Digital educational game-based apps can be effective in helping young children develop language skills, particularly when paired with formal instruction. However, we need to know more about how educational games benefit learning in the absence of formal instruction, given children's proficiency with and willingness to use mobile devices anytime,…

This study examines the knowledge representation of Japanese university students assessed using grammaticality judgement tests (GJTs) and a metalinguistic knowledge test (MKT). The study also investigates the role of automatised and non-automatised explicit knowledge in general L2 language proficiency. Participants were 87 late learners of English…

This study aims to explore and compare the experiences of international academics in government-funded research institutes in Korea and Japan and focuses on their integration through primary roles and contributions, reasons to stay, and the challenges they face in their academic and daily lives. Although international academics are critical human…

In the world today, there are 5 million international students studying abroad, including those at the universities in Japan. This research investigates the factors influencing the study abroad decision-making of Chinese international students, based on the results of two surveys and semi-structured interviews. It focuses on the universities'…

In this study, 118 native speakers of Japanese watched 48 separate video clips in which a teacher provided recasts on phonological or lexical errors to students in Portuguese, a language with which the participants were unfamiliar. In the video clips, six recast characteristics were manipulated: length, segmentation (segmented/whole), prosodic…

Background: Variations in the skill profiles of learners have become an important research area in recent years. However, there is a lack of empirical research on this topic in Japan. We conducted three studies to address this gap. Methods: Study 1 investigated the characteristics of the flat and uneven skill profiles of Japanese learners of…

This paper examines the factors that impact Japanese students' decisions to study abroad from the perspectives of Japanese study abroad administrators. In-depth interviews of five study abroad administrators at Japanese universities were qualitatively analysed. Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory was used to identify various immediate and…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine parental and students' decisions regarding participating in K-12 level study abroad programs in Manitoba, Canada. Design/methodology/approach: The study reports on data collected through document analysis and semi-structured interviews with 18 international students and 14 parents. Findings: The…

In this study, 249 users of the "TOEFL ITP"® assessment series (e.g., admissions officers, English-language teachers, academic staff) in Japan, Mexico, and Indonesia were surveyed about their uses and opinions of TOEFL ITP scores, followed by in-depth interviews with 21 of these users. Overall, the most common use of the test was as an…

Predictive inference is the anticipation of the likely consequences of events described in a text. This study investigated predictive inference generation during second language (L2) reading, with a focus on the effects of strategy instructions. In this experiment, Japanese university students read several short narrative passages designed to…

Papers on second language testing in Japan include: "Differences Between Norm-Referenced and Criterion-Referenced Tests" (James Dean Brown); "Criterion-Referenced Test Construction and Evaluation" (Dale T. Griffe); "Behavioral Learning Objectives as an Evaluation Tool" (Judith A. Johnson); "Developing Norm-…