This paper examined how “thematic” and “topical” units were discussed in 1950s U.S. Specifically, I extracted and reviewed the content of all the discussions in English Journal, edited by NCTE, that referred to the thematic and topical units.

As a result, the views at the time included the following: 1) It was considered significant in terms of areas of learning involving cross-language activity that emphasized the interests, experiences, and diversity of students. 2) It was developed due to its ability to overcome issues in the U.S. at the time, as it was supported by students. 3) It was a matter of attention to the unreasonable association of the subject matter with the material, the abilities of the students, and the continuation of their interest.

Some of these discussions were brought to Japan, and the theory of recommending the thematic unit was developed.

The purpose of this study is to clarify how Nobuo Ishimori was involved in the 4th term national textbook. This study analyzed the following two points. First, the background of his involvement in compiling the textbook is analyzed. Second, his making process of teaching materials about Manchuria is analyzed. As a result, this study clarifies that editor of the textbook requested realism in foreign tearching materials at that time.And Ishimori was chosen as one of the writers because of his idea for making the foreign teaching matelials. However, his original teaching materials were partly corrected. In particular, expressions of emotions and feelings were deleted. On the other hand, Japanization of language was emphasized in the textbook. It was written from the viewpoint which Manchuria was recognized from “Naichi” (main island of Japan).

This study examines college students’ ability in academic writing, focusing on sentence-final modality forms (e.g., “to kangaerareru”). The targets of our analysis are modality forms that fall into the categories of inference, probability, and evidentiality, which appear at the end of a sentence. We constructed a corpus by collecting university students’ reports and academic papers and used them for the analysis.

The results indicated the following: 1) the verb form rareru is often used in academic papers, while there are reports on the frequent use of ru, ta, and teiru forms; 2) there is little variation of Chinese verbs in the reports and the specific use of “kosatsu sareru,” which does not appear in academic papers; and 3) many of the modalities were in overlapping forms in the reports, such as “nodehanaika+to kangaeru.” The results show that the use of sentence-final modality forms is more common in academic papers, and some overlapping modality forms may have become formulaic in reports.

In Hama OMURA’s Unit Teaching, some activities were conducted with drama, and some were dramatized. The records of her practices can be seen not only in her writings but also in “study records” written by her students. This paper mainly looked at “study records” which are stored in the library at the Naruto University of Education, and studied the processes, changes, and purposes of OMURA’s instruction with drama.

OMURA instructed using drama in the three or four years after the war and during the period before her retirement. In the interim twenty-seven years, she had no practice except once when she used a ready-made script for a radio drama, “The Giant Snake in Sugawa.” In the postwar era, when OMURA wrote scripts from parts of textbooks and had students play them, she showed enthusiastic direction, going beyond just having the textbooks understood. In the era before her retirement, OMURA used various materials and presented them in more student-oriented ways, such as plays with interviews, radio dramas, puppet shows, and other styles. It is said that “The Giant Snake in Sugawa,” which was performed by a large number of students, was the turning point of OMURA’s Dramatized Unit Teaching, and that her instruction led the way to an expansion in each student’s ability in other activities such as school performances.

Youngsters who identify as members of sexual minority groups are often subjected to “verbal violence.” Therefore, this paper examined ways in which improving the language environment of Japanese language education could enable a better response to sexual diversity based on “sensitivity to language” and sociolinguistics. Four main areas of improvement were identified with regard to responding to sexual diversity: (1) developing language sensitivities with the aim of changing attitudes toward sexual diversity; (2) empowering young people by fostering language sensitivities to respond to sexual diversity; (3) conceptualizing practices using literary teaching materials to avoid outing others or compelling them to come out; and (4) identifying areas where there is a specific sense of discomfort toward language related to sexuality. These four points comprise the practical applications of learning development that would enable the critical examination of social values in relation to sexual diversity.