the effectiveness of humor in particular teaching situations, such as
enhanced acquisition of new vocabulary items through the use of comical examples of usage, the
benefit of sporadic use of humor in class is more likely to be as a contributing, rather than
primary factor in language learning. In other words, the advantages revealed in the student
surveys above may facilitate language acquisition by contributing to students’ positive attitudes
towards the learning situation, which are said to correlate with gains in their second language
achievements (see Masgoret and Gardner, 2002). Questions were included in the survey to
ascertain whether teachers truly believed that humor in general (not solely teacher-generated)
has positive effects in these two areas, classroom atmosphere and learning.
The “tension-releasing function of humor” (Martin, 2007 p.20), which appears to have been
recognized by students above, I believe, may also have stress-reducing benefits for the teacher.
Teaching can be an anxiety-inducing job for a number of reasons, not least because the teacher is
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human and feels a need to be liked and appreciated. This can be difficult when the teacher’s
roles in class include some that could seem incompatible with this need e.g. maintaining
discipline, giving negative feedback, and being partly responsible for constructing an enjoyable
class atmosphere. The degree to which this is true for each individual is of course in question,
but generating humor may be one way in which teachers can express their humanity and enjoy a
good rapport with students despite the complex and sometimes contradictory nature of their role.
Questions were included in the survey to gauge to what degree teachers have learner outcome
oriented reasons and/or personal reasons for generating humor.
DATA COLLECTION
A survey was produced titled ‘Teacher Attitudes to Humor in Class’ with the definition of
humor given above included in the instructions. It was decided not to provide examples of
humor as this could result in respondents answering with a set of limitations in mind regarding
what constitutes humor. Furthermore, it was felt that considering the wide range of humorous
interactions possible, the author would be unlikely to accurately predict what forms teachers
preferred, and so providing examples that fell outside of these, could lead to the respondents
forming a negative impression of the inquiry before even starting to answer the questions.
An initial “item pool” (Dornyei and Taguchi, 2010 p.40) of 40 questions was created then
divided into the five distinct content areas that were to be investigated:
A. Do the majority of teachers feel that humor in class creates a positive atmosphere?
B. Do the majority of teachers believe that humor has a positive effect on learning?
C. Do a majority of teachers generate humor in class?
D. Do teachers have learner outcome oriented reasons for generating humor?
E. Do teachers have personal/psychological reasons for generating humor?
From this point, questions that were very similar to others or deemed to fall on the margins of
the content areas were cut, resulting in a pool of 30 questions that were then divided to produce
five multi-item scales of six questions, one scale for each content area. This was done, as it is in
line with recommendations that use of a multi-item scale of not less than four items provides
more reliable results than a single question on the content area when investigating “abstract,
mental variables” like attitudes (Mackey and Gass, 2012 p.76). The items from each scale were
then distributed randomly in the survey. The decision to do so was made in order “to create a
sense of variety and to prevent respondents from simply repeating previous answers” (Ibid p.78),
though it is recognized that this may have had a negative impact on the aesthetics of the layout
(see Dornyei and Taguchi, 2010 for argument in favor of grouped items). As a further precaution
against repeat answers, a line was included in the instructions to advise respondents to read the
questions carefully as some may seem similar.
A Likert scale was chosen to record respondents’ level of agreement with each item. Numerical
values were assigned to each response (from 5 for ‘strong agreement’ to 1 for ‘strong
disagreement) to allow for calculation of how positive each respondent’s overall attitude was to
each content area. When items asked for a response where agreement showed a negative view of
the content area, then these values were reversed before calculating the total score (see Ajzen
2005). These numerical values were also used to calculate a total score for each item that would
make it easier to see which items generated the most agreement amongst the respondents. The
numerical values were not included in the survey that was distributed.
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From this point, a first draft of the survey was piloted on a sample of four instructors. This
sample size is far smaller than is recommended, however, as the target sample was likewise
small (there are 41 full-time instructors in the program) it could not be expanded without
significantly reducing the final sample size. In spite of this, the piloting proved useful in that it
highlighted certain questions that were ambiguous and required editing or replacing, and also
resulted in the final selection of the 5-point answer scale, where a scale of agreement was chosen
over one of frequency. After editing, the final draft of the survey was distributed by email to the
target sample.
RESULTS
A total of 32 instructors (78% of the target) completed the survey, 23 of whom were male and 9
female. Average teaching experience within the group was 8 years and there were 7 respondents
who identified an alternative to English as their L1. Following is a breakdown of the results by
content area (A to E as above). Items in each scale have been numbered from one to six for ease
of analysis. Tables show the total of respondents’ answers to each item (SA: Strongly Agree, A:
Agree, Un: Undecided, D: Disagree, and SD: Strongly Disagree) and the score (a higher value
signifies more responses in agreement with the item). Finally, a chart is included to provide a
visual representation of the level of positivity found towards the content area.
Table 1. Do the majority of teachers feel that humor in class creates a positive atmosphere?
SA A Un D SD Score
1. Humor helps to improve the class atmosphere. 16 16 0 0 0 144
2. In-class humor confuses some students. ® 3 17 6 6 0 113
3. Students do not enjoy humorless classes. 0 6 7 17 2 81
4. In-class humor leads to disciplinary issues. ® 2 10 12 8 0 102
5. Humor is not necessary for students to enjoy class. ® 1 7 3 17 4 80
6. In-class humor can defuse a tense atmosphere. 9 20 3 0 0 134
Totals 31 76 31 48 6 654
® responses reversed to show degree of positive attitude to content area
28% agree 56%
undecided 16%
56%
16% disagree 28%
Figure 1. Percentage of agreement for content area A.
Responses to some items in this area suggest that most teachers believe that humor is a
contributing factor to a good classroom atmosphere (items 1,2,4, and 6), but that humor is not
essential to students’ enjoyment of class (items 3 and 5). These results highlight a problem with
the scale, in that all items are not clearly focused on the same area of inquiry. This was further
evidenced by a low Chronbach Alpha coefficient of 0.661 (scales B to D generated more reliable
coefficients), showing that this scale lacks reliability in terms of measuring a single attitude.
Mackey and Gass (2012) advise that any scale that generates a coefficient below 0.60 should be
re-examined, and ideally, this issue should have been rectified before distributing the survey,
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however, the opportunity was missed due to a combination of a researcher blind spot i.e. my
focus on humor caused me to assume an exclusive correlation between humor and enjoyment,
and the limitations of a small pilot sample. Nevertheless, the results are interesting, with 66% of
respondents agreeing or strongly agreeing that humor is not necessary for students to enjoy class
(item 5), we can see that many teachers in the program feel that there are other ways for students
to enjoy class than through humor. One further point of interest is the high level of agreement
with item 6. One could extrapolate that teachers on the course value humor as a ‘mood changer’;
a means to overcome or move on from a study related difficulty or an interpersonal issue that has
subdued the atmosphere.
Table 2. Do the majority of teachers believe that humor has a positive effect on learning?
SA A Un D SD Score
1. Groups that laugh together learn together better. 7 13 10 2 0 121
2. In-class humor is beneficial to student motivation. 9 18 4 1 0 131
3. In-class humor can get in the way of learning opportunities. ® 3 12 9 8 0 106
4. Students are more likely to learn when they enjoy their class. 18 14 0 0 0 146
5. Humor in class is detrimental to learning. ® 11 15 3 3 0 130
6. The presence of humor in class has no effect on student learning. ® 4 19 7 2 0 121
Totals 52 91 33 16 0 755
8%
17% agree 75%
undecided 17%
75% disagree 8%
Figure 2. Percentage of agreement for content area B.
The highest percentage of positive attitudes was expressed towards this area, with item 4
generating the highest score of any in the survey. In light of what was said about the limitations
of content area A, it should be recognized that this item does not focus exclusively on enjoyment
through humor. However, other items in the scale, notably items 2 and 5, suggest that few
teachers see humor as detrimental to learning and many recognize a link between humor and
motivation. This is important considering the positive role that motivation plays in students’
achievement of learning goals. The fact that there was little disagreement and no strong
disagreement further support a hypothesis that the teachers who participated in this study see
humor in general (i.e. not specifically that generated by the teacher) as having a positive effect
on learning. However, all things must be in moderation, so perhaps the eight respondents who
felt that humor can get in the way of learning opportunities had overuse in mind when answering
item 3. It is possible that more could have been learned about teacher attitudes in this area, had a
question on the frequency of in-class humor been included in the survey.
229
Table 3. Do a majority of teachers generate humor in class?
SA A Un D SD Score
1. Students should generate humor rather than teachers. ® 0 13 14 3 2 102
2. I try to generate humor in my classes. 11 12 3 5 1 123
3. I sometimes re-use successful examples of humor. 13 17 0 2 0 137
4. I am confident using humor in class. 7 18 3 3 1 123
5. Students view teachers who use humor as unprofessional. ® 3 14 13 2 0 114
6. I don't plan to use humor, but take my chances to be funny if the opportunity 4 16 4 7 1 111
arises. Totals 38 90 37 22 5 710
14%
agree 67%
19% undecided 19%
67% disagree 14%
Figure 3. Percentage of agreement for content area C.
Items 2, 3, and 6 in this scale investigate teacher behavior that one would assume correlates to
the respondent’s attitude to generating humor. What stands out in the answers given to these
items is the number of teachers who claim to re-use successful examples of humor (item 3). This
suggests that many teachers find sufficient value in the use of humor to have a repertoire, a
statement corroborated by the fact that no single respondent gave negative answers to all three of
these items. Furthermore, of the two teachers who do not re-use humor, one nevertheless agreed
that they take chances to use humor, and the other showed a desire to always strive for new
material by agreeing to items 2 and 6. The fact that instructors on the program teach the same
topic and target language 12 to 13 times a week provides additional explanation of this result.
Finally, it does not appear that confidence is a barrier to the use of humor for the majority of
teachers.
Table 4. Do teachers have learner outcome oriented reasons for generating humor?
SA A Un D SD Scor
1. Teacher-generated humor (TGH) can make a learning point more salient. 3 19 6 4 0 e
117
2. TGH is effective when dealing with disciplinary issues in class. 1 13 14 4 0 107
3. TGH contributes to an enjoyable learning environment. 12 16 4 0 0 136
4. TGH can be effective when giving feedback on students' points to improve. 4 11 11 6 0 109
5. TGH can increase the participation of quieter students. 1 13 12 5 1 104
6. It is important for students to experience humor in L2. 4 12 11 3 2 109
Totals 25 84 58 22 3 682
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Simon Aldrich
13%
agree 57%
undecided 30%
30% 57%
disagree 13%
Figure 4. Percentage of agreement for content area D.
The previous scale was used to verify whether teacher use of humor was indeed commonplace in
the program, having established that it is, the remaining two seek to gain a better understanding
of the reasons for TGH. Scale D confirms that improving the learning environment is again a
key motivation (item 3), but also provides information regarding how teachers feel that humor
directly relates to helping students learn. In this respect, it is not so surprising that item 1
garnered the highest amount of agreement. Having attended numerous faculty development
sessions with these teachers, it has been fascinating to witness first-hand just how creative some
can be when it comes to helping students understand how and why we use functions of
discussion (e.g. asking for and giving opinions) through the use of humorous devices such as
gestures and analogies. It is also interesting to note that many teachers believe that humor is
effective for giving negative feedback (item 4). Other items on the scale also achieved
reasonable scores, but it must be noted that the number of respondents who were undecided on
these issues contributed to the highest total of any scale at 30%. If we combine this fact with a
comparison between the results attained on this scale with those on scale B, where 75% of
responses were in support of the learning related benefits of humor, it could lead one to conclude
that while many teachers believe that humor is beneficial, they do not feel that they can
confidently pin point precise examples of when their use of humor supports learning.
Table 5. Do teachers have personal/psychological reasons for generating humor?
SA A Un D SD Score
1. Using humor in class can improve my rapport with students. 15 15 0 0 0 141
2. I generate humor because I don't like the atmosphere in class to be too 4 9 5 10 4 95
serious.
3. It is important for me that students enjoy their classes so I try to use humor. 6 18 2 6 0 120
4. I feel pleased when students laugh at my humor. 11 15 6 0 0 133
5. I use humor because serious, humorless groups are difficult to teach. 1 7 4 15 5 80
6. Using humor helps me to enjoy my day. 13 9 6 2 2 125
Totals 50 73 25 33 11 694
23% agree 64%
undecided 13%
13% 64%
disagree 23%
Figure 5. Percentage of agreement for content area D.
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The final scale provided some interesting insight into the personal benefits that teachers derive
from generating humor. It is clear from the total agreement with item 1 that humor is used as a
tool to develop the teacher-student relationship, and importantly, the high agreement with items
4 and 6 suggests that teachers gain as much from this as the students. Common sense dictates
that a friendly and enjoyable class atmosphere is as much in the teacher’s interests as the
students’. Other results (items 2 and 5) help us to add an extra layer of understanding to this. We
can see that there is variation in the degree to which teachers use humor to avoid situations that
they find uncomfortable. Some teachers, it appears, are more ill at ease with serious groups than
others. Such differences are an inevitable result of our varied personalities, however, the results
show that irrespective of the burden that a serious group of students places on the individual,
humor can be used as a means to alleviate this work-related stress (items 4 and 6).
DISCUSSION
In this discussion, I would like to highlight where my beliefs overlap with the respondents’ on
the issues raised. These beliefs are informed by my experiences as a teacher and research in the
field of SLA. In doing so, I will also share some thoughts on the role of ‘familiarity’ in the
practical implementation of humor, to address the conclusion made about area D that teachers
may have difficulty isolating particular instances of when their use of humor supports learning.
First of all, I agree with the three items that were endorsed by all respondents; that students are
more likely to learn when they enjoy their classes, and that humor, and I include TGH, can
improve the in-class atmosphere and help to build a good rapport with students. Furthermore, I
agree with all of the items in part D. However, as I’m sure is the case with many teachers, I am
cautious regarding when and how to use TGH. For example, if I am working with a new group
of students, I prefer to allow them time to first gain trust in me in my primary role as an educator.
I believe that once this trust is established one has more license to utilize humor. A further
advantage to delaying the use of humor is that students should be familiar with you, and your
classroom routines and language, before it is possible to mix things up for comic effect.
Remembering what was said about humor being successful when it provides a contrast with the
expected, using it too early seems counter intuitive, and may negatively impact upon rapport by
confusing the students. Like many respondents, I actively make use of humor, take chances to
utilize it when I feel it will be beneficial, and re-use what has worked for me in the past. In many
cases, when this takes place I bear in mind whether students are ready for the humor to work (i.e.
do they have strong enough mental associations with the target of my humor to make the
comparison I introduce funny). This is an important consideration with many of the humor types
that I use in class because they depend on this kind of familiarity. For example, I frequently use,
as I know do others, “transformations of frozen expressions” wherein one changes “well-known
sayings, clichés, or adages into novel statements.” (Martin, 200P p.13) In the classroom,
elements of the teacher’s high-frequency instructional language are substituted, making for an
amusing transformation. For instance, when asking a student to choose a role in pair work, ‘Do
you want to speak or listen?’ becomes ‘Do you want to speak or speak?’ Though a very basic
form of humor, this usually generates amusement and can be used sparingly to encourage quieter,
less confident students to initiate.
The previous paragraph outlines my feelings about how student familiarity with the teacher and
classroom routines is important for the success of TGH. There are, however, two further kinds of
familiarity that I believe can help teachers to produce humor. Firstly, the teacher should also
know something about the students and their routines. The benefit of this is that such knowledge
can provide material for humorous purposes, which when remembered and used correctly, can
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Simon Aldrich
strengthen the connection between teacher and student. Here is one example that shows how
knowledge of an individual student can be tailored for humorous feedback on a point to
improve.
Knowledge: Student X likes to wake up early and she is always first in class.
Point to Improve: Student X gives the first opinion in the discussion too frequently which impacts negatively on
participation of others.
Focused TGH: Teacher points out in feedback that Student X is a ‘Starter’ (gestures triumphant, raised fist), lauds Student
X’s ability to initiate (connecting with examples from Knowledge) and describes the glittering future that awaits her, then
switches tone with a drawn out ‘but’ and returns to supportive mentor mode to explain how good discussion requires
equal, balanced participation from all.
In this example, as is usual, the humor derived from quite basic knowledge, the kind that
teachers can acquire through engaging students in five minutes of chat prior to the start of class.
Entertaining analogies are easily drawn between daily routines, or the hobbies students enjoy
and their performance in class e.g. always eats bread ~ always uses the same expressions, enjoys
tennis ~ enjoys fast exchange of ideas in discussion etc. However, to make effective use of such
humor, and to ensure that it is not misunderstood as ridicule, teachers must ensure that support is
simultaneously supplied i.e. praise accompanies criticism and teacher-student dialogue continues.
An additional benefit of this kind of humor is that it allows for an opportunity to bring quieter
students into the fold, validating their place in the group and opening an avenue for future
interaction with their classmates.
The final kind of familiarity is with the students’ culture. In this respect, I believe those forms of
culture that might be considered less intellectual are perhaps most important to know, such as
TV (shows and commercials), product/brand knowledge, and age-specific pastimes. If the
teacher has knowledge of these, then this can be used to good effect with either planned or
spontaneous humor. An example of the latter that occurred in one of my classes also serves to
provide an instance of when humor can make a learning point more salient. A group of students
were discussing the pros and cons of getting your hair dyed, but ran into trouble when trying to
articulate that this might cause damage to the scalp. After some negotiation of meaning, they
uncomfortably decided on ‘damage head skin’ as the best translation. When the discussion
ended, still unsatisfied with this, they asked me how to say ‘head skin’ in English. Knowing the
catchy jingle that accompanies the advertisement for ‘ScalpD’, a well-known Japanese shampoo,
I was able to simply hum the opening bars for them to realize that it was a word already known
to them, but as yet not understood. This resulted in much amusement, and hopefully, a higher
possibility of the word being acquired for future use. This particular student-teacher exchange,
like many others I have had, also helped me to enjoy my day.
As a final point, I would add that I personally think that it is important for students to become
familiar with humor in L2, for humor is an essential part of social ‘play’. As Cook (2000 p.150)
states, “Knowing a language, and being able to function in communities which use that language,
entails being able to understand and produce play with it, making this ability a necessary part of
advanced proficiency.” To do this, students need teachers to provide them with input by
incorporating humor and other elements of fun in their classes. I have often heard fellow
teachers saying that it is not our job to ‘entertain’ the students. Considering that The Oxford
Dictionary of English defines ‘entertain’ as to ‘provide (someone) with amusement or
enjoyment’, I would have to disagree with this sentiment. I believe, as it seems do many of the
respondents, that there is much to be gained from making our classes enjoyable for our students.
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CONCLUSION
This investigation found that teacher attitudes to humor in L2 English discussion classes are
predominantly positive. While it may be difficult to draw conclusions about learner outcomes of
TGH, we can see that many teachers have these in mind when using humor in class. The survey
results also suggest that this group of teachers have personal motivations for using humor, and
that perhaps TGH makes the workplace more comfortable by helping to fulfill the human need
to be liked and appreciated. It is hoped that the reader will use the results to examine where their
own attitudes to humor lie with respect to their fellow professionals’. Regarding future avenues
for investigation, perhaps the next step is to learn more about which kinds of humor teachers and
students feel are best suited to contribute to an effective learning environment.
REFERENCES
Aboudan, R. (2009). Laugh and Learn: Humor and Learning a Second Language. International
Journal of Arts and Sciences, 3(3), 90-99.
Ajzen, I. (2005). Attitudes, Personality and Behavior. Berkshire, U.K.: Open University Press.
Banas, J. A., Dunbar, N., Rodriguez, D. and Liu, S. (2011) A Review of Humor in Educational
Settings: Four Decades of Research, Communication Education, 60(1), 115-144 .
Bell, N. D. (2009). Learning about and through humor in the second language classroom.
Language Teaching Research, 13, 241-258. doi: 10.1177/1362168809104697.
Cook. G. (2000). Language Play. Language Learning. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press.
Dornyei, Z., & Taguchi, T.(2010). Questionnaires in Second Language Research. New York:
Routledge.
Mackey, A., & Gass, S. M. (2012). Research Methods in Second Language Acquisition. West
Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.
Martin, R. A. (2007). The Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach. Burlington, USA:
Elsevier Academic Press.
Masgoret, A.-M., & Gardner, R.C. (2002). Attitudes, Motivation, and Second Language
Learning: A Meta-Analysis of Studies Conducted by Gardner and Associates. In Dornyei, Z.
(2003). Attitudes, Orientations, and Motivations in Language Learning. Blackwell.
Stroud, R. (2013). The Laughing EFL Classroom: Potential Benefits and Barriers. English
Language Teaching, 6(10), 72-85. Doi: 10.5539/elt.v6n10p72.
234
Self-Observation as a Means of Teacher Development
Manna Aoki
ABSTRACT
This paper will discuss the process of the self-observations conducted in the EDC program and how
the observations lead to teacher development. The EDC self-observations (or peer-observations) are
conducted once in a semester, based on a videotape of an instructor’s own lesson. The author will
describe the problems she identified through the observation process and the changes in her teaching
by comparing her first year observation with the most recent observations. Then, what effects the
process had on her teaching in the EDC program and how these changes have affected her teaching
overall will be discussed.
INTRODUCTION
Self-observation is “activities in which information about one’s teaching is documented or recorded
in order to review or evaluate teaching (Richards & Farrell, 2005, p. 34)”. As a language teacher, I
have tried to reflect my own teaching by writing some class reports or keeping journals, and as a
teacher trainer in an education company, I watched quite a few lesson videos of other teachers.
However, my first self-observation in the EDC program came as a shock. I had never watched a
video of my own teaching to review myself closely before I came to EDC program, and I was
surprised at the difference between the subjective image of myself in class and objective reality. The
biggest gap was the teacher talk. Although I was aware of the importance of both “quality” and
“quantity” of teacher-talk (Cullen, 1998, p. 179), my teacher talking time was too long and the way
of talking was even wordier than I had thought. For example, I repeated the same thing twice or even
three times when giving instruction while I believed that I did not talk redundantly. As a result, the
student interaction was much less than the stated aim in the EDC program. Also, there was a
problem in my instructional language as well. For instance, I added teacher-generated examples
when it was totally not necessary. Of course I could find some positive aspects about my teaching
that can help develop my sense of confidence and reinforce a positive perspective of myself as a
teacher (Richards & Farrell, 2005, p. 47). Anyway, I could never have realized both positive and
negative points clearly if I have not watched and reviewed my observation videos. Now, once we
identify the problems, teachers can start examining the problems more closely, and implement the
strategies to deal with them (Richards & Farrell, 2005, p. 47). I will discuss this process of
self-observation later in Discussion part in more detail.
The process of self-observation is mentioned in the theory of reflective teaching as well. Tice
(2002) claims that reflective teaching is a process of self-observation, which contains monitoring
what we do in the classroom, thinking about why we do it, and thinking about if it works. She also
says “reflective teaching implies a more systematic process of collecting, recording and analyzing
our thoughts and observations…and then going on to making changes” (2002, “Why it is important,”
para. 2). When we spend many years in teaching and start to feel confident, it often seems to be
difficult to reflect our own teaching closely and properly. However, as a professional teacher, we
should keep teaching reflectively, and to do so, self-observation is one of the most effective ways to
develop our teaching.
This paper will discuss how my own teacher development proceeded in each step of the
videotaped self-observation, how these observations led to changes in my teaching, and how
important it is to keep observing ourselves as reflective teachers.
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DISCUSSION
There are four main steps in the self-observation in the EDC program.
1. Watch the observation video closely to identify what are good points and what are reflection
points for each aspect of the lesson such as Lesson Procedure, Function Presentation and
Practice, Monitoring and Feedback, Student interaction, The Teacher, and Overall.
2. Fill in the Observation Feedback form accordingly.
3. Identify three points for improvement through interaction with a program manager and/or a
peer, and plan a follow-up task based on these points.
4. Carry out the follow-up task.
There are some differences in the process depending on how long the teacher has worked in this
program. For example, the teachers have self-observation followed by the conference with a
program manager in first three semesters, but they will have a peer-observation (including
self-observation) as of their fourth semester. In any cases, the teacher should follow the procedure
above somehow.
The reflection points I figured out from my first video-observation in the EDC program with
the program manager were: 1) Student Interaction – Student-student interaction time should be
around 55 minutes in one EDC lesson but I spent only 41 minutes for the interaction among students.
2) Interactional Language – For instance, I gave teacher-generated examples in some stages where
the students usually do not need to be exposed to an achievable model. 3) Teacher Talk –
Throughout the lesson, my teacher talk was wordy, e.g., I repeated the same thing twice or even
more when I presented the phrases of the day. As these three points are related to each other, I
decided to write transcripts of my observation lesson as well as scripting the instruction for the future
lessons so that my teacher talk would be simple but efficient, and the student interaction could be
increased consequently. In addition, I started to jot down how many minutes I spent for student
interaction in each lesson in my class note so that I could become more aware of it.
As Cullen (2011) pointed out, “transcripts can be used to develop awareness of, and promote
practice in, the language used for various categories of teachers’ verbal behavior, such as eliciting
ideas and contributions from the students, giving instructions, explaining, and giving
feedback/dealing with errors” (p. 27), the transcripts from the lesson helped me face the problems
through recognizing the habits of my instructional language and the tendency of my teacher talk
undoubtedly. Then, I listed the main problems of my teacher talk, for example, the tendency to
repeat and paraphrase the same idea again and again when the topic is important, or the tendency to
give an example even when it is not needed. As the next step, I rescripted the lesson transcript,
mainly by deleting some unnecessary speeches and changing my instructional languages, and this
rescript has been used as the model of lesson transcript since then.
What I implemented in the lessons after the observation was to script the teacher talk before
the new lesson started and keep revising the scripts. Although I still had to struggle with reducing
some unexpected impromptu explanations, it was surprising that once I scripted the instruction for
the lesson, it was really easy to follow the script without looking at it. As a result, student interaction
increased lesson by lesson as I was getting used to the modified way of giving instruction. And I
found that the less teacher talk could affect student performance in a good way through monitoring
the students. The evidence to support this finding can be found in the class notes where I can check
how well students do in discussions and how much time I spend for student interaction, and also in
the discussion test results. Not a single class changed in a negative way about their discussion
performance in the first semester. At the end of the year, I was able to allocate around 50 minutes for
student-student interaction in every lesson.
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Manna Aoki
In my most recent observation, I identified the same problem such as both the quantity and
quality of teacher talk that leads to less student interaction. As a matter of fact, for three years after
the first observation, the same problems have been found in my self- (and peer-) observations. One
of the reasons for this is not related to my teacher beliefs but lies in my personality, I suppose.
Teacher personality is another good issue to think about, but I will save these topics for my future
research. Anyway, I found that I have had the same tendency about my teacher talk. Nevertheless,
the amount of time I spent for student interaction now is always around 50 minutes or more. Also, in
the most recent lesson transcript, a few teacher-generated examples were shown only when it was
necessary. In addition to that, my teacher talk became much less wordy than before. Therefore, I
claim that the self-observations help me continue to look at my teaching problems and to work on it
in the actual lessons, and make changes to improve my teaching.
The self-observation experience in the EDC program influenced my ideas about the teaching
and learning of languages as well. There are some aspects that my teaching beliefs have been
influenced. One is the importance of self-observation itself. The other is the influence of teacher talk
and the importance of student-student interaction. Before I started teaching in this program, I had
taught mainly in the business English courses in Japanese companies, where the lecturer-centered
classes are mainstream of most of the courses. Students are usually very quiet, and they hardly ask
questions or make comments during a lesson. Of course the extent of lecturer-centeredness varies
from course topic to topic, from class style to style, yet I had to talk as much as possible to be
recognized as a good business English teacher in most courses I was in charge. I believed that the
students could get some important information in class, then, try to use it in the real-world context.
However, through the self-observations in the EDC, I learned that teachers should always be aware
of their own teaching to continue to improve our own instructional practices. This can be said not
only for the novice teachers but also for experienced teachers, too. Besides, teacher talk can
influence the efficiency of student learning more than I ever thought. I had never scripted my own
teacher talk before, but now I know that less teacher talk that is clear and simple will give more
chance for the learners to interact with each other and practice the target language appropriately to
improve their foreign language skills.
CONCLUSION
Thinking about the effectiveness of self-observation as a means of teacher development, it is useful
to become aware of our own strengths and weaknesses as a teacher in addition to collecting
information about our teaching behavior (Richards & Farrell, 2005, p. 34). When I take into
consideration the influence of the observations I had in this program, I strongly believe that it should
be “self” observation. If an observation had been conducted by others such as program managers or
administrators and I had been told to increase student interaction, I would have changed the lesson
plan first of all to think about the time to allot to student interaction, not the teacher talk itself,
because I would not notice what the real problems were. The advantage of the self-observation is
that we are able to see ourselves teaching in a class and confront the instructional issues we want to
develop by ourselves. Like Stanly (as cited in Widodo, 2009, p. 38) argues, “self-observation is one
of the most powerful tools for a teacher to practice reflective teaching.” As an EDC teacher, I would
like to take an advantage of every chance to have self-observations and continue to keep the
transcriptions to review my teacher talk to teach reflectively. Furthermore, I would like to take a look
at the teacher personality, and the relationship between effective teacher talk and feedback as the
issues of my future development.
237
REFERENCES
Cullen, R. (1998) Teacher Talk and the classroom context: ELT Journal 52/3: 179-87.
Cullen, R. (2001). The use of lesson transcripts for developing teachers’ classroom language.System,
29(1). 27-43.
Richards, J.C. & Farrell, T.S.C. (2005). Professional Development for Language Teachers:
Strategies for teacher learning (pp.34-50). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Richards, J.C. (1990). The Language Teaching Matrix (pp.118-141). New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Tice, C. (2002). Reflective Teaching: Exploring our own classroom practice. BBC/ British Council
Teaching English. Retrieved on May 15, 2007 from
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/reflective-teaching-exploring-our-own-classroom
-practice.
Widodo, H. P. (2009). Key issues in teaching EFL/ESL intensive reading: A videotaped
self-observation report. The Journal of Effective Teaching, 9, 38-58.
238
Investigating How Student Perceptions of Discussion Class
Change During the Spring Semester
Paul Garside
ABSTRACT
This paper describes an investigation that sought to ascertain students’ perceptions about the
activities that comprise an English Discussion Class (EDC) lesson. A questionnaire was issued at the
beginning of the first lesson in order to establish the students’ pre-conceptions regarding the
anticipated levels of difficulty, enjoyment, and usefulness of the various speaking and listening tasks.
A second questionnaire was issued during the last lesson of the semester to find out to what extent
the students’ ideas had changed. Results indicated that in all cases activities had been less difficult,
more enjoyable, and more useful than had been anticipated. The vast majority of students indicated
that they felt both their fluency and confidence when speaking English had improved during the
course of the fourteen-lesson semester.
INTRODUCTION
The main purpose of Rikkyo University’s English Discussion Class is for students to develop their
spoken fluency (Doe, 2014). Having gone through the Japanese education system, all students have
studied English formally for a minimum of six years at junior high and high school. However, it is
well known that the focus in those schools tends to be on developing grammar, writing, reading, and
to some extent listening skills. These are the skills that are tested in academic entrance exams and,
perhaps understandably, they are therefore prioritized in the public education system. However, the
result is that many students have had limited opportunities to develop their speaking skills by the
time they enter university. This leaves them underprepared for future occasions when they may
actually need to speak English, whether for personal or professional reasons. Using the
communicative competence framework (Canale, 1983), we can expect many freshman university
students to be lacking in the sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic aspects, while they may be more
proficient in terms of their linguistic competence, having studied grammar intensively over several
years.
Japanese students are often all too aware of the deficiency in this aspect of their language ability,
something that is compounded by the pervasive attitude in Japanese society that people somehow
should be able to speak English, regardless of the fact that the education system is not set up in such
a way as to facilitate this aim. Minoru Ike (1995) stated it succinctly when he said, “a dreamy,
wishful desire to be able to speak English prevails throughout the country” (p.9). Indeed the Ministry
of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (2003) stated its intention to cultivate
‘Japanese with English abilities’ more than a decade ago. Yet many feel the current situation falls a
long way short of this, especially with regard to speaking skills.
The EDC course was established as a compulsory course for all freshmen students at Rikkyo in an
attempt to address this imbalance. The purpose of this study was to compare the students’
pre-conceptions with their later reflections regarding the kinds of activities that comprise an EDC
lesson. A questionnaire was distributed at the very beginning of the first lesson of the Spring
Semester, in order to ascertain the anticipated levels of difficulty, enjoyment, and usefulness of the
various speaking and listening tasks. A second questionnaire was then issued during the last lesson
of the semester to find out whether and to what extent the students’ ideas had changed. Depending
on the results, it would then be possible to see whether, at least from the students’ point of view, the
239
course has succeeded in its aims of improving their fluency, as well as the subsidiary aims of
improving confidence and reducing anxiety with regard to speaking English. These affective factors
are crucial because they are closely linked to a student’s willingness to communicate (Brown, 2007).
It hardly needs to be stated how fundamental the willingness to engage in communication is in a
course such as this.
This study’s research questions, therefore, can be stated as:
1) To what extent do EDC students’ perceptions of speaking and listening activities in class
change during the Spring Semester?
2) Do the students feel their fluency and confidence with regard to speaking English has
improved?
METHODOLOGY
Participants
The author gave the questionnaire in class to all his students who attended the first and last lessons.
This meant that 98 students received the first questionnaire, while 99 received the second, out of a
possible total of 104. Because attendance was very high for both lessons, this ensured that a wide
variety of students participated in the study. In terms of the students’ ability level, 16 were Level
One (the highest), 32 were Level Two, and 56 were Level Three. The author had no Level Four
classes during the Spring Semester of 2014.
Procedure
The questionnaires used in this study were designed to gather students’ opinions on all of the
activities commonly conducted in an EDC class (see Appendices A and B). These consist of:
speaking English only for 90 minutes; talking in pairs; talking in small groups (of 3-5 students);
speaking or answering a question in front of the whole class; speaking to a partner without stopping
for 2-3 minutes (for fluency-building purposes); taking a speaking exam; listening to classmates
speaking; and listening to the instructor speaking. They were written in both English and Japanese in
order to reduce the risk of any misunderstanding, and also to encourage students to make the effort
to answer honestly and thoughtfully. They were anonymous, also with the intention of encouraging
frank responses.
The initial questionnaire was distributed at the very beginning of the first lesson. This was seen as
essential, as the point was to ascertain students’ pre-conceptions of the various activities. Had they
experienced even one activity they would already have begun to form opinions about the class and
the potential levels of difficulty, enjoyment etc. In truth they may already have begun to form such
opinions to some extent, based on the appearance of the room, the demeanour of their classmates
and the instructor etc. Nevertheless, every effort was made to ensure the questionnaire was
completed at the earliest opportunity. The instructor did no more than request that it be filled out
honestly. He then waited outside the classroom until the last questionnaire had been completed and
placed in the envelope provided.
Specifically, the students were asked to decide how difficult, enjoyable, and useful they anticipated
each activity would be. It was assumed that they would at least be familiar with the concept of each
activity, with the possible exception of ‘speaking to a partner without stopping for 2-3 minutes’.
Difficulty and enjoyment levels were allocated a five-point scale, with a neutral option provided (e.g.
‘neither difficult nor easy’) in order to allow students to express their feelings, including
ambivalence, as accurately as possible. Usefulness, however, was allocated only a four-point scale. It
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was considered that something cannot be ‘neither useful nor not useful’ as by definition that would
be ‘not useful’!
The follow-up questionnaire, distributed during the final lesson, followed a very similar format and
was conducted under similar conditions, with the instructor encouraging honest responses before
waiting outside. Administering it in the final lesson was seen as essential, as the students would have
completed the final test and therefore be in a better position to reflect fully on the semester as a
whole. However, the timing within that final lesson was not seen as of particular importance, other
than making allowances for latecomers.
The content of the second questionnaire was very similar to the first, with students this time asked to
reflect on how difficult, enjoyable, and useful they felt the various activities had actually been. Two
additional questions were added however, in which students were asked to indicate whether they felt
able to speak English more fluently, and with more confidence, than at the beginning of the semester.
A four-point scale, with no neutral option, was adopted for these questions because it was felt
students were unlikely to be ambivalent about such fundamental aspects of the course. Finally, a
blank text box was included in the second questionnaire, in which students were invited to make any
additional comments, either in English or Japanese.
RESULTS
The first research question investigated the extent to which EDC students’ perceptions of speaking
and listening activities changed during the Spring Semester, which was their first semester as
university students.
In Figures 1 to 3 below, a score out of 5 (or 4 in the case of Figure 3) was obtained by first
calculating the percentage of respondents who selected each answer, then weighting their answers
accordingly. For example, ‘very difficult’ was given five times the weighting of ‘not difficult at all’,
‘a little difficult’ four times, etc. In each table, the bar on the left represents the first questionnaire,
distributed in the first lesson; the bar on the right represents the second questionnaire, distributed in
the final lesson. The labels on the horizontal axis correspond to the following activities, as stated in
the actual questionnaires:
 English only - ‘Speaking English only for 90 minutes’
 Pair work - ‘Talking in pairs’
 Group work - ‘Talking in small groups (of 3-5 students)’
 Whole class - ‘Speaking or answering a question in front of the whole class’
 Fluency - ‘Speaking to a partner without stopping for 2-3 minutes’
 Disc test - ‘Doing a speaking exam’
 Classmates - ‘Listening to my classmates’
 Teacher - ‘Listening to my teacher’
As can be seen in the figures below, in all cases student responses indicate that activities had proven
to be less difficult, more enjoyable, and more useful than had been anticipated before the course
began.
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5
4.5
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
Figure 1. Comparison between anticipated and reported level of difficulty.
The biggest difference between anticipated and reported difficulty level was in ‘Listening to my
teacher’, which dropped by more than a full point, from an average score of 3.136 to 2.06. This was
closely followed by ‘Speaking English only for 90 minutes’, which also fell sharply from 4.6 to
3.589. The smallest change was in ‘Speaking to a partner without stopping for 2-3 minutes’ (the
fluency-building activity), which fell from an average of 4.667 to 4.212. It had been expected to be
the most difficult activity and had indeed turned out to be so. ‘Listening to my classmates’ had been
anticipated to be the least difficult aspect of the lesson and was also found to be so.
5
4.5
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
Figure 2. Comparison between anticipated and reported level of enjoyment.
In terms of students’ enjoyment of each activity, by far the biggest difference between anticipated
and reported level was in ‘Speaking English only for 90 minutes’. This in fact rose by almost a full
point, from an average score of 3.189 to 4.122. Perhaps unsurprisingly ‘Doing a speaking exam’ was
expected to be the least enjoyable activity and proved to be so. However, the score for this also rose
significantly, from 2.575 to 3.214. ‘Listening to my classmates’ had been anticipated to be the most
enjoyable aspect of the lesson, which turned out to be the case.
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Paul Garside
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
Figure 3. Comparison between anticipated and reported level of usefulness.
Although it can be seen that all activities in this category were perceived as more useful at then end
of the semester than at the beginning, the changes were substantially less than for the other
categories. The biggest change was in ‘Speaking to a partner without stopping for 2-3 minutes’,
which grew from an average of 2.805 to 3.176. ‘Listening to my teacher’ had been anticipated to be
the most useful and had indeed turned out be so. However, ‘Doing a speaking exam’ had been
expected to be the least useful, but in fact ‘Speaking or answering a question in front of the whole
class’ was perceived as actually being the least useful activity at the end of the semester.
In order to compare the three main categories directly, an average score was calculated
from all the activities (pair work, group work, etc.) Because the scores for difficulty and enjoyment
were based on a five-point scale, while usefulness was based on a four-point scale, it was necessary
to convert the average scores into percentages. Table 1 shows that the anticipated level of difficulty
was highest, while enjoyment was the lowest. However, at the end of the semester usefulness was
rated highest and difficulty had actually become the lowest. It is hardly surprising, then, that the
biggest change (16.08%) between student expectations at the beginning of the semester and
perceptions at the end was in the overall level of difficulty of classroom activities.
Table 1. Comparison of the Three Main Categories
Difficulty Enjoyment Usefulness

