Student Perspectives on In-House Self-Access Materials at a Japanese University

Many language learners benefit from a wide range of resources provided by self-access learning centers (SALCs), environments specifically designed to facilitate autonomous language learning. For professionally published materials, various criteria have been proposed to select and evaluate resources for inclusion in SALCs. However, few sets of criteria exist that focus on materials designed in-house at particular institutions to meet learners’ needs. This study represents an initial attempt to begin filling this gap by investigating learners’ perspectives on in-house materials in a SALC at a private university in Japan. Nine learners, who were student staff at the SALC, participated in guided group discussions. They described their experiences with the in-house materials in the SALC and their impressions of the materials upon hands-on inspection. These discussions were coded based on a checklist for evaluating SALC materials developed by Reinders and Lewis (2006) and Yamaguchi et al. (2019), and in the process of analysis, new categories were added where necessary. The results suggested that supporting SALC users in their learning process is perceived as an important aspect of in-house materials by the learners and that visual design seems to carry great importance to Japanese university students in the context studied.