How Can Japanese University Students Express Higher Level Opinions in Discussions With English Speakers? (65919)

Session Information: Foreign Languages Education & Applied Linguistics
Session Chair: Bumyong Choi

Friday, January 6, 2023 (09:25)
Session: Session 1
Room: 317A
Presentation Type:Oral Presentation

All presentation times are UTC-10 (Pacific/Honolulu)

An important activity in “global” universities is thoughtful academic discussions between native and non-native English speakers. However, for this to happen, we must face the challenge of how English language learners can express higher-level opinions with lower-level language skills. In addition, Japanese students often carry the additional burden of worrying about communicating in English. We report on a pilot program designed to address these challenges. Forty Japanese education students from a university in Tokyo participated. The program had four central components:
- Providing a clear definition of what constitutes "higher" level opinions
- Using asynchronous online video technology (Flipgrid)
- Discussing one-on-one with trained English-speaking partners whose responses scaffolded higher-level opinions from students.
- Emphasizing that higher level opinions develop over time through interactions with a good partner in a discussion, rather than emerge fully formed in one utterance.
The discussion topic was a familiar and important issue for these education students: "To address the problem of Japanese teachers’ long work hours, should non-teachers supervise club activities?" First, students expressed their initial opinion on Flipgrid. Then, trained English-speaking partners responded in ways that scaffolded a higher-level response. Next, students expressed a second version of their opinion. The discussion ended with partners summarizing how students’ opinions developed through the discussion. Pre-post survey data indicated positive effects from both the partner interactions and the technology use. Level of opinion, confidence, and enjoyment increased. The effects of particular aspects of the interactions and technology will be reported in the session.

Authors:
David Wong, Michigan State University, United States
Saki Inoue, Michigan State University, United States
Yui Yasuhiro, Shimane University, Japan
Xuechen Liu, University of Michigan, United States
Miya Suga, Tokyo Gakugei University, Japan


About the Presenter(s)
David Wong is an associate professor at Michigan State University. and a visiting professor at Tokyo Gakugei University in Japan. He is interested in the potential created when students from different cultures interact.

Additional website of interest
https://sites.google.com/msu.edu/davidwong-msu-cv/home

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Posted by Clive Staples Lewis

Last updated: 2023-02-23 23:45:00