FLEAT 7

The purpose of this study is to investigate how collaborative learning helps students at Kosen, National Institute of Technology, who do not like English become motivated and develop their English abilities. The study has conducted at three schools: two campuses at Kagawa College and at Akashi College since 2013. Students’ attitude toward English learning improved as well as English abilities based on GTEC and TOEIC scores at Takuma campus at Kagawa College. Kosen is a unique institution of higher education in Japan, which provides students a five-year engineering education from the age 15. Kosen has produced excellent human resources and supported Japan’s high economic growth period. However, it is said that there are many students who dislike English at Kosen, compared with other educational institutions such as high schools and universities. Ito, Nishizawa and Yoshioka (2010) describe that many engineering course students including university students have negative attitude toward English learning. They emphasize the importance and necessity of effective English teaching to promote these students’ motivation and English abilities. The writer has tried to have her students enjoy learning and become more confident in her classroom with collaborative activities. She includes many pair work activities which are considered to be effective in promoting students’ English abilities including reading aloud and interpretative reading. These activities also help to develop friendships among classmates. The ratios of students’ preferences to English language learning are compared at the beginning and at the end of the first term or again after the one-year of teaching in the writer’s classroom. The outcome indicates some positive correlation between students’ attitudes toward English learning and that to pair work.

The purpose of this study is to report on the effects of an internet-based seminar at a Japanese university by teachers located in Japan and in the UK in 2018 academic year. The participants of this study were 17 students in an applied linguistics seminar that we?a Japanese teacher and an American teacher?team taught at a Japanese women’s college. The session consisted of two sessions back to back, starting at 3 pm through 6:30 or 7 pm (JST). The Japanese teacher in the UK took the leading role, using the following system, and the American teacher in the Japanese classroom supported his class. The seminar was conducted using a synchronous (Facetime) or asynchronous (LINE messages) computer-mediated communication (CMC) environment. In addition, Apple Pages documents were shared between the Japanese classroom and the UK office and was used as a shared blackboard. Because this was a senior seminar for writing a graduation thesis, feedback on students’ thesis drafts was necessary. For that purpose, Digital Paper (SONY) was employed for giving feedback on students’ drafts, and Dropbox was used for sharing the feedback. For evaluating this seminar, we administered a questionnaire which consisted of 19 items (18 six-point Likert scale and one open-ended) at the end of the course. The results indicated that, while all the participants answered that the CMC using Facetime was effective, 80% of them replied that their concentration on class was sometimes lowered due to occasional disconnection of Facetime. In this presentation, we will report the results of the questionnaire and this practice in detail. We will also discuss the effects and difficulties of conducting an internet-based seminar through 30 sessions in one academic year and consider the possibilities of classes conducted from a remote place using the internet.

本学保健看護学部は、2017年度からフィンランドユヴァスキュラ応用科学大学(Jamk University of Applied Sciences：以下Jamk)、ラハティ応用科学大学(Lahti University of Applied Sciences:Lamk)と高齢者看護学へのロボットやAI導入可能性を探る共同研究を実施してきている。本研究ではOptimaProというLMSを活用し、gerontechnology（加齢工学）を中心に据えた高齢者看護学の授業展開を模索している。JamkとLamkでは英語による高齢者看護学の授業を実施するが、本学側は英語コミュニケーションと高齢者看護学のESP形式の授業となる。半期15コマの授業は、Gerontological Nursing, Health Promotion, Rehabilitationの 3ユニットから構成される。各ユニットの学生の主な学習活動は、高齢者を対象に実施したインタビューを実施し、それを各ユニットごとのテーマに沿って分析し、その内容を10分程度の英語プレゼンにまとめLMSにアップし、電子掲示板を活用した非同期型のディスカッションを行うというものである。本発表では、参加している本学部学生のプレゼンや、英語教員と看護教員の役割分担、Jamk・Lamkとの連携について詳しくお伝えしたい。

Assessing L2 speaking in large classroom environments is a pertinent challenge facing Japanese universities through to elementary schools; twinned with MEXT’s policy alterations to teaching English production, we need innovative models to address current student skill-gaps. In L2 spheres, listening, reading and writing assessments are efficient and practical. However, oratory assessing stands as our field’s biggest shortfall. This present case report will provide educators with a manageable model to measure large class spoken production; but ultimately it attempts to provide scaffolding from which students can develop behaviors synonymous with autonomous learning. In a real classroom setting in Japan, students enacted peer-performance assessments during a term-long project aimed to teach peer-reviewing. As such, a peer-assessment rubric was designed to limit subjectivity. It employed specified, quantifiable and understandable criterion for the student markers because scoring was the key assessment challenge (Brown, 2003). Through an active learning lens, students were tasked with group retelling activities designed to encourage higher-order thinking by forcing use of their active vocabularies. Retelling reveals students’ knowledge of vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and sense of story, as well as the ability to convey information to their listeners (Allen and Allen, 1985). Therefore, students were instructed to collaborate in order to create a group speech intended for recital as a spoken assessment. According to Johnson, Johnson, and Smith (1991), within cooperative activities individuals seek outcomes that benefit themselves and all other group members. Consequently, each pupil was entrusted to review their peers’ contributions consistently and reflect as a team using the criterion. Bransford, Brown, and Cocking (1999) mention that “metacognitive” approaches to instruction can help students learn to take control of their own learning by defining learning goals and monitoring their progress to achieve them. Fundamentally, the flipped responsibility allowed students’ to experience peer-to-peer communication instances that required heightened metacognitive engagement.

