The purpose of this paper is to examine the "imagery-formation" theory which had a great influence on Japanese language instruction in the 1920s and 1930s, as part of a consideration of the place of media education as part of the study of Japanese in schools. The origin of "imagery-formation" theory ('Keisho-ka ron') is Kaito Matsuzo's Power of Japanese language, and the theory was developed by Kaito himself in his Imagery and Understanding ('Keisho to Rikai'). Kaito suggested the importance of visual elements for understanding sentences in his "imagery-formation" theory. Ishiyama Shuhei, an important scholar of a similar age to Kaito, interpreted Kaito's theory not only in order to apply it to language classrooms but also for film studies. Furthermore, Ishiyama's interpretation of "imagery-formation" theory had a great influence on teachers at that time. As a conclusion, two points are suggested: 1) Media education as a part of the study of Japanese in school came as a result of the process of concretization of Kaito and Ishiyama's "imagery-formation" theory; 2) The notion of "imagery formation" and concretization process provide suggestions for the consideration of media literacy education as a part of the study of Japanese in schools.

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This study focused on school age and gender differences with regard to seven elements (motivation, enjoyment, teamwork, keeping rules or promises, learning, cooperation, and outcomes) that compose physical education classes, and their relationship based on the judgments of junior high and high school students. The aim of the study was to uncover useful findings for progressive physical education classes. Data for analysis of the seven elements listed above was collected from 1442 students. Junior high school students showed significantly higher values for motivation, enjoyment, teamwork, and learning factors than high school students. Males put a higher value on the enjoyment factor than did females for both school ages, although females put a higher value on teamwork, keeping rules or promises and maintaining cooperation. In comparing junior high school and high school students, significant differences could be observed for the following factor pairings: enjoyment and motivation; enjoyment and teamwork; enjoyment and keeping rules; enjoyment and learning; enjoyment and cooperation; enjoyment and outcomes; cooperation and outcomes. Factors other than enjoyment, keeping rules or promises, cooperation and outcomes were of higher value to junior high school students of both genders. In addition, correlations between enjoyment and keeping rules or promises as well as between cooperation and outcomes were higher for males than females at the junior high school age. From the above, the following was concluded: junior high school students place more importance on motivation, enjoyment, teamwork, and learning factors than do high school students. Females place more importance on teamwork, keeping rules or promises, and cooperation factors than males. Males place more importance on the enjoyment factor regardless of their school age, or gender. Factors regarding close relationships vary both by school age and gender.

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This study considers the universal values of basketball as involving the attainment of skills and functional/affective aspects of the sport. Furthermore, absolute evaluation standards for junior high school boys were established. More specifically, personal skills, groups skills, and the understanding of tactics, were measured for first and third grade junior high school boys. The evaluation standards could be developed on the basis of the results of this research. Consequently, it was considered that the following nine aspects should be considered carefully in evaluating junior high schoolboys' basketball skills and their enjoyment of playing basketball: the number of successes at the lay-up shot; the number of successes at a one-hand shot; the score for dribbling; the attack-completion rate; the rate of success at shots; the rate of creation of swift attacks; the rate of combination shots; and the understanding of tactics.

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The present study aims to provide a cross-national comparison of competence for teaching a foreign language in lower secondary education in the Netherlands and Japan. Teachers' abilities are analyzed in terms of four categories: language proficiency; subject knowledge; subject didactics; and (inter) personal competence. As a result, specific features identified for Dutch standards are: (1) frequent use of the target language; (2) socio-cultural competence; (3) nurturing learners' autonomy; and (4) collaboration with colleagues. This compares with the features identified for their Japanese counterparts: (1) textbook-based didactics; (2) enhancing learning motivation; (3) using communicative activities in class; and (4) a passion for teaching. All these features have turned out to be strongly connected with the sociolinguistic environment and educational values in the two countries.

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The purpose of this paper is to analyze and clarify learning activities in a manufacturing class in technology education, mainly focusing on the processes of assembling a product. We collected protocol data on the processes of assembling parts into a small multi-purpose shelf from ten junior high school students, and examined the assembling processes and the order of their thoughts. The results showed that students tended to go through these processes; "(b) Scribing" to "(a) Temporal assembling" and then to "(d) Assembling parts into a work". However, they reversed processes when the need arose. Either "(a) Temporal assembling" or "(d) Assembling parts into a work" followed the process "(c) Making holes before nailing," which appeared the least in students' protocols. The results also showed that the "(1) Manufacturing procedures" factor had the highest incidence in the protocol throughout all four processes/steps. Therefore, it can be considered as the core factor in the students' thoughts when going through the assembling processes. In addition, some factors showed a strong effect on students thought processes: "(3) Image of the finished product" had an effect on the "(a) Temporal assembling" process/step; "(4) Examining the finished product" and "(5) Examining the strength of the finished product" on "(b) Scribing"; and "(6) How to use tools/machineries" on "(c) Making holes before nailing" and "(d) Assembling parts into a work".

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This article theoretically clarifies the developmental process of the evaluation method for social studies. By developing the evaluation method, it is possible to measure scholastic ability in a form that can be generally comprehended. The procedure of the evaluation method development is as follows. (1) "The formation of scientific knowledge" is adopted as the aim of social studies and the components of the target knowledge are clarified. (2) The relationship between the components of the target knowledge and learning activities in the classroom is clarified. (3) Some appropriate evaluation activities to judge students' knowledge are planned and an evaluation method is shown. Through the analysis of one unit of classes, the concreteness of the evaluation method corresponding to the class that aimed for "the formation of scientific knowledge" was shown. The classroom setting and the evaluation activity support the evaluation method. The developed evaluation method guarantees the scholastic ability of the students.

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The purpose of this paper is to clarify the theory and practice of narrative history education at the attached primary school of the Tokyo Higher Teachers College. This school presented information such as the viewpoint of teaching materials, educational methods, and the explanation of the government-designated textbook on education research('kyoiku-kenkyu'). History education research achieved a pioneering role through this school. Furthermore, the school refined the teaching methodology of the three formal steps which was originally based on the Herbart school in the Meiji era. The instructional method of teaching history through narration based on the government-designed textbook was established. Yoshinao Yamada's history education practice can be characterized by the following three points: (1) history education through narration was introduced and became established in the teaching process in order to arouse children's 'imaginative intuitions', and to clarify historical phenomena; (2) teaching and learning was focused on teachers' narration, and children's feelings towards history were generated by teachers' abundant knowledge; (3) class contents (historical phenomena) were taught according to children's developmental stages in 'verstehen' theory, so that children could intuitively and fully comprehend the target contents.

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