Anticipated level 79.68 65.58 75.30
(%)
Reported level (%) 63.60 77.98 81.70
Change (%) 16.08 12.40 6.40
The second research question investigated whether students felt their fluency and confidence had
improved as a result of taking the EDC course during the Spring Semester. With regard to fluency,
Figure 4 below shows that the vast majority of students responded in the affirmative. In fact a total of
90.9% said that they either agreed or strongly agreed that they could speak English more fluently
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than at the beginning of the course. Although a small number of students disagreed, no one indicated
strong disagreement.
Disagree
9.1%
Strongly agree
22.2%
Agree
68.7%
Figure 4. ‘Do you feel you can speak English more fluently now?’
The overwhelming majority of students also responded positively when asked whether they felt
more confident about speaking English than at the beginning of the course, as shown below in
Figure 5. In fact 92.9% indicated either agreement or strong agreement.
Disagree Strongly
6.1% disagree
1.0%
Strongly agree
18.4%
Agree
74.5%
Figure 5. ‘Do you feel more confident about speaking English now?’
DISCUSSION
It is clear from these results that students perceived EDC lesson activities as less difficult, more
enjoyable, and more useful than had been anticipated at the beginning of the semester. The fact that
in terms of the students’ expectations, difficulty rated the highest offers some insight into the
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potential anxiety that many students have at the beginning of the course. This should act as a
reminder to instructors of the importance of trying to lower student anxiety by creating a warm and
friendly atmosphere in which students feel safe and relaxed about speaking English. It is reassuring
to know, however, that the actual level of difficulty, as perceived by students at the end of the
semester, dropped sharply (16.08% on average), representing the biggest change of all three main
categories. It is also reassuring that the idea of speaking English for 90 minutes appeared far more
difficult to students than the reality, as judged by their answers in the second questionnaire.
The fluency-building activity (‘Speaking to a partner without stopping for 2-3 minutes’)
obtained the highest difficulty rating, both in terms of expectations and reality. This has pedagogical
implications, as many EDC instructors (the author included) tend to start the lesson with this activity.
However, if this activity is viewed as the most difficult, it may be worth considering moving it to a
later part of the lesson, especially since one of the purposes of the first activity is to get students
relaxed and motivated for the lesson (Brown, 2007).
The fact that activities in class were found to be less difficult than had been anticipated
may be one reason why they were also perceived as significantly more enjoyable than had been
expected (12.4% on average). This is an important finding since enjoyment and interest has long
been recognized as one of the key elements of intrinsic learner motivation (Dornyei & Ushioda,
2011). The biggest individual gain in this category was for ‘Speaking English only for 90 minutes’,
which suggests that the students themselves may have been pleasantly surprised by their ability to
sustain English-only activities for that length of time.
The gains in the usefulness category were more modest (6.4% on average), although this may be
partly explained by the fact that there was no neutral option for participants to choose. Deprived of
this option, some students may have been reluctant to choose one of the two negative answers,
which could also partly account for the fact that this category had the highest overall score at the end
of the semester. Nevertheless, the fact that it did have the highest score (81.7% on average) suggests
that the majority of students feel the course and its activities are of value, as illustrated by the
following student comments:
Regardless of how well I can speak English now, these lessons will definitely be useful for my future.
Through this class, I became to want to go abroad and speak English with foreign people.
The vast majority of students also indicated that they felt more confident about speaking English
(92.9%) and that they felt their fluency had improved (90.9%) by the end of the semester. This is
reinforced by the following comments:
Through Discussion Class I feel more familiar with English and that I can speak English more
fluently.
Having eight class members is just the right size and … I feel that my speaking ability has improved
considerably.
This study has not attempted to match those claims with empirical data regarding the students’
output, but the fact that, in the eyes of the participants themselves, the course has been successful in
its stated aim of improving students’ fluency is a major validation of the EDC course.
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CONCLUSION
These results clearly indicate that Rikkyo University students felt considerably more positive about
the EDC course, and its individual lesson activities, at the end of the Spring Semester than at the
very beginning. However, they are based on the classes of only one instructor, therefore it would be
interesting to see whether other classes produced similar results. In particular, a study that included
Level Four participants would make it more representative of the student body as a whole. It would
also be worthwhile to investigate the extent to which students’ perceptions of their improvement
matched empirical data regarding their actual performance.
REFERENCES
Brown, H. D. (2007). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy (3rd
ed.). White Plains, NY: Longman.
Canale, M. (1983). From communicative competence to communicative language pedagogy. In J.
Richards & R. Schmidt (Eds.), Language and communication. London: Longman.
Doe, T. (2014). Willingness to communicate and confidence in English Discussion Class. New
Directions in Teaching and Learning English Discussion, 2, 3-10.
Dornyei, Z., & Ushioda, E. (2011). Teaching and researching motivation (2nd ed.). Harlow, UK:
Pearson Education Ltd.
Ike, M. (1995). A historical review of English in Japan (1600-1880). World Englishes, 14(1), 3–11.
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (2003). Action plan to cultivate
“Japanese with English abilities”. Retrieved from
http://warp.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/286794/www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/houdou/15/03/03033101/001.
pdf
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APPENDIX A
Student Questionnaire – Lesson 1
How do you imagine you will feel about doing the following things in English Discussion Class? Please circle the appropriate number.
ディスカッションクラスで今学期行うことについて、どのように感じると思いますか？今までの経験や想像で答えて下
さい。該当する番号に○を付けて下さい。
(a) Speaking English only for 90 minutes 英語で 90 分話す

1 very difficult 2 a little difficult 3 neither difficult nor easy（どちらでもない）4 not very difficult 5 not difficult at all
1 really enjoy 2 enjoy 3 neither enjoy nor dislike（どちらでもない）4 dislike 5 hate
1 very useful 2 useful 3 not very useful 4 not useful at all
(b) Talking in pairs ２人一組で話す

(c) Talking in small groups (3-5 students) 少人数のグループ（３-５名の学生）で話す

(d) Speaking or answering a question in front of the whole class クラス全員の前で話すことや質問に答える

(e) Speaking to a partner without stopping for 2-3 minutes ２-３分間止まることなく、自分が話し続ける

(f) Doing a speaking exam スピーキングテストを受ける

(g) Listening to my classmates クラスメートの話を聞く

(h) Listening to my teacher 先生の話を聞く

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APPENDIX B
Student Questionnaire – Lesson 14
How do you feel now about doing the following things in English Discussion Class? Please circle the appropriate number.
ディスカッションクラスで行うことについて、今どのように感じますか？該当する番号に○を付けて下さい。
(b) Speaking English only for 90 minutes 英語で 90 分話す

(b) Talking in pairs ２人一組で話す

(c) Talking in small groups (3-5 students) 少人数のグループ（３-５名の学生）で話す

(d) Speaking or answering a question in front of the whole class クラス全員の前で話すことや質問に答える

(e) Speaking to a partner without stopping for 2-3 minutes ２-３分間止まることなく、自分が話し続ける

(f) Doing a speaking exam スピーキングテストを受ける

(g) Listening to my classmates クラスメートの話を聞く

(h) Listening to my teacher 先生の話を聞く

Do you feel you can speak English more fluently now than at the beginning of the semester?
今学期の始めに比べたら、今のほうが流暢に英語で話せると思いますか？
1 strongly agree 2 agree 3 disagree 4 strongly disagree
Do you feel more confident about speaking English now than at the beginning of the semester?
今学期の始めに比べたら、英語で話すときに今のほうが自信がありますか？
1 strongly agree 2 agree 3 disagree 4 strongly disagree
Please write any additional comments you wish to make below, in either English or Japanese.
ほかにコメントがありましたら、下のボックスに記入してください。英語でも日本語でもいいです。
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Professional Development for Teachers through
Self-Observation: A Self-Reflection
Cameron High
ABSTRACT
This paper looks at the self-observation process as part of the professional development of
language instructors at the English Discussion Center at Rikkyo University. A descriptive outline
of the observation procedure is provided along with the author’s reflective experience of two
observations, in year 1 and year 3. Self-observation as a tool of self-reflective teacher
development is discussed in terms of what changes in attitudes and teaching beliefs the author
had as a result in participating in these self-observations. The paper concludes by outlining the
author’s positive experience of the observation process and suggests a central role of teacher
self-observations in any teacher professional development program.
INTRODUCTION
Teacher development, professional development, or teacher education programs are all terms or
essentially processes, that inherently imply some kind of furthering of knowledge, and an
improvement or some change in teaching beliefs or convictions over time. Defined by Avalos
(2001), “Professional development is about teachers learning, learning how to learn, and
transforming their knowledge into practice for the benefit of their students’ growth” (p. 11). The
role of “self” within professional development of language teachers in the form of a reflective
process has been widely commented on (Mann, 2005; Kabilan, 2007; Sellars, 2012). Sellars
(2012) argues that, “the most powerful, durable, and effective agents of educational change are
not the policy makers, the curriculum developers or even the education authorities themselves;
they are the teachers” (p. 461).
Rikkyo’s EDC program provides instructors with a number of platforms on which to
develop professionally and to reflect on their role to provide students with an educational
environment most conducive to learning, “primarily through pre-semester orientations, weekly
faculty development meetings, observations, peer observations, materials development and the
researching and writing of articles for the EDC journal.” (English Discussion Class, Instructor
Handbook, Fall Semester 2014, p.245) All of which aim to not only foster critical self-reflection
and self-awareness into “what” teachers do in the classroom, but also to consider the “why” and
“how” of teaching practices.
The role of observations as an important aspect of professional development for
language teachers has been studied by Mattos (2013), who believes that video recordings
promote critical reflection and help develop the role of the teacher from practitioner to observer,
“This critical reflection and awareness process is the first step towards the changes that may be
necessary for professional development, since it promotes the teacher’s empowerment” (p. 21).
Cakir (2010) builds on this sense of teacher empowerment through self-reflection further by
stating, “the degree of autonomy and responsibility we have in our work as teachers is
determined by the level of control we can exercise over our actions” (p. 2). Barocsi’s (2007)
study examined the efficacy of the observation process for pre-service teachers and concluded
that, “the process offered the student teachers an opportunity to look more closely at what they
did in the lessons and to consider why they did it and what the outcome was” (p. 137). Mercado
and Baecher (2014) specifically recommend the implementation of video-based self-evaluation
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observations for professional development of ESL teachers, suggesting that the personal
experience involved in reflecting on self-performance and engaging in self-analysis helps
teachers learn from themselves creating “a powerful end result” (p. 65).
The focus of this paper is to outline the self-observation process at Rikkyo University,
assess through a narrative account of the observation experience the influence it has had on the
author’s ideas to teaching EDC classes, and comment on the level of importance that
observations can play in the professional development of language teachers.
DISCUSSION
The lesson observation process is structured to incorporate all five years of employment for
instructors at EDC. The year of experience dictates who will observe the lesson (i.e. Self +
Program Manager (PM), or Self + PM + Peer), which lesson will be observed, and what post
observation tasks should be carried out.
Pre observation tasks require the instructor to inform the students they will be recorded
on video, with an emphasis made that the purpose is to assess the performance of the instructor,
and not their classroom performance. One day prior to the lesson recording, a detailed lesson
plan including supplementary materials must be submitted to the PMs.8 Shortly prior to the
ninety-minute observed lesson, administrative staff place the camera at the back of the class
ensuring full classroom image capture leaving the instructor to start the recording.
Post observation tasks include the self-observation of the lesson by the instructor
followed by the completion of a self-reflective task. Whilst watching their lesson, instructors
analyze their performance and self-evaluate their lesson under headings including lesson
procedure, function presentation and function practice, monitoring and feedback, student
interaction, the teacher, and overall comments. Following this self-observation, detailed written
feedback is provided by PMs for each of the categories mentioned above and a feedback meeting
is scheduled (with PM or Peer, depending on the instructors’ experience within the program). To
conclude the self-observation process, instructors are tasked with identifying three specific
teaching areas they think could be improved, and sometimes, related follow-up tasks are
assigned to address such areas.9
In order to asses any changes in attitudes to teaching and understanding of student
learning as a result of taking part in this observation process, a comparison shall be made from
the author’s first semester self-observation at EDC recorded in April 2012 (observation 1) with
the recent third year, first semester experience in April 2014 (observation 2). Any such
developments shall be discussed within the contexts of the self-reflective criteria mentioned
above.
Lesson Plan
The lesson aims for Observation 1 were as follows: For students to learn the correct usage of
asking for and giving reasons within the meaningful context of “Making Friends at University.”
8
The EDC lesson plan template includes information on the class date and time, characteristics of the class and student needs,
lesson aims, personal aims and materials required. Each lesson stage is then broken down into lesson stage timings, the
interactive dynamic (i.e. student-student, individual, teacher-student), the task itself, a detailed account of the step-by-step
procedure, the stage aims with any anticipated problems with solutions.
9
Examples of such tasks could include scripting a language presentation to reduce teacher talk time, create a controlled
practice activity to ensure greater frequency of function phrase usage, or re-planning lesson stage timings if lesson time
management was not effective.
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Cameron High
Students will develop accuracy in the functions through controlled and semi-controlled practice
and they will develop fluency through applying this target language in two student centred free
practice discussions. As this is only the second class in the semester, my main personal aims are
to build on the rapport established in the first class and to make sure the students become
comfortable with my classroom management and teaching style.
For Observation 2, the lesson aims were: For students to learn the correct usage of
“asking for and giving reasons” within the meaningful context of “Making friends at university.”
Students will develop accuracy in the function through controlled and semi-controlled practice
and they will develop fluency through applying this target language in two student centred free
practice discussions. Students will also be encouraged to further their automaticity of the lesson
2 function: “Asking for and Giving Opinions”. My personal aims are to build on the initial
rapport established and continue to react to immediate class needs as they arise. Lesson stage
timings will be set according to this need.
The objective for initial function phrase accuracy of “Asking for and Giving Reasons”
in controlled and freer practice activities followed by the aim for students to develop greater
fluency in the function in extended discussions remained the same in both observation plans.
What did change was the recognition of the importance to scaffold the previous function of
“Asking for and Giving Opinions” with a clear model of:
(A) Opinion? (B) Opinion… (A) Reason? (B) Reason…
The observation 1 plan treats the lesson language function in isolation. The observation
2 plan realizes the need for a bridging of the two language functions, where “Opinions” are
made stronger by supporting them with “Reasons”. The significant change in teaching approach
here, after two years on the EDC program, highlights greater awareness of the efficacy of
scaffolding language (that permeates throughout the observation 2 plan) and a clearer
understanding that bridging notional functions leads to more effective student usage in terms of
frequency and appropriacy. Establishing and building close rapport that breeds trust between the
learner and teacher remained a constant aim in both plans.
The other significant change in approach regarding the lesson plan in these observations
is a shift towards adapting to class needs and adjusting lesson stage timings as the need arises
and not being so rigidly fixed to the timer, a noticeable feature of the plan for observation 1. A
key personal objective for this initial self-observation process was to show an ability to follow a
unified curriculum incorporating lesson stages at the suggested timings. The plan for observation
2 still recognizes this wider need, yet shows an understanding for the need to alter tasks and
allocate more or less time for stages according to the immediate needs of the students. The
second observation plan suggests more flexibility in the classroom and more confidence to
implement changes on the spot to address class needs as they arise. The positive change in terms
of preparing for a class and anticipating class needs is touched on in Barocsi’s (2007) study on
the observation process of pre-service teachers, “participants demonstrated a better
understanding of the process in the classroom in terms of planning, which became a more
deliberate and successful undertaking” (pp. 137-138).
Lesson Procedure
Key points to assess when self-reflecting class procedure include the following: administering of
the quiz at the start of class, completing a fluency activity10, practice activities, discussion
10
P. Nation’s 4/3/2 fluency activity is shortened to 3/2/1 for EDC due to time constraints.
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preparation activities, and two extended discussions of ten and sixteen minutes 11 . For
observation 1, overall class time management was raised as a concern by PMs. In feedback it
was noted that the second discussion ended as the bell sounded for the end of class. As a result,
teacher feedback on student performance in this final discussion was rushed and conducted
outside of class time. To address this, the question was posed “If you taught the class again, what
would you change in terms of time devoted to specific segments of the lesson to ensure that you
would include feedback after the second discussion?”
The self-observation allowed for an opportunity not only to see what teaching
techniques were used well or could be improved, but also how well activities were applied and
managed within the ninety-minute timeframe. A reduction of teacher talk time in language
presentations was achieved through scripting teacher output. Shorter, less verbose lesson stage
transitions were used and more succinct content feedback was provided with clearer stage
instructions. PM feedback from observation 2 on class timings was noted as “Your overall time
management was very strong which allowed for meaningful completion of all activities,
including feedback.” Delivering the required lesson procedures within the required timeframe
suggests a positive change over the two years between the two observations in terms of
managing class dynamics to achieve class aims within the lesson time.
Function Presentation, Practice and Feedback

The language function for both observation 1 and 2 was “Asking for and giving reasons.”12 For
the teacher presentation of this function in observation 1, an elicitation of both the question and
sentence forms was attempted. Concept checking questions (CCQs) were asked to the students
to establish an understanding of the meaning13. Individual and choral drilling activities were
used at the end of the presentation to establish initial accuracy in the form and drilling of the
functions was used as a teaching technique in subsequent practice and feedback activities.
For observation 2, function phrases were presented on the board and were not elicited,
no CCQs were used, and drilling of the questions and phrases was not done. This was a
conscious decision and represents a considerable shift in how language came to be presented in
all EDC classes. Such a change moved more from the “How?” we use the language, as was the
focus for observation 1, towards the “Why?” we use it. “One or two reasons can support your
opinions and make your ideas stronger,” became the teacher fronted “sell” for this function in
observation 2. Teacher modeling of the function in context became a tool in presentations and as
noted by a PM in feedback, “You included a lot of content in your feedback, which illustrated
clearly how the functions and communication skills are used in the service of collaboratively
sharing ideas.” Regular content feedback and initial teacher modeling containing appropriate and
effective function use replaced eliciting, CCQs and drilling techniques. Watching presentations
from observation 1 and 2, the latter was faster and more meaningful with context, with students
quickly adopting the required language for the practice activities. Moreover discussions in
observation 2 seemed to be more interactive with greater effective use of both the “Reasons” and
11
The length of discussions depends on student numbers attending. For a nine-student class, three groups of three students
will hold 10 and 12 minute discussions. For an eight-student class, two groups of four students will hold 10 and 16 minute
discussions.
12
Question forms included, “Why do you think so?” “Can you tell me why?” and “How come?” Sentence forms included “It’s
mainly because…” “One reason is…” and “Another reason is…”
13
For example, (“It’s mainly because…” Is this a strong reason?) (“One reason is…” Is this for the first or second reason?)
(“Another reason is…” Is this for the first or second or third reason?)
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Cameron High
“Opinions” function.
Student Interaction
When observing the ninety-minute class, student-student talk time (SSTT) interactions are
recorded to assess the balance with teacher talk time (TTT). SSTT could be in the form of pair
work practice activities or group discussions. The EDC Instructor Handbook suggests, “As a
general rule, aim for around 55 minutes of direct student-student interaction each lesson” (p. 61).
SSTT for observation 1 was recorded at 53 of the 90 minutes, or 60% of the total class time.
SSTT for observation 2 showed an increase to 63 minutes, or 70%.
In a previous reflective paper written at a similar time to observation 1, the author noted,
“Before entering the EDC, the core CLT beliefs I valued the most were the role of the teacher as
being a facilitator of language and not the source of it, creating highly interactive
student-centered classes with students encouraged to interact in L2, a promotion of fluency over
accuracy in communicative tasks, and a recognition of the importance of notional functions
presented meaningfully to engage students and provide a link from the classroom to real-world
contexts” (High, 2012). Such a core teaching principle of the teacher as language coach and not
font of knowledge and to maximize SSTT remained consistent from observation 1 to 2. The
increase in student-student interaction from 60% to 70% shows a solidifying of this principle
and greater desire to implement it.
The Teacher
Assessing teacher presence, instructional language and TTT, PM feedback from observation 1
was, “In general, TTT was very clear throughout the lesson. There were only one or two
moments that may have been a bit unclear for students.” Self-observation provided the
opportunity to recognize when these moments occurred and why students had problems
understanding. Instructions were given with the teacher’s attention focused on the board and not
on the learners, and contained superfluous language inappropriately graded to the students’ level.
Noting the problems of failing to hold the attention of all students when speaking, an attempt
was made to engage all students in any TTT, whether that be in language presentations, feedback
or task instructions. More experience of course content and board-work layout allowed for
increased teacher-student interaction and less reliance on the board for teaching prompts.
Teacher focus in observation 1 centered more on the class processes and procedures in terms of
what I, the instructor, had to do and say, which on occasion led to a distraction from the needs of
the learner and from the learners themselves.
PM feedback from observation 2 noted that, “Your supportive yet unobtrusive presence
as a teacher created an atmosphere very conducive to learning, and your students are clearly
aware of, and comfortable with what you expect from them.” Clear instructional language
ensuring students could proceed with tasks without confusion was noted as a positive
development from observation 1 to 2. Moreover, by engaging with students more in TTT, this
seemed to promote greater student investment in the lesson through a clearer understanding of
what was required from them in a discussion class.
Overall Comments
Overall comments on both observations contain three points on which the instructor is to
“continue working on.” For observation 1, these points are recommended by a PM and then
discussed during the teacher and PM meeting to conclude the observation process. For
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observation 2, the teacher self-generates the areas for improvement and these are then discussed
in the final conference with course management.
The overall comments for observation 1 were as follows: Please continue to work on the
following points: 1. Test-Teach-Test topics: create or select topics that you think are most likely
to elicit the target function. 2. Time management: allow for at least five minutes of feedback and
practice before the end of lesson. 3. Post-feedback activities: incorporate short activities that
allow for practice in context.
The overall comments for observation 2 were: Please continue to work on the following
points: 1. Experiment with different types of fluency activity procedures to emphasize pressure to
repeat content. 2. Make Practice activities more controlled to encourage variety of function
phrase use. 3. Experiment with increasing discussion preparation time to see if it has an effect
on content production in the discussions.
Both observations contained specific, detailed points related to student tasks.
Observation 1 highlighted a need for better test questions that would allow for easier elicitation
of the target language. Post-feedback activities did not feature in observation 1 and were thus
suggested as a tool for practice in context for students to immediately act on feedback.
Observation 2 noted the need for more controlled practice before the freer second practice to
generate a greater variety of the function phrases and questions. All of these points from year 1
and year 3 observations address the need and suggest exact techniques to help improve student’s
use of the lesson target language. This attention to aiding student performance through more
effective teaching techniques is present in year 1 and year 3 observations. Observation 2 builds
on this by outlining experimentations with fluency and discussion preparation activities to see
how modifications affect student content generation.
All of these “points to continue working on” are geared towards fostering a more
effective learning environment for students. Such a goal is the key focus in both overall
comments for observation 1 and 2, and for the author, has led to the realization that no matter
how much of an improvement is seen in overall time management of lesson tasks, such tasks can
and should constantly be evaluated for their efficacy in helping students to achieve an improved
output.
CONCLUSION
In self-observing two classes from the first and third years of employment at EDC, the author
continued on a journey of self-reflection as a teacher. By looking at your own work, by
self-analyzing and by seeing what was done effectively and what could be improved, the
observation process is a vital learning tool for language teachers to assess how you perform in
class, how students respond to you, and over time, what changes you make to your teaching and
what improvements can still be made. This reflective study in comparing observation 1 and 2
noted changes in the author’s lesson planning to allow greater in-class flexibility to address
immediate class needs, an improved ability to manage time to achieve class objectives, and also
showed a shift in teaching techniques better suited for a fluency based course. Teaching beliefs
over the two observations were also solidified in terms recognizing the need for quick rapport
building and maximizing student-student interaction. Most importantly, both observations
highlighted the need for constant self-development as a teacher; to continually search for better
ways and techniques to create a learning atmosphere best suited for learner success. As Cakir
(2010) notes, “It should be kept in mind that teaching is a process of becoming and it is a
never-ending process” (p. 8).
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Cameron High
REFERENCES
Avalos, B. (2011). Teacher professional development in Teaching and Teacher Education over ten
years. Teaching and Teacher Education. 27, 10-20.
Barocsi, S. (2007). The role of observation in professional development in foreign language
teacher education. WoPaLP, Vol.1, 125-144.
Cakir, I. (2010). Criticizing ourselves as teachers through observation: from reflective to effective
teaching. English for Specific Purposes World. 30(9), 1-12.
English Discussion Class, Instructor Handbook (Fall Semester, 2014). Unpublished Manuscript.
Rikkyo University EDC, Tokyo, Japan.
High, C. (2012). Self-reflection. Unpublished Manuscript. Rikkyo University, Tokyo, Japan.
Kabilan, M.K. (2007). English language teachers reflecting on reflections: A Malaysian
experience. TESOL Quarterly. 41(4), 681-705.
Mann, S. (2005). The language teacher’s development. Language Teaching. 38, 103-118.
Mattos, A. (2013). Through the looking glass: Self-observation awareness and change in teacher
education. Contemporary English Teaching and Learning in Non-English Speaking
Countries. 2(2), 1-26.
Mercado, L.A. and Baecher, L. (2014). Video-Based Self-Observation as a component of
developmental teacher education. Global Education Review. 1(3), 63-77.
Sellars, M. (2012). Teachers and change: The role of reflective practice. Procedia - Social and
Behavioral Sciences. 55, 461-469.
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Collaborative Dialogue and Uptake: English Discussion Class
Paul Landicho
ABSTRACT
There have been different studies of collaborative dialogue that have been conducted in the past,
such as how learners work together during ‘focus on form’ activities (Long, 1991), and how they
collaborate around L2 writing activities (Amirkhiz, 2013). In this paper however, we will
concentrate on how learners support each other during oral L2 production, as well as how they
negotiate meaning.
This paper also aims to build on what was learnt in the author’s previous paper regarding
Collaborative Dialogue (Watanabe, 2007) within the context of EDC (English Discussion Class)
and its students. In addition, this study also aims to look into how frequently Language Related
Episodes (LREs) between L2 learners are used in EDC lessons, namely the final Discussion Test
in the Fall semester. In doing so, it will also aim to find out how frequently this leads to uptake.
INTRODUCTION
Swain’s Comprehensible Output Hypothesis (1985) talks about how learners must be given
opportunities for contextualized and meaningful use of language, as well as shift the learner
from a merely semantic analysis of the language to a syntactic one. In addition to this, Jackson
(2008) takes the approach that an LRE is “any part of a dialogue where language learners ‘talk
about the language they are producing, question their language use, or correct themselves or
others’ (p. 298). In typical EDC lessons, gaps in discussions commonly occur, which often
results in LREs amongst learners as they are supporting each other. This paper aims to conduct a
qualitative and quantitative analysis of these episodes.
The term ‘negotiation for meaning’ was founded upon Krashen’s (1981) notion that
“knowledge of a second language is acquired through exposure to comprehensible input at the
‘i+1’ level”. This refers to the area just beyond the learner’s existing knowledge of L2, which is
likely to be comprehended and thus acquired.
Long (1985) also points out that the most beneficial way in which input is made
comprehensible is via internal adjustments, which can be seen as attempts by learners and their
conversation partners to overcome difficulties of comprehension through the act of negotiating
meaning. To bring these problem utterances within the optimum i+1 level, they are checked,
repeated, clarified, or even modified in some way. Thus, the importance of these negotiations
amongst groups in the L2 classroom, is that they can help to present i+1 input in order to aid
individual learners and their current interlanguage level. Furthermore, through this process,
learners are compelled to modify their output to make it more comprehensible to fellow
members in the group.
This appears to be complementary with Mitchell’s (2013) findings related to peer-to-peer
dialogue and ‘languaging’ within Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development (ZPD). As such, to
learn in the ZPD does not require a designated teacher as learners can assist each other as they
collaborate in an activity, whilst learning from the contribution of others. (Wells, 1999)
Another key construct in this study is “uptake”. Foster (2005) considers uptake to be
successful when a learner demonstrates that they can use a feature correctly in their own speech.
This is particularly the case during episodes where learners have expressed a gap in their
knowledge (e.g. by struggling to continue their utterance, or by making an error), and another
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participant provides assistance to the learner to help complete their utterance. In EDC lessons,
uptake is regularly facilitated by one of the other participants during students’ discussions.
Ohta (2001) talks about ways in which learners support each other during L2 oral
production. She mentions how learners’ production and formulation of L2 utterances involves
solving a whole range of phonological, lexical, and syntactic problems, all in real time. Another
important point that she talks about is how the interlocutor may lack the working memory
capacity to solve this all instantaneously. At the same time, the listening partner, who is less
burdened in terms of actual production, is in a good position to both analyse what is being said,
and to predict what might come next. Thus, listeners are able to collaborate with the speaker by
providing assistance even for language points not yet automatized by their own L2 ability.
Below are some of the strategies used by peers outlined in Ohta’s study to support their
partner, which commonly take place in the context of EDC students’ discussions, and will be
analysed in this paper.
Methods of Assistance (when Description

