This study aimed to examine university English Communication teachers' self-reports of teacher autonomy in terms of their own freedom to make decisions about the teaching and learning that occurs inside their classroom. Results showed that teacher self-perceptions of both general and curricular autonomy were high. There was some recognition that…

Background: The Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) developed by Council of Europe has been gaining popularity since its publication in 2001, and reshaping the practice in language teaching, learning and assessment not only across the European continent but also in many other places such as Japan (CEFR-J project). Some pioneering work…

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…

Standards of coherence are one of the major factors that influence reading comprehension. This study investigated the standards of coherence that second language (L2) learners employ when reading. In a pair of experiments, Japanese learners of English read two-sentence texts with varying causal and semantic relatedness between sentences and then…

In this article, the author examines Makiguchi Tsunesaburo's philosophy and practice of human geography ("jinsei chirigaku"), community studies ("kyodoka"), and composition instruction based on "value-creating pedagogy" ("soka kyoikugaku") for thinking through and responding to two competing trends…

There has been a widespread belief that teachers in Asian contexts including Japan and China are well protected by a tradition that reveres teachers. However, in Chinese contexts, cultural traditions have been found to undermine the teaching profession, together with educational reforms and societal changes. This paper reports on an inquiry that…

These are exciting and challenging times for English language curriculum development for school-age learners. The global reach of English has spurred a rethinking of its role in education and, consequently, a rethinking of how to teach it. The accounts in this volume represent differences in educational systems, language teaching traditions,…

Public school students in Japan must take English as a required subject for three years in junior high school and for three more years in senior high school. In spite of the amount of classroom time invested, and in spite of the available learning support services, the foreign Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) system included, the English…

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…