Japanese universities commonly conduct pre-entrance education for prospective students, but as these students are not yet formally enrolled, motivation is a consistent challenge. Students are expected to self-motivate for several months of study after they have been accepted to the university. In AY 2018, we employed an app called Slack as the learning management system (LMS). Slack is a chat-based business communication app, self-described as “a collaboration hub for work,” on which users can exchange messages, share files, and create channels for collaboration. Students were instructed to post their assignments on the app, making their work visible to everyone in an effort to boost interaction and motivation. Specifically, students were required to keep a journal on a topic of choice. After two months, 92% of the students who continued posting assignments provided positive feedback about their learning experience; the majority found that posting assignments was “fun” and a good way to interact with future schoolmates. The student feedback also revealed that they considered the mode of communication as more like “speaking” than “writing.” The platform was functional and user-friendly for both students and faculty; students could post easily from their smartphones and did not have to worry about making mistakes thanks to the closed environment, and faculty could easily intervene to control the mode of communication. The use of emojis is one example. At first, students wrote text only, but after a teacher and a few students started using emojis, almost all the students followed suit. This accelerated the interactions and created the atmosphere of a real-time discussion. The primary drawback of our approach was that students tended to use expressions they already knew, so we recommend a combination of other types of assignments to promote more advanced learning.

This paper reports on over a decade long action research of mine, in adopting various technologies for Web Enhanced Language Learning for EFL on the university level in Japan. Since an early stage of CALL that started with the mainframes, PCs and Macintosh, I have been interested in applying text to speech (TTS) technology for text-based interactive drills, such as ELIZA. When internet days came, utilizing Web 2.0 technologies and TTS, I have succeeded in the so-called Web BlogCast project for teaching writing. This report focuses on how weblogs projects were managed in and outside the classes, to discuss how much error feedbacks were given both in face to face interviews and on online comments as e-Feedback. Students from three regular and one advanced EFL classes participated in Weblog projects to help to improve writing and presentation skills. Analyses to be reported include overall quality of students’ writing, electronic feedback, class feedbacks, class evaluation and students’ revision works, with respect to linguistic characteristics, accuracy levels, and revision rates, in the hope of discussing pedagogical recommendations for a blog-based English writing environment. As the ICT trends turned to Bring Your Own Device (BYD) setting and, with the emergence of tablets, iPads and smartphones, I have succeeded in adopting e-Books, audiobooks and videos for peer to peer communicative drills. This e-Book and video project involves both texts aloud reading with human narration or TTS technology. I will discuss the rationale for the projects and syllabus designs, and the findings of students’ perceptions of the online assignments. I shall share a few successful ways that would help ease anxieties in course delivery and assessment by teachers, so that we can encourage autonomous learning on the part of learners, and possibly implement the authorship learning mode even in language teaching.

The purpose of this presentation is to report in what way a freshman English class was successful and useful as a first-year learning experience at a university in Japan. Freshman English classes play important roles that greatly affect students’ university life regardless of their majors. Yet, this importance seems to be often overlooked by many university English professors. I took data from a class, English Communication, held twice a week for 90 minutes throughout the 2018 academic year at a university in Tokyo. The class consisted of 19 students, four females and 15 males, majoring in law. Their average placement test score (TOEIC Bridge) was approximately 100. At the beginning of the first semester, most of the students in the class did not like English and had a strong fear of English communication. In the first lesson, I encouraged them to make friends with classmates and emphasized the importance of cooperation. I also explained clear academic goals. One of the goals was to become able to keep talking with a peer for six minutes. Based on cooperative learning principles, the students worked in small groups throughout the course. I used mainly English in this class. The class turned out to be a wonderful learning community. Moreover, being able to keep conversing for six minutes on the final examination gave them a great sense of accomplishment. My lesson observation and content analysis of students’ course reflection revealed that they realized the importance of cooperation with peers and became confident in their communication abilities. Every student certainly became a member of the university learning community, with friends they can trust and being equipped with study skills.

This study developed a conversational question set for interview simulations through CMC. The question set consisted of four subsets: (1) tell me about yourself, (2) personal view, (3) reasons to study abroad, and (4) plans. All questions in the set are commonly asked in college, study abroad or job interviews. Japanese undergraduates in two different classes of the same EFL course practiced asking and answering the conversational questions in pairs, playing the role of the interviewer or interviewee. Then each student was connected to an instructor in the Philippines on the internet so that they could practice English conversational skills for 25 minutes, simulating an interview in English. The students received the interview training through CMC for five weeks. To examine the effect of the training, self-efficacy scale for interviewee skills was devised. The scale consisted of seven items such as “I can understand common English interview questions about myself.” For each item, the students rated their perceived self-efficacy or confidence according to a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 = Does not correspond at all to 7 = Corresponds exactly. A questionnaire including scales for measuring motivation and international posture was also administered to the students. To evaluate EFL perceptive and productive skills, the scores of a listening test and a word production task containing some of the interview questions were obtained. Data were collected in a pretest-posttest design. Paired sample t-tests revealed that the students significantly improved their interviewee self-efficacy, listening test scores, and word production. These findings suggest that the training helped them enhance confidence, perceptive and productive skills. Contrary to expectations, this study did not find a significant improvement in international posture, amotivation, and identified regulation. Further work is required to fully understand the roles and effects of EFL training through CMC.

