Do people hear the same voice differently, depending on the face they see? Will they report hearing a foreign accent when presented with a photograph of a foreigner (when the speaker is actually a native speaker)? This study investigated how perceived race affected 223 listeners’ ratings of intelligibility, comprehensibility, and accentedness. Findings indicate a strong effect of racial bias regarding accentedness, and disparate attributions of listening difficulty depending on the perceived race of the speaker.

This research explores Japanese EFL learners’ repeated pragmalinguistic errors in using modal verbs for social functions. They may lead to stabilization (a temporal stop of learners’ development) and fossilization (a permanent loss of learners’ progress). Data from online forum discussions show that participants utilized limited English modal functions, while some seemed to have acquired certain pragmalinguistic norms adequately without continuous intervention. Findings are discussed based on Han’s (2009, 2013) selective fossilization hypothesis.

EILで軽視されても日本人学生は英語ネイティブの英語圏文化に憧れを持つ。一方で欧米の文化規範に無知な為、英語コミュニケーションにおいて心理的文化的葛藤を抱えている。そこで異文化適応目的のESLを受講した大学生に理想的な教室活動を尋ねた。ＡＩや自動翻訳世代のESL教授法を日本人学習者目線で論じたい。

This presentation outlines an on-going project to investigate text extracted from a 60,000-word corpus compiled from transcripts of YouTube how-to videos (e.g., how to use tools, operate machinery, navigate software applications, and other hands-on activities). Discussion includes how the study’s results will be used to compare similar texts produced by Japanese university students and the underlying goal of developing a valid pedagogical approach for teaching how to give effective procedural instructions in EFL.

This study examined how Japanese ESL learners use turn-taking to develop interactions in US or Canadian university settings. The results present the variation of turn transitions in conversations, which shows the diversity of turn types. The learners and their interlocutors had much in common using their resources in turn-taking. Turn-taking aimed at facilitating a conversation smoothly and correcting misunderstandings in the talk. Despite sharing these objectives, these resources had various outcomes.

When writing research papers, learners of English need not only a sufficient level of English but also knowledge of writing strategies and language use in pragmatics. This presentation focuses on a textbook analysis of how hedges are taught to Japanese EFL learners, especially for academic research writing. Although textbooks generally focus on writing strategies in the English language, there were few instructions of hedging use in academic writing textbooks.

Translation is not just a mechanical transference of meaning from one language into another; rather, the pragmatic features of both languages need to be considered when decoding the meaning embedded in the source language and encoding it into the target language. To this end, this experimental study was conducted to investigate the effect of developing pragmatic knowledge on the quality of translation of culture-bound texts as well as the best method of developing pragmatic knowledge.

This study reports on the presenter’s own reflective practice in autoethnography, which is a qualitative method utilizing data about self to deepen understanding of sociocultural complexity. By establishing connectivity with others in an autoethnographic orientation, the presenter explores the integration of pragmatics and grammar pedagogy. The findings stress the significance of connecting the notion of language teaching to lived experiences, suggesting a new direction of promoting L2 pragmatic pedagogy in an interdisciplinary approach.

Textbooks play a key role for input and practice of knowledge about language use, especially in an EFL context. This study explores beginner level ELT textbooks to determine how the commonly recurring speech acts of giving advice, suggesting proposals, giving offers, and requesting in ELT textbooks are treated in the tasks. In the end, some practical suggestions are made as to how teachers can adapt these tasks for pragmatic instruction.

Translanguaging, multimodal resources, and interactional competence are fundamental to communication in an educational context. This forum will present three different research approaches which investigated social interaction in different contexts: (a) in a mathematics-based CLIL classroom, (b) an undergraduate geoscience poster presentation, and (c) with multilingual speakers in conversation tasks in a university classroom. Participants will not only learn about the research findings, but more importantly, will learn how to apply them to upgrade their teaching.

This paper will demonstrate how and what to teach in addition to grading students’ interactional proficiency in speaking examinations. Some teaching activities and their grading criteria, which do not focus on form but focus on interactional fluency, will be shown. Following that, the importance that learners should be given certain learning tips and be explicitly trained to manipulate the interactional strategies will be broadly discussed.

