Foreign Language Learners' Motivation and Its Effects on Their Achievement: Implications for Effective Teaching of Students Studying Japanese at Universiti Brunei Darussalam

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Keaney, Minako; Mundia, Lawrence

2014-01-01

An increasing number of students at the University of Brunei Darussalam are studying the Japanese language. However, research on the relationship between learners' motivation and their achievement has not been given sufficient attention in Japanese foreign language education compared to English in Brunei. The present study, which utilized a…

Edmodo as a Tool for the Global Connection between Japanese and American College Students in Language Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Okumura, Shinji

2017-01-01

This study investigated how English learners at a university in Japan perceive connections with students in the US through an educational social network platform, called Edmodo. The instructor of English at the Japanese university cooperated with a Japanese language instructor at an American university and they incorporated Edmodo into their…

Heritage Language Education without Inheriting Hegemonic Ideologies: Shifting Perspectives on "Korea" in a Weekend Japanese-Language School in the United States

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Doerr, Neriko Musha; Lee, Kiri

2016-01-01

Learning a heritage language can be celebrated to enhance marginalized groups' self-esteem, but a heritage can also encompass ideologies prevalent in the groups' original homeland. Based on ethnographic fieldwork (2007-2011) at a weekend Japanese-language school in the United States, this article investigates how ideologies on race politics…

Teaching Foreign Languages.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Holmes, Madelyn, Ed.

1997-01-01

Articles on second language education include: "Foreign Languages in Schools" (Madelyn Holmes), an overview of the benefits of language instruction in elementary and secondary education; "Japanese across the Miles" (Elizabeth Reiken), describing a high school distance learning program in Japanese; "Teaching Spanish as a Community Service" (Rita A.…

"English-Only", but Not a Medium-of-Instruction Policy: The Japanese Way of Internationalising Education for Both Domestic and Overseas Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hashimoto, Kayoko

2013-01-01

While the medium-of-instruction (MOI) has been seen as one of the most crucial decision-making areas in language policies, it is curious that the equivalent Japanese expression to MOI is absent from educational policy documents. In a nation where the Japanese language is called the national language and enjoys the status of an official language,…

A Bibliography of English Language Publications on Japanese Education, 1970-1988.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jain, Sushil

When Japan was occupied by the Allied Occupation Forces after the conclusion of World War II, the country was told to adopt a new democratic educational system styled after the U.S. system of education. The Japanese fitted the new system to suit their requirements and environment. In the following years the system was so perfected that it became…

Intercultural Orientations as Japanese Language Learners' Motivation in Mainland China

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lv, Leining; Gao, Xuesong; Teo, Timothy

2017-01-01

This article reports on a study that investigated how 665 Japanese language learners, who had started learning Japanese at different times in the last 3 decades, had been motivated to learn Japanese in China. Analysis of the survey data revealed that the participants displayed similar intercultural orientations when learning Japanese despite the…

Acoustic Sources of Accent in Second Language Japanese Speech.

PubMed

Idemaru, Kaori; Wei, Peipei; Gubbins, Lucy

2018-05-01

This study reports an exploratory analysis of the acoustic characteristics of second language (L2) speech which give rise to the perception of a foreign accent. Japanese speech samples were collected from American English and Mandarin Chinese speakers ( n = 16 in each group) studying Japanese. The L2 participants and native speakers ( n = 10) provided speech samples modeling after six short sentences. Segmental (vowels and stops) and prosodic features (rhythm, tone, and fluency) were examined. Native Japanese listeners ( n = 10) rated the samples with regard to degrees of foreign accent. The analyses predicting accent ratings based on the acoustic measurements indicated that one of the prosodic features in particular, tone (defined as high and low patterns of pitch accent and intonation in this study), plays an important role in robustly predicting accent rating in L2 Japanese across the two first language (L1) backgrounds. These results were consistent with the prediction based on phonological and phonetic comparisons between Japanese and English, as well as Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. The results also revealed L1-specific predictors of perceived accent in Japanese. The findings of this study contribute to the growing literature that examines sources of perceived foreign accent.

Compulsory "Foreign Language Activities" in Japanese Primary Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hashimoto, Kayoko

2011-01-01

From 2011, the new curriculum for introducing English to Japanese primary schools will be fully implemented in the form of "foreign language activities". This innovation forms part of the government's plan to cultivate "Japanese with English abilities", a development based on the awareness, particularly in the business sector,…

Language Policy in Japanese Ethnic Churches in Canada and the Legitimization of Church Member Identities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barrett, Tyler

2017-01-01

This paper is aimed at understanding the language policy of Japanese ethnic churches and the legitimization of church member identities in the midst of dominant languages in Canada. While church members often construct Japanese ethnic Christian churches with 'grassroots' language policies that seem to legitimize their Japanese language and…

"Those Anime Students": Foreign Language Literacy Development through Japanese Popular Culture

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fukunaga, Natsuki

2006-01-01

Using multiliteracies and sociocultural perspectives on language and literacy learning, this article describes three Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) students' literacy development through involvement with Japanese popular culture. As part of a larger qualitative ethnographic study, the author interviewed JFL learners who have a particular…

Contributions of the Study of Japanese as a Second language to our General Understanding of Second Language Acquisition and the Definition of Second Language Acquisition Research.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wakabayashi, Shigenori

2003-01-01

Reviews three books on the acquisition of Japanese as a second language: "Second Language Acquisition Process in the Classroom" by A.S. Ohta;"The Acquisition of Grammar by Learners of Japanese" (English translation of title), by H. Noda, K. Sakoda, K. Shibuya, and N. Kobayashi; and "The Acquisition of Japanese as a Second Language," B. K. Kanno,…

Japanese Language School: Aid or Hindrance to the Americanization of Japanese Americans in Hawaii?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shoho, Alan R.

A study examined the experiences of 60 Japanese immigrants to Hawaii (Niseis), aged 61-80, who attended Japanese-language schools as children. Using a case study oral history approach, the study gathered oral testimonies through semi-structured interviews. Historical documents were also used as primary sources of information about the schools.…

Standing Strong: Maloney Interdistrict Magnet School Japanese Language and Culture Program

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Haxhi, Jessica; Yamashita-Iverson, Kazumi

2009-01-01

Maloney Interdistrict Magnet School (MIMS) is the only elementary school in Waterbury that has a world language program and is one of only two elementary Japanese programs in Connecticut. In the past 15 years, more than 1500 students have participated in its Japanese Language and Culture (JLC) Program in grades Prekindergarten through 5th. The JLC…

Repeated Reading for Japanese Language Learners: Effects on Reading Speed, Comprehension, and Comprehension Strategies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gorsuch, Greta; Taguchi, Etsuo; Umehara, Hiroaki

2015-01-01

A perennial challenge to second language educators and learners is getting sufficient input in settings where the L2 is not widely used, in this case beginning-level American university students learning Japanese. Reading is a significant means of getting L2 input, with recent calls for attention to reading and authentic texts as curriculum…

The Effectiveness of a Japanese Language Course on Cross-Cultural Competence.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Miyamoto, Yumi; Rasmussen, Roger

1998-01-01

A quasi-experimental research design was employed to measure the effectiveness of a Japanese language and culture course entitled "Japanese for the Business Community." The study analyzed seven cross-cultural competence attributes in interactions with Japanese people in business settings. (Auth/JL)

Exploring Taiwanese College Students' Perceptions of Text-Based, Computer-Mediated Communication Technology in Learning Japanese as a Foreign Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tanaka, Makiko

2015-01-01

The use of computers as an educational tool has become very popular in the context of language teaching and learning. Research into computer mediated communication (CMC) in a Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) learning and teaching context can take advantage of various pedagogical possibilities, just as in the English classroom. This study…

[TUBERCULOSIS SCREENING BY CHEST RADIOGRAPHY AMONG INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS AT JAPANESE LANGUAGE SCHOOLS IN OSAKA CITY].

PubMed

Tsuda, Yuko; Matsumoto, Kenji; Komukai, Jun; Furukawa, Kanae; Saito, Kazumi; Shimouchi, Akira

2015-10-01

With a broader aim of controlling pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) among foreigners, here, we have reported the findings of chest radiography screening for TB among international students at Japanese language schools in Osaka city. Between April 2011 and December 2013, 4,529 international students from 19 Japanese language schools in Osaka city underwent chest radiography for TB screening. The chest radiographs were studied in reference to the student's sex, age, nationality, and date of entry to Japan as well as any health conditions present at the time of screening. We further analyzed the bacterial information and pulmonary TB classification based on chest radiography findings of students who were identified to be positive for TB. Information on the implementation of health education was also gathered. The results revealed that 52.5% of the students who underwent chest radiography came from China, 20.3 % from South Korea, and 16.3% from Vietnam. Of the students, 52.9% were male and 47.1% were female. The median age of students was 23 years (range: 14-70 years). The median number of days from the first date of entry to Japan up until the radiography screening was 63 days. Based on the chest radiography findings, 71 students (1.6%) were suspected to have TB; however, further detailed examination confirmed that 19 students (0.4%) had active TB. This percentage is significantly higher than the 0.1% TB identification rate among residents in Osaka city of the same time period (P<0.001), which was also determined by chest radiography. The median age of the 19 TB positive patients was 23 years. Among them, 14 (73.7%) were male. The median time from the date of entry to Japan to the date of the chest radiography screening was 137 days. For 16 of those students, the entry to Japan was within 1 year of the radiography. Of the 19 TB positive patients, 16 (84.2%) did not have respiratory symptoms, 15 (79.0%) had sputum smear negative results, and 17 (89.5%) had no cavity. Health

Japanese Language and Culture: 9-Year Program Classroom Assessment Materials, Grade 4

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alberta Education, 2008

2008-01-01

This document is designed to provide assessment materials for specific Grade 4 outcomes in the Japanese Language and Culture Nine-year Program, Grades 4-5-6. The assessment materials are designed for the beginner level in the context of teaching for communicative competence. Grade 4 learning outcomes from the Japanese Language and Culture…

Silence in the Second Language Classrooms of Japanese Universities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

King, Jim

2013-01-01

Japanese language learners' proclivity for silence has been alluded to by various writers (e.g. Anderson 1993; Korst 1997; Greer 2000) and is supported by plenty of anecdotal evidence, but large-scale, empirical studies aimed at measuring the extent of macro-level silence within Japanese university L2 classrooms are notably lacking. This article…

Japanese English Education and Learning: A History of Adapting Foreign Cultures

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shimizu, Minoru

2010-01-01

This essay is a history that relates the Japanese tradition of accepting and adapting aspects of foreign culture, especially as it applies to the learning of foreign languages. In particular, the essay describes the history of English education in Japan by investigating its developments after the Meiji era. The author addresses the issues from the…

A FACETS Analysis of Rater Bias in Measuring Japanese Second Language Writing Performance.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kondo-Brown, Kimi

2002-01-01

Using FACETS, investigates how judgments of trained teacher raters are biased toward certain types of candidates and certain criteria in assessing Japanese second language writing. Explores the potential for using a modified version of a rating scale for norm-referenced decisions about Japanese second language writing ability. (Author/VWL)

Japanese Moral Education Past and Present.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Khan, Yoshimitsu

For generations, moral development has been both a conscious aim and a formal process in Japanese education. This book investigates the history and development of Japanese moral education and analyzes and compares current moral education with the concepts of the Imperial Rescript on Education (1890) and the "shushin" moral education of…

The concepts of science in Japanese and Western education

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kawasaki, Ken

1996-01-01

Using structural linguistics, the present article offers an impartial frame of reference to analyze science education in the non-Western world. In Japan, science education has been free from epistemological reflection because Japan regards science only as effective technology for modernization. By not taking account of the world-view aspect of science, Japan can treat science as not self-referential. Issues of science education are then rather simple; they are only concerned with the question of ‘how to’, and answers to this question are judged according to the efficiency achieved for modernization. Science, however, is a way of seeing ‘nature’. This word is generally translated into Japanese as ‘shizen’ which has a totally different connotation and therefore does not lead to an understanding of the Western scientific spirit. Saussure's approach to language is used to expose the consequences of the misinterpretations that spring from this situation. In order to minimize or prevent these misinterpretations, it is emphasized that science education should be identified with foreign language education in the non-Western world.

Integrating Language and Content: Challenges in a Japanese Supplementary School in Victoria

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Okumura, Shinji; Obara, Yumi

2017-01-01

The Melbourne International School of Japanese (MISJ) is a supplementary Saturday school which offers Japanese language and mathematics taught in Japanese from kindergarten to senior secondary level. Classes are scheduled on Saturdays from 9am to 3pm and approximately half of the program is dedicated to mathematics. While mathematics education…

[The alteration of Japanese anatomical terminology in the early Showa period and the Japanese language reform campaign].

PubMed

Sawai, Tadashi; Sakai, Tatsuo

2010-03-01

In the second decade of the Showa period, great changes were made in the Japanese anatomical terms. It has been proposed that the presentation of JNA (Jenaer nomina anatomica) was one of the factors leading to the change. The Japanese language reform campaign, however, played an important role. The party kokugoaigo doumei and its successor kokugo kyokai required concise and unified technical terms. The anatomical nomenclature committee of the Japanese Association of Anatomists worked to satisfy this requirement. The committee consulted with nomenclature committees of other medical associations and took account of their opinions. The anatomical nomenclature committee abandoned the literal translation from Latin to Japanese and shaped a succinct Japanese terminology. Modern Japanese anatomical terms are based on this terminology.

A Comparativist's Predicaments of Writing about "Other" Education: A Self-Reflective, Critical Review of Studies of Japanese Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Takayama, Keita

2011-01-01

This self-reflexive essay teases out the predicaments that I have encountered through my past publishing experience, while situating them in a critical review of the existing English-language studies of Japanese education. Drawing on postcolonial theoretical insights and recent critical sociology of academic knowledge production, I use my personal…

Other Japanese Educations and Japanese Education Otherwise. Review Essay

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Takayama, Keita

2011-01-01

Education in the United States was in a state of "crisis" at the time of the 1983 release of "A Nation at Risk," the landmark report on the US education reform. This was the time when the rising Japanese economy started threatening the post-war US economic dominance and conservative figures such as Ronald Reagan gained popular…

Realizing Daisaku Ikeda's Educational Philosophy through Language Learning and Study Abroad: A Critical Instrumental Case Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goulah, Jason

2012-01-01

This article focuses in two ways on Daisaku Ikeda (b. 1928) and language and culture education. First, the author excerpts Ikeda's translated and lesser-known Japanese speeches to explicate his view of world language learning and cultural exchange as curricular components of a broader educational philosophy for becoming "fully human." Second, the…

The 150-Year History of English Language Assessment in Japanese Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sasaki, Miyuki

2008-01-01

In the present study I describe the 150-year history of school-based English language assessment in Japan. The history is divided into four major periods according to the purposes of English language education set by the government in the different periods: (1) 1860 to 1945, when English was first introduced and taught in schools mainly for elite…

Air Writing as a Technique for the Acquisition of Sino-japanese Characters by Second Language Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thomas, Margaret

2015-01-01

This article calls attention to a facet of the expertise of second language (L2) learners of Japanese at the intersection of language, memory, gesture, and the psycholinguistics of a logographic writing system. Previous research has shown that adult L2 learners of Japanese living in Japan (similarly to native speakers of Japanese) often…

Language, Culture and Ethnicity: Interplay of Ideologies within a Japanese Community in Brazil

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sakuma, Tomoko

2011-01-01

This dissertation is a sociolinguistic study of the ideologies about language, culture and ethnicity among Japanese immigrants and descendants in Brazil (hereafter, Nikkeis) who gather at a local Japanese cultural association, searching for what it means to be "Japanese" in Brazil. This study focuses on how linguistic behaviors are…

Pedagogical Perspectives on Gendered Speech Styles in the Teaching and Learning of Japanese as a Foreign Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bohn, Mariko Tajima

2015-01-01

This study examines student perspectives on gender differences in Japanese speech. Expanding on a small-scale survey by Siegal & Okamoto (2003) that investigated the views of eleven Japanese-language college teachers, this study analyzes 238 questionnaire responses from 220 Japanese-language students at four universities and a US government…

Offshore Outsourcing Teacher Inservice Education: The Long-Term Effects of a Four-Month Pedagogical Program on Japanese Teachers of English

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cook, Melodie

2010-01-01

This longitudinal study tracked five public junior and senior high school Japanese teachers of English (JTEs) who were sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) to study English and Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) pedagogy at a host university in Canada. This qualitative case study found…

Endorsements on Teaching Certificates: K-12 Japanese in Washington Language Endorsements.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Toma, Yumi

1994-01-01

This article from a quarterly newsletter discusses the requirements necessary to obtain an endorsement on a Washington Teaching Certificate (WTC) to teach Japanese as a Second Language in K-12 public schools in the state. Candidates are required to have 24 quarter hours (16 semester hours) in Japanese writing/composition, conversation, reading, or…

Japanese Elementary School Teachers and English Language Anxiety

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Machida, Tomohisa

2016-01-01

"Foreign language activities" (English) officially began in Japanese elementary schools in April 2011. Since that starting date, and despite insufficient knowledge and preparation, classroom teachers have been required to instruct in English. They also have been required to team-teach with native-English-speaking assistant language…

Syntactic Complexity Measures and Their Relation to Oral Proficiency in Japanese as a Foreign Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Iwashita, Noriko

2006-01-01

The study reported in this article is a part of a large-scale study investigating syntactic complexity in second language (L2) oral data in commonly taught foreign languages (English, German, Japanese, and Spanish; Ortega, Iwashita, Rabie, & Norris, in preparation). In this article, preliminary findings of the analysis of the Japanese data are…

Moving beyond Communicative Language Teaching: A Situated Pedagogy for Japanese EFL Classrooms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lochland, Paul W.

2013-01-01

This article questions the appropriateness of communicative language teaching (CLT) in classrooms teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) to Japanese students. The four main criticisms of CLT are the ambiguity of its description, the benefits of CLT for language learning, the amalgamation of CLT methods with local classroom practices, and the…

Language Use in the Context of Double Minority: The Case of Japanese-Catalan/Spanish Families in Catalonia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fukuda, Makiko

2017-01-01

This study explores language use in Japanese-Catalan/Spanish families in Catalonia with a special attention to Japanese. In a community such as Catalonia wherein two languages of different status are in conflict within its own territory, the ability of families to maintain a socially "weaker" language and transmit yet another language…

Japanese Language Proficiency, Social Networking, and Language Use during Study Abroad: Learners' Perspectives

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dewey, Dan P.; Bown, Jennifer; Eggett, Dennis

2012-01-01

This study examines the self-perceived speaking proficiency development of 204 learners of Japanese who studied abroad in Japan and analyzes connections between self-reported social network development, language use, and speaking development. Learners perceived that they gained the most in areas associated with the intermediate and advanced levels…

Cross-language perception of Japanese vowel length contrasts: comparison of listeners from different first language backgrounds.

PubMed

Tsukada, Kimiko; Hirata, Yukari; Roengpitya, Rungpat

2014-06-01

The purpose of this research was to compare the perception of Japanese vowel length contrasts by 4 groups of listeners who differed in their familiarity with length contrasts in their first language (L1; i.e., American English, Italian, Japanese, and Thai). Of the 3 nonnative groups, native Thai listeners were expected to outperform American English and Italian listeners, because vowel length is contrastive in their L1. Native Italian listeners were expected to demonstrate a higher level of accuracy for length contrasts than American English listeners, because the former are familiar with consonant (but not vowel) length contrasts (i.e., singleton vs. geminate) in their L1. A 2-alternative forced-choice AXB discrimination test that included 125 trials was administered to all the participants, and the listeners' discrimination accuracy (d') was reported. As expected, Japanese listeners were more accurate than all 3 nonnative groups in their discrimination of Japanese vowel length contrasts. The 3 nonnative groups did not differ from one another in their discrimination accuracy despite varying experience with length contrasts in their L1. Only Thai listeners were more accurate in their length discrimination when the target vowel was long than when it was short. Being familiar with vowel length contrasts in L1 may affect the listeners' cross-language perception, but it does not guarantee that their L1 experience automatically results in efficient processing of length contrasts in unfamiliar languages. The extent of success may be related to how length contrasts are phonetically implemented in listeners' L1.

Re-Examining Patriotism in Japanese Education: Analysis of Japanese Elementary School Moral Readers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Anzai, Shinobu

2015-01-01

In 1947 the Fundamental Law of Education (FLE) defined the pacifist principles for post-war Japanese education and was revised in 2006 for the first time in nearly 60 years. The revised FLE stipulates the importance of teaching love for country and region and Japanese culture and traditions with special emphasis on moral education. Today, this…

Language specificity in the perception of voiceless sibilant fricatives in Japanese and English: Implications for cross-language differences in speech-sound development

PubMed Central

Li, Fangfang; Munson, Benjamin; Edwards, Jan; Yoneyama, Kiyoko; Hall, Kathleen

2011-01-01

Both English and Japanese have two voiceless sibilant fricatives, an anterior fricative ∕s∕ contrasting with a more posterior fricative ∕∫∕. When children acquire sibilant fricatives, English children typically substitute [s] for ∕∫∕, whereas Japanese children typically substitute [∫] for ∕∫∕. This study examined English- and Japanese-speaking adults’ perception of children’s productions of voiceless sibilant fricatives to investigate whether the apparent asymmetry in the acquisition of voiceless sibilant fricatives reported previously in the two languages was due in part to how adults perceive children’s speech. The results of this study show that adult speakers of English and Japanese weighed acoustic parameters differently when identifying fricatives produced by children and that these differences explain, in part, the apparent cross-language asymmetry in fricative acquisition. This study shows that generalizations about universal and language-specific patterns in speech-sound development cannot be determined without considering all sources of variation including speech perception. PMID:21361456

The Language Continuum: Narrative Discourse Skills in English-Japanese Bilingual Children.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Minami, Masahiko

In this research, using the "Frog, Where Are You?" picture book, 40 bilingual children age 6-12 years were asked to narrate the story in two languages, English and Japanese. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were performed in order to study the relationship between the use of the two languages. The results generally suggest that…

Students' Choice of Language and Initial Motivation for Studying Japanese at the University of Jyväskylä Language Centre

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Takala, Pauliina

2015-01-01

Elective language courses, particularly those starting from the beginner level, constitute their own special group within the communication and language course offerings of universities. The elementary courses of less commonly taught languages (LCTL), such as Japanese, provide students with the opportunity to acquire, among other benefits, a…

Japanese Educational Patterns in Science and Engineering

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Birnbaum, Henry

1973-01-01

Describes the Japanese educational system, and outlines some of the obstacles faced by students in progressing through successive levels from elementary school to university. Emphasizes undergraduate education, especially in science and engineering. The organization of the Japanese school system is schematically presented in a diagram. (JR)

Argumentation Text Construction by Japanese as a Foreign Language Writers: A Dynamic View of Transfer

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rinnert, Carol; Kobauashi, Hiroe; Katayama, Akemi

2015-01-01

This study takes a dynamic view of transfer as reusing and reshaping previous knowledge in new writing contexts to investigate how novice Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) writers draw on knowledge across languages to construct L1 and L2 texts. We analyzed L1 English and L2 Japanese argumentation essays by the same JFL writers (N = 19) and L1…

Projecting Self and Other through "Akogare" [Desire] among Japanese University Students: The English Language and The Internationalization of Higher Education in a Changing Japan

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nonaka, Chisato

2017-01-01

"Akogare" [desire] is a Japanese word laden with cultural and emotive values. In the recent TESOL [Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages] studies, "akogare" has been conceptualized to emphasize the Japanese specific desire for English or "the West" in general. This study not only leverages such a…

Learning Styles and the Japanese University Second Language Student.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rausch, Anthony S.

This study investigated learning styles and learning strategies among Japanese university students whose majors are directly related to English. Data were gathered in a survey of 365 students in English literature, language, or linguistics courses at two universities. The survey included questions about study outside class time, study using…

Education for Self-Crafting: Globalization, Discourses, and English in the Lives of Three Japanese Women

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sabatini, Yoko

2013-01-01

This research explores issues involving gender, education, and learning/using English as a second/foreign language (ESL/EFL) by investigating three Japanese women's experiences of fashioning their lives in ways that made them feel satisfied and happy. In order to develop an "emic" point of view--one derived from grounding myself as…

Peace Education in Japanese Universities. Peace Education Miniprints No. 36.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fujita, Hideo; Ito, Takehiko

This paper contends that peace education is necessary for all university students in Japan for several reasons: students are going to take leading roles in society; the world is changing rapidly; and university teachers have a social responsibility not to repeat the faults of Japanese teachers in World War II. Japanese peace education has been…

Becoming a Japanese Language Learner, User, and Teacher: Revelations From Life History Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Armour, William S.

2004-01-01

This article discusses how Sarah Lamond, a Japanese language teacher in Sydney, Australia has juggled three of her identities: second language (L2) learner, L2 user, and L2 teacher. Data come from four interviews used to create an edited life history. These data are used to draw attention to the relationship between L2 learner and language user.…

Japanese Education and the Development of Postwar Educational Policy, 1945-1985.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beauchamp, Edward R.

This document chronicles major developments in post World War II Japanese educational policy. The focus is mainly on the way in which world events, social structure, religion, cultural values, and official policy initiatives influenced Japanese educational practices. Developments covered in the first period, from 1868 to 1945, began with the…

Persistence in Japanese Language Study and Learners' Cultural/Linguistic Backgrounds

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Matsumoto, Masanori

2009-01-01

Motivational characteristics of students learning Japanese as a foreign language at universities in Australia were investigated to find out what affecting factors are closely related to their intentions for continuing/discontinuing their study. The results showed that students' cultural/linguistic backgrounds have a significant impact on their…

The Study on Reading Strategy of Students Learning Japanese as a Second Language.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Toriyama, Kyoko

A study investigated whether a classification scheme for learning strategies used in ESL (English-as-a-Second-Language) instruction is applicable to strategies used in learning Japanese as a second language. Four metacognitive strategies were examined (directed attention, selective attention, self-monitoring, self-management). Subjects were 30…

Student Preconceptions of Japanese Language Learning in 1989 and 2004

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hayashi, Atsuko

2009-01-01

This study compares student preconceptions and expectations of Japanese language learning from studies conducted in 1989 and 2004. Over the years, student interests and pedagogical approaches have changed. However, the changes do not reflect on the student preconceptions and expectations. They still believe in traditional approaches to language…

Japanese Language and Culture 10-20-30: Guide to Implementation.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alberta Learning, Edmonton (Canada). Curriculum Standards Branch.

This teacher's guide provides an innovative program of studies for teaching Japanese at the secondary level, featuring a content-based curriculum, an integrated approach, results (outcomes)-based orientation, and the use of language for effective interaction. This guide provides teachers with suggestions for designing and planning a Japanese…

In Our Learners' Shoes. A Language Teacher's Reflections on Language Learning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cervi, David A.

1989-01-01

A language teacher's Japanese-language learning experiences in educational and immersion environments lead to assertions about the ineffectiveness of exclusive use of traditional instructional methodologies; exclusive dependence on osmosis for developing fluency; instructional materials that students perceive as beneath them; and assumptions that…

Heritage Language Acquisition and Maintenance: Home Literacy Practices of Japanese-Speaking Families in Canada

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nomura, Takako; Caidi, Nadia

2013-01-01

Introduction: In this study, we examine the case of Japanese-speaking families in Canada and their experiences with teaching a heritage language at home, along with the uses and perceived usefulness of public library resources, collections, and services in the process. Methods: We interviewed fourteen mothers who speak Japanese to their children.…

Distinctive Features of Japanese Education. NIER Occasional Paper 01/91.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

National Inst. for Educational Research, Tokyo (Japan).

For the past decade there has been a surge of international interest in Japanese education in the wake of its economic and technological successes. This paper discusses eight distinctive features of Japanese education, identifying their advantages and disadvantages and how they have been brought about. These eight features of Japanese schooling…

Sex and cultural differences in spatial performance between Japanese and North Americans.

