Global ETD Search

1	Translanguaging in Japan: Perspectives and potentials in EFL academic and creative writing / 日本におけるトランスランゲージング：学術的・創造的な英語としての外国語文章においての知見と可能性 Blake, Turnbull 25 March 2019 (has links) 京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(人間・環境学) / 甲第21846号 / 人博第875号 / 新制\|\|人\|\|210(附属図書館) / 2018\|\|人博\|\|875(吉田南総合図書館) / 京都大学大学院人間・環境学研究科共生人間学専攻 / (主査)准教授中森誉之, 教授水野眞理, 准教授 PETERSON Mark / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Human and Environmental Studies / Kyoto University / DGAM Translanguaging EFL education Japanese EFL Academic writing Creative Writin 361
2	Language learning in the digital game Minecraft: A mixed methods study of Japanese EFL learners / デジタルゲームマインクラフトを通した言語学習：日本人EFL学習者を対象とした混合研究 White, Jeremy Stewart 23 March 2023 (has links) 京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(人間・環境学) / 甲第24687号 / 人博第1060号 / 新制\|\|人\|\|248(附属図書館) / 2022\|\|人博\|\|1060(吉田南総合図書館) / 京都大学大学院人間・環境学研究科共生人間学専攻 / (主査)准教授 PETERSON Mark, 准教授中森誉之, 教授勝又直也, 准教授 Mills Daniel James / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Human and Environmental Studies / Kyoto University / DFAM Game-based learning Japanese EFL Interaction Play Gender Vocabulary acquisition 361
3	PRE-SERVICE EFL TEACHERS' POSSIBLE SELVES: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF THE SHIFTING DEVELOPMENT OF PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES Itoi, Emi January 2014 (has links) The purpose of this interpretive qualitative case study was to explore how possible selves of four pre-service EFL teachers changed during their last 10 months at university and what factors were involved in developing and changing their possible selves. The concept of possible selves is a future-oriented self-concept that involves one's motivation to move toward one's ideal future selves and move away from one's feared selves. Ought-to selves are also believed to work as motivators. The main data sources included two written possible selves stories from each participant, four sets of semi-structured interviews, short e-mail messages with emoticons, and official practicum reports. Through a narrative analysis of these data, I found that participants' rather general possible teacher selves changed to more realistic, elaborated ones after they had experienced practicums. These revised possible selves were not always in the direction of more positive, more ideal selves, but also toward feared and ought-to teacher selves. The data analysis also revealed that the participants found a large gap between their actual L2 selves and ought-to L2 selves, and consequently they developed feared L2 selves who would likely get embarrassed in front of others because of their poor English speaking ability. However, they took no action to prevent their feared L2 selves because becoming fluent in English was possibly seen as a temporally distant unreachable goal that did not merit an investment of time and energy. The study also found that interpersonal relationships with parents, teachers in the past, cooperating teachers during practicum, students at school, and peers were important factors contributing to participants' developing and changing possible selves. I end with suggestions that policy makers, universities, teacher educators, and supervising teachers of student teachers seriously consider issues that will help improve English education in Japan as well as lead to better teacher education programs to prepare EFL pre-service teachers for the rather harsh conditions in the teaching profession in Japan. / Teaching & Learning Teacher Education English as A Second Language Japanese Efl Teachers Longitudinal Case Study Narrative Inquiry Possible Selves Preservice Teachers Teacher Identity
4	Validating a set of Japanese EFL proficiency tests : demonstrating locally designed tests meet international standards Dunlea, Jamie January 2015 (has links) This study applied the latest developments in language testing validation theory to derive a core body of evidence that can contribute to the validation of a large-scale, high-stakes English as a Foreign Language (EFL) testing program in Japan. The testing program consists of a set of seven level-specific tests targeting different levels of proficiency. This core aspect of the program was selected as the main focus of this study. The socio-cognitive model of language test development and validation provided a coherent framework for the collection, analysis and interpretation of evidence. Three research questions targeted core elements of a validity argument identified in the literature on the socio-cognitive model. RQ 1 investigated the criterial contextual and cognitive features of tasks at different levels of proficiency, Expert judgment and automated analysis tools were used to analyze a large bank of items administered in operational tests across multiple years. RQ 2 addressed empirical item difficulty across the seven levels of proficiency. An innovative approach to vertical scaling was used to place previously administered items from all levels onto a single Rasch-based difficulty scale. RQ 3 used multiple standard-setting methods to investigate whether the seven levels could be meaningfully related to an external proficiency framework. In addition, the study identified three subsidiary goals: firstly, toevaluate the efficacy of applying international standards of best practice to a local context: secondly, to critically evaluate the model of validation; and thirdly, to generate insights directly applicable to operational quality assurance. The study provides evidence across all three research questions to support the claim that the seven levels in the program are distinct. At the same time, the results provide insights into how to strengthen explicit task specification to improve consistency across levels. This study is the largest application of the socio-cognitive model in terms of the amount of operational data analyzed, and thus makes a significant contribution to the ongoing study of validity theory in the context of language testing. While the study demonstrates the efficacy of the socio-cognitive model selected to drive the research design, it also provides recommendations for further refining the model, with implications for the theory and practice of language testing validation.
