Groups
and Networks
The Exploratory Practice Center (UK/Worldwide) Grupo de investigación acción
y evaluación en lenguas extranjeras (Universidad de Antioquia,
Medelln, Colombia) Hong Kong Association for Self-Access Learning and Development
(Hong Kong) The Independent Learning Association (New Zealand/Worldwide) Learner Autonomy group (Malaysia) Learner Autonomy in Language Learning Scientific
Commission (AILA, Worldwide) Learner Development SIG (JALT, Japan) Learner Independence SIG (IATEFL, UK/Worldwide) Learner Independence SIG (TESOL Arabia, United
Arab Emirates) Self-Access
SIG (New Zealand)
Teacher Development and Autonomous Learning SIG (IATEFL,
Poland)
The Exploratory Practice Center (UK/Worldwide) Exploratory Practice is an indefinitely sustainable way for classroom language teachers and learners, while getting on with their learning
and teaching, to develop their own understandings of life in the language
classroom. It is essentially a way for teachers and learners to work
together to understand aspects of their classroom practice that puzzle
them, through the use of normal pedagogic procedures (standard monitoring,
teaching and learning activities) as investigative tools. The long-term aim of the EP Center
is to promote and support the development and use of Exploratory Practice
as a tool for understanding life in language classrooms. Our main
aim now is to encourage the building up of a network of colleagues and
friends within the language teaching and learning field. We launched
the EP Center with a lively workshop in July 2000, a memorable day for
us that was just the first of many special Exploratory Practice events. Our
aims are:
The 5th Exploratory
Practice Annual Event: Bringing Teachers and Learners Together: An Exploratory
Practice Dream Coming True: 'A conference OF teachers and learners,
FOR teachers and learners' was held June 27 & 28, 2003, at PUC-Rio,
Brazil.
Contact Ines Miller for
more details at: inesmiller@hotmail.com. For more information about Exploratory
Practice, including our latest Newsletter, please go to our website:
http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/groups/crile/EPCenter/epcenter/htm
We belong to Universidad de Antioquia in Medellín, Colombia. So far, we have carried out collaborative action research in four institutions of Medellín aiming to promote autonomy in teachers and students. The findings of this research are being written in different articles by four members of the group who carried out the strategies in the four institutions where they were working last year. I am one of those persons. Currently, the group has other projects on.
For
more details, contact Edgar Picón
Jácome (the writer of the above message) at epjacome59@hotmail.com
or the heads of the group: Cristina Frodden at cfrodden@hotmail.com
and Mercedes Vallejo at mvallejog@hotmail.com. Grupo de Trabalho-Pedagogia para a Autonomia (GT-PA) (Portugal): a small (net)work with big ideals
GT-PA - Grupo de Trabalho-Pedagogia
para a Autonomia (Working Group on Pedagogy for Autonomy) - was
set up in 1997 as a local community of school teachers and university
researchers trying to understand and explore the idea(l) of learner
autonomy in the school context. Our work aims at professional development
through pedagogical enquiry. Although we started with a focus on language
learning, we are now open to the participation of teachers of any subject,
since we see autonomy as a transdisciplinary goal of education that
accommodates diversity within a common direction.
Swimming both with and against the
tide of educational reforms and practices, the group has addressed common
constraints on the development of a pedagogy that is based upon the
principles of Transparency, Integration of Communicative and Learning
Competences, Appropriateness to Context, Reflection, Experimentation,
Regulation and Negotiation. These are the seven pieces of our Tangram
puzzle, from which it is possible to create a thousand combinations
where learner autonomy and teacher reflection are two faces of the same
coin. We believe that collaborative enquiry within school-university
partnerships, as in our case, fosters a context-sensitive, democratic
and emancipatory process of (re)constructing pedagogical knowledge and
action. Joining and
enjoying our work is the best way to know it. However, you might want
to have a look at our main publications:
GT-PA represents a small (net)work: it involves
a small number of people (about 70) who act locally at a rather slow
pace, in a largely unstructured manner. However, it is also a (net)work
with big ideals: to promote learner autonomy and professional
development in tandem, and to explore the feasibility of collaborative
enquiry undertaken by school teachers and academic researchers. In this
small-big (net)work lies a wide range of possibilities.