PubMed

Sakamoto, Maiko; Spiers, Mary V

2014-04-01

Previous studies have suggested that Asians perform better than North Americans on spatial tasks but show smaller sex differences. In this study, we evaluated the relationship between long-term experience with a pictorial written language and spatial performance. It was hypothesized that native Japanese Kanji (a complex pictorial written language) educated adults would show smaller sex differences on spatial tasks than Japanese Americans or North Americans without Kanji education. A total of 80 young healthy participants (20 native Japanese speakers, 20 Japanese Americans-non Japanese speaking, and 40 North Americans-non Japanese speaking) completed the Rey Complex Figure Test (RCFT), the Mental Rotations Test (MRT), and customized 2D and 3D spatial object location memory tests. As predicted, main effects revealed men performed better on the MRT and RCFT and women performed better on the spatial object location memory tests. Also, as predicted, native Japanese performed better on all tests than the other groups. In contrast to the other groups, native Japanese showed a decreased magnitude of sex differences on aspects of the RCFT (immediate and delayed recall) and no significant sex difference on the efficiency of the strategy used to copy and encode the RCFT figure. This study lends support to the idea that intensive experience over time with a pictorial written language (i.e., Japanese Kanji) may contribute to increased spatial performance on some spatial tasks as well as diminish sex differences in performance on tasks that most resemble Kanji.

Doing Business in the Global Village: Japanese Professionals on EL Needs in Singapore

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yoneda, Mitaka

2015-01-01

This paper presents an analysis of English language (EL) education from the perspectives of Japanese and non-Japanese professionals in Singapore, based on their experiences of "doing business" in Singapore. As established career business people, the perspectives of Japanese participants offer a retrospective evaluation of their…

Education for International Understanding in Japanese Schools.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sato, Teruo

1979-01-01

Describes the evolution and current status of education for international understanding within the Japanese school system. Topics discussed include the UNESCO associated schools, Japanese schools overseas, experimental schools for students who have returned from abroad, curricula, and objectives by grade level. (DB)

Exploring the Value of Bilingual Language Assistants with Japanese English as a Foreign Language Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Macaro, Ernesto; Nakatani, Yasuo; Hayashi, Yuko; Khabbazbashi, Nahal

2014-01-01

We report on a small-scale exploratory study of Japanese students' reactions to the use of a bilingual language assistant on an EFL study-abroad course in the UK and we give an insight into the possible effect of using bilingual assistants on speaking production. First-year university students were divided into three groups all taught by a…

Referential Strategy Training for Second Language Reading Comprehension of Japanese Texts.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kitajima, Ryu

1997-01-01

Examines whether strategy training orienting second language (L2) students' attention toward referential processes improves their comprehension of Japanese narrative. Findings revealed that experimental students comprehended the story at the macro level significantly better than control students, suggesting that the strategy training is beneficial…

Sexuality education in Japanese medical schools.

PubMed

Shirai, M; Tsujimura, A; Abdelhamed, A; Horie, S

2017-07-01

The present study aimed to investigate current sexuality education in Japanese medical schools and the impact of position title in the Japanese Society for Sexual Medicine (JSSM). Questionnaires were mailed to urology departments in all Japanese medical schools. The responses were evaluated according to four factors: the number of lecture components, curriculum hours, degree of satisfaction with the components and degree of satisfaction with the curriculum hours. We also investigated differences in these four factors among three groups: Directors, Council members and non-members of the JSSM. The medians of curriculum hours and the number of the lecture components were 90.0 min and 7.0, respectively. The curriculum hours of the Directors (140.0 min) were significantly longer than those of the non-members (90.0 min; P<0.05). The number of lecture components taught by Directors (9.5) was significantly higher than that of the Council (4.0; P<0.01) and non-members (7.0; P<0.05). More than half of the faculties were not satisfied with the lecture components and curriculum hours. This is the first study on sexuality education in Japanese medical schools. It showed the inadequacy of both curriculum hours and lecture components, and that the position title of department chair affects sexuality education in medical schools.

An investigation of the basic education of Japanese nurses: comparison of competency with European nurses.

PubMed

Tateishi, Kazuko; Matsubayashi, Taro; Yoshimoto, Keiichi; Sakemi, Takanobu

2013-05-01

A few studies have compared nursing education systems of Japan and Europe, particularly focusing on competency. We evaluated the competency of registered Japanese nurses by comparing it with that of European nurses; the implications of evaluation for the education of nurses are discussed. Subjects were 468 European graduate nurses and 100 Japanese nurses. Study used data from the Graduates in Knowledge Society (REFLEX) survey in Europe and the Japanese language version of REFLEX (2006) used in a survey of Japanese nurses. The questionnaire referred to the survey items of REFLEX modified for use in Japan. Items common to the Japanese and European surveys were (1) The importance placed on university course elements while at university (2) Nineteen items of competency: for the abilities acquired in the present job ('Acquired skills') and those considered necessary to perform the job ('Required abilities on the job') (3) Usefulness of subject matter taught at university to the current job (1) The important course elements in Europe were 'Internship, work placement' and 'Lecture' while those in Japan were 'Theories and paradigms' and 'Lecture'. (2) The mean values for 'Acquired skills' were 5.06 for Europe and 3.73 for Japan and those for 'Required abilities on the job' were 4.86 for Europe and 5.16 for Japan. In Europe, no significant gap was observed between the above two scores, but in Japan, a big gap was found, particularly in relation to 'Ability to assert your authority'. (3) In terms of the usefulness of university-learned nursing education, Japan scored significantly lower on all five items. The content of basic university education for nursing is directly linked to the workplace in Europe but not in Japan. A comparison of competencies shows that in Japan, self-evaluation scores are low and expectations are high. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

What Is Business Japanese? Designing a Japanese Course for Business Communication.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Koike, Shohei

Experiences in developing "Business Japanese" courses for the undergraduate major in Language and International Trade at Eastern Michigan University are described. In 1987, six new courses in Japanese were proposed so that Japanese could be offered as a language specialty in the program. Issues considered in defining business Japanese…

Reimagining Japanese Education: Borders, Transfers, Circulations, and the Comparative

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Willis, David Blake, Ed.; Rappleye, Jeremy, Ed.

2011-01-01

Sparked by the confluence of accelerating domestic transformation and increasingly explicit impacts from "globalization", the Japanese education system has undergone tremendous changes during the turbulence of the past decade. This volume, which brings together some of the foremost scholars in the field of Japanese education, analyzes…

In Defense of Japanese Liberal Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mori, Rie

2016-01-01

Liberal education has been a target of political discourse in many countries, and Japan is no exception. In Japanese higher education, there are three types of institutions: national public, local public, and private. In June 2015, Japan's minister of education, Hakubun Shimomura, called upon the country's national universities to take…

A FAQ-Based e-Learning Environment to Support Japanese Language Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liu, Yuqin; Yin, Chengjiu; Ogata, Hiroaki; Qiao, Guojun; Yano, Yoneo

2011-01-01

In traditional classes, having many questions from learners is important because these questions indicate difficult points for learners and for teachers. This paper proposes a FAQ-based e-Learning environment to support Japanese language learning that focuses on learner questions. This knowledge sharing system enables learners to interact and…

Japanese Language as an Organizational Barrier for International Students to Access to University Services: A Case of Aoyama Gakuin University

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hiratsuka, Hiroyoshi

2016-01-01

In 2011, Aoyama Gakuin University (AGU) started a government-funded degree program (taught in English) to accept international students with limited or no Japanese language proficiency. However, the students faced obstacles in accessing all of the university resources provided. In this article, I investigated Japanese language as an organizational…

Innovations in Foreign Language Educator Assessment in California.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Silvestro, John R.; And Others

California has developed a new series of credential examinations for foreign language teachers to make it possible to test the competence of teachers in six languages less frequently taught than Spanish and French. These languages are German, Japanese, Mandarin, Punjabi, Russian, and Vietnamese. Each assessment is based on the specifications…

Foreign Language Maintenance Classes for Returnees.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yashiro, Kyoko

Recent studies by the Management and Coordination Agency of the Japanese government and the Japan Overseas Educational Services (JOES) reveal that Japanese students returning from overseas want to retain their foreign language, and that a majority undertake various maintenance activities. Maintenance classes are widely adopted. Research indicates…

"So What Is the Appeal?" The Phenomenon of Japanese as a Foreign Language in Hong Kong

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Humphreys, Gillian; Miyazoe-Wong, Yuko

2007-01-01

In spite of long-standing political tensions between Japan and the People's Republic of China, Japanese remains a highly popular language to learn in Hong Kong. This is evidenced by the growth in number of Japanese-related courses and programmes offered at schools and universities in the Special Administrative Region. Although Japan is a dominant…

Handling Japanese without a Japanese Operating System.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hatasa, Kazumi; And Others

1992-01-01

The Macintosh HyperCard environment has become a popular platform for Japanese language courseware because of its flexibility and ease of programing. This project created Japanese bitmap font files for the JIS Levels 1 and 2, and writing XFCNs for font manipulation, Japanese kana input, and answer correction. (12 references) (Author/LB)

Chemistry through the language barrier. How to scan chemical articles in foreign languages with emphasis on Russian and Japanese

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Reid, E.E.

1970-01-01

The thesis of this book is that one can learn a surprising amount of information from scientific articles in a foreign language. Use is made of symbols, numbers, etc., (which appear in familiar Roman script) and words that are similar in many languages (e.g., reaction, reazione, reaccion, reactie, reaccao, reaktion, reaksjon, reaktionen, reakcio, rektio, reaktsiya, reakcja, and reakce). Most European languages (Germanic, Latin, et al.) are included, with special emphasis on Russian and Japanese. The technique is illustrated with examples from organic chemistry, but the approach should be applicable to scientific writing in any subject area. (RWR)

Japanese Educational System Improving Ongoing Practice in Schools.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Arimoto, Masahiro

1995-01-01

Describes the Japanese education system's unique characteristics. Japanese schools provide a prescribed curriculum, with pupils confined to desks. Teachers identify with their schools and are committed to service. Teachers and students try to improve schools by working harder. Understanding school effectiveness requires frameworks deeply rooted in…

Interactional Competence in Japanese as an Additional Language. Pragmatics & Interaction. Volume 4

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Greer, Tim, Ed.; Ishida, Midori, Ed.; Tateyama, Yumiko, Ed.

2017-01-01

In the research literature on interactional competence in talk among second language speakers and their coparticipants, this volume of "Pragmatics & Interaction" is the first to focus on interaction in Japanese. The chapters examine the use and development of interactional practices in a wide range of social settings, from everyday…

Creating a Global Cultural Consciousness in a Japanese EFL Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Aubrey, Scott

2009-01-01

Recently, culture has taken an important role in language education. In this view, creating a global cultural consciousness among second language (L2) students can help bridge the gap between linguistic ability and functional intercultural communication. This paper, which makes reference to Japanese adult EFL learners, justifies the body of…

The Evolution of Networked Computing in the Teaching of Japanese as a Foreign Language.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Harrison, Richard

1998-01-01

Reviews the evolution of Internet-based projects in Japanese computer-assisted language learning and suggests future directions in which the field may develop, based on emerging network technology and learning theory. (Author/VWL)

[Understanding the symbolic values of Japanese onomatopoeia: comparison of Japanese and Chinese speakers].

PubMed

Haryu, Etsuko; Zhao, Lihua

2007-10-01

Do non-native speakers of the Japanese language understand the symbolic values of Japanese onomatopoeia matching a voiced/unvoiced consonant with a big/small sound made by a big/small object? In three experiments, participants who were native speakers of Japanese, Japanese-learning Chinese, or Chinese without knowledge of the Japanese language were shown two pictures. One picture was of a small object making a small sound, such as a small vase being broken, and the other was of a big object making a big sound, such as a big vase being broken. Participants were presented with two novel onomatopoetic words with voicing contrasts, e.g.,/dachan/vs./tachan/, and were told that each word corresponded to one of the two pictures. They were then asked to match the words to the corresponding pictures. Chinese without knowledge of Japanese performed only at chance level, whereas Japanese and Japanese-learning Chinese successfully matched a voiced/unvoiced consonant with a big/small object respectively. The results suggest that the key to understanding the symbolic values of voicing contrasts in Japanese onomatopoeia is some basic knowledge that is intrinsic to the Japanese language.

Within- and across-language spectral and temporal variability of vowels in different phonetic and prosodic contexts: Russian and Japanese

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gilichinskaya, Yana D.; Hisagi, Miwako; Law, Franzo F.; Berkowitz, Shari; Ito, Kikuyo

2005-04-01

Contextual variability of vowels in three languages with large vowel inventories was examined previously. Here, variability of vowels in two languages with small inventories (Russian, Japanese) was explored. Vowels were produced by three female speakers of each language in four contexts: (Vba) disyllables and in 3-syllable nonsense words (gaC1VC2a) embedded within carrier sentences; contexts included bilabial stops (bVp) in normal rate sentences and alveolar stops (dVt) in both normal and rapid rate sentences. Dependent variables were syllable durations and formant frequencies at syllable midpoint. Results showed very little variation across consonant and rate conditions in formants for /i/ in both languages. Japanese short /u, o, a/ showed fronting (F2 increases) in alveolar context relative to labial context (1.3-2.0 Barks), which was more pronounced in rapid sentences. Fronting of Japanese long vowels was less pronounced (0.3 to 0.9 Barks). Japanese long/short vowel ratios varied with speaking style (syllables versus sentences) and speaking rate. All Russian vowels except /i/ were fronted in alveolar vs labial context (1.1-3.1 Barks) but showed little change in either spectrum or duration with speaking rate. Comparisons of these patterns of variability with American English, French and German vowel results will be discussed.

Korean speech sound development in children from bilingual Japanese-Korean environments

PubMed Central

Kim, Jeoung Suk; Lee, Jun Ho; Choi, Yoon Mi; Kim, Hyun Gi; Kim, Sung Hwan; Lee, Min Kyung

2010-01-01

Purpose This study investigates Korean speech sound development, including articulatory error patterns, among the Japanese-Korean children whose mothers are Japanese immigrants to Korea. Methods The subjects were 28 Japanese-Korean children with normal development born to Japanese women immigrants who lived in Jeonbuk province, Korea. They were assessed through Computerized Speech Lab 4500. The control group consisted of 15 Korean children who lived in the same area. Results The values of the voice onset time of consonants /ph/, /t/, /th/, and /k*/ among the children were prolonged. The children replaced the lenis sounds with aspirated or fortis sounds rather than replacing the fortis sounds with lenis or aspirated sounds, which are typical among Japanese immigrants. The children showed numerous articulatory errors for /c/ and /l/ sounds (similar to Koreans) rather than errors on /p/ sounds, which are more frequent among Japanese immigrants. The vowel formants of the children showed a significantly prolonged vowel /o/ as compared to that of Korean children (P<0.05). The Japanese immigrants and their children showed a similar substitution /n/ for /ɧ/ [Japanese immigrants (62.5%) vs Japanese-Korean children (14.3%)], which is rarely seen among Koreans. Conclusion The findings suggest that Korean speech sound development among Japanese-Korean children is influenced not only by the Korean language environment but also by their maternal language. Therefore, appropriate language education programs may be warranted not only or immigrant women but also for their children. PMID:21189968

Can the Japanese Change Their Education System?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goodman, Roger, Ed.; Phillips, David, Ed.

The nine papers included in this book are: "The Why, What and How of Educational Reform in Japan" (Roger Goodman); "Why Reform Japanese Education?" (William K. Cummings); "Destruction and Reconstruction: A Comparative Analysis of the Education Reform in Japan and Germany under the U.S. Military Occupation After World War…

Introducing Genre into Japanese-as-a-Foreign-Language: Toward a Genre-Specific Approach to Elementary/Intermediate Writing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shinji, Kawamitsu

2015-01-01

Despite the social turn in views of language and the increasing attention to an application of genre theory in teaching languages, the field of Japanese-as-a-Foreign-Language (JFL) has not yet found genre a valuable resource for approaching learners' writing ability. Writing is still practiced as a psycholinguistic space to check learners'…

Lost in Translation: Strategies Japanese Language Learners Use in Communicating Culturally Specific L1 Expressions in English

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Inoue, Noriyuki; Molina, Sarina Chugani

2011-01-01

Communicating in a second language could be seen as a process requiring the deconstruction and reconstruction of cultural meanings. If this is the case, how do second language (L2) learners express cultural meanings of their first language (L1) expressions that do not have semantically equivalent L2 expressions? Twenty-nine Japanese students…

Fellow Language Learners as Producers of Knowledge and Understandings: A Case of a Tertiary Japanese Linguistics Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Minagawa, Harumi

2017-01-01

This paper reports students' experiences of a coursework task in a Japanese linguistics course that embraces certain aspects of collaborative learning--aspects that are not practised widely in Japanese language learning situations. These involve the students looking at themselves as well as their fellow students as producers of knowledge and…

Gender Identity in a Second Language: The Use of First Person Pronouns by Male Learners of Japanese

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brown, Lucien; Cheek, Elizabeth

2017-01-01

This is a qualitative sociocultural study examining how five advanced-level learners of Japanese from the United States use gendered first person pronouns to negotiate their identities. Japanese does not have a ubiquitous pronoun such as English "I." Instead, the language contains forms that are marked for formality and gender, including…

A comparison of English and Japanese taste languages: taste descriptive methodology, codability and the umami taste.

PubMed

O'Mahony, M; Ishii, R

1986-05-01

Everyday taste descriptions for a range of stimuli were obtained from selected groups of American and Japanese subjects, using a variety of stimuli, stimulus presentation procedures and response conditions. In English there was a tendency to use a quadrapartite classification system: 'sweet', 'sour', 'salty' and 'bitter'. The Japanese had a different strategy, adding a fifth label: 'Ajinomoto', referring to the taste of monosodium glutamate. This label was generally replaced by umami--the scientific term--by Japanese who were workers or trained tasters involved with glutamate manufacture. Cultural differences in taste language have consequences for taste psychophysicists who impose a quadrapartite restriction on allowable taste descriptions. Stimulus presentation by filter-paper or aqueous solution elicited the same response trends. Language codability was only an indicator of degree of taste mixedness/singularity if used statistically with samples of sufficient size; it had little value as an indicator for individual subjects.

The Nihongo Tutorial System: An Intelligent Tutoring System for Technical Japanese Language Instruction.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Maciejewski, Anthony A.; Leung, Nelson K.

1992-01-01

The Nihongo Tutorial System is designed to assist English-speaking scientists and engineers in acquiring reading proficiency in Japanese technical literature. It provides individualized lessons that match interest area/language ability with available materials that are encoded with syntactic, phonetic, and morphological information. (14…

Promoting International Posture through History as Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in the Japanese Context

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lockley, Thomas

2015-01-01

This article uses the conceptual framework of second language willingness to communicate (L2 WTC), and in particular the contributory construct of international posture (IP; Yashima, 2002), to report on a content and language integrated learning (CLIL) course taught in the Japanese university context. The research follows up an exploratory,…

A Sociolinguistic and Sociocultural Approach to Attitudinal Dispositions of Graduated Students toward the Business Japanese Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Özsen, Tolga; Özbek, Aydin

2016-01-01

Effective usage of nonverbal and verbal communication in Japanese such as gestures, mimics, silence and employing grammatical or lexical honorifics plays a significant role in determining the success of foreign language learners in obtaining their intended employment. This study examines the second language (L2) learning of politeness and social…

Differences in Language Skills: Heritage Language Learner Subgroups and Foreign Language Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kondo-Brown, Kimi

2005-01-01

Using both proficiency tests and self-assessment measures, this study investigated (a) whether 3 subgroups of Japanese heritage language (JHL) learners would demonstrate language behaviors distinctively different from those of traditional Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) learners, and (b) which domains of language use and skills would…

Frontiers in Education at Japanese Institutes of Higher Education

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Akiyama, Hidenori; Teramoto, Akemi; Shimomura, Naoyuki

Education has become more and more important in Japanese institutes of higher education. Under such circumstances, societies of the study of frontiers in education have been held since the first society at September 20, 2002. The valuable 158 presentations have been carried out during 11 societies till March, 2006. These presentations are classified according to the topics of subjects. The topics are the improvement of education methods, IT aided education, cooperation with elementary school, junior high school, high school and companies, hands-on training (manufacturing), JABEE and others. Some distinct presentations are summarized.

The Experiences of Anxiety of Japanese EFL Learners: A Case Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Leichsenring, Andrew

2010-01-01

Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety is an educational phenomenon that has gained growing attention among researchers over the past three decades. It is a form of anxiety that can be debilitating and arises from various sources. This research examined foreign language classroom-based anxiety experiences of two adult Japanese English language…

East Meets West in Japanese Doctoral Education: Form, Dependence, and the Strange

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McCarty, Luise Prior; Hirata, Yoshitsugu

2010-01-01

Against the background of current reforms in higher education, we analyze the traditional education of Japanese doctoral students in philosophy of education from Western and Japanese perspectives by focusing on learning as self-education, on being and learning with others, on the socialization into the profession, and on the study of the foreign…

The Classroom and Beyond: Creating a Learning Environment to Support Learners of Japanese at CEFR Levels A2.2 towards B1

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ijichi, Nobuko

2016-01-01

Japanese is a popular choice amongst higher education students on IWLPs (Institution-Wide Language Programmes), but the language presents challenges for many learners. Students on university elective programmes begin their courses with enthusiasm but often become discouraged and drop out at the post-beginner stage. Thus Japanese elective…

Issues of Language Choice, Ethics and Equity: Japanese Retirees Living in Malaysia as Their Second Home

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stapa, Siti Hamin; Musaev, Talaibek; Hieda, Natsue; Amzah, Normalis

2013-01-01

This paper will discuss two issues related to Japanese retirees adopting Malaysia as their second home. The first is that of the preferred language choice of the retirees. To collect data for language choice a self-report questionnaire was administered and an interview was conducted. The findings suggest that the majority of the retirees chose…

Strategies for North American Missionaries' Relational Language-Culture Learning in the Japanese Context

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Manabe-Kim, Rie

2012-01-01

This study focused on presenting the fieldwork findings derived from studying North-American missionaries' relational dynamics with the Japanese people, and the strategies that impacted their language-culture learning. This study also focused on applying the fieldwork findings towards the creation of a coaching model designed to help missionaries…

Psychological Attributes in Foreign Language Reading: An Explorative Study of Japanese College Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mikami, Hitoshi; Leung, Chi Yui; Yoshikawa, Lisa

2016-01-01

This study explores the internal structure of psychological attributes (i.e., motivation, belief and emotion) related to foreign language reading (FLR) (hereafter FLR attributes) and checks the utility of existing FLR attribute measurements for the specific learner group (i.e., Japanese university students studying English as their foreign…

Recognition of International Education in Japanese Teachers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yoshida, Masami

2017-01-01

Education for international understanding in Japan was focused to develop its own national identity as well as to recognize its coexistence through intercultural education. Then, we have investigated the opinions of Japanese school teachers in terms of their recognition of the necessary content to introduce school instruction of intercultural…

The Strategies Used in Japanese Advertisement.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kurose, Yuki

This paper investigates the possibility of using Japanese advertising language as a teaching tool in the second language classroom. First, it reviews the aims of advertising and the advantages of learning advertising language in the classroom based on previous research. Next, it discusses language strategies used in Japanese advertising,…

Social Justice Language Teacher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hawkins, Margaret R.

2011-01-01

Social justice language teacher education conceptualizes language teacher education as responding to social and societal inequities that result in unequal access to educational and life opportunities. In this volume authors articulate a global view of Social Justice Language Teacher Education, with authors from 7 countries offering a theorized…

The relationships between Japanese interpersonal conflict styles and their language expressions.

PubMed

Moriizumi, Satoshi; Takai, Jiro

2010-01-01

The present study investigated the influence of interpersonal conflict management styles on language expressions and the differences in expressions in same-sex relational categories based on specific in-group-out-group classifications. Questionnaires were administered to 367 university students in Japan. After reading a scenario, participants reported on actual language use and gave ratings on an interpersonal conflict management scale. The results revealed that Japanese change their expressions, along with psychological styles, depending on the relational target. They also indicated psychological constructs were related to their equivalent expressions. The results suggested that future research should take into consideration the potential differences in behavior and interaction posture inherent in various relational and situational categories.

Validation of the Acoustic Voice Quality Index in the Japanese Language.

PubMed

Hosokawa, Kiyohito; Barsties, Ben; Iwahashi, Toshihiko; Iwahashi, Mio; Kato, Chieri; Iwaki, Shinobu; Sasai, Hisanori; Miyauchi, Akira; Matsushiro, Naoki; Inohara, Hidenori; Ogawa, Makoto; Maryn, Youri

2017-03-01

The Acoustic Voice Quality Index (AVQI) is a multivariate construct for quantification of overall voice quality based on the analysis of continuous speech and sustained vowel. The stability and validity of the AVQI is well established in several language families. However, the Japanese language has distinct characteristics with respect to several parameters of articulatory and phonatory physiology. The aim of the study was to confirm the criterion-related concurrent validity of AVQI, as well as its responsiveness to change and diagnostic accuracy for voice assessment in the Japanese-speaking population. This is a retrospective study. A total of 336 voice recordings, which included 69 pairs of voice recordings (before and after therapeutic interventions), were eligible for the study. The auditory-perceptual judgment of overall voice quality was evaluated by five experienced raters. The concurrent validity, responsiveness to change, and diagnostic accuracy of the AVQI were estimated. The concurrent validity and responsiveness to change based on the overall voice quality was indicated by high correlation coefficients 0.828 and 0.767, respectively. Receiver operating characteristic analysis revealed an excellent diagnostic accuracy for discrimination between dysphonic and normophonic voices (area under the curve: 0.905). The best threshold level for the AVQI of 3.15 corresponded with a sensitivity of 72.5% and specificity of 95.2%, with the positive and negative likelihood ratios of 15.1 and 0.29, respectively. We demonstrated the validity of the AVQI as a tool for assessment of overall voice quality and that of voice therapy outcomes in the Japanese-speaking population. Copyright © 2017 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A Qualitative Case Study of Japanese University Students and Personal Smartphone Use in English as a Foreign Language Classes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Forsythe, Edward M., III

2017-01-01

Japanese university English instructors are increasingly requiring students to use their personal smartphones for activities in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom activities. Because of this, it has been recommended that studies be conducted to ascertain Japanese university students' perceptions of using smartphones in EFL language…

A Developmental Shift from Similar to Language-Specific Strategies in Verb Acquisition: A Comparison of English, Spanish, and Japanese

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Maguire, Mandy J.; Hirsh-Pasek, Kathy; Golinkoff, Roberta Michnick; Imai, Mutsumi; Haryu, Etsuko; Vanegas, Sandra; Okada, Hiroyuki; Pulverman, Rachel; Sanchez-Davis, Brenda

2010-01-01

The world's languages draw on a common set of event components for their verb systems. Yet, these components are differentially distributed across languages. At what age do children begin to use language-specific patterns to narrow possible verb meanings? English-, Japanese-, and Spanish-speaking adults, toddlers, and preschoolers were shown…

Language Teachers: Research and Studies in Language(s) Education, Teaching, and Learning in "Teaching and Teacher Education," 1985-2012

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kleinsasser, Robert C.

