This study asked the participants of place-based educational programs in Micronesia and the Philippines between 1992 and 2017 how past learning experiences impact them now and how the learning changed over time. The responses of 128 program participants, mostly Japanese, were examined using a mixed-methods approach with an emphasis on qualitative…

Developing intercultural awareness among participants is an objective of many short-term study abroad (SA) programmes. However, such programmes often focus on essentialist 'target' national culture learning. Moreover, simplistic evaluation of intercultural development risks the decontextualisation of personally meaningful learning in experiences…

Here the author shares his attempt to add, without financial cost, substantive and dynamic international experiences to the secondary social studies teacher education program he facilitates. He provides thick descriptions of (1) the overarching goals of a collaborative, online, international learning project, (2) the curriculum materials he helped…

Since 2010, both universities in which the authors teach have integrated pc-based e-learning or mobile learning programs into several English courses. Students' online performances are evaluated and used in determining the grades for each course. The data accumulated over the years indicates both changing and unchanged e-learning habits among…

In this article I will first address what decolonisation is with specific reference to the colonisation and enslavement (Nelson, 2006) of Indigenous peoples, specifically my own people, the Indigenous Amami of the former Ryukyu Kingdom. According to Laenui (2006), there were five steps of colonisation, many of which I suggest are not yet complete.…

This chapter reports the challenges that both the students and the teachers experienced in a telecollaborative project between a Japanese university and an American university. In this semester-long project, the students in groups of three to five from both universities worked collectively mainly asynchronously and in occasional synchronous…

The current study examined the impacts of a Japanese university's international fieldwork programs on developing the higher-order thinking skills and attributes of the students who participated in the programs in the Philippines and India. Through students' self-evaluation questionnaires, the study compared the reported scores of these skills and…

Our principal objective is to explore if interculturality is relevant for the success of a bilateral student mobility program, Mexico-Japan Technical and Academic Exchange Program (MJTAEP). First, the authors explain their methodology and objectives of field work. Second, they situate their analysis within a framework of growing academic…

Many studies on intercultural communication introduced how their collaborative projects were conducted. There are also several studies that discuss how intercultural collaborative activities can be integrated into a foreign language curriculum, as well as a big project (the INTENT project) that helps teachers integrate collaborative activities…

In the context of learning a second language, the passing on of cultural information as a means to further the development of intercultural competences is primarily viewed as being unidirectional--the "native-speaking culture" passing on information to the language learning student. However, in EFL (English as a foreign language)…

In this study, we examined the use of compliments, self-praise, and self-denigration, as exchanged among nonnative English users. This was part of participation in an online cross-cultural exchange project (Ibunka 2019), which involved learners from six countries (Algeria, Brazil, Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, and the Netherlands). The aim of the…

Drawing from activity theory and its notion of contradictions of various levels, the present study analyzes tensions that emerged during a six-week telecollaborative project between American learners of Japanese (AMU students) and Japanese learners of English (JPU students) regarding expectations and manners of interaction. Transpacific groups of…

This article examines higher education for peace inside the United Nations (UN). It offers an overview and synthesis of core concepts, organizing frameworks and theoretical premises in the field of peace and conflict studies (PACS) higher education and in the UN universities in particular, as the field aspires toward transformative learning and…

Since 2000, I have been coordinating a web based virtual exchange project, Project Ibunka. Ibunka means different cultures in Japanese. It aims to provide opportunities of authentic interaction among EFL/ESL learners all over the world. The project has been giving English language learners from various countries opportunities to use English for…

Within English for Academic Purposes (EAP), writing instruction has often been of primary interest with a focus on curricula design and implementation. This especially holds true in East Asia where many universities operate EAP writing programmes. This study is located within this region, taking an inquiry stance in a small-scale case study of…