Publisher：Nanzan University  

International service learning is fast becoming a popular pedagogical approach to enhance global citizenship among participating students. Through this type of experiential education, this approach gives students the opportunity to engage with local students and hone their intercultural communication skills. This paper seeks to shed light on the impact participation in an international service learning program had on two student groups at a Japanese university. Specifically, it elucidates the students’ reflections on the formation of intercultural social networks. In the final part of the paper, five central concepts of social network analysis are used to explore this case of service learning: density; homophily; diffusion; structural holes; and betweenness.

Publisher：Nanzan University  

Periodically, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) revises the courses of study for each level of education – primary, junior high school, and high school. From 2022, the revised course of study for high schools will take effect. One of its significant features is the adoption of an active learning approach. This present study investigates how Japanese high school teachers of English feel about active learning and what training they would like to receive. A 51-item online questionnaire was answered by 65 teachers from one prefecture in central Japan. Almost all of these teachers had positive attitudes towards an active learning approach, felt that they would be able to implement that approach in their classrooms, and wanted to learn more about active learning. Two problems were the lack of computers, screens and projectors in classrooms, and teachers not being sure how to assess active learning tasks and activities.

Publisher：Nanzan University  

On some short-term university study abroad programs, host universities provide local students to help visiting students with their language learning and fieldwork. Previous research focused on the learning processes and outcomes of visiting students; however, this case study seeks to understand the experiences of the local students. In the summer of 2017, 25 local Thai students assisted 24 visiting Japanese university students to learn Thai and conduct fieldwork in northeast Thailand. At the end of the program, the Thai students completed an extensive written questionnaire. Results indicate that the local Thai students improved their Japanese language proficiency and learned a great deal about Japanese culture. This lead to some identity shifts, as they began to adopt Japanese ways of being, doing, and thinking. Greater language proficiency and a deeper cultural understanding improved their confidence and motivation to interact in Japanese, and spurred some to want to study harder. The local Thai students did become much more interested in travelling in Japan, but only moderately more interested in studying and living there. Both dispatching and hosting universities have an obligation to consider how to maximize learning opportunities not only for visiting students but also for local students as well.

Publisher：Nanzan University  

Under the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) new course of study, Japanese high school teachers will adopt an active learning approach from 2022. To help teacher educators and trainers prepare Japanese high school teachers for this shift, this study sought to understand how familiar Japanese high school teachers of English are with active learning and what active learning tasks and activities they are already doing. A 51-item online questionnaire was answered by 65 teachers from one mostly rural prefecture in central Japan. Many of the teachers felt that they understood the principles of active learning, and were already doing active learning tasks and activities in their classes.

Publisher：Nanzan University  

There is often an expectation that short-term exchange students living in international dormitories at Japanese universities who are English native speakers will have few opportunities to speak much Japanese, instead tending to use English with each other and their Japanese dorm mates. This paper challenges this belief, presenting a case study of one Australian short-term exchange student, Penny, who developed a Japanese language social network at her small international dorm centered around two of her dorm mates, one Japanese and one Swedish. Based upon data from a detailed daily language diary, in her tenth week in Japan Penny interacted in Japanese outside class for about 24 hours over seven days. She spent almost all that time with her two dorm mates, about ten hours chatting at the dorm itself, on average about an hour and a half each day, and another thirteen hours outside the dorm at a restaurant on Saturday and on a trip on Sunday. For relatively shy students like Penny, dorm mates can be absolutely crucial in providing sufficient opportunities to interact in Japanese during their study abroad experience. For them, the dorm is their oasis – a safe, reassuring space where they can use Japanese every day.

Publisher：Nanzan University  

This study aimed to uncover both the particular experiences and to explore the specific aspects within those experiences that 24 student participants in the 2017 Nanzan Asia Program (herein: Thai NAP) deemed most meaningful during their four-week sojourn in Thailand. To that end, three different researchers applied their own lens using three different qualitative methods to analyze written reflections taken from a post-program survey that was given to these students. Accordingly, one researcher used a top-down approach applying Bennett’s (1993) Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS). Another researcher used a bottom-up, grounded theory approach that led to the development of four themes that played an important role in students’ experiences. Finally, a third researcher used a bottom-up holistic approach to identify five main steps that the students passed through during the program. Findings from each researcher are discussed within their respective sections and a final group analysis is then offered. It was concluded that using a reflexive approach can provide a deeper understanding of the ways that students constructed meaning during Thai NAP. Suggestions for future research are shared at the end of the paper.

