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In response to the economic pressures of globalisation, the Japanese government has sought to internationalise its universities while at the same time attempting to protect Japan's culture. To achieve its goals, namely the increase in the number of international students and the development of human resources, it has initiated a number of top-down, quantitative policies which promote the Internationalisation of Higher Education (IoHE) through an increase in the provision of English Medium Instruction (EMI) courses. This paper provides a critical analysis of the government's approach and how the policies have been implemented by universities. The paper contends that the government's approach has enabled universities, which do not wish to make substantive changes to their curricula, to peripheralise EMI courses. The consequence of this is that the government's current approach of promoting EMI to internationalise Japanese universities is unlikely to achieve its goals.

This reflective paper shares the experiences of a higher education professional living and working abroad and the long-term impacts of those experiences on their self-authorship journey through reflection ten years later. The story of this reflection focuses on how cultural differences and community ties helped to facilitate growth and self-confidence through navigating the challenges and complexities of living abroad in a culture with differing conventions. The paper concludes by sharing how reflecting on self-authorship during and after international experiences can help develop personal identities both as an individual and within a collective.

International student exchange is integral to internationalization at higher education institutions and global human resource development in Japan. However, border closures and restrictions on physical mobility since 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic forced universities to adopt virtual mobility models to deliver international exchange programs. This study explores students' experiences of taking virtual exchange programs and their pedagogical implications for future virtual exchange programs. In this paper, we present one case of virtual student mobility implemented at one national university in Japan. Analysis of multiple data sets, including student surveys (n=789), reflection papers (n=420), and interviews with a program administrator and a faculty member, revealed that this type of virtual student mobility program has strong merits in promoting internationalization activities. Students were satisfied with the diverse interdisciplinary academic content, flexibility in taking the course, and opportunity to engage with the host university faculty members and international students. Many have expressed their interest in studying at the host university in person.

This paper replicates models developed by previous research to study the effects of graduate education on new graduates' initial employment in the Japanese labor market. If education is the best investment for an individual's economic success, then graduate degrees are expected to provide an individual with higher-earning job opportunities. Despite this reasonable economic premise, previous research showed that master's degrees in the humanities or social sciences in Japan have, in fact, a negative impact on obtaining initial employment compared to those with only a bachelor's degree in the humanities or social sciences. This previous research, however, could not overcome omitted variable bias because of data limitations. Omitted variable bias is a key problem for research on education; therefore, this study uses new longitudinal data to overcome omitted variable bias and clearly demonstrate the robustness of these earlier findings. The empirical results of this study corroborate earlier work, showing that master's degrees in the humanities or social sciences do not provide graduate students with an advantage in obtaining initial employment, after controlling for potential bias. At the same time, this study also confirms that natural science majors have a higher probability of obtaining initial employment in comparison with humanities or social science majors. In other words, this paper offers a valid replication of existing research. This shows that the Japanese labor market structure for graduate students has, in essence, remained the same since previous research was completed.

This paper investigates the challenges EFL instructors faced while delivering online classes during the pandemic in Japan in order to help language instructors improve the quality of classroom interaction they provide. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven EFL instructors at the English Department of a Japanese university. Participants revealed how they overcame challenges to engage students in online class interactions. However, the instructors pointed out that the online pedagogical training that they had received was inadequate. The paper argues that universities should formulate standardized guidelines for online education and expand the opportunities provided for instructors to receive adequate training.

This paper analyses Japan's COVID-19 response drawing on a survey of more than 3200 prospective international students affected by the (colloquially named) #JapanTravelBan. The paper charts the evolution of Japan's COVID-19 response from the earliest border restrictions in February 2020 to the eventual blanket reopening to international students in Summer 2022. Subsequently, survey DATA provide evidence of (1) the drastic mental health effects for prospective international students during this time, (2) students' loss of agency due to the protracted uncertainty of both policy and communication from the Japanese government, and (3) potential damage caused to Japan's reputation as a study destination. Drawing on these findings the paper offers broader suggestions for appropriate student migration policymaking: greater transparency, attention to students' security throughout their study sojourn, an emphasis on stability, and resilience to crises.

