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Analysis of the different methods of teaching English has become increasingly important as the subject of global Englishes receives greater attention. In Asia, more educators have been using textbooks that are culturally specific in their design; however, a limited number of studies have been conducted that demonstrate their practical efficacy. Building on a preliminary study into the effectiveness of culturally familiar materials in EFL education in Japan, a crossover study using both quantitative and qualitative methods was conducted to examine the influence of cultural familiarity on university students' reading comprehension, vocabulary retention, and interest in the texts. Seventy-eight lower-intermediate level EFL students from four intact classes were divided into two groups with equivalent vocabulary proficiency. Participants read four simplified newspaper articles that contained culturally familiar or unfamiliar proper nouns allocated using a crossover design. Pre- and post-lesson tests were used to gauge the effectiveness of culturally familiar proper nouns on reading comprehension, vocabulary retention, and interest of each article. The results revealed that students who read the culturally familiar version of the articles scored higher in reading comprehension and vocabulary retention, and generally reported greater interest and engagement. These findings provide important insights to EFL educators, learners and material designers.

With the growing importance of the United Nations' SDGs, many EFL textbooks addressing the goals have been developed. However, these textbooks generally discuss the applicability of the SDGs in Global South countries, and for university students in Japan, this has resulted in "SDG burnout," as they study the topic but often fail to find meaningful connections to the materials. This article builds on previous research into the efficacy of culturally familiar materials, and it takes SDG education in a new direction through the creation of materials in dialogue with social justice issues. Four lessons were created by the researchers, and as part of the post-reading assignment, learners had the autonomy to choose between culturally familiar or unfamiliar activities related to either the news or popular culture. A 6-point Likert scale was used to gauge student interest, which indicated that the inclusion of social justice issues may positively affect interest. A series of binomial tests revealed that learners preferred culturally familiar activities and activities related to the news. These findings provide important implications for teaching the SDGs as they suggest learners might be most receptive to culturally familiar materials that are based on the news and connected to issues of social justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The stereotypical image of Noh theater might call to mind the chanting of canonical pieces, and the slow movements of a traditional Japanese performing art. Gerry Yokota opens her influential work on the creation of the "canon" of Noh plays noting it is often taken up by scholars and media commentators alike as an art that is "quintessentially Japanese," one of the most "traditional" of Japanese cultural institutions.2 With pieces drawing on Japanese mythology and history, Noh is not typically associated with current events. Contrary to common ideas about Noh as a static art form that relies on the performance of canonical pieces, however, recent scholarship by Gerry Yokota and Susan Blakely Klein, for example, has revealed that the art form has always been influenced by the contemporaneous cultural contexts. Furthermore, Yokota's work has demonstrated that Noh has always been fluid, and in particular, in contemporary Japan, shinsaku Noh, or New Noh plays, in fact take up a wide array of social issues and current events.3 As the current global novel coronavirus pandemic has inspired art around the world, and therefore it is no surprise that, just as it did around the world, the novel coronavirus pandemic also inspired art in Japan--such as the New Noh play Amabie. This short paper introduces the new Noh play Amabie and examines both the meaning of the play itself and the way that it is staged, arguing that it represents Amabie as at once Japanese and global, and representative of both traditional and popular culture. This paper also introduces the appearance of new Amabie Noh masks, one made for commercial sale and one as an artistic object, as examples of the way in which Amabie's appearance in Noh can be seen as an act of fusion between popular culture and tradition, Japanese mythology and Greek mythology, and spiritual and commercial practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hōjō Tamio (1914-1937) is perhaps the best-known author of a genre of writing in Japan known as Hansen's disease literature, or work by people diagnosed with Hansen's disease (leprosy) who were subject to Japan's post-1931 quarantine policies. Hōjō's work has been variously read as a window in patient subjectivity, as a protest against government policies, or as acceptance of life in a quarantine hospital. Overlooked in Hōjō's oeuvre, however, are his two children's stories. In direct contrast to his writing for adults, these works do not specifically mention his illness; yet, for children diagnosed with a stigmatized illness and in many cases living in isolation from their families, these stories would have specific meaning. The stories were first published and circulated in the monthly magazine of Tokyo Zensei Hospital (today Tama Zenshō-en), Yamazakura. In 2016, however, both stories were republished as illustrated children's books. The timing is significant, coming after survivors of Hansen's disease successfully sued the Japanese government for violating their human rights and the publication of Hōjō's real name and family history. This presentation provides a close reading of the two stories and explores the significance of the republication and the meaning the illustrations adds to the text. Ultimately it demonstrates that the republication can be understood as part of a broader contemporary process of historical reconciliation and human rights education about Hansen's disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years Hōjō Tamio (1914-1937) has been receiving renewed critical attention as an author who popularized writing by people suffering from Hansen's disease that came to be known as "leprosy literature" or "Hansen's disease literature." This paper explores his depiction of a sufferer of Hansen's disease and social Others in his final novella, "Dōke Shibai," [The Farce] published posthumously in 1938 in both Chūō Kōron [The Central Review] and a collection of his works. Specifically, this paper looks at censorship in this piece to interrogate the way Hōjō created metonymic meaning between groups of social Others in order to critique those who perform alterity while turning their backs on those who are stigmatized by it. This paper provides new ways to engage with Hōjō's work and the social critique he embeds within it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kōda Rohan's (1867–1947) 'Tai dokuro' (Encounter with a Skull) is often treated as a tale of karmic retribution and transcendence. In addition to drawing on Buddhist philosophy, the text is rich in allusions to classical literature and philosophy. Yet, as this paper argues, Rohan's tale is decidedly modern. His depiction of illness places his story in dialogue with modern regimes of health, gender, and class, while also drawing on traditional notions of illness and Buddhist aesthetics of decay as associated with the Kusōzu (Nine Stages of Death Scrolls). For centuries, Hansen's disease was feared as an illness that reduced sufferers to a living corpse, and the 1873 discovery of bacilli that caused the illness did little to assuage public fear – rather, the new attention to the disease increased social stigma. Rohan's 1890 piece, written before Japan's 1907 legislation calling for quarantine of sufferers in some cases, draws on modern understandings of Hansen's disease while at the same time complicating the stigma surrounding the disease. Through a close examination of 'Encounter with a Skull', I draw attention to the meaning of illness and the abject woman, as well as the play between archetype and innovation in this distinctly 'modern' text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of the different methods of teaching English has become increasingly important as the subject of global Englishes receives greater attention. In Asia, more educators have been using textbooks that are culturally specific in their design; however, a limited number of studies have been conducted that demonstrate their practical efficacy. Building on a preliminary study into the effectiveness of culturally familiar materials in EFL education in Japan, a crossover study using both quantitative and qualitative methods was conducted to examine the influence of cultural familiarity on university students' reading comprehension, vocabulary retention, and interest in the texts. Seventy-eight lower-intermediate level EFL students from four intact classes were divided into two groups with equivalent vocabulary proficiency. Participants read four simplified newspaper articles that contained culturally familiar or unfamiliar proper nouns allocated using a crossover design. Pre- and post-lesson tests were used to gauge the effectiveness of culturally familiar proper nouns on reading comprehension, vocabulary retention, and interest of each article. The results revealed that students who read the culturally familiar version of the articles scored higher in reading comprehension and vocabulary retention, and generally reported greater interest and engagement. These findings provide important insights to EFL educators, learners and material designers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]