interlocutor is struggling)
Waiting Listener gives the interlocutor time to complete an L2
utterance, even when struggling, without making any
contribution.
Prompting Listener repeats the syllable or word just uttered, allowing
the interlocutor to keep going.
Co-construction Listener contributes an item (syllable, word, phrase, etc)
that works toward completion of the utterance.
Explaining Listener explains in L1 (Japanese)
Figure 1. Ohta’s Methods of Assistance during classroom peer interaction
Reactive LREs (Ellis, 2001) are those where the trigger was an instance where a communication
breakdown took place. For the majority of such LREs, this was usually a pause from the speaker,
which was either: when the person couldn’t think of a word in English; or couldn’t complete the
required function which they were being evaluated on.
For this study, the following research questions were asked:
1) To what extent does uptake occur in a meaning-centred EDC group during their final
test of the course?
2) Are there any significant differences that occur between different classes of differing
levels of L2 proficiency in each observed test group?
3) How frequently does uptake occur in reactive LREs within the observed test groups?
METHOD
Participants
This study involved eleven different discussion classes consisting of twelve lower intermediate
discussion test groups and eleven higher-intermediate level test groups. The learners consisted of
first-year university students (n=81) enrolled in the EDC program, which is a required course at
this university, in addition to other English communication classes. The lessons are taught as
part of a unified curriculum (Hurling, 2012).
In particular, the students in each class were primarily Japanese, although there were a
few students from China, and their ages ranged from 18 to 20 years old at the time of the
recordings. Regardless of their nationality, all learners were non-native speakers of English.
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Students’ English proficiency levels are determined via their TOEIC scores, and are
accordingly placed into their respective class. Their levels ranged from lower intermediate
students (Level 3) with a TOEIC score between 280 to 479 (n=44) to higher intermediate
students (Level 2) with a TOEIC score between 480 to 679 (n=37).
As such, all interactions in the classroom were in the students’ L2 (i.e. English). In
addition to this, the recordings were made during their final discussion test of the course, and
usage of Japanese during the test was penalized. What this meant was that students were
required to use 100% English, as well as some of the skills they had acquired throughout the
course, to deal with any breakdowns in communication that would occur.
Instrumentation
To be able to analyze the verbal interactions that took place during the students’ discussion tests,
their final discussion tests were both recorded digitally with the use of an IC recorder that was
placed in the middle of the test group’s table, and via informal handwritten notes as the
instructor was listening. Both of these were analyzed more closely in conjunction with each
other outside class.
One reason it was decided to record each group’s tests was that this allowed for more
comprehensible recordings, particularly the LREs where there was a distinct method of
assistance, predominantly triggered as the interlocutor was struggling (Ohta, 2001). This was
mainly due to the fact that during discussions tests, only one group, consisting of three or four
students, was present in the room whilst the remaining group(s) were asked to wait quietly
outside. This is in contrast to normal lessons whereby two or more groups are simultaneously
having discussions, which makes it much more difficult to accurately record and isolate any
LREs taking place between different group members in the room, especially when many
students are talking at the same time.
Another reason is that this made it easier to keep a tally of a number of things, including
the number of LREs that took place, whether there was any uptake as a result of this (Foster,
2005), and what method of assistance was utilized (Ohta, 2001). One more important thing to
note was that because the discussions were all held under test conditions, any teacher
intervention was not permitted, meaning members of each test group had to work together
themselves to repair any breakdowns in communication that would occur. This was also the case
during the students’ discussions within non-test lessons. As such, all LREs were reactive by
nature amongst learners, as opposed to preemptive, which are mostly initiated by the teacher as
defined by Farrokhi (2007). This made a big difference in helping to narrow the focus of this
study to learners’ collaborative dialogue, as opposed to those occurring between the teacher and
learners in other L2 classrooms.
RESULTS
In this study, we define reactive LREs as those that occurred when learners required assistance
from other group members, particularly as breakdowns in communication took place during their
discussion test. In such instances, listeners would need to intervene which may or may not lead
to successful uptake. This falls in line with Ellis (2001: 286) where he mentions that “learners
may opt to not produce uptake, even if the opportunity arises”.
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Table 1. Frequencies and Percentages of Uptake Moves from observed Test Groups
LREs Uptake
Groups n n %
Level 2 64 39 60.9
Level 3 59 37 62.7
Total (n=23) 123 76 61.8
Below are some instances that highlight test groups’ LREs and possible uptake, which are
highlighted in bold.
Class A (Test Group 1) – sample group which demonstrated no uptake with lexis-oriented LRE
via explaining with L2, but instead demonstrated uptake with prompting (two instances)
S1: And company’s leader…
S2: Company’s leader?
S1: Company’s leader is almost… But woman has more kind of pressure, but kind...
S2: Kind?
S1: Kind…Kinds of
S3: Oh.
S4: Many kinds?
The above case illustrates a Level 3 test group that utilized several instances of prompting to
help the interlocutor to continue. This may have also facilitated uptake by aiding the interlocutor
to provide the correct plural noun form. What is important to note is that this method of
assistance commonly took place a lot less frequently with the majority of Level 2 test groups,
Maybe this was due to the notion that they are of a higher L2 proficiency, and thus generally
display greater confidence with their willingness to communicate in L2 (Doe, 2014).
Class B (Test Group 2) – sample class demonstrating 100% uptake with instance of
co-construction
S1: I think men feel pressure to follow stereotypes for example men is stronger than women and
men don’t cry.
S2: Oh, do you mean men have a strong (pause)…
S1: image.
S2: Image? Oh I see.
The above instance takes place in a group that was able to demonstrate 100% uptake, with this
particular one being successful due to one of the partners utilizing co-construction as a way to
assist the struggling interlocutor.
Class B (Test Group 1) - sample group demonstrating zero uptake and instance of waiting
S1: Can I ask a question?
S2: Sure
S1: From women’s point of view, what advantage of gender equality?
S2: Mmm…(long silence)…advantage?
S1: Advantage.
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S2: Eh..For example..mm..in the work..in past, woman didn’t get a job and didn’t get
salary.
S1: Yeah. So if women got gender equality, women would work more comfortable and get
salary.
The above exchange was taken from a group that exhibited zero uptake throughout their test,
which is in contrast to the previous exchange. What is interesting to note is that this is consistent
with Ellis (2001), who points out that learners may choose not to produce uptake, even if the
opportunity arises. He also acknowledges that uptake does not essentially indicate L2 acquisition.
Mackey and Philp (1998) also hold this view that “noticing/learning” is possible without any
production of uptake.
Class C (Test Group 2) – sample group demonstrating full uptake with instance of
co-construction
S1: From women’s point of view, men should, how can I say ‘yoshinau’ in English?
S2: Um…take care of?
S1: Yes, men should take care of their family.
This seems similar to Class B (Test Group 2). However in this instance, these students were able
to help each other because one of the listeners in the group was able to provide the L2 equivalent
word at the interlocutor’s request.
DISCUSSION
On the surface, in regards to uptake, one would think that there would be a higher rate of uptake
within the Level 2 test groups because of their higher level of L2 proficiency compared to
learners of the Level 3 test groups. However as the results show, what was surprising to find was
that both levels displayed almost the same percentage, which were on average just above 60%.
After this discovery, in order to attempt to reach a deeper understanding of how this result came
about, it was decided to analyse what methods of assistance students of each level employed to
facilitate this uptake.
From the collected recordings, the author decided to focus more on the classes that
featured test groups with contrasting tendencies. This was done in an effort to determine if the
method of assistance used was a significant factor in leading to either a higher level of uptake or
little to no uptake.
Table 2. Methods of Assistance used in relation to Uptake Moves for Class A (Level 3)
Method of Assistance
Test LREs Uptake Waiting Prompting Co-Construction
Group n n % n n n
1 9 5 55.55 1 7 1
2 3 3 100 0 1 2
As can be seen in the results above, Class A featuring Level 3 students displayed contrasting
levels of uptake. Test Group 1 featured more LREs compared to Test Group 2; however, it
featured a much lower level of uptake, which was almost half that of Test Group 2. The different
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methods of assistance suggest that this may have been a reason to explain why this happened.
Specifically, Test Group 1 employed lots of prompting, but Test Group 2 favoured
co-construction.
Table 3. Methods of Assistance used in relation to Uptake Moves for Class B (Level 3)
Test LREs Uptake Waiting Prompting Co-Construction
Group n n % n n n
3 3 0 0 2 1 0
4 2 2 100 0 0 2
Another interesting trend to note was between the Class B Test Groups, also featuring Level 3
students, as they displayed the most extreme contrast in terms of uptake. Test Group 3 featured
three LREs, but zero uptake, which was the lowest amongst all the classes for both levels. This
was in direct contrast to Test Group 4 as they exhibited full uptake, even though they had less
LREs. Upon closer analysis, these groups employed different methods of assistance similar to
Class A. Test Group 3 favoured waiting and prompting, but featured no co-construction,
whereas Test Group 4 had the same traits as Test Group 2 as they too had a preference to
co-construction.
Table 4. Methods of Assistance used in relation to Uptake Moves for Class C (Level 2)
Test LREs Uptake Uptake Waiting Prompting Co-Construction
Group n n % n n n
5 3 3 100 1 0 2
6 3 2 66.66 0 0 3
In an effort to present a balance of results, Test Groups from Level 2 were then examined more
closely. Similar to Classes A and B, those which had a wide contrast of uptake were of particular
interest to the author. This was discovered in Class C, in which Test Groups 5 and 6 had the
same frequency of LREs, but differing levels of uptake. More closely, Test Group 5 featured
100% uptake through one instance of waiting, and two instances of co-construction. At the same
time, Test Group 6 only utilized co-construction, but resulted in less uptake.
CONCLUSION
Based on the analysis conducted on the collected data, there has been evidence to suggest that
whatever method of assistance is employed by L2 learners often leads to uptake. However, it
does appear that groups utilizing co-construction have a higher chance of uptake, than those
employing other methods, such as waiting and prompting. This may be due to the way in which
co-construction is a more explicit way of assisting the interlocutor in L2, without having to code
switch back to the learners’ L1.
At the same time, one limitation of this study is that because the data only consists of
audio, any uptake occurring via non-verbal signals (such as nodding from the listener or speaker)
could not be taken into consideration in the final tally. For possible areas of further research, it
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would also be interesting to hold a longitudinal study to analyze what trends that take place,
particularly in terms of uptake, during all the discussion tests that are held throughout both
semesters of the course, as well as finding out how consistent this is for other groups of differing
proficiency, such as beginner to advanced level students.
REFERENCES
Amirkhiz, S. Y. Y., Bakar, K. A., Samad, A. A., Baki, R., & Mahmoudi, L. (2013). EFL/ESL
Learners’ Language Related Episodes (LREs) during Performing Collaborative
Writing Tasks. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 4(3), 473-479.
Doe, T. (2014). Willingness to communicate and confidence in English Discussion Class. In T.
Doe, S. Hurling, Y. Kamada, M. Livingston, T. Moroi (Eds.), New Directions in
Teaching and Learning English Discussion, 3, 3-10.
Ellis, R., Basturkmen, H., & Loewen, S. (2001). Learner uptake in communicative ESL
lessons. Language learning, 51(2), 281-318.
Farrokhi, F. & Gholami, J. (2007). Reactive and preemptive language related episodes and
uptake in an EFL class. Asian EFL Journal, 9(2), 58-92.
Foster, P., & Ohta, A. S. (2005). Negotiation for meaning and peer assistance in second
language classrooms. Applied linguistics, 26(3), 402-430.
Hurling, S. (2012). Introduction to EDC. In T. Doe, S. Hurling, M. Livingston, T. Moroi (Eds.),
New Directions in Teaching and Learning English Discussion, 1, 2-10.
Ismail, L., & Samad, A. A. (2010). The Effects of Tasks on Language-Related Episodes (LREs)
During Focus-on-Form Instruction. Language Education in Asia, 1 (1), 87-98.
Jackson, D. O. (2001). Language-related episodes. ELT journal, 55(3), 298-299.
Krashen, S. D. (1985). The input hypothesis: Issues and implications. Addison-Wesley Longman
Ltd.
Landicho, P. (2014). Collaborative dialogue in the form of language related episodes during
EDC students’ discussions. In T. Doe, S. Hurling, Y. Kamada, M. Livingston, T.
Moroi (Eds.), New Directions in Teaching and Learning English Discussion, 3,
285-291.
Long, M. H. (2000). Focus on form in task-based language teaching. Language policy and
pedagogy: Essays in honor of A. Ronald Walton, 179-192.
Mitchell, R., Myles, F., Marsden, E. (2013). Second Language Learning Theories. New York:
Routledge.
Nunan, D. (1988). The Learner-Centred Curriculum. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University
Press.
Nunan, D. (1999). Research Methods in Language Learning. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge
University Press.
Ohta, A. S. (2001). Second language acquisition processes in the classroom: Learning Japanese.
Routledge.
Swain, M., & Lapkin, S. (1995). Problems in output and the cognitive processes they generate:
A step towards second language learning. Applied linguistics, 16(3), 371-391.
Swain, M., & Lapkin, S. (1998). Interaction and second language learning: Two adolescent
French immersion learners working together. The Modern Language Journal, 82(3),
320-337.
Wells, G. (1999). Language and education: Reconceptualizing education as dialogue. Annual
Review of Applied Linguistics, 19, 135-155.
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Evaluating the Effectiveness of Self-Assessment in
Discussion Classes
Shalvin Singh
ABSTRACT
This study examines the effectiveness of utilizing self-assessment activities in English
discussion classes, specifically exploring their interaction with the assessment provided by the
instructor. Self-assessment activities are an effective means of communicating instructional
objectives to learners and promoting autonomous learning within the classroom. However, as
such activities are typically utilized in concert with instructor-assessment, their efficacy must be
examined in the context of this dynamic, symbiotic relationship. The self-assessment data of 54
freshmen university students was collected and analyzed in comparison to the assessments
provided by the instructor. The results show significant differences between instructor- and
learner-assessments. Assessment congruence did not significantly vary over time, as learners
increased their familiarity with self-assessment activities, nor did the focus of assessment
substantially impact congruence. While self-assessment can be a useful complement to
instructional feedback, questions remain regarding the most effective means of implementing
autonomous learning strategies in the foreign language classroom.
INTRODUCTION
The notion that learners should be autonomous is hardly contentious in SLA literature. As
Littlewood (1999) states, if defined as “involving students’ capacity to use their learning
independently of teachers, then autonomy would appear to be an incontrovertible goal for
learners everywhere, since it is obvious that no students, anywhere, will have their teachers to
accompany them throughout life” (p. 73). More debatable, from the instructor’s perspective is
the manner in which such autonomy should manifest itself, and the specific role that ought to be
taken by learners, inside and outside the classroom, in guiding and controlling their own learning.
Institutional, logistical, and practical constraints may limit the ability of instructors to implement
a dialogical approach involving learners in decisions regarding the effective planning, pacing,
and evaluating of classroom tasks and curriculum design (Cotterall, 1995). Learners themselves
may be unaccustomed, or unwilling, to take on the more autonomous role expected by
instructors.
Various approaches have been employed by instructors and learners to foster more
autonomous learning. Self-access centers have been utilized in various teaching contexts, both as
an optional service available to learners, and as an integrated and/or mandatory part of the
teaching curriculum (Aston, 1993; Banton, 1992; Barnett & Jordan, 1991; Sturtridge, 1997).
While the quick availability of a multitude of resources offers the potential for learners to
complement classroom lessons with autonomous, self-directed study, the challenges of
effectively navigating and utilizing resources, as well as issues of motivation and the difficulty
of selecting appropriately challenging materials, may limit their benefits for language learners.
Similarly, computer assisted language learning has received recent attention due to its potential
to offer learners near limitless level-appropriate language materials, coupled with the guidance
and feedback absent in many self-access centers (Levy, 2009; O’Rourke & Schwienhorst, 2003;
Taylor, 2014). Such resources continue to improve and proliferate, and while the depth of
feedback offered by such services may be minimal or challenging for learners to act upon, they
offer a means for learners to improve their linguistic proficiency relatively independent of the
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instructor. Other approaches to fostering learner autonomy focus upon introducing learners to the
kinds of skills and strategies they can utilize to guide they own learning more effectively
(Bialystok, 1981; McDonough, 1999; Skehan, 1991). This may include the use of
self-assessment activities in which students are trained to assess their own proficiency and
performance (Jafarpur & Yamini, 1995; Rivers, 2001; Smolen, Newman, Wathen & Lee, 1995)
as well as goal-setting activities where learners select specific goals in order to more effectively
guide independent language learning (Griffee & Templin, 1998; Moeller, Theiler & Wu, 2012;
Saint- Léger, 2009).
The focus of this study will be upon ways in which autonomous learning can be fostered
within the classroom, specifically in directing learners towards using self-assessment activities
to more effectively manage their own language learning. Specifically, the relationship between
self-assessment and goal-setting, as well as the degree to which the assessments of learners
mirror those of the instructor will be examined in the context of English discussion classes.
While fostering autonomous learning remains a fluid, imperfect, dynamic process, this study will
examine the degree to which autonomous learning strategies can complement the role of the
instructor and contribute to a more effective learning environment.
REVIEW OF RELEVANT LITERATURE

Various studies have examined the use of self-assessment and goal-setting activities, generally
focusing upon their validity, effectiveness, and the response of learners to such activities.
Saint-Léger (2009) found that only learners’ assessment of their participation improved over a
semester, while no significant differences were found in their assessment of fluency, vocabulary
and general speaking skills. Whether this was due to the increasingly difficult language and
content of later lessons, or the inaccuracy of learner assessment may warrant further research
and discussion, but is indicative of the challenge for learners to provide extended, in-depth
assessment of their performance. Conversely, a longitudinal study examining the implementation
of LinguaFolio in Nebraskan high schools found that, over the course of four years, student
self-assessments, linked explicitly to goal setting, improved over time and correlated positively
with increased academic achievement (Moeller, Theiler & Wu, 2012). The specific and
actionable goal-setting plans students were asked to design, as well as the four-year time frame
of the study, may be one factor underlying the contrast with Saint-Léger’s study. Butler and Lee
(2010) found that self-assessment activities did not correlate significantly with increased student
performance at an elementary school in Korea. The authors note that various factors, such as the
young age of the subjects, as well as the additional English lessons more affluent students
received in addition to public school instruction, may have impacted the results. Research
investigating the validity of self-assessment activities offers similarly mixed results. A study
comparing the self-assessments of eighth grade French immersion students to their scores on
several skills-based tests found relatively weak correlations (Peirce, Swain & Hart, 1999).
However, in another study examining the self-, peer-, and teacher-assessments of adult learners’
presentation skills utilizing a standardized rubric, Patri (2002) found significant correlations
between the three forms of assessment, particularly between peer- and teacher-assessment. As
learners attended a two-hour training session prior to the four-lesson experimental period, the
relatively strong correlations arguably demonstrate the importance of providing learners with
appropriate training to increase the validity of their assessments.
Although autonomy is generally perceived to be an important aim, the specific manner in
which learners believe autonomy ought to be fostered and implemented in the classroom remains
ambiguous. A study of Spanish university students enrolled in an intermediate English course
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suggests that while learners responded positively to the principle of learner autonomy, most still
believed instructors should continue to independently set course objectives, select materials, and
assess performance (Breeze, 2002). Similarly, students enrolled in a Japanese language course at
an American university participating in a self-assessment and goal-setting project gave only a
marginally positive response to the project, disagreeing on the extent to which it was more
helpful in addressing their needs than a standard curriculum (Kato, 2009). Instructors also may
express a mixed response to implementing an autonomous learning curriculum. Borg and
Al-Busaidi (2012) found that while most instructors at a learning center in Oman expressed a
desire to promote learner autonomy, a similar number cited practical considerations, such as
institutional constraints, learner expectations, and curriculum requirements as impediments to
developing such a program. However, the response of the researchers, which included training
sessions and meetings with instructors demonstrate that while undertaking to develop such a
program may necessitate a considerable investment of time and resources, instructors generally
support efforts to increase learner autonomy.
SELF-ASSESSMENT ACTIVITIES IN ENGLISH DISCUSSION CLASSES

In the context of the English discussion classes held at Rikkyo University, which aim to improve
learners’ communicative ability and fluency through small group discussions, self-assessment
activities are one means of clarifying the specific communicative skills that constitute the focus
of individual lessons. As the program’s aim of improving discussion skills differs
paradigmatically from the grammar and vocabulary-focused lessons with which most Japanese
learners are familiar, lesson aims may appear vague and unclear to students. Self-assessment
activities, based upon the goals and instructional objectives of discussion classes, can provide
learners with a set of criteria with which to evaluate and analyze their performance, and raise
awareness of the specific skills which contribute to effective participation in a discussion (Singh,
2014). Utilized in tandem with actionable goal-setting activities based explicitly on students’
assessment of their strengths and weakness, such activities can allow students the opportunity to
take greater responsibility over their own progress as language learners.
However, whether such assessments are valid, useful, and complementary to the feedback
provided by the instructor remains an issue deserving of further consideration and study. While
such assessment is formative in nature, and aims to provide individual learners with
opportunities to improve future performance, the degree to which it is reinforced, questioned, or
contradicted by the feedback provided the instructor warrants examination. This study aims to
further analyze this subject, specifically by exploring the following research questions:
1. To what degree do individual students select the same strengths and weaknesses as
instructors when assessing their own performance? Are these assessments in agreement
greater than 60% of the time?
2. Are students and instructors more likely to concur when assessing strengths or assessing
weaknesses?
3. Does this level of agreement vary over time? More specifically, are students, in classes
held later in the semester, having become more familiar and accustomed to
self-assessment, significantly more likely to assess their performance in a manner
similar to the instructor?
Principally, this study seeks to further explore the relationship between self-assessment
activities and the formative assessment provided by instructors. While instructors may seek to
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promote autonomous learning activities in the classroom, the manner in which such activities are
incorporated and utilized by language learners remains dependent on the symbiotic interaction
between instructors and individual students. Investigating this relationship is one means of better
understanding the ways in which individual learners engage with self-assessment activities.
PARTICIPANTS
Participants for this study were 54 freshmen students enrolled in a mandatory English discussion
course at Rikkyo University. All students had TOEIC scores ranging from 310-650 and were in
10 Level Two or Three classes, i.e., mid-level classes. Twenty-three participants were male, and
thirty-one were female. All students typically were between the ages of 18 and 20. Each class
had a maximum of 8 students, except for one class with 9 students. Generally, all participants
graduated from a Japanese high school and therefore had studied English for 6 years, primarily
focusing on grammar and vocabulary. All students will have studied one previous English
discussion class in the Spring semester, typically with another instructor, as this study examines
the performance of students in the 2014 Fall semester.
DESIGN & PROCEDURE

Following participation in two extended discussions in each lesson’s final 45-minutes, students
were asked to complete a self-assessment activity in which they evaluated their performance
with reference to a set of functions and communication skills based on the instructional
objectives of each lesson (See Appendix A). Specifically, students would approximate the
number of times they utilized each function or communication skill in the preceding discussion.
Following the first discussion, students also selected two strengths, and one weakness,
constituting a goal for the second discussion. After reading these statements of strengths and
weaknesses to their peers, students received feedback from the instructor, based on their
performance in the preceding discussion. Feedback, also consisting of two strengths and one
weakness, was directed at each small group. At the end of lessons four, eight, and twelve,
students’ self-assessment sheets were collected by the instructor. Students were notified that
these self-assessments would not impact class grades, nor be analyzed by the instructor until the
completion of the course. Only students who were present in all of lessons four, eight, and
twelve had their data included for this study. Also, any student with data that was missing,
illegible, or incorrectly completed was excluded from this study.
Students’ self-assessment sheets were analyzed in reference to the above three research
questions. To examine the level of agreement between students’ self-assessments and the
assessments provided by the instructor, students’ self-assessment sheets were analyzed for
congruence in relation to the feedback provided by the instructor. As students selected two
strengths and one weakness, the maximum level of agreement in each session was 100% (3
matches) and the minimum was 0% (0 matches).
To examine differences in agreement between students’ assessment of their strengths and
weaknesses, the above data was divided and analyzed for statistical significance using a paired
samples t-test. To examine whether congruence between instructor- and student-assessments
varied over time, a paired samples t-test was also conducted comparing whether there were
significant differences in the level of agreement between lessons four and twelve. The data were
submitted to the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) with the alpha level set
at .05.
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RESULTS
Three statistical tests were conducted examining the level of agreement between instructor- and
student-assessment. To measure the overall level of agreement between instructor- and student
assessment, the mean number of total matches were calculated, divided into a percentage, and
submitted to a one-sample t-test. A test value of 0.60 (60%) was set to examine whether
instructor- and student-assessment differed significantly. The sample mean of congruence of
0.44 (SD = 0.19) was significantly different from 0.60, t(53) = -6.22, p < .01 (Table 1). The
effect size d of -0.85 indicates a large effect, and significant differences between
instructor-assessments and student-assessments, which were in congruence approximately 44%
of the time (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Histogram of overall level of agreement.
To examine whether instructor- and student-assessments of strengths and of weaknesses differed

significantly, a paired-samples t-test was conducted to compare overall congruence of strengths
and weaknesses. To adjust for multiple comparisons, and reduce the likelihood of Type 1 error, a
Bonferonni correction was applied and the level of significance was adjusted to .025. The results
of the test were not significant, t(53) = 1.12, p = .27 (Tables 2 and 3). This indicates that no
significant differences were found in the level of congruence between instructor- and
student-assessments of strengths and weaknesses (see Figure 2).
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Figure 2. Comparison of assessments of strengths and weaknesses.
A second paired samples t-test was conducted to examine whether the congruence of instructor
and student-assessments differed over time, by comparing differences in the level of agreement
of lesson four and lesson twelve scores. An additional Bonferroni correction was applied, and
the level of significance was adjusted to .0125. The results of the test were not significant, t(53)
= -0.697, p = .49 (Tables 4 and 5). The results indicate that the level of agreement between
instructor- and student-assessments did not differ significantly over time (see Figure 3).
Figure 3. Changes in level of agreement between Lessons 4 and 12
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Shalvin Singh
Table 1. One-Sample t-Test of Congruence Between Instructor- and Student-Assessments
Test Value = 0.6

95% CI of the Difference
M SD SEM t df p MD LL UL
0.44 0.19 0.03 -6.22 53 .00 -0.16 -0.21 -0.11
Table 2. Descriptive Statistics of Congruence in Strengths and Weaknesses
N M SD SEM
Strengths 54 0.45 0.21 0.03
Weaknesses 54 0.41 0.29 0.04
Table 3. Paired Samples t-Test of Difference in Assessments of Strengths and Weaknesses
Paired Differences (Strengths – Weaknesses)

MD SD SEM t df p LL UL
0.05 0.30 0.04 1.12 53 .27 -0.04 0.13
Table 4. Descriptive Statistics of Congruence in Lesson 4 and Lesson 12
N M SD SEM
Lesson 4 54 1.41 0.86 0.12
Lesson 12 54 1.50 0.84 0.11
Table 5. Paired Samples t-Test of Difference in Assessments of Lessons 12 and 4
Paired Differences (Lesson 12-Lesson 4)

MD SD SEM t df p LL UL
0.09 0.98 0.13 0.70 53 .49 -0.17 0.36
DISCUSSION
The above results offer several implications for the effective use of self-assessment activities.
The 44% level of agreement between instructor- and student-assessment indicates that, while
there is substantial overlap between the assessments, the differences that exist are significant,
and potentially capable of affecting the manner in which assessment is utilized by learners.
Various factors may account for these disagreements. As feedback was delivered to small groups,
such differences may primarily represent distinctions between individual learners and the
limitations of providing relevant feedback to small groups and entire classes. Whether feedback
offered by the instructor is more, or less, beneficial to learners than the individualized feedback
provided through self-assessment activities is a matter of some contention amongst learners
(Singh, 2014). However, such disagreement may potentially be beneficial when generalized
instructional feedback fails to adequately address issues of relevance to individual learners. In
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circumstances in which the differences in individual learner performance are substantial, or

where providing personalized feedback to learners is especially challenging, self-assessment
may be one means of ensuring that learners receive feedback that remains meaningful and useful,
addressing specific, individual needs.
Disagreement in assessment may also be reflective of the varying perceptions of
importance learners assign to individual communicative skills. While based upon a lesson’s
instructional objectives, self-assessment activities do not typically provide an in-depth
explanation of the relative level of importance assigned by instructors, and the program more
broadly, to such skills. Instructors may, for instance, allocate greater attention to the successful
acquisition of recently introduced communicative skills, consequently devoting less focus to
previously introduced skills. Learners, unaware of this implicit hierarchy of instructional
objectives may assign equal weight to all skills, or grant specific skills greater importance in
comparison to the instructor. Although such a distinction may at times result in contrasts with the
instructor’s specific aims, it offers learners a greater opportunity to autonomously direct their
language learning, most notably by selecting goals of individual importance and relevance.
In a questionnaire published in Singh (2014), students expressed much greater
apprehension regarding the selection of strengths in comparison to the selection of weaknesses.
This disparity may reflect students’ tendency to regard weaknesses as the mere failure to utilize a
communicative skill, but strengths as the superior use of a skill, a criterion learners may view as
more challenging to interpret. However, to the extent that this finding of no significant
differences in the level of agreement between instructor- and student-assessments of strengths
and weaknesses is in some measure supportive of the validity of such assessments, student
apprehension specifically regarding the selection of strengths may be somewhat unfounded.
Although further research is required to investigate the cause of such disparate levels of
confidence, as well as to investigate the validity of specific assessment choices, there is no
indication from the data analyzed in this study that such apprehension is warranted.
While various studies examining self-assessment have provided learners with extensive
training sessions (see Moeller, Theiler & Wu, 2012; Patri, 2002), this study instead examined
whether increasing learner familiarity with self-assessment activities and instructional feedback
led to differing levels of agreement. That significant differences were not found in congruence at
different points in the semester indicates that the level of agreement between instructor- and
student-assessment is not substantially impacted by familiarity with self-assessment tasks. One
factor potentially underlying this relationship may be the complexity of the task itself. The load
placed upon learners to effectively complete self-assessment activities was relatively minor,
consisting centrally of the selection of strengths and weaknesses. Although self-assessment
training may be appropriate in specific teaching contexts where tasks of increased complexity
and length are utilized, it does not appear to be imperative for the successful implementation of
simpler, more focused self-assessment activities.
CONCLUSION
The effectiveness of self-assessment ultimately depends on the manner in which learners utilize
such activities in concert with instructional feedback. In circumstances where considerable
contrast exists between the two forms of assessment, students may question which form of
feedback is most relevant in addressing their individual language learning needs, and whether
their own assessments are accurate and useful. While such differences may be demonstrative of
learners exercising autonomy, providing students with guidance on how to address such
disagreements can assist in increasing the effectiveness of self-assessment. Presenting both
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forms of assessment as formative ways of examining learner performance reminds students that
the central role of classroom assessment is improved future performance. As such feedback aims
to improve future outcomes, learners should be granted responsibility to independently make use
of instructor- and student-assessments, cognizant of the value of both forms of assessment.
While this study centered upon examination of the congruence between instructor- and
student-assessment, future studies may wish to address questions regarding the validity of such
assessments, specifically comparing learner performance to student self-assessment. This may
contribute to further understanding the existing disagreement between different forms of
assessment. Researchers may also wish to examine larger numbers of instructors, as well as
students in other teaching contexts, in order to more broadly understand the factors underlying
effective utilization of self-assessment activities. Further understanding the interactional
relationship between instructors and learners can help contribute to the successful
implementation of autonomous learning strategies, and can be one means of aiding learners in
attaining language goals. Self-assessment is one manner of prompting learners to more directly
take responsibility for such outcomes, and thereby manage their own independent language
learning.
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Borg, S., & Al-Busaidi, S. (2012). Teachers’ beliefs and practices regarding learner autonomy.
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Breeze, R. (2002). Attitudes towards learner autonomy among Spanish university students.
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Bullock, D. (2010). Learner self-assessment: an investigation into teachers’ beliefs. ELT
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Butler, Y. & Lee, J. (2010). The effects of self-assessment among young learners of English.
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Jafarpur, A. & Yamini, M. (1995). Do self-assessment and peer-rating improve with training?
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Moeller, A., Theiler, J., & Wu, C. (2012). Goal setting and student achievement: a longitudinal
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APPENDIX - Self-Assessment Activity for Lesson 4
Functions and Communication Skills Discussion 1 Discussion 2