These publications can be ordered through our website:
http://www.iep.uminho.pt/gtpa/; you can also contact me
(Flávia
Vieira) for further details at: flaviav@iep.uminho.pt Hong Kong Association for Self-Access Learning and
Development (Hong Kong)
HASALD provides a forum for teachers in Hong Kong to meet and discuss issues
relating to self-access language learning and learner autonomy. We've
been going since 1990, when there was a sudden explosion of interest
in Self-Access Centers in Hong Kong, and have been holding monthly meetings
ever since. Even though the interest in SACs and SALL is not as high
as it was in the early 1990s, we still have over 40 members each year
and our monthly meetings are very useful vehicles for sharing and discussion.
We also publish an annual newsletter (Self-Access Language Learning:
http://lc.ust.hk/HASALD/newsletter/newsletterSept02.pdf).
To give a flavour of what we do, here is our meeting schedule for the past
year: http://lc.ust.hk/HASALD/meeting/schedule02-3.htm Contact Richard Pemberton for more details at: lcrpem@ust.hk or see the HASALD website: http://lc.ust.hk/HASALD/ The Independent Learning Association (New
Zealand/Worldwide)
The Independent Learning
Association is an organisation for language practitioners and researchers
working in or otherwise interested in independent language learning.
Specific areas of interest include: - an annual conference (first conference to be held in Melbourne,
September 13 & 14 2003) - an annual publication (with conference proceedings) - an active mailing list for and by practitioners
Contact Hayo Reinders for more details at:
hayo@hayo.nl or info@independentlearning.org Learner Autonomy group (Malaysia)
If you're in/from Malaysia and interested in joining a
Learner Autonomy group (focusing on language learning), get in touch
with Thang Siew Ming at: thang@pkrisc.cc.ukm.my
Learner Autonomy in Language Learning
Scientific Commission (AILA, Worldwide)
This is a Special Interest group of AILA (Association Internationale de Linguistique Appliquée/International Association of Applied Linguistics). Starting in 1993, the Scientific Commission (AILA's term for a SIG) has held a Symposium at the AILA conference every three years, the most recent being at Singapore in December 2002. (The next will be at Madison, USA in 2005.) Besides organising the Symposium and publishing the proceedings, the Learner Autonomy SC also:
Currently, one of our main aims is to increase the amount of
networking and sharing between learner autonomy practitioners and researchers
around the world, and this newsletter is part of that initiative.
To become a member of the Learner Autonomy SC, contact Ana
Maria Barcelos at: scautonomy@ufv.br
To subscribe to AUTO-L, contact Anita Wenden at Wldyc@cunyvm.cuny.edu and include the
following info: Subject line:
AUTO-L Request Message:
Subscribe AUTO-L
Your name
Your institutional affiliation
Your e-mail address
To submit your project information to LAPI, contact Hayo Reinders
at hayo@hayo.nl To put information on the website, contact Richard Pemberton at lcrpem@ust.hk
For information for the next newsletter, contact Andy Barfield
at andyb@tamacc.chuo-u.ac.jp
or Richard Pemberton at lcrpem@ust.hk
For further details about the SC, contact Ana Maria Barcelos
at scautonomy@ufv.br, Terry Lamb
at T.Lamb@sheffield.ac.uk or Richard Pemberton
at lcrpem@ust.hk Learner Development SIG (JALT, Japan)
This is an exciting
time for the Learner Development SIG. We're deeply involved in a collaborative publication project
which explores how autonomy can appropriately be nurtured within a variety
of Japanese educational contexts - group-based and individual projects
which foreground learners' voices, teacher reflections, and collaborative
insights.
Our 'Anthology'
of Autonomy also features an introduction by Tim Murphey, a closing
discussion chapter by Phil Benson and critical reader responses from
well-known figures in the learner autonomy field.
At the start
of 2003, over 20 Japanese and non-Japanese teachers made contact with
each other on e-mail and shared outlines of their research interests
in the field. Each project
teamed up with another to exchange ideas in a collaborative format,
later exchanging written drafts with each other, ahead of a weekend
retreat in June - a thoroughly energizing weekend which gave new impetus
to the process of collaboration.
