Dominique Vola Ambinintsoa Razafindratsimba
Kanda University of International Studies
Dr Dominique Vola Ambinintsoa is a learning advisor at Kanda University of International Studies in Chiba, Japan. She holds a PhD in applied linguistics, focusing on fostering learner autonomy in a Malagasy EFL context (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand) and a Master of Education in TESOL (State University of New York at Buffalo, US). She has a particular interest in learner autonomy, self-access language learning, advising in language learning, and positive psychology in education.
Sessions
Every language learner is different: A personal perspective
As a learning advisor (LA), I often reply, “It depends. Everyone is different” to my advisees’ “how-to” questions, before engaging them into what is referred to as an "intentional reflective dialogue” (Kato & Mynard, 2016). My role as an LA and my research on learner autonomy have enabled me to understand and accept the uniqueness of each learner’s experience with their language learning. The latter involves internal factors such as personality, motivation, agency, and feelings about the language. These factors can be influenced by external factors such as the learning environment, including the geographical location (Benson, 2020), the society and the culture to which the learner belongs (Little, 1999). The frequent “how-to” questions from my advisees prompted me to reflect on my own language learning journey, including the struggles, the successes, and the fluctuation of emotions related to each of the five languages I have learned. I used some advising tools to help me with my self-reflection, and then, writing as a “method of inquiry, a way of finding out about [my]self” (Richardson, 2000). In this presentation, I will discuss my self-reflection and the self-awareness resulting from it. I will then suggest some implications for language teaching, mainly highlighting the need to promote learners’ self-reflection.