This paper explores the concept of quality assurance and its application to university language education programs. It begins by surveying approaches to external and internal quality assurance at leading universities around the world and among institutional organizations involved in the formulation of educational policy in order to understand recent developments in quality assurance internationally and in Japan. It then proceeds to consider the relationship between quality assurance and the notion of quality culture, taking the position that formal and structural measures for implementing quality assurance cannot lead to a higher quality in educational outcomes within institutions of higher education unless attention is also given to developing a quality culture. Finally, it considers the importance of developing a quality framework at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (APU) in light of the Top Global University (or SGU) project and provides recommendations on how to address the issue of quality in language education programs at APU.

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This study sought to determine the vocabulary gap for domestic Japanese learners of English prior to college entrance. Teacher-researchers analyzed the 1K and 2K lists from the General Service List (GSL) (West, 1953) and created two separate sets of Yes/No tests for these respective lists. The 2K list was divided randomly into nine Yes/No tests of approximately 110 items each, and each test was given to different groups of approximately 37 pre-intermediate English learners (total N=334) at a medium-sized Japanese university in the fall of 2013. The 1K list was similarly divided into eight Yes/No tests and given to the same-sized groups (total N=298) in the fall of 2014. Test-takers claimed to know about 47% of the 2K list and 72% of the 1K list items after correcting for false alarm rates of 8 and 9% respectively. The results support Browne’s (1998) claim that high school English curricula do not develop adequate depth of knowledge of the most frequent English vocabulary among high school English learners in Japan. This has led to creating a list of the “Forgotten 400” unfamiliar 1K and 2K words, which is provided along with the item facilities (IF) for each of these words.

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Internet and smartphone technology provides the English language learner with access to free and accessible dictionary technology like never before. However, the implications of this dramatic shift have yet to be fully addressed in dictionary usage and comparative effectiveness research. The primary aim of this research is to establish an up-to-date picture of Japanese college students’ usage of traditional electronic and Internet-based dictionary applications. A questionnaire was conducted and responses analyzed from 498 undergraduate college students taking compulsory EFL courses. Follow-up interviews were also conducted with five students and their responses were analyzed. The results showed that the vast majority of students were not using traditional paper dictionaries and that not only has the possession rate of electronic dictionaries fallen, but also that a substantial number of electronic dictionary owners were choosing to use other types of Internet-based dictionary applications. The pedagogical implications of these results are discussed within the framework of the “mental effort” (Hulstijn, 1992) and “involvement load” (Laufer & Hulstijn, 2001) hypotheses. The potential outcomes of a “lowered consultation trigger point” (Aust, Kelley, & Roby, 1993) as a result of the ease and convenience of Internet-based dictionaries and applications are also discussed.

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A Tip-of-the-tongue state is a strong feeling that a target word, although currently unrecallable, is known and will be recalled (Schwartz, 2008). This phenomenon, while universal in occurrence, takes place not only among monolingual speakers but also among multilingual ones. In this paper, episodes of TOT are reported during a word retrieval experiment on Japanese speakers of Spanish L3 with English L2. A similar method from Ecker’s study (2001) was employed regarding the acquisition and processing of L3 words and their organisation and relation to other words (L1 and L2) in the mental lexicon. The study focused on learners’ salient attributes in lexical retrieval of Spanish words during a Tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) state. Considering the typological distance between the L1 and the L3 of the subjects, similar principles of integration, organisation and processing of L3 words found by Ecker’s study are reported in this study. A description of cross-linguistics influence (CLI) in L3 word retrieval during a +TOT is provided by considering aspects related to word form, meaning and syntactic class. The subjects were 17 Japanese speakers from a beginning level Spanish class. Initial word form and syntactic category, among others aspects, were found with considerable frequency during TOT states on L3 word retrieval. CLI from L2 and L3 represented the first and second higher source of influence in comparison with L1. The results showed how learners continue to rely on the languages more closely related to the target, irrespective of whether these are first or non-native languages.

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いわゆる『ベトナム戦争』は 1975 年 4 月に終結し、その後に南北統一国家としてのベトナム社会主義共和国が成立した。終戦、そして統一国家成立の一方で、ベトナム南部にあったベトナム共和国が消滅した。 　このベトナム共和国で行われていたベトナム語と、現在のベトナム社会主義共和国のベトナム語には、語彙選択や「好ましいとされる話法」、および正書法に差異が認められる。 　本稿は、主としてアメリカ・南カリフォルニアに居住するベトナム系住民の言語生活を観察することで得られた、旧ベトナム共和国のベトナム語『動態』について、わけても語彙レベルの考察を試みたものである。

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本研究はロシア人大学生日本語学習者が、日本語学習にいかなる動機づけを保持しているかを分析したものである。これまでの動機づけ研究においては、学習活動が目的的か手段的かという基準で、内 / 外発的動機づけの定義がなされていた。これに対して本研究では、上記の基準による動機づけの分類を行わず、動機づけの価値に着目し、分析を行っている。6 つの価値の相関係数から、ロシア人大学生日本語学習者にとって、日本語学習活動の目的化と手段化は必ずしも相反する価値ではないことが示唆された。つまり進学や就職、日本語能力試験合格などを目指す学習は、学習者がおかれた状況によっては、自律性の高い動機づけである可能性が考えられる。また上 / 下級生、留学希望度による分散分析を行った結果、上 / 下級生の違いよりも、留学希望強度によって価値の認識に差が見られることが明らかになった。今後の課題は学習の自律性指標を設定し、上記日本語学習の価値との関係を分析することが挙げられる。

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　本研究では、インターアクションを取り入れた教室活動について、活動の参加者である学習者・母語話者への教員の意識を調査し、その意識が活動に及ぼす影響を考察した。まず、質問紙を用い、日本語教育に関するビリーフを調査した結果、いつくかの項目において相関関係がみられた。教員は学習者が生の日本語に触れる機会としてのインターアクションを評価しているが、教室内の活動は学習者のレベルに合わせた日本語で実施したいという意識もみられた。さらに補充調査として活動に対する姿勢の異なる教員 5 名に半構造化インタビューを行った。ここでは、教員の仕事は「学生のサポート」であるとの意識がみられ、「学習者を守りたい」という思いから、現実社会で起こりうるインターアクションを回避する傾向にあることもわかった。このような結果から、活動をデザインする教員の意識の変革が、今後の多文化共生社会における教室活動に不可欠であると考える。

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