PROCEEDINGS OF THE TEACHER DEVELOPMENT SYMPOSIUM, Issue 3, August 2023

2023

Proceedings of the2023 Teacher
Development
Symposium
NAGOYA UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN STUDIESTHE CENTER FOR LANGUAGE EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENTEDITED BY

Naoya Shibata
Richard Hill
Camilo Villanueva
Jason Walters
Jessica Zoni Upton

CONTENTS
Introduction ......................................................................................................... i
Personal Finance Instruction in the EFL Classroom ................ 111111111111
Matthew PHILBRICKThe Correlation Between Language Learning Motivation and Writing
Motivation ......................................................................................................... 33
Naoya SHIBATA
Linguistic Relativity: Implications for Second Language Acquisition ........ 58
Berke ALPIntercultural Learning through Collaborative Online International
Learning: Challenges for Students and Teachers ......................................... 72
Di MI
Pragmatics and a Locally-Made Corpora: A Toolkit for Teaching Discrete
Speech Acts ....................................................................................................... 90
Taylor MEIZLISH
Frameworks for Teaching Culture and Critical Thinking in the Language
Classroom ........................................................................................................ 120
Kevin OTTOSONPROCEEDINGS OF THE TEACHER DEVELOPMENT SYMPOSIUM, Issue 3, August 2023

Introduction
We are delighted to release the 2023 NUFS Teacher Development Symposium Proceedings.
This issue contains six articles based on presentations from the third Teacher Development
Symposium hosted by the Centre for Language Education and Development (CLED) at the
Nagoya University of Foreign Studies (NUFS) held on Saturday, January 14th, 2023. The
symposium provided opportunities for teachers and researchers to share knowledge,
experience and activities relevant to teaching English as a foreign language and to discusstheoretical and practical issues in language classes.
The first article in this issue, written by Matthew Philbrick, reports on the usefulnessof English Medium Instruction on Japanese university students’ English proficiency andfinancial literacy. In the second article, Naoya Shibata explores correlations between
language learning motivation and writing motivation based on quantitative data from a sixLikert scale survey. Berke Alp, who wrote the third article, reports on findings regarding
linguistic relativity. Di Mi provides the fourth article to delve into challenges students andteachers can encounter in Collaborative Online International Learning and highlight thenecessity of institutional support to address difficulties. The fifth article by Taylor Meizlishproposes the importance of designing local corpora to teach speech acts and assist learners indeveloping their pragmatic skills. In the last article, Kevin Ottoson presents frameworks forteaching culture and critical thinking in language classrooms.
The call for papers for the fourth NUFS Teacher Development Symposium, currently
scheduled for January 2024, has already been announced on this website. The Teacher
Development Symposium Committee would like to sincerely thank the contributors who
submitted their manuscripts and worked through the double peer review process and thereviewers who took the time and effort to provide constructive and insightful feedback.
Editors
Naoya SHIBATA (Chief Editor)
Richard HILL
Camilo VILLANUEVA
Jason WALTERS
Jessica ZONI UPTON

The 2023 Teacher Development
Symposium Committee
Nicholas BRADLEY (Chief Director)
Becky ALP
Richard HILL
Taylor MEIZLISH
Naoya SHIBATA
Miriam VASQUEZ
Camilo VILLANUEVA
Jason WALTERS
Jessica ZONI UPTONPERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

Personal Finance Instruction in the EFL Classroom
MATTHEW E. PHILBRICK
Toyota Technological Institute

Abstract
English-Medium Instruction (EMI) has become increasingly popular in EFL classrooms inrecent years, and the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science andTechnology (MEXT) has specifically called for its implementation in universities acrossJapan. One exciting avenue for this kind of instruction in the context of Japan is the topic of
personal finance, which is in dire need due to low levels of financial literacy among thegeneral Japanese population. This paper outlines a reading course based on the topic of
personal finance that was taught in a university setting in 2022 and which covered the topics
of earning, spending & saving, credit cards, investing, housing, cryptocurrency, andretirement. Fourteen students participated in this course for the duration of a semester, elevenof whom completed pre-class and post-class surveys containing both qualitative andquantitative questions which analyzed how students’ English proficiency and financial
literacy levels changed over time. The results showed that students’ TOEIC scores increased
during this period, but not significantly. Students also self-reported improvements in reading,listening, and vocabulary knowledge. Students’ self-assessed levels of financial literacy also
increased as a result of taking the course, and this change was found to be statisticallysignificant. Additionally, students indicated changes in their values and opinions regarding avariety of topics in personal finance.
Keywords: Personal Finance, EFL, Content Based Instruction, English-Medium Instruction

In the fall of 2020, I gave students in two of my English Communication classes a writing
prompt for homework. “If you won the lottery and received ¥100,000,000, how would you
spend the money?” Upon receiving their answers the following week, I found that the vast
majority of students’ answers could be summarized by either one or a combination of thefollowing three responses:

1

PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOM“I would spend the money travelling around the world.”“I would buy a brand-new house.”“I would put my money in my bank account.”
Not only was the uniformity in which these answers were given very surprising, as I
had expected a larger diversity of opinions given that there were 50 responses, but also the
dubious financial wisdom displayed by the students was quite shocking. While my students
were very knowledgeable when it came to the realm of engineering, it seemed apparent thatthey were lacking in the area of financial literacy.
In spring 2021, I was asked to teach a special course at Toyota Technological
Institute’s International Communication Plaza (iPlaza). The course had to have at least seven90-minute sessions with English as the medium of instruction, but no other stipulations were
given as to its content. Wanting to help improve students’ English proficiency while at thesame time addressing the inadequacies in students’ knowledge of personal finance, I decided
to make a content-based reading course that focused on topics in personal finance. The classwould cover six topics in seven weeks: earning, spending, credit cards, investing, housing,and retirement. My trial run for this class in spring 2021 got so much positive feedback fromstudents that it was decided that I would teach the class every semester starting in 2022. I also
made a number of reforms to the curriculum, including adding a lesson on cryptocurrency toaddress an important student need.
Financial Literacy in Japan
In their seminal paper entitled Financial literacy around the world: An overview, Lusardi and
Mitchell (2011) define financial literacy as an understanding of compound interest, an
understanding of inflation, and an understanding of risk diversification. To that end, they
developed a three-question survey to serve as a benchmark for measuring financial literacy.
The questions are as follows:1)

Suppose you had $100 in a savings account and the interest rate was 2% per
year. After 5 years, how much do you think you would have in the account if you
left the money to grow?
-More than $102
-Exactly $102
-Less than $102

2

PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOM-Do not know
-Refuse to answer
2) Imagine that the interest rate on your savings account was 1% per year andinflation was 2% per year. After 1 year, how much would you be able to buy withthe money in this account?
-More than today-Exactly the same-Less than today-Do not know
-Refuse to answer
3) Please tell me whether this statement is true or false. ‘Buying a single company’s
stock usually provides a safer return than a stock mutual fund’.
-True-False-Do not know
-Refuse to answer
Looking at the context of Japan, financial literacy does not appear to be high. Sekita(2011) measured financial literacy among the general Japanese population by asking the
aforementioned three questions to 5,386 Japanese people, and his results showed that the
majority could not correctly answer the questions. At the tertiary level, Japanese college
students do not compare favorably to their international peers in this area either. Using two
different test instruments to compare 395 undergraduate students in Sacramento, California
and 216 undergraduate students in Aichi prefecture, Chinen and Endo (2014) found that theAmerican students consistently demonstrated higher levels of financial literacy than theJapanese students. Similarly, Hahn and Abe (2021) had 1,006 university students in South
Korea and 1,015 university students in Japan take an internationally recognized test offinancial literacy, and they found that the South Korean students significantly outperformed
the Japanese students on most questions. Clearly, there is a great need for financial educationin Japanese universities since without such an education, these students are more likely to do
things like undercounting the cost of inflation and ignoring beneficial investment
opportunities, (such as shunning the stock market and keeping all savings in the bank), not

3

PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

diversifying their financial holdings (such as putting all their money into real estate), andfailing to sufficiently plan for retirement.
English as the Medium of Instruction
English Medium Instruction (EMI), a term often referred to synonymously as Content Based
Instruction (CBI) in North America and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in
Europe, is the use of English to teach academic subjects where the first language of the
majority of the local population is not English (Macaro et al., 2018). Richards and Rodgers(2014) have laid out the three central tenets of this approach as follows:“People learn a second language more successfully when they use the language as ameans of understanding content, rather than as an end in itself.
Content-Based Instruction better reflects learners’ needs for learning a second
language.
Content provides the basis for activating both the cognitive and the interactional
processes that are the starting point for second language learning.” (p. 118-119)
While research regarding the benefits and drawbacks of EMI in the classroom
compared to more traditional approaches to teaching English and content have so far been
inconclusive (Macaro et al., 2018), nevertheless, EMI has been rapidly expanding around theworld, quickly becoming a global phenomenon (Dearden, 2015). Japan has been no exception
to this, and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) has
called for Japanese universities to implement EMI courses in order to promote students’English proficiency as well as to help attract students from other countries to study in Japan(MEXT, 2012). To that end, in 2009 Japan launched the “Global 30 Project,” whose goal wasto accept 300,000 international students by 2020 (Tsuchiya & Murillo, 2019). MEXT later
replaced this program in 2014 with the Top Global University Project, which funded theinternationalization efforts of 37 universities in Japan, with one method being the promotionof EMI courses (MEXT, 2014). Thus, from MEXT’s perspective, the propagation of EMI into
new areas of content within universities is highly desired.
Research Issues and Questions
Given the fact that Japanese students tend to have low levels of financial literacy and that
MEXT would like Japanese universities to expand the number of courses that are taught

4

PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

using EMI, could a personal finance course taught using English as the medium of instruction
be used as a tool to not only increase Japanese university students’ English proficiency, butalso their knowledge of personal finance? That is the question this paper seeks to answer.
MethodFramework for Course
Based on the desire to both improve students’ language proficiency and teach students about
personal finance, it was decided that the content-based EMI approach would be used in thecourse. The course is content-driven rather than language driven, meaning that lessons wereprimarily designed to teach content based on the theme of personal finance, rather thandesigned to teach specific grammar structures, vocabulary, etc. With the exception of thelesson on cryptocurrency, this course uses only authentic materials created by native English
speakers which are primarily intended for native English speakers.
The course has three explicitly stated goals. The first is to improve students’ reading
fluency, that is, student’s ability to read with “accuracy, automaticity, and oral reading
prosody” (Kuhn et al., 2010). Students taking this course are required to read numerous
articles in English about different aspects of personal finance, and in doing so, students’reading fluency should improve. Second, the course focuses on topics that use much of thesame vocabulary words that students will encounter on the TOEIC test. Students participatingin this course will be exposed to some of these words, and thus they will be able to improvetheir performance on the TOEIC. Third, students taking this course learn about various
aspects of personal finance (See next section for details). In taking this course, students are
expected to be much better equipped to manage their finances and obtain financial freedom
once they begin working in the real world.
Class Procedure
Each class follows the same basic procedures. First, students are assigned a short article toread prior to coming to each class which pertains to that week’s topic. Students begin eachclass by taking turns reading out loud a second article related to that week’s topic. The
instructor occasionally interrupts the readings between paragraphs to provide scaffolding andfurther explanation regarding the reading content. Students are also free at any time to raise
their hand to ask for clarification in regards to unknown vocabulary words and phrases orabout difficult concepts in the article that they do not understand. After finishing the article,
students answer several discussion questions posed by the instructor which are related to the5

PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

topic of the two articles. For homework, students write short reflections in approximately 200
words about what they think of that week’s lesson and what they learned from the class(whether it be related to the content of the class, new vocabulary words, etc.).
Class Content
The personal finance reading course is broken up into the eight class sessions shown in Table
1. A more detailed description follows.
Table 1
Class Schedule
Week 1

Earning

Week 2

Spending & Saving

Week 3Credit Cards

Week 4

Investing I

Week 5Investing II

Week 6

Cryptocurrencies

Week 7

Housing

Week 8Retirement

Week 1: Earning
In this lesson, students are given an introduction and brief overview of the personal financecourse and then are introduced to one of the fundamental components of personal finance:
earning. Since almost all TTI students plan to work as engineers in the future, there probably
will not be much variance in their primary earning power. Therefore, in this class, students
read an article which details additional methods in which they can supplement their income in
the future.
Week 2: Spending
In this lesson, students learn about the other key component of building wealth, spending.
Many students are under the assumption that the only way to become rich is by having a highsalary and earning your way up the wealth ladder. However, in reality, spending tends to be amore effective tool for building wealth since it is something you have far more control overcompared to earning money. With this in mind, students are given reading materials which
detail various ways to reduce their spending and thus increase their savings.

