Since the Communities of Practice (CoP) concept has been adopted in various learning environments, visualizing its development in English as a foreign language (EFL) classrooms is complicated. Thus, based on the CoP concept, this study investigates the changes in learners' degrees of participation and CoP elements in EFL writing/reading classes…

This study explores the processual identity formation of six Japanese women who gave up a job, turned to higher education, and became university EFL teachers in Japan. My research questions include: (1) How did they change their careers and become university EFL teachers? (2) Since they entered the university EFL teaching profession, how have they…

This paper presents the prototype of a Mobile Language Learning Environment (MLLE) allowing learners of German at a Japanese university to map classroom learning content onto the pathways of their everyday lives, turning places they come by into mnemonic "loci", and thus changing their daily commute into a learning trail. Even though the…

In this paper, the authors reviewed the empirical augmented reality (AR) and online education studies, and those focused on designing or development of AR to help students learn, published in SSCI, SCI-EXPANDED, and A&HCI journals from 2003 to 2012. The authors in this study found that the number of AR and online education studies has…

The Japanese early childhood curriculum provides ample opportunities for children to interact with nature and to learn about natural phenomena. However, using Kalland (1995) and Martinez's (2008) theories about Japanese constructions of nature, this paper argues that most Japanese early childhood experiences do not constitute direct contact with…

Lifelong learning cities emerged in Japan in the 1980s and 1990s; in the Republic of Korea in the 2000s and 2010s; and in China mostly from 2000 onwards. They were a countermeasure to the increasing challenges of global as well as post-industrial uncertainties at the turn of the century, when cities were trying to find governmental instruments to…

Recent scholarship looks at the relationship of learning to space and place within educational research. The purpose of this article was to put data produced from teaching in four Japanese preschools into conversation with spatial theory and Ma, a Japanese spatial esthetic. We seek to understand "how" and "what" spaces…

Translingual practice is an emergent theoretical perspective which emphasizes the capacity and disposition for meaning-making across linguistic boundaries. Following on studies of globalized workplaces that have focused on lingua franca English, this article explores translingual practice as represented in interview and blog narratives recounted…

Information communication and technology (ICT) has been used in various fields. The use of teleconference for teaching and learning activities is currently not a new topic in global world. In Indonesia, through IMHERE Program from Directorate of Higher Education, some universities have been connected with a network of teleconference as a medium of…

This study uses an ecological framework to map one Japanese child's transition between elementary school life in the United States and Japan. I privilege the child's perspective while weaving in parent and teacher views, as well as observation and document data. Implicit and explicit expectations in the focal student's classrooms and schools are…

The first years of life lay the foundations for a child's future development and learning. Many countries have increased their financial support for provision of early childhood education and care (ECEC) over the past years. More recently, the focus of debate has been shifting from expanding access to affordable ECEC to enhancing its quality. A…

Many teachers are increasingly using Social Networking Services (SNS) in their classrooms, which allows for the first time the outside world to peer into students' private learning spaces (Blyth, 2011). However, the adoption of social media has mostly been done without careful consideration of possible ramifications students may suffer.…

Academically resilient students are those students who are academically successful, despite coming from the socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds that have typically predicted poorer educational outcomes. These students are an important group to study because if policymakers can understand what factors may have contributed to their…

In this exploratory study, the author examines both students' and teachers' perceptions of Moxtra, a cross-platform cloud collaboration service, as a blended learning tool in a language course. Participants were 242 first-year students studying General English and 8 teachers at the Bunkyo English Communication Centre (BECC) at Hiroshima Bunkyo…

Understanding the effects of class size reduction (CSR) has been an enduring issue in education. For the past 3 decades, Project STAR has stimulated research and policy discussions regarding the effects of CSR on a variety of outcomes. Schanzenbach (2007) reviewed STAR studies and concluded that small classes improved student academic outcomes.…