We investigated elementary school students’ (grades 3 and 5) usage of dictionaries to look up words in textbook materials. An analysis of the words in the text that students did not understand, and had searched for in the dictionary, revealed that while students at a high academic level often searched for words that their teacher would want them to learn, other students often searched for commonly used words. By evaluating how the searching method differed between paper and electronic dictionaries, we found that the speed at which students (at all academic levels) searched for words was higher when they used electronic dictionaries. An analysis of how the searched terms were listed in the dictionary revealed that 40% of the words were considered too difficult for students to understand. An assessment of how the students felt showed that many preferred using electronic dictionaries to paper dictionaries.

The aim of this study was to ascertain the modern relevance of teaching Roman characters in elementary school Japanese language courses, clarify the subjects of Roman character learning, and provide suggestions for improvements.

First, I summarized the changes in the relevance of learning Roman characters in elementary school Japanese language courses based on the changes in the courses’descriptions.

Next, I investigated the issues of learning Roman characters, which have been highlighted from the perspective of English education and computer input, and my findings revealed issues in the following four areas: 1) guidance centered on the “Kunrei-shiki” system, 2) handling of multiple Roman character notations, 3) how Japanese language and foreign language courses (English courses) should be linked, and 4) contents of Roman character input learning in the Japanese language course.

Finally, I proposed that after the teaching content of Roman character learning in a Japanese language course is clarified, it should be linked with an English course. Moreover, I highlighted the necessity of teaching and developing the Roman character input method related to understanding the spelling of Roman characters.

Today, there is an increasing demand for incorporating inquiry-based instruction into all subjects. This study was based on the premise that “high-end collaboration” with school librarians would be effective in fostering teachers’learning in this regard. Based on this premise, I conducted a case study on what national language teachers can learn through high-end collaboration and how such learning can be applied to developing inquiry-based instruction in the national language curriculum.

The results of this study revealed the following: First, high-end collaboration was very effective in fostering learning among national language teachers by incorporating the perspectives of information literacy and critical thinking into their content knowledge. Second, when the teachers developed inquiry-based instruction in the national language curriculum, they applied what they learned from these collaborations in various ways including focusing on identifying teaching materials, the similarity in the nature of problems to be inquired about, and the differences in the school stage of the learners. Moreover, it was found that focusing on the similarities in the nature of the problems was unique to the development of inquiry-based instruction.

The purpose of this study was to examine the theory and methodology of classroom teaching practices in literature classes from the perspective of tolerance, in terms of learners’ own reading, which may differ from the teacher’s reading, as well as the problem that emerges when learners actually submit their own “multiple” readings (i.e., the totality of selves producing such readings) to the classroom.

In a fifth-grade class at an elementary school, students were asked to write their impressions of a literary work in the form of a dialogue between two persons, A and B, and to engage with other learners who had read the same work. It was found that the creation of an interactive essay made those “multiple selves” visible, and that dialogue with others using interactive essays helped bring about awareness of the value and meaning of each “multiple self.”

This study examined how English teachers in the United States teach reading and writing to gain insights into how Japanese language teaching in Japan can be improved. This study adopted a case study method and observed English lessons at K-12 schools in Bay County, Florida. After classroom observations, I conducted interviews with teachers and emailed follow-up questions to understand the context of teachers’ practices. The approaches of “literacy center,” “reading a chapter book,” and “guided reading” were chosen for further analysis because these teaching approaches are uncommon in Japanese language lessons. In addition, a particular teacher’s daily lessons were chosen for further analysis to examine how they balanced the acquisition of language knowledge, skills, and creative activities. The analysis revealed that the following three points are suitable suggestions for Japanese language teaching: (1) allowing students to select how to learn reading and writing by themselves, (2) deciding reading materials and the level of support to suit students’ reading and writing abilities, and (3) considering balancing the acquisition of language knowledge, skills, and creative activities.