Publisher：Asahi University  

There is increasing interest in Japan in using active learning approaches in classrooms at all levels of education, from primary school to university. A number of books have been published in Japan advocating the use of an active learning approach and illustrating how to apply it to classrooms across all levels of education and a range of subjects. Consequently, a plethora of definitions of active learning have also developed. In the academic literature, active learning is a multi-dimensional concept comprised of six themes: active, interactive, cognitively engaging, emotionally involving, individualized, and independent learning. Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) documents primarily emphasise the first three (主体的・対話的で深い学び). The definitions of active learning provided by sixty-five Japanese high school teachers of English also mostly focused upon the active and interactive dimensions of active learning, and its cognitive dimensions to a lesser extent. The main implications are that teacher trainers need to not only illustrate how to introduce active learning into the high school classroom but also provide more substantial definitions of active learning.

Publisher：Nanzan University  

Participating in a short-term fieldwork program in a foreign country can provide university students majoring in social studies with an important opportunity to experience first-hand another culture and to learn the basic steps in doing fieldwork. Many of these programs are hosted by local universities, which often provide local student volunteers to assist the visiting student-researchers with their fieldwork. Many studies have been published which explore the experiences of the visiting student- researchers; very few studies have been done which seek to understand the perspectives of the local students. This study seeks to fill this gap. Each year, as part of the Nanzan Asia Program (NAP), about twenty second-year Japanese students from the Faculty of Policy Studies go to Khon Kaen University (KKU) in northeast Thailand for a four- week fieldwork program. In the summer of 2016, 24 Nanzan University students participated in the program, assisted by 25 KKU students. At the end of the program, these local students completed an extensive questionnaire which asked for their perspectives on the Thailand NAP program. This paper reports the KKU students’ positive experiences, the problems they met, and how they felt Thailand NAP could be improved.

Publisher：南山大学  

During short-term study abroad language programs, exchange students actively search for opportunities to use the target language but often find it difficult to enter existing host national social networks. This paper reports on a case study of two female foreign exchange students, one eastern European and the other southeast Asian, studying at a Japanese private university, who created target language social networks in the international dormitory where they were staying. The two participants were asked to keep a language diary for one week, detailing where, with whom, and about what they spoke in Japanese outside the language classroom. Both participants also completed a short questionnaire and were interviewed in person. Results showed that their main interlocutors were not only host national (Japanese) students but also other foreign students sharing their dormitories; also, these dormitory-based social networks facilitated the development of language skills and also provided significant cultural, emotional, and social support. This paper is in response to the numerous calls for more detailed, qualitative accounts exploring the experiences of exchange students while they are on their sojourn abroad, particularly of under-represented groups such as European and Asian women studying in Japan, and in under-researched spaces such as international dormitories.

Publisher：Universita degli Studi di Messina, Italia  

This paper provides a glimpse into a Japanese university’s English language classroom. It explores a challenge that many language instructors there face – how to help non-language majors begin extensive reading. It questions the usual expectation that students are able to read graded readers proficiently and independently from the beginning. Rather, it proposes an alternative approach, scaffolding students through their initial extensive reading experiences using individual reading and writing tasks and interactive speaking activities. These activities help students meet five challenges that many less-experienced readers face when beginning to read fiction, particularly narrative: how to understand tenses, discourse markers, new vocabulary, reported speech, and pronouns. Using a questionnaire, teacher diaries and student writing, Japanese university non-English major students’ perceptions of this scaffolded approach were investigated in this pilot study. Students (n=41) felt that this alternative approach helped them address the five reading challenges. The paper concludes with some suggestions for further ways to improve this approach.

Publisher：Japan Association for Language Teaching  

This is a book review of Rod Ellis's book, Language Teaching Research and Language Pedagogy, published in 2012 by Wiley-Blackwell.

Publisher：JALT  

For language teachers with little experience doing classroom research, beginning a research project can seem a somewhat daunting endeavour. What to focus on, how to define terms, how to collect data, and how to determine the research findings can all seem like huge tasks, each intimidating in its own way. Unfortunately, there is no universal “research road map” that shows exactly how to do a research project. This is because classroom research is not a set of mechanical steps to be blindly followed but rather a series of decisions guided by basic research principles. Knowing these principles will help you complete research projects more quickly and effectively and also help you create stronger research findings that are key to getting your research published. This paper describes ten essential principles of research, each one illustrated with examples from classroom research.