Involving the global issues as listed in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in education is necessarily done in the education process, especially in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learning. Exposure to global issues is known to improve students' understanding, awareness, and ability to solve urgent issues faced by global society. This paper aims to find out the trend of research on the coverage of SDGs in students' learning process. This systematic literature analysis was done by applying Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Method. A total of 25 studies were recognized through a systematic search by using Sustainability, SDGs, and EFL as keywords. The result shows that the trend of associating SDGs with EFL settings was done mostly in Indonesia. In the recent year 2022, it reached the highest number of studies in the particular matter with 7 total of research. It was also found that the study involving SDGs on EFL learning was mostly done in the tertiary setting, compared with K-12, junior high school, secondary, high school, and other educational institutions. It was also discovered that the specific area of study enhances EFL students' learning achievement, environmental awareness, global citizen values, as well as students' levels of self-norms, beliefs, and self-value.

English education in Japan has traditionally focused on grammar over communication, and the country has struggled to compete internationally in terms of English proficiency scores. As the country works toward the internationalization of higher education, improving English education is an important issue. One potential solution is the use of topics that elicit students' interest and make them feel like part of the international community. This paper explored the use of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a topic due to their global importance and position, along with English, as a key to furthering the global citizenship of Japan's youth. Because of the substantial number of SDGs, not all goals can be realistically addressed in a single course. Therefore, to find topics tailored to students' interests in sustainability, this study examined the relationship between student interest in sustainability, International Posture (IP), and personal connection to SDGs. A survey was given to 266 first-year university students in general education English classes. A separate multiple regression analysis was conducted for the target variable, "Topic Interest" within English class for each goal, to determine how the effects and significance of variables differed for each SDG. Results showed that the IP subscale, "Intergroup Approach Tendency," was significant for 14 and "Personal Value" was significant for 16 of the goals. For internationally minded students engaged in the study of English as a foreign language, the SDGs could be a useful motivational tool.

This paper examines the differences correlation between instructor- and peer-based participation scores and oral proficiency in an EFL course focusing on oral communication. It finds that there is very little correlation between instructor-based and peer-based participation scores (r = 0.187, p = 0.053) and that the former is more associated with improvement in fluency (r = 0.266, p = 0.005), but that the latter is strongly associated with pre-class levels of fluency measures such as trimmed speech rate (r = 0.364, p < 0.001). However, neither measure of participation was particularly correlated with post-class levels of fluency. Therefore, some caution is required by instructors when using in-class participation scores. While it is important to encourage students to improve by participating in classes, the methods of assigning participation scores examined in this paper may not be appropriate as a part of the composite final grade in the class as they do not correlate well to final skill level.

This two-phase mixed methodology study, relevant to STEM educational stakeholders and researchers in emergency remote teaching (ERT) and ICT for education, explored college students' and graduates' attitudes and usage patterns of educational ICT in the U.S. and Japan and identified affordances of the technology for both text and audio-based activities of various lengths. The research was divided into two phases, with the first a qualitative analysis utilizing a questionnaire and coding, which informed the second phase, a quantitative analysis of device and activity associations utilizing k-means analysis. The findings suggest that these participants have a sophisticated understanding of their personal digital ecosystems and practice a form of dynamic "affordance switching" that matches devices to activities. This is reassuring when considering the need for a sudden move to off-site teaching necessitated by an ERT. The k-means analysis identified three main devices out of six commonly used devices and associated those three with specific task characteristics. The Laptop PC was the most universally associated device, followed by the smartphone and traditional paper-based nondigital devices. These findings can inform administrators seeking to supply devices to students during ERT on a limited budget.

