This action research study focused on teacher trainees and their beliefs about the potential of TBLT in their future teaching situations. The participants were fourth-year undergraduate students enrolled in the Teacher Education Program at a private university in Japan. As part of their seminar work, the students read a series of articles describing the process of implementing TBLT. They also read articles describing relevant research studies focusing on TBLT. After seven weeks of lessons with each lesson focusing on a different article, the teacher trainees participated in a TBLT lesson as students. Their assignment for this portion of the seminar was to share their thoughts, specifically TBLT’s viability for their future teaching context. The data were collected through the use of a questionnaire with open-ended questions. Each question represents a research question for this study. The research questions elicited the teacher trainees’ opinions on the following issues: TBLT’s viability within the Japanese context; TBLT’s viability for low-level learners; weaknesses and strengths of TBLT; possible approaches for incorporating TBLT into English classes; TBLT and student motivation; and whether they plan to use TBLT in the future. The results indicated the trainees were mostly concerned with TBLT’s viability for low level learners.

Effective turn-taking is vital for successful participation in group discussions. In Japanese EFL contexts, group discussion often exhibits turn-taking behavior that is markedly different from that of competent English speakers, often limited to each participant making a short speech and brief comments of agreement or disagreement. Turn-taking behavior is also a major component of the interaction in cooperative board games, which encourage group decision-making and often exhibit more varied forms of turn-taking. This presentation describes the use of cooperative board gameplay in the classroom as a training aid to develop learners' turn-taking skills. First, the presenter will explain the characteristics of cooperative board games from a TBLT perspective, including the range of speech acts contained within their gameplay. Then an analysis of student transcripts collected over one semester will be presented to illustrate changes in student turn-taking behavior in a variety of contexts. The changes explored include differences in turn lengths, speech act use, and turn-taking patterns of learners. The presentation will conclude with some suggestions for using cooperative board games in the language classroom to maximize language use.

This presentation will describe a pilot study looking at sleep habits among 83 first-year (second-semester) university students in Tokyo. During the fall semester of 2021, a unique opportunity arose to investigate the difference in sleep habits between students studying online via Zoom and on-campus in a face-to-face setting. The first month of classes was conducted online due to Covid before returning to the campus classroom. Students completed a daily questionnaire (just before going to bed and immediately upon waking) over a one-week period during online classes and another week-long period upon returning to campus. The same students were studied enabling a direct comparison. The primary focus was was to discover differences in the following: 1) the difference in hours slept, 2) the effects of caffeine, electronics, and exercise before sleeping, and 3) variables that play a role in positively or negatively affecting sleep among the participants. The study found on-campus learning led to reduced time sleeping, but commuting time played less of a role than expected. Other activities such as part-time jobs at night, smartphone activity, and student clubs consistently showed negative effects on sleep.

The aim of this study was to assess moment-to-moment occurrences of Japanese language learning (LL) anxiety symptoms in a university classroom by evaluating the relationship between self-reported affective states and heart rate measures. Over a period of three sessions, undergraduate Japanese language students (5 males and 5 females, mean age = 19.7 years, SD = .95) wore Fitbit smart watches and performed a class-observed dialog while seated at their desks. Students were also asked how they were feeling at three intervals within each session: class start, pre-performance, and post-performance. Self-reported feelings of distress and embarrassment were found to have significant relationships with HR response. The current study advances the field by providing a new data collection system which effectively assesses affective states in a 'live' classroom setting. Real-time assessment of affective states can assist in identifying when shifts in affect occur, with the potential for these shifts to inform LL interventions.

The argumentative essay can be a challenging assignment for Japanese students of English due to both the language proficiency and the critical thinking skills required. In comparison to native English speakers and non-native speakers of various other cultural backgrounds, Japanese students are likely to have had less practice with written argumentation and may find it difficult to choose appropriate support, explain the relevance of that support, and refute counterarguments. This presentation will discuss ways in which teachers can address these challenges by incorporating instruction and activities based on the Toulmin Model of Argument, which research has shown to be useful in improving students’ written argumentation (Qin & Karabacak, 2010; Simon, 2008; Stapleton & Wu, 2015; Varghese & Abraham, 1998; Yeh, 1998). The presentation will also examine the connection between the goals given for an argumentative essay and the effectiveness of the writing produced. In addition, the presentation will provide examples of some common logical fallacies that can weaken students’ arguments and will introduce activities designed to help students recognize and repair such fallacies.

In recent years, quite a few studies have dealt with an issue of how learners autonomously learn, and the effect of an electronic version of portfolio (e-portfolio) on learner autonomy. Nevertheless, the number of studies that highlights the relationship between learner autonomy and their attitude towards e-portfolio seems to be limited. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the correlation between the university students’ learner autonomy and their attitude towards the e-portfolio, and the students’ assessment on the e-portfolio in terms of the improvement of their learner autonomy. The participants were first-year university students who took a general English course at a private university in Tokyo. The online surveys were administered at three points in a year while semi-structured interviews were also conducted twice in the same year. The participants were asked to use the e-portfolio that was shared with the teacher during the experimental year. The survey data was analyzed by the SPSS software, and the Pearson correlation coefficient. The results showed that there was a strongly positive correlation between the level of learner autonomy and their attitude towards e-portfolio, which indicates that students who are more autonomous tend to possess a positive attitude towards the e-portfolio.