This case study examines the key steps and challenges that were involved in a mixed methods research project relating to Japanese first-year medical students' English academic vocabulary learning. Conducting mixed methods research can be both conceptually and administratively challenging under any circumstances. However, this study was especially…

This study used a mixed methods research design to investigate use of Web-based lexicographic tools during real-time second language (L2) writing activity in an English as a foreign language university context and the impact of their use on writing quality. Participants included 22 adult Japanese EFL learners, elementary to advanced language…

The coronavirus pandemic affected the whole world in 2020, with high pressure on the health sector, many deaths, reduced business activity, rising unemployment rates, travel restrictions and social distancing. These developments have had severe consequences for all areas of every society around the globe. This also includes education. In many…

A browser-based system to facilitate practice in asking and answering simple questions in English was developed. The user may ask or answer by speaking or typing, and the computer's output is in the form of speech and/or text. The types of questions handled and the permitted vocabulary are limited, though the vocabulary items may be edited freely.…

Shadow education has been studied in areas such as comparative education, educational policy, sociology of education, education and economics, and lifelong education, but mainstream Anglophone curriculum studies have largely ignored this phenomenon. We argue that shadow education should be considered as an emerging (and significant) focus of…

As English-medium instruction (EMI) spreads around the world, university teachers and students who are non-native speakers of English (NNS) need to put much effort into the delivery or reception of content. Construction of scientific meaning in the process of learning is already complex when instruction is delivered in the first language of the…

This paper introduces several educational materials developed by ICER (Innovation Center for Educational Resource) of Kyushu University Library and considers about what are better designs for mobile educational materials through their development experiences and their investigations about its learning effectiveness. The introduced materials are…

Transformed into a large collaborative learning environment, the Internet is comprised of information reservoirs namely, (a) online classrooms, (b) social networks, and (c) virtual reality or simulated communities, to expeditiously create, reproduce, share, and deliver information into the hands of educators and students. Most importantly, the…

Practice and research in the composition education that is using computer and network have been more and more active. Through online composition system, a large amount of written texts produced by students and teachers can be collected. This kind of information is called a learner corpus, which is important in second language education because the…

This study investigates how native-speaker English teachers working at Japanese universities use the Internet in their classes. In 2008, 50 instructors completed a survey about their teaching-related use of the Internet; another group of 50 was polled in 2012. The respondents were asked about their teaching situations, whether they used…

There has been a widespread belief that teachers in Asian contexts including Japan and China are well protected by a tradition that reveres teachers. However, in Chinese contexts, cultural traditions have been found to undermine the teaching profession, together with educational reforms and societal changes. This paper reports on an inquiry that…

Problem Based Learning (PBL) is a powerful tool for both science and engineering education in the real world. Therefore, Japanese educators/researchers (with assistance from a US educator) carried out a pilot study to determine the effectiveness of using PBL activities in Metaverse. Their project was carried out by student teams from the US and…

In developing strategies for increasing learner involvement, a key factor is the extent to which these strategies are compatible with learners' own expectations and preferences. In order to explore this factor, tertiary students in four Asian countries were asked (in an online survey designed on the basis of exploratory interviews) to give their…

Science education is concerned with the meaningful pursuit of comprehension, knowledge and understanding of scientific concepts and processes. In Vygotskian social constructivist learning, personal interpretation, decision-making and community cooperation fosters long-term understanding and transference of learned concepts. The construction of…

Murasakino High School is a municipal senior high school located in the northern part of Kyoto, an ancient capital city of Japan. With a little over one thousand students studying in three grades (from fifteen to eighteen years of age), Murasakino has a distinctive scholastic tradition that makes it different from other high schools in Kyoto. Over…