This study introduces the use of a telepresence robot in an extensive reading class. The robot we used is Double 2 that Double Robotics manufactures, which is a built-in, i-Pad-controlled robot that allows users to have a video conference with a remote function to control and move the robot anywhere they would like to. The primary difference between using an i-Pad and the teleconference robot as a video conference tool is that the robot’s user can turn its head, i.e., the camera, to see whatever s/he would like to see in the meeting space without asking on-site attendees to rotate the i-Pad. Users also have full remote control over the robot’s mobility. In a language classroom, this allows instructors to walk to a student or a group of students who need attention. We used the telepresence robot in 5 out of 12 Japanese extensive reading classes in which students are expected to read their choice of books based on their interests and proficiency. The class consists of instruction/advising time and individual reading time. During the reading time, the instructor participated in class by using the robot to walk around the classroom and help individual students when necessary. The results of the semester-end survey showed that the experience of having the robot present in class was somewhat different from having the instructor in the face-to-face environment. While half of the students were comfortable interacting with the instructor via the robot, the majority of them indicated that they still would choose face-to-face interaction with the instructor if they had the option. The presentation will describe these results as well as ways in which the robot’s use can be maximally effective in language learning.

英語を不得意とする学生が最も苦手なものの一つに英語でのプレゼンテーションがある。その理由は主に、英語でスクリプトを書けない、うまく発音できない、という英語力に関する問題と、プレゼンテーションする内容が思いつかない、人前で話すことに慣れていない、という人前で意見を述べることに関するものである。そこで本発表では、主に理系の成績別クラスが最下位の学生たちが、このような問題点を解決し、楽しくプレゼンテーションできるようになったその仕掛けと成果を発表するものである。鍵になる理論的背景はポジティブ感情の喚起である。授業では４月から映像や英語の記事などを使って学生に文法と発音の関係に興味を持たせておいた。英語の面白い記事を訳し、自分なりの日本語で説明させたり、「好ましい感じがする」英単語を教科書から３つ選ばせ「なぜ好きか」と単語のルーツや使い方を日本語でプレゼンさせたりした。これらの発表で人前に立って話すこと、聞き手が興味を持つようなパワーポイントを工夫して作ることの重要性を経験させ、プレゼンテーションに対する心の壁を低くしていった。最後に「自分の好きなもの」について英語で話してもらった。ここでは通年を通して指導してきた文法と発音ポイントを確認させ、可能な限りリハーサルを行った。その結果、英語が苦手な、最下位クラスとは思えないほどのプレゼンテーションをする学生が多数見られた。

In this presentation the author will discuss how language course design and in particular, the structure of various tasks and assignments can contribute to students’ self-regulated learning (Zimmerman, 1989) and their potential positive effect on L2 learning outcomes. Cleary (2018) describes self-regulated learners as motivated, strategic, and reflexive with respect to their learning. The integration and use of educational technology in language instruction, such as e-Textbooks, has the potential to foster this type of learner. It is important to consider, however, how the design of the language learning environment can contribute to students’ motivation to continue studying the language outside of the classroom and beyond. To illustrate this approach, this presentation will look at the design features of an introductory Spanish course and how it takes into consideration the way students process information (by selecting, organizing, and integrating it with what they already know (Mayer, 2004)) to help students optimize and self-regulate their learning. Zimmerman lists several self-regulated learning strategies present in successful learners: self-evaluating, organizing and transforming, goal-setting and planning, seeking information, keeping records and monitoring, to name a few. The presentation will include examples of various tasks that aim at developing this strategic thinking among successful language learners.

本発表は、2017年から2018年の間で、東京の2つの私立大学で行われたCALLシステムとMALLシステムを導入した授業の実践例とmラーニングの教材を活用した授業の実践例を報告するものである。1つ目の大学では、CALL教室でCaLabo EXと呼ばれるCALLシステムを利用し、4技能を鍛える90分の授業を週に1回、1学期間行った。また、このクラスには、日々の課題としてmラーニングの教材ABLishを使用した。2つ目の大学では、英語力及び人間力を育成するための特別プログラムの中でABLishを使用し、英語力、特に会話力、読解力、聴解力に焦点を当て学習活動を行った。2学期間、学生は週2回昼休みに集まり、約30分間の活動を行った。今回、この2つのクラスで使用した教授法及び指導法、実際の授業から見えてきたCALLとMALLの持つ長所と短所、そして可能性と課題を紹介する。今後もICTの発展は続くと思われる。CALL及びMALLシステムをさらに有効に活用した英語学習を確立するために、今後さらにCALL及びMALLシステムを活用した実践を積み重ね検討していく必要があると考える。

This presentation introduces the features of a timed online writing fluency component that has been adopted program-wide in a mandatory ESP course for third-year students at a national university of science and engineering. First, a description of the five-minute writing fluency activity is given within the framework of the ESP curriculum along with a list of writing topics. This is followed by a demonstration of the online interface for the university LMS (UEC WebClass) which students use to input their writing and some of the ways it can be customized. The presentation ends with a discussion about the type of data that can be mined from the system and how that data can then be used to inform the teaching of the instructors. Some anecdotal evidence of the benefits of this type of fluency writing activities suggests that students improve not only their writing speed, but also the speed of their ability to think in English.

