English language education, communicative teaching approaches, and EFL university students in the higher education context of Japan

The spread and role of English has dramatically accelerated due to globalization, placing Japan in a context where it has to increasingly promote English. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and... [ view full abstract ]

The spread and role of English has dramatically accelerated due to globalization, placing Japan in a context where it has to increasingly promote English. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology(MEXT) of Japan has undertaken strenuous efforts aimed at improving Japanese Students Level of English Proficiency in all educational sectors based on the English Education Reform Plan in Response to Globalization announced in December 2013. However, there is still strong support fortraditional “grammar-translation” and “teacher-textbook” approaches in the country. This short panel thus seeks to challenge these common trends in Japan, exploring other opportunities for teaching English as a foreign language in the higher education context of Japan.Drawing on varied ethnographic and qualitative studies carried out among Japanese EFL university students, the authors in this panel will explore the educational and pedagogical implications of their studies, while introducing the possibility of other alternative approaches to English language teaching in Japan. The panel pulls together scholars and language educators who are all based in Japanese universities, with themes such as:

How emotional state, the impact of a wide range of stressors and general motivation level strongly influence English learning process for EFL students in Japan and thus, it is important if language educators consider communicative mixed approaches combined with “touch of family-like environment” in the classroom settings; how the ethnomusicological resources such as the “Rondalla” of the Philippines and the traditional Japanese play “Noh” can be usefully appropriated in the context of EFL university classrooms in Japan; How the “glocal approach”– introducing globally controversial and locally challenging themes among EFL Japanese students using English social media such as Facebook - may raise students’ sociolinguistic and critical awareness.