0 1 2 0 1 2
Balancing Your Opinion (One advantage/disadvantage is (that)… Another advantage/disadvantage is…)
3+ 3+
0 1 2 0 1 2
Asking to Balance Opinions (What are the advantages (of…)? Are there any (other) disadvantages?)
3+ 3+
0 1 2 0 1 2
Checking if Everyone’s Finished (Does anyone want to add something? / have any other ideas?)
3+ 3+
0 1 2 0 1 2
Changing Topics (What shall we discuss first / next? Why don’t we discuss <TOPIC>?)
3+ 3+
0 1 2 0 1 2
Checking Understanding (Do you understand/follow me? Sorry I don’t follow you... Can you explain?)
3+ 3+
0 1 2 0 1 2
Follow-up Questions (What..? Why..? Where..? Who..? When…? Are…? How..? Do..? Have..? )
3+ 3+
0 1 2 0 1 2
Agree (I totally agree… I think you’re right… I partly agree…)
3+ 3+
0 1 2 0 1 2
Disagree (I’m sorry, but I disagree… I don’t think so… I see your point, but…)
3+ 3+
I did a good job using ______________________and ______________________.
GOAL My goal for the next discussion is to use ___________________ more.
272
Working Toward Better Discussions: Can Pre-Teaching
Topic-Related Vocabulary Positively Affect the Quality of
Group Interaction?
Nicholas Smith
ABSTRACT
This study looked at how a brief consciousness-raising vocabulary activity would enhance the
quality of an extended group discussion. The participants in this study were low-intermediate
1st-year Japanese university students in a compulsory English Discussion course. The
experimental group was first exposed to key words using extracts of a pre-lesson reading article
and then provided a list of the same words for quick reference during group discussions. The
results show that, on average, they produced a broader range of the target vocabulary and a
marginally higher level of interaction. This study will consider both the efficacy of this activity
and whether the use of topic-related vocabulary has a significant effect on the quality of
discourse.
INTRODUCTION
The context of this study is the English Discussion Class Program (EDC) at Rikkyo University,
Tokyo. A typical Discussion class is organized into approximately eight stages, beginning with a
homework reading quiz and followed by a fluency exercise, function phrase presentation, a
practice activity, a preparation activity and short discussion (D1), and a final preparation activity
and extended discussion (D2). Throughout this sequence are regular intervals of instructor and
peer feedback including a summary at the end of the lesson. Essentially, the lesson structure is
controlled, student-centered, and easy to facilitate.
The overarching goal of the program is “to develop student’s communicative abilities so
that they can hold fluent, interactive discussions in groups of four for 16 minutes or more on a
single topic. Discussions should be balanced and interactive, and constructed by all participants”
(Center for English Discussion, 2014, p. 1). Hence, vocabulary teaching and learning of function
phrase units to build discourse competence is the central component of this program, but, what
about the actual content of these “interactive discussions”? What other factors could contribute
to a group’s ability to speak effectively and meaningfully for 16 minutes on topics as varied as
language-learning, gender equality, technology, or the death penalty? The answer is, of course,
multifaceted, but of all the skills and tools that teachers try to develop in learners, I would point
to Wilkins (1972): “without vocabulary, nothing can be conveyed” (111).
My own informal EDC classroom observations suggest that discussions might benefit
from broadening student’s knowledge and use of topic-related or content-specific vocabulary. In
a unit on crime and punishment, featuring such questions as “Is the death penalty a good way to
punish murderers?” students could be expected to encounter basic concepts and words like
“death penalty”, “crime”, and “murderer” – words that would appear to be essential to
understanding and the group’s ability to build an interesting discussion.
Substantial research has been done on how many words learners ought to know, but the
bulk of the emphasis relates to academic words, reading comprehension, and writing (Coxhead,
2000; Hazenberg & Hulstijn, 1996). Concerning the effect of vocabulary use on oral discourse
and spoken output, I identified with the principles outlined by Nation (2001) when designing the
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consciousness-raising activity for this study: they are the use of word lists in addition to
presenting words in context, and the recognition of the value of translation between L1 and L2 in
vocabulary learning, the effect of the learning burden on students, and the value of direct
explanation over just incidental learning (Read, 2000).
Starting with the assumption that pre-teaching specific low-frequency vocabulary will
enable and even encourage the learners to more precisely express their ideas, heighten
discussion of concepts (crime, murder, guilt), interact in a manner that is fluid and unburdened
by overly excessive negotiations of meaning or halting requests for translation, this study asks
the question: Does pre-teaching low-frequency topic-related vocabulary positively affect the
quality of group interaction?
METHOD
Participants
This study analyzed the group discussions of 36 Japanese university students during one unit
(Lesson 10) of the second semester of an English Discussion program. Compulsory for 4,953
first-year students, the program consisted of 14 weekly 90-minute lessons comprised of seven to
nine members. The sample group was drawn from six Level 3 classes (low-intermediate, TOEIC
score range 280 to 479) and IC recordings were made during the final group discussion stage of
the lesson. Both the experimental and control groups contained 18 students and recordings took
place over periods of 12 minutes (for three-member groups), 16 minutes (four-member), and in
one case, 20 minutes (five-member).
Level 3 was chosen as the focus of this study because a) it contained the largest sample
size and b) it evinced the clearest examples of how increased or insufficient vocabulary
knowledge might affect the quality of a discussion. Having demonstrated essential functions and
communication skills (giving and asking for opinions, reasons, examples; expressing agreement
or disagreement; asking questions, etc.), Level 3 classes could progress from simply filling time
with talk to constructing more complex discussions. Finally, it should be noted that classes in
this sample group were randomly designated “experimental” or “control” in order to bolster the
reliability of the results.
Procedure
After the function practice stage of the lesson the instructor prompted the students to consider
key words related to the topic of crime, punishment, and the right to life. Students were given
worksheets (See Appendix) containing five sentences from the reading article and, with a partner,
asked to discern and explain to each other in Japanese the meaning of 12 underlined key words.
After 2.5 minutes, the pairs could unfold the work sheet and cross-reference the English key
words with their Japanese translations below. Finally, the instructor checked that these
vocabulary items were understood, offering a brief example or definition where necessary. Both
tables of students were then given a decontextualized word list (A4, enlarged) for quick use
during D1 and D2. This activity totaled 5 minutes. In the final third of the lesson, IC recordings
were made of both tables in D2. The questions put to the students were:
1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the death penalty…

a. From the criminal’s point of view?
b. From the victim’s family’s point of view?
c. From ordinary people’s point of view?
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Nicholas Smith
d. (your own ideas)

2. Is the death penalty a good way to punish murderers?
RESULTS
From the data collected, three points of analysis were established: 1) the average number of
occurrences of key-word use was determined and contrasted with their rate of frequency in the
textbook, 2) instances of negotiation of meaning (NoM) between speaker and listener(s) were
counted, and 3) the quality of group interaction was measured by the average number of ideas,
follow-up questions, open questions, turn-taking questions, and individual English reactions that
were uttered.
The results show modest differences between both groups at all levels of analysis, with
vocabulary use measurements exhibiting the most pronounced difference. Here, the control
group’s use largely concentrated on the words with the highest-frequency while the experimental
group demonstrated a broader range and noticeable consciousness of key words.
Table 1. Comparison of target vocabulary occurrences in textbook unit with Discussion 2
Textbook Experimental group Control group

occurrences average number of average number of
Target Word /1571 tokens occurrences occurrences
Death penalty 34 15 19
Murderer 22 13 18
Punishment 17 3 4
Prison 13 9 5
Criminal 13 2 2
Murder 12 3 1
Crime 9 2 0
Judge 6 2 2
Innocent 3 1 4
Rehabilitation 2 1 0
Guilty 1 0 0
While both groups had a comparable number of ideas, the experimental discussion groups
demonstrated, on average, a more interactive level of discourse.
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Table 2. Comparison of average number of interactions in Discussion 2
Negotiations of meaning
Number of ideas
Number of turn-taking
questions
Number of other questions Control Group
Number of follow-up
questions Experimental
Instances of Group
agreement/disagreement
Reactions per student
0 5 10 15
DISCUSSION
In the study I have described here, a short consciousness-raising task and word list facilitated a
less restrained exchange of ideas, opinions, and questions. At the very least, exposure to
conceptually related words such as crime, punishment, guilt, innocence, and rehabilitation might
have opened the lines of inquiry through which speaker and listener could agree or disagree,
paraphrase comments, pursue questions, and negotiate meaning on the topic of capital
punishment. This, I believe, can be taken as a small gain and a worthwhile objective of a
discussion-centered course like EDC. To this end, further consideration ought to be given to
teaching useful vocabulary in the most effective and timesaving way possible.
My selection of the target vocabulary to create a topic-related set was conscious of
textbook frequency but primarily concerned with usability and value, what Neumann and Dwyer
(2009) put as “the words we must know to communicate effectively” (385). However, words the
instructor values or determines to be worthy of attention does not guarantee a desirable outcome
of knowledge and use. The relatively low average rate of occurrence within both the
experimental and control groups suggests otherwise. Examining the same context, Edwards
(2013) observed that the learning burden of function phrase and topic-related vocabulary,
relative to the duration of the lesson (90 minutes), was problematic for Level 3 learners. To
alleviate this, he proposed keeping target language visible on the whiteboard throughout the
lesson. In this study, word lists were kept on the table but it may be that students in the
experiment discussion groups found little need for lower frequency words, were unable to
process them beyond a receptive level, or utilized synonyms or other words through NoM
translations.
Does NoM detract from the flow of ideas? It is possible, of course, but NoM was not
observed to have any adverse effect on interaction in either the experimental or control group.
Paraphrasing, checking for understanding, and L1-L2/L2-L1 translations do provide
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Nicholas Smith
opportunities for language acquisition, and it is notable that more than 60% of instances of NoM
in both groups involved L1-to-L2 translation of low-frequency topic-related words such as
“deterrent,” “atone” and “justice.” The speaker’s need for these words, and the discussion
group’s incidental exposure to them, supports the value of providing opportunities to notice
low-frequency content-related vocabulary in lesson materials.
Limitations
For a more comprehensive analysis, this study could be expanded in three areas: the sample size,
the depth of analysis of the group interaction, and the period of data collection. There are four
levels in the EDC program that represent a wide spectrum of proficiency levels. A larger sample
size that incorporated more of these learners may yield more insights into how a
vocabulary-learning burden affects different groups.
This study would have also benefited from a more multidimensional analysis of the
quality of interaction. To measure and judge “quality”, the number of ideas, NoM, listener
reactions, and the number of listener-to-speaker questions were marked. All of these factors were
counted, averaged and then attributed to a discussion group instead of individual speaker.
However, without analyzing the actual balance of individual speaking turns per group, this study
does not tell us much about the rate of participation.
Finally, the reader should note that data was collected only in the second discussion of
one course unit (Lesson 10). An examination of D1 and D2 would help us glean how much
vocabulary was useful, discarded, and relevant to the learner over two discussions. From that
position, one might undertake a closer assessment of the vocabulary activity and design a more
inclusive, wide-ranging study over more than one course unit.
CONCLUSION
The context in which this study was undertaken is a compulsory discussion-based course for
first-year Japanese university students, with the primary and secondary goals of improving
discourse competency and speaking fluency. Consequently, the limited sample size of this
vocabulary study means that further research in this teaching context is required before any
systematic change could be implemented to EDC course materials, instructional practices, and
curricular goals.
Be that as it may, a slightly higher rate of interaction was observed in the experimental
group. The random selection of Level 3 participants for this study suggests this difference could
be attributed to group dynamics and individual variance in motivation, fluency, content
knowledge, and other such factors. However, the results also favor the idea that the level of
content and interaction in a discussion might benefit from an increased knowledge and broader
application of relevant vocabulary.
REFERENCES
Center for English Discussion. (2014). Fall 2014 Instructor Handbook. Unpublished
Manuscript.
Coxhead, A. (2000). A new academic word list. TESOL Quarterly, 34(2), 213-238.
Edwards, T. (2013). “Vocabulary retention and language learning.” In New Directions in
Teaching and Learning English Discussion 1(2) pp.139-142. Rikkyo University: Center
for English Discussion.
Hazenberg, S., & Hulstijn, J. (1996). Defining a minimal receptive second-language vocabulary
277
for non-native university students: An empirical investigation. Applied linguistics, 17(2),

145-163.
Lesley, J., Livingston, M., Moroi, T., & Schaefer, M.Y., Eds. (2014). What do you think? 5th. Ed.
Rikkyo University: Center for English Discussion.
Nation, P. (2001). Learning vocabulary in another language. Cambrige: Cambridge University
Press.
Nation, P., & Waring ,R. (1997). Vocabulary size, text coverage and word lists. In Schmitt, N. &
M. McCarthy (Eds.): Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition and Pedagogy (pp. 6-19).
Neumann, S.B., & Dwyer, J. (2009). Missing in action: Vocabulary instruction in pre-K. The
Reading Teacher, 62(5), 384-392.
Read, J. (2004) “Research in teaching vocabulary.” Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 24,
146-161.
Wilkins, D. (1972). Linguistics in language teaching. London: Arnold
APPENDIX
1. “Can murderers and other criminals change if they spend a long time in prison?”
2. “The lay judges have to decide if the person is guilty.”
3. “But fines or community service are not good punishments for serious crimes, such as
murder.”
4. “During the 20th century, at least 23 innocent people were killed by the death penalty
in the US.”
5. “Some people believe that some murderers cannot be rehabilitated.”
1. “Can 殺人者 and other 犯罪者 change if they spend a long time in 刑務所?”
2. “The 裁判員 have to decide if the person is 罪を犯した.”
3. “But fines or 社会奉仕 are not good 刑罰 for serious 犯罪, such as 殺人.”
4. “During the 20th century, at least 23 無邪気な people were killed by 死刑 in the US.”
5. “Some people believe that some murderers cannot be 修復する.”
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David Truxal
Investigating the Effect of the Learning Circle on Group

Cohesion and Lowering Anxiety in English Discussion Class
(EDC)
David Truxal
ABSTRACT
The learning circle is a simple language learning activity that is designed to: 1) lower students’
anxiety and stress; 2) set the stage for group formation and cohesion; and 3) allow the teacher
and students to learn, remember, and use each other’s names. It has been designed to help
foster a more cohesive classroom environment and is conducted by the teacher and students
forming a circle and sharing slightly personal information with one another. By conducting the
activity in a lighthearted way, students should feel secure to take risks in class and realize that
mistakes are not only okay but a crucial part of the language learning process. This paper uses a
questionnaire to investigate whether or not the learning circle has any effect on group cohesion
and/or lowering anxiety in EDC class at Rikkyo University.
INTRODUCTION
The introductory lesson of any class, and especially a foreign language class, can be a source of
anxiety and stress for students especially in the EDC context since they are freshmen and are
meeting each other for the first time. In the case of the EDC program, students can be
“overwhelmed by the expectation of sustaining long discussions” (Hunter, 2012, pp. 2-23) in
English. They are adjusting to many new routines and challenges in their lives, both inside and
outside of the classroom, and a discussion class in English can add to their overall stress level.
These first weeks are especially important, and according to Ehrman and Dornyei (1998), “some
basic characteristics and the foundations of further development become firmly established in
those early days” (p. 110). Thus, one of the primary goals of this activity has been to create
and foster a relaxed learning environment by lowering students’ anxiety and stress. It is hoped
that the relationships that form in the first five weeks of the semester will carry through for the
remainder of the semester and allow the students to form cohesive and productive groups.
Though the idea of group cohesion has been around for many years, it is a characteristic
of human interaction that is quite elusive in nature. Although authors such as Mullen &
Copper (1994) have found that cohesiveness is composed of three factors (interpersonal
attraction, commitment to task, and group pride), cohesiveness still today does not have very
well-standardized or well-validated measures (Hogg, 1992). Defined by Festinger, Schacter,
and Beck as “the attractiveness of the group for its members” (as cited in Libo, 1953, p. 2),
cohesiveness has actually been the subject of more research than any other aspect of group
culture. As Dornyei and Murphey (2004) posit, “this reflects the general belief of scholars that
the closeness and ‘we feeling’ of a group is a key factor – if not the key factor – in determining
every aspect of the group’s life” (p. 62). Forsyth (2010) says that cohesiveness “can lay claim
to being group dynamics’ most theoretically important concept” (p. 117). It is also possible that
cohesion acts as a “lubricant” that “minimizes the friction due to the human ‘grit’ in the system”
(Mullen & Copper, 1994, p. 213).
The first time a group forms, there can be many common, unpleasant feelings that
learners experience. Some of these feelings include: “general anxiety, general lack of confidence,
anxiety about using the L2 and anxiety about not knowing what to do (comprehending)”
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(Dornyei & Murphey, 2004, pp. 14-15). Creating a “stress-free….cooperative classroom
environment” (Nation & Newton, 2009, p. 19), as well as a classroom that is seen as a
community “where learners learn through collaboration and sharing” (Brown, 2005, p. 10)
should be seen as one of the main responsibilities of the teacher.
The importance of reducing language anxiety (Young, 1991) cannot be understated and
according to MacIntyre (1995), it is possible that more stressed students “will not learn as
quickly as relaxed students” (p. 96). Thus to help develop cohesive groups, the teacher’s role
should be one of empathetic facilitator (Brown, 2007; Dornyei & Murphey, 2004) whose job is
to “establish a friendly climate and manage group anxiety” (Dornyei & Murphey, 2004, p. 51).
Thus it is hoped that this activity will be helpful in setting the stage for group formation and
cohesion since the students will be forming a cohesive group right from the start which,
correspondingly, should result in “better, less inhibited, and more communication” (Hogg, 1992,
p. 41) with students who are more willing to try out and use language in their discussions.
As Dornyei and Murphey (2004) state, the most important factor in “fostering
intermember relationships is learning about each other as much as possible, which involves
sharing genuine personal information” (p. 20). They go on to say that remembering student
names and having “students learn each other’s names….is a powerful rapport-building tool for
the classroom” (p. 28). Thus with this activity, by the end of the first lesson, both the teacher
and the students should know each other’s names and will have learned some basic, personal
information about each other. Forsyth (2010) states that communication of personal
information is termed self-disclosure, and that self-disclosure serves “the important function of
helping members to get to know one another” (p. 130).
METHOD
Participants
The participants in this study were freshmen from 12 of the author’s fall semester EDC classes.
The majors of study represented by the students were quite wide ranging: economics, law,
psychology, tourism, sociology, literature, community welfare and international business. Not
every student in every class participated. Out of a total possible of 94 students, 84 (n=84)
participated in the study with a female to male percentage of approximately 65% to 35%
respectively.
Procedure
A questionnaire (see appendix) was designed in order to collect data and was chosen because of:
1) the efficiency of obtaining a large amount of responses in a short time, and 2) the fact that the
questionnaire data evaluates attitudinal data (Dornyei & Taguchi, 2010). Although the items on
the questionnaire were not questions per se, the instrument fits Brown’s (2001) definition of
questionnaires as being “any written statements that present respondents with a series of
questions or statements to which they are to react either by writing out their answers or selecting
from among existing answers” (p. 6). There was also space to write additional comments.
The questionnaire was originally created in English, translated into Japanese and then
back translated into English so as to ensure question accuracy (Dornyei & Taguchi, 2010). A
four point Likert scale was used using the categories “strongly disagree (SD), disagree (D),
agree (A), and strongly agree (SA).” The neutral category was avoided (i.e. neither agree nor
disagree) so that the participants had to make a “real choice” (Dornyei & Taguchi, 2010, p. 28).
It was then administered in both English and Japanese in the fourth week of classes in the fall
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semester.
RESULTS
Overall, the results showed positive attitudes toward the learning circle in that the large majority
of responses to the question items were in the A and SA categories. For example, concerning
item #5, "The learning circle helps me feel less anxious speaking English", 89% agreed in some
form (i.e., 69% A, 20% SA) while only 11% of respondents disagreed. In terms of how the
learning circle relates to general anxiety, for item #6, "The learning circle helps me feel less
anxious around my classmates", the results were again overwhelmingly positive with 60% A and
35% SA.
In terms of how effective the learning circle has been in fostering group cohesion, for
item #8, "The learning circle has helped our class have a closer connection with each other",
75% of the respondents agreed and 18% strongly agreed, leaving only 6% that disagreed.
Regarding the third reason for which this activity was designed to do, i.e. to allow the teacher
and students to learn, remember and use each other's names, for item #11, "The learning circle
helps me learn and remember my classmate's names", 18% agreed while 79% strongly agreed.
DISCUSSION
The results of the questionnaire are significant for a few reasons. From the results it is clear that
Rikkyo freshmen students in EDC feel anxious both around people they don't know (#1 - 50% A,
26% SA) and when speaking English (#2 - 57% A, 20% SA). They also indicated that it is
important NOT to feel anxious when they are around their classmates (#3 - 38% A, 49% SA)
and when speaking English (#4 - 40% A, 55% SA). Thus from looking at the results of items #5
and #6 above, it is evident that the learning circle is effective at reducing learner anxiety.
Though there was only one item that specifically dealt with the effectiveness of the
learning circle in forming group cohesion (#8), it was shown that the respondents indicated that
the learning circle did have a positive effect on bringing the group closer together as 75% and
18% strongly agreed with the statement, “The learning circle has helped our class have a closer
connection with each other.” The results also established that the learning circle was very
effective in helping the students to learn each other's names. This is significant since learning
names is related to both anxiety and group cohesion in this study. For example, of the
respondents in #13, 61% A and 32% SA that learning classmates' names make them feel less
anxious in EDC. Though 24% of the respondents disagreed with the statement (#12), "Learning
my classmates' names helps me feel more connected to my classmates", 57% A and 19% SA,
keeping the overall majority firmly in the A scale.
One last significant point of the results concerns the students' attitudes towards the
importance of using names in class (#10) with 8% agreeing and 92% strongly agreeing. For
question #14, "I use my classmates' names in EDC", 48% A and 49% SA whereas for item #15,
"My classmates use my name in EDC", 54% A and 42% SA. It is clear that in the EDC context,
students feel that using names is important and that they evaluated themselves overwhelmingly
both using each other's names and having their names be used.
A few respondents wrote additional comments and the comments that were wrote were
fairly brief. One respondent wrote simply, "I enjoyed the learning circle." Another wrote, "I
didn't know anyone in class so to introduce myself and get some information about classmates is
good." Perhaps the most poignant comment was,
"I am naturally a nervous person so the learning circle gives time to warm-up which is
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good. It is also is good because remembering someone's name brings a closer

connection to them. I am happy to have a close connection to them because then I can
speak both Japanese and English."
As Japanese is not allowed in EDC, this last comment is particularly interesting as the
respondent equates the connection that can be formed inside the classroom to connections that
can be formed outside the classroom as well (i.e. speaking Japanese).
Anecdotally, I think that one of the reasons this activity is seemingly successful in
bringing groups together is for the fact of the entire class standing together for the simple task of
remembering each other’s name and a piece of information. Because of the simplicity of this
activity and because it involves the whole class (plus the teacher) doing it together, I feel that a
sense of camaraderie, however slight it may be, is created. EDC instructors are often distraught
that some of their students don’t work well together and have a general lack of togetherness.
While I can’t say for certain that this activity will help students to get along, it does seem that for
creating a sense of cohesiveness and a general lowering of anxiety, the learning circle has a
definite place in the EDC classroom. Whether this sense of cohesiveness will translate into better
performance in class is the subject for another study.
CONCLUSION
While the results of the questionnaire were mostly positive for the purposes of this paper, there
were quite a few limitations of the study. Obviously the sample size was quite small at n=84,
thus a larger number of respondents might yield different results. Students in the fall semester
were the only participants in this study. These students have already had one semester of EDC
and are familiar with the structure of the class and thus may be less anxious in general than their
spring semester counterparts. Therefore it would be wise to administer this questionnaire to the
spring semester students as well.
A second limitation of this study was that no rigorous statistical tests were done to
analyze the data (e.g. ANOVA) nor the questionnaire items themselves (e.g. Cronbach's Alpha).
Thus it is difficult to say whether internal consistency has been achieved or not. If a further
study was attempted using a data collection instrument similar to the questionnaire used in this
study, it would be wise to use rigorous statistical analysis to ensure the validity and reliability of
the data collection instrument.
In terms of if the learning circle is responsible for lowering students' anxiety and in
forming cohesive groups in EDC class it would also be helpful to design some questionnaire
items that can be used to evaluate students' attitudes in classes in which the learning circle was
not employed so as to analyze the differences. For example, when the learning circle is used in
the first four weeks of class, will there be any decrease in students' anxiety compared to a class
where the learning circle was not used? This kind of examination could possibly yield more
fruitful information as to whether the learning circle is effective in lowering students' anxiety
and in forming cohesive groups. It also would have been useful to have designed more items that
aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the learning circle in forming group cohesion as there was
only one item that could be said to have dealt with this topic.
The above being said, from the results of this study, it can be concluded that the learning
circle is effective for the reasons which it has been designed. The results indeed indicate that it
not only lowers students' anxiety in EDC class, but is helpful in fostering group cohesion as well
as being successful in helping the students to learn each other's names. However, if a further
study was attempted, a larger sample size, more rigorous statistical analysis as well as a
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comparative set of data would be useful to ensure the effectiveness of the learning circle in
lowering anxiety and forming group cohesion.
REFERENCES
(3rd ed.). New York: Pearson Education.
Brown, J. D. (2001). Using surveys in language programs. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press.
Dornyei, Z. & Taguchi, T. (2010). Questionnaires in second language research: Construction,
administration, & processing. (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.
Dornyei, Z. & Murphey, T. (2004). Group dynamics in the language classroom. Cambridge:
Ehrman, M. E. & Dornyei, Z. (1998). Interpersonal dynamics in second language education:
The visible and invisible classroom. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Forsyth, D. R. (2010). Group dynamics. (5th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage
Learning. Hogg, M. A. (1992). The social psychology of group cohesiveness. Great
Britain: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Hunter, C. (2012). Name circle and memory challenge: Setting the stage for a positive class
environment. New directions in teaching and learning English discussion, Vol. 1.Tokyo:
DTP Publishing.
Libo, L. M. (1953). Measuring group cohesiveness. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan
Press.
MacIntyre, P. (1995). How does anxiety affect second language learning? A reply to Sparks and
Ganschow. Modern Language Journal, 26/3, 90-99.
Mullen, B., & Copper, C. (1994). The relation between group cohesiveness and performance: An
integration. Psychological Bulletin, 115, 210-227
Nation, I. S. P. & Newton, J. (2009). Teaching ESL/EFL listening and speaking. New York:
Routledge.
Richards, J. (2005, March). Materials development and research-Making the connection. Paper
presented at a colloquium on research and materials development, at the TESOL
Convention, San Antonio, TX
Young, D. J. (1991). Creating a low-anxiety classroom environment: What does language
anxiety research suggest? The Modern Language Journal, 75, 426-439.
283
APPENDIX - Fall Semester EDC Questionnaire
Please answer the questions below.

以下の質問に答えてください。
(1) I sometimes feel anxious around people I don’t know.

strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree
知らない人と一緒にいると緊張してしまうことがある。
a. 全然そう思わない b. あまりそう思わない c. 少しそう思う d. すごくそう思う
(2) I sometimes feel anxious speaking English.

英語を話す時緊張してしまうことがある。
a.全然そう思わない b. あまりそう思わない c. 少しそう思う d. すごくそう思う
(3) It is important not to feel anxious around my classmates.

クラスメイトといる時に緊張しないことは大切である。
(4) It is important not to feel anxious when speaking English.

英語を話す時に緊張しないことは大切である。
(5) The learning circle helps me feel less anxious speaking English.
ラーニングサークルのおかげで英語を話す時の緊張が緩和された。
(6) The learning circle helps me feel less anxious around my classmates.
ラーニングサークルのおかげでクラスメイトといる時の緊張が緩和された。
(7) The learning circle helps me feel less anxious in EDC.

ラーニングサークルのおかげでディスカッションクラスでの緊張が緩和された。
(8) The learning circle has helped our class have a closer connection with each other.
ラーニングサークルのおかげでクラスメイトと親しくなれた。
(9) The learning circle has helped me learn some information about my classmates.
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David Truxal

ラーニングサークルのおかげでクラスメイトについて知ることが出来た。
(10) Learning my classmates' names is important in EDC class.

クラスメイトの名前を知ることはディスカッションクラスでは大切だ。
(11) The learning circle helps me learn and remember my classmates’ names.
ラーニングサークルのおかげでクラスメイトの名前を知り、覚えることが出来た。
(12) Learning my classmates' names helps me feel more connected to my classmates.

クラスメイトの名前を知ることで他の学生と親しくなれた。
(13) Learning my classmates' name makes me feel less anxious in EDC.

クラスメイトの名前を知ることでディスカッションクラスでの緊張が緩和された。
(14) I use my classmates' name in EDC.

ディスカッションクラスでクラスメイトの名前を呼んでいる。
(15) My classmates use my name in EDC.

ディスカッションクラスでクラスメイトは私の名前を呼んでいる。
In the space below, please provide any additional comments.

その他にコメントがあれば記入してください。
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Measuring the Effects of Formulaic Language on Complexity
in L2 Output and Fluency Development
Samuel David Warren
ABSTRACT
This paper explores the role linguistic complexity and formulaic-language may play in the
development of L2 fluency during the 4/3/2 fluency development activity. The Type-Token
Ration (TTR) formula was used to measure changes in lexical density during a 4/3/2 fluency
development activity, both before and after the introduction of formulaic-language scaffolding
schema. Though the sample of students selected and measured during a 4/3/2 activity exhibited
increases in their TTR percentages after the introduction of formulaic- language scaffolding
schema, these increases could not conclusively be attributed solely to the introduction of
formulaic-language schema; other (non measured) variables could also be contributing factors as
well. What was concluded with a greater degree of certainty is that the introduction of
formulaic-language scaffolding schema during a 4/3/2 fluency development activity may reduce
the cognitive processing burden on learners, while they are synthesizing L2 output for delivery
in talk. This may free learners up to devote more of their cognitive resources to different aspects
of L2 speech processing (e.g. accuracy, complexity, or fluency).
INTRODUCTION
Linguistic complexity, or linguistic sophistication in L2 output, is not traditionally an aspect
associated with L2 fluency development. Mora (2006) points out that traditional temporal
variables such as a reduction in the number of pauses and or hesitations produced by L2 learners
are still among the standards of nonnative speech production that receive the most attention with
regard to perceptions of fluency development. However, focusing more attention on the
sophistication or (complexity) of L2 output may be of great importance, as it could prove to be a
much more accurate indicator of fluency development among L2 learners.
One way such linguistic complexity may be developed among, internalized by, and
eventually coaxed from L2 learners is by incorporating formulaic language scaffolding within
such fluency development activities such as Maurice’s 4/3/2 fluency development activity
(Nation, 1989). DeKeyser (2010) points out that some may argue such an approach to fluency
development incorporates a type of structured practice into what is otherwise designed to be a
free flowing and unguided opportunity for L2 learners to plan and produce (automated) output.
That is to say, many L2 instructors may view fluency development activities (activities that are
inherently employed in the L2 learning environment for the purpose of fostering spontaneous
oral production) and any form of scaffolding (structure), as mutually exclusive and
counter-intuitive. However, it may not be reasonable to assume that during a fluency
development activity, fluency will develop as an isolated element within the total spectrum of L2
proficiency. Larsen-Freeman (2009) maintains that although L2 instructors may be focusing on
developing the proficiency of a particular element within L2 learning (e.g. fluency), such
linguistic elements are inherently linked to others (e.g. accuracy and complexity). These
elements combine to form a broader multi-dimensional construct of L2 development (i.e.
Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency), and as linked elemental parts of a whole, develop along
side rather than independent of each other. When fluency development is considered from this
perspective, a fluency development activity such as the 4/3/2 activity is well positioned to take
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Samuel David Warren
advantage of this more contemporary approach to L2 proficiency advancement. By

incorporating a linear schema of formulaic-language chunks on the whiteboard that can be easily
referenced by the speaker during the 4/3/2 activity (i.e. a linear schema that that encourages
speakers to deliver content through Opinions / Reasons / Examples / Balanced Opinions /
Different Viewpoints / Possibilities (If…) / and Reporting Information), a framework is being
presented to learners onto which they can linguistically build upon. This may assist learners in
the subsequent delivery of greater complexity in their L2 output. McCarthy (2005) points out
that these types of language chunks are retrieved whole; they do not need to be created anew
each time; they are part of the automaticity which enables effortless accuracy and smoother,
more fluent speech—insofar as fluency is perceived as effortless and smooth speech production.
These chunks, according to McCarthy (2005), are typically spoken quickly and as one tone unit;
therefore they comprise phonological as well as lexicogrammatical fluency. Chambers (1997)
supports this (fluency development through linguistic-complexity development) approach by
suggesting those in the field of SLA seek out a mechanism that enables L2 learners to begin
producing longer and more complex units of L2 output; that this approach may have a greater
impact on the development of more fluent talk being produced by learners.
The objective of this study is to test my hypothesis: Development in overall L2
proficiency is linked to facilitating complexity in L2 output, and as linguistic complexity is
developed, so jointly develops L2 fluency. And, that this co-development can be exploited by
introducing formulaic-language scaffolding schema into fluency-development activities such as
the 4/3/2 fluency development activity.
METHOD
The participants in this study were comprised of two (level 3) EDC classes with eight students
each. The selection of these particular classes was based less on L2 proficiency levels or abilities,
and more on past demonstrations of class participation and willingness to communicate (L2
output) while participating in previous 4/3/2 activities.
The formulaic-language schema introduced during the 4/3/2 activity is a linear schema
consisting of multiple formulaic-language points. Each point, or language node, corresponds to a
lexical bundle of previously taught poly words or (function phrases) that provide speakers
linguistic elements from which to launch content. These formulaic-language nodes also assist in
(pushing) speakers to deliver longer, and ideally, more complex content than they might
otherwise be capable of doing in the absence of the schema, as they also function as sentence
frames onto which L2 learners can affix other previously taught poly words (function phrases).
Speakers, after fully traversing the length of the linear schema, are encouraged to loop back into
the schema at an appropriate node (e.g. the “reasons” node), which usually creates an entirely
new stream of talk.
The 4/3/2 activity was truncated into a 3/2/1 activity due to constraints on time; therefore,
the activity shall be referred to as the 3/2/1 fluency development activity while discussing it
under the results section of this paper.
Speakers’, not listeners’, L2 output was recorded while performing the 3/2/1 fluency
development activity without the assistance of the formulaic-language schema for three minutes,
and then again at two-minutes, while referring to the formulaic-language schema now illustrated
on the whiteboard. At the end of the initial three-minute speaking period listeners rotated
positions, giving speakers a new interlocutor with whom to deliver the same talk on the same
two fluency questions, but with speakers now only having two minutes in which to deliver that
287
talk. The recordings were transcribed and analyzed for (lexical density) utilizing the Type/Token
Ratio (TTR), in order to determine any discernable shifts in linguistic complexity of the speakers’
talk of three-minutes (in the absence of formulaic-language scaffolding schema) versus the
subsequent two-minute and one-minute talks (incorporating the formulaic-language scaffolding
schema). The TTR results represent the percentage of lexical variety in speech. The greater the
number of (types) to (tokens), the more varied the lexicon. The one-minute talk was discarded as
a variable due to the low L2 proficiency level of the participants, as well as the high frequency
of pausing and hesitating that occurred during both talks. This left only a comparison of the
three-minute talk in the absence of formulaic-language scaffolding schema and the two-minute
talk in the presence of formulaic-language scaffolding schema available for comparative analysis.
In measuring the degree of linguistic complexity among students of such low L2 proficiency
levels, the Type/Token Ration (TTR) was selected over more rigorous and systematic formulas
for measuring linguistic complexity such as the Standardize Type/Token Ration (STTR) or
Malvern and Richard’s (as cited in Albert & Kormos, 2004) D-formula, again as a function of
the participants lower L2 proficiency levels, but also due to the low number of actual L2 words
used in the delivery of both talks.
Type-Token Ration = (number of types/number of tokens) * 100

