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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.

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 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.

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.

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 cla;sses. 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quality inclusive education has been guaranteed at the international policy level, but for inclusive education to be realized, teachers must be prepared to teach students with a wide variety of support needs. With well over a billion English language learners worldwide, and considering the fact that language learning can present many unique barriers to students with disabilities, the TESOL field has a growing need to consider how to best train teachers to teach inclusively. English language teachers (ELTs) generally lack training to teach students with disabilities, and little research has been done to identify specific training needs. If language learning environments are to honor the human right to inclusive education, then this is a critical research gap to close. This study reports on the use of a novel instrument, the Inclusive Practices in English Language Teaching Observation Scale (IPELT), in combination with post-observation interviews, to determine specific training needs among ELTs working at the postsecondary level in Japan. Magnitude coding of IPELT results and thematic analysis of field notes and interview data from 13 participants suggests that ELTs in this particular context would likely benefit from training in differentiation and specific considerations for teaching students with disabilities, as well as identifying possible students with disabilities. The participants also demonstrated a foundational skill set to create inclusive learning environments despite a general lack of relevant training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Micro-credential is gaining prominence among higher education institutions in the Asian region to provide opportunities for lifelong learning and to address the gap between industry needs and the skills of different professionals and skilled workers. This study aims to propose a quality assurance (QA) framework to ensure the quality of micro-credentials offered by three collaborating universities from Japan and Philippines. The proposed QA framework could be used to assess the quality of microcredentials in terms of design, content, learning experiences, learning environment, and assessment. The framework could also be used to evaluate the implementation of micro-credentials by other higher education institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]