The growth of online resources (dictionaries, encyclopedias, grammar reference sites) and social media environments (language exchange portals and other social networks) in the last decades has brought an unprecedented opportunity to foreign language learners who live far from the environment where their target language is spoken. Learners of Japanese in Europe are also benefiting from these new opportunities, and especially students of the digital native generation rely on these resources as a normal part of their learning process. However, in my classes I observed that not all students are equally familiar with these opportunities, and that some use them passively and uncritically, without considering the reliability of the resource they are using and its suitability for the task they are performing. In order to foster a more active, critical and responsible use of online resources, and to encourage students to discover their own potential as legitimate participants in a Japanese language community and develop both their linguistic and social skills, I included a Wikipedia translation activity in a class of upper-intermediate learners of Japanese at tertiary level. Students of Japanese as a foreign language were matched with exchange students from Japan to form small groups of native and non-native speakers of Japanese, and translated Wikipedia articles about Slovenia into Japanese. Through an analysis of Wikipedia page revision histories, class observation data, questionnaires and interviews, I observed that some goals of the project were reached: students reported a clearer awareness of how Wikipedia works, improved language ability, and increased confidence in their language skills. However, they were often overwhelmed by the technical details necessary to edit Wikipedia articles, and some were demotivated by negative comments by other editors. These are problems that need to be addressed in future reiterations of this activity.

Google Translate is recently improving the quality of translation better and better. Now it is time to start thinking how to use it in language educational settings. One of the ideas is to use it for preparing 2-column data of Phrase Reading Worksheet Builder (PRWB), which is developed and repeatedly improved by the author himself. The data, an English (or any language) phrase and its translation into Japanese (or any other language,) are arranged side by side. On a sheet of A4 or B5 paper, we can print vertically up to 40 lines (at least 16 lines). This style of worksheet is called Phrase Reading Worksheet, or PRW. With PRWB, we can publish more than 1000 patterns of layout from one source. So far we had to translate one by one using 2-column data editor. In a recent improvement, PRWB became to be able to import from already-divided data translated. Although translation is a time-consuming and a complicated job, Google Translate could be an assistant for this step. Still there are several problems. One of them is an awkward or a wrong translation which needs to be modified. The AI-based system divides translation according to an invisible newline character, either or both of Carrige Return (CR) and Line Feed (LF) depending on OS (Operating System). For example, a pair of English sentences “This is a pen” and “This / is a pen” (in this case the slash means a newline character) are translated differently into Japanese, which means the machine translates each phrase without context. The presenter categorized some errors of short phrases by Google Translation into several groups, from passable-as-they-are to impossible to be used. This categorization may help AI translation improve the system. In the talk we will see some example phrases of English-Japanese translation.

People learn at different rates and have different learning needs as Reigeluth stated (Reigeluth, 2012). A curriculum that is truly designed to maximize learning would not force the learners to move on before they had learned the current material, and it would not force faster students to wait for the rest of the class. Although it is extremely challenging to put the idea into practice in language classes, personalized flipped curriculum for a second-year Japanese class, which will be presented in this presentation, was introduced in 2016 to make the curriculum closer to an ideal one. In this curriculum, before attending class, students have the choice of watching a lecture video in Japanese, one in English, and/or reading their textbook to learn grammar points, allowing them to learn at their own pace and in their own way outside of class. Furthermore, homework, which was previously assigned uniformly, has been also revised by adding options so that the students could choose the homework in an appropriate level after receiving recommendations from the teacher. In order to verify the effectiveness of the curriculum, the following two elements were analyzed comprehensively; 1. results from the student survey, which includes five elements of “First Principles of Instruction (Merrill, 2002),” effective utilization of time, improvement level of learning, students’ satisfaction level, and the overall quality, and 2. kinds of instructional methods and homework assignments that students actually chose. Accumulated results in the past three years show that the instructional choices vary widely with different reasons. The findings also show that while this curriculum has been giving lower level students great benefits, the higher level students desire improvement with in-class activities. As a conclusion, the benefits and limitations of personalizing learning as well as the roles of in-class activities will be discussed.

This study presents a series of procedures and results of production-based tasks utilized in an English Communication class taught in 2018 by the author. The syllabus stated that students were expected to develop their English skills through reading, listening, writing, and speaking tasks. During the year, students were engaged in tasks that included all four skills, and other skills such as vocabulary and grammar acquisition, using a textbook. However, currently, the method for learning English has broadened beyond acquiring or receiving skills into a more creative and autonomous learning style. At present, it is encouraged to interact with peers by using technology skills to produce voice and motion recordings which can be exchanged through digital networks rather than receiving only unidirectional communication from teachers. Under this premise, students were encouraged to produce original English stories in short-movie video format as their conclusive work of the year-long class. While quality varied, all groups managed to use new editing skills to incorporate subtitles, draw cartoons, and include custom soundtracks. Students demonstrated their capacity to critique each other's work during peer review. Their comments revealed empathy for their peers as well as the ability to form and express opinions. Although they still require a great deal of practice to speak and write English fluently, this study suggests that their potential for creating original work in spoken form can be reinforced further. It can also be proposed that this type of production work combines analog tasks like teamwork and speech with the mastery of digital skills that are now fundamental in modern society; this combined method enhances students’ awareness of the realities they will face after graduation.