Tokens = (number of total words spoken, excluding pause and hesitation sounds)
Types = (number of non-repeating tokens)
RESULTS
At the outset of the 3/2/1 activity, student NR spoke for three minutes on two topical fluency
questions posed by the listener. There was no mention of formulaic-language scaffolding
schema, and none was diagramed out on the whiteboard for speakers’ to reference. For the initial
three-minute delivery of talk, student NR received a TTR score of 39 percent. After the initial
three-minute talk was completed, formulaic-language scaffolding schema was diagramed out on
the whiteboard. Student NR received a new partner, and the class was informed that they now
had two minutes to answer the same two fluency questions. Though student NR’s time to deliver
the same talk was decreased by one minute, and there was little change in the number of pauses
and hesitations which occurred between NR’s talk 1 and talk 2—with number of pauses actually
increasing in the second talk—student NR’s TTR score increased from 39 to 51 percent.
Correspondingly, student AZ’s (also a speaker during this period) TTR score increased from 34
percent during the three minute talk in the absence of formulaic-language scaffolding schema, to
a TTR score of 39 percent during the two minute delivery of talk in the presence of the schema.
In both cases, though time to deliver talk was reduced by one minute, students’ TTR scores
(lexical density) increased while performing the 3/2/1 activity in the presence of
formulaic-language scaffolding schema. Was this increase in lexical density (complexity) a
function of students being able to reference a schema of formulaic language chunks in the
second and third talks? In talk 1, before the introduction of formulaic-language scaffolding
schema, student NR gave no opinions, two reasons, two examples, and made one “If…”
statement. In the second talk, after introduction of formulaic-language scaffolding schema,
student NR supplied the same number of reasons, examples and “If…” statements, but delivered
two additional opinion statements. Supplying the two additional opinion statements in the
second talk may have contributed to her more clearly structuring her message, which also
involved her delivering a bit more content. During the first talk student AZ supplied four opinion
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statements, five reason statements, two examples, and two “If…” statements, however, student
AZ delivered this talk in a very disjointed and incongruous manner. After introducing
formulaic-language scaffolding schema, she actually supplied fewer of the formulaic-language
bundles than she had in the first talk (one opinion statement, three reason statements, two
examples, and two “If…” statements, but did so with much greater clarity and coherence. This
suggest that in talk 2 the formulaic-language scaffolding schema may have substantially reduced
the cognitive (lexical) burden on student AZ, freeing the student up to devote more of her
cognitive resources on the delivery of a clearer and more concise message.
Table 1. Comparison of TTR percentages during the 3/2/1 fluency development activity at 3
minutes and 2 minutes, in the presence of formulaic-language scaffolding schema and without
Students NR AZ 3/2/1 Activity Set-up

Task/Token Ratio Task/Token Ratio
3 minute talk 39% 34% No formulaic-language scaffolding
schema presented to speakers
2 minute talk 51% 39% Formulaic-language scaffolding
1 minute talk Omitted Omitted Formulaic-language scaffolding
DISCUSSION
It is noteworthy to mention that the learners evaluated in this study were at the very low end of
the L2 proficiency spectrum, which may have contributed to such a high frequency of pausing
and hesitating occurring at inappropriate clause junctures during the delivery of their talks. It
could be argued that both students AZ and NR exhibited little if any significant improvements in
delivering their talks more fluently in talks 2 versus talks 1 if L2 fluency development is being
gauged only through temporal variables such as number of pauses, hesitations, and mean length
of run. Even if a positive correlation can be shown to exist between introducing
formulaic-language scaffolding schema during the 3/2/1 activity in talks 2 and an increase in
participants’ lexical density, students AZ and NR might still be perceived by L1 speakers as
dysfluent in their speech during the delivery of both talks due to the high frequency of pauses
and hesitations that occurred. However, examining fluency through the measurements of
temporal variables alone, or solely as a temporal phenomenon, doesn't necessarily take into
account other cognitive developments in L2 proficiency that may be occurring, and are
independent of pausing and hesitating (i.e. developments in L2 accuracy and complexity), which
are also associated with improvements in spoken language competence.
When considering fluency development proficiency levels must also be taken into
consideration. Kormos and Denes (2004) suggest there are at least two distinct aspects of
fluency proficiency: low-order fluency (temporal aspects of fluency) and high-order fluency.
Evaluated through low-order fluency, the formulaic-language scaffolding schema introduced in
talks 2 and 3 may be determined to have had little impact on the development of learners’
fluency. However, if the effect of the formulaic-language scaffolding schema on fluency
development is considered with regard to high-order fluency (i.e. spoken language competence),
considering the increases in learners’ TTR percentages after introducing formulaic-language
scaffolding schema, the impact on learners’ development in L2 complexity and corresponding
fluency in talks 2 may be considered more significant. Kormos and Denes (2004) seem to
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support the utility of formulaic-language scaffolding in assisting both low and high-proficiency
learners in progressing through the developmental phases of L2 fluency. Kormos and Denes may
also offer an explanation as to why some speakers in this study decreased in linguistic density
after the introduction of formulaic-language scaffolding schema, but increased in continuity and
clarity of message. They point out that low-proficiency students cannot immediately reference a
sufficient number of automatic sequences, and to make up for this deficiency, begin to apply
conscious rule-based mechanisms. (Kormos & Denes, 2004). That is to say, as learners strive for
accuracy their rate of speech may diminish.
So, was introducing the FPFS unequivocally responsible for enhancements in more fluent
speech being produced in talk 2? I believe the scope of this particular study is too narrow to
answer this questions resolutely, and what would be needed to do so would be a much broader,
comparative study involving many more participants, across several proficiency levels, utilizing
much more rigorous data analysis tools such as Malvern and Richard’s (as cited in Kormos &
Denes, 2004) D-formula. Perhaps also helpful would be a narrowing of the term linguistic
complexity, itself. Yu (2007) points out that the term itself is problematic, as it is often used
interchangeably with other synonymous terms such as lexical richness, lexical density, lexical
range and balance, to name just a few. Beyond the problems with terminology, there are the
issues associated with what exactly constitutes fluent L2 speech. Kormos and Denes (2004)
point out that instructors and researchers alike are usually at odds with the conceptualization of
fluency; for some it includes aspects of accuracy and lexical diversity, whereas some instructors
disregard these aspects of performance in relation to fluency altogether.
Perhaps it is not immediately clear exactly what the introduction of formulaic-language
scaffolding schema may be promoting when L2 learners’ TTR scores increase with respect to a
substantial decrease in the time allotted in delivering a message. What the increases in TTR
percentages from talks 1 to talks 2 do seem to indicate is that introducing formulaic-language
scaffolding schema aided in creating a type of facilitative anxiety amongst the speakers during
the 3/2/1 fluency activity. That is, by presenting L2 learners with a linguist framework
(formulaic-language scaffolding schema) onto which they are tasked to build something more
complex, students may feel anxious to produce more in-depth or more complex content beyond
what they would produce in the absence of such scaffolding. The formulaic-language scaffolding
schema also seems to support learners during within-task planning, which Ellis and Yuan (2004)
maintain is beneficial in allowing learners to formulate content, which may have a substantial
effect on the development of learners’ L2 complexity and accuracy. That is to say, the
introduction of formulaic-language scaffolding schema may have supported learners in this
study in developing confidence they are delivering more accurate and comprehensible (with
regard to Form not necessarily FormS) messages during their talks. If learners are focusing more
on Form over FormS, they may begin reallocating precious cognitive resources to other L2
production tasks while delivering their talks (i.e. recalling and using a greater variety of function
phrases learned and internalized from previous lessons). It is in this capacity that
formulaic-language scaffolding schema may be acting on the development of learners’ linguistic
complexity, and (as considering developments in linguistic complexity as high-order fluency)
making an overall contribution to their L2 fluency and proficiency development.
One final noteworthy observation associated with the introduction of formulaic-language
scaffolding schema during the 3/2/1 activity is that learners, including the participants in this
study, often and eventually transplant the delivery of a message through formulaic-language
sequences into the delivery of messages during group discussions. (i.e. sharing an opinion;
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supplying a reason to support an opinion; supporting an opinion/reason with an example;

discussing the viewpoints from different groups; balancing opinions, and reporting information).
This upsurge in content delivered by speakers creates more opportunity for listeners to
agree/disagree; ask follow-up questions; paraphrase, and react to the speaker. Increases in the
complexity of a speaker’s content can facilitate more dynamic and interactive discussions, which
may also enhance fluency through greater interaction and more frequent negotiation of meaning.
Rossiter, Derwing, Manimtim, and Thomson (2010, p. 594) maintain “…learners should make
an effort to transfer these developing skills to new contexts.”
One limiting factor of this study was the relatively small number of participants
considered. Comparing the results of (all) students observed and recorded during this study
would have been ideal, however, for reasons of practicality, the results for only two participants
were analyzed and reported on. Though the number of participants observed and reported on is
small, the consistency of participants’ performances while in the role of speaker during the 3/2/1
activity (both without the aid of formulaic-language scaffolding schema and later supported by
it) indicates that their observed performances would be typical of other L2 discussion-based
learners performing at the same or similar L2 proficiency level.
CONCLUSION
Swain maintains “In order for native fluency to be achieved in another language, learners need
to be pushed towards the delivery of a message that is not only conveyed, but that is conveyed
precisely, coherently, and appropriately” (as cited in Nation, 1989, p. 378). Perhaps a more
contemporary and utilitarian approach to fluency development would be to replace
“appropriately” with “lexical density, variety, range, or balance and sophistication”. This
updated approach might serve in more accurately guiding and directing some of the pedagogical
orientations of CLT instructors in the development of L2 learners’ fluency, by focusing on the
development of linguistic complexity as well. Developing pedagogical approaches to fluency
development that strive to facilitate the development of linguistic complexity along side some of
the more temporal aspects commonly associated with fluency would seem to be of greater
benefit to learners in the development of L2 fluency, as the construct of fluency itself is more
likely to be an amalgam of several different, and interdependent, L2 learning constructs. The
traditional approach has been to examine each construct (complexity, accuracy, and fluency) as
working one independently of the other, which has resulted in measuring and gauging a
multi-dimensional and interconnected construct such as Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency
(CAF) with temporal measures better left to measuring only one aspect of fluency (e.g.
low-order fluency). Larsen-Freeman (2009) reiterates Robinson, Cadierno, and Shirai’s (2009)
idea not to remain with such general measures when measuring a multi-dimensional and
inter-connected construct such as CAF, but rather to employ more specific measures and to
consider more detailed aspects of L2 performance. She also maintains that the operationalization
of CAF is difficult and complicated due to the interdependency of the CAF components. This
study has been an examination on the practicality of bridging the gaps between two of the three
CAF components, complexity and fluency (CF). Perhaps by focusing on the development of
linguist complexity by integrating formulaic-language scaffolding schema into the 4/3/2 fluency
development activity, the development of L2 fluency might occur contemporaneously.
Formulaic-language scaffolding schema may facilitate the “push” that Swain (as cited in Nation,
1989) suggests learners need, assisting L2 learners in the production of more complex utterances,
which, Kormos and Denes (2004) have indicated contributes to L2 fluency development.
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However, beyond simply providing a “push”, incorporating formulaic-language schema

into fluency development activities such as the 4/3/2 activity may move learners from simply
executing the procedures of the activity, and actually internalizing knowledge and new L2 skills.
Formulaic-language scaffolding schema may assist students in moving from declarative and
procedural knowledge, and into automaticity, where L2 learners can begin to transfer linguistic
constructions developed during the 4/3/2 activity over to other activities such as group
discussions. This is an integral component in the learning process. Ellis (2009) points out that
learning can be shown to have occurred when learners show that they can transfer skills
developed in one task over to other tasks. A 4/3/2 fluency development activity that incorporates
formulaic-language scaffolding schema (in order to advance linguistic complexity) and is
repeated weekly may further contribute to fluency development. Ellis (2009) maintains from the
perspective of complexity theory, repeating a task routinely is the engine behind learning, and
nowhere is this more important than in language learning. Chambers (as cited in Woods, 2004, p.
34) further points out the utility behind incorporating formulaic-language scaffolding schema
into activities like the 4/3/2 activity, and the contribution it can make in bridging the divide
between fluency development, linguistic complexity, and learning:
These phrases [language chunks]…focus the attention of the speaker while
allowing the speaker time to formulate the utterance further. What appears to
enable speakers to produce longer speech units is the increasing use of
automatized chunks or clusters of words combined with newly assembled strings
of words…these productive lexical and syntactic phrases are of particular value
to foreign language learners and can enhance their fluency by providing a frame
to build a sentence as well as approaching the characteristics of native-like
speech. (Chambers, 1998, p. 542)
Wong-Fillmore (as cited in Weinert 1995, p. 184) maintains that freeing up processing time
“allows the planning of propositional speech which has to be generated. Prefabricated formulas
therefore, indirectly, make creative speech possible.”
There are, however, issues that may arise with this approach to fluency development. L2
learners may gravitate to different aspects of CAF (Ellis 2009). Some learners may gravitate
toward the aspect of accuracy and not fluency or complexity. These may be the lower-level
learners, who have not as yet successfully moved into the use of formulaic-language scaffolding
schema as procedural knowledge, and subsequently automaticity in L2 production. These types
of learners may revert back to relying on grammatical-based models of the L2, and attempt to
produce L2 talk accordingly. The result tends to be slower and more deliberate L2 speech
production. This is the trade-off hypothesis proposed by Ellis (2009), but has been challenged by
other academics in the field of SLA such as Robinson (as cited in Ellis 2009). Another detractor
to this approach, Wray (2000) maintains that gaining command of an L2 requires the learners to
become sensitive to the native speakers’ preferences for certain sequences of words over others
that might appear just as possible, and that this is something which isn’t supported by teaching
L2 through the use of formulaic-language. However, I would argue that Wray’s idea
pre-supposes that all, if not most, L1 speakers lack the compassion and patience in the
negotiation of talk with non-native speakers. Anecdotal though it may be, many native speakers,
upon realizing they are engaged in discourse with a non-native speaker, more often than not,
tend to go into a type of linguistic-filtering mode. They may recognize the output from a
non-speaker as essentially being incomprehensible due to a variety of issues (e.g. pronunciation,
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diction, and or syntax). A native speaker may attempt to correct for this by comparing the
non-native speaker’s message against his or her own (L1) database, in order to develop a
best-guess conclusion as to the meaning of the non-native speaker’s message. Then, the native
speaker may attempt to reproduce the non-native speaker’s message correctly, affording the
non-native speaker a valuable opportunity to scaffold from their native speaker interlocutor,
further enhancing opportunities at developing and refining their proficiency in the L2.
Formulaic-language scaffolding schema may help reinforce and perpetuate such a mimicking
approach to L2 learning and L2 reproduction, and in doing so, may further assist L2 learners,
both in L2 fluency development as well as overall L2 proficiency. That is to say,
formulaic-language scaffolding schema may have learning and development implications for L2
learners beyond simply the ersatz interactions of the 4/3/2 activity.
As Kormos and Denes (2004) concluded in their study that explored the measures and
perceptions of fluency in L2 learners, fluency is not a temporal phenomenon alone. Generally,
raters do not look to speed and pace of speech when intuitively judging someone’s fluency, but
also consider other variables related to proficiency (e.g. accuracy and lexical diversity).
Substantially reducing the syntactical processing burden on L2 learners while they work within
task-based L2 proficiency development exercises such as the 4/3/2 activity—while utilizing
formulaic-language schema—may allow L2 learners to develop and deliver these more
linguistically diverse, complex, rich, or sophisticated utterances; something which may have
profound significance in the development of more native-like fluency and overall L2 proficiency
advancement. Beyond simply more theoretical exploration and debate on this particular conceit,
what may be of more benefit to L2 learners is an applying such an approach in CLT task-based
learning environments. As Wood (2002, p. 9) maintains, “there is work to be done to integrate
our knowledge about formulaic language with state-of-the-art language teaching methodology. A
starting point might be to attend to formulaic language when dealing with input and interaction
in the classroom”. Perhaps incorporating formulaic language scaffolding schema within the
4/3/2 fluency development activity, in an attempt to exploit the interdependency between
complexity and fluency CF, would be a good place to start.
REFERENCES
Chambers, F. (1997) What do we mean by fluency? System, 25(04), 535-544.
DeKeyser, R. (2010). Practice for Second Language Learning: Don't Throw out the Baby with
the Bathwater. International Journal of English Studies, 10(1), 155-165.
Derwing, T.M., M.J., Munro, & Thomson, R.I. (2007) A longitudinal study of ESL learners’
fluency and comprehensibility development. Applied linguistics. 29(3), 359-380.
Donato, R. (1994) “Collective scaffolding in second language learning.” In Lantolf, J.P. &
Appel, G. (eds.) Vygotskian Approaches to Second Language Research. Norwood, New
Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporation. pp.34-56
Ellis, R. (2009) The differential effects of three types of task planning on the fluency,
complexity, and accuracy in L2 oral production. Applied linguistics. 30(4), 474-509.
Ellis, R., & Yuan, F. (2004). The effects of planning on fluency, complexity, and accuracy in
second language narrative writing. Studies in second Language acquisition, 26(01),
59-84.
Housen, A., Kuiken, F., & Vedder, I. (eds.) (2012) “The role played by formulaic sequences in
early interlanguage development.” In Housen, A., Kuiken, F., & Vedder, I. (eds.)
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Dimensions of L2 performance and proficiency: complexity, accuracy and fluency in

SLA. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Co. pp.71-94.
Kormos, & Denes (2004) Exploring measures and perceptions of fluency in the speech of second
language learners. System, 32(2), 145-164.
Larsen-Freeman, D. (2009) Adjusting expectations: the study of complexity, accuracy, and
fluency in second language acquisition. Applied linguistics, 30(4), 579-589.
McCarthy, M. (2006). Fluency and confluence: What fluent speakers do. Explorations in Corpus
Linguistics, 1.
Mora, J. C. (2006). Age effects on oral fluency development. Age and the rate of foreign
language learning, 19, 65-88.
Nation, P. (1989) Improving speaking fluency. System, 17/3, 377-384.
Robibson, P., Cadierno, T., & Shirai, Y. (2009) Time and motion: measuring the effects of the
conceptual demands of tasks on second language speech production, Applied linguistics,
30/4, 533-554.
Rossiter, M. J., Derwing, T. M., Manimtim, L. G., & Thomson, R. I. (2010). Oral fluency: The
neglected component in the communicative language classroom. Canadian Modern
Language Review/La Revue canadienne des langues vivantes, 66(4), 583-606.
Weinert, R. (1995) The role of formulaic language in second language acquisition: a review.
Applied linguistics, 16(2), 180-205.
Wood, (2002) Formulaic language in acquisition and production: implications for teaching.
TESL Canada Journal, 20(1), 1-15.
Wood, D. (2004). An empirical investigation into the facilitating role of automatized lexical
phrases in second language fluency development. Journal of language and learning,
2(1), 27-50.
Wray, A. (2000) Formulaic sequences in second language teaching: principal and practice.
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FELLOW, 1001, 79.
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Three Conceptual Orientations of Learner Goal-Setting
Ian Wash
ABSTRACT
This study seeks to investigate the extent to which goal-oriented self-checklists foster motivation
and autonomy in EDC learners. A secondary area of exploration is to examine the effect of
performance avoidance strategies on student attitudes to goal-setting. Over two semesters of a
full academic year, EDC students in 24 classes (n=164) independently set themselves function
goals and communication skill goals to be completed in an extended discussion. At the end of
the semester students participated in a questionnaire which recorded their attitudes towards the
activity. Results were analysed using SPSS software to calculate the frequency of responses and
test the internal reliability of the data collected. Findings indicated that although goal-setting
internally motivated students to perform better in discussions, there was a mixed response to
developing learner autonomy, and also that goal-setting was not always being used in a positive
manner.
INTRODUCTION
The conceptual focus of this piece of classroom research looks primarily at learner motivation
and autonomy, and more specifically how these attributes can be developed in EDC students
through the implementation of goal-setting oriented self-checklists. In addition to these positive
concepts, aspects of performance avoidance in which tasks are performed for more negative
reasons will also be examined.
Motivation was first introduced in connection with language learning in studies by
Gardner that identified learner motivation in two categories: integrative, for instance the desire
to adapt to the culture of a social setting; and instrumental, for example learning a language to
get a better job (Gardner, 1959, pp. 12-13; 1985, p. 11). Gardner’s theory, particularly the
instrumental orientation of motivation, has proven durable in the field of ELT and has been
developed considerably by Dörnyei (1994 p. 280) into a wider general framework of language
learner motivation that includes aspects such as group goal-orientedness.
Individual level goal-orientations of learner motivation in the classroom context gained
currency in the ELT field, largely as a result of Ames and Archer’s study which identified that
Mastery Goals, including such leaner characteristics as progress and challenge, were effective in
sustaining student effort levels and development (Ames & Archer, 1988, p. 264). These findings
echoed those of motivation studies in areas such as industrial psychology which established
Goal Setting Theory under the premise that challenging goals elicit high levels of performance
in individuals, particularly when coupled with feedback to track progress (Locke & Latham,
1990 p. 241). This prompted ELT researchers to consider ways that goal-setting in conjunction
with instrumentality could be used in the classroom to motivate learners whilst cementing
goal-setting itself as a core issue at the heart of motivation in language learning (Oxford &
Shearin, 1994, p. 19). In the view of many EDC instructors, goal-setting through formative
feedback has proven to be a very successful method of improving student performance in
extended group discussions (Brinham, 2013, p. 14; Kuromatsu, 2013, p. 155; Ragsdale, 2013, p.
206).
A more recent model for explaining levels of motivation in individuals is
Self-Determination Theory (SDT), defined by Deci and Ryan (2002, p. 5) as “human tendencies
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towards active engagement and development”. In other words, SDT examines the process of
will-power in individuals, or in the ELT context, language learners. An advantage of SDT is that
it avoids the dichotomy that exists in other theories of motivation that categorise cases as one or
the other: internally or externally motivated, motivated or unmotivated. Instead, SDT places
them on a continuum in which intrinsic motivation (self-determined) and amotivation
(nonself-determined) sit either side of the varying degrees of extrinsic motivation (Ibid, 2002, p.
16). Thus, intrinsically motivated and autonomous learners are those that complete activities
autonomously out of their own individual interest or satisfaction, without need for external
regulation. Perhaps the most cited study in which SDT has been applied specifically to EFL
research conducted by Noels et al (2000, p. 75) found that learner motivation can be accurately
assessed by SDT and that the process creates a clear distinction between extrinsic, intrinsic and
amotivation in responses.
On top of more conventional approaches to investigating motivation and autonomy, an
added aspect of this study will attempt to examine performance avoidance goals. Goal-setting is
usually associated with positive characteristics of learner behavior, but students’ goals may not
always be positive in nature, such as completing a task to a high standard to avoid appearing
inept and save face. Woodrow (2012, p. 196) includes a performance avoidance goal orientation
in her study which was found to be positively correlated to task goal orientations (e.g. liking
tasks that involve thinking hard) normally associated with intrinsically motivated learners.
Drawing on this method will allow me to approach measuring the concept of motivation from
another perspective. Furthermore, performance avoidance goals are relevant and consistent with
the face-saving mechanisms employed by Japanese learners of English, characterized by their
tendency to limit anxiety by avoiding making mistakes (Cutrone, 2009, p. 59).
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The research questions for this study are:
1. To what extent do goal-oriented self-checklists motivate EDC learners to use functions and
communication skills more effectively in extended discussions?
2. To what degree do goal-oriented self-checklists foster a sense of autonomy in EDC learners?
3. Do EDC students use independent goal-setting in a positive manner?
METHOD
A purposive sampling method was employed for this study to include as many students as
possible in my regular lessons across both semesters. The cohort includes four level 1 (higher
proficiency) classes and twenty level 2 or 3 classes. The questionnaires were conducted at the
end of lesson 12 of semester one and lesson 13 of semester two. The final number of
respondents amounted to all those that were present for the last ten minutes of that lesson. Total
respondents were 164: 76 from semester 1 and 88 from semester 2 (n=164).
These respondents were selected because over the previous 11 to 12 weeks of classes we
had spent considerable time practicing using self-checklists as a form of student-centered
feedback and these students had been setting themselves personal Function Goals (FG) and
Communication Skill Goals (CSG) to achieve in Discussion 2 or the Discussion Test.
In this research the aim is to investigate the connection between the goal-setting activities
that were being employed in class and the concepts of intrinsic motivation, learner autonomy
and performance avoidance. In order to devise the research tools to test this relationship I
gathered a range of views of students related to using FG and CSG in class from some
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Ian Wash
open-ended questions (Wash 2014). From these responses, a number of indicators were
identified that could be used to measure students’ autonomy and motivation in relation to the
task. This process led to the design of a multi-item survey questionnaire to measure various
aspects of these concepts. Using this research design allowed me to off-set any inconsistencies in
learner responses over a range of indicators and strengthen the internal reliability of the research.
In order to answer research question 1, several indicator statements were produced to enquire
into learners’ attitudes towards goal-setting in connection to their motivation to have effective
discussions and improve their discussion skills (e.g. FG and CSG help me to improve on my
weak points). To answer research question 2, indicator statements were designed to gain insight
into learners’ attitudes towards autonomy in relation to goal-setting (e.g. I am confident that I
can set accurate FG and CSG by myself). To answer research question 3, sentences were
produced to discover if learners’ disposition towards goal-setting was at all negative or if other
external factors were at play (e.g. I try to complete my FG and CSG so that other students won’t
think I am poor at English). See Appendix 1 for a full set of questionnaire items.
To gather data on the items for each concept it was decided that a Likert scale would be
employed to measure each indicator. A five-point scale running between 1 (Not at all true of me)
and 5 (Very true of me) with a mid-point, 3 (Somewhat true of me) to offer an option to
indifferent respondents was decided upon. Response set measures were put in place that
switched the scale position for positive and negative responses to ensure that respondents did not
just fall prey to acquiescence bias and thereby agree with every statement, or skim their answers
and select the same scale measure for every statement. The reversed sets were items C and F
(motivation), and item H (autonomy). Any respondents that did skim answers would be easy to
detect as their responses would be contradictory. During the instructions, respondents were
encouraged to read each item carefully and to think about it before answering. While the
questionnaire was being administered the instructor remained in the room but did not monitor
respondents. Only one respondent asked a question to check the meaning of an indicator
statement but this was promptly resolved by a fellow-student. Upon collection, questionnaires
were checked for completion and for blatant acquiescence bias. In a few cases where a
respondent had missed an item or selected the same scale for every answer (which is not
possible due to reversed response sets), the respondent was asked to double-check their
questionnaire.
RESULTS
Questionnaire results were input into SPSS software. The mode response scales for each
indicator were calculated to determine the frequency and percentage for each questionnaire item
across the three concepts categories: motivation, autonomy, and performance avoidance
(Appendix 2). To facilitate relating items on the scale to the concepts being measured and to
help answer the three research questions, values labels were translated accordingly. For example,
for the motivation items Very true of me was labelled as ‘Very motivated’. The same was done
for autonomy and performance avoidance. The following results stood out are particularly
interesting.
For items A to D, the most frequent response indicated that students were either
‘Motivated’ or ‘Very Motivated’. For instance, for item B, 82 (50%) students selected Very true
of me that FG and CSG helped to boost their English discussion skills. For item E,
corresponding to student fulfillment after completing goals successfully, the mode response was
that students were ‘Motivated’ with 72 (44%). But regarding loss of confidence after failing to
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complete goals for item F, student motivation was more ambivalent with 66 (40%) choosing
Somewhat true of me. When asked how much less motivated they would be without FG and
CSG, only 24 (15%) students responded as True of me. The results for item G point to fairly
good existing levels of motivation in EDC students in the absence of goal-setting.
In the autonomy section, 66 (40%) of respondents answered True of me that FG and CSG
were more effective when set independently and without teacher intervention for item I, pointing
to a high level of autonomy. However, there could be some acquiescence here because for item
H, 51 (31%) stated that it was more effective for teachers to set students FG and CSG, indicating
that they were ‘Not autonomous’ learners. This inconsistency is perhaps explained in the results
from item J wherein a combined 110(67%) students found it only Somewhat true of me or Not
true of me that they were confident in accurately setting FG and CSG by themselves.
Furthermore, 62 (38%) of respondents claimed it was Not true of me that they wanted more
autonomy in the classroom beyond independent FG and CSG setting for item M, which
reinforces the general doubt in student attitudes towards developing greater levels of agency.
Generally in the performance avoidance concept category, it seems that students used
goal-setting in a positive way. Only 36 (22%) admitted that it was True of me or Very true of me
that they purposefully selected the easiest functions and communication skills on the checklist as
their FG and CSG for item N. This is backed-up by the results for item O in which 89 (55%)
stated that it was either Not true of me or Not at all true of me that FG and CSG set by the
teacher would be more difficult to complete, meaning that many students ‘Used goal-setting
positively / (or) very positively’ by setting themselves challenging goals. On the other hand, for
item P, which measured the extent to which students completed their FG and CSG so that their
peers wouldn’t think they were poor at English, results were more mixed. From the sample, 42
(26%) students responded Somewhat true of me and a further 46 (28%) said True of me or Very
true of me, meaning that over half of the cohort were not positively working on achieving goals
for their own personal achievement.
DISCUSSION
These findings provide some evidence that from a sample of 24 classes across semesters 1 and 2,
the motivational benefits of implementing self-checklists in which students set FG and CSG
have been generally positive. It is therefore possible to assume that very structured and specific
goal-setting tasks that encourage learners to focus in detail on the exact target language they
want to use in an extended group discussion can engender some level of intrinsic motivation. In
turn it reinforces goal-setting as a key component of motivation in the EDC context which is of
importance due to the mandatory status of the course which exterts external motivation by its
very nature. Since the majority of respondents answered that FG and CSG motivated them to
have smoother discussions and that these goals boosted their discussion skills, the upshot is that
by association this activity internally motivates students towards the overarching goal of the
entire course: to participate effectively in English discussions.
Learner Autonomy, however, is more difficult to draw positive conclusions from given
the less concrete results. However, this is not wholly surprising since for many of our students in
EDC, this is their first experience of being a relatively independent learner. Many EDC students
have not been provided with the space to independently set their own goals for classroom
activities and monitor their own progress in their high schools or other previous learning
environments. This naturally leads to uncertainty about taking more control of other activities in
EDC lessons and confirms that autonomy is something to be developed gradually over time in a
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Ian Wash
semi-structured way. Setting FG and CSG is just one of many ways to enhance students’ sense
of agency in EDC lessons. Nevertheless, it is the instructor’s role to guide students through these
preliminary steps of becoming more autonomous and independent learners able to self-regulate
their acquisition of skills and knowledge.
Some of the results for performance avoidance are encouraging and contradict previous
classroom observations made when instructor intervention was necessary to prevent learners
from continually selecting easy functions as their FG (Wash, 2014 p.254). Because findings
indicated that the majority of learners were using goal-setting positively by setting challenging
goals, it could be conceded that prior observed instances of ‘easy-picking’ were isolated
incidents. On the other hand, findings regarding performance avoidance related to students
completing FG and CSG in order not to look poor at English in front of their peers comes as
little surprise. These results are consistent with Cutrone’s (2009, p.59) ideas mentioned earlier
on Japanese learners’ tendency to save face in English classes. Performance avoidance of this
nature on the SDT continuum would fall into the category of external motivation, or more
specifically introjected regulation - a more internalised sub-type of external motivation in which
outside pressure is reacted to and incorporated into ‘the self’ (Noels et al., 2000 p.62). It is
therefore important for instructors to be aware that although intrinsic motivation is preferable to
foster in our learners, external forces in the form of social pressure or a need to pass a
manadatory course in order to receive credit still have a considerable bearing on EDC student
performance.
One major concern with research designs such as this that deal with ordinal data using
Likert scales is the internal reliability of the data; in other words, are the individual items in the
questionnaire consistently measuring the concepts they set out to? Analysis was done using
SPSS software to calculate the Cronbach’s Alpha (α). This statistical test allows us to check the
internal consistency of the indicators and their reliability at measuring the core concepts. The
Alpha was calculated for motivation, autonomy, performance avoidance, and for the total
(Appendix 3). Alpha for the total items was recorded as 0.78 which tells us that the overall
consistency for student views related to FG and CSG was acceptable. Similarly, for autonomy
alone, internal reliability was also acceptable at a level of α= 0.72. The Alpha measure for
performance avoidance was less consistent at 0.63 which is perhaps only marginally acceptable.
However, for motivation the result was much lower at α=0.49 indicating an unacceptable level
of consistency. Within the motivation section, if we were to remove item C from the study,
Alpha would increase to a more respectable 0.67. This is possibly due to the nature of the item
which possibly measures students’ attitudes towards functions and communication skills
themselves as it does the motivational aspects of FG and CSG for having effective discussions.
From these results it is clear that even when care is taken to construct effective Likert scale
questionnaires, it should not be taken for granted that the multiple items we are using to measure
concepts are consistent and provide us with strong levels of internal reliability. Calculating the
Cronbach’s Alpha is an effective way of verifying the robustness of Likert scale data collection
tools and enables us to be more transparent about any weaknesses in internal reliability.
CONCLUSION
This study has found that using self-checklists with a goal orientation that guide students to
independently set FG and CSG can have a positive intrinsic motivational effect on learners and
can facilitate more effective discussions in EDC. However, it has also revealed that the activity
did not significantly increase a sense of autonomy EDC learners. Furthermore, although
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goal-setting is generally used in a positive manner, elements of performance avoidance such as

social pressure to perform exert a strong external influence on student performance. This area of
research could be vastly improved by increasing the sample size. How would results differ
across the items on this questionnaire if goal-oriented self-checklists were a mandatory part of
EDC and data was collected from all students across both semesters of an academic year?
Knowing the answer to this question by expanding the study would enrich our understanding of
the three conceptual orientations of learner goal-setting in the EDC context and make the
findings more representative of similar mandatory English speaking courses in other Japanese
universities.
REFERENCES
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Strategies and Motivation. Journal of Educational Psychology, 80(3), 260-267.
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Cutrone, P. (2009). Overcoming Japanese EFL learners' fear of speaking. University of Reading,
Language Studies Working Papers, 1, 55-63.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2002). Overview of Self-Determination Theory: An Organismic
Dialectical Perspective. In E. L. Deci & R. M. Ryan (Eds.), Handbook of
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January, 2015, from http://www.zoltandornyei.co.uk/uploads/1994-dornyei-mlj-a.pdf
Gardner, R. C. (1959). Motivational Variables in Second-language Acquisition. (Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy), McGill University. Retrieved from
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Gardner, R. C. (1985). Social Psychology and Second Language Learning. London: Edward
Arnold.
Kuromatsu, M. (2013). Feedback Strategies from a Student's Perspective. New Directions in
Teaching and Learning English Discussion, 1(2).
Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (1990). Work Motivation and Satisfaction: Light at the End of the
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Noels, K. A., Pelletier, L. G., Clement, R., & Vallerand, R. J. (2000). Why are you Learning a
Second Language? Motivational Orientations and Self-Determination Theory. Language
Learning, 50(1), 57-85.
Oxford, R., & Shearin, J. (1994). Language Learning Motivation: Expanding the Theoetical
Framework. The Modern Language Journal, 78(1), 12-28.
Ragsdale, J. N. (2013). Comparing Two Methods of Using Self-Check Sheets for Formative
Assessment. New Directions in Teaching and Learning English Discussion, 1(2).
Wash, I. (2014). Goal-Oriented Self-Checklists: Principles, Practice & Evaluation. Center for
English Discussion Class. New Directions in Teaching and Learning English Discussion,
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Woodrow, L. (2012). Goal Orientations: Three Perspectives on Motivation Goal Orientations. In
S. Mercer, S. Ryan, & M. Williams (Eds.), Psychology for Language Learning.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
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APPENDIX A - Survey Scale and Items

Scale
Not at all true of Not true of me Somewhat True of Very True of me
me 当てはまらな true of me me とても当てはま
全く当てはまらなやや当てはま当てはま
いる
いるる
1 2 3 4 5
Items
A) I think that when all students have clear FG and CSG, this helps the group to have
smoother
discussions 私はすべての学生が明確なファンクションの目標とコミュニケーション
スキルの目標を持っていれば、グループがよりがスムーズなディスカッションをする
のを促進すると思う。
B) Using FG and CSG help me to boost my English Discussion Skills
ファンクションの目標とコミュニケーションスキルの目標を使用することは、私の英
語ディスカッションスキルを高めるのに役立つ
C) FG and CSG are obstacles that prevent me from having effective discussions
ファンクションの目標とコミュニケーションスキルの目標は私が効果的なディスカッ
ションをするのを妨げる障害物である
D) FG and CSG help me to improve on my weak points.
ファンクションの目標とコミュニケーションスキルの目標が私の弱点を改善するのに
役立つ
E) Successfully completing my FG and/or CSG gives me a feeling of personal
fulfillment.
私のファンクションまたははコミュニケーションスキルの目標を首尾よく完了するこ
とは私に個人的な充足感を与える
F) When I fail to complete my FG and CSG I lose confidence in my English ability.
ファンクションの目標とコミュニケーションスキルの目標を完了することができない
とき、私は自分の英語力に対する自信を失う
G) If I didn’t have FG and CSG I would feel lazy and less motivated.
ファンクションの目標とコミュニケーションスキルの目標を持っていなかったら、私
は怠惰であまりやる気がでなかっただろう
QH - I think it is more effective for the teacher to set my FG and CSG.
私は先生が私のファンクションの目標と、コミュニケーションスキルの目標を設定す
ることがより効果的だと思う
301
I) I think it is more effective for me to set my own FG and CSG.

