"Some Tutorials Were Only Scarily" Students\u27 Perceptions of Teacher-Learner Conferences Within a Japanese University ELP Program

In the English Language Program (ELP) at International Christian University (ICU),teacher-learner conferences called “tutorials” for reading and writing classes are animportant part of the current ELP curriculum. Tutorial hours are built intoinstructors’ schedules and the average student attends 16 to 18 conferences ofapproximately 15 minutes each during the first year. This paper reports the resultsof a recent survey conducted for the purpose of evaluating and improving theeffectiveness of the tutorial system at ICU. Responses were received from 81students and more than 90% of respondents indicated they felt tutorials were usefulfor improving their reading and writing skills. However, at the same time, manyissues emerged as well, including 1) the need to explain tutorial systems andpolicies to students more effectively, 2) the need to reduce student anxiety towardtutorials, possibly by flexibly using group tutorials and Japanese language in somecases, and 3) the need to improve the integration of tutorials into the long-termdevelopment of students as autonomous life-long readers and writers. Based on ananalysis of the survey results, some ideas for improving the effectiveness ofteacher-learner conferences at ICU and other college ELP programs are proposed