6

PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

Week 3: Credit Cards
Many students tend to think of credit cards as an unmitigated good, but there are someserious drawbacks to credit card use that many students may not have considered. As such, inthis lesson, students read about some of the advantages of credit cards, such as its
convenience, consumer protections, and rewards programs, as well as its disadvantages, suchas its interest payments, fees, and how people using credit cards tend to spend more onpurchases than people using cash (Prelec & Simester, 2001, Raghubir & Srivastava, 2008).
Week 4: Investing I
As one of the most risk averse people on the planet (Hofstede, n.d.) many Japanese people
are very hesitant to begin investing because, in their mind, investing is akin to gambling, withsome people making huge returns, and others losing everything. Therefore, great care has tobe taken when introducing the topic of investing to Japanese students. For this lesson,
students are introduced to two important concepts. First, students read an article that looks at
the results of a survey of over 10,000 millionaires living in the U.S. and lists trends andcommonalities among them (Ramsey Solutions, 2022). Through reading this article, students
learn that most millionaires are just everyday people who have learned how to cut spending
effectively and invest consistently. Second, students read an article about the power ofcompound interest. The formula for compound interest is not very complicated:
𝐹 = 𝑃 %1 +

𝑟 !"
*
𝑛

While many of the students at TTI are well aware of this formula, most students
have never considered how they can use the principle of compound interest to enrichthemselves. To illustrate this concept, students read an article which highlights the massive
difference in earning potential that just a few extra years of investment can make (Ramsey
Solutions, 2022).
Week 5: Investing II
Having established the principles of investing in the previous class, students are now ready tolearn more advanced investing topics. In this lesson, students learn several key concepts.
First, they learn about several different kinds of investments, such as stocks, bonds, mutual
funds, and index funds. Next, students learn that while individual stocks’ prices can go up or
down, the long-term average growth for the US stock market is 10% a year. (Royal and7

PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOMO’Shea, 2022) Therefore, diversifying stock holdings is key, either through holding manydifferent kinds of stocks or by buying instruments like mutual funds and index funds that
already contain a diverse selection of stocks. Finally, students are introduced to five different
investment strategies: value investing, growth investing, active trading, dollar-cost averaging,and the buy-and-hold strategy (Ramsey Solutions, 2021).
Week 6: Cryptocurrencies
Cryptocurrency is a very difficult topic to cover in an EFL class, but since it has had such asurge in popularity in recent years, it would be irresponsible to not broach the topic. In thislesson, students learn three things. First, students learn about what cryptocurrency is and how
it works. Second, students learn about some of the advantages of cryptocurrency, including its
limited supply, its freedom from government and corporate oversight, its immutability, and its
potential for extremely high returns on investment. Third, students learn about
cryptocurrency’s many disadvantages, including its severe impact on the environment(McCarthy, 2021), its transactional bottleneck (Muli, 2019), its high volatility, its complete
lack of intrinsic value, its lack of government regulation, its lack of consumer protections, its
penchant to attract all manner of scammers and con artists (Karimov & Wojcik, 2021), andthe ease at which its price can be manipulated (Griffin & Shams, 2018), among other things.
It should be noted that due to the difficult nature of this topic, authentic readingmaterials that both were comprehensible to students and also accurately and objectively
described the topic of cryptocurrency could not be found for this lesson, so this author
carefully summarized the topic in an article of his own making.
Week 7: Housing
Many Japanese people aspire to build and own their own home someday, but they are notalways aware of the significant risks involved in house ownership. In this lesson, students
read two articles and watch a short video that outline the true financial cost as well as
opportunity cost of owning a home. Through this lesson, students learn how to better evaluate
the true value of their future living choices in order to make an informed decision.
Week 8: Retirement
The continual decline of the Japanese population has cast suspicions on the sustainability of
the Japanese National Pension Service’s ability to provide for people in their old age. Whilethe long-term viability of such a program is still under dispute, the objective of this class is to8

PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

ensure that students’ future retirement plans do not rely on the whims of a handful ofpoliticians in parliament. As such, students read two articles in this lesson. The first article
looks at some of the long-term issues facing the National Pension Service in the future. The
second article attempts to answer the question, “How much money do you really need toretire?” After reading these articles, students should be able to synthesize everything they
have learned in the course in order to plan their path towards financial independence.
Participants and the Research Context
This ongoing class takes place at Toyota Technological Institute (TTI), a small engineering
university in Nagoya, Japan, that has a total enrollment of approximately 500 students, andthe class is held at TTI’s International Communication Plaza (iPlaza). The course is open to
everyone, including undergraduate students, graduate students, and post-doc researchers. In
the year in which this research took place (2022), 14 students joined the course. Elevenstudents were male, and three students were female. The students’ educational position in theuniversity can be seen in Table 2.
Table 2
Number of Students in Course by Grade Level
1st year bachelor studentsnd0

2 year bachelor students

3

3rd year bachelor students

3

4th year bachelor students

4st

1 year master students

0

2nd year master students

2

Doctoral students

0

Post-doc researchers2

All bachelor and master students had TOEIC scores of at least 700, with the averagecoming out to 756. The two post-doc researchers were non-native English speakers from two
different countries in Southeast Asia, so they had not taken the TOEIC test before.
This class is completely voluntary, and students enrolled in this course do not receiveclass credit, but undergraduate students do receive 1 English Step-UP Point (E-SUP point) for
each class they participate in and do the homework for (they need 100 E-SUP points tograduate). Students joining the course are told in advance that their responses on the pre-classand post-class surveys will be used both for the purpose of future improvements to the courseand for research publication purposes.

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PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

Upon entering the course, students were asked, “Why did you want to take thiscourse?” Their responses can be seen in Table 3.
Table 3Students Responses Regarding Why They Decided to Take the Course
Introduced by Mr. Matthew in the lecture
For learning finance and English at the same time
Because I want to improve my reading skill, and I'm interested in personal finance.
Because I am interested in finance. I was interested in taking this course last year, but my
TOEIC score wasn’t high enough. This year I met the requirements. (Translated fromJapanese)I find the topic interesting, and I want to learn about personal finance in Japan
I want an environment to use English.
Because I had never studied economics much before, so I wanted to get a grasp of the basics.
(Translated from Japanese)
I'm interested in English and finance.
I didn't take any English class for this semester, so I thought I need to be active in iPlaza.
I want to learn more about investing to make extra money in the future.
Because I want to learn English and because I’m also interested in the content of the class. I
wasn’t sure if my English was good enough to take the class, but the employees at iPlaza
assured me that I was fine.
Actually I was planning to participate this course last year. But unfortunately, I had a lessonon the exact same time which this course was held. So this year, I'm looking forward to know
more about financing and willing to improve my English speaking skill
I would like to handle my finances properly not only while I am living in Japan but also in
general.
To have an insight about earning and spending
From this, we can break down the results into the following simplified graph in Figure 1(following page). Looking at the results, we can see that over three quarters of students
entering the course did so at least in part because they were interested in personal finance,
half the students were interested in learning English, with the overlap between those two of
36% of the total students being interested in both.

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PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

Figure 1
Simplified results answering the question, “Why did you want to take this course?”

Data Collection Instruments and Procedures:
At the beginning of the course, students are asked to fill out a pre-class survey on Google
Forms with one open-ended question and 11 close-ended questions that try to ascertain thefollowing things:
Students’ current English proficiency
Students’ self-assessed general knowledge of personal financeStudents’ values regarding finances
Students’ expectations for the course (see Appendix A for complete pre-class survey)
At the end of the course, students are asked to fill out a post-class survey with three openended questions and 11 close-ended questions that are similar to the questions on the preclass survey (see Appendix B for complete post-class survey).
Upon completion of both surveys, the results were compared to see if students’English proficiency, self-assessed knowledge of personal finance, and financial values havechanged, as well as to see if their expectations for the class have been met. Quantitative data
was compared using within-subject design t-tests due to having fewer than 30 students
enrolled in the course. These t-tests were calculated by hand without the aid of any advanced
statistical software.
Results/Findings
Out of the 14 students who have participated in this course so far, only 11 took both the preclass survey and post-class survey. The following are the results of the survey questions aslisted in Appendices A & B.

11

PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOMFirst, in the pre-class and post-class surveys, students were asked the following
questions:
Pre-Class survey: Are you taking this class primarily to learn more English, or
primarily to learn about personal finance?
Post-Class Survey: Do you think this course improved your knowledge of English or
personal finance more?
The results are shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2
Purpose of Taking Class and Final Learning Results

PRE-CLASS SURVEY

POST-CLASS SURVEY

Personal
Finance
more
27%

Both
equally
64%

Englishmore
9%Personal
Finance
more
45%

Both
equally
55%
Englishmore
0%

From these results, we can see that the majority of students expected to learn both anequal amount of English and personal finance. Upon completion of the course, most students
did say they learned the two equally, but not to the degree that they expected they would, andnearly half of students said they learned more about personal finance, while no one said theylearned more English.
Next, we want to ascertain what skills students thought they would improve throughthe course and what skills they actually did improve. Therefore, the following questions were
included in the survey:
Pre-Class survey: In what ways do you hope that this course will improve your English
proficiency? Please select all options that apply.

12

PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOM-vocabulary-grammar-listening ability-speaking skills-reading ability-writing skills-confidence using English in general
Post-Class Survey: In what ways do you think this course improved your English
proficiency? Please select all options that apply.
-vocabulary-grammar-listening ability-speaking skills-reading ability-writing skills-confidence using English in general
The results are displayed below in Figure 3.
Figure 3
Students Anticipated Language Skill Improvements vs. Actual Results.¥
0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

vocabularygrammarlistening ability
speaking skills
reading ability
writing skills
confidence using English
Pre-Class Survey

Post-Class Survey

From these results, we can see that most students expected to be able to improve their
vocabulary, listening ability, speaking skills, reading ability, and confidence in using English.
While most students indicated that they did indeed increase their vocabulary (although to alesser extent than expected), listening ability, and reading ability, only a few students

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PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

indicated that their speaking skills and confidence in using English had improved to theextent that they had expected it. It should also be noted that all but one student indicated thatthey had improved their English ability in at least one of these skill areas.
Next, to get a more objective sense of whether students’ English was improving or
not, we asked students what their most recent TOEIC score was before and after the class.
Most students at TTI (but not all) take the TOEIC test once a semester. The results are shownin Table 4. It should be noted that one of the students in the class had never taken the TOEIC
test before, so this participant was unable to answer this question. Additionally, it is suspectedthat three students did not take the TOEIC test again between the pre-class survey and postclass survey, hence their self-reported most recent TOEIC scores remained the same.
Table 4Students’ TOEIC Scores
Participant Pre-Class
numberSurveyPost-Class
Survey

1

775

685

2

765

900

3

745

780

4

825

825

5

750

780

6

730

735

7

700

715

8

755

755

9

800

800

10

715

745

Pre-class survey student average: 756
Post-class survey student average: 772
From these results, we can see that the students in the class improved their TOEIC
score by an average of 16 points. While it would be presumptuous to assume that thisincrease could solely be attributed to participation in this class, it is worth noting that the vast
majority of students in the class were not taking any other English courses during this time,
which is one reason they wanted to take the personal finance course in the first place.
In order to ascertain whether this improvement was statistically significant or not, atwo-tailed t-test utilizing within-subject design was conducted. In order to achieve a

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PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

confidence interval greater than 95%, a t-score of 2.262 was needed. However, after
conducting the t-test, the t-score was only 1.73. Therefore, the results from this question were
not statistically significant. More data will need to be gathered in the future in order todetermine if students’ English proficiency did in fact improve as a result of taking this class.
Not only did we wish to gather information about changes in students’ English skills,
but we also wanted to gather information about students’ personal finance knowledge andvalues. To that end, students were asked a series of questions specifically about personal
finance issues.
First, students were asked to rate themselves on a scale of 1 – 5 about how
knowledgeable they were about personal finance, with "1" meaning " I know nothing about
personal finance" and "5" meaning " I know most things about personal finance."
The results are shown below in Table 5.
Table 5Students’ self-rating regarding knowledge of personal finance, on a scale of 1-5.
Participant Pre-Class
NumberSurveyPost-Class
Survey

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11

4
4
4
4
5
2
5
5
4
3
3

1
2
2
2
3
1
1
4
1
2
1

Pre-class survey student average: 1.8
Post-class survey student average: 3.9
Since students were not studying about personal finance outside of the class, it can beassumed that this increase is due to students’ participation in the course. In order to ascertain
whether these results were statistically significant or not, a two-tailed t-test utilizing withinsubject design was conducted. The resulting t-score was 7.347, which greatly exceeds 4.587,
which is the t-score needed to have a confidence interval of over 99.9%. Therefore, these15

PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

results are indeed statistically significant, demonstrating that according to the students’
perceptions, their knowledge of personal finance increased greatly.
Next, students were asked the following question about spending vs. earning in the
pre-class and post-class surveys:
Which do you think is more important when attempting to gain wealth?
-Earning a lot of money-Spending less and saving more
-They are both equally important
Figure 4
Answers to“Which do you think is more important when attempting to gain wealth?”

The results are shown in Figure 4, above. From these results, we can see that many
students had a change in values during their time in the class. This is likely due to the factthat students read articles that suggested that reducing spending was a more effective way toincrease savings rather than increasing earnings, especially since many Japanese companies’salary levels are fixed based on seniority rather than merit, which makes increasing earnings
very difficult to do.
Next, students were asked the question, “In the future (after you graduate), whatpercent of your income do you plan to save every month? (Write “I don’t know” if you don’t
know.)” The results are shown in Table 6 on the following page:

16

PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

Table 6Students’ Future Income Savings Plans
Pre-class survey student average: 29% (36% “I don’t know”)
Post-class survey student average: 22% (9% “I don’t know”)
At first glance, it would appear that taking the class caused students to save less not
more, but upon further analysis, we see a significant percentage of the class initially had nosavings plan at all, and as a result of taking the class, they were able to decide upon savings
plans, so this could still possibly be seen as a success.
Next, students were asked how they planned to save and invest their money in the
future. The results are shown in Figure 5 on the following page. From Figure 5, we can see
there were a number of changes between the pre-class survey results and post-survey results.
First of all, after taking the class, there was a huge surge in interest in investing in stocks,
mutual funds, and index funds, with 100% of students indicating in the post-class survey thatthey planned to invest this way. Second, students ceased having any interest in investing incryptocurrency after completing the course. Third, the number of students interested inbuying governments bonds doubled in the post-class survey.
Next, students were asked, “20 years from now, what kind of place do you plan to livein?” The results can be seen in Figure 6 on the following page. From these results we can seethat over the course of the class, the undecided students made decisions about their future
housing plans, fewer students became interested in buying new houses, and more people
became interested in renting apartments. This demonstrates that students are beginning tothink for themselves about what living situations are specifically in their own best interests inthe near future.

17

PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

Figure 5
How Students Plan to Save and Invest Their Money in the Future.
0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Put my money in a savings…
Buy real estate (i.e. office…
Invest in stocks, mutual funds,…
Buy commodity futures (gold,…
Buy cryptocurrency (Bitcoin,…
Buy government bonds
I’ve never thought about this…
Other
Pre-Class Survey

Post-Class Survey

Figure 6
Students’ housing plans in 20 years

PRE-CLASS SURVEY
Not
decided…

Buy a new
house
27%

Buy a used
house
9%

Rent anapartment46%

Buy a usedcondominium
9%

POST-CLASS SURVEY
Buy a newhouse
18%
Buy a used
house
9%

Buy a newcondominium
9%

Rent anapartment
64%

For the next item, students were asked in both surveys what age they planned to retire.
The results are shown on the next page in Table 7.

