This study examines Shinyashiki Kōhan (1899–1985), who was a self-taught scholar who passed the Japanese Language section of the Ministry of Education’s Normal School and Higher Girls’ School Certification Examination (Bunken); Bunken was, an important route for secondary school teacher qualification in prewar Japan. By tracing his life history, this study clarifies one aspect of the learning practices of prewar Japanese language teachers.

Shinyashiki, who also passed the Higher Teacher Certification Examination, inspired many Bunken examinees through his editorial work on the journal Nihon Bungaku (Japanese Literature), consequently forming a broad network of individuals engaged in Japanese literary studies.

Analysis centered on the magazine Nihon Bungaku (Japanese Literature), which he edited, revealed the following: First, Shinyashiki held a highly unique perspective on self-education and the Bunken, ultimately equating learning for the Bunken examination with Japanese literature research. Second, the network centered around Nihon Bungaku was exceptionally dynamic, and extended not only to Bunken examinees but also to writers and Japanese literature scholars, which is a characteristic not seen among examinees of other subjects.

Referring to the critique of logic in Kantian philosophy, this study presents a theoretical inquiry into logic education in an era of diversity from the perspective of Japanese language education. Previous research characterizes logic primarily as a linguistic competence for communicating social and interpersonal messages within the domain of “explanatory texts.” In recent years, however, the need to reconsider such conceptions to envision education suited to an era of diversity has arisen.

Via the reexamination of rational reasoning in Critique of Pure Reason, this study reveals that logic underlies all cognition, and that logical reasoning can extend indefinitely without ensuring objective validity. Accordingly, logic is reconceptualized as a two-layered structure comprising a foundational “personal logic” and an applied “social logic,” ultimately demonstrating that the formation of the latter presupposes the former.

This study clarifies the characteristics and limitations of Koichi Hoshina’s theory of elementary-level grammar instruction grounded in Japanese language policy. From the late Taishō period to the mid–late 1930s, Hoshina repeatedly advanced arguments concerning grammar instruction in elementary schools. However, previous research on his grammar education theory focuses mainly on secondary education, with elementary instruction insufficiently examined. Accordingly, the present study analyzes Hoshina’s writings from the late Taishō period and the mid-1930s that address elementary Japanese language instruction in relation to grammar.

The analysis reveals that Hoshina regarded the acquisition of the standard language as the primary objective of elementary language education; emphasized the importance of grammar instruction in speaking, writing, and reading; and sought to improve instruction through grammar manuals intended for teachers. At the same time, his theory relied heavily on language policy aimed at national integration and moral cultivation and failed to articulate concrete instructional content, methods, or sequencing. Consequently, grammar instruction became detached from content learning, thereby revealing inherent limitations as a practical pedagogical theory.

This study traces a genealogy of gengo kankaku (“linguistic feeling”) in Japan prior to the 1930s. First, occurrences of the term can be traced back to the mid-Meiji period; indeed, Kaito (1934) used the term prior to World War II, thereby challenging the assumption that postwar Kokugo education forms its sole foundation. Second, gengo kankaku is identified as a translated term derived from multiple foreign sources with two dominant lineages: cerebral localization theory and German Sprachgefühl. Finally, within the Sprachgefühl lineage, the semantic range expanded across various disciplines even in the postwar period. Furthermore, the perspectives on appropriateness and aesthetics in the current Commentary on the Course of Study resonate with those articulated by prewar authors such as Shinmura (1932) and Kaito (1934).

Through a practical record centered on “Dialect Children’s Poetry” by Mikami Saitaro, who is known for his controversial dialect poetry, this study examines the position of “everyday language” in composition and spelling education. Previous research examines Mikami’s practice from the perspectives of literature and folklore. However, little research analyzes Mikami’s practice itself, rather than just his essays. Therefore, the present study examined the substance of Mikami’s “everyday language” education through a practical record “The Beginnings of Poetry and the Struggles to Guide Poetry,” which has not been addressed in previous research.

The results revealed three characteristics of Mikami’s “Dialect Children’s Poetry” practice: “Dialect that emerges naturally,” “Dialect as spoken language,” and “Dialect as language rooted within.” The practice was not simply one that used “dialect,” but one that was conscious of “everyday language” that was closely related to children’s daily lives. Through Mikami’s records of practice, this study concretely reaffirms that “everyday language” in composition and spelling education includes not only local dialects, but also colloquial language that can be shared between students and teachers, as well as the thoughts that have been nurtured within students’ minds.