Recent studies elaborating on the L2 learning experience component of the L2 Motivational Self System (Dörnyei, 2005, 2009), especially through a narrative identity perspective, mark a new direction in L2 motivation research. This paper extends this work by exploring the connection between the L2 learning experience and ideal L2 self components. Emerging from different theoretical origins, these components have proved difficult to reconcile. Especially in an EFL environment such as Japan, where learners may lack well-defined goals for their English learning beyond university entrance, investigations into the role of L2 learning experience in developing ideal L2 selves can offer practical value to both learners and teachers alike. Adopting an L2 narrative identity perspective (Dörnyei & Ryan, 2015), this study portrays the case of a Japanese pre-service elementary school teacher. Qualitative data was collected from her participation in an undergraduate English-through-drama course. Dramaturgical coding analysis revealed two interconnected L2 narrative dynamics related to her overarching ideal L2 self: one professional and one personal. Evidence is discussed for the tracing of these ideal L2 self-conceptualizations back to key episodes in her L2 learning experience. An important functional interrelation is suggested between L2 learning experience and the development of ideal L2 self-guides.

This paper considers the issues facing expatriate instructors teaching English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) graduation seminars (commonly known as the "zemi" in Japan) in Japanese universities and aims to establish better conditions to build Communities of Practice. Since the term "graduation seminar" is widely used globally, and might lead to preconceptions from readers, zemi is the term that will be used in this paper as a common example of Japanese English. This class is one that typically involves aspects of academic mentoring, pastoral care and socialization that differentiate it from regular classes. Lacking any personal experience of the zemi, teachers educated overseas are likely to have different expectations of the system than their domestic colleagues and students, creating a significant challenge in how they design and implement programmes. To investigate these issues, 14 semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with expatriate teachers of EMI zemis. Common themes described by informants included difficulties in creating a cohesive syllabus with limited support, challenges posed by thesis supervision, and mixed feelings towards mentoring and pastoral care. The data also revealed unique opportunities afforded to foreign instructors of these classes, which were unlikely to be available if they had not been entrusted with teaching a zemi. This paper seeks to fill a gap in the literature and provide insights into how foreign instructors experience the zemi. The knowledge gained can be employed to help develop Communities of Practice for such teachers. It is also hoped it will be of significance to those interested in comparative education, faculty asked to teach within educational systems of which they do not have personal experience, and anyone who works with Japanese learners, either in Japan or as international students.

This paper reports the study which explored the learning and teaching of the topics of climate change, sustainability and disaster risk reduction in secondary-level teacher education programs in England and Japan. Through interviewing teacher educators, the study particularly probed how teacher education programs used local knowledge and collaboration in discussing the above topics. Geography tends to be the main subject area for these global agendas, but its crammed curriculum is "an ongoing challenge" for teacher education. Some researchers demonstrate that university-based initial teacher education has "ignored" training teachers on how to implement environmental and sustainability education at schools. Besides, the inquiries into how initial teacher education equips geography teachers for the learning and teaching of disaster risk reduction are still scarce. This paper aims to fill this gap by bringing together the fields of geography education, climate change and sustainability education, disaster risk reduction education and initial teacher education.

In the ongoing pandemic context, short-term study abroad opportunities remain limited for many students. As a result, there has been a need for universities to develop educational innovations for home context learning to meet institutional intercultural learning aims. The purpose of this action research paper is to outline how a small-scale e-learning innovation was designed based on characteristics of intercultural citizenship education to encourage connections with, and responsibility towards, communities beyond national borders. The innovation involved critical exploration of a student-selected social issue using online texts, and reflections and blogging on the issue from individual, local, national, and international perspectives. A qualitative content analysis of reflections in blogposts of 49 students showed that the majority expressed connections with intercultural citizenship, though a minority rejected international identifications. The paper offers a timely and systematically designed intercultural e-learning innovation, implementable in other contexts, to support intercultural learning in a context of limited study abroad.

The International Virtual Exchange Project (IVEProject) has been connecting students across multiple countries through asynchronous forums on a large scale since 2015. However, considering the variety of virtual exchange methods and the advantages they bring to the field of foreign language learning, there is an increased need to explore the pedagogical possibilities of combining asynchronous and synchronous modalities, particularly across multiple institutions and countries. This short article reports on a pedagogical innovation which involved adding synchronous sessions conducted over Zoom to the asynchronous IVEProject forums. The authors arranged eight weekly Zoom meetings in which students from China, India, Japan, Jordan, Palestine, Türkiye and Syria participated in May-July, 2021. After the final session, a survey was administered to participating students and their teachers to explore their experiences. The results show that the majority of students appreciated and benefitted from the opportunity to communicate synchronously with peers from other countries. The paper also reflects on the benefits and challenges of combining synchronous sessions alongside the asynchronous IVEProject forums, aiming to derive lessons learned from this project in the hope that this will aid future EFL instructors in creating engaging virtual exchange projects which involve participants from multiple cultures and countries.