Over the last decade, there has been a rapid increase in the number of universities offering English Medium Instruction (EMI) classes in non-English speaking countries including Japan. Despite its popularity and wide-spread implementation, little is known about the effective methods of delivery of course content. For instance, what technologies would assist the effective implementation of EMI is unknown. This presentation reports on the process and results of implementing Kahoot in EMI classes offered at the Faculty of Human Sciences, Waseda University, between 2017-2019. First, the presentation briefly summarizes the challenges that students and instructors commonly face in EMI classes based on EMI literature and my own teaching experiences. Next, this presentation explains why Kahoot was selected and implemented into her EMI classes. Then, the detail of the EMI classes and the process of implementation are explained. Here the presenter explains how she managed a set of challenges that emerged during the implementation. Finally, this presentation reports on the results of student evaluation. Here the presenter discusses what areas require further improvement and how the use of Kahoot could be adjusted to the needs that are unique to various educational settings. The presentation will end with a conclusion that Kahoot turned out to be a popular and effective tool for enhancing student engagement, motivation, and concentration. It has strong potential to assist the effective implementation of EMI in various subject areas. Future research would benefit from quantitative analysis of benefits that were observed in the present study.

To be more proficient in a foreign language, learners need to use it in meaningful interaction, often having to push themselves out of their comfort zone, when they feel their proficiency is not good enough yet. However, having meaningful interactions using less proficient language can be quite intimidating and often cause foreign language anxiety (Yahima 2004). This is particularly the case with Japanese university students the presenter has taught: they tend to feel too afraid or anxious to try and take advantage of available opportunities to have conversations in English, which they say would be the best way of practicing the language. This presentation reports on a class-to-class eTandem project between the U.S. and Japan using asynchronous bilingual videos, with a focus on the Japanese participants. It discusses how this video-based telecolalborative project was designed to help alleviate foreign language anxiety, whether it worked as intended, and what benefits the participants gained from being pushed out of their comfort zone to have authentic interactions with English native speakers. Key features of the project include (a) asynchronous interaction, (b) interactions within each mixed group of 5-7 students, (c) video creation in local groups of 3-4, (d) talking in both languages in each video (e) text-based interactions initiated by the posted video (f) use of a Facebook group as the platform. Considerations behind choosing these features will be explained in the presentation. Based on the pre- and post- surveys, the post-project assignments, and the student performance observed in their work (created videos and posted comments), it can be argued that those features mentioned above worked successfully to help reduce the participants’ foreign language anxiety, and reduced anxiety led to more active engagement, which had a positive impact on their L2 competence, language learning motivation, and cultural awareness.

This practical report, by introducing an EMI class, intends to clarify what is to be re-evaluated elaborately in the class, “Media Production Studies” offered at Waseda University. What is learned and acquired in this MPS class with the content of video production is introduced with obtained data, normative and summative. This one-semester long class of MPS is made up of three UNITs. UNIT 1 introduces film theories and visual theories for 5 weeks. The students are given a quiz at the beginning of each class session based on the reading assignment to check students’ comprehension. In UNIT 2, five groups of 4-5 students each are formed and worked on fundamental video production based on what was learned in UNIT 1. “Revision in video production” is the key concept to better and deeper understanding of the concept of the given title. The video products are presented in class and discussed with peers, including the teacher and teaching assistants toward the presentation of the revised work in the following week. UNIT 3 for five weeks is the term of Final Video Project with a revisional work included. The compiled data show students basically enjoyed video production and, at the same time, had inevitable conflict of how to represent the conceptual idea negotiated among group members with different ideas and schemes on the same key concept for representation. More statistical data and students’ comments will be introduced at the site of presentation. Along with stats and free writings by the students, a probable new EMI class, mainly focusing on enhancing presentation skills and manners with effective use of visual media, will be proposed in this report.

Games and learning are strongly related: games develop children’s cognitive skills and socialization; “learning strategy” (a kind of game) or “fun” are key to students’ progress. Then, how can we make an effective use of the funny and popular videogames in language learning classes, especially for the progress in communicative skills? We would like to introduce the way we are using digital games as a French communication classes’ constitutive part. First, we will explain our theoretical attitude relatively to the expectations and the effective use of digital games in French courses. The practice of videogames is said to develop cognitive skills, but “motor coordination” and “spatial vision” are of no use in French proficiency tests or interviews. “Hypothesis formation” seems already much more useful when learning a language; “communicative cooperation” and “meaning negotiation” are essential. Digital games also offer a valuable “experience”, on the personal and social levels to the user. But games are not and cannot be a substitute for traditional classes or activities. Thus, they must be adapted and integrated in the learning contents, as an additional tool. Lastly, we will illustrate our theoretical remarks with an example of a simple digital game we created using PPT for this purpose.