In opting for this collaborative approach, our goal has been
to mirror the kind of negotiation and reflective support possible in
classrooms focusing on developing learner autonomy - in other words,
to dovetail both the how and the what of classroom research. We have also consciously included the perspectives of learners
themselves in the volume, as Tim Murphey put it: "How can students
become more the authors of your text?"
The result is
a 300-page plus anthology of unique collaborative research, which we
hope offers many thought-provoking, theoretical and practical insights
for you to enjoy. Further details will be posted on auto-l when the
anthology is published in November this year.
Contact Andy Barfield for more details at: andyb@tamacc.chuo-u.ac.jp. The LD website is: http://coyote.miyazaki-mu.ac.jp/learnerdev/ Learner Independence SIG (IATEFL, UK/Worldwide)
Contact Joan McCormack for more details at: j.c.mccormack@reading.ac.uk.
The LI website is at: http://www.geocities.com/jo_mynard/index.htm Learner Independence SIG (TESOL Arabia,
United Arab Emirates)
From our UAE base, we have established international
connections via our discussion list (an international informative, yet
informal, forum for persons interested in IL/ILCs - ilearn-subscribe@topica.com to join),
and our website (http://ilearn.20m.com)
with its wide range of articles, links, activities, research and ideas. Members regularly give varied workshops
on IL/C related issues. We
run a 3-session workshop series entitled ILCs: From Plans to Practice to suggest guidelines for setting-up
ILCs, and workshops on other themes include creating IL activities,
materials and tasks, and research into strategies, attitudes and skills
pertinent to successful entry into tertiary education. Every year, an ILC Visit to a local ILC
is organized and we have recently established an ILC Coordinators' Forum
for regional practitioners.
Additional local projects include a consultancy service
for local teachers interested in organizing IL resources in their schools,
translated IL advice published in the educational zone magazine and,
our latest venture, 'Tactile Tasks and Technical Tips', an event to
promote non-traditional teaching/learning techniques and to help teachers
get started and gain confidence with CALL, computer and internet activities. At the TESOLArabia Annual Conference, we have been fortunate
to have Drs. Barbara Sinclair and Rebecca Oxford as speakers, and Dr.
Keith Richards, a DL pioneer from Aston University, UK, has contributed
to our Conference Newsletter.
Overseas, TA LI-SIG members regularly attend and present at IATEFL
and TESOL International Conferences, and Co-Chairs Heather Baba and
Phil Cozens hope to connect with AILA members at the Melbourne Conference
in September.
Finally, we are proud to suggest an upcoming publication,
edited by Dr. David Palfreyman of Zayed University, Dubai and Richard
C. Smith: Learner Autonomy
Across Cultures. (See the 'Publications' section of the newsletter
for details.)
Contact Heather Baba for more details at: hmbaba@yahoo.co.uk Self-Access
SIG (New Zealand)
The SACSIG was established
in 1998 to offer practitioners working in SACs and ILCs the opportunity
to share ideas and to support each other. The list has around 40 members
and meets every three months at one of the members' institutions. It
is a great way of meeting peers and learning from them. Generally list
topics and meetings focus around practical issues. Meeting in colleagues'
centers is a great way to see how others respond to the challenges of
learner autonomy. Members usually contribute presentations to the meetings
and we also invite speakers from allied fields. One of the other benefits
is that we have got to know one another quite well and feel able to
email or phone one another. Although the group is centered around Auckland,
often our colleagues from Wellington and the South Island attend the
actual meetings. The list is not very busy but is always there if members
wish to shout their successes or contribute to overcoming another member's
challenges.
One of the successes of
the list has been the collaboration of some members. For example Helen
Anderson, John Jones-Parry and Hayo Reinders are organising the
Independent Learning Association Conference in Melbourne in September.
For details please refer to the conference website www.independentlearning.org.
They will also present their research paper 'A Study of Tertiary Level
Self-Access Centers in New Zealand and Australia' at the conference.
If you would like to subscribe
to the list please email John Jones-Parry at jparry@manukau.ac.nz Teacher Development and Autonomous Learning SIG (IATEFL,
Poland)
Contact David French for more details at: david@mail.filus.edu.pl, or see the group's website at: http://www.iatefl.org.pl/tdal/contact.html |
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