Publisher：神田外国語大学  

As the number of self-access language centres (SALCs) in Japanese universities continues to grow, so too does the challenge of successfully introducing them to first-year university students, whose initial experiences of self-access language learning may otherwise be confusing and even unsettling. One approach is to carefully scaffold students’ first SALC encounters by connecting them with their classroom learning experiences. This paper discusses one such approach developed at a private university in central Japan, which was based upon a two-stage ‘push-pull’ ‘materials-light, people-focused’ strategy. Teachers initially ‘pushed’ their students to visit the SALC by giving them speaking ‘homework’ to be done there. The SALC then also offered interesting interactive events designed to ‘pull’ learners to continue to come. These push-pull activities could be done with few or no materials, and emphasized interaction with people rather than materials. This two-stage, push-pull strategy served as a bridge between the language classroom and a SALC, helping learners make the first steps in their transition from being a ‘classroom English learner’ to becoming a ‘SALC English user’.

Publisher：Japan Association for Language Teaching  

In our experience, students usually do extensive reading independently, and more often than not outside the classroom. Given that, do we teachers have an impact on our students’ understanding of extensive reading, and how they actually read? In this paper, we present two case studies to illustrate that in fact we do, and very profoundly. The implication is that we as teachers must carefully consider how we present extensive reading to students, and how we guide them through their initial extensive reading experiences. This is to help our students develop a deeper understanding of what extensive reading is, and why it is effective – and in doing so, motivate our students to read more.

Publisher：Palgrave Macmillan  

Provided an overview of qualitative research methods in applied linguistics

Publisher：Nanzan University  

Extensive listening is starting to be offered in English language programs in Japanese universities. However, there is still little published research exploring how students actually do extensive listening, and what they think about it. This paper attempts to fill that gap. Almost one hundred students in a Japanese university freshman English listening program took a 45-minute extensive listening class once a week for one 12-week semester. At the end of that semester, students completed a short open-response questionnaire. The paper concludes with an exploration of the implications for the extensive listening program.

Publisher：Nanzan University  

Provided an explanation of the Pache research about extensive reading

Publisher：JALT Learner Development SIG  

In the last couple of issues of Learning Learning, Neil Cowie (2006) showed how beneficial professional communities are to teacher development, and Alison Stewart (2007) explored how teachers define effective teacher development communities. To continue this professional development thread, I’d like to introduce ‘teacher-directed reciprocal peer observations’, illustrating one way you could work with another teacher to improve your teaching practice in your own context as well as foster the growth of teacher development communities.

I have titled this process ‘teacher-directed reciprocal peer observations’ for three reasons. Firstly, working backwards, peer observation indicates the process (teachers observing each other in their classrooms as they teach), the participants in the process (teachers who are ‘peers’), and the purpose of the process (not for supervision or employment decisions but for professional growth). Secondly, this process is reciprocal because the two teachers visit each other’s classrooms; each is both a ‘teacher’ and ‘observer’. Thirdly, the process is teacher-directed because throughout the process, the observer focuses on what the teacher directs them to, not what the observer chooses to. I will refer to this process as ‘peer observations,’ and use ‘he’ to refer to the teacher role, ‘she’ to the observer role, and call them ‘peer observation partners’.

Publisher：JALT Learner Development SIG  

In this paper, we will share our experience of the handing over and taking over of peer-teaching and consequent development of autonomy by our students via our insights and our students’ own written reflections. First we will situate the background to our experience of peer-teaching in narrative form. Then we will examine some of the key theoretical principles behind peer-teaching and its’ relationship to autonomy. Next we will share our approach to the process of setting-up and conducting peer-teaching lessons. Finally, we will explore the payback, or key insights, gained from this experience through our own and student’s perspectives in order to ascertain the extent to which students developed greater autonomy.

Publisher：Nanzan University  

The Faculty of Policy Studies offers an intensive English program, reflecting the need for policy makers in all fields to be able to communicate with their peers in other countries. This paper explores the skills future policy makers need, then points out their links with three of the four Nanzan English Program At Seto (NEPAS) program-wide goals: content-focused teaching, communicative English, and independent learning.

