This study explored the relation between second-language (L2) readers' memory for causal relations and their learning outcomes from expository text. Japanese students of English as a foreign language (EFL) with high and low L2 reading proficiency read an expository text. They completed a causal question and a problem-solving test as measures of…

Graded readers, simplified versions of literature and other texts at graduated levels of difficulty, are widely employed in contexts of foreign language pedagogy and are widely considered to be a form of written-language input ostensibly suitable for a wide array of developmental stages. However, the efficacy of graded readers is not unchallenged,…

This study explored how 14 foreign-language writers at a university in Japan changed their genre awareness of discussion genre texts (particularly argumentative essays) during a 15-week systemic functional linguistics course consisting of text-based writing lessons assigned as part of a teaching and learning cycle. To obtain in-depth quantitative…

How can Japanese teachers of English go about introducing more communicative activities suitable for their contexts? This article discusses an attempt by a high school teacher to implement communicative language teaching (CLT) in her classes while responding to institutional pressure to use "yakudoku" (a traditional grammar translation…

The impetus for this study was the need to provide effective training for English teachers on the use of Google Drive-related apps at a Japanese school. This training was necessary as the school embarked on creating a Japanese government-required information and communications technology (ICT) educational environment at the school. To address this…

Falling asleep in class is a common phenomenon among students in Japanese universities. There are several possible reasons for this: tiredness from daily routine such as commuting, difficulty concentrating in 90-minute classes, or simply a lack of motivation to study. In the English as a foreign language (EFL) classes, university students are…

Since 1995, to allow teachers to organize and instruct in more effective ways, many English as a Second Language (ESL) specialists and researchers have studied the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) Model and its instructional framework by Echevarria, Vogt, and Short in 2004. By combining strategies and techniques that recognize the…

This study investigated how learners' ages affect their interpretation of the nonverbal behaviors (NVBs) of teachers and other students in distinguishing between questions and statements in the second language (L2) classroom. After watching 48 short video clips without sound in which three L2 teachers asked a question or made a statement with or…

This study explored the longitudinal changes of Japanese EFL learners' psychological attributes of unwillingness to speak English in a task-based classroom. Thirty-three university students participated in this study. They engaged in a communicative task once a week for two semesters. They completed a questionnaire examining the psychological…

In recent years, there has been a burgeoning interest in Augmented Reality (AR) technologies, especially in educational settings to edutain (i.e. educate and entertain) students and engage them in their learning. This study reports the results of the use of an AR application called BlippAR to augment poster carousel tasks in a blended English…

Japanese university English instructors are increasingly requiring students to use their personal smartphones for activities in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom activities. Because of this, it has been recommended that studies be conducted to ascertain Japanese university students' perceptions of using smartphones in EFL language…

This paper presents an exploratory case study of the classroom motivational dynamics of an English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher at a Japanese technology college. The article examines how motivation evolved in-context over various timescales through interactions with affect and identity. An introspective research journal generated rich,…

This article focuses on the design of digital instructional game (DIG) tasks for young second language (L2) learners. The aim of the study is to identify motivational task elements based on what children respond to positively in games and incorporate into their own L2 vocabulary learning game designs. Eighty-two sixth-grade students (ages 11-12…

Twenty Japanese university freshmen majoring in International Studies (N = 4) and Nursing (N = 16) participated in a 10-month project examining changes in their motivation. Using monthly focus group interviews and a 35-item questionnaire, the dynamic systems of various types of learners of English over two semesters were explored. Trajectories of…

The Collaborative Learning Project is a language exchange program in which American and Japanese university students have the opportunity to interact with native speakers over the course of a three-week period. This paper reports the outcomes of the Collaborative Learning Project in terms of its effectiveness in fulfilling student expectations and…