Success in open educational resources (OER) has been reported by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA and the Open University in the UK, among others. It is unclear, however, how valuable OER are in learning and teaching. Approaches to OER policy and sustainability are just two other key aspects that remain unresolved across the…

Oral communication skills are essential for engineers today and, as they are included in accreditation criteria of educational programmes, their teaching and evaluation deserve attention. However, concrete aspects as to what should be taught and evaluated in relation to oral communication skills have not been sufficiently established. In this…

This paper addresses the problem of cultural and native language interference in second/foreign language acquisition. More specifically, it examines issues of interference that can be traced to a student's native language and that also have a cultural component. To this effect, an understanding of what actually comprises both interference and…

This paper reports a project in which researchers at universities in Japan explored the use of Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL) practices by developing a learning module intended to help improve students' scores on the TOEIC Listening and Reading Tests. MALL practices are currently being developed at universities in Japan because almost…

As blended language learning environments evolve within tertiary foreign language institutions, issues of power with regards to the privileging of electronic technologies come to the fore. Blended learning, or the principled mix of online and classroom-based activities, challenges the practices of traditional CALL and face-to-face teaching within…

In 2003, the School of Human Sciences, Waseda University, Japan, established the e-School, Japan's first complete undergraduate correspondence courses enabling students to acquire their bachelor degrees solely through e-learning. Supported by the widespread availability of high-speed Internet connections, it has become possible to transmit…

A study tested the English vocabulary and reading comprehension of about 1,500 Japanese college and university students and compared three different media formats for teaching vocabulary in English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) in a number of Japanese college classes: commercially available and teacher-adapted computer software; traditional…

Cell phones are now widespread in many countries including Japan where we teach, and are particularly popular among university students. Although they can be a distraction in the classroom, functions such as Internet access and e-mail capability have transformed them into sophisticated communication tools. But are they also potentially useful in…

Pedagogical features and implementation of a UNIX-based management system (UNIEM) designed to support the instructor in teaching English as a second language using a network of workstations are described. The application discussed here is for teaching English composition to students at the University of Aizu (Japan). UNIEM is constructed to assist…

The IADIS CELDA 2012 Conference intention was to address the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes and supporting pedagogies and applications in the digital age. There had been advances in both cognitive psychology and computing that have affected the educational arena. The convergence of these two disciplines is increasing at a…