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This study investigates narrative stories of a student staff member working at the Self Access Learning Center (the SALC) at Kanda University of International Studies, Japan in order to discover whether / how her working experiences in the SALC have an impact on her identities especially focusing on her development of learner autonomy as agency. Drawing on four layers of narrative positioning (Wortham & Gadsden, 2006), I will explore: 1) the ways that agency is projected; and 2) how the learner's involvement in a SALC impacts on her identities. The examination revealed that the learner's involvement as a student staff member enhanced her agency to access a target community of English in the SALC. Drawing on the Communities of Practice (CoP) framework by Lave & Wenger (1991), I discuss the possibility that gaining voice in the target community might enable a learner to be more autonomous. Finally, this paper addresses the importance of learner involvement in SALCs - not only for the learners involved, but also for other SALC users in order to provide opportunities to activate both agency and autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the development of the AntConc corpus analysis toolkit, originally designed for use in a technical writing course at Osaka University, Japan, but now adopted in institutions throughout the world as an easy-to-use, freeware, multiplatform alternative to the many commercial concordance programs. First, I will explain how the software was originally tailored to the needs of students in the Osaka writing course and later to a general audience through the requests and feedback from teachers and students around the world. Then, I will give an overview of tools in the most recent version of AntConc and explain their value using examples from the classroom. Finally, I will discuss some of the software's limitations and future developments, and suggest applications in professional communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To improve the management of hybrid courses, the relationship between learner characteristics and learning performance was analyzed in two regular university courses. Undergraduate and graduate students participated in two 15-week hybrid courses which consisted of face-to-face lectures (Information Industrial issues), and the corresponding modules with online test. Subjects included 36 freshmen and 48 graduate students. Learner characteristics, consisting of motivation, personality, thinking styles and learners' impression of their e-Learning experiences were measured at the beginning and end of the term. Additional data was collected from the number of days attended, the number of modules completed, test scores and final grades for the course. Final assessment grades for the class were also analyzed. There was no significant difference in learner characteristics between bachelors and masters students who completed the course. There was no significant difference in learner characteristics between bachelor and master students, but there were some differences in conscientiousness scores between masters and bachelor students and between those who received a final grade of A and B. Scores on "learning strategy" as a factor to indicate learning experience were in favour of master students. Master students' evaluation of their e-Learning experience increased significantly throughout the course. Conscientiousness (one of the five factors in the personality construct) correlated positively with the number of e-Learning modules completed by master students (r=0.35). They seem to understand better the benefits of e-Learning experience and being the more motivated students, they applied what they have learned from previous e-Learning experiences more effectively. Students with high grades evaluated their e-Learning experience positively and had significantly higher conscientiousness scores than master students who received lower grades (p<0.05). For bachelor students, the number of modules completed correlates with both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Other learner characteristics did not affect learning performance. The reason may be that bachelor students have yet to understand well the benefits of e-Learning and still lack the learning strategies needed for university coursework. The causal analysis was conducted using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) technique, and the result indicated that learner characteristics had an effect on learning experience and learning performance. These results suggest that understanding the benefits of e-Learning and learner characteristics, as well as knowing how to learn with e-Learning content could provide important key for promoting student success in online learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a transitional state between normal aging and dementia. Although there have been some studies on the role of verbal memory in learning ability, there have been no reports on the part played by visual memory. In the present study, the Rey–Osterrieth Complex Figure Test (RCFT) was given to healthy subjects and to those with MCI to determine if visual memory was maintained in these two groups. Additionally, normative data from the learning version of the RCFT for Japanese subjects were examined, for purpose of reference. The participants consisted of 381 clinical dementia rating (CDR) 0 subjects and 137 CDR 0.5 subjects who could perform the full set of RCFT tasks. The CDR 0 group had significantly higher scores than the CDR 0.5 group in all trials. The CDR 0 participants also showed a significant step-by-step learning effect, while the CDR 0.5 participants did not show a significant learning effect. These results suggest that the CDR 0 participants maintained intact learning abilities of encoding and retrieval, while the CDR 0.5 participants did not do so; but further studies will be needed to clarify these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]