Communication, arguably a buzzword in the field of English language teaching both inside and outside Japan, has been an ironical cause of discommunication among those involved in academic and educational discussions. As an attempt to trace the origin of this chaos concerning communication, this paper analyses self-compiled electronic corpora comprising 545 articles published in the 1980s in two British journals: Applied Linguistics and ELT Journal. The comparative analysis using both qualitative and quantitative approaches reveals that several of the communication-related phrases most prominent in the corpora, real communication, authentic communication, genuine communication and communicative approach(es), were frequently used without clear definitions or references to preceding study, while the only exception was communicative competence, which seems to have earned its relatively secure spot in the discourse as a technical term.

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Daddy-Long-Legs (1912), written by Jean Webster (1876-1916), has been popular since the publication. The story is very simple: Jerusha Abbott, an orphan, is sent to a college by a trustee. She writes letters to the anonymous benefactor, whom she calls Daddy-Long-Legs, to let him know the college life. After unveiling who he is, she marries him. So, the narrative-mode is letter-writing except for the first chapter. The true value of the novel has been misunderstood only because the targeted readers were young women. Recent feminist studies found that the story might be subdued by the patriarchy and follow the popular taste. However, Webster seemed to try to persuade girls through the sophisticated strategy to get educated. The strategy involves three steps. The first step is to attract young women by a lot of illustrations and the narration of colloquial speech. Second, the process of the heroine’s growth is reality-based, providing specific examples: the classes which she is taking at college, the books which she is reading, and the manners which she is acquiring. Third, with a higher level of sentence, young readers could feel as if they also are growing up. Thus, the novel was intended for young women to get familiar with “education,” which may lead to change the social system in the future.

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Taking a holistic and interdisciplinary approach, this study examines prefecture-level social capital in Japan in terms of its relationships with numerous variables including demographic, environmental, public health, and socio-economic indicators. The ecologic study design was adopted whereby regression analyses and Spearman’s Correlation Coefficient were carried out to appraise the goodness of fit and inter-variable relationships. The results illuminated the relative fitness and negative correlation between bonding social capital, on the one hand, and the “Ratio of never-married population (male; 30-34 years of age)” as well as that for never-married males in the age bracket of 45 to 49, respectively, on the other. In effect, the former variable, males in the age bracket of 30 to 34, showed the highest values both in terms of R² and r_s. Moreover, from the perspective of public health and safety, the results between bonding social capital and “Ratio of felonies to criminal cases” were also critical for their potential applicability for effective public policy planning. It is also remarkable that “Ratio of psychiatric patients per full-time physician” was the only variable that resulted in a notable outcome with bridging social capital, out of the total of 429 variables.

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In this study, we examined how mind mapping, a type of graphic organizer widely used in Finnish education, may help Japanese university students reach a deeper understanding while reading in English, and whether such positive reading experiences would lead them to read more. We therefore compared two types of extensive reading classes over one semester: one with mind-mapping exercises (treatment) and one without them (contrast). The results indicated that the students in the treatment group read more than those in the contrast group; however, the difference in the average amount of reading was not statistically significant. Further, the average scores of the pre/post-class EPER (Edinburgh Project on Extensive Reading) level tests were not significantly different between the two groups. The survey results also revealed that while the majority of students found mind mapping helpful in thinking more critically, they did not consider it to be highly motivating for reading extensively. In sum, mind mapping is useful in promoting deeper understanding, but its effects may not be strong enough to motivate learners to read more.

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This paper recognizes “The old idea of sound patterns being the outcome of a competition between the demands of the speaker and the hearer – maximizing articulatory ease vs. the distinctiveness of contrast” (Côté, 2000, p. 154) and indicates that linguistic economy applies to primary stress shift for emphasis in certain English words. The speaker’s expressive need sometimes motivates the process of stress shift for emphasis cross-linguistically, which is also referred to as “climax” (Bolinger, 1978, p. 486; Bolinger, 1980, p. 42). As a result of climax, the addressee can grasp messages more clearly and precisely than otherwise; however, climax causes the speaker to expend more time and effort in producing intended effects as such. Our survey findings show eight hitherto unrecorded words that can undergo the target shift as a marker of emphasis as in awesóme and horrór, resulting in alteration in the vowel and rhythmic patterning (henceforth, a vowel in bold attracts the primary stress). This study addresses the potential room for formal research into phonological rules that allow the target shift.

