The provision of supplemental educational and instructional content in podcast form is becoming increasingly widespread in first language education. However, amongst second language students in Japan the lack of literature illustrates podcast use has been limited. Imitating podcasts, educational and instructional materials in audio form were…

The project development school idea in Japan started in the late 1970s. Both public and private schools can become project schools. Public schools' districts and private schools' boards develop the project plan and submit the application to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). Once approved, the project school…

This study examines how novice foreign language (FL) writers develop their genre awareness, linguistic knowledge, and writing competence in a genre-based writing course that incorporates email-writing tasks. To define genre, the study draws on systemic functional linguistics (SFL) that sees language as a resource for making meaning in a particular…

In 2001, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) released the "Rainbow Plan" as the educational reform plan for the twenty-first century. As part of the plan, MEXT will make English education activities compulsory at Japanese public elementary schools beginning in 2011. The purpose of the Rainbow Plan…