5	The effects of types of question on EFL learners' reading comprehension scores Ehara, Kazuhiro January 2008 (has links) Little empirical research has been conducted on what effect task-based reading instruction with reading questions will have on reading comprehension, particularly in the domain of second language reading comprehension. The purpose of this research is to investigate which type of questions, textually explicit (TE) or inferential (IF) questions, will best facilitate text comprehension, and which type will have the most beneficial effect on Japanese EFL learners at three proficiency levels (low, intermediate, and high). In the study, two groups of Japanese senior high school students (N = 69) were classified into three different proficiency groups. One group received instruction emphasizing TE questions while the other received instruction emphasizing IF questions. TE questions are text-bound questions whose answers are locally and explicitly stated in the text. In contrast, IF questions are more knowledge-bound questions whose answers largely depend on readers' cognitive resources, such as relevant linguistic knowledge, background knowledge, world knowledge or context. The different treatments lasted five months. The results were statistically analyzed. The study revealed a significant task effect for reading questions on Japanese EFL learners' reading. Although one type of instruction did not have a significantly better effect than the other, the large between-groups gain gap seems to imply that instruction emphasizing IF questions might facilitate text comprehension more. The study also found that the participants who received instruction emphasizing IF questions benefited from their instruction regardless of proficiency level. With regard to instruction emphasizing TE questions, the higher proficiency participants benefited significantly more from their instruction than the lower proficiency students. The study suggests that reading teachers should use a task-based teaching method with reading questions. If the use of reading questions is already a part of reading teachers' methodology, they should include not only commonly used textually explicit reading questions but also inferential ones. The study suggests that implementing these changes might help break the cycle of translation-bound reading instruction with its overemphasis on lower-level processing, and might lead students to read texts in a more meaningful, interactive way. / CITE/Language Arts Education, Reading Education, Language and Literature Classroom Research Task-based Reading Instruction Reading Questions Textually Explicit Questions Inferential Questions Japanese Efl Learners
6	Examination of the (si) and (ʃi) confusion by Japanese ESL learners Nogita, Akitsugu 30 August 2010 (has links) It is a general belief in Japan that the English /s/ and /ʃ/ before high front vowels (as in "see" and "she") are problematic for Japanese ESL (English-as-a-second-language) learners. Some research has also reported the /s/ and /ʃ/ confusion by Japanese ESL learners. Their pronunciation errors are often explained based on phonetics, but there are reasons to believe that the learners’ knowledge of the phonemes of the target words is at fault. This study examines 1) whether monolingual Japanese speakers distinguish the [si] and [ʃi] syllables in both perception and production in the Japanese contexts and 2) what would be the sources of Japanese speakers’ challenges in mastering the distinction between [si] and [ʃi] in their English production if Japanese speakers can produce and perceive the difference between these syllables. This study conducted two experiments. In the first experiment, 93 monolingual Japanese speakers between the ages of 17 and 89 in and around Tôkyô read aloud the written stimuli that had [si] and [ʃi] in the Japanese contexts, repeated the sound stimuli that had [si] and [ʃi] in the Japanese contexts, and listened to the [si:] and [ʃi:] syllables in isolation recorded by a native speaker of Canadian English. The results showed that the participants all distinguished [si] and [ʃi] in both perception and production regardless of their ages. Based on these results, I hypothesized that the [s] and [ʃ] confusion by Japanese ESL learners is caused by misunderstanding, rather than an inability to articulate these sounds. In the second experiment, 27 Japanese ESL students were recorded reading an English passage. The passage contains /s/ (7 times) and /ʃ/ (11 times) before high front vowels. After the reading, the participants were taught the basic English phonological system and the symbol-sound correspondence rules such as “s”-/s/ and “sh”-/ʃ/. The lesson lasted 40 minutes during which the participants were also interviewed to find out their awareness of the symbol-sound correspondence. No articulation explanations were given during the lesson. After the lesson, the participants read the same passage. The results showed that /s/ and /ʃ/ were mispronounced 39 and 67 times respectively in total by the 27 participants before the lesson, but only 7 and 19 times after the lesson. These changes are statistically significant. Moreover, the interview during the lesson revealed that the participants lacked phonological awareness in English as well as the knowledge of the symbol-sound correspondence rules. This study concluded that many of the mispronunciations by Japanese ESL learners, including /s/ and /ʃ/, can be solved by teaching the English phonics rules and some basic phonological rules without teaching the articulation of these sounds. Japanese EFL post alveolar fricative palato alveolar fricative alveo palatal fricative [ʃ] s and sh s vs sh [s] and [ʃ] confusion distinction between [s] and [ʃ] L2 phonology second language phonology pronunciation problem ESL pronunciation orthography spelling rule phonics 42 sounds katakana English phoneme awareness Japanese pronunciation English pronunciation s vs ʃ before i orthographic interference loanword interference palatalization depalatalization hyper correction phonological awareness hypercorrection overgeneralization pronunciation rule orthographic s and ʃ s-sh s-ʃ spelling acquisition phonics for adult

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