The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of the approaches to teaching and learning (ATL) of Language B, one of the subjects of the Diploma Programme offered by International Baccalaureate®. This study used a bibliographic survey to compare the study of English as a Foreign Language based on the ATL of the Japanese National Curriculum, and the one based on the ATL of Language B. To analyse the effects of the ATL of Language B, Academic Word List (Coxhead, 2007) and rubric was used as quantitative research. Questionnaires titled “Intrinsic Motivation Inventory” created by Choi (2008) were used as qualitative research to measure the participants’ intrinsic motivation. The participants used in the study were Japanese private high school students, and the experimental group was 82 students, the control group was 80 students. The result indicated that the experimental group increased their academic writing skills and intrinsic motivation more than the control group. The effects of the ATL of Language B has actually not been revealed as of writing, however this study succeeded in revealing that the ATL of Language B were effective for increasing English competency, which is required as one of the global competency skills.

An increasing number of Japanese colleges and universities have introduced service-learning (SL) courses as a part of their active learning program. To put it simply, service-leaning is an educational program that facilitates students to participate in community service activities so as to apply acquired knowledge in their service, and gain new perspectives on their academic learning. While woven into rigorous discipline-based academic courses at the majority of universities in the United States, many SL courses in Japanese universities are offered as voluntary service courses or as a part of career education courses having a tenuous link with regular academic courses and their coursework. Thus, many students who engage in SL activities seem to halt at verbalizing their tasks and at superficial impressions of their service experiences. Amid heightening calls for rigorous academic assessment and quality assurance of baccalaureate degrees, the author argues that Japanese universities should introduce academic course-based SL programs that require students to understand concepts and theories through readings and discussions on assigned readings while participating in service activities. In this paper, the author discusses prospects and challenges of implementing academic course-based SL in Japanese schools based on a case of Introduction to Multicultural Studies course.

For the past several years, there has been increasing interest in volunteer activities through sports. The Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteer (JOCV) is the core presence of international cooperation through sport in Japan. This organization was established in 1965 and has dispatched 41,191 JOCV volunteers to 88 countries worldwide over the past 50 years (as of January 31st, 2016). This reflects the increasing interest in volunteer activities through sports. Throughout these years, the abilities and qualities required for sports volunteers have been changing. In this article, I will further explore what developing countries expect from volunteers, and what is needed in order to meet these expectations.

This study examines the career exploration of non-Japanese undergraduate students during the internship experience in Japanese enterprises in order to ascertain abilities a university education should, of necessity, provide the non-Japanese student for global human resource development. First, the author analyzed change in choice of occupation before and after internship of both non-Japanese and Japanese students; second, the author explored the similarities and differences between non-Japanese students and Japanese students with respect to factors affecting change in career choice. Taking a case study approach, a semi-structured interview between student and researcher was conducted based on a daily journal written by the intern during the internship experience. Results suggest that non-Japanese and Japanese interns experienced four different types of possible change in career choice. The study also indicates that differences in how the interns arrived at their career decisions could be attributed to: 1) information quantity and quality on the Japanese enterprises, 2) development of human relations, 3) the existence (or lack thereof) of a role-model in the workplace, and 4) student communicative ability in Japanese.

This paper describes the practice of an overseas study tour program in which Japanese college students of science major not only learn English (EFL/ESL) but also teach Japanese (JFL/JSL) to English college students as teaching assistants. The purpose of this practice is to produce the opportunity that they are able to use English actively with a sort of work role in order to avoid passive learning. By offering such an opportunity to the students, the author expects that they use English as a foreign/second language, see Japanese as their first language again in a fresh light, and cultivate their intercultural understanding competency more than ever before. As a result of the practice, the students had a good opinion of the practice. They thought that their English skills were improved and they got more motivated after the practice. In addition, they were very satisfied with their experiment of teaching Japanese through English by analyzing the

questionnaire on the practice.

This study investigates the kinds of subject matter and skills teachers consider necessary for global education. A questionnaire was administered to 31 Japanese teachers who participated in a teacher training workshop for global education. The results suggest the following three points. They indicate that (1) the subject matter of Japan is more necessary than that of other countries, (2) teachers’ skills are not always necessary for global education, and (3) global contents should be taught by outside lecturers or with multimedia tools but not by the teacher individually. We first need to verify the kind of global education that teachers think could foster global skills. We then need to consider a way of delivering global education that does not increase the teachers’ workload.

Akita International University (AIU), established in 2004, has achieved an unprecedented highest reputation for its global competency education within a decade. Why and how has it caused such a miracle?― I answered in the first part of this essay in the previous issue that the miracle has been realized mainly by the strong leadership of its founder and first President and CEO, Dr. Mineo Nakajima, with his deep commitment and initiative for introducing innovative and unique systems in Japan.

As the second part of the essay, I will focus on the contents of AIU education and how the graduating students get jobs and working in the society.