Practical research is for me, a day-to-day activity of thinking about educational practices and the participants; thinking about Japanese language learning, education, and teachers; thinking about language, culture, and society; and furthermore, thinking about people, the world, myself, and life, through an analysis of my own classroom activities as a practical researcher and as a person, and through a dialogue with others. At the same time, it is an activity for living through educational practices and other day-to-day practices; for creating society, culture and language; and for creating oneself and for changing one's life as a practical researcher and as a person, together with others through language.Also at the same time, by verbalizing educational practice for oneself and others and by having a dialogue with others about one's own (and others') educational practices, we become able to share the educational practices being performed by ourselves (and by others), and educational practices are created independently and cooperatively with others. For me, practical study opens up a path to holding a dialogue with others and to creating a society with others.If Japanese language education practitioners, against the backdrop of each of their independent and valuable experiences, think about what kind of Japanese language education they personally want to provide and develop practical research independently and cooperatively and freely but with responsibility, I believe it will not only create a richer classroom society, but will also open up the world of Japanese language education.

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This paper discusses how practitioner's researches ought to be from the view point of the "restoration of totality of human and language." Behind the discussion is a concern that we are too unsuspecting and uncritical of the modern epistemologies of rationalism, capitalist mode of production, and linguistics; we thus only pay attention to very limited aspects of being and function of the human and language. I argue that redressing the balance of the human and language is necessary not only for the purpose of language education but also for the language use in practitioner's researches. I contend that for the restoration liberated use of language in the domains of "body, mind, and brain" and "inner and external worlds" is essential, and that practitioners should establish equal, but not necessarily the same, relationships of power with learners, (virtual) co-researchers, and their own unconsciousness.

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I can be classified the goal of the class, into value-objectives, skill-objectives and attitude-objectives. It can be classified in the same way as objectives of language education and objectives of first language education. However, in the case of first language education, it is necessary in the language arts classes to take off once (unlearn) that you have worn the language arts such as learned in life. In practice research, research is required to transform the educational philosophy that the teacher was wearing. As an example of these, I introduce the practice of a public elementary school teacher. By language arts lesson, the teacher was aiming also that the values and behavior of the children with changes. It was also a result of the practice of teacher research.

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The purpose of this study is to examine the significance of the practice research through reflecting on and sharing of tutor experiences ("personal tutoring history") for individual tutors and the Writing Center community. Our results suggest that the practice research is significant for individual tutors as a means of: (1) reflecting on their practical knowledge on tutoring, (2) expanding their practical knowledge on tutoring, (3) encouraging the development of their identity as a member of the Writing Center community, and (4) broadening their perspectives of reflecting on their own tutorial practices. Our results also suggest that the practice research is significant for the Writing Center community as a means of:(1) accumulating and passing on the practical knowledge of tutors, (2) building a relationship in which tutors can learn from each other, (3) improving the practice of the community, and (4) examining if the system and the environment of the community of practice supports tutors' learning. These results indicate that practice research is an effective means of cultivating a community of practice where mutual learning occurs.

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The purpose of this paper is to analyze my past practice, which I believe failed to connect learners' words, and to discuss the factors that led to this. A micro-analysis of the discourse of a learner's self-expression in a classroom activity was conducted, and three factors were found responsible for the disconnect: the (1) teacher's power or right to choose topics and allocate speakers, (2) teacher's role or level of responsibility in managing the classroom, and (3) avoidance of self-expression by learners and the teacher in the classroom. Thus, it was the teacher who disconnected learners' words, despite of her intention of enriching learners' vocabulary or sharing a learner's words with other learners. The classroom is an institutional place; a person becomes a teacher there, assumes a teacher's responsibilities, and plays the role of disconnecting the learners' words. Therefore, the issue of the significance of the classroom as an institutional system and its power over teachers' minds needs to be reexamined. Furthermore, we need to develop a new concept of the classroom that enables us to connect learners' words.

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Globalization brought us both instability and mobility in our lives, which has made the welfare of people fluctuate. This paper examines how a participant in a JSL teacher training program for promoting well-being for human beings learned rich international sensibility. The program consisted of eleven classes with the three themes of "teaching JSL and oneself," "research and oneself," and "world and oneself" based upon language education for sustainable living. Each class featured dialogic group activities. We examined how one participant changed her perspective about the globalized world. The result shows that the participant took in her peers' perspectives through dialogues with them, related issues of an EPA (Economic Partnership Agreement) to her own circumstance of the aging population in her country that may force her to care for her entire family in the future, and finally recognized what the globalized society means to her. This result implies that she learned to view the world in a multifaceted manner and gained ecological literacy through the program. It is further suggested that a JSL teacher training program aimed at developing such ecological literacy could drive JSL teachers to improve their own well-being as well as that of JSL learners.

