The Language Teacher
02 - 2001
The Usefulness of Learning Diaries in Learner Training
Usuki Miyuki
English translation by Trevor Hughes Parry
The Learner Development sig was founded in 1994 with the goal of providing a forum for research and community-building in the areas of learner training, communication strategies training, language awareness training, self-access, project work, study skills and other areas related to the promotion of greater learner autonomy. We publish a bilingual newsletter, Learning Learning, and are primarily concerned with pursuing these research areas and fostering learner autonomy within the Japanese context. We also pursue the collaborative exchange of research and its implementation in language classrooms through our partnerships with research groups in organizations such as AILA and IATEFL. We have selected Ms. Usuki's article as our contribution to the best of the SIGs issue because it illustrates our commitments to practical research and its implementation in our classrooms.
Among the presentations at the Shizuoka symposium ("Strategies for Learner Autonomy," 1995) were several that questioned the value of teaching learner strategies to learners in an overly explicit manner. Hamada Mari and Muraoka Hidehiro focused on the problems of considering "strategy training" too narrowly, namely as the mere transmission by the teacher to students of strategies developed previously by other successful language learners (Hamada & Muraoka,1995), while Phil Benson pointed out the paradox of preaching learner autonomy while at the same time demanding that all learners conform to a single role (Benson, 1995).
It would appear to be counter-productive for teachers to train their students, if their ultimate aim is actually to foster an independent attitude amongst those very learners. To this end, teachers may enjoy greater success if instead they create opportunities for their students to discover for themselves ways of learning that work for them. Whether or not learners grasp the opportunity afforded them, and whether or not they embrace the chance to take responsibility for their own learning is a choice that must be left to them to make.
In order to ascertain what possible benefits might accrue from giving learners the chance to become more independent in their attitudes to learning, I have been encouraging a class of 27 first-year university students to keep a regular learning diary since April of this year. Since the students are Chinese majors and are only taking English as an optional class, their level of motivation is not particularly high. Assessment of the students according to Oxford's (1990) SILL criteria (which show the extent to which they consciously use strategies in their learning) has revealed that they are generally "average" in their strategy use.
The class meets weekly, and students are given an opportunity to write in their diaries at the end of each lesson. Students are encouraged to describe their feelings, both in regard to that week's lesson in particular and language learning in general. They are also asked to write freely about their learning methods, any problems they have come up against, their interest in foreign countries and languages, and any questions they may have (although the emphasis is on English, they are also encouraged to mention experiences in the learning of their foreign language major, Chinese). At the end of class, the diaries are collected and then during the week, I add comments before returning the diaries at the beginning of the next lesson. As the year has progressed, students have begun submitting their diaries without prompting from me at the end of the lesson. Students have even been known to write entries in their diary in response to events in the lesson, submitting them before the class has finished.
For students, a learning diary provides an opportunity for self-analysis since it gives them a chance to reflect on their difficulties and achievements. For the teacher, the chance to write comments in the diaries provides the opportunity to interact with students on an individual basis, which in turn appears to have a positive effect on their behavior and motivation. Students, accustomed previously only to learning situations in which they played a passive role, are slowly beginning to change their attitudes towards their own learning. The students' constructive criticism of lessons has become a valuable source of feedback, which has had a great effect on my planning of subsequent classes.
For teachers who are considering introducing students to the writing of learning diaries in their own classes, a few words of caution would seem to be in order. The time required to read and comment on individual diaries is considerable. If classes are large, teachers may find they have insufficient time between lessons to work through all the diaries. In the situation described here, teacher and students shared the same mother tongue; however, in classes where the only language in common is that which is being studied, it may be unreasonable to expect students to write in the target language at any great length. Lastly, since writing a learning diary represents just one strategy amongst many that a learner might adopt, the possibility arises that this particular strategy, though useful to many, may not be valid for all. Despite such misgivings, however, learning diaries would appear to merit serious consideration by teachers hoping to foster an independent attitude to learning amongst their students.
Usuki Miyuki completed her M.Ed. in Language Education at Deakin University, Australia. She also worked for 7 years as a Japanese language teacher in Australia. Since 1995, she has been working at Hokuriku University in Kanazawa, Japan. She teaches Japanese to international students and coordinates Japanese language short programs for overseas students. As a part of her work, she is also involved in teaching and researching Japanese EFL students. Her present research interests include learner and teacher autonomy, learner/teacher development and foreign/second language teaching methods.
References
Benson, P. (1995). A critical view of learner training. Learning Learning 2(2), 2-6.
Hamada, M. & Muraoka, H. (1995). "Developing autonomous learning skills in an intensive language program." Paper given at the Symposium on Strategies for Learner Autonomy. Shizuoka: Japan.
Oxford, R. (1990). Language Learning Strategies: What every teacher should know. New York: Newbury House.
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