The present study proposes an explicit instruction to teach English lexical categories to Japanese students. College-level Japanese students were tested on their knowledge of lexical categories, i.e., whether they were able to distinguish and identify four major categories: nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Then the explicit instruction was given to them, focusing on morphological properties, i.e., types of affixes, and syntactic properties such as categories’ sentence positions, showing the effect of the instruction.

Teaching students how to write a literature review requires providing instruction on respecting academic norms and hands-on, systematic guidance to learners. The presenter will share such an approach; he will demonstrate how to set up a literature review matrix and then add, organize, and tab information from sources in the matrix.

This presentation will give the results of a mixed methodology study that took place in late 2020 on the factors influencing the perspectives of young Japanese voters on nuclear energy and armament policies. Derived from the results of an extensive survey of 1293 students, a series of lesson plans were developed for a class to explore issues related to a difficult topic through the target L2.

With the spate of theatre currently being streamed online, a unique opportunity has arisen to incorporate professionally filmed plays into academic teaching. By dramatically contextualising coursework, students are offered a platform for heightened levels of critical thinking, the fostering of which is one of the core objectives of any EAP curriculum. This presentation will look at how the National Theatre’s production of Frankenstein was used in a freshman academic class and offer further resources.

This talk reflects on teaching English oral presentation courses at a Japanese university over five years. A focus will be given to how online components were integrated into the course and implementing a comprehensive presenter feedback system that included multiple teacher-, peer-, and self-evaluations, along with reflection discussions. This experience, combined with post-course questionnaire results, will then be used to consider ideas on how presentations can be more effectively addressed in future face-to-face, online, and blended teaching contexts.

This workshop reviews an approach to critical thinking instruction in the context of academic L2 English courses. In this approach, students apply their critical thinking to study controversial issues by investigating comments on social media. During this workshop we will review the pedagogical features, teaching steps, and caveats of this approach. We will also review examples of student work and discuss student perspectives regarding this teaching approach, which were gathered in a post-course questionnaire.

Literature suggests differences in language settings might cause learnability issues in ESL learners despite the availability of universal grammar (UG). This study aims to examine the above claim and understand if ESL learners’ (L1-Telugu) knowledge of resumptive pronouns in complex wh-interrogatives shows the full access model of UG in SLA is true. The findings provided evidence of their knowledge of RP at the level of full-transfer along with their bias for its position of occurrence.

Japanese university students sometimes lack confidence in their ability to speak English. In this presentation, the researcher will discuss how students’ learning experiences may be contributing to lack of confidence through the perspective of self-efficacy (SE). Using the quantitative findings of sources of EFL speaking SE inventory, the presenter will outline some of the learning experiences that appear to hinder students’ confidence to speak English.

This presentation will discuss results from a longitudinal study aimed at investigating intercultural competence development in largely monocultural, foreign language classrooms. Particular attention will be given to the development of core intercultural competence components, namely curiosity, openness, and respect, as well as an awareness of local and global issues. The presenter will discuss results of pre- and post-intervention surveys, reflective journals, and focus group discussions collected over one semester among 180 EFL university students.

This workshop discusses an event combining local folklore, Japanese dialect literature, and performative language practice, and reflects on the self-reported experiences of the learners. Workshop participants will hear details of the event and students’ self-reflections on the learning process, touching on topics ranging from pronunciation to performative language, translation theory, code switching, and language modalities. The workshop will conclude by demonstrating how the lessons learned may be applied in a wider variety of contexts.

PanSIG is an annual conference organized by JALT’s Special Interest Groups (SIGs). The conference brings together leading scholars and practitioners in language education. This meeting will have multiple breakout room sessions to discuss different PanSIG conference-related topics. It is open for anyone interested in joining future PanSIG conferences. You can find more information about PanSIG at https://pansig.org, or contact Koki Tomita, the 2022 Conference Chair, at confchair@pansig.org.

CLIL is a growing trend in Japanese universities yet published research is scarce. This presentation details a scoping review conducted on this research space. After describing the methodology, the session covers research trends, foci, findings, and gaps identified in the selected studies (N = 47). Results indicate numerous practice-based descriptive studies while empirical studies are atypical, meaning detailed reportable findings are rare. The session finishes by discussing potential enhancements to remedy research space concerns.

Stories have been used educationally, including in second language classrooms. This presentation will introduce a pilot study on identity formation through student-told anecdotes. Qualitative research was conducted in which English majors at a Japanese university presented a personal story after receiving lessons on narrative structure and vocal modulation. Results from a narrative frames questionnaire and students’ perspectives on the anecdote project will be discussed. Ideas for improving student-told anecdotes will be demonstrated.

A recent increase in the popularity and selection of English language graphic novels has yet to significantly impact EFL pedagogy. Does the combination of text and visuals have a positive impact on story comprehension, vocabulary intake, and overall satisfaction? This research, comparing students reading either the text or graphic novel version of The Babysitters Club, indicates it does. Test data and survey results show the value of using graphic novels compared to only text.

In need of some escapism? Turning a classroom, or even a breakout room, into an escape room instantly engages students with fascinating tasks and challenges. Puzzle-based learning gets students communicating and actively participating in class. From simple puzzles to more complex missions, students are immersed in activities that build teamwork, creativity, problem-solving and other real world skills. Fiona is an escape room creator and enthusiast, and author of 2021 ELTon awards finalist Escape the Classroom.

This presentation reflects on an instructional rubric created for an undergraduate academic debate course. The rubric was adapted from an existing model for formative feedback and assessment purposes. Key design features in relation to the teaching context are examined before discussing how the rubric was administered to provide performance benchmarks, communicate student progress, and support in-class activities. All analysis, interpretations, and suggested improvements derive from the presenter’s reflections, end-of-course survey data, and students’ informal feedback.

Remote learning in 2020 has increased student anxiety of learning academic writing at a university level. This study explores the effectiveness of interactions using a learning management system (LMS) during process writing to develop their writing skills and their understanding of the essay topic: remote learning. The research findings show that the LMS enabled class collaboration to promote writing skills and content understanding which resulted in reduced stress in the academic writing courses.

In this practice based session, the presenter will introduce the concept of SMART goals, and explain how they can be used to help students set realistic and attainable goals for their individual learning. The presenter will explain their use of goal setting activities in a university EFL classroom with Japanese students, and how these activities can improve motivation and promote student autonomy.

This presentation highlights the implementation of a content and language integrated learning (CLIL) curriculum that was designed to instruct would-be teachers on the principles of game based learning (GBL) within their English language classes. Reasons for doing so stemmed from a desire to go beyond simple ESL instruction and provide students with tools that would better prepare them for their future jobs as teachers. Games used and made by students in class are demonstrated throughout.

This presentation discusses the intent, methods, data, and analyses of a one-semester quantitative investigation examining the question: Does the method (individual vs. group) of selecting a graded reader affect student engagement in an extensive reading (ER) activity? The data collected and analyzed suggests that learner engagement in ER-related activities is affected by whether the individual or group chooses the reader.

English is the global language of our multicultural world. Yet so much can go wrong when interacting with people from other countries. How can we help students become effective communicators in a diverse world? One way is to teach them how to analyze misunderstandings based on differences in language and culture. This short workshop will describe typical cross-cultural communication problems with a focus on misunderstandings in four key areas: pronunciation, vocabulary, usage, and non-verbal communication.

What teaching techniques are being used by Japanese teachers of English in high schools? To what extent are these techniques achieving the goals set by MEXT? What can be done to improve the quality of English language teaching in Japan? All these questions and more will be answered in this presentation of an exciting and innovative research project conducted in high schools across Japan in 2020.