本発表はAppleのプレゼンテーションソフトKeynoteで作成したオリジナル教材を用いたアクティブラーニング型授業の実践報告である。2020年から英語四技能入試が本格的に開始するにも関わらず、未だに多くの教師が訳読式の授業から脱却できずにいる。発表者の教材は、授業準備に十分な時間を割けない、あるいは英会話力に自信を持てない教師の悩みを解決することを目的に開発されたものである。これにより会話と文法のレッスンを両立させたままアクティブラーニング型の授業を行うことが可能となる。発表者は2012年に教材開発を開始し、それらは学校のオリジナル教材として採用された。2014年からは教科書と筆記用具はほぼ使用せず、授業の95%以上を電子黒板を用いた発話訓練だけで進めている。この新しい試みが生徒の学力を向上させ、定期考査では発表者が担当している一般クラスが進学クラスの点数を上回る。2017年度にアメリカ共和党下院議員による都内私立学校視察の際には見学のための代表授業者として選ばれ、2018年度に本校で実施されたアンケートでは授業満足度が全教員の中で最も高く、90%以上の生徒が英語力の上達を実感しているという結果が得られた。授業動画は特色のある授業として勤務校の学校説明会で毎年上映されている。本発表では英語訳読式の授業から転換を図るためのヒントを提供し、教材を実際に使用したデモレッスンも行う。

This presentation reports on the use of an online interactive reading journal as a way for students to communicate difficulties they face in reading academic texts, as well as for a teacher to provide individualized assistance for them. The presenter teaches in a semi-intensive English language program for first-year university students in Japan, and the goal of the program is to develop their academic language skills. While the use of authentic academic texts is in line with the goal of the program, they pose various new challenges to Japanese students in terms of highly technical vocabulary, collocations, complicated sentence structures, and required background knowledge. In addition, students who lack confidence in their own comprehension of texts do not usually communicate their difficulties in class. In an attempt to assist the students, the practitioner-researcher designed an online reading journal task in which individual students kept a record of and reflected on the difficulties they encountered as they read the assigned text. The students communicated their problems, strategy use, and their comprehension through the journal entries, and the teacher provided feedback and guidance to help them comprehend the text. In addition, the journal allowed the teacher to identify particular difficulties common among the students to be addressed in class. The assignment met with some success: students who would not ask questions in class benefited from the reading journal, and they became more aware of their own strategy use by monitoring their comprehension. The design of the assignment can be improved to make it an integral part of both classroom and individual learning.

Many of Japanese university students with low proficiency (A1 in CEFR) have difficulty in communicating in English. This should be because most of them have had few chances to practice in the classroom during secondary school days, even though they had many things to tell in Japanese. They should need to mediate between themselves in the world of L1 and L2 as readiness for communication. This presentation will introduce the practice with CALL system where A1 level students have made their digital portfolio related to the topics of TED Talk materials. The students had “Portfolio Session” two times in one term where they introduced their digital portfolio to their classmates and international students in English. It will be the implication of this presentation that making portfolio as mediation would lead them to constructing themselves in the world of L2 and enable them to have willingness to communicate in English.

As a required university class for English-major freshman students, this semester class focuses on English pronunciation. Students are expected to gain knowledge about phonetics and to become fully accustomed to the sounds of English through listening and speaking practice. According to a survey conducted at the beginning of the class, most students say that they did not receive systematic training in English pronunciation at junior or high school level. While it is possible for students to acquire new knowledge about English sounds, improving proficiency in these areas has been a big issue for a class of this type, which consists of 40 students. In this class, the following set of procedures were repeated every week. After students learned theoretical knowledge using the textbook, they were given time for reading practice using a digital LL system. Utilizing individual digital recorders, the students recorded, monitored, and compared their voice with model recordings. After 15 minutes of practice time, students made a recording together. The digital sound files were collected and analyzed. The instructor wrote down individualized feedback to the students while listening to their files, and returned it to the students the following week. Next, the students transferred the results of their performance to their pronunciation portfolio sheets, which helped them deepen their understanding of where to focus their learning. By repeating this procedure, students became aware of their weak points, and made remarkable progress. The combination of digital recordings, individual feedback from the teacher, and keeping analogue portfolios helped students become consciously-skilled in English pronunciation. This presentation will discuss the class procedure and specific improvements in student performance.

In 2020, English as an official subject will be implemented in public elementary schools all over Japan. Twice a week English will be taught, and pupils will be assessed on three objectives. The first goal is to acquire fundamental knowledge and skills, and the second is to foster the ability to think, to make decisions and to express themselves. To cultivate an attitude of proactive learning and to develop pupils’ individuality is to be the third objective. How to assess elementary school pupils’ English ability, therefore, will be one of the most crucial issues facing elementary school teachers who have never been required to do so. The present research focuses on how to foster young learners’ attitude towards English learning while pupils’ self-evaluation was implemented as an alternative assessment. Can-Do statements with young learners were given as a possible means of assessment. This research investigated a Japanese private elementary school pupils’ English ability by using the originally developed Can-Do reflection sheet consisted of 4 scales and enabled pupils to reflect on their performance in terms of can-do statements. The practice had been done several times while 140 fifth graders were preparing for their group speech presentation on “Future city”. Three questions along with the goal of each lesson were set, which were followed by the general comments from the pupils. A close examination on these comments showed the possibility of making these Can-Do statements an assessment tool not only on learning but for further learning of the pupils. The reflection improved the quality of the pupil's own learning and also changed the way of teacher mediation. A qualitative research was also conducted on the changes of the pupils’ self-efficacy in the course of the lessons. How this affected the overall performance of the teacher is also to be discussed.