18

PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

Table 7
Students’ Planned Retirement Age
Pre-class survey student average: 61 (1 Never retire)
Post-class survey student average: 61.1 (2 Never retire)
From these results, we can see there was little to no change between the pre-class andpost-class surveys, so despite one of the focuses of the class being on saving for retirement,
this class seemed to have very little effect on students’ intended age of retirement.
Next, students were asked in both surveys how much money they thought they would
have at retirement. The results are shown in Table 8. From these results, we can see that not
only were students more confident in how much money they would have at retirement (since
everyone was able to give a number in the post-class survey), but also the amount of money
students expected to have at retirement doubled. While the reasons for students’ increased
confidence in their anticipated level of retirement savings goes beyond the scope of the data
gathered in the surveys, based on the responses on students’ weekly reflections, it issuspected that the main reason for this doubling is because students learned about the powerof compound interest during the two lessons on investing and realized how much money theystand to gain by investing early on in their careers.
Table 8Students Anticipated Level of Savings at Retirement.
Pre-class survey student average: ¥36,666,667 (2 Not sure)
Post-class survey student average: ¥ 72,818,182
For the next item, students were asked how much money they thought they would
need at retirement. The results are shown in Table 9.
Table 9Students’ Estimate as to How Much Money They Will Need When They Retire.
Pre-class survey student average: ¥51,250,000 (3 Not sure)
Post-class survey student average: ¥ 61,600,000 (1 Not sure)
There are a number of conclusions we can draw from these results. First, students
were more confident about how much money they needed at retirement since more students
wrote down numbers for this question in the post-class survey. Second, students realized theywould need a bit more money at retirement than they had originally anticipated. Third,

19

PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

comparing the results of this question with the last one, students did not think they would be
able to save enough money for retirement in the pre-class survey, but in the post-class survey,
students became confident that they will have more than enough money than what will beneeded at retirement.
Next, in the post-class survey only, students were asked which lesson they thought
was the most valuable to them and why. The results are shown in Table 10:
Table 10Students’ Opinions about Which Class They Found to Be Most Valuable
Week 4: Investing 1
Week 5: Investing 2. It’s given me confidence that I'm starting to invest in index funds.
Investment I learned a lot of specifics about investing.
Retirement was valuable to me because I don't think about it in daily life.
Retirement
The one about investment is the most valuable to me because there is much knowledge that I didn’tknow before.
Spending - It was the most beneficial topic for me.
For me, lesson about cryptocurrency was most valuable because I've never learned about this topic
and have been interested in it.
Class of Investing because I was just thinking to save all my money in my bank account, and I
learned that the value of money is decreasing annually.
Investment because I thought it was a way to increase money with little risk.
The method of good investment was helpful to me. For example, I learned the problems of day
trading. Before the class, I was afraid of investing, so I was thinking that I would just deposit
money in the bank, but I have found that if I start investing from a young age, I can save money
efficiently. That's the best part.
From these results, we can see that that the two investing lessons were by far the mostpopular classes with students. Students’ responses tended to echo the same thing regardingthese two lessons: Prior to the lessons, they either did not know much about investing at all or
thought it was a risky endeavor and had planned to put most of their money in a bankaccount, but thanks to what they learned in class, they realized how much they stood to gain
by investing and thus gained the confidence to do so. The second most popular lesson was theone on retirement, with one student noting how they had not really thought about retirement
planning before taking the class. Thus, from these results, it can be concluded that the20

PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

decision to spend two classes covering the topic of investing was warranted.
Next, on the post-class survey, students were asked which class was the least valuable
to them. The results are shown in Table 11.
Table 11
Students’ Opinions about Which Class They Found to Be the Least Valuable
Week 2 spending, because while spending control was important, methods for doing so were not
new knowledge.
Earning. I understand that saving is more important than that after the class but it doesn't mean it'suseless.
All lessons were valuable to me.
Investing 1 was not valuable to me because I knew about basic information of Investment.
None
The first one (earning). This is because the class was a list of knowledge. I don’t have to attend
the class. I can know the thing if I read the documents.
I don't have it.
There aren't such a class but there are difficult article for me to read.
Class of earning money. Because it was about earning little money for little jobs. But it doesn'tmean to remove the class because it is a necessary topic to begin the course.
Credit Cards Because there were many things I already knew.
bit coin. because I wasn't interested in bitcoin.
From these results, we can see that there was not much consensus about which class
was the least valuable, but the first class on earning was chosen by the most students. Whenmaking their choices, most students indicated that they made their selection because they
already knew the contents of the lesson, but some students emphasized that they still thoughtthat these concepts were very important for everyone to know.
Table 12Students’ Answers to the Question, “Would You Recommend This Class to Others?”
I will recommend to start investing as early as possible.
I’d do. It was the first time for me to take a legit finance course and I learned a lot. Everyone
should know about finance.
Yes. You can improve English skills, especially reading skill, and learn about money
management.

21

PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOMYes I would. We can improve listening and reading skills in this class.
Yes, definitely will recommend this class to others.
I recommend this class because it’s a valuable opportunity to speak English regularly.
I will because this class gave me a lot of fundamental and important knowledge for my moneyand became the time to review my future plan.
Of course, I'll recommend this class because it's informative, especially about finance. Matthew’s
advice in this class should be helpful when I encounter financial problems.
I recommend this class to my friends, because "personal finance" is something everyone will use,
but you won't learn in normal class.
Yes. It is worth taking the class because there are so many things you can't afford not to know.
I will recommend this course to my friends. I think it's a good idea to learn about money before
getting a job.
Finally, on the post-class survey, students were asked if they would recommend thisclass to others. The results are shown in Table 12. Looking at the results, 100% of thestudents who completed the survey said they would recommend the class to others, with themost common reason being the usefulness of the information about personal finance, and thesecond most common reason being that students could improve their English skills.
Discussion
Looking at these results, it appears that the students who took this course and completed bothsurveys seem to have appreciated the course and benefited in some way. First, every single
student who took the post-class survey said that they would recommend this class to others in
the future. Based on this, we can only presume that they found the course useful.
Second, all but one student self-reported some kind of improvement in their English
proficiency. TOEIC scores also went up on average. However, the gain in TOEIC scores was
not statistically significant, so we cannot conclude that the increase in scores was necessarilya result of students taking this class. Even if the results had been statistically significant, it
would not necessarily have followed that this was solely due to the course since students may
have been learning English on their own time while taking this class. Nevertheless, it issomewhat reassuring that the vast majority of students at least perceived their English ability
to have improved as a result of the class, and this provides some justification for continuationof the course. Additionally, implementation of this course also aligns well with MEXT’s goalof expanding EMI courses into Japanese universities (MEXT, 2014), which provides further
justification for its inclusion in university curriculum.

22

PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

Third, this course seems to have improved students’ financial literacy. This wasmeasured in two ways. First, students’ self-evaluation regarding their knowledge of personal
finance greatly improved between surveys, with every single student who took the course andcompleted both surveys indicating an increase, and this change was shown to have beenstatistically significant. Second, students’ values and opinions regarding issues in personal
finance also seem to have changed as a result of taking the course. Students began gravitating
towards cutting spending as the primary means to increase savings as opposed to increasing
earnings. Students became more interested in investing in stocks, index funds, mutual funds,
and government bonds in the future. Students also became more interested in renting anapartment in the future as opposed to other living arrangements, such as buying a house.
More students also became able to predict how much money they would need to have atretirement. Finally, students gained an increased confidence that they would have enoughmoney saved at retirement to match their anticipated level of need. While it is impossible toprove that all of the new values and opinions that students espoused in the post-class survey
are objectively better than their previous views, the changes at the very least demonstrate thatstudents are engaging with the content of the course and thinking for themselves about theirfinancial prospects in the future.
There are three main limitations to this study. First, 14 students have participated inthis course so far, but three students did not complete both the pre-class and post-classsurveys. This was due to a variety of reasons, some of which did not in any way pertain todissatisfaction in the course, such as one student switching universities before the end of thesemester. In any case, it is impossible to know what these dropouts would have indicated ifthey had completed both surveys, but there are concerns that their answers might havediffered from the students who completed both surveys, and this could potentially threaten
the validity and generalizability of the results.
Second, while this study did observe an increase in students’ financial literacy byanalyzing students’ self-evaluations and the changes in their financial values and opinions
over time, these two methods were not quantitatively objective and instead relied on selfperceptions and self-reporting. Testing instruments akin to those developed by Lusardi and
Mitchell (2011) would have given more definitive quantitative data on changes to students’financial literacy over time. Perhaps this could be explored in future studies on this topic.
Third, this study had a very limited dataset since only 11 students completed bothsurveys. One consequence of this was that the case for utilizing EMI to teach personal
finance was not as strong as it could have been since the increases in students’ TOEIC scores
23

PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

did not end up being statistically significant. More data points would help to mitigate thisproblem. However, since this study is still ongoing, it is hoped that this particular problem
will be rectified in the future as more students participate in the course.
Conclusion
Based on the information presented here, it seems quite apparent that there is a great need for
personal finance education in Japan. A personal finance reading course, such as the one
outlined above, seems to be a great way to kill two birds with one stone by both increasing
students’ financial literacy levels while at the same time increasing their English proficiency.
The results from this particular study have been positive so far in both of these aspects, so
perhaps this is an area of instruction in which other English teachers in Japan might choose topursue in their own classrooms in the future. So far, the course described in detail here has
been confined to the seven topics of earning, spending, credit cards, investing,
cryptocurrency, housing, and retirement, but lessons for more topics are actively being
developed for future use, with the hopes that this course will be able to fit into a standard 15week semester in the near future.
Acknowledgements
This author would like to thank Ben Shearon for sharing his approach to teaching personal
finance in his own classroom in Japan. The wealth of knowledge that he has provided both
personally and on his website has been of immense value. This author would also like tothank his supervisor, Dr. Daisuke Hara, for allowing him to teach this experimental course at
Toyota Technological Institute.
BIO DATA
Matthew Philbrick received a Master of Arts in TESOL degree from the University ofCentral Florida in 2016. He has taught in numerous prefectures across Japan and currently
resides with his wife and son in Nagoya, where he teaches at Toyota Technological Institute.

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Dearden, J. (2015). English as a medium of instruction —a growing global phenomenon.
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Lusardi, A & Mitchell, O. (2011). Financial literacy around the world: an overview. Journalof Pension Economics & Finance, 10(4), 497-508.
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Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
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PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOMAppendix A: Pre-class Survey
The following survey was taken by students before the start of each semester’s class:
1. Why did you want to take this course? このコースに申し込んだ理由をお聞かせください。
2. Are you taking this class primarily to learn more English, or primarily to learn about personal
finance?
この講座を希望したのは主に英語を学びたいからですか、それとも personal finance について学びたいからですか。⼀つ選択してください。
-Primarily to learn English 主に英語を学びたい-Primarily to learn about personal finance 主に personal finance を学びたい-Both equally 同じ⽐重で両⽅学びたい
3. In what ways do you hope that this course will improve your English proficiency? Please
select all options that apply.
このコースを受講することで、以下のどの英語⼒が伸びると期待していますか。複数回答可。
-vocabulary 語彙⼒-grammar ⽂法-listening ability リスニング⼒-speaking skills スピーキング⼒-reading ability リーディング⼒-writing skills ライティング⼒-confidence using English in general 英語を使うことの⾃信
4. What was your most recent TOIEC score? 直近の TOEIC スコアを教えてください。
5. On a scale of 1 - 5, how knowledgeable do you think you are about personal finance? With"1"
meaning " I know nothing about personal finance" and "5" meaning " I know most things about
personal finance".

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PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

personal finance についてどれくらい知識があると思いますか。１〜５で記⼊してください。1 全く知識がない〜

5 知識がある

6. Which do you think is more important when attempting to gain wealth?
富を得ようとするには何が⼤切だと思いますか。
-Earning a lot of money たくさん収⼊を得ること-Spending less and saving more ⽀出を抑えより多く預貯⾦にまわすこと-They are equally important 上記２つは同等に⼤切
7. In the future (after you graduate), what percent of your income do you plan to save every
month? (Write “I don’t know” if you don’t know.) ____%
卒業後、毎⽉収⼊の何％くらい預貯⾦するつもりですか。わからなければ “I don’tknow”と記⼊してください。
8. How do you plan to save/invest your money in the future? Please check all that apply.
将来どのように預貯⾦/ 投資するつもりですか。複数回答可。
-Put my money in a savings account in my bank. ⾃分の銀⾏⼝座に預⾦する-Buy real estate (i.e. office buildings, shops, apartments, and homes) 不動産投資 （事務所、店舗、アパート、マンション家など）-Invest in stocks, mutual funds, and index funds. 株、投資信託、インデックスファンド-Buy commodity futures (gold, oil, food, etc.) 商品先物（⾦、オイル、⾷品など）-Buy cryptocurrency (Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.) 仮想通貨（ビットコイン、イーサリアムなど）-Buy government bonds 国債-I’ve never thought about this before. 考えたことがない。
-Other: ___________________
9. 20 years from now, what kind of place do you plan to live in?
20 年後にどんな住まいに住んでいたいですか。
-Rent an apartment 賃貸マンション

28

PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOM-Rent a house ⼾建て賃貸-Buy a used condominium 中古分譲マンション-Buy a new condominium 新築分譲マンション-Buy a used house 中古⼀⼾建て-Buy a new house 新築⼀⼾建て-Live in a parentʼs house for free 親と同居（家賃なし）-Other: ___________________
10. At what age do you plan to retire?
何歳でリタイアしたいですか。
11. How much money do you think you will have when you retire?
定年時にいくらお⾦があると思いますか。
12. How much money do you think you need to retire?
リタイアするのにいくらお⾦が必要だと思いますか。

