The International Virtual Exchange Project (IVEProject) has been connecting students across multiple countries through asynchronous forums on a large scale since 2015. However, considering the variety of virtual exchange methods and the advantages they bring to the field of foreign language learning, there is an increased need to explore the…

As internationalization in the learning environment is still developing in Japan, there is a need for further practical research in foreign language education which embeds international cooperative learning. The study reported in this paper aimed to explore the effectiveness of Intercultural Cooperative Project-Based Learning (IC-PBL) based on the…

Researchers and intercultural educators have put forward various theoretical principles and pedagogical ideas related to the design and implementation of intercultural communication (IC) courses. Recently, researchers have called for curriculum development to include students' voices about their intercultural communication education (ICE). This…

Short-term study abroad (SA) programmes are often promoted as an effective way of developing English language skills and accessing opportunities for intercultural learning. Whilst pre-departure intercultural training is thought to play an important role in enhancing the potential for meaningful learning, overemphasis on essentialist framings of…

Recent reforms to Foreign Language Activities policies in Japan have highlighted the importance of facilitating multilingualism and multiculturalism in global contexts. However, many of the most recent elementary school textbooks (2018-2020) for Foreign Language Activities classes in Japan are English Foreign Language (EFL) textbooks focused…

As Japan prepares for the 2020 Summer Olympics, the elementary school English curriculum is rapidly changing, with new textbooks and more class hours devoted to English education. These language classes have the potential to clarify and improve students' perceptions of global cultures, including their own. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is…

Little attention has been given to principles of Buddhist moral conduct in the West. There are ten virtuous actions of Buddhist moral conduct, called the Ten Virtuous Deeds of the Bodhisattvas. Drawing from the works of contemporary women thinkers and artists, this article considers how the beauty of human nature and spirituality can be cultivated…

The use of flipped learning as a pedagogical approach has increased in the 21st century. While there is an existing survey of literature regarding the development in American educational institutions--and fewer in an Asian context--there are some unique cultural considerations that may need to be examined regarding flipped learning's adoption and…

Cross-cultural validity of teacher immediacy scales is a constant concern in instructional communication research. The present study examines the validity of two existing teacher immediacy scales: the Revised Nonverbal Immediacy Measure (RNIM) and the Chinese Teacher Immediacy Scale (CTIS) in U.S., Chinese, German, and Japanese cultures. Results…

The present study was designed to investigate teacher misbehaviors as learning demotivators across four cultures: the U.S., China, Germany, and Japan. Three major findings were reported: (1) teachers across cultures all were perceived to misbehave infrequently, with only slight variations found across cultures; (2) teachers across cultures were…

In this paper, the authors reviewed the empirical augmented reality (AR) and online education studies, and those focused on designing or development of AR to help students learn, published in SSCI, SCI-EXPANDED, and A&HCI journals from 2003 to 2012. The authors in this study found that the number of AR and online education studies has…

With the development of science and technology, a basically optimistic ideology of progress has emerged. This deterministic attitude has been challenged in recent decades as a result of harmful side-effects generated by the way technology and science have been approached and used. The study presented here is a part of a larger international and…

Some problems facing Japanese learners reading English as a Second Language at the college level are discussed, based on classroom experience with first- and fourth-year English majors. In one group of tasks, students were asked to respond to an open-ended question, perform a reading comprehension exercise, and find specific constructions in…