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The increased accessibility to new communication technologies enabled many language and cultural learning classrooms to incorporate “telecollaboration” (O’Dowd, 2011) in their curriculum, connecting students in different parts of the world via online tools. Many of those projects aim to provide “authentic” experiences for the learners and tend to place importance on being “connected.” However, just “being connected” does not necessarily mean having a “meaningful interaction” (Ware, 2005). Given such criticisms, in this study, we critically look at a telecollaborative discussion project implemented between two college classrooms in the US and Japan. To investigate the process and the outcome of the exchanges, we examined students’ writings on the discussion board, audio-recordings of classroom discussions, and students’ reflections on the project, drawing on the post-structuralist view of language and culture, and using the critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2003) as an analytical tool. Our analysis suggests that “self-disclosure” and “self-investment” were the keys to facilitate co-construction of meanings which played a vital role in enriching their interactions.

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In this paper, I will quantitatively and qualitatively investigate the significance of the change in two different trial lessons, held during the training program for South Korean Japanese teachers and conducted with the goal of continued improvement of classes. In my quantitative analysis, I conducted an S-T analysis in order to develop introspective materials to assist in improving classes; the qualitative analysis focused on investigating expressions used by learners. The results of the first trial lesson indicate that due to a high reliance on their previous teaching practices, participants were unable to fully demonstrate their teaching skills. However, by: receiving feedback, while analyzing video footage of the trial lesson; having participants pursue an "ideal" method; and encouraging trainees to reflect on this information led to a great change in the contents of the second trial lesson. When one considers the many circumstances involved in teaching in the actual practice of teaching it is difficult to simply make generalizations based the change in results. Nonetheless, it is evident that there is a connection between educators who experienced proactive endeavors centered on trial lessons and a continuous class improvement at the schools the educators are employed by.

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According to previous studies, body part vocabulary has many possible meanings. It will be a burden on learners if they just recite these meanings unthinkingly. This paper, on the basis of the previous studies, has analyzed the reason for the occurrence of polysemy of body part vocabulary. Along with it addresses differences & commonalities in the semantic extensions of the words "eye" between Japanese & Chinese, and discusses the extension process.As can be seen from Arizono's (2013) study, the words "eye", "ear" and "nose" in Japanese extend their meanings basing on the action frame. This paper verifies that the action frame is also available to body part vocabulary in Chinese. This study not only deepens the understanding and interpretation of the word "eye" but also benefits the lexical learning and teaching.

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In this paper, I clarify the relation between kokugo education in Japan and Japanese language education in China through a quantitative investigation focusing on the styles and themes of the texts that appear in jingdu (intensive reading) textbooks for university level published and widely used from the 1960's to the 1980's in China. As a result, it became clear that the content of the textbooks varies greatly from one decade to another, thus: (1) texts that appear in jingdu textbooks in the 1960's are to a great extent similar to those in kokugo textbooks, while the styles tend to be "essays," "novels," "folk tales," and the themes to be "literature," "language," "history"; (2) in the 1970's, jingdu textbooks contain original works and Chinese works translated into Japanese and there is no similarity with kokugo textbooks, while the styles tend to be "dialogues / discussions," "travelogues / records," "biographies," and the themes to be "literature," "history"; (3) in the 1980's, the similarity with kokugo textbooks is strong, while the styles tend to be "critiques," "commentaries / reviews," "essays," and the themes to be "literature," "language," "natural science." These findings suggest that the content of jingdu textbooks varies in the respective periods according to the situation in China and to the influence of Sino-Japanese relations.

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This paper is a study on the life stories of foreign student athletes. It is often said that foreign student athletes' motivation for learning is low, and that they fail to acquire Japanese as a cognitive/academic language. The question of how teachers can help student athletes develop their second careers has become an important issue within the field of university sports. In this study, I will discuss the possibilities of Japanese language education correlated to second career support by focusing on the life stories of two Korean student athletes. Both of them - one is a member of the football team, and the other belongs to the Judo team - are now in the process of developing their second careers by preparing to enroll in graduate school. By analyzing their life stories, I will point out the significance of creating a method of Japanese language learning based on the student's individual process of developing his/her second career. In order to achieve this, Japanese language teachers could take on the role of "a third person": a person who gives foreign student athletes a chance to distance themselves from sports and think about their careers.

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