29

PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOMAppendix B: Post-class Survey
The following survey was taken by students in each class upon its conclusion.
1. Do you think this course improved your knowledge of English or personal finance more?
この講座を受講して英語⼒が伸びたと感じますか、それとも personal finance についての知識がついたと思いますか。⼀つ選択してください。
-English more
-Personal Finance more
-Both equally
2. In what ways do you think this course improved your English proficiency? Please select all
options that apply.
受講して、どの英語⼒がついたと感じますか。複数回答可。
-vocabulary 語彙⼒-grammar ⽂法-listening ability リスニング⼒-speaking skills スピーキング⼒-reading ability リーディング⼒-writing skills ライティング⼒-confidence using English in general 英語を使うことの⾃信-My English proficiency did not improve 英語⼒は伸びなかった
3. What was your most recent TOIEC score?
直近の TOEIC スコアを教えてください。
4. Now that you have finished this class, on a scale of 1 – 5, how knowledgeable do you think
you are about personal finance? (With “1” meaning “I know nothing about personal finance”
and 5 meaning “I know most things about personal finance.”)
受講し終えた今、personal finance についてどれくらい⾒識が深まったと思いますか。
レベル 1 から 5 の中から選択してください。（レベル１；personal finance について理30

PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOM

解していない。レベル５；personal finance についてほぼ理解している。）
5. Which do you think is more important when attempting to gain wealth?
富を得ようとするには何が⼤切だと思いますか。
-Earning a lot of money たくさん収⼊を得ること-Spending less and saving more ⽀出を抑えより多く預貯⾦にまわすこと-They are equally important 上記２つは同等に⼤切
6. In the future (after you graduate), what percent of your income do you plan to save every
month? (Write “I don’t know” if you don’t know.) ____%
卒業後、毎⽉収⼊の何％くらい預貯⾦するつもりですか。わからなければ “I don’tknow”と記⼊してください。
7. How do you plan to save/invest your money in the future? Please check all that apply.
将来どのように預貯⾦/ 投資するつもりですか。複数回答可。
-Put my money in a savings account in my bank. ⾃分の銀⾏⼝座に預貯⾦する-Buy real estate (i.e. office buildings, shops, apartments, and homes) 不動産投資 （事務所、店舗、賃貸住宅(家主））-Invest in stocks, mutual funds, and index funds. 株、投資信託、インデックスファンド-Buy commodity futures (gold, oil, food, etc.) 先物取引（⾦、オイル、⾷物など）-Buy cryptocurrency (Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.) 仮想通貨（ビットコイン、イーサリアムなど）-Buy government bonds 国債-I’ve never thought about this before. 考えたことがない。
-Other: _______________________
8. 20 years from now, what kind of place do you plan to live in?
20 年後にどんな住まいに住んでいたいですか。
-Rent an apartment 賃貸マンション-Rent a house ⼾建て賃貸

31

PERSONAL FINANCE INSTRUCTION IN THE EFL CLASSROOM-Buy a used condominium 中古分譲マンション-Buy a new condominium 新築分譲マンション-Buy a used house 中古⼀⼾建て(持ち家）-Buy a new house 新築⼀⼾建て(持ち家）-Live in a parentʼs house for free 親と同居（家賃なし）-Other: _______________________
9. At what age do you plan to retire?
何歳でリタイアしたいですか。
10. How much money do you think you will have when you retire?
定年時にいくらお⾦があると思いますか。
11. How much money do you think you need to retire?
リタイアするのにいくらお⾦が必要だと思いますか。
12. Out of all our personal finance lessons during this semester, which lesson do you think was
the most valuable to you? Why?
今回の personal finance の中で、どのトピックが有益でしたか。理由をご記⼊ください。
13. Out of all our personal finance lessons during this semester, which lesson do you think was
the least valuable to you? Why?
今回の personal finance レッスンの中で、どのレッスン内容が⾯⽩くなかったですか。
理由をご記⼊ください。
14. Would you recommend this class to others? Why or why not?
このコースの受講を他の⼈に勧めますか。勧める場合はその理由、勧めない場合も、その理由をご記⼊ください。

32

THE CORRELATION BETWEEN LL MOTIVATION AND WRITING MOTIVATIONThe Correlation Between Language Learning Motivation and Writing
Motivation
NAOYA SHIBATA
Nagoya University of Foreign Studies

Abstract
This research paper aims to examine the correlation between language learning motivation
and writing motivation based on quantitative data collected from 250 Japanese EFL learners.
Dörnyei and Taguchi’s (2010) questionnaire for exploring language learning motivation andGraham et al.’s (2022) questionnaire for exploring writing motivation were adopted andcombined for this investigation. The data were analysed using Kendall’s tau correlation
coefficient and Bayes factors. The results revealed (very) weak-to-moderate positive
correlation between language learning motivation and writing motivation. Therefore, thesetwo variables are not interchangeable. Based on these statistical findings, I suggest that(second or foreign language) writing teachers should examine both language learning
motivation and writing motivation to validate their assumptions about students’ writing
proficiency development. To further examine their motivation strength, specific motivation
types (e.g., promotion, prevention, grades, competition, cultural interest, and curiosity)
should also be selected based on writing course goals.
Keywords: language learning motivation, writing motivation, correlational study, Bayes factor

Extensive research has been conducted on learner motivation since the 1980s (Gardner, 1985;
Dörnyei, 2013; Loewen, 2020). Notably, a significant surge in research on motivation has
been detected since 2009 (Boo et al., 2015; Dörnyei & Ryan, 2015). As motivation isconsidered one of the most important individual difference variables for engaging in anddisengaging from language learning and other activities (Dörnyei & Ryan, 2015; Dörnyei &Ushioda, 2021; Gass et al., 2020; Lightbown & Spada, 2021), researchers sometimes conduct
surveys to examine learner motivation and predict learning outcomes. Ryan (2019) maintains
that many recent studies aim to investigate and further understand the relationships between
motivation and other research areas, such as speech development and linguistic awareness.
Nevertheless, as various complex factors, including teacher beliefs, learning circumstances,

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THE CORRELATION BETWEEN LL MOTIVATION AND WRITING MOTIVATION

and cultural and social beliefs regarding the necessity of target languages and activities, canaffect motivation, definitive conclusions are difficult to draw in motivation studies.
In this research paper, second language is defined as any additional language that aperson uses in second or foreign language contexts. In the field of second language writing,language learning motivation is adopted as a variable to examine a correlation to writing
development and proficiency. On the other hand, as the degree of motivation varies
depending on activities, writing motivation is utilised to predict writing outcomes. Although
it seems that language learning motivation and writing motivation can be usedinterchangeably, the correlation between language learning motivation and writing motivation
still needs to be investigated so as to validate research findings and judge the appropriate useof motivation types in second or foreign language writing research studies. Therefore, toaddress this research issue, the present study was conducted with 250 Japanese EFL
university students in central Japan.
Literature Review
Motivation
In this research paper, motivation is defined as reasons for engaging in specific activities,
including language learning and writing. As Dörnyei and Ryan (2015) highlighted, “itprovides the primary impetus to initiate L2 learning and later the driving force to sustain thelong, often tedious learning process” (p. 72). Hashemian and Heidari (2013) also mentionedthat motivation strength can affect language learners’ successful learning involvement incomplex tasks. Learners with high language learning motivation can develop their language
abilities faster and engage in learning more deeply than those with low language learning
motivation (Gass et al., 2020). These arguments can also be applied to writing activities;
writing motivation can be a stimulus for engaging in writing activities and maintaining alongitudinal writing process.
Regardless of the target activities (e.g., language learning and writing), motivation
can be categorised into various orientations, such as instrumental motivation (e.g., motivation
to promote careers and earn more profits) and integrative motivation (e.g., motivation to be
involved in the target community and to know about the target cultures and subject matter).
Lightbown and Spada (2021) stated that both instrumental and integrative motivation are
relevant to (un)successful language learning outcomes, learner autonomy, and learning
engagement, even though the type of motivation can be considered a better predictor of34

THE CORRELATION BETWEEN LL MOTIVATION AND WRITING MOTIVATION

language learning outcomes. For example, Shibata’s (2019) case study on two Japanese EFL
high school students’ outside-of-class learning reported that a successful language learner had
both instrumental and integrative motivation types, whereas an unsuccessful learner had only
instrumental motivation to learn English outside the classroom. Based on these findings,
having both types of language learning motivation can facilitate language learning more
noticeably than having only one motivation type.
Since language learning is a broad activity, it is necessary to explore the motivation to
engage in specific (learning) activities in order to estimate the potential of learners. In fact,
Dörnyei (2020) stated that although much research has been conducted to delve into the rolesof motivation in general second language learning engagement, few studies have investigatedthe differences between overall second language learning motivation and other types ofmotivation to develop specific language abilities and activities, such as second language
writing abilities and activities. This limitation illustrates the importance of estimating
associations between language learning motivation and other kinds of motivation to be able
to fully comprehend the roles of motivation in fostering or hindering second language
learning and activities.
Language Learning Motivation and Writing Outcomes and Proficiency. In thefield of second language writing, correlations between language learning motivation andwriting outcomes and proficiency have been investigated. Hashemian and Heidari (2013), forexample, conducted a research study between language learning motivation/attitudes andsecond language writing performance with 30 Iranian postgraduate students of Teaching
English as a Foreign Language. Correlational statistical test results revealed a moderate
positive relationship between integrative motivation and second language writing test scores;
however, no significant correlation was found between instrumental motivation and second
language writing test scores. They also discovered that learners’ attitudes towards writing
activities can affect second language writing performance. Based on these findings,
Hashemian and Heidari (2013) maintained that integrative motivation and attitudes towards
writing could play an important role in successful second language writing performance.
These findings might suggest that the strength of integrative language learning motivation
can estimate learning outcomes (Lightbown & Spada, 2021). However, Hashemian andHeidari’s (2013) study had a noticeable limitation in terms of the small sample size (N=30),
which could affect the distribution and statistical test results. Accordingly, larger sample sizes
are vital to further examine the correlation between learners’ affective variables (e.g.,language learning motivation and attitudes) and second language writing abilities. Although35THE CORRELATION BETWEEN LL MOTIVATION AND WRITING MOTIVATION

the data collection instruments were different, Nasihah and Cahyono (2017) investigated thecorrelation between language learning motivation and second language writing achievement
among 100 Indonesian EFL upper secondary school students and reported on a statisticallysignificant positive correlation between language learning motivation and second language
writing achievement. This research finding emphasises the importance of arousing students’language learning motivation in order to facilitate their continuous engagement in learning towrite and their writing achievement.
Writing Motivation and Writing Outcomes and Proficiency. Since writing is themain activity in second language writing classes, motivation to write has also been
investigated to examine its correlations with various factors, such as willingness to write,
writing experiences, writing performance and proficiency, in order to contemplate possible
methods for writing teachers to develop learners’ writing engagement and writing abilities.
Wright et al. (2019) mentioned that writing motivation strengths can predict writers’
performance and form learners writing experiences and outcomes. Rafiee and AbbasianNaghneh (2020) also reported on a strong positive correlation between writing motivation
and willingness to write, based on quantitative data collected from 157 upper-intermediate
English majors in Iran. Similarly, Süğümlü et al. (2019) explored the correlation between
writing motivation and writing abilities in Turkish secondary educational contexts.
Quantitative data collected from 230 students indicated that learners with a higher writing
motivation acquired higher writing test scores. In addition, positive relationships between
writing frequency and writing motivation were detected. Based on these findings, Süğümlü etal. (2019) stated that writing motivation can influence writing engagement and performance.
Cahyono and Rahayu (2020) also reported on positive relationships between writing
motivation and writing proficiency and found that female students had higher writing
motivation and higher writing proficiency. Other studies have also illustrated that learners
with higher writing motivation improve their writing performance, whereas learners withlower writing motivation do not fully engage in writing activities (Fritzsche et al., 2003;
Hayes, 1996; Wright et al., 2019). Accordingly, the positive correlations between writing
motivation and writing engagement, abilities, and outcomes can be considered generalisable.
The roles of writing motivation in writing engagement have been discovered (Graham
et al., 2021). Nevertheless, in order to further consider possible pedagogical approaches todevelop learners’ writing abilities and engagement, writing teachers and researchers still needto raise their awareness of other psychological factors, such as writing anxiety and selfefficacy. Li (2022), and Sabti et al. (2019) investigated the relationship between writing36

THE CORRELATION BETWEEN LL MOTIVATION AND WRITING MOTIVATION

motivation and various forms of psychological anxiety and self-efficacy, and discovered
positive associations between writing self-efficacy and writing motivation, as well as
negative associations between writing motivation and writing psychological anxiety. Basedon these results, both studies highlighted the necessity of increasing learners’ writing
motivation and alleviating their writing anxiety. Similarly, Yu et al. (2019) also underlined theimportance of teacher roles in enhancing learners’ writing motivation and engagement whilst
reducing their negative psychological factors and disengagement. These arguments areapplicable to developing language learning motivation and conducting language learning
activities. Hence, examining learners’ language learning motivation and writing motivation
may be important for second language writing teachers and researchers to design and develop
materials and curricula for writing courses to facilitate their language learning and writing
activities. However, the associations between these two psychological variables have notbeen fully investigated.
Research Issues and Research Questions
Although a noticeable surge of research studies on motivation has been detected in the second
language acquisition and applied linguistics fields (Boo et al., 2015; Dörnyei & Ryan, 2015),
this does not necessarily mean that any motivation type can be utilised interchangeably to
explore learners’ language proficiency levels and learning outcomes. In the field of second
language writing, two positive correlations have been found: (1) between language learning
motivation and second language writing ability development, and (2) between writing
motivation and second language writing ability development. However, few studies have
explored the relationship between language learning motivation and writing motivation.
Nonetheless, researchers still need to articulate the correlation between these two
psychological variables to contemplate whether these motivation types can be usedinterchangeably in future second language writing research studies and second language
writing classes. Therefore, this correlational study aims to address this issue. As language
learning motivation and writing motivation have two main traits (instrumental motivation andintegrative motivation), the following two research questions (RQ) were formulated:
RQ 1: To what extent does instrumental language learning motivation correlate with
instrumental writing motivation?
RQ 2: To what extent does integrative language learning motivation correlate with37

THE CORRELATION BETWEEN LL MOTIVATION AND WRITING MOTIVATION

integrative writing motivation?
MethodParticipants and the Research Context
In this study, 250 Japanese EFL learners (125 males and 125 females) in central Japan
completed an anonymous online survey to explore the correlation between language learning
motivation and writing motivation. At the end of July 2021, I explained the research purposeto the participants in Japanese in order to avoid miscommunication. As the English courses
were compulsory, the students were also assured that they could complete the survey under
the condition of anonymity, and that their answers would not affect their academic grades. In
the following class, all students consented to participate in this correlational study and took
the online survey via Google Forms.
The demographic data illustrated that their ages ranged between 18 and 22 years, andtheir academic majors included human relations, psychology, business, technology,
jurisprudence, English language teaching, British and American culture, English
communication, and world liberal arts. In addition, the survey results also indicated that,regardless of their academic majors or grades, 23% started to learn English at the age ofseven and earlier, about 57% of the participants did at the age of nine, and the other 20% did
at the age of 12. The present study did not consider academic major or age factors ininvestigating the correlation between language learning motivation and writing motivation;
instead, in this investigation, this diversity was perceived as generally representative ofJapanese EFL university learners.
Data Collection Instrument and Procedures
In this correlational study, Dörnyei and Taguchi’s (2010) questionnaire on language learning
motivation and Graham et al.’s (2022) questionnaire on writing motivation were adopted andcombined to examine the correlation between these two motivation types. Both survey
questionnaires were designed to explore various types of motivation, including the fear of
assimilation and self-regulation. A six-point Likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6
(strongly agree) was utilised for all question items to avoid neutral answers.

