Recent studies have shown that the frequency effect, although long used as a guide to word difficulty, fails to explain all variance in learner word knowledge. As such, a "more than frequency" conclusion has been offered to explain how lexical sophistication accounts for word difficulty. This study presents a multiple regression model of…

The affective turn in the second language (L2) acquisition literature has witnessed a shift from the periphery to a clear focus on emotions. Nevertheless, this shift tends to examine emotion separately from cognition. Vygotsky's "perezhivanie" provides a theoretical lens to explore the inextricable interconnectedness of emotion and…

Aural lexical knowledge (ALK) is crucial for second language (L2) listening. Despite its importance, there is scant research that has validly explored the relationship between ALK and L2 listening across different English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts. In an effort to broaden this research base, the current study closely replicates a…

Within school contexts that are socioeconomically marginalized, complex factors often lead to languages learning being devalued in ways which adversely impact students' potential, particularly their motivation to learn an additional language (L2). This paper examines the role of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in shaping students'…

Language reflects how people think and behave in their culture. To have successful conversations, both language use and cultural awareness should be taken into consideration. Undeniably, Japanese grammar is different from Thai making it even harder for Thai learners to have fluent and appropriate conversations in the Japanese language. In the…

In the context of educational informatization, the Guide to Institutions of Higher Education in China have set clear expectations for Japanese language teachers' educational information technology applications. There is an urgent need for research on information technology applications and the influencing factors of Japanese language teachers in…

In recent years, "Decolonising the Curriculum (DtC)" has been widely discussed and advocated in the European educational landscape as part of inclusive education. However, few examples of its practice in Japanese language teaching have been reported. While discussions of DtC in Japan often focus on the context of Japan's former colonies,…

The study examined the role of Chinese-Japanese cognate awareness in Japanese vocabulary acquisition among college Chinese learners of Japanese. Thirty-seven college-level students participated in this study and they completed a bilingual cognate awareness test which covered both crosslinguistic similarities and differences. In addition,…

Grammar is one of the important parts in the pursuit of Japanese language by all Japanese language students in particular and those who have a passion for Japanese in general. Grammar is always necessary when creating a complete sentence to be able to communicate and communicate with the opponent. However, especially at the intermediate level of…

Identity issues have been an area of focus in language learning motivation scholarship. However, the role of national identity in language learning motivation has not received sufficient attention. In response to the timely call for reflections on nationalism and language education, this study examines how political nationalism and cultural…

In second or foreign language (SFL) education, oral corrective feedback (OCF) is widely used to individually correct students' erroneous utterances during classroom hours. However, students cannot have sufficient opportunities for oral production and personalized feedback during classroom hours if a class is large-scale with many students. This…

This study explored the communication strategies of college students majoring in one of five modern foreign languages (i.e., English, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish) and their relation to communication confidence. It also explored the association between their strategy use and the difficulty regarding the speaking components, and students'…

There is growing recognition of the need to investigate second/foreign language learners' emotions related to their language learning, because both positive and negative emotions affect a learner's motivation and performance. However, research has not sufficiently explored the emotions of learners of languages other than English and other European…

Bilingualism was not the norm in our family tradition, except for distant ancestors who spoke Gaelic. The only language study by immediate family members was of Latin by my parents. In the first year that Japanese was offered at my high school in the 1970's, I was prompted by the teachers to try this new offering. I acquiesced without giving it…

Most L1 (first language) Japanese speakers in Japan seem to think that they are monolingual. While it appears that Japanese people accept monolingual-ness as normative in the nation, there is little situated understanding of what makes up this Japanese monolingual-ness. This study reports on repeated, long, and mostly unstructured interviews with…