Social Spaces for Language Learning

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

   PDF

2. Exploring a Social Space for Language Learning

   1. Exploring a Social Space for Language Learning

      • Garold Murray, Naomi Fujishima

      Pages 1-12

3. Administrators’ Perspectives

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 13-13

      PDF

   2. Creating the L-café: An Administrator’s Standpoint

      • Makoto Tahara

      Pages 14-20

   3. Five Years at the L-café: The Secret of Its Success

      • Mariko Uzuka

      Pages 21-30

   4. Management of L-café

      • Masumi Fujimoto

      Pages 31-39

4. Teachers’ Perspectives

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 40-40

      PDF

   2. What I Learned from Working at the L-café

      • Bob Lamitie

      Pages 41-49

   3. Writing Tutorials at the L-café

      • Masumi Igarashi

      Pages 50-59

   4. Providing Study Abroad Advice as a Viable Use of Social Learning Spaces

      • Thomas Fast

      Pages 60-68

   5. Optimizing Affordances: Developing a ‘Digital Habitat’ for the L-café

      • Claire Uchida

      Pages 69-78

5. Students’ Perspectives

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 79-79

      PDF

   2. The Door to the L-café, the Door to the World

      • Naoko Nakamoto

      Pages 80-85

   3. My Life in the L-café from Different Angles

      • Kanako Miyake

      Pages 86-90

   4. L-café: The International Home

      • Kelly Marie Ho

      Pages 91-95

   5. Defining Experience through the L-café

      • Daniel Tangonan

      Pages 96-99

   6. The Dark Side of L-café

      • Yosuke Hino

      Pages 100-104

   7. My Critical Thoughts on the English Café and the L-café

      • Saburo Fukuba

      Pages 105-109

   8. How I Got Involved with the L-café

      • Yu Miura

      Pages 110-113

   9. Fulfilling Time at the L-café

      • Yuya Tanimoto

      Pages 114-118

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.

• Foreign language learning
• out-of-class learning
• narrative inquiry
• space and place
• complexity theory
• heterotopia
• learner autonomy
• dance
• English
• experience
• inquiry
• Language Learning
• management
• space
• time

“Social spaces for language learning: Stories from the L-café describes the background, evolution and impact of the L-café, a social language learning space (SLLS) at Okayama University, Japan. This book is a must-read for anyone considering creating a similar space. … The narrative style of the text lends to an enjoyable and highly comprehensible reading experience … will be of value to researchers and practitioners alike.” (Anthony DiGiulio, Independence, Issue 71, October–November, 2017)

• Okayama University, Japan

  Garold Murray, Naomi Fujishima

Garold Murray is an associate professor in the Language Education Center at Okayama University, Japan. He has published widely on the subject of autonomy in language learning and is currently pursuing research interests in social learning spaces, the semiotics of place, and imagination in language learning.

Naomi Fujishima is a professor in the Language Education Center at Okayama University, Japan. Her interest in learner autonomy and student motivation stems from her years of teaching in Japan and the US. She has been actively involved in the Japan Association for Language Teaching for the past 25 years.

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