This study examines Japanese students' awareness regarding critical thinking (CT) attitudes and their attention to building their speaking skills in an EFL context to determine effective CT approaches. The study began with a literature review of CiNii articles and studies from the Web of Science database regarding CT theories and educational…

This study examines the relationship between different types of language learning aptitude (measured via the LLAMA test) and adult second language (L2) learners' attainment in speech production in English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) classrooms. Picture descriptions elicited from 50 Japanese EFL learners from varied proficiency levels were analyzed…

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…

How to compute and report subscores for a test that was originally designed for reporting scores on a unidimensional scale has been a topic of interest in recent years. In the research reported here, we describe an application of multidimensional item response theory to identify a subscore structure in a test designed for reporting results using a…

This study explores the role voice microblogging-based activities play in developing learners' spoken production skills. The study involved 33 low-intermediate level university students majoring in English at a private university in Japan. The voice microblogging application used in the study was Bubbly, a cross-platform social networking…

Research shows that a very large percentage of Japanese university students are apprehensive about communicating orally, to the degree that their fear may be debilitating, weakening their effectiveness as oral interactants in social and classroom situations. This uneasiness with speech has been culturally ingrained for centuries. Children are…

A study investigated Japanese college students' perceptions and assessments of their college English classes, and to what factors they attribute difficulty in acquiring oral English. Subjects were 189 students from a junior college and a university, in first- through third-year English conversation classes. Most were English majors required to…

An approach to teaching English writing to Japanese high school students that focuses on writing for communication is described. First, communicative writing is defined. Next, a central concern of writing in Japan, the notion of audience, is discussed and two ways of categorizing audiences (real vs. imagined and "safe" vs.…