There are two important dimensions to successful second language learning: what goes on inside the classroom and what goes on outside of the classroom (Richards, 2015). This paper investigates smartphone use for online learning of English among Japanese university students using online surveys and semi-structured interviews. The investigation…

This study closely examined the motivational language selves of Chinese university students in the process of multilingual learning. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twelve Japanese specialist majors. The qualitative data revealed the complex interplay between the participants' language selves and complicated contextual influences.…

The purpose of this study is to analyze how immigrant children in Japan are included in the phenomenon of "gakko kino no fukushika" (Kuraishi 2014: 56)--henceforth "welfare-oriented schools"--by using the analytical framework of education-welfare. Fieldwork took place in an elementary school Japanese language class, along with…

This study investigated the effects of using an online High Variability Phonetic Training (HVPT) program for university students whose first language is Japanese and who studied English as a foreign language. The target sounds were English fricatives, which many of the participants felt were challenging to distinguish and articulate. The training…

Children acquire argument structure through distributional evidence, but how does this interacts with event semantics and existing verb knowledge? The current study compares verb learning in adult speakers of Japanese (where lexical causatives span wider semantic categories) and English (where alternation is more restricted). In the Fully…

The current study longitudinally examined a crucial individual difference variable -- i.e. awareness (operationalized as explicit attention and articulatory knowledge) -- in adult second language (L2) speech learning in the context of 40 Japanese learners' English /[alveolar approximant]/ pronunciation development in an EFL classroom. The…

Acquiring and retaining vocabulary knowledge are two of the most important aspects of second language (L2) learning. Some scholars (e.g. Hedrick, Harmom, & Linerode, 2004; Nation, 1999; Stone & Urquhart, 2008) advocate that we should re-think and explore in depth the importance of vocabulary. According to Wilkins (1972), "while…

Purpose: This research compared individuals from two first language (L1) backgrounds (English and Japanese) to determine how they may differ in their perception of Mandarin tones (Tones 1 vs. 2 [T1-T2], Tones 1 vs. 3 [T1-T3], Tones 1 vs. 4 [T1-T4], Tones 2 vs. 3 [T2-T3], Tones 2 vs. 4 [T2-T4], Tones 3 vs. 4 [T3-T4]) on account of their L1. Method:…

Pennington and Richards (2016) argue that if the medium of instruction (MOI) is not the native language of the instructor, lack of proficiency in the MOI could bring about a lack of confidence. This study inquired how native Japanese as a Foreign Language (JFL) teachers at tertiary institutions in New Zealand and Australia perceive their English…

While anime is well-recognized as a significant motivator of Japanese language learners today, idol fandom, though served as an equally strong source of motivation for some learners, receives far less academic attention. This paper is a preliminary exploration of idol fandom's role in fueling the Japanese language-learning process. Through…

While written corrective feedback (WCF) is expected to help learners build new knowledge (Bitchener and Storch, 2016), engagement with WCF is not always satisfactory (Ferris, Liu, Sinha, and Senna, 2013). The purpose of this case study is to explore engagement with WCF by undergraduate of Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) at the elementary…

The case study aimed to provide a deeper understanding of learners' perception and experience of using augmented reality (AR) for language learning. Seven university students were recruited in this study, and they were provided access to an AR-based stroke-by-stroke animation guide for learning Japanese orthography with their own mobile computing…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of critical thinking in International Baccalaureate (IB) classes in Japan. This study helped to determine the effects of using critical thinking methods in IB classes to determine to what extent critical thinking methods affect students' critical thinking skills, Japanese language skills,…

The article examines the role of infant-directed vocabulary (IDV) in infants language acquisition, specifically addressing the question of whether IDV forms that are not prominent in adult language may nonetheless be useful to the process of acquisition. Japanese IDV offers a good test case, as IDV characteristically takes a bisyllabic…

This dissertation concerns the formal pragmatics of constructions in English and Japanese that are perceptively intensificative in their discourse function in some way. In particular I examine polarity emphasis (verum focus), exclamatives, and acts of notification and surprise in language using a compositional version of Farkas and Bruce (2010)'s…