This study developed a model lesson of elementary school science on the topic of a natural disaster using folk tales. The model lesson aims to promote pupils’ interests in nature, motivate the learning about nature, and enhance their attitudes toward coexistence between people and nature and howto associate with nature. A series of lessons was conducted with 34 fifth grade Japanese pupils in December 2015. The results of the analysis of a questionnaire that was administered at the beginning and end of the series were as follows. First, the percentage of positive answers related to pupils’ interests in nature and motivations to learn about nature increased. Second, the percentage of positive answers related to pupils’ attitudes toward coexistence between people and nature also increased. Third, comments about how to associate with nature expressing pupils’ attitudes on nature were more frequent at the end. These results suggested that using folk tales in science lessons was effective to foster pupils’ science learning.

View full abstract

The purpose of this study is to clarify whether there is an effectiveness of teaching on order of difficulty of onset consonant clusters in English, and whether explicit instruction is effective in improving student production of onset consonant clusters. Previous studies have revealed that Japanese native speakers tend to insert vowels between consonant clusters. Consonant clusters were chosen from the Lingua Franca Core, Jenkins (2000), to be investigated. Three different categories of words were chosen: C[－voice]-C[－voice], C[－voice]-C[+voice], and C[+voice]-C[+voice]. Thirty low-level university students participated in the experiment. They were divided into three groups of 10:one control and two experimental groups. The students in Experimental Group 2 were explicitly instructed. All groups were recorded reading a passage with target words chosen from the above three categories. After the analysis of the data, effective and ineffective teaching strategies were revealed.

View full abstract

This study incorporates Kieran Egan’s imaginative approach (IA) into an elementary English teacher education course at a Japanese college. Introducing the IA as a theoretical basis, a preservice foreign language activity (FLA) teacher-training course was implemented. Throughout the course, English picture books were used to facilitate student teachers’ understanding of the IA and its related concepts. Subsequently, we argued how the student teachers’ concept of teaching FLA lessons was developed by analyzing their in-class performance, conversations during the group-work,and post-lesson written reflections. The results indicated that it was unclear whether the student teachers fully internalized the IA concepts and re-conceptualized their everyday concepts of EFL;however, data analyses revealed that some of the student teachers were in the process of this development. Finally, some pedagogical suggestions are provided for the further development of an effective language teacher training course design.

View full abstract

In this study, the characteristics of perception, feeling, and thought of students who felt a sense of identification with familiar nature through the practice of deep ecology work “Experiences of Identification with Familiar Nature” were clarified by interpretive analysis of students’ descriptions.The following three findings were obtained from this analysis: (1) Perceiving the warmth of the sun,the feel and sound of the wind, the voice of birds and insects increases sense of identification with familiar nature, feels comfort and mental stability. (2) In identification with familiar nature, feeling comfort and mental stability caused the thought of wanting to care for nature. (3) The thought of wanting to care for nature develops to the sense of the significance of awareness and behavior changes, furthermore to the acquire a biospherical egalitarian view of nature, to the departure from the anthropocentric view of nature.

View full abstract

This educational paper examines the effect of theme-based content-based instruction (T-CBI) inactive learning (AL) on university students’ listening comprehension and motivation relevant to the intrinsic and extrinsic spectrum. This CBI in AL, themed on American TV news, was taught to freshmen (N = 78) with pre-intermediate to intermediate English proficiencies at a university in western Japan in 2015. It was composed of three parts, the second part of which was a five-week news presentation project. Their listening comprehension and motivation relevant to the intrinsic-extrinsic spectrum were examined with tests and questionnaires. First, students who took all of the tests and surveys (n = 42) were categorized into higher, medium and lower motivation groups (ns =6, 12 and 24 respectively) through a cluster analysis. Second, repeated-measures ANOVAs were performed, mainly showing that the students significantly improved their listening comprehension and enhanced their need for autonomy over the period.

View full abstract