Educational materials of embedded systems are currently used in many educational institutions. However, they have difficulties in arousing the interest of students. One of the reasons is that a poor CPU (central processing unit), which has been loaded in the current materials, cannot execute the multimedia processing. In order to make the…

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…

A framework for designing intelligent assistance in a discovery learning environment is proposed in this paper. The process of discovery learning is analyzed and the required functions for intelligent assistance are discussed. A flexible simulator that fits any type of discovery learning is necessary. The problem solvers that perform fundamental…

To cope with dramatically increasing problematic behaviors among primary and secondary school students in Japan, training for counseling skills is considered one of the most important areas in current teacher education. The authors have developed on a DVD (Digital Video Disc) a prototype of counseling materials to assist both in the training of…

Use of a theme- or topic-based curriculum to teach English as a Second Language in a Japanese university is described. Students are freshmen and sophomores. The thematic approach accommodates the interests of the large number of teachers in the program and encourages teacher development of instructional materials while achieving some consistency…

A study investigated the content of commonly-used English-as-a-Second-Language textbooks used in Japanese nursing education and compared this information with the expressed language needs of nursing students. Seven English textbooks analyzed, all aimed at nursing students, presented instrumental language based on a situational approach to English…

This study examines how a group of Japanese teachers cooperatively designed lessons using a television program and other materials for social and environmental studies. Teachers started the design by identifying their aims of instruction through examining the contents of an educational television program. This program described how a group of…

Texts of conference papers and summaries of colloquia on second language curriculum design are presented, including: "Competency Assessment in Curriculum Renewal" (summary of session with Ian Harrison, Francis Johnson, Christopher Candlin, Anthony Green, David Nunan, Charles Smith); "The Evolving of a Curriculum" (Hiroshi Abe,…