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THE CORRELATION BETWEEN LL MOTIVATION AND WRITING MOTIVATION

Table 1
Brief Description of Each Motivation Sub-Types in Survey Instruments

As Table 1 shows, this study explored two main motivation types: instrumental andintegrative motivation. From Dörnyei and Taguchi (2010), two types of instrumental
language learning motivation (subtypes: prevention and promotion) and four types ofintegrative language learning motivation (subtypes: general integrativeness, travel
orientation, cultural interest, and attitudes toward a target language community) wereadopted. From Graham et al. (2022), on the other hand, two instrumental writing motivation
types (subtypes: grades and competition) and two integrative writing motivation types(subtypes: curiosity and involvement) were explored. These survey questionnaires wereselected for this study insomuch as sufficiently high item reliability and validity werereported by Dörnyei and Taguchi (2010) and Graham et al. (2022, 2023). Although Dörnyei
and Taguchi’s (2010) book contained the Japanese version of the questionnaire as well as the
English version, Graham et al. (2022) had only the English version. Therefore, I translated
the question items of Graham et al. (2022) into Japanese and asked my research assistant toback translate the instrument. As the back-translated version corresponded to the original
version, the translation accuracy was ensured.
Following Nemoto and Beglar’s (2014) suggestion that survey questionnaires shouldbe piloted with at least 30 people, the instrument was piloted with 30 Japanese EFL learners

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THE CORRELATION BETWEEN LL MOTIVATION AND WRITING MOTIVATION

who were only considered pilot study participants to scrutinise item reliability before theactual study. Since the use of the reliability scale type has been debated recently in applied
linguistics (McKay & Plonsky, 2021; McNeish, 2018; Raykov & Marcoulides, 2019), in boththe pilot and main studies, the internal consistency reliability of each sub-motivation variable
was estimated using both Cronbach’s alpha (α) and McDonald’s omega (ω) through freestatistical analysis software called JASP (version 0.16.4.0) (JASP Team, 2022). In the present
investigation, Cohen et al.’s (2018) benchmark for internal consistency was used to judge theinternal consistency of the survey questionnaire (Table 2). Dörnyei and Dewaele (2023)
maintain that internal consistency reliability should aim to reach at least 0.7 in second
language acquisition and relevant fields even though 0.8 and higher would be more
preferable. Plonsky and Derrick (2016) report that internal consistency scores between 0.7
and 0.8 are perceived as acceptable in applied linguistics. As their statements also support
Cohen et al.’s (2018) yardstick, this can be considered appropriate for estimating thestatistical reliability of the data collection instrument.
As Table 3 on the following page shows, regardless of the target sub-motivation
variables, the internal item consistency reliability of the survey questionnaire was higher than
0.7 in both pilot and main studies. These reliability scores fulfilled the benchmarks of Cohenet al. (2018), Dörnyei and Dewaele (2023), and Plonsky and Derrick (2016), illustrating theusability of the survey instrument and the reliability of quantitative data in examining
correlations between language learning motivation and writing motivation in the present
study.
Table 2The Benchmark for Internal Consistency(cited from Cohen et al., 2018, p. 774)

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THE CORRELATION BETWEEN LL MOTIVATION AND WRITING MOTIVATION

Table 3
Scale Reliabilities of Survey Instruments

Note. N = number of participants; α = Cronbach’s alpha; ω = McDonald’s omega.
Data Analysis Instruments and Procedures
Quantitative data were analysed using the following two procedures with JASP (JASP Team,2022). Firstly, the data were explored descriptively to examine means and standard deviations(SD). In addition, skewness, kurtosis, and Shapiro-Wilk test results were also estimated inorder to judge whether the datasets fulfilled the assumptions of having normal distributions
and whether parametric or nonparametric statistical testing was appropriate to measurecorrelations between language learning motivation and writing motivation. Secondly, as the
Results Section indicates that normal distributions were not detected, Kendall’s tau-bcorrelation coefficient, which is employed as degrees in nonparametric correlational
statistical tests (Turner, 2014), was used to examine correlational relationships between thesetwo psychological variables. In this study, correlations between the same types of language
learning motivation and writing motivation were estimated. That is, the relationships between
instrumental language learning motivation (promotion and prevention) and instrumental
writing motivation (grades and competition), and between integrative language learning
motivation (general, travel orientation, cultural interest, and attitudes towards a target
language community) and integrative writing motivation (curiosity and involvement), were41THE CORRELATION BETWEEN LL MOTIVATION AND WRITING MOTIVATION

estimated using Kendall’s tau-b correlational tests. In addition, Evans’ (1996) benchmark was
adopted to judge the degree of the correlation coefficient (Table 4). Based on theseprocedures, the general degree of correlation between the two target psychological variables
was estimated.
Table 4Evans’ (1996) Correlation Coefficient Benchmark

Even if (very) strong correlation coefficient scores are detected, the probability of obtaining
statistical results still needs to be estimated in order to validate the quantitative findings.
Although the null hypothesis using p-value, defined as “[a] number that indicates the level ofstatistical significance for the results of a statistical test” (Loewen & Plonsky, 2016, p. 137,
bold in original), is prevalent in quantitative research studies, the overreliance and reliabilityof p-values have been criticised (Wasserstein & Lazar, 2016). As a countermeasure, Held andOtt (2018) and Norouzian et al. (2019) proposed that Bayesian statistics could address thisissue and increase the validity of the research findings. More recent studies in applied
linguistics and other relevant fields have utilised Bayes factors to compensate for the
drawbacks of p-values (e.g., Cheng & Almore, 2019; Shibata, 2021a, 2021b, 2022; Shibata &Zoni Upton, 2023; Xiao-Desai, 2019). Notwithstanding, as Bayes factors are still considered
unfamiliar to many researchers to interpret confidently, providing both frequentist statistics(p-values) and Bayes factors allow them to better comprehend the statistical results. Thus, inaddition to the p-value, Norouzian et al.’s (2019) Bayes factor clarification scale was utilised
to further estimate the probability of the research findings in this investigation and to consider
the correlation between language learning motivation and writing motivation (Table 5,following page).

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THE CORRELATION BETWEEN LL MOTIVATION AND WRITING MOTIVATION

Table 5
Bayes Factor Clarification Scale(cited from Norouzian et al., 2019, p. 252, italics in original)
Results
The present study attempted to examine the extent of correlation between language learning
motivation and writing motivation based on quantitative data that were collected using a sixpoint Likert scale questionnaire that had been adapted from Dörnyei and Taguchi (2010) andGraham et al. (2022). Tables 6 and 7 (following pages) report on the descriptive statistical
test results concerning participants’ language learning motivation and writing motivation
strengths. The mean values of each language learning sub-motivation type illustrated that theparticipants had somewhat high motivation for promotion (Instrumental), general
integrativeness, and cultural interest, as well as high attitudes toward a target language
community (Integrativeness), whereas they had somewhat low language learning motivation
for prevention (Instrumental). On the other hand, regardless of sub-motivation type, theirwriting motivation was (somewhat) low. Based on these statistical findings, in this specificresearch context, the participants were motivated to learn the target language but not write.
Nevertheless, the lowest and highest scores in each section indicate that some learners had
noticeably high or low language learning motivation and/or writing motivation. Additionally,
noticeably high standard deviation scores were estimated for each section. Hence, it isnecessary to remember that motivational strengths vary among participants.

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THE CORRELATION BETWEEN LL MOTIVATION AND WRITING MOTIVATIONAs examining only mean scores and standard deviation scores cannot judge whether
the assumption of having a normal distribution in data sets was fulfilled, skewness, kurtosis,
and Shapiro-Wilk test results were also examined to further comprehend the descriptive
statistical results. The skewness, kurtosis, and Shapiro-Wilk test results indicated that nonormal distribution was detected in any of the sections. Accordingly, instead of the Pearson
correlation test (a parametric model of correlation test), Kendall’s tau correlation coefficient
test (a nonparametric model of correlation test) was considered appropriate to measure thecorrelation coefficient between language learning motivation and writing motivation.
Table 6
Descriptive Statistic Results of Language Learning Motivation

Note. SD = Standard Deviation

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THE CORRELATION BETWEEN LL MOTIVATION AND WRITING MOTIVATION

Table 7
Descriptive Statistic Results of Writing Motivation

Note. SD = Standard Deviation
Table 8Correlation Between Language Learning Motivation and Writing Motivation (Instrumentality)

Note. BF = Bayes Factor, CI = Confidence Interval
Note. Kendall’s tau correlation coefficient test was utilised.

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THE CORRELATION BETWEEN LL MOTIVATION AND WRITING MOTIVATION

Table 8 (previous page) demonstrates association between instrumental language
learning motivation (subtypes: promotion, and prevention) and instrumental writing
motivation (subtypes: grades, and competition). Based on Kendall’s tau-b correlation test
results, correlations between most language learning sub-motivation variables and writing
sub-motivation variables were detected with high Bayes Factors. However, no correlation
was identified between instrumental language learning motivation (subtype: promotion) andinstrumental writing motivation (subtype: grades) (Kendall’s Tau B = 0.06, p = 0.196, BF =0.22). A moderate positive correlation between instrumental language learning motivation(subtype: prevention) and instrumental writing motivation (subtype: competition) was found(Kendall’s Tau B = 0.43, p < 0.001, BF = 1.106×10+21), whilst weak positive correlations
were revealed between instrumental language learning motivation (subtype: promotion) andinstrumental writing motivation (subtype: competition) (Kendall’s Tau B = 0.27, p < 0.001,
BF = 5.402×10+7), and between instrumental language learning motivation (subtype:prevention) and instrumental writing motivation (subtype: grades) (Kendall’s Tau B = 0.31, p< 0.001, BF = 2.459×10+10). Moreover, the confidence interval (CI) of each correlation also
supported the statistical correlations between the language learning sub-motivation types andwriting sub-motivation types.
Table 9Correlation Between Language Learning Motivation and Writing Motivation (Integrativeness– General Integrativeness, and Travel Orientation)

Note. BF = Bayes Factor, CI = Confidence Interval
Note. Kendall’s tau correlation coefficient test was utilised.

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THE CORRELATION BETWEEN LL MOTIVATION AND WRITING MOTIVATION

Tables 9 (previous page) and 10 (below) describe Kendall’s tau correlation
coefficient test results for integrative language learning motivation (subtypes: general
integrativeness, travel orientation, cultural interest, and attitudes towards a target language
community) and integrative writing motivation (subtypes: curiosity, and involvement).
Table 10
Correlation Between Language Learning Motivation and Writing Motivation (Integrativeness– Cultural Interest, and Attitudes towards a Target Language Community)

Note. BF = Bayes Factor, CI = Confidence Interval
Note. Kendall’s tau correlation coefficient test was utilised.
Examining only p-values and confidence intervals in each section, correlations
between all integrative language learning sub-motivation variables and integrative writing
sub-motivation variables appeared to be adequate because p-values in all sections were lower
than 0.05, which is the general benchmark for judging statistical significance in a dataset, andthe differences between the upper and lower 95% confidence intervals were small.
Based on both p-values and Bayes factors, (very) weak positive correlations wereidentified between integrative language learning motivation (subtype: general
integrativeness) and integrative writing motivation (subtype: curiosity), between integrative
language learning motivation (subtype: travel orientation) and integrative writing motivation

47

THE CORRELATION BETWEEN LL MOTIVATION AND WRITING MOTIVATION(subtype: involvement), and between integrative language learning motivation (subtype:cultural interests) and integrative writing motivation types (subtypes: curiosity, andinvolvement). However, the Bayes factor for an association between integrative language
learning motivation (subtype: travel orientation) and integrative writing motivation (subtype:curiosity) represented substantial evidence for the null hypothesis, which showed nocorrelation between these two psychological variables. This finding contradicts the argument
assumed from the p-value (p = 0.046), and thus it is difficult to validate the association
between one integrative language learning sub-motivation type and one integrative writing
sub-motivation type. Accordingly, the correlation between language learning motivation(subtype: travel orientation) and writing motivation (subtype: curiosity) was excluded to
avoid invalid conclusions.
Similarly, based on p-values, very weak positive correlations were detected between
integrative language learning motivation (subtype: general integrativeness) and integrative
writing motivation (subtype: involvement), and between integrative language learning
motivation (subtype: attitudes towards a target language community) and both integrative
writing sub-motivation types (curiosity, and involvement) (general integrativeness–
involvement: p = 0.038, attitudes–curiosity: p = 0.03, attitudes–involvement: p = 0.03).
Nonetheless, Bayes factors underlined that these results could be considered anecdotal
evidence to support the relationships between these psychological variables (general
integrativeness–involvement: BF = 1.071, attitudes–curiosity: BF = 1.393, attitudes–
involvement: BF = 1.321). Based on these findings, it is doubtful to fully validate statisticalcorrespondents between integrative language learning motivation (subtype: general
integrative motivation) and integrative writing motivation (subtype: involvement), between
integrative language learning motivation (subtype: attitudes towards a target language
community) and integrative writing motivation variables (subtypes: curiosity, andinvolvement).
This study measured correlations between instrumental language learning motivation(subtypes: promotion, and prevention) and instrumental writing motivation (subtypes: grades,
and competition), and between integrative language learning motivation (subtypes: general
integrativeness, travel orientation, cultural interest, and attitudes towards a target language
community) and integrative writing motivation (subtypes: curiosity, and involvement). Basedon the p-values, although the relationship between instrumental language learning motivation(subtype: promotion) and instrumental writing motivation (subtype: grades) was excluded, itshould be noted that (very) weak-to-moderate positive statistical correlations between the48