私は私自身でファンクションの目標と、コミュニケーションスキルの目標を設定する
ことがより効果的だと思う
J) I am confident that I can set accurate FG and CSG by myself.
私は自分で正確なファンクションの目標と、コミュニケーションスキルの目標を設定
できると確信している
K) When I can set my own FG and CSG I try harder to complete it.
私が自分のファンクションの目標と、コミュニケーションスキルの目標を設定するこ
とができたとき、私はそれを完了するために一層努力する
L) Selecting my own FG and CSG makes me feel in control of my English learning
experience.
ファンクションの目標とコミュニケーションスキルの目標を選択することは、私が英
語の学習経験を管理できると感じる
M) Selecting my own FG and CSG makes me want to do more tasks without the
teachers help in EDC lessons.
ファンクションの目標とコミュニケーションスキルの目標を選択することは、英語デ
ィスカッションレッスンで教師の支援なしでより多くのタスクを実行したくなる
N) When I set my own FG and CSG I select the easiest functions and communication
skills.
私が自分のファンクションの目標と、コミュニケーションスキルの目標を設定すると
、私は最も簡単なファンクションやコミュニケーションスキルを選択する
O) If the teacher sets my FG and CSG I will find it more difficult to complete the goals.
先生が私のファンクションの目標と、コミュニケーションスキルの目標を設定した場
合、目標を完了することはより困難だろう
P) I try to complete my FG and CSG so that other students won’t think I am poor at
English.
他の学生に私は英語に弱いと思われないように、ファンクションの目標と、コミュニ
ケーションスキルの目標を完了するよう努める
Q) On my checklist I check functions and communication skills I didn’t actually use in
the discussion to avoid embarrassment.
恥ずかしさを避けるために、ディスカッションの中で実際には使用していなかったフ
ァンクションやコミュニケーションスキルを私のチェックリストにチェックする
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Ian Wash
APPENDIX B - Tables of Results

Motivation
QA QB QC QD* QE QF QG
Motivation Motivation Motivation Motivation Motivation Motivation Motivation
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
No N% No N% No N% No N% No N% No N% No N%
Not at all 1 0.6 1 0.6 1 0.6 1 0.6 2 1.2 11 8.5 16 9.8
Motivated % % % % % % %
Not 2 1.2 2 1.2 10 6.1 3 1.8 14 8.5 27 28. 58 35.
Motivated % % % % % 0% 4%
Somewhat 18 11. 13 7.9 24 14. 29 17. 47 28. 66 40. 58 35.
Motivated 0% % 6% 7% 7% 2% 4%
Motivated 79 48. 66 40. 72 43. 70 42. 72 43. 46 16. 24 14.
2% 2 9% 7% 9% 5% 6%
Very 64 39. 82 50. 57 34. 60 36. 29 17. 14 6.7 8 4.9
Motivated 0% 0% 8% 6% 7% % %
* = Contains a missing value
Autonomy
QH QI QJ QK QL QM
Autonomy 1 Autonomy 2 * Autonomy 3 Autonomy 4 Autonomy 5 Autonomy 6
No N% No N% No N% No N% No N% No N%
Not at all
17 10.4% 3 1.8% 8 4.9% 1 0.6% 3 1.8% 10 6.1%
Autonomous
Not
51 31.1% 13 7.9% 52 31.7% 10 6.1% 27 16.5% 62 37.8%
Autonomous
Somwhat
52 31.7% 49 29.9% 58 35.4% 59 36.0% 58 35.4% 63 38.4%
Autonomous
Autonomous 37 22.6% 66 40.2% 36 22.0% 63 38.4% 57 34.8% 28 17.1%
Very
6 3.7% 32 19.5% 10 6.1% 31 18.9% 19 11.6% 1 0.6%
Autonomous
* = Contains a missing value
Performance Avoidance
QN QO QP QQ
Perf Avoidance 1 Perf Avoidance 2 Perf Avoidance 3 Perf Avoidance 4
No N% No N% No N% No N%
Uses goal-setting
13 7.9% 13 7.9% 16 9.8% 73 44.5%
very positively
Uses goal-setting
67 40.9% 76 46.3% 60 36.6% 53 32.3%
positively
Uses goal-setting
48 29.3% 51 31.1% 42 25.6% 28 17.1%
somewhat positively
Does not use
30 18.3% 18 11.0% 36 22.0% 7 4.3%
goal-setting positively
303
QN QO QP QQ
Perf Avoidance 1 Perf Avoidance 2 Perf Avoidance 3 Perf Avoidance 4
No N% No N% No N% No N%
Uses goal-setting
13 7.9% 13 7.9% 16 9.8% 73 44.5%
very positively
Uses goal-setting
67 40.9% 76 46.3% 60 36.6% 53 32.3%
positively
Uses goal-setting
48 29.3% 51 31.1% 42 25.6% 28 17.1%
somewhat positively
Does not use
30 18.3% 18 11.0% 36 22.0% 7 4.3%
goal-setting positively
Does not use
goal-setting positively 6 3.7% 6 3.7% 10 6.1% 3 1.8%
at all
APPENDIX C - Cronbach’s Alpha Results
Item Cronbach’s Alpha ( )

Motivation 1-7 0.492
Autonomy 1-6 0.718
Task Avoidance 1-4 0.634
Total (all 17 items) 0.782
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Small and Large Culture Conceptions of NS and NNS
University
Matthew Wilson
ABSTRACT
What is to be the role of culture within pedagogy? Can it be usefully conceptualized so as to
provide a positive means by which to understand second language acquisition? This paper
attempts to answer these questions by applying Holliday’s small/large culture theorization in an
investigation of teacher discussion concerning their cultural pedagogic paradigms. From this
investigation, I conclude that while the concept of culture plays a significant role in how
teachers think about pedagogy and the environments in which they work, we still do not have a
complete and consistent theoretical framework within which we might legitimately place our
observations.
INTRODUCTION
This paper addresses current issues relating to the conceptualization of culture within teaching
making specific reference to Holliday’s theoretical framework of small and large cultures. In
order to do this, a survey was carried out of six English discussion Instructors working at Rikkyo
University. This paper begins with an overview of the conceptualization of culture in ESL before
providing a closer evaluation of Holliday’s framework. The rationale and results of the survey
are then given after which the survey’s implications are considered. Finally, the value of
Holiday’s framework as a heuristic tool is also considered.
CULTURE AS A CONCEPT AND HEURISTIC TOOL

In recent years, culture and its conceptual role in ESL and EAP has received increasing attention.
Jordan summarizes general culture as “stem [ing] from the surrounding society and pervade[ing]
all aspects of life”, adding that academic culture “stems from the educational culture and
disciplinary culture” (Jordan, 2012, p 94). Meanwhile, a number of theoreticians have also
argued for the great significance of culture within teaching. Atkinson claims, “Except for
language, learning, and teaching, there is perhaps no more important concept in the field of
TESOL than culture” (Atkinson, 1999, p 625). Atkinson is calling on practitioners to pay
attention to culture as an influential component of education. Kramsch in the introduction to his
book, Context and Culture in Language broadens the concept by suggesting that “Culture in
language learning is not an expendable fifth skill, tacked on, so to speak, to the teaching of
speaking, listening, reading, and writing. It is always in the background…” (Kramsch, 2008, p 1).
For Kramsch, culture is more than an element but rather an ever present aspect of teaching
which by implication must always be acknowledged if teaching is to be effective. Seargeant also
recognizes this but like others sees certain problems in the elision of culture, society and
ideology (Seargeant, 2009). However, Seargeant retains culture as a heuristic, recognizing that
within the discourses of global English it is used “to refer group specific behaviors and symbolic
practices” (Seargeant, 2009, p 36). In doing so he is providing a more concrete basis on which
we can characterize and carry out research using culture as a clearly conceptualized phenomenon.
Furthermore, by specifically localizing culture, Seargeant makes an attempt at avoiding the
issues associated with stereotyping and overgeneralization.
Holliday has attempted to address the issue of over generalization by introducing the
305
concept of small culture in opposition to large culture (Holliday, 2008). Holliday distinguishes
two opposing conceptual paradigms which he refers to as small and large culture. There is a
concern with Holliday’s research regarding the sample size used and the small number of
academic papers on which he based his work. Clearly there is room for more research but
notwithstanding this limitation, it is still possible for us to explore the small/large cultures
conception.
For Holliday, culture comprised of character, relations and research orientation offer
greater and more accurate descriptive power when understood in terms of the small culture
paradigm than in terms of the large culture paradigm. Small culture provides a situated and
non-essentializing understanding of how people work in contrast to large culture which only
provides a reified version of interactions which leads to over generalization leading to ethnic and
nationalistic stereotyping. Small cultures are concerned with interpreting emergent behavior
within groups while large culture begins with the idea of the group and then looks for supporting
evidence. Large cultures can therefore be considered as accommodating and maintaining
normative values of dominant ideology. In order to explore these concepts further, a study was
carried out using university ESL Instructors.
DATA AND METHODOLOGY

The semi-structured survey set out to identify which cultural paradigm(s) (small and/or large)
the English Discussion Class Instructors were operating within. Seven EDC Instructors were
interviewed providing approximately 5 hours of recordings. The Instructors were chosen from
a pool of 42 Instructors working in the EDC department and were chosen on the basis that they
were representative of the various backgrounds in the department. The participants included
male and female; Japanese, United Kingdom and United States of America Instructors and hence,
non-native speakers (NNS) and native speakers (NS) of English were represented. The
experience of the Instructors ranged from 5 years to 16 years. All the participants had worked in
two or more institutions. Except for one, all the participants had worked in more than one
country including the United Kingdom, China, Korea, the United States and India. The survey
was composed primarily of open questions relating to students and culture. The questions were
selected for a number of reasons:
1. To identify historical elements which might throw light on subsequent answers relating
to culture.
2. Direct questions relating to culture were asked to ascertain the Instructor’s conscious
pedagogical approaches to culture and how they relate to Holliday’s conceptualization.
3. Questions relating to student capacity were asked to ascertain how the Instructors
viewed their students in relation to culture. These questions did not directly refer to
culture but it was expected that the Instructors would give reasons for the capacity
within the context of culture.
4. Questions relating to ability and capacity were based upon pedagogic concepts which
have been proved controversial with regard to cultural stereotyping (Kumaravadivelu,
2003; Lai, 2011). These included:
 Autonomy
 Critical Thinking
 Individualistic v’s collectivistic behavior
5. The questions were asked both in relation to general attitudes about student behavior in
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Matthew Wilson
Japan and about the students Instructors had taught in the university in order to provide
Instructors with the opportunity to express a broad range of pedagogic beliefs.
The data was then analyzed in order to find evidence of Instructor belief regarding culture
in terms of Holliday’s small / large paradigm. This survey used a small sample group and made
no attempt to provide a quantitative analysis but attempted to provide illustrations of either the
small or large paradigms as relating to Holliday’s breakdown of culture into character, relations
and research orientation.
RESERVATIONS CONCERNING THE ISSUE OF DEFINITION WITHIN THE

SURVEY
As has been noted, Instructors were not informed of the primary aim of the questioning and to
support this, no reference was made to the concept of small or large cultures. However, the term
culture was used frequently and the Instructor was left to apply his or her own definition.
The issue of definition also lay with other terms such as autonomy and critical thinking.
Occasionally, some of the participants would request a definition of the term, however the
interviewer was able to avoid giving overly explicit answers which might have led to bias
responses concerning culture.
Lastly, in order to explore Holliday’s conceptualization in more depth, I set out to apply
the conceptualization to a specific situation i.e. the oral reflections of English discussion
Instructors. In the process of doing so, it became apparent that while small and large culture are
useful heuristics, in certain situations the interplay between the two suggest a more dynamic and
complex phenomenon. This may be due to the subject of my ‘textual’ analysis as rather than
looking at research papers as did Holliday, I surveyed ESL Instructor’s oral explications and
analyzed the usage and references to the concept of culture.
DATA IN THE CONTEXT OF HOLLIDAY’S MODEL

From the data collected, it is apparent that all the Instructors were using aspects of small and
large culture conceptualization in tandem with each other rather than operating within a single
differentiable paradigm. Furthermore, the large culture claims were often qualified later by
making reference to small culture data. Additionally, hedging concerning large culture claims
was often applied. Below are examples of the small and large culture expressions which
contributed to these findings.
Small and Large Culture “characterization”

Holliday claims that large culture interprets behavior in terms of preconceived notions of
national groups and ethnicities. This kind of national and racial characterization was not evident,
at least not explicitly, in any of the interviews. However, Holliday suggests that the large culture
paradigm interpolates race and culture, “imply[ing] the possibility of a similarly constructed
culturism, in which the members of a group to which an ethnic, national or international large
cultural label has been attached are perceived to pre-defined characteristics.” (Holliday, 1999:
p249). Prominent in the interviews, and perhaps contrary to Holliday’s overall hypothesis, was a
constant interplay between the recognition of characteristics common to a generalized student
population and reference to specific experiences and supporting data.
In answer to the question, “From your experience, do you think that Japanese students
display general behavioral characteristics?” Instructor 1 claimed to want to confirm that general
307
characteristics are displayed amongst Japanese students. This indicates that a large culture
conception is feasible at least in the Instructor’s mind. However, like many of the Instructors
when making generalizations, a caveat was given:
I think it’s too general to like say, Japanese students are all like this one collective thing,
basically… you know that they have learning needs that other learners don’t… like
pronunciation difficulties. I mean they are things that have proven to be problems with
Japanese learners.
(Instructor 1)
This provides both insights into teacher conceptualization of culture and also the care
with which it can be dealt. Instructor 1 acknowledges that there are general cultural factors
which influence aspects such as pronunciation but also expresses resistance to the idea of
grouping all Japanese students together. Another strategy for understanding student behavior is
drawn upon by referring to evidential knowledge (“proven to be problems”) rather than simply
drawing on common sense understanding.
However, this is not to say that experience is not considered a useful way of framing
understanding. This is made apparent by a Japanese Instructor reflecting on personal educational
experience: “…it’s not often encouraged to say personal opinion. So students are quite passive
and I think it’s quite normal situation which happens in Japanese school. And I think it’s quite
strongly influence by culture” (Instructor 6). Here the Instructor is comparing what some might
consider a more Western style of student centered teaching to Japanese teacher led teaching. The
Instructor is making a claim about the national character of education and students in Japan, but
at the same time rooting the claim in teacher experience. If one is to classify this type of
knowledge as a large cultural conceptualization we must invariably ask if this knowledge throws
any true light on English education or whether it should be disregarded. This point is taken up in
the discussion.
What is clearly evident in the Instructor interviews is not only the use of large culture to
conceptualize Japanese education but also the Instructor awareness that this can be problematic.
Not least of the problems, is the difficulty with which approaches toward issues of culture are
made. Frequent caveats are made and disclaimers added. For example, “I mean you don’t want
to talk in these general terms, maybe Japanese students are more obedient perhaps” (Instructor 1).
The awkward construction of this sentence i.e. the vocabulary choice of “perhaps”, and the
presence of the hedging phrases can be seen in three ways. Firstly, culture and ethnicity are
sensitive issues and so a tentative approach is appropriate. Secondly, we might view the
uncertainty as indicating a lack of conceptual understanding and an inability to express thoughts
on the subject. This is not to make a criticism of the Instructor but to acknowledge that our
current conceptualization may be inadequate. Indeed, one might refer to the fact that since there
is currently little consensus within ESL concerning the manifestation, perhaps it should not
surprise us that university Instructors have problems with the concept. A third option is to view
the ambivalence as indicating the need for both large and small culture conceptualizations. This
issue will be addressed further in the Discussion section.
Small and Large Culture “relations”

The so called onion ring relationship (Holliday, 2012) of dominant culture to sub cultures is
claimed by Holliday to be characteristic of the large culture paradigmatic prism. Although with
hindsight the questions used in this survey might have been composed differently to draw out
more specific understandings concerning how cultural organization was conceptualized, support
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Matthew Wilson
for this conceptual modeling was evident in some of the answers given by the Instructors:
“People are usually a product of their culture, their upbringing.” This Instructor makes it explicit
that culture beyond the classroom has an impact on the culture of the classroom which can be
seen as falling into the category of large culture conceptualization of relations. This was also
evident in less explicit explications:
But I do think that there is more of a tendency in classrooms to be more maybe
comfortable with silence or quiet classrooms than maybe some other country’s cultures
would be. I think that maybe it’s just the way they’ve been socialized in Japanese
society and classrooms before.
(Instructor 7)
Although this second example indicates a large culture paradigmatic conceptualization, we can
also simultaneously see small culture relations. While Instructor 7 indicates that external culture
(Japanese society) is having a direct impact on student behavior, they also note that emersion in
Japanese classroom culture is a source of behavior i.e. producing situation specific behavior.
Small and Large Culture “research orientation”

While none of the Instructors were explicitly asked about their research orientations regarding
cultures, many of the answers shed light on how they might approach culture. Some of the
Instructors referred to their own research carried out as part of their professional development
within the program:
I think some students are interested in having autonomy. I just think it’s a new idea, a
new idea a new concept to them. Interviews I’ve done with learners where they’ve
written about having autonomy in the classroom, written in Japanese and I’ve translated
it back to English. Many of them think that they should be able to set their own goals in
the classroom.
(Instructor 5)
Here, although explicit statements about cultural perceptions are not given, the Instructor by
implication is showing how understanding of behavior is based in research rather than on
cultural assumption. The Instructor is making interpretations based on evidence rather than
beginning with a normative assumption about the Japanese student as an autonomous learner.
Judging whether or not there is a process of prescription or interpretation can be difficult.
This can be seen when one Instructor, having claimed that Japanese students lack autonomy
gives an explanation:
You know, autonomy is not something that’s promoted in junior high schools and high
schools. It’s very much teacher fronted class and grammar, SVOCM, Yakudoku
grammar translation approach. And that’s interesting for us ‘cause that’s what we try
and do with our course. We try to develop fluency and we try to develop learner
autonomy within the class but also in their own time as well.
(Instructor 4)
The Instructor is being both prescriptive and interpretive. While referring to the
behavior of the students in his class (interpreting), a normative judgment is being made on
Japanese students in general. This particular Instructor had worked in a number of countries and
had a number of years’ experience so potentially had the experience to be able to make
comparisons.
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DISCUSSION
Rather than operating exclusively within either the small or large culture paradigms, the
Instructors appear to be operating in a third paradigm somehow combining both approaches.
Figures 1. and 2. show the way in which Holliday appears to be conceptualizing our academic
approaches to culture. The small approach is considered by Holliday as superior to the large
approach because it avoids culturism. The large culture approach is denigrated as it is, Holliday
claims, prone to essentialism. However, a possible alternative is that Instructors are not only
aware of the risks of stereotyping but actively consciously developing their own concepts of a
large culture, as appeared to be the case in this study. More importantly, this large culture is not
essential but provisional on experience, general pedagogic knowledge and research evidence.
This provisional culture conception is illustrated in Figure 3. Point “X” indicates the reliance of
the teacher on small evidence or on the provisional conceptualization. The proximity of point “X”
to the concept or to the evidence will depend on the circumstances of the model’s application,
the confidence in the provisional conceptualization and the degree to which incoming evidence
supports or questions the provisional conceptualization. The feedback arrow indicates the way in
which Instructors in the survey appear to conceptualize behavioral evidence and how the
evidence impacts on the conceptualization.
CONCLUSION
The primary finding of this paper has been the ambivalent nature of the conceptualization of
culture by the university Instructors interviewed. This, however, is not to say that the term is
ambiguous but rather that in many respects the Instructors surveyed see culture as both localized
and also operating on a grander scale. It is also not to say that the Instructors considered students
as being essentially cultural but that larger culture conceptions may in fact be provisional. For
ESL, culture most certainly plays a significant role but our pedagogy regarding our
conceptualization of culture appears to require more investigation in the area of small and large
culture as an integrated means of understanding culture.
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Matthew Wilson
REFERENCES
Atkinson, D. (1999). TESOL and culture. TESOL Quarterly, 33(4) 625-654.
Holiday, A. (1999). Small cultures. Applied Linguistics, 20 (2) 237 – 264.
Holiday, A. (2008). The struggle to teach English as an international language. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Jordan, R.R. (1997). English for academic purposes – a guide and resource book for teachers.
Kramsch, C. (2008). Context and culture in language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Kumaravadivelu, B. (2003). Problematizing cultural stereotypes in TESOL. TESOL Quarterly,
37(4) 708-719.
Lai, E.R. (2011), Critical thinking: A literature review. Pearson. [Online] Available at:
http://images.pearsonassessments.com/images/tmrs/CriticalThinkingReviewFINAL.pdf
[Accessed 8 September 2014].
Seargeant, P. (2009). The idea of English in Japan – ideology and the evolution of a global
language. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
311
The Nature of Supportive Teacher Talk in Communicative EFL
Classrooms
Kayoko Yamauchi
ABSTRACT
The potential roles of teachers’ positive verbal behaviors or supportive teacher talk in the
communicative language classroom at the university level were investigated in this paper.
Supportive teacher talk was observed from the transcriptions of three 90-minute class video
recordings from three different teachers. The data was categorized into type and function of
supportive teacher talk based on Sugita and Takeuchi’s (2006) six categories of verbal
encouragements with the two extra factors of teacher classroom behaviors according to Beaman
and Wheldall (2000). The findings indicate that supportive teacher talk is mostly used for
instructional purposes such as giving concrete praise for a right answer or expected behaviors.
All observed teachers directed their praise more towards a whole class as opposed to individual
students, implying that teachers deploy praise to exercise their teaching principles as determined
by curricular goals.
INTRODUCTION
Although a variety of aspects have been studied in English Discussion Class (EDC), a small-size
communicative language course for first year university students (ranging from simple
classroom activities to analyzing gender roles), little research has been concerned on teacher talk
and behavior. Looking at how teachers in such a course talk to their students will fill a gap in an
otherwise thoroughly examined curriculum, as well as better inform future research into this
area.
Broderick (2010; 2012) found that direct positive feedback on student performance is
more effective than indirect feedback for increasing the usage of target language among students
in both the short and long term, and that this can also have a positive effect on students’ attitude
towards learning. However, such praise and encourage can also have some opposite effects, such
as lowering motivation to improve (Broderick, 2012).
Sugita and Takeuchi (2006) examined the use of verbal encouragements in actual English
as a foreign language (EFL) classrooms in Japan through the analysis of video-observations of
verbal encouragements by teachers in schools ranging from elementary to university level. In
their study, the term ‘encouragement’ is defined as “the linguistic expressions from teachers to
students in classrooms intended to elicit students’ positive participation in English class and to
create a classroom atmosphere which can stimulate their willingness to learn English in every
activity” (pp. 60-61). Table 1 shows six categories that Sugita and Takeuchi created to classify
verbal encouragements in their study (p. 61).
Table 1. Classification of verbal encouragements used in Sugita and Takeuchi’s study
Category Definition
Encouragement-1 - Remarks for building self-confidence. (e.g., Come on, you can
do it.)
- Remarks for inviting students’ positive participation.
- Remarks for reducing anxiety. (e.g., Don’t worry. Never
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mind.)
Encouragement-2 - Simple praise with no concrete reference to students’
performance. (e.g., Very good.)
Encouragement-3 - Detailed praise with concrete reference to students’
performance. (e.g., Your pronunciation is very good.)
Encouragement-4 - Remarks for showing understanding of a students’ answer.
(e.g., I understand.)
- Remarks for showing agreement with a student’s opinion.
(e.g., I agree with you.)
Encouragement-5 - Remarks for acknowledging a right answer. (e.g., Exactly,
Okay.)
Encouragement-6 - Remarks for helping students in difficult conditions.
(e.g., 1. Give examples to the students having problems with
their tasks or activities.
2. Whisper answers to students who are getting nervous.
3. Start to say the beginning of answers to the students who
are not understanding.)
Sugita and Takeuchi’s study indicates that university teachers used Encouragement-5 most
frequently in their classes, and the encouragements tended to direct at individuals than at the
whole class (p. 63). Since their study was conducted in conventional large-size classroom
settings, the comparison between their results and the results from this study might provide an
interesting insight into the potential roles of teachers’ praise or supportive teacher talk in a
small-size communicative language classroom such as EDC.
In addition, Beaman and Wheldall (2000) reviewed numerous studies dealing with
“naturalistic observed use of teacher approval and disapproval” in terms of its natural or typical
rates and effectiveness (pp. 431-432). Their review and analysis of the research literature on
teacher classroom behavior shows that “teacher behavior may be a powerful influence on the
behavior of both individual students and whole classes” and “such key teacher behaviors as
contingent praise/approval and reprimand/disapproval may be systematically deployed by
teachers so as to increase both academic and appropriate social behaviors and to decrease
inappropriate behaviors” (p. 431). In other words, praise/approval is deployed by teachers for
mainly two reasons: “instructional/academic” and “managerial/social” functions (p. 433). Taking
into account these functional trends of praise deployment, it is worth investigating how language
teachers in a communicative language classroom will employ the praise in terms of these two
functions as well. Hence, in the current study, the researcher would like to define the term
‘instructional praise’ as the positive verbal expressions from teachers to students in classrooms
for evaluative purposes based on curricular goals and target language use. The term ‘managerial
praise’ is defined as the positive verbal expressions from teachers to students in classrooms for
facilitating purposes such as affective encouragements and those that promote proper classroom
behavior.
To sum up, not only the type of praise use but also the function of praise use will be
explored in this study. In order to analyze teacher talk in EDC, the six categories of verbal
encouragements as outlined in Sugita and Takeuchi (2006) are modified along with the two
functions “instructional” and “managerial” according to Beaman and Wheldall (2000). The
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present study’s classification of verbal encouragement is outlined in Table 2 below.
Table 2. Functions and Classification of verbal encouragements used in this study
Additional
Function Category Original Definition
Definition
Remarks for building Remarks for
self-confidence, inviting encouraging
managerial 1 students’ positive students to complete
participation, and reducing their task.
anxiety.
Remarks for showing
understanding of a students’
2 answer and showing
agreement with a student’s
opinion.
Remarks for helping students
3
in difficult conditions.
Simple praise with no concrete
instructional 4 reference to students’
performance.
Detailed praise with concrete
5 reference to students’
performance.
Remarks for acknowledging a Remarks for
right answer. acknowledging a
6 behavior that follows
the classroom
protocols
There are two additional definitions created and used in this study. For Category 1, an additional
definition, remarks for encouraging students to complete their task, is included as the researcher
found that teachers sometimes give intentional remarks for students to encourage them to keep
talking or complete an assigned task (e.g. “Uh-huh” while a student was talking). For Category 6,
an additional definition, remarks for an expected or helpful behavior, is included as the
researcher found that teachers sometimes give positive remarks for students who followed
classroom protocols when prompted (e.g. ‘Thank you!’ when a student moved to change
partners) and for students who followed classroom protocols without prompting (e.g. ‘Thank
you!’ when a student handed in a quiz).
METHOD
In order to investigate teachers’ praise and supportive teacher talk, the recordings of three
teacher’s 90-minute class observation videos were observed. Although the possible variables,
such as proficiency levels and particular content of the lesson, could have been considered in
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this study, they are disregarded in order to focus purely on exploring the nature of praise use
employed by the instructors as an initial investigation.
Thus, the following three video recordings were collected from three EDC instructors
who have taught in the same the unified curriculum for more than two years. Video recording A
was of a high-beginner class during the third of fourteen lessons in a semester; video recording
B was of a intermediate class during the same lesson; and video recording C was of a
high-intermediate class during lesson seven. Each video recording was transcribed by the
researcher, and teachers’ praise in the classroom was identified and categorized into type and
function of praise in the charts below based on the six categories for verbal encouragements and
two teacher behaviors as adapted from Sugita and Takeuchi (2006) and Beaman and Wheldall
(2000), as outlined in Table 2 above.
RESULTS
In order to better analyze the trend of teachers’ praise and teacher talk in EDC, the following
Table was created.
Table 3. Average numbers and proportions of encouragements in three items
Category 1 2 3 4 5 6 total
Function managerial instructional
For all 3.33 4.33 10.67 10.33 13.67 13.33 55.67
3.57% 4.64% 11.43% 11.07% 14.64% 14.29% 59.64%
For
individual 7.00 2.33 10.00 4.33 7.67 6.33 37.67
7.50% 2.50% 10.71% 4.64% 8.21% 6.79% 40.36%
Total 10.33 6.67 20.67 14.67 21.33 19.67 93.33
11.07% 7.14% 22.14% 15.71% 22.86% 21.07%
Note. Figures after the third decimal fraction were omitted.
Table 3 shows four major findings that can be generalized from this study. The first finding is
that Encouragement-5, detailed praise with concrete reference to students’ performance, is used
most among the teachers observed (e.g. “And you said, ‘because,’ and you put a reason. That’s
really great because that’s today’s function”). This shows that EDC teachers are more conscious
about giving more supportive, concrete feedback when monitoring students’ performance in the
classroom.
The second finding is that Encouragement-2, remarks for showing understanding of a
students’ answer and showing agreement with a student’s opinion, is the least used way to praise
students among the sample pool. Factoring in that all actual instances of Encouragement-2
follow either a student’ remark about difficulty (e.g. “Yeah, repeating is important” after the first
fluency task in Video Recording A) or students’ attempts at using the target phrases (e.g. “We’ve
got a lot of new language today” in Video Recording B), it might be reasonable to say that most
EDC teachers attend to students’ remarks or struggles only when students are obviously
struggling with the material.
The third finding is about the preferable purpose when giving praise. The total number of
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each functional sub-category, 59.64% for instructional encouragements and 40.36% for
managerial encouragements, indicates that the observed teachers tend to give more praise for
instructional purposes. This orientation towards using praise more for academic purposes
implies that EDC teachers are actually able to use their teacher talk time for teaching rather than
for managing classroom business.
The last finding is about a preferred audience of praise in EDC. Table 3 indicates that
EDC teachers prefer to direct praise more towards a whole class than individual students, which
is contrary to some previous studies of encouragement finding that praise towards individuals is
preferred by students in language classrooms (Broderick, 2010 and 2012; Sugita & Takeuchi,
2006).
DISCUSSION
The following Tables below show the raw data of the observed deployment of praise in EDC,
taking into account the fact that each teaching classroom context is unique (Cullen, 1998). When
comparing and contrasting these three video recording items, two factors are important to be
noted. One is the differing proficiency level in each video, from high-beginner to
high-intermediate. As mentioned earlier, groups of different proficiency levels might require a
different approach by their teachers. Another factor is the difference in observation period, as
one recording was made four weeks later in the semester than the other two, and therefore the
different objectives and conditions of the lessons. Two videos (Video Recording A and B) were
taken during lesson three, which was relatively at the beginning of the semester when a teacher
was still establishing academic and social protocols in the classroom, while Video Recording C
was taken during lesson seven, during mid-semester when most of these protocols had been set
by teachers. By taking into account the two factors above, the following results can be observed
and analyzed from each video.
Table 4. Average numbers and proportions of encouragements observed in Video Recording A

