This study investigated English teacher motivation in Japanese secondary schools. Participants were two male Japanese teachers of English and their students. Data was collected through interviews, classroom observations, and focus-group interviews with students in one academic year. The findings showed that each teacher had unique motivation, and this was reflected in their teaching. Students also understood what teachers focused on. The study showed that teacher motivation can influence their teaching and their students.

In Japan the Ministry of Education (MEXT) has long focused on expanding English in order to prepare students for the realities of an increasingly globalized world, embarking on an extensive program that integrates native speakers of English into the school system as teachers while offering English lessons at progressively younger ages. To examine changes in international posture, the current study utilizes an extensive data set encompassing grades 5-12 of Japanese learners of English.

This presentation aims to describe how a new college CLIL course combining career education and English learning influenced students’ well-being and happiness. Through the three questionnaires conducted at the beginning and the end of the semester, it was found that the students’ subjective happiness significantly increased. It was also indicated that positive feelings were enhanced. Some fun and happiness-enhancing activities based on positive psychology and cognitive neuroscience will also be presented.

Research in psychology has found that certain types of writing tasks can have a lasting impact on the writers’ overall sense of well-being. This is potentially of great interest to educators, as an individual’s level of happiness also correlates to other benefits that can positively impact student learning. This presentation will share the findings of an empirical study applying these techniques to an EFL classroom to see if these benefits extend to L2 writers.

In this presentation, I will report on a three-year motivational interview study that focuses on two cases of academically-oriented Japanese learners when they were at university, graduate school, and after one of them started a professional career. The study examines the development of motivations to study English and languages other than English and the interactions between them. The results highlight the factors necessary to be multilingual in a context where multilingualism is not emphasized.

This presentation puts Japanese policy on creativity in education in a global context. It examines why creativity is receiving increasing attention in education policies around the world, and how far such policies reflect research on creativity. It assesses Japan’s more implicit strategy for creativity, and in particular, its promotion of foreign language education as part of that strategy. It should be of interest to all in Japanese education seeking to encourage creativity in their students.

When planning a class it is sometimes difficult to predict which activities will work, particularly in online classes. This presentation draws together threads from student interviews and existing literature on student engagement and willingness to communicate, in order to re-interpret learner actions in terms of emotion labor (Hochschild, 1979). It suggests that by taking account of students’ potential emotion labour, teachers can develop trust and increase the chances of successful classroom participation online or face-to-face.

This presentation investigates language learners’ beliefs about error logs which combine uncoded, focused corrective feedback. Participants were enrolled in writing classes at a Japanese university which were conducted both on campus and online using Zoom and Google Classroom. Students were required to complete an error log in which they identified and corrected targeted errors and mistakes. This study gathered data from language learner diaries, interviews, and metaphors to gain an in-depth understanding of learners’ beliefs.

Most studies on motivation and translanguaging have focused on learning L2 English due to its role as a dominant international language of power. In this presentation, we report on two intrinsic case studies (Stake, 1995) of Japanese majors of English who studied in Taiwan for 11 months. Following a survey of their translanguaging practices in Japanese, English, and Chinese, we interviewed them to explore the motivations underlying their language choices.

In this workshop, we will introduce news-based media literacy skill units for L2 English learners. Topics include fake news, bias, fact manipulation, and sources. We firstly provide some background and argue the importance of including skill-based units in regard to fostering students’ critical thinking ability. Thereafter we shortly describe the process of making the units. Then, we demonstrate some of the activities, such as identifying fake news and spotting bias.

This presentation introduces how design thinking (DT) was used in a university English course to facilitate communication and creative collaboration. The presentation will introduce the work of the students and survey results on student engagement, confidence communicating, and developing cognitive flexibility. Attendees at the presentation will leave with theoretical insights into the impact of DT on student engagement and practical suggestions for implementing DT in language lessons.

This presentation discusses the role and practical use of literature in the language classroom within the framework of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for curriculum developers. First, relevant literary texts will be introduced in relation to specific goals and analysed with reference to learner level suitability. Next, authentic classroom activities and assessments that may increase effective learner engagement, as well as their awareness of global issues, will be explored.

Metaphor is an important feature of academic discourse that is used in a range of disciplines to express abstract concepts. For example, economics makes frequent use of health metaphors (the economy is ailing/thriving). This presentation reports on the findings of a corpus study to identify common metaphors across a range of disciplines. The presenter will discuss the use of metaphor in various disciplines and teaching materials to develop awareness of metaphorical vocabulary.

To cultivate higher order thinking skills and 21st century skills such as the 4Cs, the author proposes that it is promising to apply the principles of the case method (Ellet, 2018), which is widely practiced at business schools. The presentation introduces how the author applied the ideas and conducted a case teaching session in general English reading classes. It also explains students’ reaction to it in terms of fostering 21st century skills.

Although fluency writing tasks are commonly used in EFL courses, research that is helpful in setting fluency development goals is limited. We investigated fluency development and the impact of modality (typing and handwriting) over one semester. Results suggest that modality affects both the amount produced and the rate of growth.

This workshop focuses on the use of CLT in a group of Japanese senior citizens, here termed third-age learners. In this workshop, each presenter will relate their experiences in teaching their third-age learner classes. They will explain how the learners differ from younger learners and how they adapted their classroom activities to allow for those differences. They will also demonstrate some activities and explain the results they achieved in their research project.