2013-01-01

The article reviews twelve of 79 articles focusing on language teachers, language(s) teacher education, teaching, and learning published in "Teaching and Teacher Education" since 1985. The twelve articles, divided into three sections, include narrative inquiry and identity, teacher education topics, and contexts. The articles provide local and…

Japanese Media in English.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tanaka, Sachiko Oda

1995-01-01

Describes the use of English in the media in Japan, focusing on the role and history of English-language newspapers, radio, and television programs, as well as the proliferation of English-language films shown in Japanese cinemas. Discusses the implications of English in the Japanese media. (20 references) (MDM)

Autonomous Language Learning with Technology

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Forsythe, Edward

2013-01-01

Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) wants English language education to be more communicative. Japanese teachers of English (JTEs) need to adapt their instructional practices to meet this goal; however, they may not feel confident enough to teach speaking themselves. Using technology, JTEs have the ability…

Computer-Assisted Language Learning for Japanese on the Macintosh: An Update of What's Available.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Darnall, Cliff; And Others

This paper outlines a presentation on available Macintosh computer software for learning Japanese. The software systems described are categorized by their emphasis on speaking, writing, or reading, with a special section on software for young learners. Software that emphasizes spoken language includes "Berlitz for Business…

How Do Teachers and Learners Perceive Corrective Feedback in the Japanese Language Classroom?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yoshida, Reiko

2010-01-01

This study examined Japanese language teachers' and learners' perceptions of corrective feedback (CF), focusing on the cases in which the learners responded to the teachers' CF. Data were collected from the second-year course of an Australian university for 1 semester by classroom observation and audio recording and stimulated recall interviews.…

Reframing Language Allocation Policy in Dual Language Bilingual Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sánchez, María Teresa; García, Ofelia; Solorza, Cristian

2018-01-01

This article addresses language allocation policies in what is increasingly called "Dual Language Education" (DLE) in the U.S., offering a challenge to the strict language separation policies in those programs and a proposal for flexibility that transforms them into "Dual Language Bilingual Education" (DLBE). The article offers…

The Teaching of English as an International Language in Japan: An Answer to the Dilemma of Indigenous Values and Global Needs in the Expanding Circle

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hino, Nobuyuki

2009-01-01

This paper explores the ambivalent nature of Japanese attitudes toward English vis-a-vis the Japanese language, followed by a discussion of Japanese efforts in incorporating the concept of English as an International Language (EIL) into their educational system and teaching practice as a solution to this dilemma. While the Japanese have an…

Negotiating Sequential Boundaries and Learning Opportunities: A Case from a Japanese Language Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mori, Junko

2004-01-01

Using the methodological framework of conversation analysis (CA) as a central tool for analysis, this study examines a peer interactive task that occurred in a Japanese as a foreign language classroom. During the short segment of interaction, the students shifted back and forth between the development of an assigned task and the management of…

Japanese as a Second Language Assessment in Japan: Current Issues and Future Directions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hatasa, Yukiko; Watanabe, Tomoko

2017-01-01

This article reviews assessment practices of Japanese as a second language as taught in Japan since the 1980s. It begins with an explanation of the social and political conditions that have impacted assessment practices in Japan and then addresses current assessment practices and issues. This analysis first examines large-scale tests developed in…

Scaffolding Strategies for Wiki-Based Collaboration: Action Research in a Multicultural Japanese Language Program

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jung, Insung; Suzuki, Yoko

2015-01-01

Wikis can be used to encourage and support collaborative constructivist learning. However, their effectiveness depends upon the use of scaffolding strategies to guide the students in their use. This action research investigated three scaffolding strategies for wiki-based multicultural Japanese language learning: worked examples, grouping and peer…

The Perceptions of Japanese Students toward Academic English Reading: Implications for Effective ESL Reading Strategies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Iwai, Yuko

2008-01-01

The population of English as a Second Language (ESL) learners has increased significantly in higher education settings in the United States today. It has been reported that Japanese ESL students are generally unsuccessful when studying in English speaking countries. The typical way of reading in English for Japanese students is the…

Speaking one more language in early life has only minor effects on cognition in Taiwanese with low education level: the Taishan Project.

PubMed

Liu, Yi-Chien; Liu, Yen-Ying; Yip, Ping-Keung; Meguro, Mitsue; Meguro, Kenichi

2017-07-01

Increasing evidence shows that bilingualism or multilingualism may have beneficial effects on preventing dementia. We performed a cross-sectional, community-based study in Taiwan. Some elders (older than 70 years) in Taiwan can speak Japanese because of the formal Japanese education they received before World War II, when Taiwan was under Japanese rule. After the war, Mandarin Chinese was adopted as the official language of Taiwan. We assessed whether constantly using three languages had an effect on dementia prevalence and cognitive function. We defined multilingualism as the ability to fluently speak Taiwanese (T), Japanese (J), and Mandarin Chinese (C) in daily life. We evaluated the Mini-Mental State Examination and AD8 questionnaire results of 514 community-dwelling people older than 70 years in Taishan, Taiwan. Seventy-three of the subjects (14.2%) were multilingual (T, J, C) and 441 (85.8%) were bilingual (T, C). No difference was noted in dementia prevalence between multilingual (6.8%) and bilingual (7.4%) populations, but multilinguals were older than bilinguals (mean age: 79.9 vs 77.3 years). Multilinguals had higher Mini-Mental State Examination scores than bilinguals (mean: 24.6 vs. 22.7). However, after the subjects were stratified into low and high education level groups, the Mini-Mental State Examination difference was found to be significant in only the low education level group. Dementia prevalence did not significantly differ between the multilingual (T, J, C) and bilingual (T, C) groups. However, given that the average age of the multilingual group was approximately 2 years older than that of the bilingual group, there may have been minor effects in the multilingual group. © 2017 Japanese Psychogeriatric Society.

English, Language Shift and Values Shift in Japan and Singapore

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Morita, Liang

2015-01-01

This is a comparative study of English language education in Japan and Singapore and the role English plays in both countries. English language education in Japan has not been very effective. Although the communicative approach to teaching English was introduced in the 1980s, schools still use the grammar-translation method and most Japanese do…

Extensive Reading for Second Language Learners of Japanese in Higher Education: Graded Readers and Beyond

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nakano, Teiko

2016-01-01

This paper reports on the implementation of Japanese extensive reading with international students studying at a Japanese university using graded readers (GRs). GRs chosen for the present study were simplified versions of original Japanese literature and were used to support students in acquiring a top-down reading strategy, a wide range of…

Educator Language Ideologies and a Top-Down Dual Language Program

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fitzsimmons-Doolan, Shannon; Palmer, Deborah; Henderson, Kathryn

2017-01-01

Dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs are framed to reflect pluralist discourses (de Jong, E. [2013]. "Policy Discourses and U.S. Language in Education Policies." "Peabody Journal of Education" 88 (1): 98-111) and affiliated language ideologies. The continued expansion of DLBE programs not surprisingly brings to…

Language background in early life may be related to neuropsychiatry symptoms in patients with Alzheimer disease.

PubMed

Liu, Yi-Chien; Hsu, Jung-Lung; Wang, Shuu-Jin; Yip, Ping-Keung; Meguro, Kenichi; Fuh, Jong-Ling

2017-02-10

The relationship between early life experience and the occurrence of neuropsychiatry symptoms (NPSs) in patients with Alzheimer disease (AD) is unclear. From 2012 to 2014, we prospectively recruited 250 patients with probable AD from the memory clinic of Taipei Veterans General Hospital. All patients underwent standard assessments, including brain magnetic resonance imaging or computed tomography, neuropsychological tests, neuropsychiatry inventory (NPI-Q) and related blood tests. A linear regression analysis was performed to investigate the relationship between NPSs and age, gender, disease severity, depression, language background (with or without Japanese education). Among the 250 participants, 113 (45.2%) were women. Their average age was 82.6 years. Of all the participants, 93 (37.2%) had received formal Japanese education, whereas 157 (62.8%) did not receive Japanese education. The participants with Japanese education were slightly younger (83.1 ± 3.6 vs. 81.4 ± 3.4, P = 0.006), with a higher proportion of them were women (30.5% vs. 69.8%, P < 0.001) and fewer years of total education (10.8 ± 4.5 vs. 7.7 ± 3.2, P < 0.001), compared to the participants without Japanese education. NPI-Q scores significantly differed between the two groups (15.8 vs. 24.1, P = 0.024). Both disease severity and language background predicted NPI-Q scores. Language background in early life may be related to NPSs in patients with AD, and this effect is more significant in patients with a lower education level than in those with a higher education level. More NPSs may be the result of negative effects on dominant language or early life experiences.

Language in Early Childhood Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cazden, Courtney B., Ed.

Eight articles about oral language education for preschool children are presented. They are: (1) a point of view on oral language education--"Suggestions from Studies of Early Language Acquisition,""Language Programs for Young Children: Notes from England and Wales," and "The Issue of Structure," by Courtney Cazden; (2) suggestions for curriculum…

Language Learning as Linguistic Entrepreneurship: Implications for Language Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

De Costa, Peter; Park, Joseph; Wee, Lionel

2016-01-01

The growing emphasis on accountability, competitiveness, efficiency, and profit demonstrates how language education has been impacted by neoliberalism. To bring out the implications of neoliberalism on language education, we explore how language learning is increasingly constructed as a form of linguistic entrepreneurship, or "an act of…

Exploring Cross-National Attraction in Education: Some Historical Comparisons of American and Chinese Attraction to Japanese Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rappleye, Jeremy

2007-01-01

This book attempts to theorize cross-national attraction by comparing American and Chinese attraction to Japanese education. The study takes a long historical view--spanning roughly from the Meiji Restoration (1868) to today--to determine when and why Japanese education has become attractive to these two countries. It uses a combination of…

Japanese Language and Culture: 10-3Y, 20-3Y, 30-3Y. 3-Year Program Guide to Implementation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alberta Education, 2009

2009-01-01

This guide to implementation is intended to support the Japanese Language and Culture 10-3Y, 20-3Y, 30-3Y Program of Studies. It was developed primarily for teachers, yet it includes information that may be useful for administrators and other stakeholders in their efforts to plan for and implement the new Japanese program of studies. Familiarity…

Japanese Physical Education Teachers' Beliefs about Teaching Students with Disabilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sato, Takahiro; Hodge, Samuel R.; Murata, Nathan M.; Maeda, Julienne K.

2007-01-01

The purpose of this study was to describe Japanese physical education (PE) teachers' beliefs about teaching students with disabilities in integrated classes. Participants were five Japanese PE teachers (one women and four men). The research was descriptive and qualitative, using an interviewing method. Data were gathered in interviews, analysed…

Linguistic Relativity in Japanese and English: Is Language the Primary Determinant in Object Classification?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mazuka, Reiko; Friedman, Ronald S.

2000-01-01

Tested claims by Lucy (1992a, 1992b) that differences between the number marking systems used by Yucatec Maya and English lead speakers of these languages to differentially attend to either the material composition or the shape of objects. Replicated Lucy's critical objects' classification experiments using speakers of English and Japanese.…

The Role of Parental Support and Family Variables in L1 and L2 Vocabulary Development of Japanese Heritage Language Students in the United States

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mori, Yoshiko; Calder, Toshiko M.

2017-01-01

This study investigated the role of parental support and selected family variables in the first (L1) and second language (L2) vocabulary development of Japanese heritage language (JHL) high school students in the United States. Eighty-two JHL students ages 15-18 from eight hoshuukoo (i.e., supplementary academic schools for Japanese-speaking…

The evolution of the Japanese medical education system: a historical perspective.

PubMed

Kuwabara, Norimitsu; Yamashita, Miu; Yee, Keolamau; Kurahara, David

2015-03-01

The Japanese Medical Education system has been influenced by political events throughout the country's history. From long periods of isolation from the western world to the effect of world wars, Japan's training system for physicians has had to adapt in many ways and will continue to change. The Japanese medical education system was recently compared to the "Galapagos Islands" for its unusual and singular evolution, in a speech by visiting professor Dr. Gordon L. Noel at the University of Tokyo International Research center.1 Japanese medical schools are currently working to increase their students' clinical hours or else these students may not be able to train in the United States for residencies. Knowing the history of the Japanese Medical education system is paramount to understanding the current system in place today. Studying the historical foundation of this system will also provide insight on how the system must change in order to produce better clinicians. This article provides a glimpse into the medical system of another nation that may encourage needed reflection on the state of current healthcare training in the United States.

Linguistics in Language Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kumar, Rajesh; Yunus, Reva

2014-01-01

This article looks at the contribution of insights from theoretical linguistics to an understanding of language acquisition and the nature of language in terms of their potential benefit to language education. We examine the ideas of innateness and universal language faculty, as well as multilingualism and the language-society relationship. Modern…

Bilingual Dual Coding in Japanese Returnee Students.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Taura, Hideyuki

1998-01-01

Investigates effects of second-language acquisition age, length of exposure to the second language, and Japanese language specificity on the bilingual dual coding hypothesis proposed by Paivio and Desrochers (1980). Balanced Japanese-English bilingual returnee (having resided in an English-speaking country) subjects were presented with pictures to…

Reading in Asian Languages: Making Sense of Written Texts in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goodman, Kenneth S., Ed.; Wang, Shaomei, Ed.; Iventosch, Mieko, Ed.; Goodman, Yetta M., Ed.

2011-01-01

"Reading in Asian Languages" is rich with information about how literacy works in the non-alphabetic writing systems (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) used by hundreds of millions of people and refutes the common Western belief that such systems are hard to learn or to use. The contributors share a comprehensive view of reading as construction…

Community of Practice and Family Language Policy: Maintaining Heritage Japanese in Sydney--Ten Years Later

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Oriyama, Kaya

2016-01-01

Maintaining children's heritage language (HL) is a challenging task for linguistic minorities around the world. While many Japanese heritage children in Sydney attend weekend HL schools, they typically discontinue attendance before, or during, secondary school. To date, no longitudinal study has investigated what happens to their HL maintenance…

Use of spoken and written Japanese did not protect Japanese-American men from cognitive decline in late life.

PubMed

Crane, Paul K; Gruhl, Jonathan C; Erosheva, Elena A; Gibbons, Laura E; McCurry, Susan M; Rhoads, Kristoffer; Nguyen, Viet; Arani, Keerthi; Masaki, Kamal; White, Lon

2010-11-01

Spoken bilingualism may be associated with cognitive reserve. Mastering a complicated written language may be associated with additional reserve. We sought to determine if midlife use of spoken and written Japanese was associated with lower rates of late life cognitive decline. Participants were second-generation Japanese-American men from the Hawaiian island of Oahu, born 1900-1919, free of dementia in 1991, and categorized based on midlife self-reported use of spoken and written Japanese (total n included in primary analysis = 2,520). Cognitive functioning was measured with the Cognitive Abilities Screening Instrument scored using item response theory. We used mixed effects models, controlling for age, income, education, smoking status, apolipoprotein E e4 alleles, and number of study visits. Rates of cognitive decline were not related to use of spoken or written Japanese. This finding was consistent across numerous sensitivity analyses. We did not find evidence to support the hypothesis that multilingualism is associated with cognitive reserve.

Use of Spoken and Written Japanese Did Not Protect Japanese-American Men From Cognitive Decline in Late Life

PubMed Central

Gruhl, Jonathan C.; Erosheva, Elena A.; Gibbons, Laura E.; McCurry, Susan M.; Rhoads, Kristoffer; Nguyen, Viet; Arani, Keerthi; Masaki, Kamal; White, Lon

2010-01-01

Objectives. Spoken bilingualism may be associated with cognitive reserve. Mastering a complicated written language may be associated with additional reserve. We sought to determine if midlife use of spoken and written Japanese was associated with lower rates of late life cognitive decline. Methods. Participants were second-generation Japanese-American men from the Hawaiian island of Oahu, born 1900–1919, free of dementia in 1991, and categorized based on midlife self-reported use of spoken and written Japanese (total n included in primary analysis = 2,520). Cognitive functioning was measured with the Cognitive Abilities Screening Instrument scored using item response theory. We used mixed effects models, controlling for age, income, education, smoking status, apolipoprotein E e4 alleles, and number of study visits. Results. Rates of cognitive decline were not related to use of spoken or written Japanese. This finding was consistent across numerous sensitivity analyses. Discussion. We did not find evidence to support the hypothesis that multilingualism is associated with cognitive reserve. PMID:20639282

Current trends in medical ethics education in Japanese medical schools.

PubMed

Kurosu, Mitsuyasu

2012-09-01

The Japanese medical education program has radically improved during the last 10 years. In 1999, the Task Force Committee on Innovation of Medical Education for the 21st Century proposed a tutorial education system, a core curriculum, and a medical student evaluation system for clinical clerkship. In 2001, the Model Core Curriculum of medical education was instituted, in which medical ethics became part of the core material. Since 2005, a nationwide medical student evaluation system has been applied for entrance to clinical clerkship. Within the Japan Society for Medical Education, the Working Group of Medical Ethics proposed a medical ethics education curriculum in 2001. In line with this, the Japanese Association for Philosophical and Ethical Research in Medicine has begun to address the standardization of the curriculum of medical ethics. A medical philosophy curriculum should also be included in considering illness, health, life, death, the body, and human welfare.

Americans and Japanese Nonverbal Communication. Linguistic Communications 15 (Papers in Japanese Linguistics 3).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Taylor, Harvey M.

Each culture has its own nonverbal as well as its verbal language. Movements, gestures and sounds have distinct and often conflicting interpretations in different countries. For Americans communicating with Japanese, misunderstandings are of two types: Japanese behavior which is completely new to the American, and Japanese behavior which is…

Language Policy, Politics, and Diversity in Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wiley, Terrence G.; Garcia, David R.; Danzig, Arnold B.; Stigler, Monica L.

2014-01-01

"Review of Research in Education: Vol. 38, Language Policy, Politics, and Diversity in Education" explores the role of educational language policies in promoting education as a human right. There are an estimated nearly 7,000 living languages in the world. Yet, despite the extent of language diversity, only a small number of the…

Culture for Language Learning in Australian Language-in-Education Policy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liddicoat, Anthony J.

2005-01-01

Australia's language-in-education policy documents have consistently included references to the place of "culture" in language teaching. This paper seeks to examine how the major national policies conceptualise culture and interculturality in relationship to languages education. For each policy, this study will analyse the language…

Input, Triggering and Poverty of the Stimulus in the Second Language Acquisition of Japanese Passives

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hara, Masahiro

2007-01-01

This article adopts an input perspective in examining a poverty-of-the stimulus (POS) learning situation in second language acquisition (SLA). Analysis of grammaticality judgement data from 81 English-speaking and 85 Chinese-speaking learners of Japanese isolates triggering input that informed English learners of subtle semantic properties of the…

Theory of mind and language development in Japanese children with hearing loss.

PubMed

Fujino, Hiroshi; Fukushima, Kunihiro; Fujiyoshi, Akie

2017-05-01

This study investigates the development of theory of mind (ToM) in Japanese children with hearing loss (HL) and its relationship with language abilities using the data of a large sample size. Participants were 369 children with HL, ranging from 4 to 12 years of age. The mean hearing level of the better ear was 100.7 dB. A "change in location"-type false belief task similar to the "Sally-Anne test" was given to the participants. The pass rates for the false belief task were in the 20% range for 4 to 6-year-olds, 35.6% for 7-year-olds, 47.6% for 8-year-olds, and 63.6% for 9-year-olds. However, no children, even 12-year-olds, achieved a pass rate of 70%. A logistic regression analysis showed that the significant independent predictors of the false belief task performance were vocabulary age and syntactic comprehension level, and chronological age, hearing level, syntactic production level, and nonverbal intelligence were excluded. The results demonstrate that there is a delay in the development of ToM in Japanese children with HL. This finding is consistent with findings in English-speaking countries. Additionally, it is suggested that language abilities play an important role in the acquisition of ToM for children with HL. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Syntax in a Native Language Still Continues to Develop in Adults: Honorification Judgment in Japanese

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Momo, Kanako; Sakai, Hiromu; Sakai, Kuniyoshi L.

2008-01-01

Native languages (L1s) are tacitly assumed to be complete and stable in adults. Here we report an unexpected individual variation in judgment of L1 regarding Japanese sentences including honorification, and further clarify its neural basis with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). By contrasting an honorification judgment task with a…

Constraining Second Language Word Order Optionality: Scrambling in Advanced English?German and Japanese?German Interlanguage

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hopp, Holger

2005-01-01

This study documents knowledge of UG-mediated aspects of optionality in word order in the second language (L2) German of advanced English and Japanese speakers (n = 39). A bimodal grammaticality judgement task, which controlled for context and intonation, was administered to probe judgements on a set of scrambling, topicalization and remnant…

Education and Training: Have the Japanese Beaten Us Again?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rehder, Robert R.

1983-01-01

Japan is often likened to a giant corporation--Japan Inc.--in which the educational credentials of its employees largely determine their social and economic status. This first international report of 1983 discusses why the U.S. should study the pros and cons of the Japanese educational system. (SSH)

Avoiding the Issue of Gender in Japanese Science Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Scantlebury, Kathryn; Baker, Dale; Sugi, Ayumi; Yoshida, Atsushi; Uysal, Sibel

2007-01-01

This paper describes how the patriarchal structure of Japanese society and its notions of women, femininity, and gendered stereotypes produced strong cultural barriers to increasing the participation of females in science education. Baseline data on attitudes toward science and the perceptions of gender issues in science education, academic major…

Technology Use in a Japanese Immersion School: A Case Study.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ketterer, Kimberley; Giannone, Darby

1996-01-01

Examines the uses of technology at Yujin Gakuen, a public elementary-level Japanese language immersion school located in Eugene, Oregon. Discusses goals that can be achieved through cooperative learning and instructional technology use, equipment and software, areas in which technology training and integration takes place, the role of educators,…

New Perspectives and New Directions in Foreign Language Education. The ACTFL Foreign Language Education Series.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Birckbichler, Diane W., Ed.

The five essays in this volume address broad trends and issues in foreign language education. "Bandwagons Revisited: A Perspective on Movements in Foreign Language Education" (Frank M. Grittner) suggests that the bandwagons flourish because of lack of standardization and centralized authority in American education. Characteristics and results of…

Subtractive Bilingualism and the Survival of the Inuit Language: Heritage-versus Second-Language Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wright, Stephen C.; Taylor, Donald M.; Macarthur, Judy

2000-01-01

Examines the impact of early heritage-language education and second-language education on heritage-language and second-language development among Inuit, White, and mixed-heritage kindergarten children. Inuit children in second-language classes showed heritage language skills equal to or better than mixed-heritage children and Whites educated in…

Politics of Education for Japanese Returnee Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fry, Rieko

2009-01-01

Business expansion in the 1960s and its associated international strategies have meant that many Japanese company employees and their families were sent abroad on long-term assignments. The children who accompanied their parents on such assignments and then returned to Japan were first described as "educational refugees" and were…

The Education of Japanese Teachers: Lessons for the United States?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hawley, Willis D.

This descriptive depiction of teacher education in Japan begins with a profile of Japanese teachers, their characteristics, salary scale, and the kinds of classrooms and schools they work in. A description of the conventional pattern of teacher education in Japan is organized in its sequential order: preservice education, induction, inservice…

The Language-in-Education Politics in Nigeria

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Igboanusi, Herbert; Peter, Lothar

2016-01-01

Against the backdrop of the rejection of mother tongue-based bilingual education in Southern Nigeria and in Northern linguistic minority areas, this study investigates the micropolitics of language education by interrogating everyday language practices of education stakeholders which are at variance with language-in-education policy. It relied on…

Economic Education in Japanese and American Secondary Schools.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ellington, J. Lucien; Tadahisa, Uozumi

1988-01-01

Reports a study that compared and contrasted economic education in U.S. and Japanese secondary schools. Examines economics in the curricula; textbooks; characteristics of teachers responsible for economics instruction; and the level of emphasis teachers assign to economic concepts. (Author/BSR)

Foreign Language Teacher Education. ERIC Digest.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jarvis, Gilbert A.; Bernhardt, Elizabeth B.

Foreign language education professionals agree that the profession lacks an established theory and methodological consistency. Foreign language teacher education has not changed much since the 1960s. Most programs consist of subject-matter content, general education requirements, and specialized education courses. Teacher trainee supervisors do…

Designing Online Assignments for Japanese Language Teaching

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tsurutani, Chiharu; Imura, Taeko

2015-01-01

An increasing number of language educators are taking a blended approach to their teaching in order to enhance students' learning experiences and outcomes. During recent years, online tools have become a valuable resource, aiding teachers in course delivery and assessment. Blended learning, which is campus-based learning supported by online…

Language Teacher Subjectivities in Japan's Diaspora Strategies: Teaching My Language as Someone's Heritage Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Motobayashi, Kyoko

2016-01-01

This study demonstrates the ways in which discourses in a state-sponsored volunteer program incited transformations of individual subjectivities, focusing on a group of Japanese language teacher volunteers training in Japan to become teachers of Japanese as a heritage language for the country's diaspora (Nikkei) population in South America. As…

Language development in Japanese children who receive cochlear implant and/or hearing aid.

PubMed

Iwasaki, Satoshi; Nishio, Shinya; Moteki, Hideaki; Takumi, Yutaka; Fukushima, Kunihiro; Kasai, Norio; Usami, Shin-Ichi

2012-03-01

This study aimed to investigate a wide variety of factors that influence auditory, speech, and language development following pediatric cochlear implantation (CI). Prospective collection of language tested data in profound hearing-impaired children. Pediatric CI can potentially be effective to development of practical communication skills and early implantation is more effective. We proposed a set of language tests (assessment package of the language development for Japanese hearing-impaired children; ALADJIN) consisting of communication skills testing (test for question-answer interaction development; TQAID), comprehensive (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised; PVT-R and Standardized Comprehension Test for Abstract Words; SCTAW) and productive vocabulary (Word Fluency Test; WFT), and comprehensive and productive syntax (Syntactic processing Test for Aphasia; STA). Of 638 hearing-impaired children recruited for this study, 282 (44.2%) with >70 dB hearing impairment had undergone CI. After excluding children with low birth weight (<1800 g), those with >11 points on the Pervasive Developmental Disorder ASJ Rating Scale for the test of autistic tendency, and those <2 SD on Raven's Colored Progressive Matrices for the test of non-verbal intelligence, 190 children were subjected to this set of language tests. Sixty children (31.6%) were unilateral CI-only users, 128 (67.4%) were CI-hearing aid (HA) users, and 2 (1.1%) were bilateral CI users. Hearing loss level of CI users was significantly (p<0.01) worse than that of HA-only users. However, the threshold level, maximum speech discrimination score, and speech intelligibility rating in CI users were significantly (p<0.01) better than those in HA-only users. The scores for PVT-R (p<0.01), SCTAW, and WFT in CI users were better than those in HA-only users. STA and TQAID scores in CI-HA users were significantly (p<0.05) better than those in unilateral CI-only users. The high correlation (r=0.52) has been found between

Language Learning beyond Japanese University Classrooms: Video Interviewing for Study Abroad

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brine, John; Kaneko, Emiko; Heo, Younghyon; Vazhenin, Alexander; Bateson, Gordon

2015-01-01

In 2014, the University of Aizu was accepted for participation in Japan's national TOP Global University (TGU) initiative. In this paper, we describe our use of video interviewing to prepare Japanese students for our Global Experience Gateway study abroad TGU project. Our university specializes in computer science education at undergraduate and…

Language-in-Education Policies in the Catalan Language Area

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vila i Moreno, F. Xavier

2008-01-01

The territories where Catalan is traditionally spoken as a native language constitute an attractive sociolinguistic laboratory which appears especially interesting from the point of view of language-in-education policies. The educational system has spearheaded the recovery of Catalan during the last 20 years. Schools are being attributed most of…

Luce Pathways Project: A Pilot Project for Heritage Language Speakers of Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, and Japanese

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nagano, Tomonori; Fernandez, Hector

2016-01-01

This article describes the development process of a project for heritage language speakers of Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, and Japanese at a high-enrollment community college in the northeast United States. This pilot project, funded by the Henry Luce Foundation, aimed to empower minority group students through active reinforcement of students'…

Is Japanese Education the "Exception"?: Examining the Situated Articulation of Neo-Liberalism through the Analysis of Policy Keywords

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Takayama, Keita

2009-01-01

This article builds on the author's earlier work, published in Vol. 28 No. 1 of this journal, that critiqued the Orientalist legacy in Anglo-American discussions of Japanese education. One of the manifestations of this legacy is the prevailing view among the Anglo-American observers of Japanese education that Japanese education is the…

The Role of Gender in Foreign Language Learning Attitudes: Japanese Female Students' Attitudes towards English Learning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kobayashi, Yoko

2002-01-01

Analyzed data from research on Japanese high school students' attitudes toward learning English to investigate female students' more positive attitudes toward English learning. Girls' attitudes toward English were affected by a composite of Japanese social and educational elements (e.g., characterization of English as a woman-dominant choice at…

From English to Chinese, Japanese, and Russian: extending research visibility with language translations of a conference slide presentation.

PubMed

Hoffecker, Lilian; Abbey, Dana

2017-01-01

The research demonstrates that a conference slide presentation translated into non-English languages reaches significantly larger and different audiences than an English presentation alone. The slides of a presentation from the Medical Library Association annual meeting were translated from English to Chinese, Japanese, and Russian and posted along with the English version to SlideShare, an open slide-hosting website. View counts, traffic sources, and geographic origins of the traffic for each language version were tracked over a twenty-two-month period. Total view counts for all 4 language versions amounted to 3,357 views, with the Chinese version accounting for 71% of the total views. The trends in view counts over time for the Japanese, Russian, and English versions were similar, with high interest at the beginning and a rapid drop and low level of viewing activity thereafter. The pattern of view counts for the Chinese version departed considerably from the other language versions, with very low activity at the beginning but a sharp rise 10 months later. This increase in activity was related to access to the presentations via a Taiwanese website that embedded the SlideShare website code. Language translation can be a difficult and time-consuming task. However, translation of a conference slide presentation with limited text is an achievable activity and engages an international audience for information that is often not noticed or lost. Although English is by far the primary language of science and other disciplines, it is not necessarily the first or preferred language of global researchers. By offering appropriate language versions, the authors of presentations can expand the reach of their work.