本発表では，京都大学の教養・共通教育の必修科目の一つとして一回生を対象に提供されている「英語ライティングーリスニング」で導入しているオンライン学習システムGORILLA（Global Online Resources for International Language Learning Assistance）の開発経緯と運用について紹介する。平成28年度から施行した英語の新カリキュラムでは，従前のカリキュラムと同様に学術目的の英語に焦点を当てながら，「学術的教養」と「学術的言語技能」の指導をより明確にした科目設計を行った。当該科目は，とくにライティングおよびリスニング技能の育成を目指した科目であり，GORILLAは当該科目におけるリスニング学習を促進する目的で導入された。リスニング課題は全13ユニットで構成されており，毎週1ユニットを完了しなければならない。単位認定は，8ユニット以上の学習完了が条件となっている。リスニングの評価としては，運営チームが学期に4回の試験作成および採点を行い，担当教員が授業時間内に試験を実施する仕組みとなっている。リスニング学習には計画的な学習が必要とされるため，学習相談室の設置，リマインダメールの送信，授業内での教員による声掛けなど様々な学習サポートを提供している。こうした取り組みに加え，現在進行中の新教材の開発についても報告する。

Heritage language learners (HLL) face unique challenges in the language classroom, many stemming from instructors’ implicit biases presuming HLL fluency. However, HLLs come from differing backgrounds with varying levels of exposure to their heritage language (HL) and heritage culture (HC) and fluency is not a predictor of the degree to which a student identifies with their HC. In fact, some learners may actively reject their HL and HC resulting in the potential for loss of the HC during the assimilation process. This makes the case for including cultural elements in the heritage language classroom, a practice that has been a hallmark of second language classrooms since the rise of communicative language teaching. But what is the best way to incorporate these elements? The easy answer is encouraging learners to interact with the heritage language community. But, again, perceptions of proficiency can create HLL anxiety particularly in the early stages of HL acquisition when interacting with peers or family members. If anxiety impedes these early conversation attempts, then in what other ways can we give beginning learners a chance to practice their HL while being exposed to the HC? Virtual environments have successfully been used for creating common grounds for practicing target languages and promoting cultural understanding. In this observational mixed methods study, we provide students with an immersive virtual environment that allows them to interact with virtual agents designed to simulate regional Spanish dialect and culture. The student will be asked to converse with the virtual agents to solve a simple mystery game that integrates elements of culture as a community practice. The hope is that this immersive virtual environment will create a culturally authentic experience in which beginning HLL students do not feel the hesitance in communicating that they may with native speakers in their community.

As a consequence of increased globalization, attaining language skills has become more important. It is essential for students to acquire these skills regardless of their own interpersonal communicative ability. However, many students may have “Social Anxiety”, which is a fear of being judged, being evaluated negatively, or being rejected. This can disturb the communicative practice of a foreign language. Additionally, it has been reported that Japanese students are more likely to suffer with this anxiety. On the other hand, it has also been reported that those with higher social anxiety prefer communicating with artificial intelligence (A.I.) rather than to a stranger. Therefore, it is anticipated that using A.I. will be an effective method to improve the communicative skills of those suffering from this form of anxiety. In this study, we developed a robot called “Akagachi” and introduced it into language education classes. Akagachi has a wide-angle camera that recognizes parts of the face and it gazes constantly into people’s eyes or the middle space of the eye constructing an F-formation with the person it interacts with. The robot is able to simulate this human-like eye movement by using a simple control system. We paired Akagachi with a smart speaker (“google home”), the smart speaker recognizes what the student says and is able to reply using spoken English. The robot was introduced into English communication classes and put in the middle of a table that was surrounded by several undergraduate students and a teacher. Akagachi was primarily used as an English dictionary allowing the students the opportunity to freely ask words unknown to them during the class. It is hoped that the further development of this robotic system will be a valuable support for students especially for those in need.

Media technologies have drastically changed everyday life, and require a framework in terms of the ethical behavior and moral responsibility on social network sites (SNS) in both Japanese and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). The purpose of the study was to seek the possibilities and the ethical and moral issues hindering the practice to create an informal and meaningful digital culture, communicating with people living in other countries who they do not know. First, the students were asked to find SNS related to news topics and to interact in ELF for one semester. All the 20 participants in this class were second year university students and had around B2 level of English. This was hypothesized that active participants would improve their motivation to learn English and world news topics, through ideally creating their own informal and voluntary digital cultures. However, it would not be easy for EFL students to jump start online participation in English in reality, even if they have high English skills. From a media receiver point of students’ view, social media and online platforms in English could have more challenging issues including fake news, false advertising, and inappropriate content than in Japanese. From a media sender point of students’ view, posting and sharing comments, messages, and photos in English would lead students to realize the gap between the signifier and the signified, related to the globalization. In this presentation, I will present (1) the issues EFL students faced when they started to join informal SNS in English, (2) the process in which they learned to enjoy interaction, and (3) the questionnaire results they answered about digital cultures and moral issues. Through this study, students had opportunities not only to improve their motivation but also to learn unconscious moral and ethical issues in both ELF and Japanese.