This presentation details an analysis of student speaking before and after a period of study abroad in an English-speaking country. Videos of students engaging in spontaneous conversation with classmates were recorded and transcribed. The analysis of Pre- and Post- study abroad data shows changes in both quantitative and qualitative terms. The aim of the presentation is to highlight the development of interactional skills that may be invisible on standardized written tests.

This presentation will report on an approach to raising the pragmatics awareness of lower-level learners in an English program at a university in Japan, with a focus on building receptive pragmatics ability through reading. The presentation will explain the process of conducting informed analyses of texts in reading textbooks, and developing and collecting students’ responses to classroom activities and assessments designed to build L2 pragmatics ability and sensitivity to intercultural pragmatics.

The present study arose during hybrid lessons at a Japanese university that used both synchronous online and face-to-face modes. The presenter will point out different conversation styles, the use of turn taking, and use of gestures online in Zoom breakout rooms compared to face-to-face conversation. The findings highlight elements of conversation in the face-to-face mode that seem to be missing or lacking in the online mode.

In this presentation, I rethink the notion of language learning. Based on my larger multifaceted research project, I focus on the phenomenon that individuals in Japan are often involved in English in a more divergent way than what language learning means in the conventional sense. To further explore this trend, I propose the idea of engagements, which will contribute to providing more comprehensive understandings of English in Japan than what is available in the literature.

In this study, interactional features revealed by conversation analysis (CA) were presented back to an L2 learner of Japanese as a resource to foster language learning. By analyzing talk-in-interaction between the learner and two first language interlocutors and by cross-referencing data via retrospective interviews, learning opportunities were achieved regarding turn-taking, repair, and the occasional disjoining of content flow during talk. I present findings with bilingual transcription excerpts and discuss adapting these ideas for classroom settings.

An overview and demonstration of a MOOC for intercultural education. The Global Englishes (GEs)-oriented MOOC refers to Baker’s (2011) intercultural awareness (ICA) to conceptualise the intercultural skills for learning. Integrating GEs and ICA links important emerging research with practical learning opportunities. These opportunities may support student intercultural learning and are potentially useful in a context of reduced student mobility. The 10-unit MOOC, shown in the presentation, is freely downloadable for use elsewhere.

This presentation discusses what empathy is in terms of interactional competence, and problematizes the current scope of L2 pragmatic instruction. Constructing empathetic moments together with the interlocutor is critical in order to build social relationships and social solidarity. However, the ways in which L2 speakers display empathy (or not) in ordinary conversations lack in-depth discussion. Using conversation analysis, we analyze empathetic moments between Swedish and Japanese advanced users of English and discuss possible interventions.

Online international exchanges are becoming an essential element of teaching and learning intercultural communicative competence. One of the challenges for learners engaged in such virtual exchanges is that not all participants may be familiar with specific aspects of their own lingua-culture. In this study, we developed an inquiry-based model of online intercultural exchange. We then conducted a series of empirical experiments to test the validity of the model in an L2 classroom in Japan.

In this study, I will present a detailed analysis of video-recorded classroom interactions provided by MEXT. Using a conversation analytic (CA) approach, I will explore how English teachers deploy interactional resources to create interactional space with the students. Based on the analysis, I will discuss some implications for teacher development.

If you want your students to use the English they are studying in class to interact with others around the world, come to this workshop to find out how. It is easy and free-of-charge whilst the benefits are numerous. Students love being able to interact with their peers in other countries. While doing so they improve their linguistic, intercultural and communicative competencies as has been proven by research into this project.

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.

This study was on the use of hedges in L2 English learners’ online discussion via the LINE messaging platform. Specifically, the study focused on the influence of two interactant-related variables on learners' use of hedges: non-agreement and relationship closeness. The study found that there was a slightly greater rate of hedge use in responses that expressed non-agreement and a higher rate of hedge use between participants who were distant.