Publisher：Nanzan University  

Explores how extensive listening fits into the NEPAS program, and is consistent with NEPAS program goals

Publisher：TESOL, Washington, CD  

Becoming a teacher educator does not require anything more than the willingness to share ideas, energy, and creativity. Opportunities to do teacher education abound within your institution and local professional association meetings, at national and international professional association meetings, and under the auspices of international NGS. You might seek out smaller, closer-to-home opportunities before spreading your wings wider, but there are many paths to becoming a teacher educator.

Publisher：JALT  

Explains how to use folktales in the classroom as a way to teach English. Funded by a Pache I-A grant.

Publisher：JALT  

Co-edited special issue on using narrative in the classroom. Funded by a Pache I-A grant.

Publisher：JALT  

Annotated bibliography of resources for teaching using narrative in the classroom.

Publisher：Nanzan University  

The concept of a learner-centred approach arose first not in language education but in general educational psychology and educational philosophy. This paper traces the roots of a learner-centred approach through six influential schools of thought from these theoretical areas.

Publisher：Nagoya U. of Foreign Studies  

Offers a congnitive constructivist model of teaching that seeks to explain resistance factors to implementing a learner-centred approach.

Publisher：Nanzan U.  

Offers a synthesised definition of a learner - centred approach, based on six factors.

Publisher：Kinjo Gakuin University  

Publisher：JALT  

Publisher：Nagoya University of Foreign Studies  

Publisher：Sugiyama Women’s University  

Publisher：Aichi Gakuin University  

Publisher：Aichi Gakuin University  

Publisher：Nagoya University  

Publisher：Aichi Gakuin University  

Publisher：Aichi Gakuin University  

Publisher：Nagoya University  

Publisher：National University of Laos  

Publisher：Nagoya University of Foreign Studies  

Publisher：English Teachers Japan - Aichi (ETJ-Aichi)  

Publisher：Universiti Sains Malaysia  

Publisher：Universiti Sains Malaysia  

Postgraduate Lecture Series to applied linguistics students at USM

Publisher：European Consortium for Political Research  

Publisher：Universiti Sains Malaysia  

Publisher：Qualitative Research Summer Intensive  

Publisher：Anthropology of Japan for Japan  

Introducing qualitative research methods for anthropological fieldwork in Japan

Publisher：JALT 2010 Annual Conference  

Publisher：JALT 2010 Annual Conference  

Publisher：Nanzan University  

Publisher：東海地域交流会  

A presentation illustrating to teachers how to use classroom observation as a peer action research activity.

Publisher：JALT Kobe Chapter  

Teachers at all stages of their professional journey benefit from having another teacher come and observe them teaching. However, many teachers shy away from observations, as they feel that they will have little control over the process, and be evaluated subjectively by the observer. This workshop shows how the observation process can be teacher-directed not observer-directed, through reciprocal peer observations with another teacher. The workshop will walk participants through one observation cycle, from pre-observation discussions to the observation itself to the post-observation feedback. Participants will practice four classroom observations tasks.

Creating a classroom questionnaire might seem daunting, but think of it as a series of seven steps: deciding what information to collect; creating, editing and ordering your questions; writing the title, introduction, instructions and conclusion; laying out your questions; and piloting and checking your questionnaire. This workshop will walk you through these seven steps to help you to create a simple, effective questionnaire to investigate your classroom.

Research is time-consuming and challenging, particularly when we are collecting data from students or colleagues or working with other researchers. We often tend to focus on pressing concerns such as writing strong research question(s), finding appropriate participants, and creating good quality data. It's easy to overlook some of the less immediate, rather thorny issues such as how and how much we should inform potential participants about our research topic, how we can obtain and maintain their consent to participate, and how to really make sure that they will not be harmed by participating in our study. We also have obligations to past researchers to represent their work honestly and ethically, and to future researchers to represent our own work fully and frankly.

This workshop will examine these crucial issues in both a practical manner – by illustrating ways to obtain and renew consent, for example – and also a reflective, exploratory manner – by considering the obligations that we have in our own research contexts. This workshop will help you do more ethically sensitive research in the future.

We do research with the best of intentions – to better understand our learners, and to help them better understand themselves. However, it is easy to believe that the ends justify the means, and in the excitement of a project to forget the first rule of research – do no harm. This poster presentation will help you better understand your ethical responsibilities to your research participants, to your co-researchers, and to researchers past (that is, the authors of books and articles you cite) and future (the audience of your work), at each step of your research project.