THE CORRELATION BETWEEN LL MOTIVATION AND WRITING MOTIVATION

other combinations were detected. Notwithstanding, Bayes factors further examined these
relationships and highlighted some indeterminate evidence of associations between
integrative language learning motivation (subtype: travel orientation) and integrative writing
motivation (subtype: curiosity), between integrative language learning motivation (general
integrativeness) and integrative writing motivation (subtype: involvement), and between
integrative language learning motivation (subtype: attitudes towards a target language
community) and both integrative writing sub-motivation types (curiosity, and involvement).
Consequently, regarding instrumentality, positive statistical correlations were found between
prevention and competition, and between prevention and grades, and between promotion andcompetition. Regarding integrativeness, positive associations were discovered between
general integrative language learning motivation and writing motivation for curiosity,
between travel orientation and writing involvement, and between cultural interests andintegrative writing motivation types (curiosity and involvement).
Discussion
This study examined the correlation between language learning motivation and writing
motivation based on the quantitative data collected from a survey questionnaire adopted from
Dörnyei and Taguchi (2010) and Graham et al. (2022). However, in this investigation, genderfactors, age factors, academic major fields, writing proficiency levels, and writing outcomes
were not considered as variables to estimate correlations between language learning
motivation and writing motivation. These factors can influence the statistical correspondence
between these two psychological variables. Future studies should address these limitations tofurther explore the correlational relationships between language learning motivation andwriting motivation.
Based on the statistical results, overall instrumental/integrative language learning
motivation and overall instrumental/integrative writing motivation might not beinterchangeable. Furthermore, the use of Bayes factors illuminated some questionableassociations between language learning sub-motivation variables and writing sub-motivation
variables, which were not observed when analysing only p-values. These results highlight thenecessity of selecting motivation types appropriate for teachers and researchers for the main
language course objectives. If writing courses primarily aim to facilitate learners’ target
language learning, instructors may need to be aware of their language learning motivation.
On the other hand, if writing courses mainly attempt to help learners to improve their writing
abilities, teachers may need to observe their writing motivation. By selecting appropriate

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motivation types, teachers and researchers can realise students’ learning or writing objectives
and develop materials and curricula to facilitate their engagement in class activities.
When narrowing down language learning motivation types and writing motivation
types, (very) weak-to-moderate correlation coefficients were still detected. These findings do
not support the idea that language learning motivation and writing motivation are sufficiently
correlated to use them interchangeably to comprehend learners and predict their learning
outcomes and writing development in second language writing courses. However, theyillustrate the necessity of future studies that collect qualitative data to further explore thefactors that establish these relationships. As Williams (2023) states, the relationship between
writing development and language acquisition can be seen from sociolinguistic factors;
qualitative data may clarify similar motivational factors for learning languages anddeveloping writing abilities.
As not much research has revealed the influence of motivation on certain learning andacquisition processes (Ryan, 2019), future investigations should collect learners’ motivation
and writing test results periodically. Although the present quantitative study attempted toestimate correlations between language learning motivation and writing motivation, futurestudies should collect both quantitative and qualitative data from various perspectives anddelve into the effects of language learning motivation and writing motivation on learners’
second language writing developmental processes. Furthermore, as Loewen (2020)
underlines the importance of exploring teachers’ roles in influencing learners’ motivation,teaching approaches to raising their motivation need to be investigated (Li, 2022; Sabti et al.,2019; Yu et al., 2019). Motivation can vary due to various external and internal factors(Lightbown & Spada, 2021). Therefore, periodic data collection can help further observe
motivators and demotivators to contemplate external and internal factors in second language
writing courses.
Conclusion
Although motivation has been conceptualised as a stable psychological factor, various
factors, including language learning environments and experiences, can fluctuate degrees oforientation (Lightbown & Spada, 2021). Due to this dynamic nature, as Scheidecker andFreeman (1999) highlighted, “[m]otivation is, without question, the most complex andchallenging issue facing teachers today” (p. 116). However, motivation remains an important
individual difference variable in determining learners’ engagement in target activities. Thus,
language teachers need to be highly concerned about their students’ motivation strengths and50

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types to design and develop their language courses and materials and consider approaches tofacilitate their learning engagement. Furthermore, they need to remember that target language
skills and activities can affect learners’ motivational strengths. For example, there is apossibility that some learners have strong language learning motivation but weak writing
motivation, and vice versa. Therefore, in second language writing, it is preferable for teachers
and researchers to understand both students’ language learning motivation and writing
motivation so that they can consider their language learning and writing outcomes. If
possible, it would be more beneficial for instructors to select specific (sub-)motivation types
to examine the appropriateness of writing tasks and topics and set writing course objectives.
No writing instruction or activity can foster all learners’ abilities in all settings (Hyland,2022; Matsuda & Silva, 2020). However, understanding learners’ specific (sub-)motivation
strengths can also enable teachers and researchers to develop writing materials and curricula
during academic terms and years; that is, their motivation strengths can be utilised as part offormative assessment for materials and curriculum development. Accordingly, second
language writing teachers and researchers need to identify which motivation type plays animportant role in their writing courses and objectives so as to assist learners in developing
their writing abilities and learning outcomes.

Acknowledgments
I sincerely thank the symposium committee members, and blind reviewers for reviewing boththe presentation abstract and the manuscript and providing constructive feedback on them. I
am also grateful for Ms Catherine Moore and Dr Joseph C. Wood’s help in revising thisresearch paper.

BIO DATA
Naoya SHIBATA is currently teaching as an EFL lecturer at the Centre for Language
Education and Development, Nagoya University of Foreign Studies (NUFS) and pursuing an
Ed.D. in TESOL at Anaheim University. He graduated from the Department of English
Language Teaching and the MA in TESOL programme at NUFS. His undergraduate andpostgraduate experiences aroused his interests in second language writing and materials
development.

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THE CORRELATION BETWEEN LL MOTIVATION AND WRITING MOTIVATION

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LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY: IMPLICATIONS FOR SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

Linguistic Relativity: Implications for Second Language Acquisition
BERKE ALP
Nagoya University of Foreign Studies
Abstract
This paper reflects on modern approaches to Whorfian linguistic relativity research that haverecently gained popularity (Athanasopoulos & Casaponsa, 2020) in connection withbilingualism and second language acquisition. The current study examines Japanese EFL
bilingual speakers’ categorization of agentive and non-agentive descriptions of an event inEnglish and Japanese. The participants were put in two groups and were given three similar
illustrations of an event. They were given five English and Japanese (respectively) written
descriptions. They were then asked to match the illustrated events with the descriptions.
Participants used mostly non-agentive language when using Japanese (e.g., “The vase isbroken”) and agentive language (e.g., “He broke the vase”) when using English descriptions.
Results from this study show that linguistic and cultural patterns play a role in how people
use agency, which might suggest the influence of language on cognition.
Keywords: Linguistic Relativity, SLA, Japanese EFL Students, Bilingualism

In the past decade, various interdisciplinary researchers have renewed their interest in
Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis (LRH), more commonly known as the Sapir-Whorf (1929)
hypothesis (SWH). One reason why the interest in SWH has regained popularity can be
explained with the growth in empirical research into the effects of language on cognition andbilingualism (Athanasopoulos et al., 2016). The basic idea of linguistic relativity states that“languages vary in their semantic partitioning of the world; the structure of one’s language
influences the manner in which one perceives and understands the world; therefore, speakers
of different languages will perceive the world differently” (Gentner & Goldin-Meadow, 2003,
p. 4). For a long time, linguistic relativity was considered a ‘weaker’ version of linguistic
determinism, which defines language as a tool that determines our thoughts (Kuhn, 2012;
Pavlenko, 2014). In the 1990s, both linguistic relativity and linguistic determinism were
stigmatized by popular linguists, such as Pinker (1994), who regarded them as “an example

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LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY: IMPLICATIONS FOR SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

of what can be called a conventional absurdity” (p. 57). Most of the stigmatization against
linguistic relativity that started in the 1990s has now made a revival with the new growing
number of empirical studies (Athanasopoulos & Casaponsa, 2020). Most of these empiricalstudies focus on nonverbal codes such as motion, color, time, and space (See reviews by
Gleitman & Papafragou, 2013; Wolff & Holmes, 2011). These studies argue that by oversimplifying linguistic relativity as ‘language determines our thoughts,’ we are looking at thewrong question; the focus should be on under which circumstances cognitive processes are
influenced by which linguistic categories (Athanasopoulos & Bylund, 2013). Most comments
about linguistic relativity focus on monolingual speakers, mainly because when SWH waspopular, there were not many bilinguals, or bilingualism was not as expected (Pavlenko,
2014). However, with the help of globalization and the advancements in language acquisition,
SWH has returned to the center of attention mainly because of its effects of bilingualism.
Athanasopoulos and Bylund (2014) claim that language diversity in syntactical and lexical
categories may help us understand crosslinguistic cognitive differences, which may be
important for language learning.
This essential new field could offer additional information into second language
acquisition and a deeper investigation into “second language” (L2) speakers’ minds andperceived reality. Many scholars interested in bilingualism and second language acquisition
have recently started investigating the relationship between language and thought (Cook &Bassetti, 2011; Jarvis & Pavlenko, 2008). A common feature in most of these L2 speakers'
research is that most of these speakers are language learners living in monolingual contexts(Boroditsky, 2001). This paper focuses on Japanese EFL learners, primarily for their learning
contexts and similar linguistic backgrounds. As a highly growing nation, Japan’s
advancements in English language education have exponentially grown in the last decade,with the introduction of JET program in 1987 and other similar teaching exchange programs(Fujimoto-Adamson, 2006).
Literature Review
The early attempts at understanding the relationship between language and cognition led
many linguists and scientists to dig deeper into this concept and introduce the roots of what
we now call the linguistic relativity hypothesis. LRH was first developed by scholars Edward
Sapir (1884-1939) and Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897-1941). They have extended Franz Boas’(1858-1942) ideas of the effect of language categories: The categories of language compel us
to see the world arranged in certain definite conceptual groups, which, because of our lack of59

LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY: IMPLICATIONS FOR SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

knowledge of linguistic processes, are taken as objective categories and which, therefore,
impose themselves upon our thoughts (Boas, 1966, p. 289).
Later, Whorf cemented this idea with what we now call the linguistic relativity
principle: Users of markedly different grammars are pointed by their grammars towards
different types of observations and different evaluations of externally similar acts ofobservation, hence are not equivalent as observers but must arrive at somewhat different
views of the world (Whorf, 2012, p. 282).
As mentioned earlier, at the time, most linguists focused on the monolingual effects ofwhat Whorf described here due to the fact that the world was in turmoil (See Pavlenko,
2014). Both Sapir and Whorf believed in the human mind’s ability to go beyond its motherlanguage, and they believed in multilingualism (Pavlenko, 2014, p.10). Thus, with thechanging world, it is essential to acknowledge the universality of bilingualism and advanceour understanding of LRH to a bilingual perspective. Before moving on to the next chapter, it
is crucial to understand what bilingualism means.
Defining Bilingualism
Bilingual speakers can be defined as speakers who use multiple languages in an everyday
context. It is important to differentiate between different types of bilingual speakers based on
how they acquired their second language. According to Nacamulli (2015), we can classify
different types of bilingualism into three categories: compound bilinguals, who acquire two
linguistic codes at the same time with a unitary set of concepts; coordinate bilinguals, wholearn two sets of concepts at the same time in different environments; and subordinate
bilinguals, who acquire their second language by using their first language. It is essential todistinguish these differences, but it is also important to remember that all types of bilinguals
can be fluent in their second language.
There are other factors to be considered when we talk about bilingualism. Age ofacquisition (AoA) refers to the age the bilinguals acquire their second language. Context ofacquisition (CoA) refers to which context the speakers learn their second language. Language
proficiency refers to the level of achievement in second language acquisition. Modes ofengagement with language refer to whether or not speakers actively use their second
language in everyday life (Pavlenko, 2014). All of these factors are vital when we definebilingualism. It is important to consider the factors that affect the relationship between
language and thought, which is the primary concern of this study.
Bilingualism to Second Language Acquisition
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LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY: IMPLICATIONS FOR SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

When linguist Susan Ervin-Tripp (1927-2018) suggested the idea that bilingualism
constitutes “an exceptionally favorable ground for testing the Whorfian hypothesis” (Walker
et al., 1954, p. 201), the increase in bilingualism recently shifted many linguists' interests tothe effects of linguistic relativity in understanding L2 learning and the relationship between
language and cognition in the L2 speaker’s mind. According to Bylund and Athanasopoulos(2014), learning a second language may significantly impact second language acquisition(SLA) more than previously thought. Learning a new language is about learning new
linguistic systems and categorizing reality and, consequently, the perceived world, which
points out the importance of investigating the effects of linguistic relativity.
Verbal and Nonverbal Evidence
Lucy (1997) claimed that linguistic relativity and diversity should not be confused as thelatter does not relate to thought. To understand the cognitive changes in L2 speakers' minds
through linguistic relativity, we need to think about the role of the language. Slobin (1987)
suggested the idea of thinking for speaking, which can be easily distinguished from Whorf’s
linguistic relativity. Slobin (1987) claimed that “we encounter the contents of the mind in a
special way when they are being accessed for use. In terms of my title (thinking for
speaking), the activity of thinking takes on a special quality when employed in the activity of
speaking” (p. 435). The thinking-for-speaking hypothesis should not be confused with
Whorf’s relativistic position of language and thought, which aims to focus more on theimpact of language on world perception, as thinking-for-speaking emphasizes “a special formof thought that mobilized for communication” (Slobin, 1987, p. 436). Then, we must shift ourattention to nonverbal behavior to see the relativistic effects on cognition.
Nonverbal evidence aims to eliminate the influence of language (Cook et al., 2006).
Thus, nonverbal behavioral evidence can be collected with categorization, memory tasks,
sorting, and matching tasks. Recently, there have been multiple types of research done bylinguists on concepts such as motion (Bylund & Athanasopoulos, 2014), memory (Filipovic,
2011; Boroditsky et al., 2003), and time (Casasanto et al., 2004). However, it may be
impossible to disregard the importance of language in observing the relationship between
language and thought since any experimental and empirical task uses language in situational
contexts and for instructions to carry out how to do the tasks (Cook et al., 2006).
The Concept of Agency
As mentioned before, focusing on nonverbal evidence and creating a situational context
involving language as verbal evidence is essential. Ahearn (2001) defined agency as “the61

LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY: IMPLICATIONS FOR SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

socioculturally mediated capacity to act” (p. 112). We all act on everything that happens to us
daily, whether intentional or accidental and verbalize our actions through specific linguistic
notions. Although it seems easy to define what agency is, it is hard to address how it isconstructed. Fausey et al. (2010) claimed that ‘causal agency’ can be composed of physicaland social contexts and can be equally important. It is impossible to disregard the impact ofsocial structures, culture, specific situations, and differences in language patterns when we
consider agency. Thus, it is hard to pinpoint the reasons for using agency in the language but
focusing on each factor individually would be the key to start.
Research Issues and Questions
Although the current paper focuses on portraying verbal and nonverbal behavioral evidence
for linguistic relativism in bilinguals, it should be noted that the issue goes beyond linguistic
limitations. Bilingualism, by nature, comes in different forms. Ervin and Osgood (1954) used
three different conceptual terms to differentiate bilingualism based on language-learning
histories: 'coordinate,’ ‘compound,’ and ‘subordinate’ bilingualism.
This research relies on visual stimuli (picture categorization) as nonverbal evidence
and the concept of agency as verbal evidence. Relying entirely on nonverbal evidence isalmost impossible as language (verbal evidence) is required to contextualize the task. With
that in mind, our main concern is to see how learning a second language has changed
bilingual speakers' cognitive changes and how they perceive the world.
MethodParticipants and the Research Context
Thirty-two (19 female, 13 male) university-age (18-21) Japanese English speakers ofIntermediate and Upper-Intermediate levels participated in the study. The participants wereselected to be active bilinguals. They were all selected for the fact that they have similar L2
proficiency and similar backgrounds. They all reported starting learning English in similar
circumstances, actively, at the age of 12. They were told to complete the study in classwithout any time constraints. All participants gave their consent to be a part of language
research. Participants were divided into two groups; sixteen of the 32 participated in the
English version, and sixteen participated in the Japanese version. The groups were chosenrandomly, and no statistical difference was identified between the two groups.
Data Collection Instruments and Procedures
Participants were given three illustrations (out of five) of a boy marked as Boy A, Boy B,

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Boy C, Boy D, and Boy E. The illustrations portray a boy beside a table and a broken vase on
the floor in seemingly identical ways. The only difference between each illustration was theboy’s facial expression, indicating a possible reaction change in each situation. The
illustrations did not contain any captions. The illustrations were selected based on their
universality; the boy depicted in the images has no racial clues, cultural indications, or
captions. The objects represented in illustrations were also universal, indicating no culturalelements. Table 1 shows each illustration and some captions written for this paper.
Table 1The Boy and a Vase Table 1 – Illustrations of Boy A, B, C, D, and E

Boy A - A stern expression, also

Boy B - A rather more expressive

Boy C - In this illustration, theseemingly worried, indicative of aface, portraying the boy about toboy’s facial expression shows

stressful situation.

burst into tears, indicating guilt.

feelings of shock and regret,indicating an accident.

Boy D - A more expressionless face,indicating surprise without a hint of
guilt.

Boy E - An utterly expressionless
face, indicating nothing about thesituation.

Participants were put into two random categories and asked to match three random

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LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY: IMPLICATIONS FOR SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

illustrations with the English and Japanese sentences given to them (in separate groups). They
were asked to find the sentence that ideally describes the situation. They matched thesentences with the illustrations at their own pace and received minimal verbal instructions onwhat to do, matching the sentences with illustrations. Illustrations were put in random groups
and mixed multiple times. Table 2 shows the sentences given to participants both in English
and Japanese. The sentences were chosen depending on their degrees of directness, which theagency's usage can describe. The sentences were translated into Japanese as accurately as
possible by a Japanese-English bilingual, considering the differences in directness play anessential role and considering the natural differences between the two languages.
Table 2English and Japanese Sentences with Various Degrees of Directness, Agency Usage
English Version

Japanese Version

The vase broke.
He broke the vase.*
He made the vase break.*He knocked the table, and the vase broke.*
The vase is broken.

花瓶が割れた
彼が花瓶を割った*
彼のせいで花瓶が割れた*
彼がテーブルにぶつかって花瓶が割れた*
花瓶が割れている*degrees of directness-simple transitive causative-a periphrastic causative (indirect)-causal conjunction
Data Analysis Instruments and Procedure
The participants’ categorization preferences were analyzed based on how they matched thesentences with illustrations. The data were collected, and the numbers were coded using theNon-parametric test, Mann-Whitney U test, and normal approximation since the data contains
ties and identical values. The difference between the value of Group 1 and Group 2, Japaneseand English groups, was not big enough to be statistically significant. The p-value equals
0.9033 ( p(x≤Z) = 0.5484 ). The observed common language effect size is 0.52, meaning arandom value from Group 1 is more extensive than Group 2. Group 1 median is 12%,
whereas Group 2 is 13.5%.
Findings
Initial results show that participants spend more time than expected deciding which sentence
fits best to which illustration. This can be narrowed down to two reasons:64

LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY: IMPLICATIONS FOR SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION(a) The seemingly identical illustrations, when observed closely, surprised andconfused some participants.
(b) The sentences, again seemingly identical in meaning, might have seemed too
similar for participants to decide how to describe the situation.
Some participants stated, “It is hard,” while trying to do the task. Figure 1 below andFigure 2 (following page) show the results of the study.
Figure 1
The Results of the English Version

Figure 2
The Results of the Japanese Version

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LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY: IMPLICATIONS FOR SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

Individual Analysis
Boy A - Figure 1 shows that ‘He broke the vase’ was the most selected answer for 11 out of
16 people. In contrast, Figure 2 shows that ‘花瓶が割れている’ (The vase was broken) was themost selected answer for six out of 16 people.
Looking at the illustration, we can see that the boy illustrated has indicative signs of astern, worried look on his face, which might suggest a stressful situation. The participants
matched ‘He broke the vase’ and agentive sentences to describe the illustration, whereas they
selected a non-agentive usage for the Japanese version.
Boy B - In Figure 1, we see ‘He made the vase break’ was the most selected answer
for five out of 16 people, and ‘He knocked the table, and the vase broke’ was the second mostselected answer for four out of 16 people.
In contrast, Figure 2 shows ‘彼が花瓶を割った’ (The vase is broken) as the mostselected with six out of 16 people. For this illustration, participants also opted for a nonagentive sentence to describe the illustration, while for English versions, they selectedagentive sentences.
Boy C - Figure 1 shows ‘He broke the vase’ as the most selected version for eight outof 16 people, while Figure 2 shows ‘彼のせいで花瓶が割れた’ (He made the vase break) as themost selected answer for seven out of 16 people.
For both English and Japanese versions, participants preferred agentive sentences.
Boy D – In Figure 1, we see ‘He knocked the table and the vase break’ and ‘He brokethe vase’ were the most selected answers for ten out of 16 people, whereas Figure 2 shows ‘花
瓶が割れている’ (The vase is broken) as the most selected answer with eight out of 16 people.

Once again, participants selected non-agentive sentences for the Japanese version,
while they preferred agentive sentences for the English version.
Boy E – Figure 1 and Figure 2 show ‘The vase is broken’ as the most selected answer
for both English and Japanese versions.
The only illustration had the same result for both the Japanese and English versions.
Discussion
Results from the study demonstrate that except for the last illustration, Boy E (as shown in
Figure 1), participants preferred agentive language for the English version, whereas, for theJapanese version, there was a tendency to use more non-agentive language (as shown in
Figure 2). Among five illustrations, Boy B, Boy C, and Boy E were the ones that shared astandard answer for both English and Japanese participants. When we examine these66

LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY: IMPLICATIONS FOR SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

illustrations, we can see that Boy B and Boy C are the ones that show visible facial
expressions (see Table 1) that can be interpreted as feelings of guilt, shock, and regret.
In contrast, Boy E, unlike Boy B and C, portrayed the least expressionless face. Boy A
and Boy D illustrations got different answers from English and Japanese versions, theJapanese ones being non-agentive.
The differences in perception depend on various factors. According to Lupyan (2012)
and Wolff and Holmes (2011), When there is a categorization task to be done, individuals will
rely on everything available, including linguistic resources, to complete the task at hand. For
this reason, the language can be regarded as a ‘meddler’ or augmenter of that categoricalconcept. Thus, it appears that participants relied on both the visual stimuli and the linguisticcues before they selected the most accurate answer for the illustrations given to them, butwhich one we can say they relied on the most is something we need to consider. Before wecan answer this question, we have to consider the difference between online utilization of
language, which lets participants access language at the moment they are making acategorical decision, or thinking after language effects (as suggested by Wolff & Holmes,2011) in which “participants rely on language to complete a subsequent categorization task”(Bylund & Athanasopoulos, 2014, p. 966). In this current research, participants relied on
linguistic cues to help them categorize the illustrations after they read the linguistic cues,
which might suggest the usage of linguistic patterns of L2 speakers when making decisions.
However, there are other factors we must consider, such as cultural patterns and factors thatmight affect the cognitive restructuring of L2 speakers.
It is essential to consider the interrelationship between language and culture.
Languages are cultural creations; one cannot think of a culture without a language or alanguage without being part of a culture, so considering the effects of culture on the results ofthis study is essential. We might ask if the differences between L1 and L2 cultures affect theresults of this study and how that might change the aim of the research. Societies havedifferent concepts of the self; compared to interdependent societies, like East Asian societies,
people in independent societies, like Western societies, are more likely to focus on a ‘single
proximal cause’ for an event (See Chiu et al., 2000; Choi et al., 2003).
Like culture, Bylund and Athanasopoulos (2014) stated the importance of certain
factors that might affect the cognitive restructuring of L2 speakers: ‘language proficiency,
language contact, the context of an acquisition, bilingual language mode, age of L2
acquisition and length of immersion in an L2 context.’ Just like the effects of culture, wecannot underestimate the effects of all these factors when we consider the results of this67

LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY: IMPLICATIONS FOR SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

study. As mentioned earlier, most participants have different levels of L2 proficiency. Since
the participants were all EFL students, it should be noted that they were not as immersive inthe second language as other bilinguals. Participants, however, can be put into the same groupregarding the ‘age of L2 acquisition’ and the ‘context of an acquisition,’ which refers to thenaturalistic versus instructed learning of L2.
Conclusion
The illustrations and linguistic tools proved effective in seeing specific cognitive differences.
Although there are many factors to consider, the differences in agentive and non-agentive
usages in Japanese and English versions of the same visual stimuli proved specific perceptivechanges in bilingual speakers and offer future research into the field.
This study has limitations and shortcomings, such as the small sample size. The study
would be more effective with short videos of the same action instead of simple illustrations tomake the actions and reactions more visible. It is a small-scale study investigating linguistic
relativity, bilingualism, and SLA research, but I plan to conduct further large-scale research
into understanding relativity and bilingualism.
As a final remark, it is essential to conduct further research into relativity in SLA tounderstand how the bilingual mind works; it will help language learners and teachers todesign better courses suitable for each student’s cognitive needs. Understanding the diversityof a bilingual mind and how it cognitively functions can provide language teachers with anenormous source for their courses. By observing the perceptual differences in bilingual
speakers’ minds, we could, as language teachers, redesign our courses that can suit students’needs.
Moreover, as mentioned earlier, it is essential to distance ourselves from all
misconceptions about linguistic relativity, which is constantly over-simplified by linguists asradical linguistic determinism (See Pinker, 1994). Instead, we should concentrate on Whorf’sview, which can be interpreted not as thinking is only available through language but aslanguages highlight diverse patterns of thinking (Athanasopoulos & Bylund, 2012).

Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my co-worker Jessica Zoni Upton for the illustrations and Masako
Kato for the Japanese translations of the sentences given to participants. Special thanks to
Nicholas Bradley for organizing the 2023 NUFS Teacher Symposium.

68

LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY: IMPLICATIONS FOR SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITIONBIO DATA
Berke Alp has worked as an EFL Lecturer at Nagoya University of Foreign Studies as an
EFL Lecturer since 2021. She holds a Masters degree in Media and Communication from
Kingston University London.

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COLLABORATIVE ONLINE INTERNATIONAL LEARNING: CHALLENGES FOR STUDENTS AND
TEACHERS

Collaborative Online International Learning: Challenges for Students andTeachers
DI MI
Tianjin Normal University

Abstract
Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), a form of virtual exchange, enables
students from different countries and areas to acquire cultural knowledge, language skills, andintercultural competence in a real context through different experiences. Through online
interactions with international peers, students gain different experiences from classroom
learning. While providing numerous benefits, COIL proposes various challenges anddifficulties. The purpose of this study was to present some challenges encountered by bothstudents and teachers in previous COIL projects and to explore how to improve COIL practicethrough making changes and seeking various support. The results showed that the greatest
challenge for students was language proficiency and the greatest barriers to teachers were
finding a long-term partner with similar pedagogical aims, motivating students and obtaining
technical support.
Keywords: Collaborative Online International Learning, Challenges, Changes and Support

In the 21st century, global communication and exchange, especially through the internet andother means of virtual communication, strengthen the connection between people of different
countries and different cultures. In frequent communications, the competencies of language
and intercultural communication increasingly present their prominent significance. To meetthe demand of social development, institutions of higher education must recognize the valueof incorporating online collaborative activities in teaching in order to provide students theopportunity to interact and engage with peers in collaborative learning（Munoz-Escalona, etal., 2022). New teaching and learning methods are generated in various forms of virtual
exchange, such as globally networked learning, telecollaboration, collaborative online
learning, virtual transnational education (TNE), as information technology and education
combined (Guth, 2013). The application of virtual exchange enriches language teachingapproaches and enhances students’ learning outcomes. In spite of the benefits of virtual
exchange, it also brings great challenges to language instructors and learners.

