Most L1 (first language) Japanese speakers in Japan seem to think that they are monolingual. While it appears that Japanese people accept monolingual-ness as normative in the nation, there is little situated understanding of what makes up this Japanese monolingual-ness. This study reports on repeated, long, and mostly unstructured interviews with…

Many universities in non-English speaking countries have been adopting English as a medium of instruction to internationalize their education. We set out to compare the language policies of a Finnish and a Japanese university using the lens of language ideology -- a set of normative beliefs about the social dimension of language. Data were…

The adoption of English-medium instruction degree and non-degree programs in non-Anglophone universities has grown dramatically over the past 15 years. Japan is not an exception. In the Japanese context, a growing number of research works have addressed the implementation of English-medium degree programs at the undergraduate level; however,…

This study explores how Japanese EFL students engaged in translingual practices during a telecollaborative project that connected two college classrooms in the US and Japan. The project aimed at encouraging the students' creative uses of languages, promoting an appreciation for their multiple linguistic resources, and nurturing their sense of…

With the development of language corpora, linguists have been able to identify how often specific words, phrases, and expressions are used, and in which contexts. However, applications of corpora in the wider domain of language teaching have remained limited. This article presents an approach to utilizing corpora, combining principles from…

In recent years, one of the most significant trends in higher education in non-anglophone countries has been the growth in English Medium Instruction (EMI). However, provision is rapidly outpacing empirical research. This study examined how macro-level education policy with regard to EMI is both implemented and conceptualised at the institutional…

Addressing the root cause of Japanese higher education problems, the present literature-based study explores Japanese higher education's power relationship with one of the most influential stakeholders, the business world. It first draws attention to the incongruity between the business enterprises' proclaimed struggle with the securement of human…

Stimulated by studies on South Korean students' early and later-on study abroad and Japanese companies' practice of hiring monolingual college students, the present literature-based discussion advances the knowledge of commonalities and distinctiveness between the two nations that manifest in either a textbook-case or a non-linear relationship…