While several studies on study abroad have examined the impact of personal factors (e.g., gender, age, and family environment) on the decision to study abroad, a factor analysis has not yet been conducted on the reasons why some students choose not to study abroad. This paper highlights the role of academic study abroad programs in promoting global citizenship and internationalization within Japanese universities, driven by efforts of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. However, with the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting government policies and international travel, many uncertainties need to be addressed within university study abroad programs. To provide deeper insights, this research uses exploratory factor analysis to uncover common factors that influence the wants and needs of Japanese students considering study abroad programs. The subjects (n = 378) were first- to fourth-year university students of intermediate English language proficiency in the Kanto and Chubu areas of Japan. The research results indicate four main factors of Japanese university students who did not consider study abroad programs from 2021 to 2022 providing useful data for university administrators to create successful international experiences that support and address the needs of Japanese university students.

This paper examined whether a younger starting age of formal instruction on a foreign language is beneficial in expanding circle countries. An experimental study was designed to examine to what extent the five varieties of English language teachers are intelligible to Japanese- (JSLs) and Korean-speaking language learners (KSLs), who have different starting ages of formal English education. First, 132 JSLs and 214 KSLs participated in a listening test where the accents of audio stimuli were varied. The results showed significant differences in the listening test scores between the two groups of learners and among the five varieties of English. It was found that KSLs who started learning English language at an early onset demonstrated proficient listening performance. These findings provide support for the premise that "younger is better" in development and persistence of L2 sound identification. At the same time, both JSLs and KSLs demonstrated sensitivity to input varieties of English. This highlights the importance of exposing students in the classroom to various English accents that may encounter in real-world situations.

Three modes of deliberate vocabulary study were investigated to determine how well they assisted learners' recall of the meaning of target concrete nouns. Two modes of tablet-based augmented reality, one context-independent (AR1) and one context-dependent (AR2), were compared with each other and with paper-based word cards (WC) in the deliberate study of three sets of nonwords representative of concrete nouns. An orthogonal Latin square design was used to counterbalance 39 participants. We hypothesized that both AR conditions would be more beneficial than word cards in terms of participants' ability to retain the meaning of the target words as demonstrated by performance on Yes/No and meaning-recall test items, and that AR2 conditions would be more beneficial as compared with AR1 conditions. Generalized linear mixed models revealed that both AR study modes significantly outperformed word cards. The context-dependent and context-independent augmented reality study modes did not significantly differ indicating that a visuospatial bootstrapping effect (VSB) was likely at play regardless of how dependent on or independent of their respective scenes the items studied were. These findings offer pedagogical implications of mobile-based AR use in vocabulary study and language learning in general.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the legal issues of simultaneous Internet transmission of broadcasting programs of the Open University of Japan (OUJ) and to take legal measures to promote the mutual utilization of open university courses in Japan, the UK, China and Korea. Design/methodology/approach: The author examines the legal relationship regarding Internet simultaneous distribution of broadcast courses at the OUJ. The author then considers the legal relationship between the UK, China and South Korea regarding the simultaneous transmission of broadcast courses over the internet. Based on that consideration, this paper clarifies legal measures to promote its utilization. Findings: Internet transmission of broadcasting courses will be webcasting. Arguably, it can be assumed to be streaming and on-demand, albeit controversial. Webcasting will be publicly transmitted, but there is only an on-demand provision for Internet transmission. As webcasting is streaming and on-demand, it involves reproduction of broadcasting courses. Therefore, webcasting needs to provide streaming provision for public transmission rights and associate them with reproduction right. Originality/value: The originality of this paper lies in clarifying the legal response of the object, subject and rights of webcasting from the perspective of the OUJ, in order to dispel legal problems that may arise in the future against this unexplored phenomenon. Additionally, this paper is valuable in that it presents legal consistency from the point of view of the comparative laws of Japan, the UK, China and South Korea, based on an examination of the legal response in Japan.

