Social Spaces for Language Learning

Stories from the L-café

Garold Murray, N. Fujishima, N. Fujishima

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781137530103
• Topic: Lingue e linguistica
• Subtopic: Lingua tedesca

Social spaces for language learning, places where learners can come together in order to learn with and from each other, have an important role to play in foreign language acquisition and L2 identity development. In this book, sixteen students, teachers and administrators tell how they experience the L-café, a social language learning space located on the campus of a Japanese university. As part of a narrative inquiry, their unabridged stories are framed by background information on the study and an in-depth analysis informed by theories of space and place, and complex dynamic systems. Addressing practical as well as theoretical concerns, this book provides advice for language professionals developing and managing social language learning spaces, pedagogical insights for teachers exploring their role in out-of-class learning, and direction for researchers examining the various facets of language learning beyond the classroom.

1

Exploring a Social Space for Language Learning

Garold Murray and Naomi Fujishima

Abstract: This chapter chronicles a narrative inquiry comprised of a collection of sixteen stories about how students, teachers and administrators experience the L-café, a social space for foreign language learning located on the campus of a large national university in Japan. Adopting a narrative style, this introductory chapter begins with a description of the L-café and a brief outline of its history, after which it tells the story of the five-year ethnographic study leading up to the current inquiry. It then provides an account of how the theoretical perspective informing the interpretation of the stories expanded from a focus on community of practice to encompass constructs from human geography, mediated discourse analysis and complex dynamic systems theory. It concludes with a synopsis of the participants’ contributions.

Keywords: complexity theory; foreign language learning; learner autonomy; narrative inquiry; out-of-class learning; social learning space; space and place

Murray, Garold, and Fujishima, Naomi, eds. Social Spaces for Language Learning: Stories from the L-café. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. DOI: 10.1057/9781137530103.0003.

This book embodies a narrative inquiry in which students, teachers and administrators tell the story of how they experience the L-café, a social space for language learning located on the campus of a large national university in Japan. While social language learning spaces (SLLSs) may somewhat resemble learning commons – a recent addition to libraries around the world – or self-access centers, what sets them apart is their defining feature: a focus on language learning through informal social interaction. The L-café at Okayama University was created as a place where Japanese students could practice their English language skills in a relaxed environment.

SLLSs similar to the L-café are starting to pop up at universities across Japan primarily because they address two major foreign language learning problems. First, they offer a solution for learners who have difficulty finding opportunities to practice their target language in their home country. Second, they provide international exchange students in study abroad contexts with possibilities for integrating into the host society and, subsequently, opportunities to use their target language. SLLSs serve as places where these groups can come together in order to learn with and from one another.

Because they are a relatively recent phenomenon, there is very little published research on SLLSs.¹ In response to this gap in the literature, this book aims to provide administrators, teachers and researchers with an unprecedented comprehensive examination of an SLLS – one of the first in Japan. Administrators share their experiences related to establishing the facility and operating it on a daily basis. Teachers discuss their involvement, the support the facility offers to the foreign language curriculum and the impact the SLLS has had on their professional lives. Students, Japanese learning foreign languages in their home country and international students learning Japanese, discuss their experiences in the SLLS and how these experiences have shaped their language learning and identities. The final chapter in the book presents a thematic analysis of these stories. Overall, the book provides practical information for teachers and administrators developing or managing an SLLS, insights into the theoretical aspects of language learning beyond the classroom and directions for further inquiry – especially for researchers intrigued by the interplay of space, place and autonomy in language learning.

In this introductory chapter, we tell the stories leading up to this collection. We begin by describing the SLLS and briefly outlining its history. We then recount the story of the five-year ethnographic study, which gave rise to the current narrative inquiry. In doing so, we relate how our investigation into the social learning space as a community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998) expanded its theoretical focus to encompass constructs from mediated discourse analysis (Scollon, 2001), the field of human geography and, eventually, complex dynamic systems theory. In the final section of the chapter, we discuss this book as a narrative inquiry and provide a synopsis of the stories documenting the contributors’ engagement at the L-café.

