Abstract
Meditation practice in educational settings has been shown to improve students' motivation for learning and academic performance. However, these effects are suggested to be achieved only when students actively engage in the meditation exercise. The key factor is the students' acceptance of the in-class meditation, which is a prerequisite for them to benefit the most from the practice. To better incorporate meditation into higher education, a detailed examination of the students' acceptance regarding meditation practice is necessary. In the present study, 110 Japanese university undergraduates who took German as a second foreign language practiced for 3 minutes either with a guided meditation or a counting breath technique at the beginning of each class. A questionnaire survey was conducted when 4 lectures were over, to collect both quantitative and qualitative data regarding their attitude towards the meditation practice. The results revealed relatively high levels of acceptance regarding the meditation practice and showed that the two meditation techniques were equally accepted. Furthermore, many students rated meditation particularly highly when they felt ''more focused'' or ''more relaxed'', suggesting that these were especially decisive factors in their acceptance of the exercises. These results may contribute to a better understanding of the acceptance of meditation in foreign language education.