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There has long been a discussion over which English accents should be adopted as a model of learning for Japanese people. These days, just as the notions of World Englishes or English as an International Language, English is thought to belong not only to native speakers (NS) but to non-native speakers. In fact, some studies suggest that it is crucial to create a criteria or a guideline of teaching and learning pronunciation that is suitable for such learners. Basically, this supports the idea that Japanese learners do not have to struggle with the mastery of NS’ English and have only to aim at mastering pronunciation to the extent to which their English is understandable enough. However, this debate ought to be conducted taking actual learners’ opinions into more consideration. Therefore, a questionnaire was administered to 157 second year junior high school students. In addition, it is necessary to look at the advantages of learning NS’ pronunciation. The present study takes a stance that Japanese people should follow NS’s English to learn pronunciation. This position is upheld by three points, including doubts about having international English as a main goal for learners and the advantages of learning NS’s pronunciation, and the results of the questionnaire survey.

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This paper explores the experiences of successful foreign language learners. First, based upon the experiences of the masters of English in the past, the importance of reading extensively authentic English materials such as English literature is discussed. Second, the author analyzes her own personal interviews with contemporary masters and successful learners of English, Chinese and Japanese as a foreign language and attempts to identify the effective ways they have used in common in their language learning. The ‘oral histories’ of advanced level foreign language learners are used to consider how extensive reading and extensive listening help them to become competent bilinguals who can use more than one language practically, skillfully and strategically. Some testimonies also report that reading graded readers is quite effective especially for the intermediate learners.

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From the beginning of the twentieth century, Japanese immigrants to Hawai‘i whose contracts at sugar plantations had expired moved to the coastal areas of Hilo on the island of Hawai‘i, where a number of Japanese towns grew. Numerous studies about Japanese immigrants and their descendants in Hawai‘i have been carried out by both Japanese and international scholars, but there have been few studies of the Japanese towns in Hilo. One such area was called Waiakea town, popularly known as Yashijimacho. Yashijimacho was destroyed in the devastating 1960 tsunami, and the history of Yashijimacho is kept only by elderly former residents of the town in their memories. The motivation for this study was to preserve Yashijimacho’s history, and the goal was to examine the lives of Japanese immigrants by focusing on World War II and the two major tsunamis of 1946 and 1960. This research found that there was tension between Yashijimacho and the other Japanese communities. In addition, Yashijimacho was a multiethnic community, and a number of well-known businesses in present-day Hilo were started in Yashijimacho. During World War II, life under martial law was difficult in various ways. Finally, the tsunamis in 1960, along with the declining sugar industry, damaged Hilo.

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This paper reports on curricular development of the Global Leader Education Unit (GLEU), a pilot course for freshmen at the University of Hyogo. The course was begun on a trial basis at the university’s East campus in Kobe in the fall term of 2012. It is divided into two classes: Seminar I, an e-learning class, and Seminar II, a somewhat unique lecture environment. The course was charged with meeting the academic needs of its students from three different schools: the schools of Economics, Business, and Nursing. The program has since expanded and the course is now offered at the West campus, Shosha, in Himeji. Here too the course must fit the needs of a diverse student population of twenty from three different schools: the schools of Engineering, Science, and Environment & Human Science. Two key features of the curriculum stand out even as we continue its development in GLEU’s Seminar II at the Shosha campus, namely the guest speaker visit and the use of protocols for engaging students in activities of inquiry. We suppose these two components might help reframe our thinking about the university English curriculum in this age of globalization.

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There has been growing criticism of English language education in Japan from the business world and English teachers feel it necessary to update their ways of teaching. The purpose of this article is to provide basic information which English teachers are expected to know. For that purpose, it will first explain five characteristics which quite a few successful language learners have in common. The five characteristics will be discussed in detail respectively. Among the five characteristics, teachers can influence only two of them. These two areas are: to increase learners’ motivation with motivational strategies and to encourage them to learn English in an effective way. This article will then make three pedagogical suggestions which are likely to bring about effective learning. They are: Content-Language Instruction, the PCPP sequence and Sustained Silent Reading. In making recommendations, it will quote the results of practical studies done by the author. In conclusion, it will be argued that English teachers should reflect on their teaching based on instructed second language acquisition research findings, and not on their own subjective assumptions and beliefs.

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