From English Café to L-café

The social learning space at Okayama University came into existence as the English Café (EC) and over five years evolved into the current facility, the L-café (LC). When the EC opened at the beginning of the academic year in May 2009, it was one narrow room of approximately fifty-nine square meters. The space was created by partitioning off the corner of a large café on the ground floor of a building housing student services and club activities. The EC’s proximity to the café no doubt inspired its name – although there was the possibility of having a cup of coffee or tea, the EC was not a café per se.

In retrospect, a key feature of the English Café was that the walls and doors were mostly glass. They let in a lot of light, making the EC a bright and perhaps even cheerful environment. They also helped create a sense of openness and spaciousness. This was important because the EC was anything but spacious. The room was not so small, but it was narrow. There were tables and chairs, a large screen TV, bookshelves for materials, a cabinet to store laptop computers, a cupboard for tea-making things and eventually a small sofa and a couple of small armchairs. There was also an administrative area where the full-time manager and her student helpers could work. However, the light and sense of openness made it possible to overlook the cramped quarters. The glass walls and doors also made it possible for curious students, passing by on the outside, to see what was happening on the inside.

On the inside, the EC was often a busy and noisy place. Japanese and international exchange students came to relax, chat with their friends and have lunch. Noontime was always busy. Students came to do homework and to get help from others with language course assignments. Others came to study on their own. However, most students came to the EC to participate in the small-sized, peer taught language classes. These classes, which were offered in the late afternoon and early evening, proved to be very popular. Because they were non-credit bearing, there was no homework or grades to worry about; hence, there was little pressure. Lessons, which focused on basic conversation or test preparation, were delivered in a relaxed, friendly manner. These classes drew many students to the EC.

In addition to the classes, the EC offered a series of special social events throughout the academic year. These events marked cultural occasions or turning points, such as the arrival of the new international exchange students, the departure of these students, as well as Japanese students who were graduating, cherry blossom viewing season, summer festival, Halloween and Christmas. In addition, students were encouraged to propose and organize events, and the EC staff made arrangements for students to participate in events held in the local community. These special occasions provided opportunities for language practice, intercultural exchange and social networking.

As the classes and special events drew more students, the EC gradually outgrew its space. Three years after its opening, the university moved the EC to a much larger location. It was transformed into a spacious and open split-level facility. On the lower level, there was the main entrance and reception area, an administrative area, a kitchen area as well as areas for the students to gather. The upper level provided space for classes and for students to relax or engage in activities. There was also a large room used for more formal gatherings such as classes or meetings. However, the space was not the only aspect that changed. To reflect the increasingly multilingual character of the facility, the name was changed to the L-café. (For photographs of the EC, the LC, the people and the events, visit the websites listed in the endnotes.²)

Change has been a fairly constant feature of both the EC and LC. From the outset, students come and go. The international exchange students arrive and several months later return to their home countries. The Japanese students tend to come regularly in their first and second years and then, because of an increase in coursework, part-time job hours and/or club activities, they stop coming. The Japanese students, who do continue to frequent the social learning space, eventually graduate. This means that at the beginning of each academic year there is a turnover in the student workers and peer teachers. A change with major implications, which will be discussed in the next section, was the move to the much larger location. The year following the move, the manager, who established the social learning space, left the position to undertake new challenges. A new manager with a different management style and priorities took over the position. As a result of these major changes and countless smaller ones, the LC has not been static, but in a constant state of becoming.

Investigating the social learning space

Constant change presents a challenge for researchers investigating social learning spaces and reporting on their inquiries. However, when we began our five-year ethnographic study a year after the EC opened, we were unaware of this. For nearly a year, we had been going to the EC once a week to hold regularly scheduled, yet informal, small group conversations with interested language learners. In effect, we were doing participant observation. What we saw was a community of learners. We were interested in knowing what language learning opportunities were available in this community of learners and how these opportunities might support the English language curriculum at our university.

To explore these questions, we designed a small-scale ethnographic inquiry, which we carried out during the second year of the EC’s operation. In this study, we had eleven participants: five Japanese and four international students as well as the EC manager (Uzuka, Chapter 3) and the Vice Director of the Language Education Center (Tahara, Chapter 2) who played a key role in establishing the EC. Our data consisted of interviews with the participants and our observations. At the beginning of the following academic year (the EC’s third year of operation), we received a grant, which enabled us to extend our inquiry for another four years. Our initial inquiry served as a pilot for this ‘new’ study, which maintained the original ethnographic design.

