This study aims to develop a conceptual framework regarding practitioner knowledge and describe how one mathematics teacher generates her practitioner knowledge based on the framework. The characteristic of this framework is a combination of static and dynamic aspects of knowledge based on the teacher's perception and interpretation. The research…

The development of a mind-reading ability, known as theory-of-mind (ToM), has been recognized as following a universal process, but the age at which the false-belief task is passed has been reported to have wide inter-group variabilities. Japanese children have been reported to acquire a false-belief understanding at a slightly older age than…

School and university classrooms remain the standard around the world for second language instruction. However, over the past 20 years various methods of language learning have permeated the educational landscape to include self-study textbooks, language learning software and online teachers. Some models are evidence based while others lack…

This article updates the trends and developments of Japanese as a second language (JSL) research since Mori and Mori (2011) by reviewing nearly 200 selected empirical studies published in English or Japanese between 2010 and early 2019. The first section of this review examines the cognitive aspects of second language (L2) Japanese development,…

Within Japanese ELT, private conversation ("eikaiwa") schools are commonly viewed as the bottom rung of the professional ladder. In contrast to "eikaiwa's" marginalized position, language teaching in university is regarded as the pinnacle of the field's professional hierarchy (Nagatomo, 2016). The aim of this paper is to…

This book critiques dominant discourses and debates pertaining to values education, cultural identity and teaching democracy, set against the backdrop of growing social stratification and unequal access to quality education. It addresses discourses concerning globalisation, ideologies and the state, as well as approaches to values education and…

The purpose of this exploratory mixed-methods action research study was to expose six students studying Oral Communications 1 (OC1) at Japan's Technical University (JTU) to a sociocultural component using the textbook "Mirrors and Windows" (Huber-Kriegler, Lazar, & Strange, 2003) over an eight-week period with the assistance of…

This study investigates the extent to which Japanese learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) are able to offer mediation to their peers while engaging in pair work, and whether that mediation is sensitive to the needs of their partner. Grounded in sociocultural theory, the study assesses the extent to which the study participants identify…

The social basis of a teaching profession is created through behavioural and cultural patterns, specific artefacts, and their connection to certain institutional practices. The purpose of this study is to discover the conditions that structure the teaching profession in a cultural context and to find out what it is to be a foreign language (FL)…

Teacher beliefs are an important area of inquiry because research has found that these beliefs are often diverse (Breen et al., 2001) and strongly impact classroom practices (Borg, 1998, 2003; Burns, 1992; Farrell & Bennis, 2013). Therefore, uninformed teacher beliefs could be to the detriment of the L2 learner. Despite the fact that knowledge…

This paper explores, from a sociocultural perspective, the nature and functions of "zemi" or seminars in which Japanese undergraduate students received group supervision for research and thesis writing. The study also investigates how the "zemi" contributed to completion of their theses. It was found that the "zemi"…

In this article I investigate how Japanese students manage interaction together in a task-based English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom. Using methods from conversation analysis and focusing on the contextual dimensions of language, I analyse data from a real classroom task with a view to understanding the ways in which social processes and…

Informed and inspired by neo-Vygotskian theory, this article outlines a study exploiting a contemporary conceptualization of Wells's (2002) joint activity system model as an exploratory framework for examining and depicting the social-cultural-historical contradictions in second-language (L2) learners' joint activity. The participants were a pair…

What is the role of the teacher in developing learner autonomy? The limited research in this area is seldom situated in theory and often based on self-reported data. This study is situated in sociocultural theory and draws on two constructs, the zone of proximal development and imitation, to explain the teacher's role in developing autonomy. The…

In this paper, both a cognitive and a sociocultural theoretical perspective are used to bring together findings from two studies that investigated the effects of instruction designed to enhance the potentially positive effect of peer interaction on L2 development. Despite differences between the studies' learning contexts, participants' age, and…