Creating a classroom questionnaire might seem daunting, but think of it as a series of seven steps: deciding what information to collect; creating, editing and ordering your questions; writing the title, introduction, instructions and conclusion; laying out your questions; and piloting and checking your questionnaire. This workshop will walk you through these seven steps to help you to create a simple, effective questionnaire to investigate your classroom.

This presentation provides a survey of empirical research trends since 2005 in each of the three JALT publications – JALT Journal, The Language Teacher, and the JALT Conference Proceedings. An analysis of research topics and questions, research methods and designs, and sampling and data analysis strategies will be offered. Particular focus will be placed on qualitative research and mixed methods studies. Suggestions for researchers interested in publishing their work in JALT publications will be provided.

Doing research can be daunting, particularly if you do not have a lot of experience or if it has been a long time since you have taken a research methods class. It can also be time consuming and very frustrating. Unfortunately there is no universal ‘research road map’ that shows you exactly how to get from start to finish. Research is not a set of mechanical steps, but rather a series of decisions guided by research principles and common sense. In this plenary, I present ten rules to help you do more effective research, considering your approach, design, methods and findings.

Action research is an effective way to improve your teaching.

Provides an introduction to qualitative research methods for university and high school language teachers.

“Think of yourself as a runner in the past, present, and future: one leg is ahead into the future, the other leg behind in the past, your torso poised in between in the here and now. Yet, as one whole runner, you move gracefully from moment to moment toward your goal.” (Schmuck, 2006, pp. 4-5).

In teaching, as in life, change is constant. Often, this constant process is instinctive and reactive, a response to the competing demands of a myriad of responsibilities and busy schedules. However, it can be mindful and proactive, informed by teacher and student reflections, and guided by teacher classroom research.

The real, underlying goals that guide teachers’ development are their personal theories of learning and teaching, and their expectations of the ‘ideal teacher’. Although these theories and expectations deeply influence teachers, they often go unexamined. In this workshop, participants will first explore such teaching beliefs. Then they will be introduced to ways to become more aware of their teaching practice through reflective teaching and teacher research, such as keeping a teaching log, making class observation notes, looking at class materials and students’ work, and asking students to write reflections at the end of class. Noting how lesson plans change while teaching, observing what students do during planned activities, and getting feedback from students about what is effective or not all help to connect teaching beliefs with teaching practice – and prepare teachers to make a bigger and better difference in their classrooms tomorrow.

As teachers, we are constantly trying out new ideas, tasks and activities in our classrooms. Action research can help you do this more effectively so that you can make sounder teaching decisions. In this special one-day workshop, we will use a simple ‘look, think, do’ cycle to explore what action research is and how you can use it in your classroom in the morning workshop. In the afternoon workshop, you’ll brainstorm an action research topic and create an action research design. By the end of the day, you’ll have a strong understanding of what action research is and a plan for how to do one action research project in your classroom.

Action research offers many simple, practical tools to help you understand your classroom better. In this hands-on presentation, I would like to focus on one: observing yourself and your students while you are teaching your own classes. There are many advantages to doing so, the two most powerful being that it provides evidence to help you reflect later about your teaching, and it also captures those moments when you are in your classroom and you come to see yourselves or your students in new ways. Both of these processes can help you to develop a deeper insight into how you teach and how your students learn.

However, as teaching is a fast-paced, multi-dimensional and complex process, observing yourself as you teach is more difficult to do than it first appears, as anyone who has tried it knows. The key is to have a clear focus, and to develop a simple note-taking system. In this presentation, participants will be shown how to choose their observation focus, and provided with a set of note-taking techniques and templates that they can use to observe their own classes in the fall semester.

Your senior thesis is an exciting part of your university studies. You will begin this journey today, and have the next three semesters to complete it. The first step of this journey is to choose a research topic. The next step is to decide on your research questions. Research questions guide your research, so they are crucial. These first two steps are the foundation of your senior thesis. The next step is to decide what information you need to answer your research questions. Deciding on this will help you decide the next step – how to collect this information. This workshop will help you take you through these first, important steps on your senior research journey.

Showed university and high school teachers how to use classroom observations and questionnaires to better understand the learning and teaching processes of their classrooms.

Demonstrated how to use active learning techniques in the junior high school classroom.

Demonstrated how to use folktales in the classroom.

Demonstrated how to use folktales in the classroom.

Demonstrated how to use story-telling techniques in junior and senior high schoolclassrooms.