However, there were three major differences in the extended ethnographic inquiry. While our focus remained the same – the learning space and the opportunities available for language learning – we decided to track the language learning trajectories of Japanese students from their first year to graduation through their engagement in the EC. In addition to writing language learning histories at the outset and being interviewed at the end of each semester, the participants would also take the TOEIC once a year. A second change was that we now had funding to hire senior students as research assistants. Their main task was to do participant observation. They wrote up their field notes and sent us observation reports each week. We also interviewed them at the end of each semester. As we analyzed the data from the pilot study, our theoretical frame of reference began to evolve. Our shifting theoretical perspective was to have a major influence on how we came to see the data, the learners and the learning space.

From community to complexity

When we began our study, how we saw the learners and the learning context and interpreted the data was strongly influenced by the community of practice construct. Wenger, McDermott and Snyder (2002: 4) define communities of practice as ‘groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis.’ We learn by becoming a member of a group, starting out as legitimate peripheral participants (Lave & Wenger, 1991) or newcomers. Through engagement in the group’s activities with the more established members, we acquire the knowledge and expertise of the group and gradually work our way into full membership. At the EC, we saw a group of students who shared a common goal, that is to say, learning a foreign language, and who deepened their knowledge and expertise as they interacted, exchanged information and participated in a wide range of activities. We witnessed newcomers arrive and through their participation gradually work their way into the group to become valued members of the community.

In our very first round of interviews with the participants in the pilot study, we wanted to confirm our impression that a community of learners had developed; therefore, we asked them how they would describe the EC. They all began their answers with ‘It’s a place ...’ For us as language teachers and researchers, the significance of this was not immediately evident. The EC was, indeed, a place. It would be several months before we were led to the literature on space and place through a random decision to attend a conference presentation on linguistic landscapes, the study of language on signs in public spaces (Landry & Bourhis, 1997). Our subsequent interest in the literature on linguistic landscapes introduced us to the field of human geography with its focus on space and place.

Insights from the literature on space and place have since played a key role in our interpretation of the data. The most striking revelation for us was that places are social constructions. Places are created ‘by people doing things’ in a particular space (Cresswell, 2004: 37). They then talk about the space as an environment in which these actions are carried out. In this way, the space becomes defined as a place where people do these things. As Carter, Donald and Squires (1993: ix) succinctly put it, ‘place is space to which meaning has been ascribed.’ Places are the product of action and discourse.

Ideas from the area of mediated discourse analysis helped us to better understand the role of action and discourse in the social construction of place. In this area of inquiry, the unit of analysis is the mediated action; in other words, an action that is carried out through the use of material or cultural tools or resources (Scollon, 2001; Scollon & Scollon, 2004). Social actions that are repeated over time in a setting acquire a history and become linked with other actions. Through this process, they become social practices. Scollon (2001) uses the term ‘nexus of practice’ to refer to practices that, in turn, become linked to other practices to form networks. These practices are carried out in ‘sites of engagement,’ which we equate with the term ‘place.’ Networks of practice serve as ‘the basis of the identities we produce and claim through our social practices’ (Scollon, 2001: 142). While we largely remain unconscious of the existence of these networks, nexus of practice that become explicit or objectified through discourse can become communities of practice, raising issues of access and membership (Scollon, 2001).

Scollon’s work gave us a framework for understanding the development of a community of practice at the EC. Using the technique referred to as retrodiction (see Dörnyei, 2014), we were able to work backward from our observation that a community of learners had emerged at the EC in order to understand how it had developed by examining the actions that led to various practices and their interrelationships (Murray & Fujishima, 2013). As students engaged in these practices and talked about the EC as a space in which these practices took place, not only did the community emerge, but the EC was transformed into a particular kind of place.

Although emergence is a key property of complex dynamic systems, accepting complexity theory as a principal guiding theoretical framework for our research has been a gradual process. From the outset, we realized that the object of our inquiry was the learning environment, as opposed to individuals or groups of learners. Our interest in the environment led us to explore the literature on ecology as it related to applied linguistics (Kramsch, 2002; van Lier, 2004). We th...