The purpose of this study was to explore students' perceptions of individual and collective Digital Storytelling (DS). All participants were non-English major students in Japan. The study goal of the course was to acquire skills and knowledge to present ideas and messages effectively in English with the use of information communications and…

In this pilot study, two second year writing classes at a university in Japan completed two group writing tasks using Microsoft Word and Google Docs. After both tasks were completed, the students (N=45) completed a short survey containing Likert scale items about their preferences when writing under the different conditions. Willing individuals…

This study aims to analyse the initial use of Digital Storytelling (DS) in primarily asynchronous classes in order to yield results and recommendations for future courses. All participants were students in elective English courses at a Japanese university in Spring, 2020. Due to COVID-19, the courses were redesigned and conducted remotely with the…

Seeking to identify and activate the Receptive Vocabulary (RV) of English Language Learners (ELLs), we designed (1) an online five category multiple-choice vocabulary survey that more quickly measures vocabulary knowledge, and (2) an online creative writing task where ELLs chose RV items identified in step (1). While RV items of highly proficient…

This study describes an attempt of using an educational social networking platform, which is called Edmodo, for English language learning outside classrooms at tertiary level. Considering the notion of communicative competence, the instructor incorporated Edmodo into his English classes as a project which is a formal assignment. In the project,…

In this paper, the authors discuss the findings of a quasi-experimental study of the flipped learning approach in an EFL environment. The authors investigated the composition-writing proficiency of two groups of Japanese university students (n = 38). The teacher of one of these groups had had much experience teaching with the flipped learning…

According to Swain, Kinnear, & Steinman (2011), we use a language with others as a form of shared cognition, and in the process we scaffold each other. This action research investigates how students' online written output affects each other's writing. One thousand twenty online entries written by 21 Japanese university sophomore English majors…

Facebook has best leveraged the rapid technological and societal changes over the past decade to grow into the world's largest social-networking site (SNS). However, research of Facebook has lagged behind other Web 2.0 technologies, particularly in regards to investigating its efficacy versus a control group to improve L2 writing. This study,…

The purpose of this study is to find the effects of using Videoconferencing (VC) as a tool for foreign language instructions in a semester long research study. The research questions focus on the effects of VC (1) on speaking skills, and (2) on general proficiency scores. English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners in a university in Japan were…

In this study, a qualitative analysis of 276 first-year Japanese university science major responses to plagiarism to deconstruct prevailing generalizations regarding the incidence of plagiarism by Japanese university students. These students were enrolled in a compulsory yearlong English academic writing course. While utilizing a contextualized…

Vocabulary is an area that requires foreign language learners to work independently and continuously both in and out of class. In the Japanese EFL setting, for example, more than 97% of the population experiences approximately six years of English education at secondary school during which time they are required to learn approximately 3,000 words…

While learners can acquire vocabulary through extensive reading (Pigada & Schmitt, 2006), research suggests that acquisition can be more effective when supplemented with targeted vocabulary activities (e.g., Paribakht & Wesche, 1997). Problems arise, however, in determining what vocabulary learners have acquired, and what items should be…

Practice and research in the composition education that is using computer and network have been more and more active. Through online composition system, a large amount of written texts produced by students and teachers can be collected. This kind of information is called a learner corpus, which is important in second language education because the…

The 23rd EUROCALL conference was held in Cyprus from the 24th to the 27th of August 2016. The theme of the conference this year was "CALL Communities and Culture." It offered a unique opportunity to hear from real-world CALL practitioners on how they practice CALL in their communities, and how the CALL culture has developed in local and…