Language Policy and Planning in Language Education: Legacies, Consequences, and Possibilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wiley, Terrence G.; García, Ofelia

2016-01-01

This article considers the relevance of language policy and planning (LPP) for language education in the United States in relation to the country's longstanding and continuing multilingualism. In reflecting on the U.S. context, one striking feature is the absence of a guiding overarching explicit national educational language policy. Language…

Language Magazine: The Journal of Communication & Education, 2003.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ward, Daniel, Ed.

2003-01-01

Articles are included on such issues as the following: heritage languages; the psychology of language; the Voice of America broadcasts; dual language programs; linguistic autobiography in the language classroom; pronunciation; electronic education; dialects; world languages; bilingual education; language travel; language structure; conceptual…

Returning to the "homeland": work-related ethnic discrimination and the health of Japanese Brazilians in Japan.

PubMed

Asakura, Takashi; Gee, Gilbert C; Nakayama, Kazuhiro; Niwa, Sayuri

2008-04-01

We investigated whether self-reported ethnic discrimination in the workplace was associated with well-being among Japanese Brazilians who had returned to Japan. Further, we examined interactions between discrimination and education on well-being. We obtained data from a cross-sectional survey of Japanese Brazilian workers (n = 313) conducted in 2000 and 2001. Outcomes were self-rated health, psychological symptoms as measured by the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) score, and a checklist of somatic symptoms. Reports of ethnic discrimination were associated with increased risk of poor self-rated health and psychological symptoms (GHQ-12 score), after we controlled for self-assessed workload, supportive relations at work, physically dangerous working conditions, workplace environmental hazards, shift work, number of working hours, age, gender, marital status, income, education, Japanese lineage, length of residence, and Japanese language proficiency. Further, the relationship between discrimination and self-rated health and somatic symptoms was most robust for those with the least education. Ethnic discrimination appears to be a correlate of morbidity among Japanese Brazilian migrants. Future research should investigate how educational and workplace interventions may reduce discrimination and possibly improve health.

Transcultural stress factors of Japanese mothers living in the United Kingdom.

PubMed

Ozeki, Nobuko

2008-01-01

The aim of this study was to describe the stressors experienced by Japanese mothers living in the United Kingdom. An ethnomethodological design was used by means of an openended, in-depth interview. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 10 Japanese mothers living in the United Kingdom. Analysis was performed using the KJ (Kawakito Jiro) method, equivalent to content analysis and data reduction. The main stressors were participation in the small hierarchical society of the Japanese business climate, isolation, language and cultural barriers, and raising Japanese children in a British cultural context. Unsatisfactory experiences of childbirth, child rearing, and contacts with medical services were reported. Recognizing cultural differences and the difficulties that may be experienced by Japanese clients is a first step. Resources may be provided to help these clients widen their social contacts and improve communication with providers of health care and education for their children.

Disability and stigma: how Japanese educators help parents accept their children's differences.

PubMed

Kayama, Misa; Haight, Wendy

2014-01-01

In this report, part of a larger ethnographic study, the authors examined the support Japanese elementary school educators provide to parents of children with relatively mild cognitive and behavioral disabilities, such as learning disabilities, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorders, and high-functioning autism. Conditions that affect children's learning and behaviors are widespread, but cultures vary in responses to children with such difficulties and their families. In many cultures, disability remains a sensitive issue due to lingering stigma. Japan's recent implementation of special education services for children with mild cognitive and behavioral disabilities provided a unique context in which to examine otherwise taken-for-granted beliefs and practices related to disability. Participant observations in a Japanese elementary school and individual interviews with educators and parents suggest that parents' sensitivity to other people's "eyes," or stigma, can be an obstacle to their acceptance of their children's need for special education, permission for their children to receive services, and collaboration with educators. Educators supported parents through a steadfast focus on emotional support, communication, relationship building, and partnerships. Japanese practices and adults' reflections on stigma provide a broader context for international, school, and other social workers to reflect on their own beliefs and practices with families of children with disabilities.

The Foreign Language Learning Value Beliefs of Japanese Elementary School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martin, Ron Reuel

2013-01-01

This study was an investigation of student beliefs about their EFL education, and it was based upon the subjective task value component of the expectancy-value theory, a prominent theory of achievement motivation. The participants were three cohorts of Japanese public elementary school students (Cohort 1 from 2008; Cohort 2 from 2009; and Cohort 3…

Problems in the Assistant Language Teacher System and English Activity at Japanese Public Elementary Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ohtani, Chie

2010-01-01

In 2001, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) released the "Rainbow Plan" as the educational reform plan for the twenty-first century. As part of the plan, MEXT will make English education activities compulsory at Japanese public elementary schools beginning in 2011. The purpose of the Rainbow Plan…

Nutrition education in Japanese medical schools: a follow-up survey.

PubMed

Orimo, Hideo; Ueno, Takahiro; Yoshida, Hiroshi; Sone, Hirohito; Tanaka, Akira; Itakura, Hiroshige

2013-01-01

A questionnaire survey was used to determine the status of nutrition education in Japanese medical schools in 2009. A similar survey was conducted in 2004, at which time nutritional education was determined to be inadequate in Japanese medical schools. The current questionnaire was sent to the directors of Centers for Medical Education of 80 medical schools, who represented all medical schools in Japan. Sixty-seven medical schools (83.8%) responded, of which 25 schools (37.3%) offered dedicated nutrition courses and 36 schools (53.7%) did not offer dedicated nutrition courses but offered something related to nutrition in other courses; six schools (9.0%) did not offer any nutrition education. Overall, 61 schools (91.0%) offered at least some nutritional topics in their undergraduate education. Nevertheless, only 11 schools (16.4%) seem to dedicate more than 5 hours to substantial nutrition education as judged by their syllabi. Although the mean length of the course was 11 hours, substantial nutrition education accounted for only 4.2 hours. Of the 25 medical schools that offered dedicated nutrition courses, seven schools offered the nutrition course as a stand-alone course and 18 schools offered it as an integrated course. In conclusion, the status of nutrition education in Japan has improved slightly but is still inadequate.

The Role of Motivation and Learner Variables in L1 and L2 Vocabulary Development in Japanese Heritage Language Speakers in the United States

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mori, Yoshiko; Calder, Toshiko M.

2015-01-01

This study investigates the role of motivation and learner variables in bilingual vocabulary development among first language (L1) Japanese students attending hoshuukoo (i.e., supplementary academic schools for Japanese-speaking children) in the United States. One hundred sixteen high school students ages 15-18 from eight hoshuukoo completed…

The Stroop effect in English-Japanese bilinguals: the effect of phonological similarity.

PubMed

Sumiya, Hiromi; Healy, Alice F

2008-01-01

English-Japanese bilinguals performed a Stroop color-word interference task with both English and Japanese stimuli and responded in both English and Japanese. The Japanese stimuli were either the traditional color terms (TCTs) written in Hiragana or loanwords (LWs) from English written in Katakana. Both within-language and between-language interference were found for all combinations of stimuli and responses. The between-language interference was larger for Katakana LWs (phonologically similar to English) than for Hiragana TCTs, especially with Japanese responses. The magnitude of this phonological effect increased with self-rated reading fluency in Japanese. Overall responding was slower and the Stroop effect larger with English than with Japanese stimuli. These results suggest that unintentional lexical access elicits automatic phonological processing even with intermediate-level reading proficiency.

Classroom Silence: Voices from Japanese EFL Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Harumi, Seiko

2011-01-01

This article explores Japanese EFL learners' classroom silence in a Japanese EFL context. The existence of silence in second language learning contexts can be a source of conflict between students and teachers and even among students themselves. It can also be an obstacle to acquiring the target language. In order to tackle this problem and to…

Language Management and Language Problems in Belarus: Education and Beyond

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Giger, Markus; Sloboda, Marian

2008-01-01

This article provides an overview of the sociolinguistic situation in Belarus, the most russified of the post-Soviet countries. It summarizes language policy and legislation, and deals in more detail with language management and selected language problems in Belarusian education. It also contributes to the work on language planning by applying…

Crosscurrents: An International Journal of Language Teaching and Intercultural Communication, Volume 19, Number 2, Winter 1992.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bailey, Tandy, Ed.

1992-01-01

Articles on various aspects of second language teaching include: "Global Education Language Teaching Activities" (Kip A. Cates); "Classroom Management in Japanese Colleges and Universities: Some Practical Approaches" (Paul Wadden, Sean McGovern); "Control: An Independent Learning Model" (Don Maybin, Lynn…

A Study of Language Attrition in Former U.S. Students of Japanese and Implications for Design of Curriculum and Teaching Materials. Final Project Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clark, John L. D.; Jorden, Eleanor H.

A comparison of the end-of-study versus months-to-years later levels of language proficiency of 49 students of Japanese at Cornell University, from both intensive and nonintensive programs, is reported. In addition to academic records and performance on the Japanese Proficiency Test, data obtained from a comprehensive background questionnaire…

How Effective Is Interactive Learning? Investigating Japanese University Students' Language Patterns in a Collaborative Writing Task

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sakamoto, Mitsuyo

2017-01-01

According to Swain, Kinnear, & Steinman (2011), we use a language with others as a form of shared cognition, and in the process we scaffold each other. This action research investigates how students' online written output affects each other's writing. One thousand twenty online entries written by 21 Japanese university sophomore English majors…

Intensification of the education of public health, hygiene, and martial arts during the Japanese colonial period (1937-1945).

PubMed

Hwang, Eui-Ryong; Kim, Tae-Young

2018-04-01

This study intended to examine the process of development and intensification of martial arts education in schools of Chosun as courses of health, hygiene, and physical education implemented by the Japanese colonial government that ruled Chosun during the period of 'Second Sino-Japanese War' from 1937 to 1945. During this period, the Japanese colonial government established the 'Imperial Subjects' Gymnastics,' elaborated on the education of health and hygiene in order to lay the foundations for the strengthening of war potential, and intensified the theoretical education and practice of martial arts as an effective means therefore. The education of health, hygiene, and martial arts, implemented by the Japanese colonial power with the catchphrase of constructing robust body, was nothing but a means to construct and control the body of colonial people at its discretion. The thoughts of health, hygiene, and martial arts, which were presented to students, were rather intended for the cultivation of the subjects devoted to Japanese Empire than for the promotion of health and psychosomatic development of individuals. In particular, along with contemporary society fell into the turmoil of war, the amusable aspects of martial arts were lost in the education of martial arts and were replaced with the spirit of Japanese Samurai.

Academic Language in Physical Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Constantinou, Phoebe

2015-01-01

This article focuses on defining academic language in physical education and provides a step-by-step approach designed to help preservice and inservice teachers understand and incorporated academic language into their lesson planning. It provides examples of discipline-specific vocabulary, language functions, syntax, and discourse, aiming to…

Using Sociocultural Perspectives: The Dynamic Process of Designing and Implementing Class Activities in an Online Japanese Language Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shibakawa, Mayumi

2012-01-01

The study documented the dynamic process of designing and implementing instructional interventions in an online course of Japanese language and culture at a two-year college. The results have impact in three distinct areas: pedagogical, theoretical, and methodological. First, the interventions that encouraged student agency with rich…

Developing Instructional Materials for Business Japanese.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Koike, Shohei

Business Japanese should be the study of Japanese language and culture for business communication and should include values and beliefs and institutional constraints on which the Japanese act as well as business etiquette and terminology. Topics to be covered in instruction will vary depending on the role (seller, buyer, or colleague) played by…

The Role of Universities in the Education of Japanese Teachers: A Distant Perspective.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hawley, Carolyn A.; Hawley, Willis D.

1997-01-01

Examines the role of Japanese universities in educating Japan's teachers. After an overview of the teacher-certification and professional-development processes in Japan, the paper identifies several propositions that might explain why Japanese universities play a relatively small role in preservice and inservice opportunities and suggests three…

Japanese/Korean Linguistics, Volume 8.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Silva, David J., Ed.

A collection of research in Japanese and Korean linguistics includes: "Repetition, Reformulation, and Definitions: Prosodic Indexes of Elaboration in Japanese" (Mieko Banno); "Projection of Talk Using Language, Intonation, Deictic and Iconic Gestures and Other Body Movements" (Keiko Emmett); "Turn-taking in Japanese…

Foreign Language Teachers' Language Proficiency and Their Language Teaching Practice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Richards, Heather; Conway, Clare; Roskvist, Annelies; Harvey, Sharon

2013-01-01

Teachers' subject knowledge is recognized as an essential component of effective teaching. In the foreign language context, teachers' subject knowledge includes language proficiency. In New Zealand high schools, foreign languages (e.g. Chinese, French, German, Japanese and Spanish) have recently been offered to learners earlier in their schooling,…

Computer Networking in Japanese Education Today. AVE in Japan No. 27.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Japan Audio-Visual Education Association, Tokyo.

The Ad Hoc Council on Educational Reform pointed out in 1987 that Japanese education must prepare for the ever-increasing information needs of the future, and in 1988, a proposal for the development of information networks was published by the Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture. This proposal recommended the utilization of a wide range of…

Acquiring Interactional Competence in a Study Abroad Context: Japanese Language Learners' Use of the Interactional Particle "ne"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Masuda, Kyoko

2011-01-01

This study examines the development of interactional competence (Hall, 1993, 1995) by English-speaking learners of Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) in a study abroad setting, as indexed by their use of the interactionally significant particle "ne." The analysis is based on a comparison of (a) 6 sets of conversations between JFL learners and…

Language Travel or Language Tourism: Have Educational Trips Changed So Much?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Laborda, Jesus Garcia

2007-01-01

This article points out the changes in organization, students and language learning that language trips, as contrasted with educational trips (of which language trips are a subgroup) have gone through in the last years. The article emphasizes the need to differentiate between language trips and language tourism based on issues of additional…

Teacher Educators' Personal Practical Knowledge of Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Swart, Fenna; de Graaff, Rick; Onstenk, Jeroen; Knezic, Dubravka

2018-01-01

This paper describes teacher educators' understanding of language for classroom communication in higher education. We argue that teacher educators who are aware of their personal practical knowledge of language have a better understanding of their students' language use and provide better support for knowledge construction. Personal practical…

School Socioeconomic Context and Teacher Job Satisfaction in Japanese Compulsory Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Matsuoka, Ryoji

2015-01-01

Sociologists in education have pointed out disparities associated with socioeconomic status (SES) in the Japanese compulsory education system that was once regarded as egalitarian. In addition to disparities between individual students, prior studies have empirically shown SES-based disparities among schools on important indicators such as…

Typologizing native language influence on intonation in a second language: Three transfer phenomena in Japanese EFL learners

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Albin, Aaron Lee

While a substantial body of research has accumulated regarding how intonation is acquired in a second language (L2), the topic has historically received relatively little attention from mainstream models of L2 phonology. As such, a unified theoretical framework suited to address unique acquisitional challenges specific to this domain of L2 knowledge (such as form-function mapping) has been lacking. The theoretical component of the dissertation makes progress on this front by taking up the issue of crosslinguistic transfer in L2 intonation. Using Mennen's (2015) L2 Intonation Learning theory as a point of departure, the available empirical studies are synthesized into a typology of the different possible ways two languages' intonation systems can mismatch as well as the concomitant implications for transfer. Next, the methodological component of the dissertation presents a framework for overcoming challenges in the analysis of L2 learners' intonation production due to the interlanguage mixing of their native and L2 systems. The proposed method involves first creating a stylization of the learner's intonation contour and then running queries to extract phonologically-relevant features of interest for a particular research question. A novel approach to stylization is also introduced that not only allows for transitions between adjacent pitch targets to have a nonlinear shape but also explicitly parametrizes and stores this nonlinearity for analysis. Finally, these two strands are integrated in a third, empirical component to the dissertation. Three kinds of intonation transfer, representing nodes from different branches of the typology, are examined in Japanese learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). For each kind of transfer, fourteen sentences were selected from a large L2 speech corpus (English Speech Database Read by Japanese Students), and productions of each sentence by approximately 20-30 learners were analyzed using the proposed method. Results

Professional Language in Engineering Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zascerinska, Jelena

2010-01-01

Introduction: The use of 3-5 languages that involves professional language to form varied cooperative networks for the creation of new knowledge is of the greatest importance for the development of humans, institutions and society (Maslo, 2006). Aim of the Study: To identify and analyze professional language in engineering education on the…

Second Language Teacher Education. International Perspectives

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tedick, Diane J., Ed.

2005-01-01

The education of second language teachers takes place across diverse contexts, levels, settings, and geographic regions. By bringing together research, theory, and best practices from a variety of contexts (ESL/EFL, foreign language, bilingual and immersion education), this book contributes to building meaningful professional dialogue among…

Short Message Service (SMS) Language and Written Language Skills: Educators' Perspectives

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Geertsema, Salomé; Hyman, Charene; van Deventer, Chantelle

2011-01-01

SMS language is English language slang, used as a means of mobile phone text messaging. This practice may impact on the written language skills of learners at school. The main aim of this study was to determine the perspectives of Grade 8 and 9 English (as Home Language) educators in Gauteng regarding the possible influence of SMS language on…

Moodling English Language Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Coskun, Abdullah; Arslan, Abdullah

2014-01-01

This paper aims to emphasize the importance of using Moodle in foreign language learning and teaching by reviewing relevant literature and introducing a Moodle-based environment aiming to help English learners to practice their English by themselves. Firstly, the use of Moodle in education and more specifically in English Language Teaching is…

Language Policies in Education: Critical Issues.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tollefson, James W., Ed.

This collection of papers examines how language policies in education serve the interests of dominant groups within societies, how policies marginalize some students while granting privilege to others, how language policies in schools create inequalities among learners, and how schools can further the educational, social, and economic interests of…

Culture, Language, Pedagogy: The Place of Culture in Language Teacher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Badger, Richard; MacDonald, Malcolm N.

2007-01-01

The principles of many international language teacher education programmes are grounded in a relatively homogenous set of "Western" cultural values, even though their participants come from a wide range of different cultural backgrounds. This paper addresses some of the issues surrounding the role of culture in language teacher education and…

Intensification of the education of public health, hygiene, and martial arts during the Japanese colonial period (1937–1945)

PubMed Central

Hwang, Eui-Ryong; Kim, Tae-Young

2018-01-01

This study intended to examine the process of development and intensification of martial arts education in schools of Chosun as courses of health, hygiene, and physical education implemented by the Japanese colonial government that ruled Chosun during the period of ‘Second Sino-Japanese War’ from 1937 to 1945. During this period, the Japanese colonial government established the ‘Imperial Subjects’ Gymnastics,’ elaborated on the education of health and hygiene in order to lay the foundations for the strengthening of war potential, and intensified the theoretical education and practice of martial arts as an effective means therefore. The education of health, hygiene, and martial arts, implemented by the Japanese colonial power with the catchphrase of constructing robust body, was nothing but a means to construct and control the body of colonial people at its discretion. The thoughts of health, hygiene, and martial arts, which were presented to students, were rather intended for the cultivation of the subjects devoted to Japanese Empire than for the promotion of health and psychosomatic development of individuals. In particular, along with contemporary society fell into the turmoil of war, the amusable aspects of martial arts were lost in the education of martial arts and were replaced with the spirit of Japanese Samurai. PMID:29740547

Language Planning, English Language Education and Development Aid in Bangladesh

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Erling, Elizabeth J.

2017-01-01

The increased status of English as the language of international communication and business has meant that development aid has increasingly been used to finance language planning initiatives aimed at improving and/or expanding English language education. The intended outcome of this aid is often to provide expanded economic returns and…

Parental Views of Food-Safety Education in a Japanese Primary School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Horikawa, Haruka; Akamatsu, Rie; Horiguchi, Itsuko; Marui, Eiji

2013-01-01

Objective: This study examined Japanese mothers' satisfaction with food-safety education in primary schools, compared the characteristics of mothers who were not satisfied, and identified topics that should be included in food-safety education, according to mothers. Design: An online survey was conducted in March 2011 in Japan. The questionnaire…

What PISA Tells Us about the Quality and Inequality of Japanese Education in Mathematics and Science

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Knipprath, Heidi

2010-01-01

Researchers, policy officials, and the wider public in Japan and abroad often hold different views about the quality of Japanese education. Whereas Western researchers are attracted by the academic performance of Japanese students in international assessment studies, Japanese university professors launched a public debate in 1999 about declining…

Validating the Japanese translation of the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation and comparing performance levels of American and Japanese students

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ishimoto, Michi; Thornton, Ronald K.; Sokoloff, David R.

2014-12-01

This study assesses the Japanese translation of the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE). Researchers are often interested in comparing the conceptual ideas of students with different cultural backgrounds. The FMCE has been useful in identifying the concepts of English-speaking students from different backgrounds. To identify effectively the conceptual ideas of Japanese students and to compare them to those of their English-speaking counterparts, more work is required. Because of differences between the Japanese and English languages, and between the Japanese and American educational systems, it is important to assess the Japanese translation of the FMCE, a conceptual evaluation originally developed in English for American students. To assess its appropriateness, we examined the performance of a large sample of students on the translated version of the FMCE and then compared the results to those of English-speaking students. The data comprise the pretest results of 1095 students, most of whom were first-year students at a midlevel engineering school between 2003 and 2012. Basic statistics and the classical test theory indices of the translated FMCE indicate that its reliability and discrimination are appropriate to assess Japanese students' concepts about force and motion. In general, the preconcepts of Japanese students assessed with the Japanese translation of the FMCE are quite similar to those of American students assessed with the FMCE, thereby supporting the validity of the translated version. However, our findings do show (1) that only a small percentage of Japanese students grasped Newtonian concepts and (2) that the percentage of Japanese students who used two different concept models together to answer some questions seems to be higher than that of American students.

Globalization, Corporatism, and Critical Language Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Luke, Allan; Luke, Carmen; Graham, Phil

2007-01-01

This article explores the impacts of economic and cultural globalization on language and language education. It acknowledges the spread of English and the negative impacts of this upon other languages and language communities. The case is made that new conditions of economic dominance by multinational corporations raise the stakes for schooling…

Independence and Choice: Western Impacts on Japanese Higher Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nakayama, Shigeru

1989-01-01

A brief history of the Japanese higher education system chronicles its two principal phases since the mid-nineteenth century. In the first, "window-shopping" mode, many Western models were explored and some partially adopted. In the "involvement" mode, specific Western models were adopted. The uniqueness of the Japanese…

Industrial Arts Safety Guide. Japanese. Bilingual Education Resource Series.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Seattle School District 1, WA.

Designed for use in bilingual education programs, this industrial arts safety guide presents guidelines for developing a student safety program and three sections of shop safety practice in both English and Japanese. Safety program format, safety committees, safety inspection, and student accident investigation are discussed in the section on…

The Effect of Culture Integrated Language Courses on Foreign Language Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Omer, Kocer; Ali, Dincer

2011-01-01

When examined carefully, it is seen that there is not an available and detailed curriculum designed for the aim of foreign language teaching with integrated cultural items of the target language in the programs of the schools under authority of the Ministry of Education and Turkish higher education institutions. In recent years, the specialists…

Pedagogy of Language Learning in Higher Education: An Introduction. Advances in Foreign Language Pedagogy, Volume 2.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brauer, Gerd, Ed.

This second volume in the series "Advances in Foreign and Second Language Pedagogy" is an introduction to the pedagogy of language learning in higher education focusing on learner motivation, classroom environments, relationships for learning, and the future of language education. The book reveals numerous links to language education on the…

The Politics of Time and Space in Japanese Adult Basic Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jacobson, Erik

2015-01-01

This qualitative study examines critical pedagogy in Japanese adult basic education. The research focuses on what teachers and others think the current conditions are for education that deals with social justice. As part of this, the research looks at how critical pedagogy is conceptualized in this context. Participants in the study (literacy…

Defining Content and Language Integrated Learning for Languages Education in Australia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cross, Russell

2014-01-01

While there is much that Australia has done well with respect to languages education, many problems still persist in terms of mainstream provision of quality languages programs, attaining real outcomes and gains in language learning, and in relation to retention of students studying languages through to the senior years of school. The success of…

[Cross-cultural validated adaptation of dysfunctional voiding symptom score (DVSS) to Japanese language and cognitive linguistics in questionnaire for pediatric patients].

PubMed

Imamura, Masaaki; Usui, Tomoko; Johnin, Kazuyoshi; Yoshimura, Koji; Farhat, Walid; Kanematsu, Akihiro; Ogawa, Osamu

2014-07-01

Validated questionnaire for evaluation of pediatric lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) is of a great need. We performed cross-cultural validated adaptation of Dysfunctional Voiding Symptom Score (DVSS) to Japanese language, and assessed whether children understand and respond to questionnaire correctly, using cognitive linguistic approach. We translated DVSS into two Japanese versions according to a standard validation methodology: translation, synthesis, back-translation, expert review, and pre-testing. One version was written in adult language for parents, and the other was written in child language for children. Pre-testing was done with 5 to 15-year-old patients visiting us, having normal intelligence. A specialist in cognitive linguistics observed the response by children and parents to DVSS as an interviewer. When a child could not understand a question without adding or paraphrasing the question by the parents, it was defined as 'misidentification'. We performed pretesting with 2 trial versions of DVSS before having the final version. The pre-testing for the first trial version was done for 32 patients (male to female ratio was 19 : 13). The pre-testing for the second trial version was done for 11 patients (male to female ratio was 8 : 3). In DVSS in child language, misidentification was consistently observed for representation of time or frequency. We completed the formal validated translation by amending the problems raised in the pre-testing. The cross-cultural validated adaptation of DVSS to child and adult Japanese was completed. Since temporal perception is not fully developed in children, caution should be taken for using the terms related with time or frequency in the questionnaires for children.

Language Education for Intercultural Communication. Multilingual Matters 96.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ager, Dennis, Ed.; And Others

Essays address the relationship between second language education and intercultural communication in several countries. Following an introduction are the following papers: "Second Language Learning in Belgium" (Ludo Beheydt); "Foreign Language Education in Bulgaria: Present-Day Situation and Future Tendencies" (Madeleine…

Japanese Characters in Written Japanese.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Buck, James H.

From the sixth to the eighth century A.D., Japan was the recipient of massive cultural infusions from China. This acceptance of the Chinese pattern included, and to a great extent was based on, the acceptance of the Chinese language. The Chinese writing system was applied to Japanese because there was no other model to follow and in spite of the…

Reflections on Foreign Language Education in Iran

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Farhady, Hossein; Hezaveh, Fattaneh Sajadi; Hedayati, Hora

2010-01-01

This article reflects upon foreign-language education in Iran. Contrary to its political and historical reputation in the world, Iran has not been well presented regarding its educational system in general and its foreign-language education in particular. Of course, a critical assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the Iranian education…

Gender Representation in Japanese EFL Textbooks--A Corpus Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Jackie F. K.

2018-01-01

This paper seeks to investigate whether the Japanese government's attempt to promote a 'gender-equal' society in recent decades and the improved status of women are reflected in patterns of gender representation in Japanese English as a foreign language textbooks. The study made an analysis of four popular series of English language textbooks…

Affective and Situational Correlates of Foreign Language Proficiency: A Study of Chinese University Learners of English and Japanese

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jin, Yinxing; de Bot, Kees; Keijzer, Merel

2017-01-01

The study explores the effects of teacher support and student cohesiveness on foreign language (FL) learning outcomes and compares their effect with that of FL anxiety. One hundred and forty-six first-year Chinese undergraduates of Japanese, who were also learning English, participated in two surveys that were administered over a 2-month interval.…

Assimilating Korea: Japanese Protestants, "East Asian Christianity" and the Education of Koreans in Japan, 1905-1920

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Neuhaus, Dolf-Alexander

2016-01-01

This article sets out to elucidate the role of Japanese Protestants in the education of Koreans during the early twentieth century. Scholarship has often assigned only marginal roles to Japanese Protestants within the history of Japanese imperialism, despite the remarkable success of western missionaries in Korea at the time. As imperial expansion…

Association of household income and education with eating behaviors in Japanese adults: a cross-sectional study.

