Drawing upon insights from Instructed Second Language Acquisition (ISLA) research, this paper examines the principles of effective English language class design for diverse learners and contexts. I argue that ISLA provides a theoretical foundation for developing suitable communicative approaches in English classrooms. Specifically, I put forward three proposals for English language teaching in the context of Japanese universities: (1) prioritizing the maximization of learners’ active English use, guided by frameworks such as the balanced integration of the four strands of language learning; (2) highlighting the teacher's role as a facilitator of a positive classroom environment that fosters learners’ psychological well-being, informed by positive psychology and complexity theory; and (3) adopting a stance of Principled Eclecticism in teaching methodology, which involves a critical appraisal of approaches such as Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) and Presentation-Practice-Production (PPP) approaches.

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This paper illustrates how instructed second language acquisition (ISLA) can be operationalized in English instruction in Japanese junior and senior high schools through two complementary strands of classroom-based work. First, it reports a collaborative study conducted by university researchers and a junior high school teacher, in which a writing program was redesigned to incorporate direct written corrective feedback, explicit time for feedback processing, written languaging, and delayed rewriting. In this program, 99% of initial errors were resolved in immediate revision, and approximately 70% of these corrections were maintained in delayed rewriting. In addition, positive emotional responses to feedback (e.g., feeling happy about feedback) were associated with greater long-term accuracy. Second, the paper synthesizes a series of teacher-led languaging studies in a senior high school that systematically embedded oral and written languaging—implemented individually and collaboratively and produced in handwritten and typed modalities—into regular lessons over several months, thereby informing both pedagogical practice and ISLA theory. Building on these cases, the paper argues that ISLA is oriented toward developing multilayered researcher–teacher partnerships encompassing sustained communication, collaborative research, and teacher research, and that such partnerships are essential for meaningfully improving second language education.

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Learners in higher education possess diverse goals of English language learning, ranging from academic communication to occupational language use, yet conventional classroom instruction often struggles to provide individualised practice opportunities. This article introduces an AI-driven English speaking practice programme that integrates a multimodal spoken dialogue system, automated scoring techniques, and explainable artificial intelligence (XAI). The programme is designed to identify learners’ strengths and weaknesses in lexical use and to provide paraphrased expressions generated by large language models as individualised diagnostic feedback. An experimental study with Japanese university students demonstrated that task repetition (i.e., speaking practice) alone led to short-term performance gains but failed to retain them, whereas the integration of diagnostic feedback improved students’ lexical use in a new task (i.e., transfer effects). Finally, this paper discusses the benefits and limitations of using a spoken dialogue system in university English educational settings and considers the roles of teachers in AI-mediated learning environments.

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Getting beginner-level students to write with less hesitancy and fewer errors is a goal for which all teachers strive. However, it is a daunting and challenging task for these students to write in paragraphs. One way to start them at an earlier stage is through guided composition, which has potential for raising motivation and reducing errors. This paper specifically explored the effect of the “Question-Answer” (Q&A) method of guided composition as a preliminary step to paragraph writing for 54 beginner-level Japanese university students. The teacher instructed students to write the “Composition Design” in Japanese and conducted 32 classes in total. After this course, 70-88 percent said they felt less nervous about writing a paragraph. In addition, comparing specimens before and after the four sessions, students typically extended their paragraph length by around 30–40 words.

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This study examined essay ratings from the ICNALE GRA database, focusing on the relationship between holistic and analytic evaluations and the role of rater characteristics. Holistic scores correlated strongly with analytic scores (r = 0.74‐0.86), with analytic ratings explaining 90% of the variance. “Intelligibility” emerged as the most influential factor, suggesting that holistic evaluation may approximate analytic results when rubrics are based on “Language”, “Content”, and “Attitude.” The second analysis compared different rater groups. Raters whose first language is English awarded higher scores than those whose first language is Japanese, and female raters scored higher than male raters, while rating experience made no difference. Moreover, the English L1 group emphasized content-related criteria such as “Purposefulness” and “Sophistication,” whereas the Japanese L1 group prioritized linguistic “Complexity” and “Accuracy.” These findings indicate that rater background shapes evaluation focus and scoring patterns, highlighting the need for rater training and calibration to ensure fairness.

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日本の英語教育において、発音指導は長い間周縁的なものとして扱われてきた。しかし、英語とは異なる音韻体系を持つ日本人英語学習者にとって、知覚・認識しづらい音が語の認識に影響を与えていることもある(Yoneyama et al., 2017)。本研究では、Yoneyama et al. (2017)を基に、異音dark /l/を取り上げ、学習者が困難を抱えやすい音環境の特定と、リスニング指導への示唆を目的とした。具体的には、学習者がdark /l/の音をどの程度認識できるのか、dark /l/に先行する母音の調音位置(前舌・後舌)ごとに調べた。Dark/l/を認識できるかどうか調べるためにはdictation課題を、語を聞いて正しくその語の意味を認識できるかどうか調べるためには意味記述課題を用いた。ロジスティック混合効果モデルを用いて分析した結果、後舌母音の方が前舌母音条件よりもdark /l/の認識率が有意に下がり、dark /l/の音認識の成否と語の認識率間に関係が見られた。更に、dark /l/を認識できたとしても、類似音を含む語の数が多いと、語の意味を正しく認識できない場合もあるということが示唆された。この結果を踏まえ、リスニング指導の内容が検討された。

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小学校外国語活動での目的は英語を使ってのコミュニケーション能力を挙げることにあり、アウトプットを中心とした活動が多い。学習指導要領（文科省, 2017）では、発音に関して、現代の標準的な発音、語と語の連結による音の変化、語や句、文における基本的な強勢、文における基本的なイントネーション、文における基本的な区切りを学習することが明記されているが、具体的な指導法は示されてはいない。現在、小学生一人に1台のタブレット端末が与えられ、デジタル教科書などで英語音声、動画などから自主学習を行い、ロイロノートを使い、課題の提示、提出が容易にできる。そこで、本論では、小学5年生が授業内で、シャドーイング練習を行い、2回の音声を収録し、発音に向上が見られるかどうかを検証した。その結果、音声のシャドーイングを通して、イントネーションの核の位置が正確に実現できているが、分節音に関しては、日本語の過剰汎化が見られる。したがって、分節音に関しては日本語と英語の音声の違いなど明示的な指導が必要である。

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This study investigates the impact of peer feedback on Japanese high school students’ thinking and expression in English writing. A total of 110 third-year students participated in a classroom-based intervention, writing two English essays under different revision condition: one revised through self-editing and the other through peer feedback. Using rubric focused on content and organization, the essays were assessed by ChatGPT to ensure consistency and objectivity. A within-subjects comparison revealed that scores significantly improved after peer feedback. In addition to the quantitative results, students’ comments and responses to a post-task questionnaire provided insights into their engagement and cognitive development through peer interaction.

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