(Lesson 3, high beginner)
For all 6 2 16 15 11 9 59
5.26% 1.75% 14.04% 13.16% 9.65% 7.89% 51.75%
For individual 4 2 19 14 11 5 55
3.51% 1.75% 16.67% 12.28% 9.65% 4.39% 48.25%
Total 10 4 35 29 22 14 114
8.77% 3.51% 30.70% 25.44% 19.30% 12.28%
Table 4 indicates that teacher A used Encouragement-3 and -4 more frequently than others.
Considering the first proficiency level factor, it can be presumed that lower level teachers feel
the need for praise or supportive teacher talk, which helps students to express themselves as in
Encouragement-3, followed by a simple praise as in Encouragement-4, rather than a longer
praise with concrete examples as in Encouragement-5. In addition, considering the highest
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Kayoko Yamauchi
number of total encouragements, 114, among the three teachers, it is assumed that the lower
level teachers deploy more praise than higher level teachers.
Table 5. Average numbers and proportions of encouragements observed in Video Recording B

(Lesson 3, intermediate)
For all 2 6 4 10 15 14 51
2.27% 6.82% 4.55% 11.36% 17.05% 15.91% 57.95%
For
individual 13 5 7 3 2 7 37
14.77% 5.68% 7.95% 3.41% 2.27% 7.95% 42.05%
Total 15 11 11 13 17 21 88
17.05% 12.50% 12.50% 14.77% 19.32% 23.86%
Table 5 shows that teacher B used Encouragement-6 more frequently than others. Considering
the second timing factor, it can be said that teachers in the beginning of the semester tend to
deploy Encouragement-6 out of the need for establishing academic and social protocols in the
classroom. Also, the number of total encouragements, 88, fits the assumption that teachers of
intermediate levels use fewer encouragements than those of lower levels but more than those of
higher ones. In other words, the amount of encouragement from the teacher seems, as one might
expect, to be inversely proportionate to the proficiency level of the students.
Table 6. Average numbers and proportions of encouragements observed in Video Recording C

(Lesson 7, high intermediate)
For all 2 5 12 6 15 17 57
2.41% 6.02% 14.46% 7.23% 18.07% 20.48% 68.67%
For
individual 4 0 4 1 10 7 26
4.82% 0.00% 4.82% 1.20% 12.05% 8.43% 31.33%
Total 6 5 16 7 25 24 83
7.23% 6.02% 19.28% 8.43% 30.12% 28.92%
Table 6 indicates that teacher C used Encouragement-5 and Encouragement-6 more frequently
than others. This implies that higher-level teachers can give more concrete praise as well as
respond more to students’ behaviors or remarks that fit the classroom protocols set in the earlier
semester. The fewest number of total encouragements, 83, follows the proficiency-related
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assumption made above. Nevertheless, another interesting number in this video is the audience
ratio of praise. Almost 70% of praise was directed towards the whole class, rather than any
individuals. It would seem also that teachers in higher level classes direct praise more towards a
whole class, rather than individuals whereas teachers in lower level classes are more likely to
direct praise towards an individual. However, this difference could also be attributed to teaching
style alone, as the sample size was no large enough to observe multiple levels for each teacher.
CONCLUSION
While Cullen (1998) admits that interest in teacher talk in the era of communicative language
teaching has “shifted away from a concern with quantity towards a concern with quality” (p.
179), he argues that it is important to consider the local context when understanding the
characteristics of teacher talk in communicative classrooms since the notion of ‘communicative
teacher talk’ emerges from “the teacher’s dual role as instructor as well as interlocutor” with
their established definition of what’s ‘communicative’ within the context of the classroom (p.
185). Considering this claim, this study attempted to identify and generalize what is observable
within EDC to get a better understanding of how language teachers actually attempt to support
students’ communicative language learning through their teacher talk.
Even though this is a preliminary study with a small sample of teacher talk, the results
illuminate fascinating aspects of supportive teacher talk in EDC. Factoring in major preferences
observed from the video: the most preferred type of praise, Encouragement-5, the preferred
function of praise, ‘instructional’ purposes, and the preferred audience of praise, a whole class, it
can be said that supportive teacher talk is served as signaling roles like a traffic light by language
teachers to advance a lesson by sharing achievement or difficulty with students. Interestingly,
these green light signals are reflected on EDC teachers’ teaching principles in EDC, a teacher
being a guide for all students to achieve goals of the course, while these yellow or red light
signals are serving as a reminder of important skills in the course such as emphasizing team
efforts rather than individuals’. In a sense, studying supportive teacher talk is an interesting way
of observing how an orientation of a course is defined and facilitated verbally by the teachers
within the context of the course, as Cullen (1998) has pointed out.
It would be interesting to see whether the trends observed in this study are stemming from
course-specific, teacher-specific, or group-specific factors. Future studies could collect more
data to better control for the variables discussed above and narrow down just what factors
determine what types of praise teachers give in a small, communicative EFL classroom, as well
as how such praise is given.
REFERENCES
Bailey, K.M. (2014). Classroom research, teacher research, and action research in language
teaching. In Celce-Murica, Brinton, & Snow (Eds). Teaching English as a Second or
Foreign Language. (pp.601-612). Boston: Heinle & Heinle.
Beaman, R. & Wheldall, K. (2000). Teachers’ use of approval and disapproval in the classroom.
Educational Psychology: An International Journal of Experimental Educational
Psychology, 20(4), 431-446.
Broderick, J. (2010). In praise of praise. EDC Instructors Semester 2 Projects 2010: Developing
Teaching Expertise through Self-Reflection, 140-143.
Broderick, J. (2012). Investigating teacher praise and direct feedback as motivational tools in the
EDC Classroom. New Directions in Teaching and Learning English Discussion, 1, 4-49
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– 4-55.
Brophy, J (1981). Teacher Praise: A Functional Analysis. Review of Educational Research, 51,
5-32.
Cullen, R. (1998). Teacher talk and the classroom context. ELT Journal, 52(3), 179-187.
Doe, T. and Hurling, S. and Livingston, M. & Moroi, T. (2012). New Directions in Teaching and
Learning English Discussion, 1.
Doe, T. and Hurling, S. and Livingston, M. & Moroi, T. (2013). New Directions in Teaching and
Learning English Discussion, 1(2).
Doe, T. and Hurling, S., Kamada, Y., and Livingston, M. & Moroi, T. (2014). New Directions in
Teaching and Learning English Discussion, 3.
Glover, S. (2010). Ways of encouraging quieter students. EDC Instructors Semester 2 Projects
2010: Developing Teaching Expertise through Self-Reflection, 31-34.
Sugita, M. & Takeuchi, O. (2006). Verbal encouragements for motivating EFL learners: A
classroom research. The Japan Association of College English Teachers (JACET),
59-71.
White, M. A. (Winter, 1975). Natural rates of teacher approval and disapproval in the classroom.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 8, 367-372.
Wong, J.& Waring, H.Z. (2009). “Very good” as a teacher response. ELT Journal, 63(3),
195-203.
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A Conversation Analysis of the Acquisition and Use of
Turn-taking Practices in an English Discussion Class
Davey Young
ABSTRACT
Turn-taking is an essential part of interactional competence. In order to successfully take turns
and manage the floor, English language learners must learn to negotiate transitional relevance
places (TRPs) in the L2. As part of a communicative English language course for first year
students at a university in Japan, students receive instruction on how to use prefabricated lexical
chunks to take and pass the floor. This paper uses conversation analysis (CA) to observe how
students integrate these explicitly taught adjacency pairs into preexisting strategies for managing
TRPs. Three sixteen-minute discussions in a testing environment were recorded over a period of
eight weeks and transcribed. The results of the CA indicate that students orient to a mutually
constructed set of turn-taking practices in the L2 that include a wide variety of mechanisms and
strategies for negotiating TRPs, yet maintain an L1 orientation to TRPs themselves.
INTRODUCTION
Interactional competence (IC) as a pedagogical pursuit is generally credited (Barraja-Rohan,
2011; R. Young, 2011) to Kramsch’s (1986) assertion that “language is primarily a functional
tool, one for communication […] bound to its situational context” (p. 366) and her subsequent
proposal to redirect “the enthusiasm generated by the proficiency movement toward a push for
interactional competence” (p. 370). In the nearly three decades since this initial call to action, IC
has been further developed and applied to both studies of second language acquisition (SLA)
and foreign language teaching practices (Barraja-Rohan, 2011; Wong & Waring, 2010).
R. Young (2011) advances Kamsch’s initial definition of IC by expanding the pragmatic
and context-sensitive aspect to include the criterion that linguistic and interactional resources
employed between interlocutors are done so “mutually and reciprocally by all participants in a
particular discursive practice. This means that IC is not the knowledge or the possession of an
individual person, but is co-constructed by all participants in a discursive practice, and IC varies
with the practice and with the participants” (p.428).
IC figures prominently in Celce-Murcia’s (2007) model for communicative competence,
where she advocates for its explicit instruction in foreign language education by noting that “the
typical performance of speech acts and speech act sets can differ in important ways from
language to language” (p. 49). An essential component to interactional competence is turn-taking
(Barraja-Rohan, 2011; Celce-Murcia, 2007) as Wong & Waring (2010) simply state, “[w]ithout
turns, there is no interaction” (p. 15). Undoubtedly, English language learners encounter
difficulty in learning how to take turns effectively in English (Cook, 1989; Dörnyei and Thurrel,
1994), and Japanese learners are no exception (Munby, 2005; D. Young, 2013).
The reasons for this become apparent when one considers the differences in the formation
of turn-construction units (TCUs) and turn projection between English and Japanese. In Japanese,
turn endings are critical for turn projection, whereas turn beginnings are far more important in
English (Tanaka, 1999; Thompson and Couper-Kuhlen, 2005). Perhaps the most significant
cause of this difference in turn projection is the two languages’ dissimilar grammar systems, as
Thompson & Couper-Kuhlen (2005) demonstrate that the grammatical clause is critical to turn
projection. However, this is only part of the picture at least where English turn projection is
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concerned. Ford et al. (1996) illustrate that prosody must also be considered alongside a
syntactic/semantic analysis of turn-projection. Furthermore, Goodwin (2000) makes a robust
case for the role that action and gaze play in talk-in-interaction. Therefore a conversational
analysis (CA) approach which can account for not only syntax and prosody, but gesture and gaze
as well is ideal for observing how English language learners take turns in their L2.
Historically, CA grew out of the field of sociology in the 1960s but has since been applied
to various other fields (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2008; Markee, 2000; ten Have, 1999; Wong &
Waring, 2010). CA as a research methodology into L2 acquisition and use has become more and
more common in the field of foreign language teaching in recent years (Barraja-Rohan, 2011;
Hosoda et al., 2004; Markee, 2000; Wong & Waring, 2010), and is the natural method of choice
when investigating turn-taking. Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson (1974)
made perhaps the most significant early contribution to the field of CA with their detailed
examination of how turns are allocated and organized in discourse.
In their seminal paper, Sacks et al. put forth a widely accepted set of basic rules for how
turn changes occur:
1) At a transition relevance place (TRP)14
a. If the current speaker (CS) selects a specific next speaker (NS), that NS should
take a turn.
b. If CS does not select a NS, any NS may self-select.
c. If neither rule (a) nor rule (b) is employed, CS may extend his/her turn.
2) Rules 1(a)—(c) operate again for the next TRP.
These rules can be viewed operationally, so that the success or failure of a particular rule
operation will result in either the beginning of a new turn or else the execution of a subsequent
operation.
However, the problem remains of defining a turn, which unfortunately proves problematic
as turn boundaries are often difficult to pin down (Furo, 2001; Kern, 2009; D. Young, 2013).
Crookes (1990) defines this discourse unit as “one or more streams of speech bounded by speech
of another, usually an interlocutor” (p. 185). For the current study, a turn will be defined as a
speaker’s control of the floor as recognized by the other participants, bounded by the speech of
another excluding back-channeling (reacting), requests for clarity (negotiating meaning as a
listener), or follow-up questions, as such conditional entry “may not so much interrupt the turn
or the action(s) being accomplished in it, as forward the projected turn or its action project in
some manner” (Lerner, 1996, p. 239).
METHOD
In order to observe the development of turn-taking behaviors among Japanese learners of
English, a compulsory English discussion class composed of eight first year university students
was selected for conversation analysis. The class was chosen for its relatively low level and
affect, as well as for its relative gender balance, on the assumption that these factors would
better yield perceptible changes in turn-taking strategies over the period of observation.
Students in the course are explicitly taught prefabricated lexical chunks to bolster
14
Transition relevance places are commonly defined as “conjunction points among grammatical,
intonational, and semantic completion points” (Furo, 2001).
321
formulaic competence as framed in Celce-Murcia’s (2007) model of communicative competence.

In week seven of the first fourteen-week semester, students learn function phrases that directly
target the interactional competency of taking, holding, and relinquishing the floor (Hurling,
2012). These phrases are presented as what Lerner (2003) dubs “two part-pairs” consisting of a
“sequence initiating action” and a response, requiring participants to manage floor changes
cooperatively.
Participants in the current study were video recorded in a testing environment in weeks
five, nine, and thirteen of this fourteen-lesson (one 90-minute lesson per week) communicative
English discussion course before subsequent CA was conducted to determine what turn-taking
strategies were used before and after the introduction of the two part-pair lexical chunks for
taking turns. Video recording allowed paralinguistic mechanisms such as gesture and gaze to be
considered along with lexical, syntactic, and prosodic strategies for negotiating TRPs.
The primary concern during CA was not with how TRPs were projected in the L2, but
how the participants mutually negotiated them over the eight-week span of observation with
particular regard to how the prefabricated lexical chunks were integrated into preexisting
turn-taking practices. Therefore, students who missed the explicit instruction of the turn-taking
phrases in lesson seven were eliminated from the study. There was only one such student in the
selected class, and so his test groups were recorded but not analyzed.
The transcription key (see Appendix) was borrowed from Wong & Waring (2010) and
adapted to include gaze coding borrowed from Lerner (2003).
RESULTS & DISCUSSION

The turn order in the first sixteen-minute discussion test, which occurred before the introduction
of the two part-pair turn-taking phrases, proceeded in a proscribed, circular fashion as reflected
in the turn map below.
Eri Jun
Aki Mai
Figure 1. Turn map for the first discussion. Solid lines represent turns in which floor changes
also occur. Dashed lines represent conditional entry phrasal turns into the turn space of another
speaker. Underlined names indicate the first speaker.
Munby (2005) observed a similar, circular pattern in a CA study of four students in a similar
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environment (an EFL class at a Japanese university). Such patterned turn-taking may arise from
the need for Japanese speakers to establish a hierarchy within the group (Fujimoto, 2010), and
may be further influenced by the participants’ gender roles (Itakura & Tsui, 2004).
Looking closely at how each turn transition is managed, CA yields that thirteen of
fourteen turn allocations operate by Sacks et al.’s first rule of negotiating TRPs: CS selects NS.
All of these allocations occur by the CS selecting the NS with an explicitly taught lexical chunk
that accomplishes the interactional discourse function of eliciting an opinion, for example “What
do you think?” (Hurling, 2012). Participants directed these otherwise undirected questions by
including some form explicit address: CS directs his/her gaze to the NS, CS utilizes NS’s name,
or both in conjunction (Lerner, 2003). Only one of the fourteen turn allocations in the current
study began with an undirected question. In this instance the CS employed the lexical chunk but
did not direct his gaze or use a name to determine the NS, thereby forcing an NS to self-select.
Perhaps more intriguingly, ten of fourteen turn endings included a discourse marker
post-positional to the TRP to signal that the turn had finished. These post-positional markers
always occurred before the CS’s directed question to select NS.
206 Mai: It’s mainly because eto (1.0) people (1.5) people who who want to study at university
207 (2.2) for example philosophy (5.3) other things (2.6) they (0.8) they need to go to
208 university school (3.6) they need not (1.0) to go to cram schools, I think. (1.7) What’s
209 your opinion, Aki?
210 Ma-------------
211 Aki: I disagree with you.
This excerpt exhibits a typical floor change in the first discussion. Mai elaborates on a previous
point by providing a reason for her opinion that the university entrance exam system is not the
best way for all students to apply to university in Japan. The TRP at the end of her turn is
adequately projected both syntactically and prosodically at the end of the clause “they need not
(1.0) to go to cram school,”. Furthermore, the passage of the TRP is flagged by the
post-positional discourse marker “I think.” After a brief pause, Mai selects the NS, Aki, with an
opinion elicitation question accompanied by two forms of explicit address: name usage and gaze
direction held for 1.3 seconds.
In the second discussion, a completely different pattern of both turn order and speaker
selection appears. For one thing turn order is less proscribed (see turn map below).
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Jun Eri
Ryo Sae
Figure 2. Turn map for second discussion. Solid lines represent turns in which floor changes also
occur. Underlined names indicate the first speaker.
More notably, not one of the sixteen turn allocations was realized via Sacks et al.’s first rule.
Indeed, all sixteen speaker changes at TRPs followed the second rule, meaning every turn was
claimed by NS self-selection. Compared to the first discussion, this is a radical departure but has
its explanation in the curriculum. Two weeks after the first recorded discussion and two weeks
before the current one, participants were taught function phrases for turn taking. More
specifically, participants learned to use a sequence-initiating (first pair-part) lexical chunk as CS
to open the floor (i.e. “Does anyone want to comment?”) upon completion of their speaking turn,
as well as to use a responding (second pair-part) lexical chunk to close the floor and claim a turn
as NS (i.e. “Can I make a comment?”), (Lesley et al, 2014). Of the sixteen turn allocations
observed in this second discussion, eight were initiated with a first pair-part, while all sixteen
were terminated with a second pair-part.
167 Eri: [So::] parents put a lot of pressure to them children. For example, (1.3) parents cost a
168 lot of money (1.9) them children to go to (0.9) cram schools (1.1) and so on. Students-
169 so students must feel a lot of (0.7) pressures.
170 Ej----- Er-----
171 Ryo: M:. [I see.]
172 Jun: [I see.]
173 Sae: [I thin]k so.
174 Eri: Does anyone want to comment?
175 Er-----Ej---------------
176 (0.9)
177 Jun: Can I make a comment?
178 Je----
This excerpt is the ‘cleanest’ example of a two pair-part turn allocation. Eri finishes her speaking
turn, projecting the TRP at the end of the grammatical clause “so students must feel a lot of (0.7)
pressure.” The content also summarizes Eri’s initial opinion, which helps the listeners anticipate
the TRP. The simultaneous back-channeling by all listeners shows that they have successfully
recognized the TRP. Eri then initiates the turn-taking sequence with the first pair-part by opening
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the floor with the lexical chunk “Does anyone want to comment?” Jun then completes the
sequence with the second part-pair “Can I make a comment?” to self-select as NS. This
completion is the quickest of this discussion (the pause between sequence pairs is less than one
second), which may exhibit Jun’s orientation to the new floor management technique, though it
is also worth noting that Eri’s gaze is directed at Jun when she finishes the sequence initiating
first pair-part, which may have in part operated to select Jun as the NS. So here we can see how
“[a]ction sequence initiation can contribute both to current speaker’s techniques for selecting
next speaker AND to self-selection of next speaker” (Lerner, 2003). Even when an NS
self-selects, turn order is co-constructed.
In the other eight instances of turn allocation (those in which the sequence was not
initiated by a first pair-part) NSs were left to identify the passing of the TRP by other means
before self-selecting. In some instances, a protracted pause length between turns seemed to
indicate students’ difficulty allocating or claiming a turn (Harumi, 2001). One clear example can
be seen in the following excerpt:
80 Ryo: Because (1.6) m:: (2.1) I depend (3.0) no e: sorry ((Holds hand up)) (1.9) my parents
81 (2.1) wash my clothes (1.0) an::d cook my dinner (0.8) an::d (1.6) <pay my university
82 money> (5.3) so: I’m not (2.3) independent.
83 Sae: I understand.
84 Jun: I understand.
85 Eri: I understand.
86 (7.5)
87 Jun: E: ((Ryo and Jun exchange glances.)) Can I make a comment, thi- follow up question?
88 Jr-----------
From this excerpt it is clear that at least Sae has recognized the TRP at the end of Ryo’s turn. Jun
and Eri may simply be echoing Sae, and the long pause that follows these back-channel
responses indicates some confusion as to whether the floor is open or closed or if Ryo would
initiate a floor change sequence with a first pair-part. Eventually, Jun determines that the floor is
open, likely through the exchange of glances with Ryo, at which point Jun claims a turn by
deploying the prefabricated chunk “Can I make a comment?” At other times, NSs
self-selected at the TRP without a significant pause between turns:
108 Eri: It’s mainly because (1.6) we:: we will become (1.2) we will become working members
109 of (2.9) s:: social. hh <Then we:: can’t rely on our> (1.1) parents. (2.0) For example
110 <to pay rent for houses> and so on. So (2.3) university students should try to be (.)
111 independent. This experience <will be useful> in future.
112 Er---Ej---Er-------
113 Jun: I see.
114 Ryo: I see. Can I make a comment?
115 Rj-----
Such clean operation of Sacks et al.’s rule 1(b) indicates a clear orientation to the TRP on the
part of the NS. A close look at lines 110 and 111 reveal clear TRP projection.
On the other hand, significant pauses were sometimes observed during turn allocations
initiated by a first part-pair, suggesting that participants much prefer allowing a period of silence
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between turns rather than overlapping them and creating simultaneous speech, even or perhaps
especially when the floor is completely open.
70 Eri: Does anyone want to comment?

71 Er----Ej---------------Er--------------------------------------------------------
72 (9.7) ((Eri holds her gaze on Ryo. Jun glances at Ryo, who glances back.))
73 Ryo: Can I make a comment?
In a CA of native Japanese speakers using their L1, Kitamura (2001) found that speakers often
allow a pause between turns rather than overlapping speaking turns. This would appear to be a
transference of the L1 turn-taking system, as Furo (2004) found in an exhaustive comparison of
turn-taking systems in English and Japanese that the former exhibits a more collaborative floor
with NS allocations occurring before TRPs (resulting in simultaneous, overlapping speech),
while the latter makes more frequent use of NS allocations after TRPs (resulting in pauses
between speakers).
It is worth noting, however, that in this last excerpt Ryo was the only participant yet to
contribute a turn to the discussion at this point. Interestingly, Eri directed her gaze at Ryo even
though she opened the floor for any speaker to claim, a contradiction in gesture and speech
action. It seems likely that the other three participants held the silence in order to diplomatically
allocate Ryo a turn. As no overt NS speaker selection by CS was observed at all in this second
discussion, participants seemed to be consciously trying to use the two part-pair prefabricated
phrases that were explicitly taught between the first and second recorded discussions. Taken
together, these observations reveal not only the participants’ continuing exploration of
turn-taking mechanisms, but also their sensitivity to the testing environment and adaption to
perceived performative expectations. The turn map from the third and final discussion in week
thirteen indicates significant progress in establishing normative practice for at least turn order, if
not also allocation.
Aki Sae
Jun Yui
Figure 3. Turn map for third discussion. Solid lines represent turns in which floor changes also
occur. Dotted lines represent turn changes across topics in which a speaker takes a consecutive
but separate turn. Underlined names indicate the first speaker.
Turning to the CA, Sacks et al.’s rules 1(a) and 1(b) for turn allocation were manifested far more
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evenly when compared to the previous two discussions. Participants in the final discussion opted
for Rule 1(a) (CS selects NS) eight times out of seventeen.
200 Sae: Because e:to: (1.1) being- being kind to other people makes peoples happy and I- (1.2)
201 I also can be happy.
202 Sj----Sa----
203 (1.7)
204 Yui: [I see.]
205 Aki: [I see.]
206 Jun: I see.
207 (1.2)
208 Sae: What do you think, Jun?
209 (1.9)
210 Jun: I think (.) so too, everyone.
When this failed, Rule 1(b) (NS self-selects) was executed the remaining nine turn allocations
out of seventeen. Crucially, only three of these nine occurred as a two pair-part. In other words,
six of these nine self-selections were unaided by the previous speaker initiating a floor change
sequence with a phrase like “Does anyone want to comment?” This ratio is in keeping with a
previous study on the deployment of these same two part-pair lexical chunks at the same stage in
the same curriculum. In this study, only 39.8% of turns ended with a sequence initiating function
phrase among 26 participants and 98 total turns (D. Young, 2014). A typical instance of
self-selection in this third discussion is as follows:
222 Jun: Have trouble, If I (.) have (.) trouble (3.5) When I have trouble (3.5) if (3.5) others
223 people, (1.0) don’t help, (1.8) fee- I feel (2.4) very sad. (2.1) So (0.9) I- (2.0) I: (.)
224 helped (1.1) other people. I help (1.6) other people (2.0) >chigau< helping other
225 people is (1.0) most (0.5) important.
226 Js------
227 Aki: I s[ee].
228 Sae: [I s]ee.
229 Yui: I see. (1.2) Can I make a comment?
230 Yj----------------
Such a distribution of both turns themselves and the actions by which they are allocated supports
Hutchby and Wooffitt’s (2008) assertion that Sacks et al.’s rule-set “operates as an oriented-to set
of normative practices which members use to accomplish orderly turn-taking” (p. 51).
CONCLUSION
It has long been understood that negotiating TRPs is collaborative, interactional, and context
sensitive (Lerner, 2003; Sacks et al., 1974). Over thirteen weeks of overt instruction on
performing various communicative discourse functions using prefabricated phrases, including
those that aid in the negotiation of TRPs, the participants in this study appear to have
cooperatively created and oriented to their own set of turn-taking practices, blending L1
transference and paralinguistic devices with explicitly taught L2 lexical chunks. However,
students maintained an L2 orientation to the TRPs themselves, as no simultaneous or
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overlapping speech was ever observed despite the acquisition and integration of the new
turn-taking mechanisms into the group’s preexisting set of practices.
The development of turn-taking strategies in L2 English for L1 Japanese learners, as well
as their ability to successfully manage TRPs, is clearly not determined by the instruction of
two-part adjacency pairs. Rather, students merely integrate these into a framework that they
co-create continually. This framework includes a number of other mechanisms, including
directed questions and gaze, as is shown through the current study and corroborated by others
(Hosoda et al., 2004; Munby, 2005; Young, 2014). The current study notably demonstrates the
participants’ preference for using those lexical chunks presented within the curriculum as
“Asking for Others’ Opinions” (Lesley et al., 2014) to select NS. In these instances, the function
phrase should not be viewed as it was initially presented by the instructor, but by how it is
deployed by the student.
The implications for not only how turn-taking is taught to students, but also how it is
perceived by the teacher, cannot be understated. The current study provides further evidence that
teachers concerned with interactional competence should be fostering a broader range of
turn-taking mechanisms beyond narrow adjacency pairs, as has been previously argued
(Barraja-Rohan, 2011; Fujimoto, 2010; Kellas, 2012; Kern, 2009; D. Young, 2013). Perhaps
more critically, teachers should stop assessing students on their ability to manage TRPs and take
turns solely by the use of explicitly taught target language. Students develop robust systems for
actualizing this component of interactional competency quite well on their own, and they should
be recognized for such gains.
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Crookes, G. (1990). The utterance, and other basic units for second language discourse analysis.
Applied Linguistics. 11(2), 183-99.
Lesley, J., Livingston, M., Moroi, T., & Schaefer, M.Y. (2014). What do you think?: Interactive
skills for effective discussion 1, Book III. (5th ed). Tokyo, Japan: DTP Publishing.
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‘TCU’ revisited. Pragmatics. 6(3), 427-454.
Fujimoto, D. (2010). Connecting EFL group discussions to research. Retrieved from
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Furo, H. (2001). Turn-taking in English and Japanese. New York: Routledge.
Goodwin, C. (2000). Action and embodiment within situated human interaction. Journal of
Pragmatics. 32, 1489-1522.
Harumi, S. (2001). The use of silence by Japanese EFL learners. Retrieved from JALT
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Analysis to Nonnative and Bilingual Talk. Retrieved from JALT Conference Proceedings
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Hutchby, I. & Wooffitt, R. (2008). Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Itakura, H. & Tsui, A.B.M. (2004). Gender and conversational dominance in Japanese
conversation. Language in Society. 33(2), 223-48.
Kellas, R. (2012). Balancing discussion and improving turn-taking. New Directions in Teaching
and Learning English Discussion. 1(1), 2.27-2.30.
Kern, J.Y. (2009). To follow or to flout? Communicative competence and the rules of turn taking.
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Kitamura, N. (2001). Politeness Phenomena and Mild Conflict in Japanese Casual Conversation.
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Kramsch, C. (1986). From language proficiency to interactional competence. The Modern
Language Journal. 70(4), 366-72.
Lerner, G.H. (1996). On the ‘semi-permeable’ character of grammatical units in conversation:
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from http://hokuga.hgu.jp/dspace/bitstream/123456789/1423/1/JINBUN-31-4.pdf
Sacks, H., Schegloff, E.A., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organisation of
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Young, D. (2013). Whose turn is it? Participation and passing the floor. New Directions in
Teaching and Learning English Discussion. 1(2), 50-4.
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APPENDIX
The transcription key used in this study was adapted from Wong & Waring (2010) and Lerner
(2003).
. (period) falling intonation