PubMed

Nakamura, Saki; Inayama, Takayo; Hata, Kikuko; Matsushita, Munehiro; Takahashi, Masaki; Harada, Kazuhiro; Arao, Takashi

2016-01-22

Socioeconomic inequalities as social determinants of health are important issues in public health and health promotion. However, the association between socioeconomic status and eating behaviors has been investigated poorly in Japanese adults. To fill this gap, the present study examines the association of eating behaviors with household income and education. The sample comprised 3,137 Japanese adults (1,580 men and 1,557 women) aged 30 to 59 years who responded to an Internet-based cross-sectional survey in 2014. Data on the following eating behaviors were collected via self-report: "taking care of one's diet for health," "eating vegetables," "frequency of eating breakfast," "frequency of family breakfasts," "frequency of family dinners," "using the information on nutrition labels," and "conversations with family or friends during meals." Self-reported data on socioeconomic status (household income and education) and demographic variables (gender, age, district of residence, marital status, residence status, and employment status) were also collected. The associations between eating behaviors and household income or education were tested using binomial logistic regression analysis with eating behaviors as dependent variables and household income and education as independent variables. A trend P -value was calculated for three categories of household income (less than 3,000,000 JPY, 3,000,000-7,000,000 JPY, and over 7,000,000 JPY) and education (junior high/high school, 2-year college, and 4-year college/graduate school). Higher household income and education were significantly associated with higher rates of eating vegetables, using the information on nutrition labels, and conversation with family or friends during meals in Japanese men and women. Higher household incomes were significantly associated with lower rates of frequency of family breakfasts in Japanese men and lower rates of frequency of family dinners in Japanese men and women. Higher socioeconomic

Innovating Education with an Educational Modeling Language: Two Case Studies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sloep, Peter B.; van Bruggen, Jan; Tattersall, Colin; Vogten, Hubert; Koper, Rob; Brouns, Francis; van Rosmalen, Peter

2006-01-01

The intent of this study was to investigate how to maximize the chances of success of an educational innovation--specifically one based on the implementation of the educational modeling language called EML. This language is both technically and organizationally demanding. Two different implementation cases were investigated, one situated in an…

Who Is Responsible for Understanding in a Conversation? A Contrastive Pragmatic Analysis of Utterances in Japanese and Korean

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yoon, Sumi

2012-01-01

Korean learners of the Japanese language and Japanese learners of the Korean language not only feel that it is easier to learn the respective foreign language, but also acquire Japanese and Korean faster than learners from other countries because of the grammatical similarity between Japanese and Korean. However, the similarity of grammatical…

Comparative Analysis of Educational Systems of American and Japanese Schools: Views and Visions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wieczorek, Craig C.

2008-01-01

Knowing the great impact education has on a nation, the author decided to investigate the education systems in America and Japan. The aim of the study was to answer how educational systems or practices in Japan and America differ, and how Japanese practices might improve those of American educators and administrators. Besides many similarities,…

Additional Language Education and Language Development Goals: The Example of Gaelic (Learners) Education in Highland Council, Scotland

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dombrowski, Lindsay Milligan

2014-01-01

Language shift is the process whereby one language becomes increasingly lesser used in place of the use of another language. In Scotland, language shift is occurring for Gaelic, as English takes its place for a variety of functions in the home and wider community. Extensive literature has argued the important role that education can play in the…

Potency of Education Historical Tourismof World War II Japanese Cavesand Bunkersin Coastal Banyuwangi

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rahmi, Miftahul; Qiram, Ikhwanul

2018-05-01

Banyuwangi district has some Japanese caves and bunkers of World War II. The location of the objects are along the Banyuwangi coast as a maritime defense during the war. This structures can be used as education historical tourism object. There are many similar structures in other area that have been neglected and do not get enough preservation attention. This research is aimed to identify the potency of education historical tourism of Japanese caves and bunker in Banyuwangi. The research is done by field research for the observation of objects physical condition. It is also done by interviewing local government, historical actors and surrounding community. The result shows that the caves and bunker have a great potency but have not been used as education historical object.

Case Study on Codeswitching in a Japanese-English Bilingual Family

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Numadate, Jenny

2008-01-01

This paper showcases a case study documenting the intended and actual language practices of a Japanese-English bicultural family. The study focuses on a family consisting of a Japanese father, Australian mother, son and daughter living in Japan. The parents were interviewed by questionnaire to determine their intended language practices. The…

Acquisition of Japanese contracted sounds in L1 phonology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tsurutani, Chiharu

2002-05-01

Japanese possesses a group of palatalized consonants, known to Japanese scholars as the contracted sounds, [CjV]. English learners of Japanese appear to treat them initially as consonant + glide clusters, where there is an equivalent [Cj] cluster in English, or otherwise tend to insert an epenthetic vowel [CVjV]. The acquisition of the Japanese contracted sounds by first language (L1) learners has not been widely studied compared with the consonant clusters in English with which they bear a close phonetic resemblance but have quite a different phonological status. This is a study to investigate the L1 acquisition process of the Japanese contracted sounds (a) in order to observe how the palatalization gesture is acquired in Japanese and (b) to investigate differences in the sound acquisition processes of first and second language (L2) learners: Japanese children compared with English learners. To do this, the productions of Japanese children ranging in age from 2.5 to 3.5 years were transcribed and the pattern of misproduction was observed.

Ethnicity and cognitive performance among older African Americans, Japanese Americans, and Caucasians: the role of education.

PubMed

Shadlen, M F; Larson, E B; Gibbons, L E; Rice, M M; McCormick, W C; Bowen, J; McCurry, S M; Graves, A B

2001-10-01

This cross-sectional analysis evaluated the association between ethnicity and cognitive performance and determined whether education modifies this association for nondemented older people (103 African Americans, 1,388 Japanese Americans, 2,306 Caucasians) in a study of dementia incidence. African Americans scored lower (median 89 out of 100) than Japanese Americans (93) and Caucasians (94) on the Cognitive Abilities Screening Instrument (CASI). Education affected CA

Lifestyle constraints, not inadequate nutrition education, cause gap between breakfast ideals and realities among Japanese in Tokyo.

PubMed

Melby, Melissa K; Takeda, Wakako

2014-01-01

Japanese public health nutrition often promotes 'traditional' cuisine. In-depth interviews with 107 Japanese adults were conducted in Tokyo from 2009 to 2011, using free-listing methods to examine dietary ideals and realities to assess the extent to which realities reflect inadequate nutrition education or lifestyle constraints. Ideal-reality gaps were widest for breakfast. Most people reported Japanese ideals: rice and miso soup were prototypical foods. However, breakfast realities were predominantly western (bread-based). While those aged 40-59 were more likely to hold Japanese ideals (P=0.063), they were less likely to achieve them (P=0.007). All those reporting western ideals achieved them on weekdays, while only 64% of those with Japanese ideals achieved them (P<0.001). Partial correlations controlling for age and gender showed achievement of Japanese ideals were positively correlated with proportion of cooking-related housework, and negatively correlated with living standard and income. Ideal menu content was in line with current Japanese nutrition advice, suggesting that more nutrition education may not change dietary ideals or behavior. Participant-reported reasons for ideal-reality discordance demonstrate that work-life balance issues, especially lack of time and family structure/life rhythm, are the largest obstacles to the attainment of dietary ideals. People reporting 'no time' as a primary reason for ideal-reality gaps were less likely to achieve their Japanese ideals (odds ratio=0.212). Time realities of people's lives may undermine educational efforts promoting Japanese breakfasts. When dietary reality/behavior departs from guidelines, it is often assumed that people lack knowledge. If ideals are in line with dietary guidelines, then lack of knowledge is not the likely cause and nutrition education is not the optimal solution. By asking people about the reasons for gaps between their ideals and realities, we can identify barriers and design more

New Education for Underprivileged Children: The Codification of Children's Rights in Japanese Law

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ito, Toshiko

2012-01-01

This article examines the educational concepts that were pursued for the benefit of underprivileged children in the era of the New Education Movement. Children's rights in Japanese modernity, as represented by the struggle to apply New Education principles to underprivileged children, are contrasted with the conventional view of childhood in the…

Processing voiceless vowels in Japanese: Effects of language-specific phonological knowledge

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ogasawara, Naomi

2005-04-01

There has been little research on processing allophonic variation in the field of psycholinguistics. This study focuses on processing the voiced/voiceless allophonic alternation of high vowels in Japanese. Three perception experiments were conducted to explore how listeners parse out vowels with the voicing alternation from other segments in the speech stream and how the different voicing statuses of the vowel affect listeners' word recognition process. The results from the three experiments show that listeners use phonological knowledge of their native language for phoneme processing and for word recognition. However, interactions of the phonological and acoustic effects are observed to be different in each process. The facilitatory phonological effect and the inhibitory acoustic effect cancel out one another in phoneme processing; while in word recognition, the facilitatory phonological effect overrides the inhibitory acoustic effect.

Language discrimination without language: Experiments on tamarin monkeys

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tincoff, Ruth; Hauser, Marc; Spaepen, Geertrui; Tsao, Fritz; Mehler, Jacques

2002-05-01

Human newborns can discriminate spoken languages differing on prosodic characteristics such as the timing of rhythmic units [T. Nazzi et al., JEP:HPP 24, 756-766 (1998)]. Cotton-top tamarins have also demonstrated a similar ability to discriminate a morae- (Japanese) vs a stress-timed (Dutch) language [F. Ramus et al., Science 288, 349-351 (2000)]. The finding that tamarins succeed in this task when either natural or synthesized utterances are played in a forward direction, but fail on backward utterances which disrupt the rhythmic cues, suggests that sensitivity to language rhythm may rely on general processes of the primate auditory system. However, the rhythm hypothesis also predicts that tamarins would fail to discriminate languages from the same rhythm class, such as English and Dutch. To assess the robustness of this ability, tamarins were tested on a different-rhythm-class distinction, Polish vs Japanese, and a new same-rhythm-class distinction, English vs Dutch. The stimuli were natural forward utterances produced by multiple speakers. As predicted by the rhythm hypothesis, tamarins discriminated between Polish and Japanese, but not English and Dutch. These findings strengthen the claim that discriminating the rhythmic cues of language does not require mechanisms specialized for human speech. [Work supported by NSF.

Predicting Perceptual Success with Segments: A Test of Japanese Speakers of Russian

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Larson-Hall, J.

2004-01-01

A perception experiment involving a novel language pairing, that of Japanese as a first language (L1) and Russian as a second language (L2), was conducted with 33 Japanese learners of Russian to determine whether two phonological models could successfully predict patterns of perceptual difficulty with eight Russian segments. The Featural Model of…

Language Testing and the Assessment of Dementia in Second Language Settings: A Case Study.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Baker, Rosemary

1996-01-01

Reports on a patient of Japanese background with suspected dementia in an English-speaking geriatric unit. The subject was tested in Japanese using tasks such as naming, story recall, and processing by semantic category. Results demonstrate the potential contribution of information from language-based tasks in the person's preferred language to…

Equity in Education: Signed Language and the Courts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Snoddon, Kristin

2009-01-01

This article examines several legal cases in Canada, the USA, and Australia involving signed language in education for Deaf students. In all three contexts, signed language rights for Deaf students have been viewed from within a disability legislation framework that either does not extend to recognizing language rights in education or that…

The Impact of Western Criticisms of Japanese Rhetorical Approaches on Learners of Japanese

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McKinley, Jim

2014-01-01

For learners of Japanese, a conundrum arises at university level as they are expected to be able to shift between direct and indirect language in various writing tasks. The apparent indirectness in inductive language is required of regular writing tasks such as response essays and e-mails, while the directness of deductive academic writing, a…

Shattering Myths: Japanese American Educational Issues.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yoshiwara, Florence M.

An historical review of the immigration and resettlement patterns, and a demographic profile of Japanese Americans reveals a myth of the "successful minority." Since the founding of the Japanese American Citizens League in 1928, Japanese Americans have defeated alien land laws, discriminatory immigration quotas, anti-miscengenation laws,…

Applications of Quality Management in Language Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Heyworth, Frank

2013-01-01

This review examines applications of quality management (QM) in language education. QM approaches have been adapted from methodologies developed in industrial and commercial settings, and these are briefly described. Key aspects of QM in language education are the definition of purpose, descriptions of principles and practice, including various…

Citizenship and Race in Second-Language Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fleming, Douglas

2015-01-01

This article explores the links between citizenship and race in second-language education through an examination of the ways in which citizenship is linked to English language proficiency within a key Canadian federal adult English as a Second Language assessment document, the "Canadian Language Benchmarks" ("CLB"). It uses…

The School Counselor as an Emerging Professional in the Japanese Educational System

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Studer, Jeannine R.

2008-01-01

The purpose of this article is to discuss the Japanese educational system and how the transformed society influenced the appearance of school counselors in the educational setting. In addition, a comparison of issues that influenced the emergence of these professionals to those in the United States is provided. Finally, a discussion is included…

Representations of Language Education in Canadian Newspapers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vessey, Rachelle

2017-01-01

This article examines the salience and content of representations of language education in a corpus of English- and French-Canadian newspapers. Findings suggest that English-Canadian newspapers foreground official-language education issues, in which public schools are represented as the primary means by which Canadians can gain equal access to…

Education as a Site of Language Contact.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Baker, Colin

2003-01-01

Reviews the multidimensional research on bilingual education, covering contexts where bilingual children are in transitional classrooms as well as schools where curriculum content is experienced in two (or more) languages. Suggests that for bilingual education to play its part in language reversal, it needs to show its relative effectiveness, both…

Minority Language Education in Malaysia: Four Ethnic Communities' Experiences.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smith, Karla J.

2003-01-01

Discusses minority language education in Malaysia, a multilingual and multicultural country. Looks at four language minority groups and what they have done to to provide beginning education programs for their children that use the children's native languages. (Author/VWL)

Language Learning in Higher Education: Portuguese Student Voices

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pinto, Susana; Araújo e Sá, Maria Helena

2016-01-01

This paper begins by reviewing European language education policies in higher education and relating these to the bottom-up language provision practices currently applied in higher education institutions. The paper then focuses on a case study at the University of Aveiro (Portugal) that sets out to identify students' social representations…

Bedtime Stories in English: Field-Testing Comprehensible Input Materials for Natural Second-Language Acquisition in Japanese Pre-School Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hamilton, Robert

2014-01-01

In this study, the prototype of a new type of bilingual picture book was field-tested with two sets of mother-son subject pairs. This picture book was designed as a possible tool for providing children with comprehensible input during their critical period for second language acquisition. Context is provided by visual cues and both Japanese and…

On A Project Work for International Students Paired with Japanese Partners in a Summer Intensive Japanese Program for Science and Technology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fudano, Hiroko

A project work in which learners of a foreign language engage in a task with the native speakers is one of the effective ways to bring in ample real communication opportunities to a classroom. This scheme also gives both parties meaningful experiences for intercultural understanding. This paper reports a “Pythagoras” machine production project in which international students were paired up with Japanese students as a part of a Japanese for science and technology course in a summer intensive program. Based on the participants‧ course evaluation data, the paper also discusses the effectiveness of the project for Japanese language learning and for promoting intercultural understanding.

Novel Noun and Verb Learning in Chinese-, English-, and Japanese-Speaking Children

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Imai, Mutsumi; Li, Lianjing; Haryu, Etsuko; Okada, Hiroyuki; Hirsh-Pasek, Kathy; Golinkoff, Roberta Michnick; Shigematsu, Jun

2008-01-01

When can children speaking Japanese, English, or Chinese map and extend novel nouns and verbs? Across 6 studies, 3- and 5-year-old children in all 3 languages map and extend novel nouns more readily than novel verbs. This finding prevails even in languages like Chinese and Japanese that are assumed to be verb-friendly languages (e.g., T. Tardif,…

Citizenship Education in Civics Textbooks in the Japanese Junior High School Curriculum

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mori, Chiho; Davies, Ian

2015-01-01

This article discusses the types of citizenship education that are included in a sample of Japanese junior high school civics textbooks. Seven civics textbooks that have been authorized by the Ministry of Education for use in junior high school from the 2012 academic year were analysed in the context of fundamental issues in citizenship education…

Plasticity of illusory vowel perception in Brazilian-Japanese bilinguals.

PubMed

Parlato-Oliveira, Erika; Christophe, Anne; Hirose, Yuki; Dupoux, Emmanuel

2010-06-01

Previous research shows that monolingual Japanese and Brazilian Portuguese listeners perceive illusory vowels (/u/ and /i/, respectively) within illegal sequences of consonants. Here, several populations of Japanese-Brazilian bilinguals are tested, using an explicit vowel identification task (experiment 1), and an implicit categorization and sequence recall task (experiment 2). Overall, second-generation immigrants, who first acquired Japanese at home and Brazilian during childhood (after age 4) showed a typical Brazilian pattern of result (and so did simultaneous bilinguals, who were exposed to both languages from birth on). In contrast, late bilinguals, who acquired their second language in adulthood, exhibited a pattern corresponding to their native language. In addition, an influence of the second language was observed in the explicit task of Exp. 1, but not in the implicit task used in Exp. 2, suggesting that second language experience affects mostly explicit or metalinguistic skills. These results are compared to other studies of phonological representations in adopted children or immigrants, and discussed in relation to the role of age of acquisition and sociolinguistic factors.

Rethinking Active Learning in the Context of Japanese Higher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ito, Hiroshi

2017-01-01

This paper reconsiders active learning (AL) in the context of Japanese higher education. AL encourages students to actively engage with learning, enhancing their generic and employability skills. In Japan, AL has become increasingly popular but lacks a clear definition. AL proponents suggest that it is the use of instructional methods that…

Japanese-Style Management: A Bibliometric Study.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Noguchi, Sachie

1988-01-01

Reports results of a bibliometric study of the literature on Japanese-style management published in western languages from 1971-84 in order to: (1) determine Japanese contributions to the literature; (2) determine whether there are nuclear journals for the subject; and (3) investigate how the flow of information from Japan to overseas countries…

Innovative Second Language Education: Bilingual Immersion Programs.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Snow, Marguerite Ann

Bilingual immersion programs combine second language immersion for language majority children and bilingual education for language minority children. The programs are based on the underlying assumption of the immersion model: that a second language is best learned as a medium of instruction, not as the object of instruction. However, they are not…

Twelve tips for effective body language for medical educators.

PubMed

Hale, Andrew J; Freed, Jason; Ricotta, Daniel; Farris, Grace; Smith, C Christopher

2017-09-01

A significant proportion of human communication is nonverbal. Although the fields of business and psychology have significant literature on effectively using body language in a variety of situations, there is limited literature on effective body language for medical educators. To provide 12 tips to highlight effective body language strategies and techniques for medical educators. The tips provided are based on our experiences and reflections as clinician-educators and the available literature. The 12 tips presented offer specific strategies to engage learners, balance learner participation, and bring energy and passion to teaching. Medical educators seeking to maximize their effectiveness would benefit from an understanding of how body language affects a learning environment and how body language techniques can be used to engage audiences, maintain attention, control challenging learners, and convey passion for a topic. Understanding and using body language effectively is an important instructional skill.

Inequities in Japanese Urban Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gordon, June A.

2005-01-01

Interviews with Japanese public school educators allow a distinctive view of how the continuing economic decline in Japan has affected educational motivation and decision-making among students and parents. The nature of socioeconomic stratification within Japanese educational opportunity is seen as a continuing situation exacerbated by the costs…

Higher Education and Japanese Management: Are They Compatible? AIR 1983 Annual Forum Paper.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Spiro, Louis M.; Campbell, Jill F.

Suggestions for administrators who wish to implement Japanese management techniques in higher education are offered. These techniques are more than establishing quality circles; instead they propose different value structures that link employees and the organization. The organizational structures that typically exist in higher education and the…

Income Elasticities of Educational Expenditure by Income Class: The Case of Japanese Households.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hashimoto, Keiji; Heath, Julia A.

1995-01-01

Uses data from Japanese households to calculate the income elasticities of educational expenditure, allowing elasticities to vary nonmonotonically with household income. Explores whether income elasticities for education peak in the middle-income categories and diminish for the lower and upper ends of income distribution. Income elasticities do…

Reflections on "Memories of War": Project-Based Learning among Japanese-as-A-Foreign-Language (JFL) Students at a Malaysian University

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shibahara, Rika

2017-01-01

This study examines Malaysian learners' reflections on the discourses of the Asia-Pacific War in Malaysia and Japan after engaging in "Memories of War" project. The project, which was implemented in an advanced Japanese-as-a-Foreign-Language (JFL) class at a Malaysian university, aimed to improve learners' ability to grasp power…

The Language of Higher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beecham, Rod

2008-01-01

Rhetoric, or persuasion, was recognised in classical times both as central to education and as dangerous when misused. Since the time of Kant, a feature of western thinking has been the creation of a special language to accompany a special idea. Making language prior to or separate from its referents is of its nature an authoritarian activity. The…

Business Japanese, a HyperCard Simulation.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Saito-Abbott, Yoshiko; Abbott, Thomas

This paper describes Business Japanese (BJ), a HyperCard based tutorial designed as courseware for use in a third-year Japanese course at the University of Texas, Austin (UTA). A major objective was to develop good courseware based on proven language learning theory that would integrate theory, practice, and technology. BJ stresses a realistic and…

Evaluation of simulation learning materials use to fill the gap in Japanese dental English education.

PubMed

Seki, Naoko; Moross, Janelle; Sunaga, Masayo; Hobo, Koki; Miyoshi, Tomoe; Nitta, Hiroshi; Kinoshita, Atsuhiro; Morio, Ikuko

2016-01-01

Even though English is most frequently the common language when the patient's native language differs from that of a dentist, the opportunities for Japanese undergraduate dental students to learn dental English are now quite limited. The purposes of our study were to investigate: the effectiveness and feasibility of the computer-assisted simulation materials as one solution strategy for dental English education in Japan, and the needs and demands for dental English from the learners' side. Interactive simulation materials for medical interviews in English and clinical cases which were translated to English, were delivered via Learning Management System (LMS) to nineteen trainee residents of dentistry (residents). Evaluation for the materials, learners' knowledge and interests in the contents, and ease of operation were obtained by post-questionnaire (response rates were 100% and 95%, respectively). Both questionnaire-surveys received positive feedback toward the materials, yet 47% answered that they lacked the level of knowledge about contents of the medical interview in English. Results were sufficient to suggest that the residents would like to have the opportunity to study or practice medical interview in English, or English related to dentistry, and that the simulation materials could be one of the solution strategies for opportunity provision.

Pedagogy and Practice for Online English Language Teacher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pawan, Faridah; Wiechart, Kelly A.; Warren, Amber N.; Park, Jaehan

2016-01-01

Pedagogy--not technology--drives effective online instruction. The authors of "Pedagogy and Practice for Online English Language Teacher Education" discuss foundational theories of pedagogy and link those theories with their own practices in online courses for language teacher education and language teaching. This book discusses and…

Using Academic Language to Level the Playing Field for English-Language Learners in Physical Education: Part 1

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Constantinou, Phoebe; Wuest, Deborah A.

2015-01-01

With the common core emphasis on English language art and mathematics skills, physical educators are faced with a challenging task. Educators, in general, are expected to identifying the language demands of their discipline and develop academic language skills within each disciplinary area. In other words, educators are expected to prepare…

English for Content Instruction in a Japanese Higher Education Setting: Examining Challenges, Contradictions and Anomalies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Toh, Glenn

2014-01-01

This article examines issues pertaining to content instruction in English in a Japanese higher education institution. It notes that Japan's economic success in the latter part of the twentieth century was achieved with Japanese as the medium of instruction and observes that in terms of ideology and cultural politics at least, there are inherent…

Supporting In-Service Language Educators in Learning to Telecollaborate

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

O'Dowd, Robert

2015-01-01

The importance of teachers' capacity to integrate and exploit computer mediated communication (CMC) in the foreign language classroom has been recognised by many of the leading publications in foreign language teacher education, including the European Profile for Language Teacher Education (2004) and the European portfolio for student teachers of…

Working Conditions and Career Parameters in the Educational Environment for Foreign Teachers of Languages in Japan: Conflict and Resolution, Discrimination, and Empowerment.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shiozawa, Tadashi; And Others

1993-01-01

This paper seeks to identify invisible factors influencing language institutions in Japan that consciously or unconsciously treat non-Japanese teachers in a totally different way from the way they treat their Japanese counterparts. Among the factors are the social, organizational, and legal parameters surrounding non-Japanese teachers in Japan.…

Participant Perspectives and Critical Reflections on Language Teacher Education by Distance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Knox, John S.

2017-01-01

Language teaching is a profession which is international in character. Language teachers often work and study in foreign countries, and distance education has become very important in the education of language teachers. Drawing on two international surveys, this paper explores language teacher education by distance from the perspective of students…

Towards a New Articulation of Comparative Educations: Cross-Culturalising Research Imaginations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Takayama, Keita

2018-01-01

The Japan Comparative Education Society (JCES) was founded in 1965 with its flagship Japanese-language journal "Hikakukyoikukenkyu" ("Comparative Education Research") first published in 1975. The organisation currently has around 1000 members, making it the second largest comparative education society in the world. Though JCES…

Issues in healthcare services in Malaysia as experienced by Japanese retirees.

PubMed

Kohno, Ayako; Musa, Ghazali; Nik Farid, Nik Daliana; Abdul Aziz, Norlaili; Nakayama, Takeo; Dahlui, Maznah

2016-05-05

Worldwide, international retirement migration is growing in its popularity and Japanese retirees choose Malaysia as their most preferred destination. This study examines the pertinent issues related to healthcare services as experienced by Japanese retirees in this country. From January to March 2015, we conducted focus group discussions with 30 Japanese retirees who live in Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh. Guided by the social-ecological model, we discovered seven pertinent themes: 'language barriers','healthcare decisions', 'medical check-ups','healthcare insurance', 'nursing and palliative care', 'trust and distrust of healthcare services', and 'word-of-mouth information'. We identified seven pertinent issues related to healthcare services among Japanese retirees in Malaysia, of which four are especially important. These issues are explained as integrated themes within the social-ecological model. Language barriers prohibit them from having difficulty accessing to healthcare in Malaysia, but lack of will to improve their language skills exist among them. For that reason, they rely heavily on word-of-mouth information when seeking for healthcare. As a consequence, some develop feelings of trust and distrust of healthcare services. In addition, we have identified the needs for provide nursing and palliative care among Japanese retirees in Malaysia. Based on the magnitude of the discussion, we concluded that there are four crucial healthcare issues among Japanese retirees; 'language barriers', 'trust and distrust of healthcare services', 'word-of-mouth information' and 'nursing and palliative care'. We propose that further dialogue by healthcare stakeholders should be carried out to improve further the healthcare service provisions for Japanese retirees in Malaysia.

Japanese Physical Educators' Beliefs on Teaching Students with Disabilities at Urban High Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sato, Takahiro; Hodge, Samuel R.

2009-01-01

The purpose of this study was to analyse Japanese physical education teachers' beliefs on teaching students with disabilities in integrated classes. The participants were five physical education teachers in Japan. Situated in planned behaviour theory developed by Icek Ajzen in 1985, the research method was descriptive-qualitative case study as…

Medical education in a foreign language and history-taking in the native language in Lebanon - a nationwide survey.

PubMed

Abi Raad, Vanda; Raad, Kareem; Daaboul, Yazan; Korjian, Serge; Asmar, Nadia; Jammal, Mouin; Aoun Bahous, Sola

2016-11-22

With the adoption of the English language in medical education, a gap in clinical communication may develop in countries where the native language is different from the language of medical education. This study investigates the association between medical education in a foreign language and students' confidence in their history-taking skills in their native language. This cross-sectional study consisted of a 17-question survey among medical students in clinical clerkships of Lebanese medical schools. The relationship between the language of medical education and confidence in conducting a medical history in Arabic (the native language) was evaluated (n = 457). The majority (88.5%) of students whose native language was Arabic were confident they could conduct a medical history in Arabic. Among participants enrolled in the first clinical year, high confidence in Arabic history-taking was independently associated with Arabic being the native language and with conducting medical history in Arabic either in the pre-clinical years or during extracurricular activities. Among students in their second clinical year, however, these factors were not associated with confidence levels. Despite having their medical education in a foreign language, the majority of students in Lebanese medical schools are confident in conducting a medical history in their native language.

Use of Item Response Curves of the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation to Compare Japanese and American Students' Views on Force and Motion

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ishimoto, Michi; Davenport, Glen; Wittmann, Michael C.

2017-01-01

Student views of force and motion reflect the personal experiences and physics education of the student. With a different language, culture, and educational system, we expect that Japanese students' views on force and motion might be different from those of American students. The Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE) is an instrument used…

Language Planning Orientations and Bilingual Education in Peru.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hornberger, Nancy H.

1988-01-01

Considers the status and corpus planning aspects of three of Peru's Quechua policies in light of the language planning orientations of language-as-problem, language-as-right, and language-as-resource. Current Quechua/Spanish bilingual education recognizes the rights of Quechua speakers and the role of the language as a national resource.…

The Status of Foreign Language Education: 1984.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wiley, Patricia Davis

1984-01-01

Presents a brief history of the status of foreign language instruction from 1953 to 1984. Summarizes research on effects of foreign language study. Describes the foreign language education program at the University of Tennessee--Knoxville, providing an overview of the organization, curricular content, and methodology. Evaluates Knoxville's unique…

Foreign Language Education Policy on the Horizon

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hult, Francis M.

