Sessions /
Challenges in Multilingual Learner Development #1231

Sat, May 15, 18:00-19:30 JST | Zoom 6

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Connecting with the theme of “Local and Global Perspectives: Plurilingualism and Multilingualism,” this forum will feature presentations that explore the development of linguistic diversity in learners’ lives and environments, whether within formal education or in the wider world. What affordances and constraints do learners face in developing their linguistic repertoires beyond a simple binary of first and second language? What challenges do they face as multilingual learners and users in participating in different communities and in becoming more autonomous? What peculiar trajectories do learners’ language biographies take, and what dilemmas, questions, or puzzles do they have? Why? In this Learner Development SIG Forum at PanSIG 2021, we would like to explore the challenges and benefits of learning and using multiple languages from diverse perspectives. The forum will feature timed rounds of interactive presentations followed by reflective writing and discussion. Presenters and participants will also be invited to contribute writing and related multimedia resources to the LD SIG’s newsletter, Learning Learning.

Presentation Assets

LD Forum Abstracts

For detailed abstracts of each presentation in the forum, visit the JALT Learner Development SIG Forums web page. https://ld-sig.org/ld-sig-forums/

Blair Barr

Otsuma Women's University / Tamagawa University

Isra Wongsarnpigoon

Kanda University of International Studies

Isra Wongsarnpigoon is a senior learning advisor and resources coordinator in the Self-Access Learning Center at Kanda University of International Studies. He holds an M.S.Ed from Temple University, Japan Campus. His interests include learner autonomy, learning spaces, and multilingualism and translanguaging in language learning. <wongsarnpigoon-i@kanda.kuis.ac.jp>

Ellen Head

Miyazaki International College.

I am from Britain and have lived and worked in Japan since 2000. At Pan SIG 2021, I will be presenting a poster about how my personal reading of some books by Black authors during 2020 helped me to teach a global issues class, and I will be presenting with Tsurii Chie at the Learner Development forum about the impact of native speakerism on learner autonomy.

Akiko Nakayama

Hiroshima University

Akiko Nakayama, Ph.D. is an associate professor in the Teaching Japanese as a Second language program at Hiroshima University, Japan. She is currently interested in learners' story, L2 learner's identity, and teacher development.

Andy Barfield

Chuo University

I'm interested in how people see their languaged lives and what connections they make to wider issues in society. I enjoy exploring that with students in different classes at university, as well as in video interviews with individuals who have richly diverse language histories.

Alison Stewart

Gakushuin University

I will share my experience of reading and reviewing two books on multilingual education with my graduate seminar class.

Lorraine de Beaufort

Laboratoire Atilf, UMR 7118, équipe Didactique des langues et sociolinguistique, Université de Lorraine-CNRS (France)

In this talk, I will present findings from two participants in a narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000), showing how learning French and other so-called ‘additional’ languages in Hong Kong provides affordances for identity construction. This takes place despite limited levels of proficiency, in conventional terms. The learning of French and other languages is also a way of dealing with the pressures and limitations of their context, with interactions between the personal, institutional and socio-political levels (Barkhuizen, 2016). This talk argues for the usefulness of narratives in understanding multilingual learner development, and considers their possible role in language pedagogy. The talk also briefly considers some of the methodological challenges of narrative inquiry such as the need to bring closure to narratives that are always ongoing.

Kevin Mark

Meiji University

Kevin Mark has been trying to be helpful in Japanese universities since 1985. Since becoming in 1991 a tenured faculty member responsible for English at Meiji University's School of Political Science and Economics, he has been exploring and experimenting across multiple fields to find practical ways for a curriculum to embody a sense of community and a culture of "more learning and less teaching." He is currently interested in rapid materials development (CALL and paper-based) that addresses the need for systematicity and consistency on the one hand with spontaneity, creativity and variety on the other.

Riitta Kelly

University of Jyväskylä, Finland

I work as an English teacher at The Centre for Multilingual Academic Communication at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. I will be presenting in the Learner Development Forum with Jussi Jussila about our experiences as teachers of multilingual communication and language courses.

Jussi Jussila

University of Jyväskylä

English teacher at the Centre for Multilingual Academic Communication at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland.

Yuri Imamura

Kanda University of International Studies

Yuri Imamura is a learning advisor in the Self-Access Learning Center at Kanda University of International Studies in Japan. Her research interests include learner motivation, translanguaging in language learning, and language learning spaces.

Shaitan Alexandra

Birkbeck College, University of London

Alexandra Shaitan is a Doctoral student at Birkbeck, University of London investigating mixed-race identity in the context of Japan. She has previously published in ‘Mixed Race in Asia” book published by Routledge in 2017. Her co-authored paper “Haafu Identity in Japan: half, mixed or double?” looked at how discourses around mixedness affect the image of Japan as a homogeneous and/or monoethnic race/society.

Chie Tsurii

Momoyama Gakuin University

Kizuna Fuse

I have just completed a BA at Meiji University in Politics and Economics. I am teaching myself French and am taking a year off from formal study in order to apply to enter a graduuate program in French language and literature in 2022.

Sessions / Challenges in Multilingual Learner Development #1231

Presentation Assets

LD Forum Abstracts

Sessions /
Challenges in Multilingual Learner Development #1231