1.  Although learning advisors are often qualified teachers, the skills they
apply, such as those discussed by Kelly (1996), require a significant shift
in approach regarding interaction with students. As teachers reorient
themselves to advising, their role changes quite markedly from teaching
language to advising on learning (Mozzon-McPherson, 2001). This
challenging move requires professional development training to support
and ease the alteration of professional roles (Hafner& Young, 2007). As
part of the professional development for advisors at Kanda University of
International Studies (KUIS) in Japan, advisors undertake a series of
‘observations’ where they record and reflect on advising sessions. The
reflection is written up and discussed with a more experienced advisor.
An analysis of these reflections was recently carried out at KUIS with a
view to identify common themes which provide important insights and
practical implications for potential advisors and those providing
professional support to new advisors. This presentation outlines the
context before moving on to provide the findings of the study.

2. Brian R. Morrison

3. Kanda University of International Studies (KUIS)
Specialist language university
Students generally come from a controlled, exam-
based language learning experience, and have been
successful in this environment
KUIS students expected to use (and assessed on their
use of) English. Previous successful learning
strategies are unlikely to be so effective.

4. As well as language classes & a Self Access
Centre (SAC), KUIS has employed teachers to
work in the SAC

5. but not as teachers, as learning advisors

7. Learning advisors at KUIS:
 Develop SAC materials & courses
 Guide learners through SAC courses
 Are available for 1-to-1 consultations

8. 1. Help learners identify strengths
and weaknesses & set goals
2. Support learners as they develop,
implement & modify learning
plans
3. Increase learners’ understanding
of their own learning

9. Kelly’s (1996) skills (taken from 1-to-1
counselling skills)
 Macro skills
Initiating, Goal-
setting, Guiding, Modelling, Supporting, Givin
g feedback, Evaluating, Linking, Concluding
- Vaguely sequential but they may occur or re-
occur at any point

10. Kelly’s (1996) skills (taken from 1-to-1
counselling skills)
Micro skills
Attending, Restating, Paraphrasing, Summarizi
ng, Questioning, Interpreting, Reflecting
feelings, Empathising, Confronting
- May occur in combination e.g. questioning
requires attending and may also confront

11. Formal reflections on advising
 Mandatory
 3 completed over the first 3 semesters at
KUIS
 Either on
 written feedback
(using learners’ written course work)
 face-to-face advising sessions
(using audio recordings of the sessions)

12.  Formal reflections
 Advisor writes a reflection document
 More experienced advisor adds comments
 Advisor responds to comments
These documents are confidential and only normally
seen by the ELI management & the learning
advisors who wrote them

13.  Carried out in 2010
 All 15 LAs (past & present) asked for permission to
analyse their documents - permission obtained from
14
 Focused on face-to-face session reflections
 21 face-to-face professional development session
reflections analysed
Research questions:
Which of Kelly’s skills seem most relevant for new
learning advisors to focus on?
Are there any additional salient skills to be considered?

14.  Macro-skills
 Goal-setting
 Guiding
 Micro-skills
 Questioning
 Attending
 Another skill?
 Negotiating meaning

15. Viewed as a vital starting point to the entire
session
 Important to confirm goals meet a
combination of learner’s wants, interests &
needs
 Encourage learners to focus or adjust goals to
reflect the timeframe, when appropriate

16. Advisors also set goals:
 Effectively when focusing on their own
advising skills
 Effectively when a learning plan was
previewed before an advising session and the
advisor could focus on areas to find out more
 Less effectively when a learning plan was
previewed and seen as a document
containing problems to fix

17. Many advisors identified this as the most
problematic macro-skill, commonly observed
as:
 Too much advisor talk time
 Closed (yes/no) questions used to lead the
learners to a particular point with no real
learner choice

18. More appropriate guiding involved:
 Delving deeper with open questions
 Finding out why learners had made their
choices as it could:
 Reveal learners had clear rationale
 Allow more learner reflection around the choices
they made
 Keep ownership of learning plans with the
learners

19. Many advisors identified this as the most
problematic micro-skill, commonly observed
as:
 Closed questions used to lead
 Open questions which are difficult to answer
 Opaque
 Tangential
 Requiring specialist knowledge
 Asking several questions in 1 utterance

20. More appropriate questioning involved:
 Closed questions used to establish a fact or
belief that was unknown to the advisor before
moving to open questions
 With difficult-to-answer open
questions, advisors who dealt well after uttering
these:
 Stopped
 Summarised the recent part of the discussion
 Contextualised the question
 Restated or broke down the question

21. Attending was referred to as much as
questioning in session reflections but not
always by the advisor. It often took
comments from the experienced learning
advisor to identify it as absent
 The underlying reasons appeared to be:
 Learning advisor agenda
 Pressure to perform (evidence knowledge)
 Discomfort with silence

22. “Pausing and leaving time for reflection is one of
the difficult skills which and advisor has to learn”
Mozzon-McPherson (2000)

23. Learning advisor awareness appears to be key
to improving this skill
 Where data was available for more than 1
session reflection, subsequent sessions had
attending clearly identified as requiring and
receiving attention and this heightened
awareness led to greater satisfaction with the
implementation

24. This could be realised by any or a combination
of micro-skills such as
paraphrasing, attending, summarizing, restat
ing or questioning
Negotiating meaning could be instigated by
either the advisor or learner and would go
some way to ensuring the dialogue
progresses in a direction both participants
understand.

25. However on reflection I could have clarified a little
more, for example when she said, “I write sentence”
does she copy the sentence from the book or does she
make her own sentences? Also I assumed when she
says, “and speaking” that she means she repeats out
loud the new vocabulary and sentences she has
written down however she could have meant that she
uses it in conversation.
Learning advisor session reflection

26. This presentation gives an insight into the perception
advisors have of their advising sessions and the
common areas they focus on using Kelly’s (1996)
counselling skills as categories for analysis. Despite
the diverse teaching experience LAs had before
coming to KUIS it became apparent through this
investigation that goal-setting, guiding, questioning
and attending are perceived as particularly important
and requiring attention. The findings also suggest that
Kelly’s skills require modification with the addition of
negotiating meaning, a skill implemented to provide
clarification and focus.

27. Brian R. Morrison
morrison_brian@yahoo.com
This presentation is available online at:
http://kandaeli.academia.edu/BobMorrison

28.  Kelly, R. (1996). Language counselling for learner
autonomy: the skilled helper in self-access language
learning. In Pemberton, R., Li, E.S.L., Or, W.W.F.,
Pierson, H.D. (Eds.). Taking control: Autonomy in
language learning. Hong Kong University Press, pp.93-
113.
 Mozzon-McPherson M., (2000) An analysis of the skills
and functions of language learning advisers. In Victori
M. (Ed.), Links and Letters 7: Autonomy in L2
Learning, Barcelona: Universidad Autonoma de
Barcelona. pp.111-126.