2018-01-01

Language policy has developed into a major area of research that continues to expand and develop. This article examines potential directions for cross-pollination between the fields of language policy and foreign language education. First, publication trends are examined. Database searches were conducted for the journals "Foreign Language…

A Global Approach to Foreign Language Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Conner, Maurice W., Ed.

The papers collected here are largely devoted to foreign language education as a means of increasing international and cross-cultural understanding. Titles include: (1) "Language Is the Medium, Culture Is the Message: Globalizing Foreign Languages" (Lorraine A. Strasheim); (2) "Cultural Understanding for Global Citizenship: An Inservice Model"…

The Use of an Educational Social Networking Site for English Language Learning beyond the Classroom in a Japanese University Setting

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Okumura, Shinji

2016-01-01

This study describes an attempt of using an educational social networking platform, which is called Edmodo, for English language learning outside classrooms at tertiary level. Considering the notion of communicative competence, the instructor incorporated Edmodo into his English classes as a project which is a formal assignment. In the project,…

Grievability of First Language Loss: Towards a Reconceptualisation of European Minority Language Education Practices

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Priven, Dmitri

2008-01-01

This paper presents the root causes of the resistance of mainstream European educational institutions to implementation of minority language programmes (bilingual programmes with both an official/dominant language and an immigrant minority language as media of instruction). Differential treatment of different minority languages in the mainstream…

Language Policy and Language Ideology: Ecological Perspectives on Language and Education in the Himalayan Foothills

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Groff, Cynthia

2018-01-01

Ethnographic research in the Kumaun region of North India highlights different perspectives on this multilingual context and on national-level policies. Language policies that explicitly or implicitly minoritize certain linguistic varieties influence local discourses about language and education but are also interpreted through the lens of local…

Language and Higher Education: Two Current Challenges

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brumfit, Christopher

2004-01-01

For higher education, two recent changes in world language practices are crucial: the emergence of English as the default language of international communication, and the technology of the Internet. The first appears to have contributed to problems of motivation for English-speaking learners of foreign languages. Information is provided about…

The Effects of Pragmatic Consciousness-Raising Activities on the Development of Pragmatic Awareness and Use of Hearsay Evidential Markers for Learners of Japanese as a Foreign Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Narita, Ritsuko

2009-01-01

The present study investigates the effectiveness of pragmatic consciousness-raising (PCR) activities in the L2 pragmatic acquisition of hearsay evidential markers by learners of Japanese as a foreign language (JFL). PCR is essentially an inductive approach to facilitating awareness of how language forms are used appropriately in a given context.…

Japanese and English sentence reading comprehension and writing systems: An fMRI study of first and second language effects on brain activation.

PubMed

Buchweitz, Augusto; Mason, Robert A; Hasegawa, Mihoko; Just, Marcel A

2009-01-28

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to compare brain activation from Japanese readers reading hiragana (syllabic) and kanji (logographic) sentences, and English as a second language (L2). Kanji showed more activation than hiragana in right-hemisphere occipito-temporal lobe areas associated with visuospatial processing; hiragana, in turn, showed more activation than kanji in areas of the brain associated with phonological processing. L1 results underscore the difference in visuospatial and phonological processing demands between the systems. Reading in English as compared to either of the Japanese systems showed more activation in inferior frontal gyrus, medial frontal gyrus, and angular gyrus. The additional activation in English in these areas may have been associated with an increased cognitive demand for phonological processing and verbal working memory. More generally, L2 results suggest more effortful reading comprehension processes. The study contributes to the understanding of differential brain responses to different writing systems and to reading comprehension in a second language.

Japanese and English sentence reading comprehension and writing systems: An fMRI study of first and second language effects on brain activation

PubMed Central

Buchweitz, Augusto; Mason, Robert A.; Hasegawa, Mihoko; Just, Marcel A.

2009-01-01

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to compare brain activation from Japanese readers reading hiragana (syllabic) and kanji (logographic) sentences, and English as a second language (L2). Kanji showed more activation than hiragana in right-hemisphere occipito-temporal lobe areas associated with visuospatial processing; hiragana, in turn, showed more activation than kanji in areas of the brain associated with phonological processing. L1 results underscore the difference in visuospatial and phonological processing demands between the systems. Reading in English as compared to either of the Japanese systems showed more activation in inferior frontal gyrus, medial frontal gyrus, and angular gyrus. The additional activation in English in these areas may have been associated with an increased cognitive demand for phonological processing and verbal working memory. More generally, L2 results suggest more effortful reading comprehension processes. The study contributes to the understanding of differential brain responses to different writing systems and to reading comprehension in a second language. PMID:19946611

Striving for the Third Place: Intercultural Competence through Language Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lo Bianco, Joseph, Ed.; Liddicoat, Anthony J., Ed.; Crozet, Chantal, Ed.

Essays concerning second language teaching as a means of promoting intercultural competence include: "Intercultural Competence: From Language Policy to Language Education" (Chantal Crozet, Anthony J. Liddicoat, Joseph Lo Bianco); "Linguistic Diversity, Globalisation and Intercultural Education" (Jagdish Gundara); "French…

An Integrative Approach to Foreign Language Teaching: Choosing Among the Options. ACTFL Foreign Language Education Series, Vol. 8.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jarvis, Gilbert A., Ed.

This volume on foreign language teaching and learning concerns the following topics: lifelong learning, small-group learning, the minicourse, student attitudes toward foreign languages, problems in secondary schools, humanistic education, curricula in uncommonly taught languages, foreign languages in elementary and adolescent-centered education,…

Affective Variables and Japanese L2 Reading Ability

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kondo-Brown, Kimi

2006-01-01

This study investigates how 17 affective factors are related to Japanese second language (L2) reading comprehension and "kanji" knowledge test scores of 43 university students in advanced Japanese courses. Major findings are that: a) reading comprehension ability and "kanji" knowledge have direct associations with…

The Benefits of the Use of Children's Literature in English Language and Global Citizenship Education in Japan

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Takenaga, Yuji

2012-01-01

This study discusses how children's literature can play an important role in achieving two goals: developing Japanese students' English proficiency levels and cultivating them to be global citizens. English as a foreign language (EFL) learners in Japan should be provided with more opportunities to engage with the English language outside the…

Japanese for Tourism and Trade

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Klarberg, F.

1974-01-01

Discusses the desirability of Japanese as a second language for Australians in tourism and trade industries. Initial instruction using Roman alphabet followed by job training in Japan is recommended. (RM)

Upholding the Malay Language and Strengthening the English Language Policy: An Education Reform

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yamat, Hamidah; Umar, Nur Farita Mustapa; Mahmood, Muhammad Ilyas

2014-01-01

Today's global economy and dependency on technology has led to educational reforms in Malaysia, which includes language policies; namely the Upholding the Malay Language, and Strengthening the English Language ("MBMMBI") policy. This policy underpins the project presented and discussed in this paper; on the development of a bilingual…

Counternarrating Racialized Expectations at School: The Diverse Enactments of "Non-Dominant" Identities among 1.5-Generation Japanese Immigrant Youth

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Endo, R.

2016-01-01

This study adds to the research on the education of Asian immigrant adolescents by situating how generation, language, nationality, and race complexly impacted how a group of 1.5-generation Japanese youth have made sense of their multiple "non-dominant" identities as immigrant Americans and transnational students within an urban high…

Language and Ethnicity: Multiple Literacies in Context, Language Education in Guatemala

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Helmberger, Janet L.

2006-01-01

This study focuses on the research literature available in the United States on the evolution of language policy and planning issues involved in bilingual education programs in Mayan communities in Guatemala. I begin with general comments regarding language policy and planning for bilingual programs for ethnic groups within the borders of…

Growing and Learning Using Two Languages.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carlson, David

2001-01-01

A Japanese wife and American husband raised their daughter to be bilingual by using the "one-parent/one-language approach," in which each parent speaks only their native language with her. Upon reaching school age, her bilingualism was maintained through home schooling in America, an experimental school in Japan, and exposure to Japanese and…

The State of Audiovisual Education Facilities in Japanese Schools and Social Education Centers Today. AVE in Japan No. 32.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Japan Audio-Visual Education Association, Tokyo.

This booklet, in English and Japanese, reports on a national survey conducted during the 1992 academic year by the Education Media and Learning Resources Division, Lifelong Leaning Bureau of the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture (Japan). Similar surveys are conducted triennially. This report describes the current situation regarding the…

English in China's Language Policies for Higher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Xu, Hongmei

2012-01-01

Taking ecological language planning and policy as its conceptual orientation and interpretive policy analysis as its methodological framework, and following an embedded single-case study design, this study explores the role of English, as compared with the role of Chinese, in China's educational language planning and policy for higher education.…

Japanese and English Sentence Reading Comprehension and Writing Systems: An fMRI Study of First and Second Language Effects on Brain Activation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Buchweitz, Augusto; Mason, Robert A.; Hasegawa, Mihoko; Just, Marcel A.

2009-01-01

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to compare brain activation from native Japanese (L1) readers reading hiragana (syllabic) and kanji (logographic) sentences, and English as a second language (L2). Kanji showed more activation than hiragana in right-hemisphere occipito-temporal lobe areas associated with visuospatial…

AB133. The Directors of Japanese Society for Sexual Medicine have a positive attitude for sexuality education in Japanese medical schools

PubMed Central

Shirai, Masato; Tsujimura, Akira; Hisasue, Shin-Ichi; Abdelhamed, Amr; Horie, Shiego

2015-01-01

Objective The purpose of the present study was to investigate the current state of sexuality education in Japanese medical schools and the association of the position title of Japanese Society for Sexual Medicine (JSSM). Methods We surveyed the four factors, the number of lecture components, the time of curriculum hours, the degree of sufficiency level of the components, and the degree of sufficiency level of the curriculum hours in medical schools in Japan. Also, we have investigated the four factors difference among three groups, Directors, Council, and Non-member of JSSM. Results Of the 80 medical schools, the faculties of the Urological department of 69 medical schools (86%) responded. The mean number of lecture components was 7.8. The number of lecture components of Directors (10.2) had significantly higher than Council (4.7) and Non-member (7.3). There is no significant difference the number of lecture components between Council and Non-member. The mean curriculum hour was 113 minutes. The curriculum hour of Directors (152.6) was significantly longer than Non-member (95.9). There is no significant difference the curriculum hour between Council (106.7) and Non-member. The satisfactory degree of the components was very satisfied (1.5%), satisfied (26.5%), not satisfied (55.9%), and dissatisfied (16.5%) for the faculties. The satisfactory degree of the curriculum hours was very long (0%), long (0%), moderate (50%), short (45.6%), and very short (4.4%) for the faculties. There is no significant difference the satisfactory degree of the components and the curriculum hours among three groups. Conclusions The Directors of JSSM have a positive attitude for sexuality education in Japanese medical schools. While curriculum hour is insufficient for the faculties in half of medical schools, over 70% medical schools answered that the lecture components are insufficient, too. Now we should make every effort to achieve sufficient components for sexuality education. We need

Learning To See: American Sign Language as a Second Language. Language in Education: Theory and Practice 76.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wilcox, Sherman; Wilcox, Phyllis

During the last decade, the study of American Sign Language (ASL) as a second language has become enormously popular. More and more schools and universities recognize the important role that ASL can play in foreign language education. This monograph provides a comprehensive introduction to the history and structure of ASL, to the Deaf community…

Educating Chinese, Japanese, and Korean International Students: Recommendations to American Professors

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roy, Shelly R.

2013-01-01

This paper discusses the unique barriers and learning difficulties encountered by Chinese, Japanese, and Korean international students when they study at institutions of higher education in the US. These learning difficulties arise because of inability of some American professors to use discourse markers, summarize at the end of lectures, write…

Japanese Neurosurgeons and Microsurgical Anatomy: A Historical Review

PubMed Central

MATSUSHIMA, Toshio; KAWASHIMA, Masatou; MATSUSHIMA, Ken; WANIBUCHI, Masahiko

2015-01-01

Research in microneurosurgical anatomy has contributed to great advances in neurosurgery in the last 40 years. Many Japanese neurosurgeons have traveled abroad to study microsurgical anatomy and played major roles in advancing and spreading the knowledge of anatomy, overcoming their disadvantage that the cadaver study has been strictly limited inside Japan. In Japan, they initiated an educational system for surgical anatomy that has contributed to the development and standardization of Japanese neurosurgery. For example, the Japanese Society for Microsurgical Anatomy started an annual educational meeting in the middle of 1980s and published its proceedings in Japanese every year for approximately 20 years. These are some of the achievements that bring worldwide credit to Japanese neurosurgeons. Not only should Japanese neurosurgeons improve their educational system but they should also contribute to the international education in this field, particularly in Asia. PMID:25797782

History Matters: Children's Art Education inside the Japanese American Internment Camp

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wenger, Gina Mumma

2012-01-01

What did art education look like within the confines of the Japanese American Internment Camp classrooms? Did the art education in the camps reflect the same curriculum that was being taught outside the camps and what other factors may have played a part in the students' experience? I propose that there were at least three significant…

International Education and Foreign Languages: Keys to Securing America's Future

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

O'Connell, Mary Ellen, Ed.; Norwood, Janet L., Ed.

2007-01-01

"International Education and Foreign Languages" reviews the Department of Education's Title VI and Fulbright-Hays Programs, which provide higher education funding for international education and foreign language programs. This book offers a timely look at issues that are increasingly important in an interconnected world. It discusses the…

Impact of language on development of auditory-visual speech perception.

PubMed

Sekiyama, Kaoru; Burnham, Denis

2008-03-01

The McGurk effect paradigm was used to examine the developmental onset of inter-language differences between Japanese and English in auditory-visual speech perception. Participants were asked to identify syllables in audiovisual (with congruent or discrepant auditory and visual components), audio-only, and video-only presentations at various signal-to-noise levels. In Experiment 1 with two groups of adults, native speakers of Japanese and native speakers of English, the results on both percent visually influenced responses and reaction time supported previous reports of a weaker visual influence for Japanese participants. In Experiment 2, an additional three age groups (6, 8, and 11 years) in each language group were tested. The results showed that the degree of visual influence was low and equivalent for Japanese and English language 6-year-olds, and increased over age for English language participants, especially between 6 and 8 years, but remained the same for Japanese participants. This may be related to the fact that English language adults and older children processed visual speech information relatively faster than auditory information whereas no such inter-modal differences were found in the Japanese participants' reaction times.

Perceptions towards Special Education of Japanese Parents of Children with Special Needs in the United States

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ikezaki, Yuki; Myck-Wayne, Janice; Jung, Adrian W.

2014-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine Japanese parents of children with disabilities' perceptions towards special education in the United States. This study included 40 participants who were born and raised in Japan and they are now living in the United States. The results revealed that most Japanese parents still maintained some negative…

Deaf Life on Isolated Japanese Islands.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Torigoe, Takashi; And Others

1995-01-01

Interviewed 38 adults with deafness and little schooling in Okinawa concerning their social and language environment. Many of the individuals used an indigenous gestural system shared with hearing people that enabled them to participate in the hearing community. Most had only limited contact with the deaf community and Japanese Sign Language.…

Learning Experiences and Gains from Continuing Professional Education and Their Applicability to Work for Japanese Government Officials

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Noda, Ayaka; Kim, Mikyong Minsun

2014-01-01

This study aims to understand the perceived learning experiences and gains for Japanese government officials from US and Japanese graduate and professional schools, and how applicable their continuing professional education (CPE) is to professional performance. Interview participants were drawn from long-term overseas and domestic fellowship…

The Globalisation of (Educational) Language rights

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove

2001-07-01

Languages are today being murdered faster than ever before in human history: 90% of the world's oral languages may be dead or moribund (no longer learned by children) in a hundred years' time. The media and the educational systems are the most important direct agents in language murder. Behind them are the real culprits, the global economic, military and political systems. Linguistic human rights might be one way of promoting conflict prevention and self-determination, preventing linguistic genocide, and maintaining linguistic diversity and biodiversity (which are correlationally and also causally related). The most basic linguistic human rights for maintenance of linguistic diversity, specifically the right to mother tongue medium education, are not protected by the present provisions in human rights law. Linguistically, formal education is today often 'forcibly transferring children of one group to another group' (one of the definitions of genocide in the UN Genocide Convention). Human rights are supposed to act as correctives to the 'free market'. Despite good intentions, forces behind economic globalisation have instead given brutal market forces free range.

The Gentrification of Dual Language Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Valdez, Verónica E.; Freire, Juan A.; Delavan, M. Garrett

2016-01-01

Utah's dual language education (DL) initiative, officially introduced in 2007 and backed by unique state-level planning, is touted as a new "mainstreaming" of DL and is sparking interest across the U.S. Using a critical language policy lens and a mixed method approach, we asked which student groups were positioned discursively and…

The Acquisitional Value of Recasts in Instructed Second Language Speech Learning: Teaching the Perception and Production of English /?/ to Adult Japanese Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Saito, Kazuya

2013-01-01

The current study investigated the impact of recasts together with form-focused instruction (FFI) on the development of second language speech perception and production of English /?/ by Japanese learners. Forty-five learners were randomly assigned to three groups--FFI recasts, FFI only, and Control--and exposed to four hours of communicatively…

Exploring the Language of Learning within Further Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smith, Andy; Swift, Debra

2014-01-01

Researchers claim that a rise in the language of learning has led to education being seen as a commodity and the learner as a customer, leading to a market model in FE. To ascertain the impact the language of learning has had upon practitioners' understanding of education, their practice and their professional identities, semi-structured…

Of Chrysanthemums and Confucius: Some Impressions of Recent Japanese Educational Reforms.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Janesick, Valerie J.

1993-01-01

Although Japanese public school curriculum is based on the U.S. model imposed during the postwar occupation years, it reflects a long, rich history of group solidarity and consensus, a strong aesthetic sense, and the spiritual influences of Shinto, Buddhism, and Confucianism. Japan's new 10-year education reform plan's emphasis on individual…

Community Building as an Instructional Goal in Japanese Adult Basic Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jacobson, Erik

2009-01-01

This paper presents the results of a multisite case study of adult basic education in Japan. A key finding of the study is that as part of community building within classrooms, students, teachers, and administrators prioritize human relations and expressions of empathy rather than academic skill development. In contrast to Japanese educational…

State of the Art in Microcomputer Use for Japanese Special Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Narita, Shigeru

Following a brief overview of the Japanese educational system and its programs for handicapped children, the role of microcomputers in Japan's schools is described. Most secondary and some elementary schools in Japan have acquired computers to enhance the processes of learning and teaching. In schools for the handicapped, computers are also being…

Language Matters in Rural Schools in South Africa: Are Educators Making the Implementation of the Language in Education Policy (1997) Work?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sookrajh, Reshma; Joshua, Jenny

2009-01-01

In July 1997, the Language-in-Education Policy (LiEP) was introduced in South Africa. While the intention of this policy was to promote all 11 official languages and give individuals the right to choose the language of learning and teaching, the practical implementation has generally been fraught with challenges. However, language policy…

"Drop-Outs" or "Heritage Learners"? Competing Mentalities of Governmentality and Invested Meanings at a Weekend Japanese Language School in the USA

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Doerr, Neriko Musha; Lee, Kiri

2012-01-01

Based on fieldwork at a weekend Japanese language school in the USA in 2007-2009, this article illustrates the ways in which different regimes of government arise from an activity depending on meanings individuals invest in it. We examine how two students in the same classroom experienced two different regimes of government: one of a low-track…

Use of item response curves of the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation to compare Japanese and American students' views on force and motion

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ishimoto, Michi; Davenport, Glen; Wittmann, Michael C.

2017-12-01

Student views of force and motion reflect the personal experiences and physics education of the student. With a different language, culture, and educational system, we expect that Japanese students' views on force and motion might be different from those of American students. The Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE) is an instrument used to probe student views on force and motion. It was designed using research on American students, and, as such, the items might function differently for Japanese students. Preliminary results from a translated version indicated that Japanese students had similar misconceptions as those of American students. In this study, we used item response curves (IRCs) to make more detailed item-by-item comparisons. IRCs show the functioning of individual items across all levels of performance by plotting the proportion of each response as a function of the total score. Most of the IRCs showed very similar patterns on both correct and incorrect responses; however, a few of the plots indicate differences between the populations. The similar patterns indicate that students tend to interact with FMCE items similarly, despite differences in culture, language, and education. We speculate about the possible causes for the differences in some of the IRCs. This report is intended to show how IRCs can be used as a part of the validation process when making comparisons across languages and nationalities. Differences in IRCs can help to pinpoint artifacts of translation, contextual effects because of differences in culture, and perhaps intrinsic differences in student understanding of Newtonian motion.

Japan: Body Language and Etiquette as a Means of Intercultural Communication.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sherman, James L.

While English-speaking businesspeople may have difficulty learning Japanese, they can improve communication skills with Japanese nationals by placing more emphasis on body language and etiquette. This knowledge can supplement limited verbal skills in Japanese and promote communication in all-English conversations. Body language, or gestures, are…

Language Education in Elementary Schools: Meeting the Needs of the Nation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rubio, Fernando

2018-01-01

This article briefly reviews the social, political, and economic context that explains the present status of elementary language education in the United States and addresses the challenges identified by recent reports on the state of language education in the United States. Different curricular models of world language education--exploratory,…

Research in Mathematics Education and Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Planas, Núria

2016-01-01

A synthesis of reasons for the production of this monograph is presented with a focus on contemporary research in the context of the Ninth Congress of the European Society for Research in Mathematics Education. Within the domain of mathematics and language, three lines of concern are addressed: (1) classroom discourse, (2) language diversity, and…

Communication and Gamification in the Web-Based Foreign Language Educational System: Web- Based Foreign Language Educational System

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Osipov, Ilya V.; Volinsky, Alex A.; Nikulchev, Evgeny; Prasikova, Anna Y.

2016-01-01

The paper describes development of the educational online web communication platform for teaching and learning foreign languages. The main objective was to develop a web application for teaching foreigners to understand casual fluent speech. The system is based on the time bank principle, allowing users to teach others their native language along…

A Year-Round Professional Development Model for World Language Educators

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Steele, Tracy M.; Peterson, Margaret D.; Silva, Duarte M.; Padilla, Amado M.

2009-01-01

The Bay Area Foreign Language Program (BAFLP), one of nine regional sites of the California Foreign Language Project, offers ongoing, year-round professional development programs for world language educators. In addition, its leadership program prepares selected educators to assume leadership positions at their school sites, building capacity for…

Language as Fluid: A Description of the Conduit Metaphor in Japanese.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nomura, Masuhiro

1993-01-01

The question of how 'communication' is metaphorized in Japanese is examined and this metaphorization is contrasted with Reddy's (1979) conduit metaphor. A claim is made that there is a strong tendency for Japanese to conceptualize 'word' as 'fluid' and to fuse 'word' and 'meaning.' English, which unlike Japanese, has overt count/mass and…

Where We Stand: Comparative Study of Japanese and Kentucky Educational Requirements.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yoo, Yushin

The educational systems and requirements of Japan and Kentucky are compared in seven different areas. The first area compares total instruction days and illustrates the differences with a chart. Kentucky requires 175 days of instruction while Japan requires 240 days. Because of this Japanese students spend 150 to 300 more hours per year in school…

Voluntaristic Online Education and the Future with Japan.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McCarty, Steve

This keynote address discusses the need for a new worldwide association for online education or, a congress of existing associations concerned with the Internet and education. The linguistic and cultural distance between Japan and Western countries is so great that mutual understanding can only be a matter of degree. Japanese language search…

Language Magazine: The Journal of Communication & Education, 2002.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ward, Ben, Ed.

2002-01-01

These 12 issues of the journal include articles on such topics as the following: classical languages; early literacy; ancient languages; study abroad; teacher training; dialects; computer uses in education; classroom techniques; illustrated dictionaries for English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students; communication through poetry; bilingual…

Assessing the Viability of Team Learning with Remedial Students in a Lecture Based Japanese Higher Education Culture

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Duncan, Brent

2013-01-01

Despite a culture with cooperation as a core value, (Nagao, Takashi, & Okuda, 2011) Japanese higher education generally uses rigid lecture-test teaching models that neither support nor condone small-group learning methods in the classroom. As a result, Japanese college students usually work outside the classroom to develop the collaborative…

Reliability and Validity of a Japanese-language and Culturally Adapted Version of the Musculoskeletal Tumor Society Scoring System for the Lower Extremity.

PubMed

Iwata, Shintaro; Uehara, Kosuke; Ogura, Koichi; Akiyama, Toru; Shinoda, Yusuke; Yonemoto, Tsukasa; Kawai, Akira

2016-09-01

The Musculoskeletal Tumor Society (MSTS) scoring system is a widely used functional evaluation tool for patients treated for musculoskeletal tumors. Although the MSTS scoring system has been validated in English and Brazilian Portuguese, a Japanese version of the MSTS scoring system has not yet been validated. We sought to determine whether a Japanese-language translation of the MSTS scoring system for the lower extremity had (1) sufficient reliability and internal consistency, (2) adequate construct validity, and (3) reasonable criterion validity compared with the Toronto Extremity Salvage Score (TESS) and SF-36 using psychometric analysis. The Japanese version of the MSTS scoring system was developed using accepted guidelines, which included translation of the English version of the MSTS into Japanese by five native Japanese bilingual musculoskeletal oncology surgeons and integrated into one document. One hundred patients with a diagnosis of intermediate or malignant bone or soft tissue tumors located in the lower extremity and who had undergone tumor resection with or without reconstruction or amputation participated in this study. Reliability was evaluated by test-retest analysis, and internal consistency was established by Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Construct validity was evaluated using the principal factor analysis and Akaike information criterion network. Criterion validity was evaluated by comparing the MSTS scoring system with the TESS and SF-36. Test-retest analysis showed a high intraclass correlation coefficient (0.92; 95% CI, 0.88-0.95), indicating high reliability of the Japanese version of the MSTS scoring system, although a considerable ceiling effect was observed, with 23 patients (23%) given the maximum score. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.87 (95% CI, 0.82-0.90), suggesting a high level of internal consistency. Factor analysis revealed that all items had high loading values and communalities; we identified a central role for the items

On Attitudes toward Education: The Attitude toward Guiding Learning and the Attitude toward Learning [1936

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Makiguchi, Tsunesaburo

2015-01-01

This "From the Archives" article was originally published in Japanese in v6 n3 Mar 1936 of the Japanese-language journal "Shinkyo" (New Teachings), a periodical publication of the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai, the Society for Value-Creating Education, established by Tsunesaburo Makiguchi in 1930. This installment of "On Attitudes…

Language Policy, Language Ideology, and Visual Art Education for Emergent Bilingual Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thomas, Beth A.

2017-01-01

In 1968 the Bilingual Education Act marked the first comprehensive federal intervention in the schooling of language minoritized students by creating financial incentives for bilingual education in an effort to address social and educational inequities created by poverty and linguistic isolation in schools. Since that time federal education…

English Language Education in Cuba.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Irizar, Tony

2001-01-01

Provides an overview of English language education in Cuba. Discusses the historical role of English in Cuba, the introduction of English for specific purposes, and the current status of English instruction. (Author/VWL)

The Importance of Educational Marble Games in Teaching German

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Coskun, Hasan

2013-01-01

Problem Statement: By considering the innovations in the field of communication, the inter-relationship between cultures, and the developments in the world, the Ministry of Education has started to take measures for students to learn languages such as German, French, Russian, Spanish, Japanese, Italian, Arabic, etc., in educational institutions in…

Early Language Learning and Literacy: Neuroscience Implications for Education

PubMed Central

Kuhl, Patricia K.