This paper presents improvements made to a computerized adaptive testing (CAT)-based version of the FCI (FCI-CAT) in regards to test security and test efficiency. First, we will discuss measures to enhance test security by controlling for item overexposure, decreasing the risk that respondents may (i) memorize the content of a pretest for use on the post-test or (ii) share information about the items with their classmates who take the assessment later. Second, we will discuss measures to enhance test efficiency, so that a shorter test length can yield a desired accuracy and precision of the measurement. Specifically, we utilized collateral information in the form of a pretest proficiency estimate of each respondent for selecting items and estimating respondent proficiency level in the post-test. To shorten the total testing time further, we also allowed the test lengths to be different for the pre- and post-test. To analyze how these improvements affect the accuracy and precision (which we measure in terms of root-mean-square error) of Cohen's d, we conducted a Monte Carlo simulation and a "post hoc" simulation. Then, we calculated the minimal test length of the FCI-CAT whose accuracy and precision are equivalent to that of the paper-and-pencil version of the FCI. Consequently, we obtained the following three findings: (i) By using collateral information, we can achieve the accuracy and precision of the full-length FCI with fewer items via the FCI-CAT. (ii) For a class size of 40, we can control for test security while still reducing the sum of the pre- and post-test lengths of the FCI-CAT to a total of 33 items (17 items on the pretest and 16 items on the post-test), thereby reducing the testing time to 55%. (iii) If one's goal is to maximize test efficiency, the pretest length should be slightly larger than the post-test length. On the other hand, if the goal is to maximize test security, the pretest length should be smaller and the post-test length should be larger. If one desires a balance of these two goals, it would be reasonable to choose equal pre- and post-test lengths.

While perennial in the research landscape, empirical work investigating second language (L2) study emotions has proliferated in the past ten years (Dewaele, 2019). Nevertheless, this article argues there is space for more holistic yet detailed, social yet individual perspectives when conducting such research. As one avenue, the paper explores the potential of a "small lens" approach (Ushioda, 2016) to delve into particular emotional events "in situ" from learner-internal and learner-external points of view. It details an example of such an approach put into practice, in which the author examined the emergence of emotionally significant episodes for English as a foreign language undergraduates in Japan during short conversation sessions. The research explored data from discursive (video-recordings and transcripts of short conversations) and introspective (learner journals) angles. As a result, it was possible to observe the ways in which students' emotional moves were both afforded by and acted on those of the other through their social interactions, and through interactions with additional aspects of their ongoing psychologies and relationships. The article thus aims to promote further situated L2 emotion research examining the dynamic interplay between various aspects of learners' psychologies and the co-formed social context.

The entrance exams to Japanese universities have long been criticised for creating negative "washback" on English education in high schools in Japan, as teachers have often focused their teaching efforts on teaching grammar to prepare students for these exams rather than helping students to develop competency in spoken English. Many government initiatives have attempted to reform English language education by encouraging a greater focus on speaking competency. This paper outlines the nature of the Japanese university entrance exam system, considers the phenomenon of washback, and critically reviews the body of empirical research related to washback in the Japanese context. A systematic review was conducted on articles published between 1993 and June, 2022. These articles were subjected to thematic analysis in which four broad categories were identified: learner behaviour; washback to teacher behaviour; affective factors; and washback specifically from the introduction of the listening test. Findings suggest that more empirical studies are required to understand the complex nature of washback from university entrance exams, and that future research is required to examine potential washback from four-skills testing and, in particular, from the inclusion of a speaking test.

This reflective essay is written based on the author's experience as a study abroad program visiting resident director in Japan during the 2019-2020 academic year. As the resident director, the author served as the front line of communication and support for the international students on this program during an unprecedented crisis that impacted the world. The author describes the events that occurred in Japan during spring 2020, the challenges that arose as a result of the pandemic, and teaching strategies used to help students through the crisis. Based on this experience, the author makes recommendations for study abroad programs to consider as we look forward to resuming study abroad activities in a post-pandemic reality.