The Essential Guide to Doing Research

Until now, there has been relatively little research on the links between motivation and learning experiences within the domain of language learning. This volume attempts to fill that gap. It explores the developmental processes of intrinsic motivation and of autonomy in foreign language learning and investigates the links between learners' educational experiences and ways in which such learners develop certain types of motivation. The book draws on various sources in educational psychology and philosophy, including Dewey, Vygotsky, Bruner, Deci, Ryan, and Weiner. The book conceptualises language learning motivation and offers an overview of motivation research, both in educational psychology and in language learning. The author reports on research findings from studies of qualitative or interpretative and quantitative approaches, whose participants were EFL Japanese university students, and offers proposals for helping learners to motivate themselves.

Motivation and experience in foreign language learning

Language And Power In The Modern World

The role of English media in modern Japan: through the history of English-language newspapers issued by Zumoto Motosada

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The role of English media in modern Japan: Through the history of English-language newspapers issued by Zumoto Motosada

This pilot study sought to reveal identity-related conceptualizations of EFL use in Japanese media by employing a hermeneutic-constructivist process in which meaning emerged via the interdependence of researcher and subject. Specifically, the impetus of this small-scale qualitative inquiry was consideration of the potential negative impact of Japanese media on local ELL motivation-seeking to answer how ELT practitioners perceive comedic English use in Japanese media, and hypothesize what, if any, effect it exerts on ELL engagement rates within Japan. Research findings indicate that the majority of participants view the normalized form of EFL presented by local media as sustaining adverse effects on local perceptions of English-with the comedic usage of EFL thus recognized as potentially demotivating to local ELL participation. Nevertheless, researchers advise caution if attempting to develop the findings presented here beyond their original intention given the narrow scope of research subject populations. 要旨:この小規模な定性的調査は、日本のメディアにおける英語の使用が ELL の動機に どのような影響を及ぼすかを目的としている。コメディ番組における英語使用について英 語教師はどのように認識しているかを知り、更に、日本の英語学習者にどのような影響を 与えるかを理解するため定性的調査を実施した。参加者の大多数が、この英語の使用は 人々の英語の認識に悪影響を与えると述べた。従って、コメディで英語を使用すること は、英語学習の意欲を妨げる可能性がある。これらはあくまでも小規模の研究にすぎない ため、さらなる研究が必要となる。

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A Constructivist-driven Examination of English use in Japanese Media

With internationalisation continuing at an ever-increasing pace, Japan incentivises student mobility via study abroad (SA) programmes in the hope of cultivating the global human resources necessary for future economic growth. Against this background, proficiency in English emerges as a dominant linguistic and epistemic model, increasingly viewed as prerequisite to high-level employment. Seeking to address the sociological foundations of this practice, this inquiry incorporates ‘Western’ philosophical perspectives with Japanese academic voices to explore the market-driven imaginaries driving Japanese SA. Regarding behaviour, pressure falls on Japanese SA participants to follow implicit socialisation rules, whereby avoidance of co-national sojourners holds the potential to undermine deeply-held ways of being. Concerning learning, it is shown that, while ostensibly multicultural, the Japanese State maintains a preference for English when describing ‘the further development of Japan as a nation’, reinforcing essentialist-culturalist interpretations of SA and, indeed, foreign language. Finally, discourses surrounding post-sojourn benefits suffer from a lack of clarity and unrealistic targets that, in turn, subtly produce an informal–and, for many, unpayable–social debt between actor and state. 

Neoliberalism and the social imaginary: interpreting study abroad policy in Japanese higher education

Private educational activities designed to enhance student outcomes outside the formal schooling system are increasingly referred to as shadow education. In Japan, shadow education traditionally consists of for-profit cram schools or juku. Juku take many forms in Japan, yet their primary function is to offer students extra educational opportunities. As such, there is a strong belief that investment in shadow education leads to a higher educational level, thereby strengthening educational inequality by unfairly advantaging families of higher socio-economic status (SES). By applying Pierre Bourdieu’s theories of social reproduction and symbolic violence, this study seeks to elucidate the extent to which neoliberal policies and a lack of guidance from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) have allowed shadow education in Japan to sustain anti-meritocratic access to higher education. The study critically analyses how laissez-faire policy-making decisions, a reliance on juku attendance, and an emphasis on English language as a test subject operate in conjunction with neoliberal policies to disadvantage lower SES families through uneven access to educational opportunities. 

Christopher Samuell

Papers

A Constructivist-driven Examination of English use in Japanese Media

Neoliberalism and the social imaginary: interpreting study abroad policy in Japanese higher education

Shadow education, Bourdieu, & meritocracy: towards an understanding of Juku and inequality in Japan