2011-01-01

The last decade has produced an explosion in neuroscience research examining young children’s early processing of language that has implications for education. Noninvasive, safe functional brain measurements have now been proven feasible for use with children starting at birth. In the arena of language, the neural signatures of learning can be documented at a remarkably early point in development, and these early measures predict performance in children’s language and pre-reading abilities in the second, third, and fifth year of life, a finding with theoretical and educational import. There is evidence that children’s early mastery of language requires learning in a social context, and this finding also has important implications for education. Evidence relating socio-economic status (SES) to brain function for language suggests that SES should be considered a proxy for the opportunity to learn and that the complexity of language input is a significant factor in developing brain areas related to language. The data indicate that the opportunity to learn from complex stimuli and events are vital early in life, and that success in school begins in infancy. PMID:21892359

Business Communication Needs of Japanese Companies in Malaysia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Su, Yeoh Lee; Mahadi, Tengku Sepora Tengku; Singh, Manjet Kaur Mehar

2016-01-01

Business relationship between Japan and Malaysia has developed very quickly in recent years. This has caused a dramatic increase in the need for individuals who possess language skills to function in Japanese businesses. In order to investigate the needs of our Malaysian graduates, a survey was conducted involving graduates of Japanese language…

LEARN JAPANESE--ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEXT, VOLUME II.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

SATO, YAEKO; AND OTHERS

THIS TEXT WAS WRITTEN FOR THE USE OF THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHER OF JAPANESE. IT IS TO BE USED IN THE SECOND SEMESTER OF JAPANESE LANGUAGE STUDY AND FOLLOWS THE AUDIO-LINGUAL ORIENTATION OF VOLUME I. THE MAIN GOAL OF BOTH VOLUMES IS "TO ELEVATE THE PUPIL'S MOTIVATION AND TO CULTIVATE PROPER PRONUNCIATION HABITS." THE NEW ITEMS IN VOLUME II…

Robots in Education: New Trends and Challenges from the Japanese Market

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Basoeki, Fransiska; Dalla Libera, Fabio; Menegatti, Emanuele; Moro, Michele

2013-01-01

The paper introduces and compares the use of current robotics kits developed by different companies in Japan for education purposes. These kits are targeted to a large audience: from primary school students, to university students and also up to adult lifelong learning. We selected company and kits that are most successful in the Japanese market.…

Language Teacher Education in Finland and the Cultural Dimension of Foreign Language Teaching--A Student Teacher Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Larzen-Ostermark, Eva

2009-01-01

The increasing importance attributed to the cultural dimension of foreign language (FL) education has entailed new demands for teachers and teacher educators. This paper explores the cultural agenda in Finnish language teacher education from a student teacher perspective. The focus is on the students' perceptions regarding how effectively cultural…

Neural substrates of phonological selection for Japanese character Kanji based on fMRI investigations.

PubMed

Matsuo, Kayako; Chen, Shen-Hsing Annabel; Hue, Chih-Wei; Wu, Chiao-Yi; Bagarinao, Epifanio; Tseng, Wen-Yih Isaac; Nakai, Toshiharu

2010-04-15

Japanese and Chinese both share the same ideographic/logographic character system. How these characters are processed, however, is inherently different for each language. We harnessed the unique property of homophone judgment in Japanese kanji to provide an analogous Chinese condition using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in 33 native Japanese speakers. We compared two types of kanji: (1) kanji that usually evokes only one pronunciation to Japanese speakers, which is representative of most Chinese characters (monophonic character); (2) kanji that evoked multiple pronunciation candidates, which is typical in Japanese kanji (heterophonic character). Results showed that character pairs with multiple sound possibilities increased activation in posterior regions of the left, middle and inferior frontal gyri (MFG and IFG), the bilateral anterior insulae, and the left anterior cingulate cortex as compared with those of kanji with only one sound. The activity seen in the MFG, dorsal IFG, and ventral IFG in the left posterior lateral prefrontal cortex, which was thought to correspond with language components of orthography, phonology, and semantics, respectively, was discussed in regards to their potentially important roles in information selection among competing sources of the components. A comparison with previous studies suggested that detailed analyses of activation in these language areas could explain differences between Japanese and Chinese, such as a greater involvement of the prefrontal language production regions for Japanese, whereas, for Chinese there is more phonological processing of inputs in the superior temporal gyrus. Copyright 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Teaching English in English, "In Principle": The National Foreign Language Curriculum for Japanese Senior High Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Glasgow, Gregory Paul

2014-01-01

Research in language-in-education policy and planning (LEP) rarely examines how language teachers negotiate official policy statements on teaching methodologies. In this study, I investigate the current upper secondary school foreign language national curriculum in Japan that requires English classes to be conducted in English, implemented since…

How Do I Satisfy the General Education Language Requirement? University Students' Attitudes toward Language Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thomas, Juan Antonio

2010-01-01

This study aims to identify the two principal reasons why college students choose a certain language to satisfy a general education second language requirement by polling 172 students enrolled in first-year language courses in 13 languages at a large Northeastern research university. Students answered a questionnaire and chose the two main reasons…

The Role of Foreign Languages in Gifted Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bartz, Walter

Designed for school personnel, the booklet discusses identification strategies for elementary and secondary gifted and talented (G/T) students with specific recommendations for language learning. The role of foreign languages in the education of G/T students is discussed and identification of giftedness in language learning is surveyed. The…

Neural strategies for reading Japanese and Chinese sentences: a cross-linguistic fMRI study of character-decoding and morphosyntax.

PubMed

Huang, Koongliang; Itoh, Kosuke; Kwee, Ingrid L; Nakada, Tsutomu

2012-09-01

Japanese and Chinese share virtually identical morphographic characters invented in ancient China. Whereas modern Chinese retained the original morphographic functionality of these characters (hanzi), modern Japanese utilizes these characters (kanji) as complex syllabograms. This divergence provides a unique opportunity to systematically investigate brain strategies for sentence reading in Japanese-Chinese bi-literates. Accordingly, we investigated brain activation associated with Japanese and Chinese reading in 14 native Japanese speakers literate in Mandarin and 14 native Mandarin speakers literate in Japanese using functional magnetic resonance imaging performed on a 3T system. The activation pattern exhibited clearly distinct features specific for each language. Regardless of the subject's native language literacy, Chinese reading activated an area significantly larger than Japanese reading, suggesting that brain processes involved in Chinese reading were much more complex than Japanese reading. Significant recruitment of corresponding cortical areas in the right hemisphere with Chinese reading was also apparent. The activation patterns associated with Japanese reading by native Japanese literates was highly consistent with previous reports, and included the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), left posterior temporal lobe (PTL), and left ventral premotor cortex (PMv). The activation pattern associated with Chinese reading by native Chinese literates was also highly consistent with previous reports, namely the left IFG, left PTL, left PMv, left anterior temporal lobe (ATL), and bilateral parieto occipital lobes (LPOL). The activation pattern associated with Chinese reading by native Japanese literates was virtually identical to that by native Chinese literates, whereas the activation pattern associated with Japanese reading by native Chinese literates was signified by additional activation of LPOL compared to that by native Japanese literate. The study indicated

Learning from Japanese Middle School Math Teachers. Fastback.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Whitman, Nancy C.

This document reviews the Japanese educational system and examines middle school education in particular to identify cultural differences and help improve educational quality in the United States. Contents include: (1) "An Overview of Japanese Education"; (2) "Teacher Behavior in the Classroom"; (3) "Teacher Behavior…

Politics of Externalization in Reflexive Times: Reinventing Japanese Education Reform Discourses through "Finnish PISA Success"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Takayama, Keita

2010-01-01

Drawing on a critical theoretical paradigm and critically engaging with the externalization thesis that Gita Steiner-Khamsi and Jurgen Schriewer have developed, this article examines the politics of "Finnish education" in the ongoing Japanese education reform debate. More specifically, it examines the various discursive uses of…

Language and Literature Division, Faculty of Education, Hong Kong University

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Qin, Xie; Andrews, Stephen

2010-01-01

The Language and Literature Division (LLD) is the largest of the six divisions of the Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong (HKU). It is currently home to 34 academic staff, who specialize either in the fields of Chinese Language, English Language and/or Literature Education, and to 60 full-time and 28 part-time doctoral students, who are…

Socioeconomic status, parental education, vocabulary and language skills of children who stutter.

PubMed

Richels, Corrin G; Johnson, Kia N; Walden, Tedra A; Conture, Edward G

2013-01-01

The purpose of this project was to investigate the possible relation between standardized measures of vocabulary/language, mother and father education, and a composite measure of socioeconomic status (SES) for children who do not stutter (CWNS) and children who stutter (CWS). Participants were 138 CWNS and 159 CWS between the ages of 2;6 and 6;3 and their families. The Hollingshead Four Factor Index of Social Position (i.e., Family SES) was used to calculate SES based on a composite score consisting of weighted values for paternal and maternal education and occupation. Statistical regression analyses were conducted to investigate the relation between parental education and language and vocabulary scores for both the CWNS and CWS. Correlations were calculated between parent education, Family SES, and stuttering severity (e.g., SSI-3 score, % words stuttered). Results indicated that maternal education contributed the greatest amount of variance in vocabulary and language scores for the CWNS and for participants from both groups whose Family SES was in the lowest quartile of the distribution. However, paternal education generally contributed the greatest amount of variance in vocabulary and language scores for the CWS. Higher levels of maternal education were associated with more severe stuttering in the CWS. Results are generally consistent with existing literature on normal language development that indicates maternal education is a robust predictor of the vocabulary and language skills of preschool children. Thus, both father and mothers' education may impact the association between vocabulary/language skills and childhood stuttering, leading investigators who empirically study this association to possibly re-assess their participant selection (e.g., a priori control of parental education) and/or data analyses (e.g., post hoc covariation of parental education). The reader will be able to: (a) describe the influence of socioeconomic status on the development of

Issues and Innovations in Foreign Language Education. Fastback 222.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Benevento, Jacqueline

Studies indicate that American students have an inadequate understanding of world affairs, with implications for United States national security, business interests in foreign markets, and education in general, and specific recommendations have been made for the improvement of foreign language instruction. Foreign language education in the 1980s…

Language, Violence, and Indian Mis-education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Russell, Caskey

2002-01-01

Traces the history of institutionalized violence--both physical and symbolic--within American Indian education; the legacy of shame and guilt from the boarding school era, when oppression was internalized; and the relationship of such "mis-education" to the decline of Tlingit language and culture in southwestern Alaska. Discusses…

Micro Language Planning for Multilingual Education: Agency in Local Contexts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liddicoat, Anthony J.; Taylor-Leech, Kerry

2014-01-01

This paper overviews some of the domains of application of micro-level language planning approaches to foster multilingual education. It examines the language planning of local agents and the contexts in which their work contributes to multilingual education, either to expand or limit educational possibilities. It identifies four broad contexts of…

Measuring Japanese EFL Student Perceptions of Internet-Based Tests with the Technology Acceptance Model

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dizon, Gilbert

2016-01-01

The Internet has made it possible for teachers to administer online assessments with affordability and ease. However, little is known about Japanese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students' attitudes of internet-based tests (IBTs). Therefore, this study aimed to measure the perceptions of IBTs among Japanese English language learners with the…

The Future of Foreign Language Education in the United States. Contemporary Language Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Osborn, Terry A., Ed.

This collection of papers examines how the changing social and academic context of language education in the United States impact the future of the discipline. After "Introduction" (Terry A. Osborn), the 10 papers include the following: (1) "'Our Patriotic Duty': Insights from Professional History, 1890-1920" (Deborah M. Herman); (2) "The…

Clarendon Alternative School Japanese Bilingual Bicultural Program: Curriculum Sampler.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

San Francisco Unified School District, CA.

Sample lessons and instructional materials from a Japanese bilingual/bicultural elementary school program are presented. The lessons are designed to integrate Japanese language instruction with content instruction, using thematic units related to the core curriculum. The ten lessons are organized by target grade (K-5), and describe classroom…

English/Japanese Professional Interpretation: Its Linguistic and Conceptual Problems.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ishikawa, Luli

1995-01-01

A study of simultaneous interpretation from Japanese to English focused on problems inherent in simultaneous language processing. Data were drawn from a discussion session at an international conference of physicians concerning nuclear war. Transcription of the Japanese source text (romanized), English product, and a gloss of lexical equivalents…

The Japanese artificial organs scene: current status.

PubMed

Mitamura, Yoshinori; Murabayashi, Shun

2005-08-01

Artificial organs and regenerative medicine are the subjects of very active research and development (R&D) in Japan and various artificial organs are widely used in patients. Results of the R&D are presented at the annual conference of the Japanese Society for Artificial Organs (JSAO). Progress in the fields of artificial organs and regenerative medicine are reviewed annually in the Japanese Journal of Artificial Organs. The official English-language journal of JSAO, Journal of Artificial Organs, also publishes many original articles by Japanese researchers. Although the annual conference and the publications of JSAO provide the world with update information on artificial organs and regenerative medicine in Japan, the information is not always understood appropriately in the rest of the world, mainly due to language problems. This article therefore introduces the current status of artificial organs and regenerative medicine in Japan. Artificial hearts and metabolic support systems are reviewed here and other interesting areas such as regenerative medicine can be found elsewhere.

Students' Attitudes toward Extensive Reading in the Japanese EFL Context

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mikami, Akihiro

2017-01-01

Although many studies state the benefits of extensive reading (ER) for language learning, this practice is not common in language classrooms. Because few studies have investigated the status of ER in second language classrooms, this study looks at past and current ER practice among Japanese students of English as a foreign language (EFL) and their…

Searching for Bridges between Formal and Informal Language Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brebera, Pavel; Hlouskova, Jitka

2012-01-01

Life in the contemporary society and ongoing globalisation processes result in growing demands on educators, including language teachers in higher education. The frequently accentuated so-called postmethod approach to foreign language teaching gives teachers a lot of freedom and flexibility but also creates a large space for various types of…

Cuban Voices: A Case Study of English Language Teacher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smith, Steven John

2016-01-01

This case study uses qualitative research methods and a postcolonial paradigm to listen to the voices of Cuban teacher educators describing how they educate and prepare English language teachers in Cuba. English language teacher education in Cuba includes features that are considered innovative, contemporary and good practice in the Western world.…

The Anxiety-Proficiency Relationship and the Stability of Anxiety: The Case of Chinese University Learners of English and Japanese

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jin, Yinxing; de Bot, Kees; Keijzer, Merel

2015-01-01

Adopting a longitudinal design, this study investigates the effects of foreign language anxiety on foreign language proficiency over time within English and Japanese learning contexts. It also explores the stability of anxiety in English and Japanese over time and the stability of anxiety across English and Japanese. Chinese university students (N…

A Proposal for a CA-Integrated English Language Teacher Education Program in Turkey

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sert, Olcay

2010-01-01

This study proposes a comprehensive framework for a Conversation Analysis (CA) informed English language teacher education program in Turkey. By reviewing recent studies in CA, Critical Reflective Practice, Teacher Language Awareness and language teacher education in general; the author calls for a more effective language teacher education program…

Der Begriff des "Ki" und die japanische Padagogik: Uber Konflikte zwischen westlicher und japanischer Padagogik (The Concept of "Ki" and Japanese Pedagogy: On Conflicts between Western and Japanese Pedagogics).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fujikawa, Nobuo

1997-01-01

Sketches the characteristics of the Japanese educational tradition and analyzes conflicts between modern western pedagogies and traditional education. Argues that Japanese socialization processes stress a specifically Japanese construction of the "self" and of behavior. Concludes that Japanese educators should be more aware of this…

Texas Papers in Foreign Language Education, 1996.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Texas Papers in Foreign Language Education, 1996

1996-01-01

Papers on foreign language education include: "The Message Is the Medium: Using Video Materials To Facilitate Foreign Language Performance" (Thomas J. Garza), which explores the use of this medium to enhance commonly-used non-communicative or text-bound teaching materials; "Product and Process Aspects of NES/EFL Students' Persuasive…

Promotional Video Production in a Foreign Language Course.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fukushima, Tatsuya

2002-01-01

Discusses a technology-based project as a requirement for a traditional intermediate Japanese course at the University of Arkansas in which students worked in a small group to produce the university's promotional video in the target language, thus enhancing their Japanese language skills and promoting the program to the public. (Author/VWL)

English Language Education Policy in Colombia and Mexico

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roux, Ruth

2012-01-01

English language education policies have attracted the attention of researchers in applied linguistics and English language teaching world-wide in the last few years. Some contend that English language skills are vital if a country is to participate actively in the global economy and individuals are to have access to knowledge for social and…

Social Class in English Language Education in Oaxaca, Mexico

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

López-Gopar, Mario E.; Sughrua, William

2014-01-01

This article explores social class in English-language education in Oaxaca, Mexico. To this end, first, we discuss social class in Mexico as related to coloniality; second, for illustration, the paper presents the authors' own social-class analysis as language educators in Oaxaca; third, we discuss how social class impacts English education…

Towards a National Strategy for Capacity-Building in Heritage Languages and Spanish: A Response to "America's Languages: Investing in Language Education for the 21st Century"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carreira, María M.

2018-01-01

The year 2017 saw the publication of one of the strongest endorsements of language education on record: "America's Languages: Investing in Language Education for the 21st Century" (henceforth "America's Languages"). Commissioned by a bipartisan group of members of Congress and authored by the Commission on Language Learning of…

Paradigm Shift: Understanding and Implementing Change in Second Language Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jacobs, George M.; Farrell, Thomas S. C.

2001-01-01

Change seems to be a constant in education. We can better understand and implement change in second language education if we look for connections between changes. The concept of paradigm shift offers one means of making such connections. This article describes eight changes that fit with the paradigm shift in second language education toward what…

The action-sentence compatibility effect in Japanese sentences.

PubMed

Awazu, Shunji

2011-10-01

The action-sentence compatibility effect (ACE) is a phenomenon in which a reader's response to a sentence is made faster when there is congruity between the action described in the sentence and the action that makes up the response. Previous studies showed the ACE occurs in action-related sentences in several languages. However, all these were SVO (verb-object) languages, in which verbs are placed before object nouns; this order is reversed in SOV languages. Moreover, those studies investigated hand responses. This study assessed the existence of the ACE in Japanese, an SOV language, and in foot responses. 24 female participants judged the sensibility of Japanese sentences that described actions and responded with either their foot or hand as an effector. Reaction times were significantly faster when there was congruity between the effector described in the sentences and the effector actually used for the response. However, sentence dependency was also found in the foot responses.

Body-part metaphors: a cross-cultural survey of the perception of translatability among Americans and Japanese.

PubMed

Sakuragi, Toshiyuki; Fuller, Judith W

2003-07-01

What kinds of linguistic resources do people utilize when they try to translate metaphors into a foreign language? This investigation of the perception of translatability of body-part metaphors examined the effects of the following factors: the similarity between the human body part and the metaphorical expression (e.g., "eye" in "electric eye") in appearance and function; the frequency of the use of the metaphor in the native language; and the perceived distance between the first language and the target language. The results of a survey of American (n = 151) and Japanese (n = 116) university students showed that both Similarity in Appearance and Similarity in Function correlated positively with Translatability, while the effect of the former was stronger than the latter. Frequency correlated positively with Translatability for the Americans, although the correlation was weaker when the target language is "distant" (Japanese or Chinese) than when the target language is "close" (Spanish). Among the Japanese, Frequency did not correlate with translatability regardless of the target language.

BASIC JAPANESE FOR COLLEGE STUDENTS. REVISED EDITION.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

NIWA, TAMAKO; MATSUDA, MAYAKO

THE 24 LESSONS IN THIS TEXT ARE DESIGNED FOR COLLEGE STUDENTS BEGINNING JAPANESE LANGUAGE STUDY. THE SELECTION OF VOCABULARY AND THE PRESENTATION OF GRAMMAR ARE DIRECTED TO THE GOAL OF ACQUIRING FACILITY IN SPEAKING RATHER THAN WRITING. FOR A READING TEXT RECOMMENDED FOR USE WITH THIS SPOKEN LANGUAGE TEXT, SEE HIBBETT AND ITSAKA "MODERN…

Mixed Messages: Discourses of Education in Policy Speeches to the Japanese Diet

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rear, David

2011-01-01

This paper will examine how Japanese education policy was articulated discursively from 1996 to 2010 in the semi-annual speeches of prime ministers to the Diet. It will identify three distinct discourses within these policy statements: a progressive discourse emphasizing the rights of individuals; a neo-liberal discourse of social independence and…

Formalising the Future of Languages Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cunningham, Denis

2004-01-01

Education is the right, but not the reality, of all. Various international trends are identified to set the scene for languages education. Challenges facing the teaching profession--in the contexts of teachers, students, teacher training, conditions and the curriculum--are addressed by effective strategies. Policy is prioritised, as it is in this…

The modern Japanese color lexicon.

PubMed

Kuriki, Ichiro; Lange, Ryan; Muto, Yumiko; Brown, Angela M; Fukuda, Kazuho; Tokunaga, Rumi; Lindsey, Delwin T; Uchikawa, Keiji; Shioiri, Satoshi

2017-03-01

Despite numerous prior studies, important questions about the Japanese color lexicon persist, particularly about the number of Japanese basic color terms and their deployment across color space. Here, 57 native Japanese speakers provided monolexemic terms for 320 chromatic and 10 achromatic Munsell color samples. Through k-means cluster analysis we revealed 16 statistically distinct Japanese chromatic categories. These included eight chromatic basic color terms (aka/red, ki/yellow, midori/green, ao/blue, pink, orange, cha/brown, and murasaki/purple) plus eight additional terms: mizu ("water")/light blue, hada ("skin tone")/peach, kon ("indigo")/dark blue, matcha ("green tea")/yellow-green, enji/maroon, oudo ("sand or mud")/mustard, yamabuki ("globeflower")/gold, and cream. Of these additional terms, mizu was used by 98% of informants, and emerged as a strong candidate for a 12th Japanese basic color term. Japanese and American English color-naming systems were broadly similar, except for color categories in one language (mizu, kon, teal, lavender, magenta, lime) that had no equivalent in the other. Our analysis revealed two statistically distinct Japanese motifs (or color-naming systems), which differed mainly in the extension of mizu across our color palette. Comparison of the present data with an earlier study by Uchikawa & Boynton (1987) suggests that some changes in the Japanese color lexicon have occurred over the last 30 years.

Kanji Recognition by Second Language Learners: Exploring Effects of First Language Writing Systems and Second Language Exposure

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Matsumoto, Kazumi

2013-01-01

This study investigated whether learners of Japanese with different first language (L1) writing systems use different recognition strategies and whether second language (L2) exposure affects L2 kanji recognition. The study used a computerized lexical judgment task with 3 types of kanji characters to investigate these questions: (a)…

The English or Foreign Language Major and Liberal Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liberal Education, 2009

2009-01-01

Study in language, literature, and culture has long been a defining feature of education in the liberal arts. Speaking, reading, and writing have traditionally stood at the heart of education because the arts of language and the tools of literacy are key qualifications for full participation in social, political, economic, and cultural life. Today…

Teacher Language Awareness Education and Pedagogy: A New Discursive Space

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pomphrey, Cathy; Burley, Suzanne

2009-01-01

This article attempts to recontextualise the dimensions of teacher language awareness (LA) highlighted by Svalberg ((2007) "Language awareness and language learning." "Language Teaching," 40, 287-308) by emphasising the role of pedagogy in achieving coherence in language education across the subjects of English (L1) and Modern…

The Physical Educator as a Language Teacher for English Language Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gomez, Conrado L.; Jimenez-Silva, Margarita

2012-01-01

The linguistic diversity in schools is increasing throughout the United States and as state and federal accountability increases in the instruction of English language learners (ELLs), many teachers who never before were asked to work with ELLs are now required to contribute to the education of these students. In some states, all education majors,…

Toward Professionalisation or De-Professionalisation? Teacher Education over the Past 40 Years: A Japanese Retrospection

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Suzuki, Shin'ichi

2014-01-01

In this paper, I will discuss how to enhance Japanese teacher education. After sketching teacher education from the mid-1940s to the 1960s, I sum up the main topics people discussed through each decade of the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s. Illustrating some of the current topics of teacher education in the first decade of the new century, I discuss what…

English Language Learners: A Case Study on Educators' Perceptions of English Language Learners as They Relate to Special Education Services

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Greaney, Leonard V.

2016-01-01

This qualitative study investigated the reasons why educators initiate referrals of ELLs for special education services in a sample of three educational organizations near a major city in a mid-Atlantic state. This study addressed how and why educator perception influenced the referral process and identification of English language learners into…

School Violence in Japan and the United States: Sharing American Practice with Japanese Teacher Educators.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Picklesimer, Billie K.; Williams, Jane L.

In December 1998, faculty from Middle Tennessee State University visited the Faculty of Education at Fukushima University in Fukushima, Japan. The purpose of the visit was to share with Japanese educators the processes through which school counselors are trained to deal with school violence in the United States. Because school staffing patterns…

A Micro-Ethnographic Study of the Communication/Language Development in a Japanese Child with Profound Hearing Loss before and after Cochlear Implantation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kretschmer, Richard R.; Kretschmer, Laura; Kuwahara, Katsura; Truax, Roberta

2010-01-01

This study described the communication and spoken language development of a Japanese girl with profound hearing loss who used a cochlear implant from 19 months of age. The girl, Akiko, was born in Belgium where her family was living at that time. After she was identified as deaf at birth, she and her parents were provided with support services.…

Sociological Implications of English as an International Language in Music Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kertz-Welzel, Alexandra

2016-01-01

Internationalization and globalization have created a global music education community which is not only linked by similar ideas, but also shares a common language. English functions as a global language and facilitates the international discourse in music education. While it is good to have a common language supporting international dialogue, it…

Language Education Policies and Inequality in Africa: Cross-National Empirical Evidence

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Coyne, Gary

2015-01-01

This article examines the relationship between inequality and education through the lens of colonial language education policies in African primary and secondary school curricula. The languages of former colonizers almost always occupy important places in society, yet they are not widely spoken as first languages, meaning that most people depend…

The Choice of Languages in Tibetan School Education Revisited

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nima, Badeng

2008-01-01

One of the most important issues in Tibetan education is resolving the problem of instruction language in the Tibetan regions. This paper provides a preliminary exploration of this issue and makes some proposals based on the bilingual state of today's education in the Tibetan regions and the needs of Tibetan as a language of instruction for social…

US Directory of Foreign Language Education Programs.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Grosse, Christine Uber

The preparation of a directory of foreign language education programs was a response to the lack of an information source for location or curricular content of programs in foreign language pedagogy, and followed the lead of other associations in the United States and abroad in compiling such information. Despite having developed guidelines for…

First Language Composition Pedagogy in the Second Language Classroom: A Reassesment.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ross, Steven; And Others

1988-01-01

Evaluated the effectiveness of using native language (Japanese) based writing methods in English as a second language (ESL) classrooms. The methods compared included sentence combining and structural grammar instruction with journal writing, controlled composition writing with feedback on surface error, and peer reformulation. Journal writing, but…

Preparing Secondary Education Teachers To Work with English Language Learners: English Language Arts. NCBE Resource Collection Series, No. 10.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Anstrom, Kris; DiCerbo, Patricia, Ed.

This document examines the education of secondary level English language learners within mainstream language arts classes. It provides teachers and teacher educators with an understanding of how mainstream language arts instruction can be designed and implemented to enhance academic achievement for these students. Research for this report included…

Now You Hear It, Now You Don't: Vowel Devoicing in Japanese Infant-Directed Speech

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fais, Laurel; Kajikawa, Sachiyo; Amano, Shigeaki; Werker, Janet F.

2010-01-01

In this work, we examine a context in which a conflict arises between two roles that infant-directed speech (IDS) plays: making language structure salient and modeling the adult form of a language. Vowel devoicing in fluent adult Japanese creates violations of the canonical Japanese consonant-vowel word structure pattern by systematically…

The functional unit of Japanese word naming: evidence from masked priming.

PubMed

Verdonschot, Rinus G; Kiyama, Sachiko; Tamaoka, Katsuo; Kinoshita, Sachiko; Heij, Wido La; Schiller, Niels O

2011-11-01

Theories of language production generally describe the segment as the basic unit in phonological encoding (e.g., Dell, 1988; Levelt, Roelofs, & Meyer, 1999). However, there is also evidence that such a unit might be language specific. Chen, Chen, and Dell (2002), for instance, found no effect of single segments when using a preparation paradigm. To shed more light on the functional unit of phonological encoding in Japanese, a language often described as being mora based, we report the results of 4 experiments using word reading tasks and masked priming. Experiment 1 demonstrated using Japanese kana script that primes, which overlapped in the whole mora with target words, sped up word reading latencies but not when just the onset overlapped. Experiments 2 and 3 investigated a possible role of script by using combinations of romaji (Romanized Japanese) and hiragana; again, facilitation effects were found only when the whole mora and not the onset segment overlapped. Experiment 4 distinguished mora priming from syllable priming and revealed that the mora priming effects obtained in the first 3 experiments are also obtained when a mora is part of a syllable. Again, no priming effect was found for single segments. Our findings suggest that the mora and not the segment (phoneme) is the basic functional phonological unit in Japanese language production planning.

Broca's area and the language instinct.

