The focus of this study is to explore the relationship between the linguistic and cultural learning processes that four female Chinese university exchange students perceived in Japan over one academic year. Two data collection instruments were employed: participants' diary entries and follow-up interviews with the four participants during the…

This article uses the Japanese television anime series "Puella Magi Madoka Magica" (2011) as a case study through which to problematise the relationship between two prominent traditions within children's literature criticism: narratology, with its vocabulary of implied readers and textual address; and reception studies, which typically…

This study seeks to clarify the structure and characteristics of learners' successful experiences in elementary school physical education classes in Japan according to grade and sex. A questionnaire survey was administered to 1450 public elementary school students across Japan. An exploratory factor analysis revealed that successful experiences…

This paper examined whether a younger starting age of formal instruction on a foreign language is beneficial in expanding circle countries. An experimental study was designed to examine to what extent the five varieties of English language teachers are intelligible to Japanese- (JSLs) and Korean-speaking language learners (KSLs), who have…

Pre-pandemic studies indicate that East Asian students' migration to ASEAN Outer Circle nations to study English by no means marks their departure from an idealized anglophone English world. Via research conducted during the pandemic when online learning had become mainstream, this study further explores the significance of such students' English…

This study researched the use of metaphor among students and teachers to determine the images they had in their minds regarding a specific set of developed countries, and in doing so, utilized a longitudinal design carried out over four stages between November 2015 and November 2018 within a large metropolitan city in Turkey. The study findings…

The current study examines how second language (L2) users differentially assess the comprehensibility (i.e., ease of understanding) of foreign-accented speech according to a range of background variables, including first language (L1) profiles, L2 proficiency, age, experience, familiarity, and metacognition. A total of 110 L2 listeners first…

We assess the relationship between general literacy skills and health status by analysing data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), an international survey of about 250,000 adults aged 16-65 years conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) from 2011-15 in 33…

Purpose: This study tested the hypothesis that audiovisual training benefits children more than it does adults and that it improves Japanese-speaking children's English /r/-/l/ perception to a native-like level. Method: Ten sessions of audiovisual English /r/-/l/ identification training were conducted for Japanese-speaking adults and children.…

This study analyzed the responses of Korean students to interest, confidence, value, and instructional clarity in science and mathematics. To achieve this, the raw data of the recent student survey of TIMSS were analyzed. A one-way ANOVA was performed, and a post hoc test was performed. Additionally, a cohort analysis was performed to determine…

Automation and advanced technologies have increased the need for a better understanding of the skills necessary to have a globally competitive workforce. This study used data from the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies to compare problem-solving skills in technology-rich environments among adults in South Korea,…

This study investigated age differences in the utilization of visually contrastive information (i.e., differently colored identical objects) for temporary referential ambiguity resolution during spoken sentence comprehension. Five- and 6-year-old Japanese children and adults listened to sentences that contained a color adjective-noun combination…

Automation and advanced technologies have increased the need for a better understanding of the skills necessary to have a globally competitive workforce. This study used data from the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies to compare problem solving skills in technology rich environments among adults in South Korea,…

One of the challenges of developing assessments for young language learners is the shortage of evidence-based information about such assessments for languages other than English. In light of this situation, this paper discusses the development of an assessment for young languages learners in the context of Japanese as a second language (JSL). In…

Physical fitness is one of the key factors in healthy aging. Although physical fitness is widely recognized to decline with age, age-related decreases in the individual dimensions of physical fitness in later life are less clear. Purpose: The purpose of the present study was to describe the age-related changes in six fitness components covering a…