This longitudinal study aims to examine learners’ evaluation and preferences regarding films used in English classes, obtaining feedback from students who studied with both film-based EGP and ESP materials in two consecutive semesters. With the ever increasing need for ESP in recent years, language teachers are often compelled to take an ESP approach, prioritizing their ESP needs over learners’ preferences in the selection of films for their classes. The use of a medically themed film has the potential to motivate students in medical-related disciplines further in their studies of both language and their chosen fields. Few medically themed films, however, are familiar to those students, and to date, few ESP studies have examined learners’ evaluation of those films. A one-year experiment was conducted on 89 students of medical-related disciplines, and the results revealed that more than 70% of the participants preferred learning with medically themed films to learning with generally themed ones. This suggested that an ESP approach with the use of a medically themed film adequately addresses the needs and preferences of students, as well as those of teachers. It was also found that the film-based ESP material is effective in improving learners’ listening abilities. The implications of the findings are also discussed.

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Based on opinions from specialist EFL elementary school teachers in Korea, this study investigates the success of in-service English teacher training programs and potential challenges for future programs. Data was collected through a series of qualitative interviews with a number of teachers of English who had participated in a range of in-service training programs. It was found that, in the main, the teachers are satisfied with the broad range of training that is currently on offer. In particular, flexibility, trainer quality, and teacher proficiency were frequently seen as positive aspects of the present in-service training programs. On the other hand, the teachers felt the programs could be improved if the links between theory and practice were made clearer. The study offers a number of recommendations for future in-service training, including the use of films, both in the program and the classroom.

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This study aims to analyze the request speech act in the Disney Pixar animation Cars 2 and suggests some classroom activities for learning the request strategies. It is necessary for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students to learn pragmatic knowledge to improve their communicative competence. In a specific situation, learners have to take note of the topic, social distance, and social position between participants; think of an appropriate response; and understand the intended meaning of a speaker’s utterance. To emphasize pragmatic competence, this study focuses on the request speech act and introduces four request strategies: query preparatory, obligation statement, mode derivable, and strong hint. This study analyzes Cars 2 and explains four strategies in a given context and their function in a conversation. Teachers should teach explicitly and explain in detail any request strategies in the classroom. In the process of recognizing the request speech act, learners need to internalize some request expressions; therefore, this study suggests three classroom activities: role play, voice recording, and shooting short video clips. To promote the understanding of the request strategies and internalize them more effectively, teachers should first recognize the necessity of learning pragmatic knowledge, understand diverse speech acts and their functions in a conversation, and develop interesting classroom activities using movies, drama, and animation as learning materials.

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This research paper is intended to demonstrate the possible superiority of watching TV series over movies for autonomous EFL learners for an extended period of time by identifying and discussing the following five potential advantages: 1) Learners save time and expend less energy; 2) Development of a wider repertoire of learners’ vocabulary; 3) A further deepening or supplementing of learners’ subject matter knowledge; 4) A greater improvement in learners’ listening comprehension; and 5) Motivating learners for a longer period of time. To maximize these advantages, an autonomous learning model through TV series is proposed with the following five steps: 1. Viewing & Note-Taking (Listening); 2. Discussion (Speaking); 3. Script-Reading & Vocabulary Check (Reading); 4. Writing Comments (Writing); and 5. Making Vocabulary Lists (Recording). Finally, some limits on the practice of this learning model and what is expected from EFL teachers to promote learner autonomy will be discussed.

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This paper examines the use of Japanese and American movies in the teaching of English in Japan. It also looks at how the Japanese movie and related tasks used during the lessons may potentially motivate Japanese university students. Tasks such as subtitle translation and listening comprehension with phonetic symbols as clues were given in class. The results of this study are as follows: (1) the American movie, “Edward Scissorhands,” is considered appropriate as an input task material, and the Japanese movie, “Tonari no Totoro,” is considered appropriate as an output task material. (2) The students surveyed have scarce knowledge of phonetic symbols. (3) The students do not regard phonetic symbols as good listening clues; however, these symbols are considered favorable as translation clues. (4) The students have little trouble accepting subtitle translation tasks based on the Japanese film. These results indicate that Japanese movies can be a potential motivator for Japanese students of English.

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In this study, the speech rate and the readability of films and textbook materials were compared and analyzed to determine the factors that make the comprehension of films challenging for language learners. Five films from various genres and five major tests that employ standard linguistic features were selected for analyses. The readability was examined using three scales. The speech rate was measured in wpm and sps. The number and length of pauses between sentences were also counted. The results showed that the readability and word levels of the two material types did not differ, but differences were found in the speech rate and in the length of pauses. It was found that the speech rate in films was significantly faster than that of textbook materials. The length of the pauses was also found to be longer in films.