? (question mark) rising intonation
, (comma) continuing intonation
- (hyphen) abrupt cut-off
:: (colon(s)) prolonging of sound
word (underlining) stress
word the more underlining, the greater the stress
WORD (all caps) loud speech
ºwordº (degree symbols) quiet speech
↑word (upward arrow) raised pitch
↓word (downward arrow) lowered pitch
>word< (more than and less than) quicker speech
<word> (less than and more than) slowed speech
< (less than) jump start or rushed speech
hh (series of h’s) aspiration or laughter
.hh (h’s preceded by dot) inhalation
(hh) (h’s in parentheses aspiration or laughter inside word boundaries
[word] (set of lined up brackets) beginning and ending of
[word] simultaneous or overlapping speech
= (equal sign) latch or continuing speech with no break in between
(0.5) (number in parentheses) length of silence in tenths of a second
(.) (period in parentheses) micro-pause: 0.4 second or less
( ) (empty parenthesis) inaudible talk
(word) (word or phrase in parentheses) transcriptionist doubts
((nods)) (double parentheses) non-speech activity or transcriptionist comment
$word$ (dollar signs) smiley voice
Sr----- (capital letter, lower case letter, and hyphens) speaker’s gaze at recipient, measured by
hyphens in tenths of a second
330
SECTION FOUR
Program Evaluation
Instructors’ Views on Tasks Outside the Classroom
A report on a questionnaire survey
Matthew Livingston and
Takako Moroi
ABSTRACT
This paper is a brief report on the results of a questionnaire survey that was administered to
investigate instructor’s views on their tasks outside the classroom. An analysis of the results
suggested that tasks for professional development seem to be an important factor in a language
program that implements a unified curriculum as it affects the quality of teaching and the levels
of instructor job satisfaction. The paper will conclude with a discussion of the implications of
instructor views on professional development tasks.
INTRODUCTION
In 2009, Rikkyo University piloted the English Discussion Class (EDC) with a group of eight
instructors and 1000 students. Despite a positive response from students in this pilot year,
instructors raised informal concerns about a lack of clarity in program objectives, a lack of
cohesion of lesson materials, and a lack of consistency between instructors' approaches to the
teaching of discussion skills (Doe & Hurling, 2010). As is often the case when teachers join a
program, instructors brought with them a variety of beliefs and experiences about language
learning, classroom teaching and materials, and student assessment (Nation & Macalister, 2010;
Doe & Hurling, 2010). The lack of clarity, cohesion, and consistency at this time resulted in
students’ experience of the class being heavily dependent on the individual instructor, rather than
being guaranteed by a systematic approach to curriculum design and implementation (Doe &
Hurling, 2010; Brown, 1995). In the opinion of curriculum developers, this was an undesirable
outcome for students and teachers alike.
As a result, when the program was introduced in 2010 as a compulsory course to be
taught by 42 instructors to over 4000 freshman students, curriculum developers made the
decision to design and implement a unified curriculum. This required a systematic and
principled approach to course goals and objectives, assessment, materials, teacher training and
professional development, and program evaluation (Doe & Hurling, 2010; Brown, 1995). While
there are some critics of unified programs, particularly in terms of perceived constraints on
teacher freedom and autonomy (Dornyei & Ushioda, 2010; Benson, 2011; Silver & Skuja-Steel,
2005), consistent instruction is a very important part of delivering high quality learning
outcomes for all students taking the same course (Brown, 1995). Some researchers go one step
further and argue for the implementation of “a national unified syllabus of ELT” (Honna &
Takeshita, 2005, p.373). While this is an ambitious goal, the idea of unity at both a micro and
macro level has considerable support.
Program managers recognize that the implementation of a unified curriculum requires
instructor training, support, and development outside the classroom (Brown, 1995). This does
not mean, however, that instructors are simply told what to do, but rather are asked to engage in
critical reflection of the curriculum and its implementation in their own classrooms (Wallace,
1991, Van de Branden, 2009; Ellis, 2012). Given that a unified curriculum requires teacher
support in order to be successfully implemented, the program has, since 2010, followed the
principles and practices below for instructor development in EDC.
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1. There are systematic / regular opportunities to reflect on own teaching practice

in support of student learning
2. There are opportunities to work with colleagues for better teaching and learning
3. There are opportunities to engage in continuous and purposeful professional
growth and development (Doe & Hurling, 2010)
These principles and practices are informed by theories of "teachers as learners" (Johnson 2009
p.17) who, by engaging in professional development, can be even more effective in the
classroom (Brown, 1995) and more motivated and satisfied professionally (Dornyei and
Ushioda, 2010).
To put the above principles into practice in EDC, instructors are required to perform tasks
outside the classroom, such as orientation and faculty development workshops, compulsory
observations and conferences, materials development, written feedback for students, and
reflective / research projects. These non-teaching tasks are designed to improve learning
outcomes for all students and job satisfaction for all instructors (Doe & Hurling, 2010). Belief in
the importance of these tasks has been echoed by Rikkyo University administration, who
identified regular observations and faculty development workshops as one factor in becoming a
international, innovative university (Rikkyo University, 2014). These practices are one of several
reasons that Rikkyo was selected in 2014 as part of the ‘Top Global University Project’ by the
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology – Japan (Ministry of Education,
Culture, Sports, Science and Technology – Japan, 2014).
Despite institutional and theoretical support for the benefits of non-teaching tasks, these
require formal investigation in order to be defensible. Given limited time and resources,
however, program evaluation in EDC has often focused inside the classroom, most commonly in
the form of analysis of students' attendance and grades, and student questionnaire feedback. As
Nation and Macalister (2010) argue, effective program evaluation "requires looking both at the
results of the course, and the planning and running of the course" (p.123). Similarly, Brown
(1989 cited in Brown 1995) defines program evaluation as "the systematic collection and
analysis of all relevant information necessary to promote the improvement of a curriculum and
assess its effectiveness within the context of the particular institutions involved" (p.218).
Recognizing the role that non-teaching tasks play in a language program, it was thought that
broadening the scope of program evaluation in EDC to include these tasks would prove fruitful.
One informative and efficient method to gain such insight is questionnaires on teacher
attitudes (Brown, 1995; Lynch, 1996). Teachers offer a unique perspective, as direct participants
in a program, both in and out of the classroom. As Pennington argues, “the heart of every
educational enterprise, the force driving the whole enterprise towards its educational aims, is the
teaching faculty” (Pennington, 1989 p.91). Program managers recognize this and support the
principle of involving teachers in decision making and change implementation (Donyei &
Ushioda, 2011; Nation & Macalister, 2010; Van den Branden, 2009; Brown, 1995; Moroi, 2014).
Up until 2014, however, changes to the content and procedure of non-teaching tasks in EDC
have been based on informal dialogues between program managers and instructors. Despite
some specific requests for feedback on individual tasks, such as new instructor orientation
surveys, there had been no systematic way for instructors’ to give feedback on the effectiveness
of all non-teaching tasks in EDC. As the program entered its fifth year of full implementation,
program managers decided to administer a questionnaire survey to gain further insights into the
effectiveness of non-teaching tasks required of instructors in EDC. It was hoped that the results
would reveal instructors’ perceived value of these tasks, along with suggestions for
334
Matthew Livingston & Takako Moroi
improvement. Based on this information, program managers would be better able to make
informed decisions about future non-teaching tasks in EDC.
CURRENT PRACTICE
This section provides the context for each section of the questionnaire explaining the instructor
tasks outside the classroom.
Materials Development
EDC uses in-house textbooks for all levels. The textbooks are revised every year in order to
maintain and improve the effectiveness of classroom materials for students and instructors. This
is based on the belief that materials development is a never-ending process that needs regular
reviews from users of the materials to ensure that materials meet the student needs and the
course goals (Brown, 1995). Therefore, at EDC, instructors complete a systematic textbook
review each semester, providing feedback on strengths and weaknesses of the textbook. The
program managers then discuss instructor feedback and make revisions for the next edition in
order to maintain and improve its effectiveness for students and instructors.
Web Feedback
After each lesson, instructors write up and upload weekly comments based on student
performance along with students’ individual grades of the lesson to the EDC Website. They are
made available for students to read online prior to the next lesson. The primary purpose of lesson
comments is to help students review the lesson content and prepare for the next lesson. They
also serve as a tool for instructors and the program to keep track of class needs and progress.
Typical weekly comments include things students did well in the lesson and could do more in
future lessons. There are three types of weekly comments: class comments, test comments, and
individual comments. Class comments are written for regular lessons addressed to all students
enrolled in the class. For discussion test lessons, instructors write comments for each of the test
groups. Individual comments are written once a semester usually either before or after the final
discussion test. Reading these comments is one of the weekly homework assignments for
students, and the web system records the students’ log-in history for instructors to check which
students have logged-in prior to the next lesson.
Observations
Observations are one of the key features of EDC. Observations are conducted to ensure that
quality lessons are delivered to students following the EDC teaching methodology and provide
opportunities for professional development. All full-time EDC instructors are observed at least
once per semester. Lessons are videotaped, and instructors watch their own videos and complete
a self-reflection form. After that, post-observation conferences with program managers are held
for instructors who are new to the program. In the conferences, they have a chance to discuss the
EDC methodology and how to put it into practice in classrooms with the program managers.
More experienced instructors conduct peer observations where pairs of instructors exchange
their lesson videos and hold post observation conferences with their peer observation partners to
discuss the strengths and weaknesses of their teaching in the observed lessons.
FD Workshops
The primary purposes of FD workshops are similar to those of observations: to facilitate
dialogues about teaching among instructors to ensure unity and for their professional
development. There are two types of FD workshops in EDC: orientations at the beginning of
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every semester and regular FD sessions during the semester. The primary purpose of the
orientation for newly hired instructors is to offer lectures and practicum on EDC methodology to
prepare them for classroom teaching. For continuing instructors, the primary purpose is to
inform any academic and/or administrative changes and review instructor tasks for the upcoming
semester. There are also opportunities for instructors to lead workshops during the orientation
for their professional development purposes.
During the regular semesters, there are compulsory and voluntary workshops. Compulsory
workshops include test grading training sessions and teaching-related sessions. Test grading
sessions are held to check the inter-rater reliability among instructors, and when issues arise,
additional training sessions are offered to ensure that student performance is graded accurately,
fairly, and consistently across different classes. Teaching-related sessions are held to provide
opportunities for instructors to share and discuss their teaching ideas on different topics such as
feedback, instructional language, high or low level classes, and so on. In addition to the
compulsory FD workshops, there are workshops led by instructors for which the attendance is
voluntary. Examples of voluntary workshops in 2014 were weekly lesson planning sessions and
workshops for lower level students.
Semester Projects and EDC Journal

All instructors complete a piece of writing every semester or annually, called ‘Semester Project’
in EDC. First and second year instructors complete an article every semester that reflects on
their teaching at EDC. In the first semester, these projects are compiled and distributed
internally. In the second semester, projects are published as articles in the EDC Journal titled
New Directions in Teaching and Learning English Discussion. From the third year onward,
instructors conduct small-scale classroom research as their semester project and complete an
article once a year. Their articles are also published in the journal.
Instructor Working Conditions

Instructors work six days a week teaching 12 to 14 lessons. The curriculum is designed in a way
that students learn a new function each week in a certain order, thus instructors teach the same
lesson for a week. These working conditions are clearly communicated to instructors prior to
joining the program at the job interview stage.
The above mentioned working conditions could be seen as advantages for the job provides
opportunities to excel in teaching CLT lessons. At the same time, they could be disadvantages for
one’s professional growth for not being able to teach other skills and feeling boredom because of
the repetitive nature. When taken as advantages, instructors can maintain their teacher
motivation and a certain level of job satisfaction; however, the opposite can be the case for those
who perceive the working conditions as disadvantages.
DESIGN
Purpose
The purpose of the questionnaire was to obtain EDC full-time instructors’ views on tasks outside
the classroom. There were two main reasons to conduct this questionnaire: to assess instructors’
views of effectiveness of current practice and to promote the improvement of non-teaching tasks.
Questionnaire Survey
The questionnaire (Appendix A) was developed by the program managers. It consists of 6
sections: materials development, web feedback, observations, FD workshops, semester projects
336
and EDC journal, and instructor concerns. The first five sections are in regard with the
professional development aspects of the program, and the last section asks about potential
instructor concerns about the working conditions, namely teaching one skill and working six
days a week.
For each questionnaire item, instructors were asked to choose one answer from six answer
choices: strongly disagree (1), disagree (2), slightly disagree (3), slightly agree (4), agree (5), or
strongly disagree (6). The questionnaire also included an optional comment box in each section
for instructors to provide reasons, examples, or any additional comments.
Data Collection
The questionnaire was sent electronically on April 2, 2014 to all 40 full-time EDC instructors
with teaching experience of one academic semester or more at EDC. The deadline was within a
week, by April 9th, and 28 instructors returned the questionnaire.
RESULTS
Materials Development
The purpose of this section was to find out whether or not instructors thought the regular
textbook review improved the textbook regarding its three main components: readings, function
presentations, and activities. There were three questionnaire items: 1) Systematic textbook
review by instructors each semester helps improve the readings, 2) Systematic textbook review
by instructors each semester helps improve how the function is presented in the sample
dialogues, and 3) Systematic textbook review by instructors each semester helps improve
activities in the textbook (practice activities, fluency questions, and discussions). Twenty-six
instructors provided answers for the first and the second item while all 28 instructors provided
answers for the third item. Figure 1 below summarizes the results in average scores for each
item.
Benefits of Textbook Review
Improved readings (item 1) 4.9

by instructors
Improved function presentation (item 2) 4.7
Improved activities (item 3) 5.3
Average Scores
Figure 1. Average scores for each item.
As shown in Figure 1, the average scores for the three questionnaire items 1, 2, and 3 were 4.9,
4.7, and 5.3 respectively. This suggests instructors agreed that the systematic textbook review
helped improve the textbook. The additional comments written by 13 instructors for this section
337
help explain the overall positive results. Many of the comments made reference to the cause and
effect relationship between the instructor textbook review and the improvement of the textbook.
Some of them also made suggestions for the reviewing process, which is an indication of their
positive attitudes towards their involvement. Below are excerpts of such instructor comments.
“The ability to revise the textbook every year is a real strong point of this programme. It
keeps it fresh and up-to-date and constantly improving.”
“Perhaps an FD on reviewing the textbook would be nice? Sometimes my best

suggestions and comments in the review come from talking to other instructors about it
and reflecting on what went well or didn’t go well”
“To be honest, I haven’t read over enough of the new readings yet to see the impact of
the review, but strongly feel reassured that so much energy is put into considering
teacher feedback on the readings and activities.”
Web Feedback
The program has always received positive responses from students regarding web feedback. The
purpose of this section was to find out the other side, the writers’ view, on web feedback. There
were four questionnaire items: 1) Web feedback help students review the lesson and prepare for
next lesson, 2) Most of EDC students in my classes read the weekly comments on the EDC web,
3) Instructors can keep track of specific class needs by writing weekly comments on the EDC
web, and 4) The deadline for web comments (by 17:00 the next teaching day) is achievable for
instructors. The last item is different in nature from other four as it concerns a logistical issue,
however, the item was included to ascertain the current deadline was reasonable. All 28
instructors responded to all the items in this section, and 16 instructors provided additional
comments. The average scores for the questionnaire items 1, 2, and 3 were 4.0, 3.2, 4.3, and 5.5
respectively.
Benefits of Web
Lesson review for students (item 1) 4

feedback
Tracking specific class needs (item 3) 4.2
Average Scores
Figure 2. Average scores items 1 and 3.
Figure 2 summarizes the result of items 1 and 3 which concern benefits of web feedback in
average scores. They suggest that instructors agree that the web feedback bring benefits to
students and instructors to some extent. Such views are reflected in the comments below.
338
“Writing comments provides time for reflection on both teacher and student
performance”
“It is hard to know if students have read my comments, but sometimes it seems clear that
certain students have demonstrated better performance because of them…Even if most
students don’t read them, though, the comments are still valuable for organizing and
tracking my thoughts on specific class needs and interests.”
The general consensus seems to be that instructors consider web feedback can be useful
for students’ learning if it is taken more seriously. However, the average score for item 2 was 3.2
suggesting that instructors feel that their students don’t read the web feedback. Looking at their
additional comments, some instructors know from their experience that some students check
their grades but do not read the comments online. The fact that some students are not motivated
to read the web feedback, the question of its usefulness is raised by some instructors.
“There is no true way to know if the students are taking the written comments on the web
seriously. In the past I have only heard a handful of students make a remark on the
written feedback I have given them on the web. The impression I have is that the students
that need to be reading are not checking the web page.”
“Although the comments CAN be useful for students, most of mine blatantly said they
didn’t bother reading them; just checking their scores instead. Because of this, writing
the comments felt a bit forced and formulaic.”
Lastly, the average score for item 4 was 5.5 meaning instructors agree that the current
deadline is reasonable. This is also evidenced in their performance at work that all of the
instructors keep and respect the deadline.
Observations
The observations are designed to serve dual purposes: to maintain unity and to promote
professional development. The purpose of this section was to find out whether or not such
intentions echo instructors’ experiences with observations. There were seven questionnaire
items: 1) Observations help instructors critically reflect on their teaching, 2) Observations help
instructors understand how their teaching affects students’ learning, 3) Observations help
instructors improve learning outcomes for students, 4) Observations help instructors better
understand the principles behind the EDC teaching methodology, 5) Observations help
instructors maintain teacher motivation, 6) Instructor observation is important only for the first
year instructors, and 7) Observation is a necessary part of instructors’ professional development.
All 28 instructors responded to all the items in this section, and 13 instructors provided
additional comments. The average scores for the questionnaire items 1 to 7 were 5.6, 5.5, 5.5,
5.4, 4.8, 2.1, and 5.6 respectively.
339
Critical reflection on teaching (item 1) 5.6

Benefiits of Observations
Understanding of effects of teaching on

learning (item 2)
5.5
Improved lesson outcomes (item 3) 5.5

Understanding of EDC teaching
methodology (item 4)
5.4
Teacher motivation (item 5) 4.8
Professional development (item 7) 5.6
Average Scores
Figure 3. Average scores for items 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7.
Figure 3 summarizes the result of items from 1 to 5 and 7 that concern benefits of observations
in average scores. The results show that instructors agree observations are useful for their
classroom teaching and professional development.
Two themes emerged from the additional comments: frequency and quality. For frequency,
majority of the comments were in favor of regular observations. Some of them requested for
more observation opportunities for their professional growth while a few commented that
observations are more crucial for new instructors, suggesting annual observations or voluntary
observations for experienced instructors. Below are some example comments on frequency.
“I am wondering if I could have observations twice per semester, for example one in
Week 3 and other in Week 10…if might be helpful to see 1) how students develop (or
cannot develop) their discussion skills through a semester, and b) changes of my
teaching skills.”
“The observations seem most important for first year teachers, but all teachers can
benefit from occasional observations.”
The comments on quality were mainly in relation to the feedback instructors receive on
their observed lessons. These comments imply that observations are most meaningful when
instructors have opportunities to discuss their lessons with others including negative aspects.
“I had had observations before coming to Rikkyo, but with MUCH less in depth
discussion/reflection and no video. In particular, reflecting on less successful lessons
have been extremely helpful.”
“Observations…give instructors a chance to dialogue with another about possible

problems or new ideas, as well as do self-reflection for personal growth.”
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“Observations are important part of ensuring that instructor’s remain professional in

their classroom conduct, and consistently evaluate their own performance critically…it
is vitally important that program managers provide both positive and negative feedback
to instructors and realize that criticizing instructors’ lesson is an unfortunate part of
their jobs.”
FD Workshops
Among instructor job responsibilities, attending the compulsory FD workshops is a priority task
following the actual teaching in classrooms. Thus the purpose of this section was to ascertain
whether or not instructors consider the FD workshops to be of value to their teaching. There
were nine items in this section: 1) The new instructor orientation (trainings offered to first year
first semester instructors prior to teaching) helps instructors prepare for the job, 2) The
orientation for continuing instructors at the beginning of the semester help instructors prepare for
the new semester, 3) FD workshops during the semester help instructors critically reflect their
teaching, 4) FD workshops during the semester help instructors understand how their teaching
affects students’ learning, 5) FD workshops during the semester help instructors improve
learning outcomes for students, 6) FD workshops during the semester help instructors better
understand the principles behind the EDC teaching methodology, 7) FD workshops during the
semester help instructors maintain teacher motivation, 8) FD workshops during the semester are
important only for the first year instructors, and 9) FD workshops during the semester are a
necessary part of instructors’ professional development. The first two items are specifically
about the orientations that take place at the beginning of every semester, and other items are
specifically about FD workshops during the regular semester. All 28 instructors responded to all
the items in this section except for item 4 which had 27 responses. Ten instructors provided
additional comments. The average scores for items 1 to 9 were 5.5, 4.9, 5.1, 4.9, 5.0, 5.0, 4.6,
2.3, and 5.3 respectively.
Helful for new instructors (item 1) 5.5

orientations
Attitudes to
Helpful for continuing instructors (item 2) 4.9
Average scores
Figure 4. Average scores for items 1 and 2.
In general, instructors view orientations to be helpful, especially the orientation for new
instructors. There were two additional comments regarding the new instructor orientation, one
reflects the general view, and the other points out the difficulty the instructor experienced during
the orientation. See below.
“I was very impressed with the EDC Spring’s instructor orientation during my first
semester here. I thought it was very professional and helpful for new instructors trying to
understand the EDC context.”
341
“I found my initial EDC orientation to be hampered by information overload. Actually,

the amount of information was not so overwhelming; trying to determine where it fit into
the program was a greater challenge.”

Benefits of FD workshops
during regular semesters

learning (item 4)
4.9
Improved learning outcomes (item 5) 5.0
Understanding of EDC teaching methodology

(item 6)
5.0
Average scores
Figure 5. Average scores for items 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9.
The average scores suggest that instructors agree FD sessions during regular semesters are of
value. Many of the additional comments for this topic included constructive suggestions and
examples of FDs that they found useful and not so useful. From the program managers’
perspective, this is a sign of their professionalism. EDC instructors actively engage in FD
sessions in a professional manner, and they willingly share their opinions and experiences with
others. The fact that they have suggestions for improvement implies that they want to make FD
workshops as meaningful as possible. Below are some examples.
“I enjoy the FDs in that they provide a lot of good discussion of different ways and
varieties in handling the EDC content and activities. Sometimes, though, I feel that
discussions in the FDs tend towards simply pointing out problems, without necessarily
coming up with possible solutions. I liked how, in several FDs from last semester, there
were handouts that had a list of suggestions for common issues in the classroom (time
management, feedback, etc.)
“I would like more discussion-based, lesson-specific F.D., perhaps either reflecting on

the lesson after teaching it for a couple of days or looking ahead to next week’s lesson”
Lastly, the average score for item 8 was 2.3, suggesting that instructors agree that FD
workshops are useful for both new and continuing instructors. This also reflects the instructors’
positive attitudes toward FD workshops.
Semester Projects and EDC Journal

There were five items in this section: 1) Semester projects and the EDC journal help instructors
critically reflect their teaching, 2) Semester projects and the EDC journal help instructors
342
understand how their teaching affects students’ learning, 3) Semester projects and the EDC
journal help instructors improve learning outcomes for students, 4) Semester projects and the
EDC journal help instructors maintain teacher motivation, and 5) Semester projects and the EDC
journal are a necessary part of instructors’ professional development. All 28 instructors
responded to all the items in this section, and eight instructors provided additional comments.
The average scores for items 1 to 5 are 5.4, 5.5, 5.2, 5.0, and 5.6 respectively.
Benefits of semester projects

and EDC journal
learning (item 2)
5.5
Improved learning outcomes (item 3) 5.2
Average scores
The results show that instructors highly value semester projects and the EDC journal. In
many of the additional comments, instructors expressed their appreciation that semester projects
are embedded in the program. They also feel that teaching and semester projects are closely
linked and working on semester projects bring favorable effects in their teaching. Below are
example comments that reflect these points.
“While I believe that a teacher’s primary responsibility is to plan and execute lessons
that maximize students’ opportunities to learn, a well-run institution also recognizes that
their teaching staff must stay up to date with developments in the field.”
“Thanks to the semester projects, I have been able to reflect upon my teaching
philosophy as well as find my area of interests in teaching.”
“I enjoy the semester projects because I like the space we are provided to look at
research and seeing how it practically applies to our teaching in the EDC.”
Instructor Concerns
The purpose of this section was to find out instructor views on some aspects of their job
responsibilities that could potentially be seen as disadvantageous. There were three items in this
section: 1) Instructors worry about forgetting how to teach other skills (e.g., writing), 2)
Instructors feel fatigue teaching 6 days a week, and 3) Instructors feel bored teaching the same
lesson many times (e.g., teaching “Opinion” function 12 to 14 times within a week). All 28
instructors responded to all the items in this section, and 11 instructors provided additional
comments. The average scores were 4.4, 4.8, and 2.7 respectively.
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Forgetting how to teach other skills (item 1) 4.4

Instructor concerns
Fatigue from teaching 6 days a week (item

2)
4.8
Boredom from teaching the same lesson

many times (item 3)
2.7
Average scores
For item 1, instructors agree that they are concerned with the lack of chances to teach other
skills. Two instructors provided additional comments on this point. One said that while teaching
one skill only can be a concern, instructors could always teach other skills by doing part-time
jobs outside working hours. The other expressed a wish to teach other skills at Rikkyo.
All the additional comments referred to item 2 saying that working 5-day a week would be
preferable. Among them, the majority also mentioned that the relatively early leaving time during
the semester and long holidays especially during summer and spring compensate for the 6-day a
week work schedule. Several mentioned that 6-day work schedule is more problematic during the
Spring semester where there are no national or university holidays.
“While fully realizing that we are well-compensated for the six day weeks by the long
breaks between terms, I think that particularly in the spring (with the same lesson
everyday, and virtually no holidays) maintaining quality lesson in face of the fatigue is a
challenge.”
“While all instructors hope that, one day, Saturday classes will be eliminated, most also
understand that EDC instructors have an enviable amount of vacation throughout the
year.”
For item 3, the results suggest that instructors see the benefits of teaching the same lesson
many times. All the additional comments on this discussed how teaching the same lesson provided
opportunities to improve lessons to better meet different needs of students.
“No two groups are the same, so by extension, we do not really teach the ‘same lesson’
12 to 14 times a week. The teacher has adequate scope to vary classes to suit student
needs.”
“Since I used to teach at an IEP program where I was required to teach all kinds of
skills, sometimes I wonder whether I might forget teaching other skills or not. However,
as an entry-level teacher, I appreciate the fact that we can teach the same lesson many
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times and experiment with many different ideas. I strongly believe that this teaching
experience at EDC help me hone my teaching skills.”
DISCUSSION
This section will discuss the above results with reference to the two aims of questionnaire.
First, it will summarise instructors’ views on the effectiveness of current practice. It will then
discuss potential improvements to non-teaching tasks based on instructor feedback. Finally, it
will conclude with a brief discussion of the limitations of the results, along with possible future
methods of researching instructor attitudes towards non-teaching tasks.
The effectiveness of current practice

The questionnaire results above indicate that instructors’ have generally positive attitudes
towards all five categories of outside classroom tasks. The three most highly rated items were i)
the value of observations in helping instructors critically reflect on their teaching; ii) the
importance of new instructor observations in helping new instructors prepare for the job, and iii)
the necessity of semester projects and journal articles as part of instructors’ professional
development. The positive response to observations may seem somewhat unusual in the field of
language teaching. Observations, particularly those with summative ‘pass’ or ‘fail’ criteria, are
often a source of fear and stress for language teachers (Bailey, 2011; Ur, 1991). EDC instructors’
attitudes may be explained by the formative approach taken to observations in the program.
Observations are not evaluated as ‘pass’ or fail’, and the observation criteria is based on
principles of effective language teaching as applied to the discussion course (Doe & Hurling,
2010). This criteria is shared openly with instructors and used as a tool of self-reflection when
they watch their lessons. In consultation with program managers or peers, instructors also select
points to focus on in future lessons and design a specific follow-up task to address one of these
points. This moves away from a traditional model of professional development as “done by
others for or to teachers” (Johnson, 2009, p.95). Involving instructors more directly as observers,
rather than simply the observed, may explain the generally positive attitudes towards
observations in the program. The positive response towards new instructor training is perhaps
less surprising. For teachers new to any language program, orientation and training is an
essential means to convey necessary information about the program and build a supportive,
professional working environment with colleagues (Brown, 1995; Doe & Hurling, 2010).
Finally, instructors’ belief in the value of semester projects and journal articles could be
explained by the mutual benefits for teachers and students. Projects which link second language
acquisition research and language teaching practice can improve student outcomes and also raise
teachers’ awareness and issues in language teaching (Ellis, 2012). They also provide an
opportunity for instructors to develop research skills and publish journal articles to further their
careers in the field.
Potential improvements
Although average responses for each questionnaire item reflect positive attitudes towards current
practice, instructors’ written comments provided some suggestions for improvement. When
commenting on materials development, several instructors were unsure of how their textbook
feedback was implemented. One potential way to address this could be to schedule one
workshop prior to collecting instructor feedback to explain the procedure in more detail, along
with a workshop after updating the textbooks to explain which changes were implemented and
the rationale for doing so. Web feedback was also an area of concern. Under the current system,
instructors do not have a reliable mechanism to guarantee students read the comments provided
345
on the web. In order to address instructor concerns about this task, program managers would like
to explore a more interactive approach to the way students read comments. Some instructors also
requested more freedom in selecting lessons in which they are observed, and this is a change
which will be implemented in the upcoming academic year. Finally, some faculty development
workshops and semester project topics are seen by a few instructors as not targeting their
specific needs or interests. While this questionnaire is one tool to better identify these needs and
interests, program managers hope to conduct more instructor workshops, interviews and
questionnaires to gather more information.
Limitations
The above results have several limitations. Firstly, the voluntary nature of the questionnaire
meant that the sample included 28 of 40 possible respondents, leading to potential non-response
bias (Wagner, 2010). For example, instructors with negative attitudes towards non-teaching tasks
may be less likely to respond to the questionnaire (Brown, 2001). This response rate means that
the results cannot be generalized to all EDC instructors (Wagner, 2010). Furthermore, although
the questionnaire was administered anonymously, instructors were aware that the results would
be read and analyzed by their direct supervisors, the program managers. This may have led to the
problem of acquiescence bias, whereby respondents provide responses they believe match the
researchers’ views (Wagner, 2010). Finally, the questionnaire items selected may reveal some
researcher bias, reflecting the researchers’ own beliefs in the value of outside classroom tasks
(Davis, 1995). Future questionnaires may benefit from consultation with instructors regarding
the questionnaire design and piloting. More detailed statistical analysis would also be made
possible with the use of multi-item scales which target the same trait through several differently
worded items (Dornyei & Csizer, 2012). Finally, expanding the sample size to include all current
and former instructors may help program managers draw more meaningful comparisons between
different groups of instructors. This would help program managers better target non-teaching
tasks to the specific needs of instructors with different years of experience in the program.
CONCLUSION
As shown in this brief report of the questionnaire survey, EDC instructors are highly engaged in
their tasks outside the classroom. By completing the questionnaire, they have made a valuable
contribution to EDC in that program managers and others who oversee the program are able to
gain insights into the degrees of success in implementing the programs’ principles and practice
for professional development. While this was the first time for the program to investigate
instructor views on the topic in the form of a questionnaire, the program managers understand
that there is a need for regular review of tasks outside the classroom in order to understand
changing needs of instructors. Program managers hope that incorporating more instructor input
into program evaluation will help to better evaluate current practice and to further promote
improvement of the program.
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Doughty (Eds.), The Handbook of Language Teaching (659-672). Chichester, West Sussex:
Wiley-Blackwell.
Ur, P. (1991). A course in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wagner, E. (2010). Survey research. In B. Partridge & A. Phakiti (Eds.), Continuum Companion
to Research Methods in Applied Linguistics (22-38).
Wallace, M.J. (1991). Training foreign language teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
347
APPENDIX A
Instructor Questionnaire on EDC
There are six sections with several questionnaire items. For each questionnaire item, please
choose one answer from strongly disagree, disagree, slightly disagree, slightly agree, agree, or
strongly agree. There also is an optional comment box in each section for you to provide
reasons, examples, or any additional comments.
Strongly
Slightly Slightly Strongly
Disagree Disagree Agree
Disagree Agree Agree
1 2 3 4 5 6
A. Materials Development
1 Systematic textbook review by instructors each

1 2 3 4 5 6
semester helps improve the readings.
semester helps improve how the function is presented 1 2 3 4 5 6
in the sample dialogues.
semester helps improve activities in the textbook (i.e. 1 2 3 4 5 6
practice activities, fluency questions, and discussions).
Comments
B. Web Feedback
4 Web comments help students review the lesson and

1 2 3 4 5 6
prepare for next lesson.
5 Most of EDC students in my classes read the weekly
1 2 3 4 5 6
comments on the EDC web.
348
6 Instructors can keep track of specific class needs by

1 2 3 4 5 6
writing weekly comments on the EDC web.
7 The deadline for web comments (by 17:00 the next
1 2 3 4 5 6
teaching day) is achievable for instructors.
Comments
C. Observations
8 Observations help instructors critically reflect on their

1 2 3 4 5 6
teaching.
9 Observations help instructors understand how their
1 2 3 4 5 6
teaching affects students’ learning.
10 Observations help instructors improve learning
1 2 3 4 5 6
outcomes for students.
11 Observations help instructors better understand the
1 2 3 4 5 6
principles behind the EDC teaching methodology.
12 Observations help instructors maintain teacher
1 2 3 4 5 6
motivation.
13 Instructor observation is important only for the first
1 2 3 4 5 6
year instructors.
14 Observation is a necessary part of instructors’
1 2 3 4 5 6
professional development.
Comments
349
D. FD Workshops (teaching-related)
15 The new instructor orientation (trainings offered to first

year first semester instructors prior to teaching) helps 1 2 3 4 5 6
instructors prepare for the job.
16 The orientation for continuing instructors at the
beginning of the semester help instructors prepare for 1 2 3 4 5 6
the new semester.
17 FD workshops during the semester help instructors
1 2 3 4 5 6
critically reflect their teaching.
understand how their teaching affects students’ 1 2 3 4 5 6
learning.
1 2 3 4 5 6
improve learning outcomes for students.
better understand the principles behind the EDC 1 2 3 4 5 6
teaching methodology.
1 2 3 4 5 6
maintain teacher motivation.
22 FD workshops during the semester are important only
1 2 3 4 5 6
for the first year instructors.
23 FD workshops during the semester are a necessary part
1 2 3 4 5 6
of instructors’ professional development.
Comments
350
E. Semester Projects and EDC Journal
24 Semester projects and the EDC journal help instructors

1 2 3 4 5 6
critically reflect their teaching.
understand how their teaching affects students’ 1 2 3 4 5 6
learning.
1 2 3 4 5 6
improve learning outcomes for students.
1 2 3 4 5 6
maintain teacher motivation.
28 Semester projects and the EDC journal are a necessary
1 2 3 4 5 6
part of instructors’ professional development.
Comments
F. Instructor Concerns
29 Instructors worry about forgetting how to teach other

1 2 3 4 5 6
skills (e.g., writing).
30 Instructors feel fatigue teaching 6 days a week. 1 2 3 4 5 6
31 Instructors feel bored teaching the same lesson many
times (e.g., teaching “Opinion” function 12 to 14 times 1 2 3 4 5 6
within a week).
Comments
351

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Copyright©2015 Center for English Discussion Class

SECTION ONE – Teaching Journals

Engagement and Participation .......................................................................................... 7

Evolving Monitoring Templates and Formative Feedback Checklists

Yes, We Are All Individual ................................................................................................ 39

SECTION TWO – Classroom Activities

The Language-Culture Connection: Intercultural Language Learning in EDC Discussion

Familiarizing the Foreign: 10-Minute Cross-Cultural Reflections .................................... 64

Start!: Increasing Willingness to Communicate in Discussion Preparation Activities ..... 70

Anarchy in EFL: Introducing Simple Activities to Develop Critical Thinking Skills in

Corrective Feedback Design from a Noticing Hypothesis Perspective ............................ 95

A Peer-Reflection Activity for Discussion Feedback ...................................................... 102

Word Association ........................................................................................................... 107

No Vocabulary, No Discussions ..................................................................................... 114

Facetious Language Play for Creative Repetition .......................................................... 118

Using Content Scaffolding to Improve Discussion Flow ................................................ 134

Promoting Autonomy in University Students ................................................................ 142

Fluency Activity with Function Phrases ......................................................................... 147

Weekly Charted Feedback of Japanese Students’ Oral Performance in EFL

Conversational Shadowing ............................................................................................ 173

The Minute Paper in EDC ............................................................................................... 189

Increasing ‘Initial’ Focus-on-Form to Practice, Promote, and Automatize

Developing Critical Thinking Skills in EDC ...................................................................... 204

Asking More Questions in Fluency Activities ................................................................. 211

Promoting Learner Autonomy through Self-Assessment and Goal-Setting .................. 215

SECTION THREE – Classroom Research

Self-Observation as a Means of Teacher Development ................................................ 235

Investigating How Student Perceptions of Discussion Class Change

Professional Development for Teachers through Self-Observation:

Collaborative Dialogue and Uptake: English Discussion Class ....................................... 256

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Self-Assessment in Discussion Classes ........................ 263

Investigating the Effect of the Learning Circle on Group Cohesion

Measuring the Effects of Formulaic Language on Complexity in L2 Output

Three Conceptual Orientations of Learner Goal-Setting ............................................... 295

A Conversation Analysis of the Acquisition and Use of Turn-taking Practices

SECTION FOUR – Program Evaluation

Activities to Increase Learners’ Level of Autonomy

Group 1 (4 males, 5 females) – Level II – College of Law:

Group 2 (8 males) – Level IV – College of Science

What do you think?

Teaching Journal Entry

Date Period No. Of students

After the lesson

Issues of Learner Identity and Learner Investment in English

Table 1. Levels by TOEIC Scores

English Discussion Class (EDC) Groups Students’ TOEIC Scores

Level 3 479 – 280

Level 4 Below 279

In my experience as an English as a Foreign Language Teacher, I have been able to

(2004), language instruction in educational institutions in Japan generally favor a more

Fostering a Stronger Performance

Managing Roles and Identities

Creating a Learning Community

Evolving Monitoring Templates and Formative Feedback

Figure 1. Lesson 2 Double-sided Monitoring Grid

In support of these revamped templates, I planned to introduce a self-reflection checklist

Discussion 1: Talking to friends and family

Discussion 1: Everyday Technology