Amid the growing demand for special education in high schools, this study clarifies the instructional perspectives and perceptions of learners, as understood by Japanese language teachers, toward students with reading difficulties. Interviews were conducted with four teachers who were highly engaged in reading instruction and had extensive knowledge and experience in special education. The results were analyzed using Steps for Coding and Theorization (SCAT; Otani, 2019). First, significant portions of the teachers’ discourse were extracted, conceptualized, and classified into seven top-level categories, 20 mid-level categories, and 60 subcategories. Next, to identify discourse characteristics, the proportion of references in each category was calculated for each teacher. In addition, individual statements were reviewed to examine the teachers’ perspectives on the challenges faced by learners with reading difficulties.

A total of three key challenges in implementing instruction for learners with reading difficulties were revealed:

(1) Integrating perspectives from Japanese language and special needs education

(2) Assessing reading difficulty

(3) Balancing the relationship between regular curricula and individualized instruction.

This study examined how properties of kanji and words influence kanji reading accuracy, operationalized as percentage-correct scores for each reading. We conducted a secondary analysis of publicly released data from a nationwide large-scale survey conducted in 1999 and reported in 2001 by the Japan Foundation for Educational and Cultural Research. Participants were 26,787 students (788 classes) from Grades 2–7, and the outcome was accuracy for 1,759 on/kun readings of 1,006 education kanji. Based on the child version of the triangle model, we analyzed effects of consistency (on/kun type), lexicality (character–word familiarity), frequency (general and textbook corpora), and imageability (word imageability) on accuracy. Because accuracy was not normally distributed, Spearman correlations, Kruskal–Wallis tests, Brunner–Munzel tests, and logit-transformed regression were applied. All four effects were observed. In particular, even for the same kanji character, later-learned readings, compared with initial readings, showed reduced consistency and lower familiarity and imageability, making errors more likely and suggesting the importance of relearning.

Through the conception and practice of classes that engage others across past and future generations, this study examines the possibility of peace education in Japanese language classes in elementary schools. In this class practice, the focus shifted to the children as they vicariously experienced Aya’s transformation. By combining parallel reading about war and peace with bookmark-making, which allowed children to verbalize and communicate their own thoughts, the project explored ways in which they could learn with a sense of personal involvement. The children’s narratives, as mentioned in the process of bookmark-making, demonstrated that they had deepened their understanding of war and peace as issues relevant to themselves and moved on to the stage of communicating their thoughts to others. The fact that peace education is open to others across generations in Japanese language classes has demonstrated the possibility of developing a form of learning with a sense of personal involvement, and that the stage in which academic ability can be viewed and assessed has been achieved, can serve as a draft outline plan toward alleviating uncertainties in practice.

Through an analysis of a classroom practice using the story “Tazunebito” with fifth-grade students in Hiroshima, this study investigates the impact of learners’ “positionality” on reading children’s literature on war. Conventional instruction often reduces student responses to uniform moral generalizations, such as “war is wrong.” To address this, the present study introduced students’ individual backgrounds as distinct positions for reading.

The practice revealed that readings reflecting specific positionalities emerged. Notably, a fourth-generation A-bomb survivor discussed the significance of “leaving names,” which prompted a student with Korean roots to identify “Korean A-bomb victims” not depicted in the text. This intersection of perspectives visualized “invisible minorities” and deepened the collective understanding through socio-cultural interaction.

In conclusion, incorporating learner positionality not only helps students perceive war as a personal matter but also offers a model for inclusive Japanese language education that embraces diverse interpretations and backgrounds.

This study clarifies the effectiveness of using hot seating, which is a drama-based instructional technique, in literature reading lessons. This study was conducted with 127 second year lower secondary school students and used the literary work Run, Melos! as the instructional text. In the classroom practice, a form of hot seating was adopted in which all students participated as performers, each assuming the role of one among a range of characters in the literary work through group activities.

Students’ learning processes and data from a student awareness survey were qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed, respectively. The results revealed three aspects of the effectiveness of hot seating: first, improvised question-and-answer interactions generated new questions and fostered richer interpretations of the text; second, re-examining the work from multiple perspectives enabled students to develop a more three-dimensional view of the narrative; and third, by inhabiting the lives of the characters through performance, students re-created the narrative with a strong sense of lived experience.