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The main aim of this paper is to clarify the syntactic and semantic properties of the cognate object expressions talk the talk and walk the walk, so as to give a correct Japanese subtitle to a US soldier’s utterance in the film Full Metal Jacket (1987). So-called cognate object expressions consist of two types, the event-dependent type and the event-independent type (Kitahara 2010, 2011). While the cognate object of the former type just repeats the notion denoted by the main verb, the cognate object of the latter type functions as a representation-source theme referring to a pre-existing type (Dowty 1991, Langacker 1991). Through an examination of data from large-scale corpora, it is shown that the expressions talk the talk and walk the walk belong to the event-independent type. In parallel with these linguistic analyses, the paper argues that authentic data from movies can serve as an effective introduction to specialized education in English Linguistics for university students.

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Verhagen (2005, 2007) argues that in order to understand linguistic phenomena it is essential to consider the ability of human beings to engage in “deep cognitive coordination with others (2005: 4)”. That is to say, intersubjective interaction between the speaker and the hearer should be taken into account when linguistic expressions are analyzed. Incorporating this view, this paper analyses the use of two referring expressions in English, it and that, especially when they refer to clausal antecedents, events or propositions. It and that are often considered as belonging to different grammatical categories: it to personal pronouns and that to demonstratives. However, in many cases these two anaphoric expressions are interchangeable. The same antecedent can be referred to either by it or that without significant difference in meaning. On the other hand, there are many other cases where it and that are not interchangeable as follows:
Vivian: You know your foot’s as big as your arm from your elbow to your wrist? Did you know that/*it? (Pretty Woman)
The paper proposes the hypotheses based on Verhagen’s construal configuration, and it is shown how the hypotheses can account for the anomalous cases that were not able to be accounted for by previous theories.

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In Japan, complimenting one’s superiors is usually considered inappropriate. This is because the act of complimenting intrinsically has the connotation of evaluating the complimented party, and juniors are considered not possessing sufficient knowledge, experience or ability to evaluate their superiors. On the other hand, complimenting one’s superiors does not seem to be uncommon in English-speaking countries. The difference in perception on complimenting superiors could become source of confusion especially when Japanese college students start to work in English-speaking business environments. In order to deepen the understanding of how complimenting superiors work when communicating in English, the paper investigated the intentions of compliments and how they are expressed by analyzing and comparing American and Japanese movies and dramas depicting business environments where superior-subordinate relationships were clearly manifested. A new framework was created to categorize and analyze the compliments by combining 2 existing frameworks. Leech’s ‘The Tact Maxim’ was used for consideration. The results showed that when people complimented their superiors in English-speaking environments, the compliments were (1) meant to express high evaluations in all sincerity, (2) expressed to the superiors directly, (3) decisively expressed by evaluating the superiors or their deeds, and (4) expressed by concretely presenting facts.

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This paper will analyze five American Vietnam War movies in the context of Realism and Idealism. The term realism and idealism are mainly used in the field of history. Not only these terms used in diplomatic history but also vice and virtue dualism which are often used in American Foreign policy will be used in this paper. Creating a four quadrant diagram by placing a realism and idealism in horizontal axis and putting a vice and virtue in vertical axis will be the main part of this study. At the same time, in order to check the quality of this diagram, five Vietnam War movies are viewed. This is an experiment of mixing two essential concepts of American Diplomatic History. This study proves that introducing the theory of other discipline is useful to understand the historical background of war movies. In addition, categorizing the protagonist’s role in the movie and its transition will clearly reflect the trend of American society towards the war in America. Not knowing the background of American society will hinder the understanding of the movie, and at the same time, it will make it harder for students in the classroom to comprehend the true message intended in the movie. Utilizing this diagram in CLIL education will also enhance the understanding in the classroom.

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This paper aims to rethink what our identity is in this global situation based on media theory. Media always created our lives and feelings like who we are. In the moment of globalization, it’s hard to understand what the core of cultural identity, because identity is always and already intrinsically mobile. The thesis tries to discuss the difficulty through one aspect of music culture. Music seems to clarify the practices for producing identities in globalization much easier in that music beyond various differences. The globalization fundamentally transforms the relationship between the places we are living in and identities. That does not mean we all live in the global spaces and construct our cultural identities in the global places. We all live in the local spaces which can extend their scale to the global spaces. Finally, this paper discuss the global network. Network can be connected global spaces with local spaces. Indeed we can reach the global network through media, yet we again reproduce our experience or identities at the local places.

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