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The action-oriented approach (AoA) is a powerful basis to inform teaching, learning, and assessment in the classroom that identifies learners as social agents and focuses on language learning through language use. This paper answers the call for developments that help teachers teach and learners learn in an AoA-informed way. We argue that cognitive discourse functions (CDFs) align with AoA, helping to develop learner thinking by focusing on the learners' use of language. We complement our conceptual discussion referring to the process of developing a self- and peer-assessment tool informed by AoA and CDFs and the initial application of this tool in an advanced academic writing course in a Japanese university with B1 and B2 level students. We discuss how this tool can guide learners' understanding of their writing process and fosters learners' responsibility for deciding how they mobilize their linguistic resources to express particular language functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the potential of learner-initiated exploratory practice (EP), which encourages learners to set their own investigative agenda based on their curiosity-driven puzzles. A case study was conducted in a remedial course for undergraduate students at a university in Japan. Data included student puzzles, posters, and reflective questionnaires. Student investigations of their puzzles remind teachers and researchers of the affordances of learning from learners. The results suggested that, despite their previously disoriented attitudes towards learning English, this form of fully inclusive practitioner research, EP, provides learners with an opportunity to realize their curiosity and reinvigorate their motivation towards language learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the implementation of a language learning project in a Japanese EFL classroom in which the trigger, or motivational energy for involvement, came from interacting with English-speaking international students. The project provided a context to investigate the trajectory of one group's (three learners) sustained engagement across three tasks that formed the subgoals of the project. Data sources include learner diaries, engagement questionnaires, and transcripts of task conversations, which together were used to describe the level of engagement for each learner at key times throughout the project. The findings indicate that engagement is sustained by certain flow-like conditions during tasks (i.e. control, interest, challenge-skill balance), group cohesion among project members, and a growing focus on the long-term goal of the project. The results highlight project design features that teachers should consider when implementing projects with the purpose of engaging students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of English as a multilingua franca (EMF) positions English within multilingualism, and EMF awareness prepares students to communicate effectively in this multilingual world of mobility. The present paper explores how, if ever, EMF-aware pedagogic intervention influences Japanese students' perceptions of their communicative practices, particularly for English-major undergraduates in L1-shared classrooms. This intervention was made by providing opportunities for participants to engage in EMF and by examining their first-hand experiences and published EMF communication extracts in the classrooms. Empirical data from an open-ended questionnaire demonstrate that multilingual and transmodal accommodation was a way for them to notice and take advantage of global networks, develop capability and confidence in communication, and foster sensitivity to interactants' backgrounds. The data also illustrate the invaluable role of individual multilingual experiences as classroom 'materials', and suggest that discussing these experiences potentially turns L1-shared classrooms into EMF scenarios through foregrounding students' multilingual repertoires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This pilot study explores the apologies Japanese nursing college students thought they would use in their L1 (i.e. Japanese) and their L2 (i.e. English) when bumping into each other. The students completed a questionnaire, the results of which indicated that they believed they should always apologize for bumping into someone. The paper describes apologies students expected to use in both languages and their observations of real-world apologies in Japan and the US. After reviewing differences between their L1 and L2 apologies and their perceived and observed apologies, the paper discusses students’ sociopragmatic, pragmalinguistic, and linguistic discoveries. The findings have implications for instructors who are interested in investigating and teaching the speech act. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper I discuss ways that Applied Linguistics literature on topics in academic and professional writing can be used in a multidisciplinary graduatelevel EAP class. I focus on three main uses: providing students with information about issues in academic and professional writing; helping them make comparisons of form and style with academic articles in their own fields; and serving as resources for common and formulaic expressions that can be incorporated into their own writing. The paper includes a discussion of the strengths and limitations of this approach in a foreign language setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Negotiation of language form is thought to engage learning processes by helping learners to notice gaps in their developing L2 and find target-like ways of filling them. Self-transcription, where learners work together to find language errors in recordings of their own oral output, is an awareness raising exercise that encourages such negotiation. This paper examines the problem-solving efforts of a class of Japanese students as they worked on a transcription exercise in English. It describes the various resources they made use of while tackling L2 problems and considers some of the cognitive processes underlying their decisions. This small-scale study shows how these learners effectively negotiated form while working independently of the teacher. Recordings of their discussions reveal a depth of cognitive processing thought to be beneficial to language development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While it is common for teachers to focus on learners’ errors in the EFL classroom, little attention is given to the ‘errors’ that native English speakers make in their mother tongue. This paper reports on a study to assess the reaction of Japanese university students to an activity that primarily required identifying ‘ungrammatical’ forms in audio clips of English NSs. The results of a post-activity questionnaire suggest that exposure to this particular feature of spoken language may make students less inhibited about making errors and thus help to overcome their reticence to speak in class. These initial findings were confirmed in a follow-up study conducted at a second Japanese university. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper describes ‘mentor development’, a means of collaborative professional development through peer observation that was initiated by the author with 18 peers, all native English speaker EFL teachers at Kanda University of International Studies in Chiba, Japan. It shows how such a programme allows teachers to learn from one another through classroom observations and peer mentoring, where observers practise teacher-educator skills by taking on the role of ‘mentor’ in post-observation conferences. A third colleague attends the post-observation conference with the aim of helping both the mentor and observed teacher reflect on and learn from their interaction during the conference, and to explore the implications these discoveries may have for effective teaching and mentoring. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Situated evaluation views learning as a phenomenon which occurs in socioculturally specific contexts (Bruce and Rubin 1992). Its proponents recognize two forms of curriculum: one is a documented version, which proposes idealized teaching practices across various teaching situations; and the other is a realized version of curriculum implementation in actual classrooms. This paper explores how communicative language teaching (CLT) is understood and implemented by Japanese secondary school English teachers. In order to understand the successes and failures of curriculum implementation, we need to examine it in real contexts. The longitudinally collected data suggest that teachers have difficulty in integrating CLT and form-based instruction, although documented instructional goals imply a smooth integration of the two. Teachers also report that implementation of CLT is not simple because of various situational constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]