Over the past few years, there has been a burgeoning recognition of the need to address social dimensions of CALL, as demonstrated by recent publications (e.g., Gleason & Suvorov, 2019; Ortega, 2017) and conference themes (e.g., Helm, Bradley, Guarda, & Thou?sny, 2015). In light of this need, microlearning that entails frequent short interactions with small learning units poses unique affordances for integrating language learning into the 21st century language learners’ social lives through mobile technology. With most existing microlearning initiatives being limited to vocabulary acquisition, there is a need for microlearning solutions that focus on other aspects of language acquisition. The purpose of this presentation is to (a) introduce a microlearning app for learning L2 culture, and (b) propose a design for a research project aimed at exploring the affordances and constraints of the app for L2 culture learning from the perspective of Activity Theory (Engestr?m, 2001), a theoretical framework for studying human activities as socially and culturally mediated phenomena. In light of the informal nature of microlearning as a social activity happening outside of classroom, Activity Theory recognizes complex relationships among various elements within a microlearning activity system (i.e., app users, microlearning content, social context of use, community, etc.), thereby offering more comprehensive insights into the ecology of learning. Data collection instruments comprise online surveys, semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and a tool for gathering app user analytics. Once the development of the microlearning content is finalized, the proposed research design will be used to (a) evaluate app users’ perceptions regarding the quality of microlearning content, and their needs and preferences regarding the learning of L2 culture, (b) investigate app users’ perceptions and preferences regarding the app existing and desired features, and (c) provide evidence to inform effective integration of the microlearning app into the users’ language learning practices.

While teaching languages with technology, teachers wonder if students are making progress on schedule, if there are some who lag behind others, or even if any are on the verge of dropping out. These are serious concerns for the teachers who rely on LMSs to support the classroom instruction, because they are often unable to imagine the troubles and struggles of each student by the limited physical contacts with them in the classroom. Learning Analytics (LA) is a way of measuring student engagement in a digital class and also reports the effectiveness of any particular lesson. Sophisticated LA tools also provide teachers with detailed information on the behavior of each individual student. This enables teachers to differentiate between students meeting with success and those having struggles or being “at-risk.” The latest version of Moodle incorporates the LA tool “Inspire” into its core functionality. A growing number of other LA plugins and blocks are also available for Moodle. The presenter has explored some of those in-house LA plugins as well as a third-party one. They include “Inspire”, “Analytics Graph,” “Forum Graph,” and "IntelliBoard." The tools provide various types of information including the chronological access distribution, the transition of assignment submission and active user numbers, the number of individual forum posts, levels of difficulties with each question in a quiz, and the interrelation between participants in a forum, as well as periodic reports on at-risk students. The presenter will report how they have been implemented in Moodle-based teaching and show how they help teachers grasp student behaviors.

The amount of literature on including students with special needs in an EFL classroom is limited. In addition, English language teachers have been rarely trained or have the knowledge or experience in how to support them in the classroom. When put in a position to teach a blind student in a reading course required for all first-year university students, the presenter became aware of the limited information available, both in literature and at the workplace. She also realised the possible value of sharing the experience. This presentation is mainly a reflection of the presenter’s experience. It will also include the following: information on support provided by the institution, insights into what kind of support may have been helpful for both the teacher and for the students, the presenter's classroom practices and management. The presenter will also introduce the voice of the particular student provided through his reflection.

The aim of this research is to appraise the rapid development of cloud-based text-to-speech (TTS) services and to suggest new ways of applying the latest TTS technology to second language teaching. TTS technology has changed greatly over the last few years. One of the most significant changes was a shift from the stand-alone system to cloud-based services. The TTS service of Amazon Polly, as a typical example, will be examined in this study. Although today’s TTS technology is considered a versatile tool for generating human-like voices, the creation of a voice that is truly appropriate for a real educational environment is rather more challenging. Simply converting the text into a TTS voice will not work in the second language education arena for either beginner or intermediate learners because the prosodic features of a generated voice are generally those of an adult native speaker with a high speech rate. Furthermore, a lack of sufficient pauses of appropriate duration at phrase boundaries might be a problem. To generate a voice that is suitable for actual educational situations, a considerably high-level adjustment of the prosodic features is required. High-quality TTS services normally enable us to perform this kind of adjustment through the use of SSML (Speech Synthesis Markup Language) tags. Examples of actual customization of the TTS voices of Amazon Polly, using suitable SSML tags, will be given. TTS voices are, of course, fairly useful for audio-based educational materials such as a model voice for speech, recitation, or dialog practices, voices for online hearing quizzes, and so on. However, TTS voices are also available for movie production, including occasions when dubbing is necessary. As such, suggestions for movie production using TTS voices will also be presented.

The creation of interactive course presentations has been gaining recognition as a compelling and worthwhile use of technology for language instruction. Some of the most important affordances include ways to break up a lengthy video, audio or other instructional materials into more manageable chunks, immediate comprehension checking and feedback, options for annotating or marking up content to enhance focus and salience, and flexible navigation that enables individual control over content and learning pace. This presentation reports on the use of interactive lessons to enhance students’ learning experience in a simulated business context that focuses on professional communicative skills and intercultural competence for advanced learners of Korean. The simulated experience is built around a fictitious company in Korea, which provides the background and context for interaction. Tasks simulate actual situations that students are likely to encounter during a required capstone year abroad. Students apply for an internship position, and complete a company-required onboarding training to improve their public speaking and presentational skills and acquire knowledge of Korean workplace culture. To meet these learning objectives, two online modules were created: Workplace Culture and Public Speech Skills, which consisted of a total of ten interactive lessons. These lessons not only provided multimodal presentations of the learning materials and activities, but also paced scaffolding through built-in explanations, comprehension checks, and different forms of feedback based on learners’ input. To address the challenge of providing scaffolding for speaking practice outside the classroom, tasks were created through the app Extempore to engage students in guided speech production, and individualized feedback was provided by instructors. Drawing on preliminary evaluation data collected from the instructors and students, we will discuss findings regarding design, delivery, initial training and ongoing support for students and instructors to use and benefit from the interactive content, as well as implications for further improvement.