PubMed

Musso, Mariacristina; Moro, Andrea; Glauche, Volkmar; Rijntjes, Michel; Reichenbach, Jürgen; Büchel, Christian; Weiller, Cornelius

2003-07-01

Language acquisition in humans relies on abilities like abstraction and use of syntactic rules, which are absent in other animals. The neural correlate of acquiring new linguistic competence was investigated with two functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies. German native speakers learned a sample of 'real' grammatical rules of different languages (Italian or Japanese), which, although parametrically different, follow the universal principles of grammar (UG). Activity during this task was compared with that during a task that involved learning 'unreal' rules of language. 'Unreal' rules were obtained manipulating the original two languages; they used the same lexicon as Italian or Japanese, but were linguistically illegal, as they violated the principles of UG. Increase of activation over time in Broca's area was specific for 'real' language acquisition only, independent of the kind of language. Thus, in Broca's area, biological constraints and language experience interact to enable linguistic competence for a new language.

Recent Foreign Language Education Policies in Palestine.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Amara, Muhammad Hasan

2003-01-01

Investigates the development of foreign language education policies in Palestine at a time when the establishment of a Palestinian state has become a real option, and when, following the Oslo agreements, the Palestinians have become responsible for Palestinian education. (Author/VWL)

Do American born Japanese children still grow faster than native Japanese?

PubMed

Kano, K; Chung, C S

1975-09-01

Growth patterns of Japanese schoolchildren in Hawaii, composed of 2,954 boys and 3,213 girls aged between 11 and 17, were compared with those comparable groups of Japanese schoolchildren in Japan based on the data published by the Japanese Ministry of Education. Growth characteristics studied were height, weight, and relative weight index, weight/(height). The Hawaii-Japanese boys were taller at early ages but the difference disappeared by age 16. Native Japanese girls were shorter than Hawaii-Japanese until age 13, but they overtook the latter by age 14, exceeding them in height after age 15. A similar pattern was found in weights of girls but the Hawaii-Japanese boys remained consistently heavier by 5.0 to 9.0 kg than native Japanese. The relative weight measure indicated that the Hawaii boys were more "obese" than native Japanese boys for the growth period studied; whereas the same tendency was maintained until age 15 in girls. These observations indicate a marked degree of convergence of the patterns of physical growth of the two populations, whose differences were unmistakably in favor of American born children in earlier studies. It is concluded that the convergence is due largely to the improved environmental conditions in Japan in recent years.

Affective Education and Foreign Language Learning. The Challenge of Communication. ACTFL Review of Foreign Language Education, Vol. 6.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Disick, Renee S.; Barbanel, Laura

The affective education movement and applications to foreign language learning are surveyed. Affective, or humanistic, education seeks to include self-knowledge, improved interpersonal communication, and clarification of one's values. Research studies show that thinking and feeling are intertwined. Emotion is present in the classroom and cannot be…

Language Issues in Distance Education. Dunford Seminar Report (16th, England, United Kingdom, 1993).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

British Council, London (England).

A collection of articles from a 1993 British seminar on language issues in distance education includes: "The End of Distance Education" (Iredale); "The Logistics of Distance Language Teaching" (Turner); "The Open University and Language Issues" (Floyd); "Language Issues in Distance Education at Tertiary…

Contrastive Pragmatics of English and Japanese Offers and Requests.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Christianson, Kiel

This paper analyzes a study by Fukushima (1990) of the English offers and responses of Japanese English as a foreign language (EFL) college students and reports on an experiment designed to address the perceived weaknesses of Fukushima's work. Fukushima's study found that many Japanese EFL learners could not use appropriate levels of politeness in…

The Role of Language in Adult Education and Poverty Reduction in Botswana

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bagwasi, Mompoloki

2006-05-01

This study examines the role of language in reducing poverty in Botswana through adult-education programs. Because language is the medium through which human beings communicate and grow intellectually and socially, it should form the basis of any discussion involving the relation between development and education. In order best to respond to societal changes and bridge the gap between the less privileged and the more privileged, adult-education programs should be guided by language policies that are sensitive to this pivotal role that language plays. Language is important in any discussion of poverty reduction because it determines who has access to educational, political and economic resources. The author recommends that adult-education programs in Botswana take account of the multilingual nature of society and so allow learners to participate freely, make use of their indigenous knowledge, and enhance their self-esteem and identity.

New Frontiers for Japanese Youth

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tucker, Frank H.

1974-01-01

Japanese literature, television, movies, and school texts from 1935 to 1955 are analyzed for their influence and contribution to Japanese youths' pioneering spirit and frontiermindedness. "Asian Affairs" is published by the American-Asian Educational Exchange, New York. (DE)

Stroop phenomena in the Japanese language: the case of ideographic characters (kanji) and syllabic characters (kana).

PubMed

Morikawa, Y

1981-08-01

Utilizing a unique feature of the Japanese languages--that besides two syllabic orthographies, which have identical pronunciations, words with the same pronunciation may also be written in an orthography composed of ideographic characters--we have conducted an investigation of Stroop phenomena. The fact that pronunciations of the three Japanese orthographies are identical means that, if there are any differences between them in the Stroop phenomena observed, we can place the locus of this interference effect in the perceptual process. Five color names were written in the ideographic characters (kanji) and the two syllabic orthographies (hiragana and katakana). Color-congruent cards and incongruent cards were utilized in a color-naming task and a word-reading task. Mean required times for the color-naming condition and the word-reading conditions were compared with those for control conditions. Stroop phenomena were observed in both ideographic and syllabic orthographies. Significant differences in mean required times were observed between the ideographic and syllabic orthographies but not between the two syllabic orthographies. Interferences in comparisons of Japanese orthographies and color patch control conditions were much smaller than in the case of Stroop's (1935) experiment. A "Reverse Stroop Phenomenon" was observed only in the case of kanji on incongruent cards in the word-reading condition. The results support the hypothesis that both ideographic characters (in this case, kanji) and colors are processed in a parallel fashion in the non-dominant right cerebral hemisphere, while syllabic or phonetic characters are processed in the dominant left cerebral hemisphere.

Bilingual Children as Policy Agents: Language Policy and Education Policy in Minority Language Medium Early Childhood Education and Care

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bergroth, Mari; Palviainen, Åsa

2017-01-01

The current study examines bilingual children as language policy agents in the interplay between official language policy and education policy at three Swedish-medium preschools in Finland. For this purpose we monitored nine Finnish-Swedish bilingual children aged 3 to 5 years for 18 months. The preschools were located in three different parts of…

Unaccusative Mismatches in Japanese.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tsujimura, Natsuko

Two instances of unaccusative verb mismatches in Japanese are examined. An unaccusative mismatch is the situation in which a different accusative diagnostic singles out different classes of intransitive verbs within and across languages. One type of unaccusative mismatch has to do with group C verbs, or verbs of manner with protagonist control.…

I Can Learn Japanese.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rubin, Michael; Funato, Makiko

This set of materials for Japanese second language instruction was designed for students who can be taught most effectively through a functional, conversational approach. It is intended as a supplement to the regular course of study so that all students, regardless of ability level, can be provided with an effective instructional program. It…

Multiple, correlated covariates associated with differential item functioning (DIF): Accounting for language DIF when education levels differ across languages.

PubMed

Gibbons, Laura E; Crane, Paul K; Mehta, Kala M; Pedraza, Otto; Tang, Yuxiao; Manly, Jennifer J; Narasimhalu, Kaavya; Teresi, Jeanne; Jones, Richard N; Mungas, Dan

2011-04-28

Differential item functioning (DIF) occurs when a test item has different statistical properties in subgroups, controlling for the underlying ability measured by the test. DIF assessment is necessary when evaluating measurement bias in tests used across different language groups. However, other factors such as educational attainment can differ across language groups, and DIF due to these other factors may also exist. How to conduct DIF analyses in the presence of multiple, correlated factors remains largely unexplored. This study assessed DIF related to Spanish versus English language in a 44-item object naming test. Data come from a community-based sample of 1,755 Spanish- and English-speaking older adults. We compared simultaneous accounting, a new strategy for handling differences in educational attainment across language groups, with existing methods. Compared to other methods, simultaneously accounting for language- and education-related DIF yielded salient differences in some object naming scores, particularly for Spanish speakers with at least 9 years of education. Accounting for factors that vary across language groups can be important when assessing language DIF. The use of simultaneous accounting will be relevant to other cross-cultural studies in cognition and in other fields, including health-related quality of life.

Transforming Diversity in Canadian Higher Education: A Dialogue of Japanese Women Graduate Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mayuzumi, Kimine; Motobayashi, Kyoko; Nagayama, Chikako; Takeuchi, Miwa

2007-01-01

In this paper, we shed light on the dynamic nature of "diversity" in higher education from the perspectives of four Japanese women graduate students seeking possibilities through different ways of knowing. Using an autoethnographical methodology embedded in a dialogue format of "zadankai", we examine the stereotypes of Japanese…

Language-Through-Literature; A Literary Language/Language Arts Program for Bilingual Education, ESL and Other Activities in Early Childhood. Books 1 and 2.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

King, Paul; King, Eva

This language-through-literature program is designed to be used as a native language program (language arts/reading readiness), as a second language program, or as a combined native and second language program in early childhood education. Sequentially developed over the year and within each unit, the program is subdivided into 14 units of about…

Modeling Educational Content: The Cognitive Approach of the PALO Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rodriguez-Artacho, Miguel; Verdejo Maillo, M. Felisa

2004-01-01

This paper presents a reference framework to describe educational material. It introduces the PALO Language as a cognitive based approach to Educational Modeling Languages (EML). In accordance with recent trends for reusability and interoperability in Learning Technologies, EML constitutes an evolution of the current content-centered…

Applying the Flipped Classroom Model to English Language Arts Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Young, Carl A., Ed.; Moran, Clarice M., Ed.

2017-01-01

The flipped classroom method, particularly when used with digital video, has recently attracted many supporters within the education field. Now more than ever, language arts educators can benefit tremendously from incorporating flipped classroom techniques into their curriculum. "Applying the Flipped Classroom Model to English Language Arts…

[History of Japanese Committee for Anatomical Nomenclature].

PubMed

Kimura, Kunihiko

2008-12-01

This paper records a history of the Japanese Committee of Anatomical Nomenclature since 1990, as a supplement to the previous report (1991), explains a progressing of the edition of Japanese medical terms by the Japanese Association of Medical Sciences and the Ministry of Education, Sciences and Culture, and points out of some problems on terms in Japanese.

The Challenges of Increasing Capacity and Diversity in Japanese Higher Education through Proactive Recruitment Strategies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kuwamura, Akira

2009-01-01

There has been fierce competition for a shrinking pool of high school graduates in the higher education market in Japan in recent years. Along came former Prime Minister Fukuda's plan for an intake of 300,000 international students by the year 2020. These have placed Japanese institutions of higher education under further pressure to sustain their…

On "Japanese Style" Teacher Education Reform: Considering Issues of Quality Development under an "Open System"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Iwata, Yasuyuki

2015-01-01

A complication of teacher education policy in Japan is rooted in a gap between an image of teachers, which is held by society as a whole, and includes various character traits and the reality of Japanese university education. On the other hand, the expansion of an "open system" and lack of nationwide standard are making individual…

Language promotion for educational purposes: The example of Tanzania

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rubagumya, Casmir M.

1991-03-01

Kiswahili is one of the most widely used languages in East and Central Africa. In Tanzania, where it is the national language, attempts have been made to develop it so that it can be used as an efficient tool of communication in all sectors of the society, including education. This paper shows that although Kiswahili has successfully been promoted as the medium of primary and adult education, at secondary and tertiary levels of education, its position is still precarious. The notion that English and Kiswahili are in complementary distribution is rejected. It is argued that the two languages are in conflict, and that those who are in a better socio-political/economic position have more control of, and better access to, English. In such a situation the right question to ask is not in which domains English is used, but why it is used in such domains and who uses it. The paper further argues that the present sociolinguistic environment makes the use of English as a viable medium unsustainable. For this reason, insistence on the use of English adversely affects the learning process. It is suggested that if Kiswahili became the medium of education at secondary school level and English was taught well as a foreign language, this would help to promote both languages without jeopardising the learning process.

Beyond Methods: Components of Second Language Teacher Education. The McGraw-Hill Second Language Professional Series. Directions in Second Language Learning and Teaching.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bardovi-Harlig, Kathleen, Ed.; Hartford, Beverly, Ed.

This collection of essays gives an overview of the different disciplines that inform language teaching and language teacher education. They include the following titles: "The Case for Psycholinguistics" (Bill VanPatten); "The Place of Second Language Acquisition Theory in Language Teacher Preparation" (Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig); "Why Syntactic…

Trends, Issues and Challenges in English Language Education in Pakistan

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shamim, Fauzia

2008-01-01

This paper aims to critically examine the trends, issues and challenges in policy and practice of English language education in Pakistan. This is done first by historically reviewing the English language education policies since Pakistan's independence in 1947, looking particularly at policy objectives, implementation strategies and outcomes, and…

Europe versus Asia: Foreign Language Education Other than English in Japan's Higher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kobayashi, Yoko

2013-01-01

The era of Asia has been felt in foreign language education in Japan, with more and more youth reportedly opting to study Chinese and Korean as the second foreign language. The shift in popularity, from European to Asian languages, not only reflects the societal demand for the institutional rearrangement of academic staff but also stirs teachers…

The Japanese Experience of the NameExoWorlds Competition: Translating Official Information into Japanese to Enable Domestic Groups to Participate in a Global Event

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Usuda-Sato, K.; Iizuka, R.; Yamaoka, H.; Handa, T.

2018-02-01

Translation of information from English is an essential step toward ensuring the involvement of non-English speakers in global events. The NameExoWorlds competition, led by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), was held from 9 July 2014 to 15 December 2015. It was a unique event that invited the public to name celestial bodies. In Japan, language acts as a significant barrier for amateur astronomers and school students to participate in global events hosted in English. To address this concern, we established a domestic working group to set up a Japanese website and provided a translation of the IAU's official site for the NameExoWorlds competition. We also developed additional original information in Japanese when needed and sent announcements to a mailing lists of astronomy societies in Japan. As a result, 28% of the registered groups and 47% of proposals for names were from Japan, making Japan the most active country for these stages of the competition. After the competition had ended, we carried out a survey in the Japanese astronomy community and received 124 responses. We found that most of the Japanese participants referred to our official Japanese website in order to overcome the language barrier and participate in the competition. This article explores our work of translating the competition information into Japanese and our evaluation of the impact of this action on the uptake by Japanese astronomy enthusiasts.

Minority Language Abandonment in Welsh-Medium Educated L2 Male Adolescents: Classroom, Not Chatroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Price, Abigail Ruth; Tamburelli, Marco

2016-01-01

The education system has played a crucial role in Welsh language maintenance, with Welsh-medium education providing a central locus of language transmission. However, language transmission through education is not without pitfalls. This paper discusses the impact of top-down minority language transmission and the growing issue of formal domain…

Culture and Language Learning in Higher Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Byram, Michael, Ed.

A collection of papers concerning cultural studies within college and university second language programs, particularly for foreign students, includes program descriptions from a variety of countries and discussions of cultural education and cultural conflict. Themes include the nature of cultural teaching, cultural education as a discipline,…

Language and Inequality: Global Challenges to Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brock-Utne, Birgit

2012-01-01

This article is an abbreviated version of the BAICE Presidential Address held at the 11th UKFIET International Conference in Oxford on September 16, 2011. It discusses debates on the use of a foreign and ex-colonial language as a language of instruction (LOI) in African schools and argues that the quality of education cannot be seen as an issue…

Toward a Context-Specific Language Policy for Developing Countries with an Emphasis on Language-in-Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chandler, Martin Trent

A discussion of language policy and planning in developing nations with diverse student populations focuses on the role of language in education. Through review of the literature, history, and case studies, the relationship between language policy and the integration of ethnolinguistic minorities is examined. The first chapter surveys…

Educational Language Practices Described by Preschool Teachers in Norwegian Kindergartens

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hansen, Joakim Evensen; Alvestad, Marit

2018-01-01

This article focuses on educational language practices as described by preschool teachers in Norwegian kindergartens in groups consisting of one- to three-year-old children. Research indicates a relationship between high-quality childcare and language development, yet there is a need for more research on educational practices in high-quality…

Communicative, Educational, Pedagogical Objectives and Planning in Russian Language Teaching

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Evtyugina, Alla A.; Hasanova, Irina I.; Kotova, Svetlana S.; Sokolova, Anastasia N.; Svetkina, Irina A.

2016-01-01

The relevance of the problem stems from the necessity to distinctly plan educational process and set the goals for successful mastering of Russian language by foreign students in Russian higher educational institutions. The article is aimed at defining the foreign students' objectives for Russian language training, allowing them to get involved…

Abortion-care education in Japanese nurse practitioner and midwifery programs: a national survey.

PubMed

Mizuno, Maki

2014-01-01

While various reports have been published concerning ethical dilemmas in nursing and midwifery, and while many nurses and midwives struggle with the conflict between personal feelings raised by abortion and the duties of their position, few studies investigate the extent and conditions of abortion-care education for registered nurses (RNs) and certified nurse-midwives (CNMs) in Japan. To describe Japanese abortion-care education programs and to investigate program directors' or other relevant persons' perceptions of abortion-care education. Descriptive study was used to determine the extent of abortion-care education programs and the respondents' perceptions of abortion-care education. All 228 Japanese nursing and/or midwifery schools were invited to participate in the study. The response rate was 33.8% (n=77). Response rate varied by program type: 18.4% (n=45) for nursing programs and 29.0% (n=32) for midwifery programs. A confidential survey requesting information about curricular coverage of ten reproductive health topics related to abortion was mailed to program directors. The results show that the majority of CNM and RN programs surveyed offer didactic exposure to instruction in family planning and contraception, emergency contraception, legal considerations, and possible medical complications. However, few programs offer clinical exposure to all 10 topics. Of the respondents, 36% reported that lack of time and the low priority given to abortion-care education were issues of curriculum priority. As for educational materials, few textbooks or guidebooks exist on abortion care in Japan, and most educators use general nursing textbooks to cover this topic. Regardless of interest in or intention to provide abortion services as part of their practice, all providers of abortion-care education need to be knowledgeable about the full range of reproductive health options, including family planning and abortion, and to be able to convey this information to clients

Decolonisation, Globalisation: Language-in-Education Policy and Practice. New Perspectives on Language and Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lin, Angel M. Y., Ed.; Martin, Peter W., Ed.

2005-01-01

This volume brings together scholars from around the world to juxtapose the voices of classroom participants alongside the voices of ruling elites with the aim of critically linking language policy issues with classroom practice in a range of contexts. The volume is suitable for postgraduate students, researchers and educators in a range of areas.…

Classroom Management in Foreign Language Education: An Exploratory Review

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Macías, Diego Fernando

2018-01-01

This review examines studies in the area of classroom management in foreign language education. It is organized into three large areas: The first area focuses on the distinctive characteristics of foreign language instruction that are more likely to impact classroom management in foreign language classes. The second area provides a description of…

The Role of Prefabricated Language in Young Children's Second Language Acquisition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Perera, Natsuko Shibata

2001-01-01

A study investigated how young learners of English as a second language become both linguistically creative and capable of socializing in English through the use of prefabricated language (PL) (memorized chunks of sentences). Observations of four Japanese preschool children in two-way immersion programs suggested that PL acts as a scaffold for…

Attitudes towards the Use of Masculine and Feminine Japanese among Foreign Professionals: What Can Learners Learn from Professionals?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Itakura, Hiroko

2009-01-01

Subordinate femininity associated with feminine Japanese has been found to pose barriers for foreign language learners of Japanese, especially among Western female learners of Japanese. The present study investigates attitudes towards the use of both masculine and feminine Japanese among non-native professional speakers of Japanese. The latter's…

Multiple, correlated covariates associated with differential item functioning (DIF): Accounting for language DIF when education levels differ across languages

PubMed Central

Gibbons, Laura E.; Crane, Paul K.; Mehta, Kala M.; Pedraza, Otto; Tang, Yuxiao; Manly, Jennifer J.; Narasimhalu, Kaavya; Teresi, Jeanne; Jones, Richard N.; Mungas, Dan

2012-01-01

Differential item functioning (DIF) occurs when a test item has different statistical properties in subgroups, controlling for the underlying ability measured by the test. DIF assessment is necessary when evaluating measurement bias in tests used across different language groups. However, other factors such as educational attainment can differ across language groups, and DIF due to these other factors may also exist. How to conduct DIF analyses in the presence of multiple, correlated factors remains largely unexplored. This study assessed DIF related to Spanish versus English language in a 44-item object naming test. Data come from a community-based sample of 1,755 Spanish- and English-speaking older adults. We compared simultaneous accounting, a new strategy for handling differences in educational attainment across language groups, with existing methods. Compared to other methods, simultaneously accounting for language- and education-related DIF yielded salient differences in some object naming scores, particularly for Spanish speakers with at least 9 years of education. Accounting for factors that vary across language groups can be important when assessing language DIF. The use of simultaneous accounting will be relevant to other cross-cultural studies in cognition and in other fields, including health-related quality of life. PMID:22900138

Who Wants to Talk about Languages in Australian Education?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Morgan, Anne-Marie

2009-01-01

In this article, the author reports on a new symposium series which aims to provide a forum for dialogue across different interest groups of the languages field as a basis for considering a viable, encompassing language education policy; and, to position the languages community to address the important development of a national curriculum. Four…

Implementational and Ideological Spaces in Bilingual Education Language Policy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Johnson, David Cassels

2010-01-01

This paper presents results from an ethnography of language policy which examined language policy appropriation for bilingual learners in a large urban US school district. The purpose of this article is to explore the space left by current US language policy for developmental bilingual education and, specifically, the focus is on how a group of…

Discourse in Adult Education: The Language Education of Adult Immigrants in Sweden.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hill, Hannah

1990-01-01

A shortcoming of adult education theories is lack of attention to social, historical, and institutional contexts. A case study of language education programs for adult immigrants in Sweden illustrates how assumptions about participant-centered, needs-based education justified and legitimated the use of these programs as a tool for employment…

Receptive language and educational attainment for sexually abused females.

PubMed

Noll, Jennie G; Shenk, Chad E; Yeh, Michele T; Ji, Juye; Putnam, Frank W; Trickett, Penelope K

2010-09-01

The objective of this study was to test whether the experience of childhood sexual abuse is associated with long-term receptive language acquisition and educational attainment deficits for females. Females with substantiated familial childhood sexual abuse (n=84) and a nonabused comparison group (n=102) were followed prospectively for 18 years. Receptive language ability was assessed at 6 time points across distinct stages of development, including childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. Rates of high school graduation and total educational attainment were assessed during young adulthood. Hierarchical linear modeling revealed that receptive language did not differ between the groups at the initial assessment point in childhood; however, a significant group by time interaction was observed across development with abused females (1) acquiring receptive language at a significantly slower rate throughout development and (2) achieving a lower overall maximum level of proficiency. Significant differences in receptive language scores emerged as early as midadolescence. In addition, abused females reported significantly lower rates of high school graduation and lower overall educational attainment when compared with their nonabused peers. Exposure to childhood sexual abuse may be a significant risk factor for cognitive performance and achievement deficits for victims. These findings have particular public health relevance given the high prevalence of sexual abuse and that poor cognitive functioning and low levels of educational attainment can contribute to continued adversity throughout the life course. Early intervention may assist victims in improving cognitive functioning, altering deleterious trajectories, and promoting greater life successes.

Language Policy in Education: Second Official Language in (Technical) Education in Canada and Cameroon

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Takam, Alain Flaubert; Mbouya, Innocent Fassé

2018-01-01

It should be said from the outset that, apart from Esambe's (1999) MA thesis, no comparative research, to the best of our knowledge, has so far been devoted to the study of language policy in education in both Canada and Cameroon. Yet, these two countries offer a fascinating basis for comparison because English and French (which were instituted at…

Differences in spousal influence on smoking cessation by gender and education among Japanese couples.

PubMed

Takagi, Daisuke; Kondo, Naoki; Takada, Misato; Hashimoto, Hideki

2014-11-19

Previous studies have reported that spousal non-smoking has a spillover effect on the partner's cessation. However, discussion is lacking on the factors modifying that association. We examined whether the spillover effect of spousal non-smoking was associated with the couple's educational attainment. We used paired marital data from the Japanese Study on Stratification, Health, Income, and Neighborhood (J-SHINE), which targeted residents aged 25-50 years in four Japanese municipalities. We selected a spouse smoker at the time of marriage (target respondent), and set his/her smoking status change (continued or quit smoking after marriage) as an outcome, regressed on the counterpart's smoking status (continued smoking or non-smoking) and combinations of each couple's educational attainment as explanatory variables using log-binomial regression models (n =1001 targets; 708 men and 293 women). Regression results showed that a counterpart who previously quit smoking or was a never-smoker was associated with the target male spouse's subsequent cessation. However, for women, the association between husband's non-smoking and their own cessation was significant only for couples in which both spouses were highly educated. Our findings suggest that a spouse's smoking status is important for smoking cessation interventions in men. For women, however, a couple's combined educational attainment may matter in the interventions.

Innovations in Educational Equity for English Language Learners

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tung, Rosann

2013-01-01

This issue of "Voices in Urban Education" examines different aspects of asset-based education for English Language Learners (ELLs). Rather than write about ELL education as a problem, dilemma, achievement gap, or crisis, these innovative practitioners, scholars, and policy analysts shift the paradigm, reminding and urging us to embrace…

Language Policies, Identities, and Education in Refugee Resettlement

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Feuerherm, Emily

2013-01-01

This dissertation explores the creation and development of a community based language and health program for Iraqi refugees. The need for the program is contextualized by international, national and local policies of refugee resettlement, policies for language and education, and the interpretation of these policies on the ground. Ideologies…

Early Education of the Language-Learning Handicapped Child.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Easter Seal Treatment Center of Montgomery County, Rockville, MD.

The brochure descrbies a demonstration program on the early education of the language learning handicapped preschool child. Discussed are symptoms of the language learning problem (such as misunderstanding what is said), a remedial approach based on specific disability intervention, the Easter Seal Treatment Center, project objectives (such as the…

Interlingual Encounter in Pierre Garnier and Niikuni Seiichi's French-Japanese Concrete Poetry

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wong, Elaine S.

2015-01-01

In the latter half of the 1960s, without meeting each other and without knowing each other's language, French poet Pierre Garnier and Japanese poet Niikuni Seiichi [Japanese characters omitted] collaborated to create French-Japanese concrete poems. This essay examines the interlingual encounters in the two poets' bilingual poems that facilitate…

Decentralisation and Language Policy: Local Municipalities' Role in Language Education Policies. Insights from Denmark and Estonia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Siiner, Maarja

2014-01-01

The present article contributes to attempts to re-conceptualise the top-down perspective on language policy, by analysing the role of local and city governments' agency in language education policy making. Only few studies analyse the role of lower administrative levels in language policy, other than in implementation of governmental policies, why…

Remedial early numeracy education: can children identified as having a language deficiency benefit?

PubMed

Van Luit, Johannes E H; Toll, Sylke W M

2015-01-01

Growing attention has been paid to the possibility of supporting early numeracy in at-risk kindergartners. Furthermore, it is assumed that language proficiency is an important prerequisite in early maths skills. To examine whether remedial early numeracy education in kindergarten, which has been proven to be effective in general, is also beneficial for children with a language deficiency. Based on intensive selection, four different conditions were included: two groups received remedial education, one consisting of children being language proficient (N = 86) and one of children with a language deficiency (N = 26), and two groups followed the regular curriculum, one consisting of children being language proficient (N = 51) and one of children with a language deficiency (N = 24). Remedial education was for 1.5 school years (90 sessions, 30 min per session, twice per week), following the programme 'The Road to Mathematics'. During this period, the children receiving remedial education did not attend the regular maths lessons in the classroom, which were offered for at least 1 h per week. Effects were assessed for early numeracy and mathematical skills (operationalized as basic calculation fluency) in kindergarten and first grade. Three analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs) revealed that, when accounting for achievement at pre-test, children with a language deficiency who received remedial numeracy education performed better on early numeracy skills in kindergarten and first grade than kindergartners with a language deficiency that followed the regular curriculum. Furthermore, they were able to catch up with their language proficient peers in early numeracy. However, children with a language deficiency who received remedial numeracy education did not differ from children who followed the regular curriculum on mathematical skills, suggesting that benefits for numeracy did not generalize to more advanced skills of addition and subtraction. Since, in general, it can be