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COLLABORATIVE ONLINE INTERNATIONAL LEARNING: CHALLENGES FOR STUDENTS AND
TEACHERS

The purpose of this study was to collect feedback from students who had experiencein participating in COIL projects and teachers who had experience in other COIL projects.
The objective was to synthesize and analyze the challenges and difficulties they had faced in
the whole process. Meanwhile, the expected changes and support for COIL from the teachers’
perspective were discussed. The results might shed light on future COIL projects, help avoid
potential problems, and guarantee the success of intercultural collaboration.
Literature Review
Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), as one form of virtual exchange,
connects people in different countries to develop collaborative projects that students dotogether across time zones, language differences, and geographical distances using online
tools. It could be a part of a curriculum course to support students’ learning goals, giveopportunities to engage hands-on with course concepts and new ideas, and – mostimportantly – explore them from different cultural perspectives.
Studies on COIL always concern intercultural competence development.
Intercultural competence refers to “the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately
in intercultural situations based on one’s intercultural knowledge, skills and attitudes”(Deardorff, 2006, pp. 247–248). The affordance of COIL in building intercultural competenceis reported in many studies.
Affordance of COIL
Based on internet technology and innovative online pedagogies, COIL provides students with
opportunities for global experiences. Through COIL, students gain meaningful exchanges
between peers which enhance their international and intercultural understanding (Chan, 2010;
Guth, 2013; Rubin & Guth, 2015). Studies on building intercultural competence through
COIL prove a development in intercultural collaboration skills in a greater awareness andopenness to cultural differences and a change in perspective and stereotype (De Castro et al.,2019; EVOLVE Project Team, 2020; Guth, 2013; Itakura, 2002; O’Dowd, 2021). Meanwhile,
improvement in language competence, such as oral English skills, especially fluency, andwriting skills, has also been reported (Angelova & Zhao, 2016; Guth, 2013; Lu et al., 2014;
Moratinos-Johnson et al., 2018). The relationship students develop with an international
partner motivates them to maintain good study habits and enhanced conceptualization of thecourse content (Skagen et al., 2018). In recent years, there have been some studies on virtual
exchanges in which participants use a second language, most commonly English. Guarda(2013) found that it can lessen learners’ anxiety when interacting with other learners of this73

COLLABORATIVE ONLINE INTERNATIONAL LEARNING: CHALLENGES FOR STUDENTS AND
TEACHERS

language and cement participants’ feelings of proximity and mutual support. Teachers
commonly reflected that their teaching practice had been transformed in positive ways, suchas experiencing a unique learning environment and receiving a great deal of resources andtraining from institutions, gaining new perspectives from international partners, andconfidence in their own approach (Guth, 2013). Therefore, COIL can be seen as a rewarding,sustainable and multi-functional teaching method for both students and teachers.
Challenges of COIL
O’Dowd and Ritter (2006) identified four levels at which factors can contribute to ‘failed
communication’: the individual, classroom (or methodological), socio-institutional andinteraction. On the individual level, the factors regard learners’ level on motivations andexpectations towards the exchange project. On the classroom level, the factors are teacher-toteacher relationships, task design, learner-matching procedures, local group dynamics and apre-exchange briefing. On the socio-institutional level, the factors include technology andgeneral organization of the students’ courses of study. On an interaction level, O’Dowd andRitter (2006) identified “the misunderstandings and tension which arise from culturaldifferences in communicative style and behavior” (p. 634). These four levels wellsummarized and categorized all the challenges of COIL. O’Dowd and Ritter (2006) also
argued that it was always a combination of interconnected factors that led to failure.
Like any course held for the first time that may run into logistical issues, teachers
conducting COIL courses face similar logistical issues, such as a heavy workload, unclear
guidelines for assignments, time differences, lack of time to effectively complete
collaborative or peer-dependent tasks, especially in situations where there is a significant timedifference (Guth, 2013). Guth (2013) revealed the reasons for students’ drop-out wereinternet and technology, the impediment of [the English] language and differences inacademic culture compared to their counterparts. Similar issues, as well as partners’ absences
and broken communication, were the drawbacks reported in teachers’ reports and students’diaries (Bueno Alastuey, 2011). As for the constraints of different tools and modes ofcommunication, written form communication can lead to misunderstandings as the speakers
are invisible (Ware & Kramsch, 2005). Although synchronous communication can avoid thismisunderstanding and motivate students’ participation, it also requires students to be able tobecome competent in both switching linguistic and semiotic codes and become fluent indelivering information in new codes (Hampel & Hauck, 2006).
In order to incorporate a new teaching approach into the class and to exploit it for74

COLLABORATIVE ONLINE INTERNATIONAL LEARNING: CHALLENGES FOR STUDENTS AND
TEACHERS

language and intercultural learning, teachers need to develop a series of new skills andattitudes (O’Dowd, 2013). E-literacy, which highly demands institutional support, is the firstbarrier to setting up and running exchange projects (Marcillo & Desilus, 2016; O’Dowd,2009). Technology issues are more frequently observed as the greatest concern among
inexperienced teachers. However, the greatest barrier perceived by experienced teachers wastime (Helm, 2015). The organizing and integrating of an exchange can be a very complex andtime-consuming process (O’Dowd, 2013). It generally takes a great amount of time andenergy, which forces some teachers to stop. The difficulty also lies in finding an appropriate
and steady partner with similar aims, able to adapt programs to different institutional andstudents’ expectations (O’Dowd, 2009, 2013). Starke-Meyerring and Wilson (2008)highlighted that partners could share common visions, approaches and practices, which wasimportant to the long-term sustainability. The difficulties in how to include online exchanges
in course syllabi and course evaluation schemes also propose great challenges for teachers.
As for the evaluation, Guth (2013) found teachers “were more inclined to focus on aspects ofthese courses that could not be assessed or that had not found a ‘universal’ method ofassessment”, instead of using traditional assessment methods, such as quantitative surveys (p.
25). It is rather problematic to give evaluations on the basis of commitment and participation(O’Dowd, 2009). Without sufficient recognition in the form of marks, it is quite difficult tomotivate students to be engaged in projects with time and effort. Additionally, traditional
learning environments, methods and pedagogies do not work in COIL courses (Guth, 2013),
and pedagogical support is highly needed (O’Dowd, 2009). O’Dowd (2009, pp. 6–7)
concluded that difficulties resulted in telecollaboration remaining on the periphery of foreign
language teaching, and only teachers and students “who are willing to take it on as an ‘addon’ activity apart from traditional skills-based language activities” would exploit it.
Therefore, how to integrate COIL into a course, instead of using it as an extra activity,
restrains the development of language teaching and proposes another challenge for teachers.
Research Issues and Questions
The aim of this study was to provide a picture of the current state of a COIL project between
Chinese and Japanese L2 learners of English in universities and to explore what difficulties
and challenges teachers and students had encountered, how teachers reflected on thedevelopment of COIL through improving it and calling for support. The research questions inthis paper are the following:75

COLLABORATIVE ONLINE INTERNATIONAL LEARNING: CHALLENGES FOR STUDENTS AND
TEACHERS

1. What difficulties did students encounter in the COIL project with Japanese partners?
2. What difficulties did teachers usually encounter in practicing COIL projects?
3.

What changes and supports were expected from teachers’ perspectives in COIL
practice?

MethodTwo different questionnaires were developed. One was aimed at Chinese university students
who had participated in COIL collaboration with Japanese partners to find out their personal
experience and opinions on the collaboration; the other one was designed for university
instructors in a Chinese institution who had experience in carrying out COIL practices inorder to explore their difficulties in online exchange. Two questionnaires were designed in
Chinese. Therefore, all participants could provide answers in their native language so as to
avoid English language competence being a barrier for students to provide sufficient anddetailed responses for this study. Besides, all questions were designed in the form of openended questions to elicit more spontaneous responses.
Participants and the Research Context
There were 41 university students and seven university instructors who responded to thesurveys. They all participated in a COIL project which was blended in a college English
course and themed on communicative skills through weekly oral discussions before thesurvey. All the Chinese students were majors in foreign languages, 24 were learners ofJapanese and 17 were learners of French. None of them had any experience in online
international collaboration. The seven university instructors had teaching experience of 17.3
years on average and 3-6 years’ experience in COIL teaching. Most of them had practiced
COIL teaching so many times that few of them could recall the exact number. According totheir responses, they had carried out COIL for about 17 times on average (See Table 1). Each
instructor approximately carried out about 3.6 times of COIL practice per year. Therefore, theinstructors who participated in this survey had sufficient experience in ordinary classroom
teaching and COIL practice.

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COLLABORATIVE ONLINE INTERNATIONAL LEARNING: CHALLENGES FOR STUDENTS AND
TEACHERS

Table 1
General Information About Teachers’ COIL Teaching Experience
Participants Years ofteaching

Years of COIL

Number of

Number ofpractice

COIL practices

COIL practices

experience

per year112

6

about 30

about 52

16

5about 20

about 43

20

4about 25

about 64

25

5about 15

about 3

5

10

5

12

2.4

6

18

5

10-20

2-4

7

20

3

4

1.3

on Average

17.3

4.7

about 17

about 3.6

Data Collection Instruments and Procedures
Helm (2015) carried out surveys of open-ended questions on a total of 210 university
educators from more than 100 institutions in European institutions in 23 different countries inorder to find out barriers to teachers and on 131 students to explore their attitudes toward
telecollaboration. Her study included a broad geographic distribution of respondents.
Therefore, some of her questions were adapted and applied in this study.
The questionnaire for students mainly concerned questions about the difficulties in
the COIL project, such as ‘What difficulties did you run into in this COIL?’; while thequestionnaire for instructors concerned more questions about challenges, changes to makeand the support they needed, such as ‘What changes and support do you expect?’. These twoquestionnaires, in the form of open-ended questions, were created on Wenjuanxing, a website
for online surveys. Then, the links to these two questionnaires were shared with students andteachers correspondingly through WeChat, a social media platform used for contacting
students and teachers in daily teaching activities, in the class discussion group and teachers’
discussion group at the end of a semester when all COIL projects were over. By clicking thelink, students and teachers were navigated to the web page of their survey. After they finished
all the questions, they completed the survey by clicking the submit button.

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COLLABORATIVE ONLINE INTERNATIONAL LEARNING: CHALLENGES FOR STUDENTS AND
TEACHERS

Data Analysis
The data collected from students and teachers were used for textual analysis. Initially, theauthor identified all the feedback points and assigned ‘type of challenges’ to code responses
manually, such as pronunciation, understanding, and expressing. New codes were continually
added to it during the coding process. For example, pronunciation was the most frequently
mentioned word in the feedback from students, so it was included in the list of codes. In the
responses, Chinese students used different Chinese words, such as “du yin (the way you readit)” or “fa yin (pronunciation)”. By checking the whole sentences, the author found literally
they all referred to pronunciation, so they were all coded as pronunciation. Then, the author
sorted these types of challenges into five different categories: language competence,
involvement, time, cultural difference and cognitive difference. Eventually, these fivedifferent categories of challenges were discussed according to the four perspectives,
individual, classroom, socio-institutional, and interaction, identified by O’Dowd and Ritter(2006) and reported in percentages. The accuracy of coding was checked before reporting.
Results and Discussion
The survey results from students and teachers were reported separately according to the four
perspectives identified by O’Dowd and Ritter (2006): individual, classroom, socioinstitutional, and interaction.
Challenges for Students
Among the 41 Chinese students, 36 reported their challenges in this COIL project. The
spontaneous responses on challenges students had encountered converged on issues oflanguage competence (individual level), involvement (individual level), time (socioinstitutional level) and cultural difference (interaction level).
On the Individual Level. Language competence was the greatest barrier to students.
The top issue of language competence came from pronunciation (20.7%). Students expressed
nearly all of them, Chinese and Japanese, having accents, which caused difficulty inunderstanding. The second issue of language competence was understanding (15.5%). The
way people talk varies a lot from culture to culture. The Japanese language is full of rhythm,
and for each constituent is finished with a marker and a pause, which sounds quite different
to Chinese students. Besides, when Japanese students describe a new thing or a phenomenon
in their culture with unfamiliar vocabulary, it was even harder for Chinese students tounderstand fully. Chinese students observed similar difficulties which occurred to their78

COLLABORATIVE ONLINE INTERNATIONAL LEARNING: CHALLENGES FOR STUDENTS AND
TEACHERS

Japanese partners. The challenges were also prominent in the language output as seven
Chinese students responded that they failed to express ideas in English properly, clearly andquickly (12.1%). It always took some time to convert their thoughts into English, and the
problem of insufficient vocabulary made the situation worse (3.5%). The challenge caused bylanguage competence was described as broken language communication by 8 students(13.8%). Overall, the issues concerning language competence took up 65.4% of all
challenges. Students’ involvement also proposed challenges to the COIL project. Late
responses (1.7%), low participation (5.2%) and awkward silence (3.4%) in communication
blocked mutual communication and decreased partners’ motivation (See Table 2).
On the Socio-Institutional Level. The one-hour time difference between Japan and
China didn’t cause any challenge to students as it happened between Asian andEuropean/American partners. However, unpunctuality, canceling or postponing an
appointment, and an unmatched timetable made students feel frustrated and disappointed(10.3%), which directly influenced the succeeding collaboration and effects of COIL.
The results of challenges to teachers converged on the classroom level, individuallevel and socio-institutional level. Unlike Helm’s (2015) findings, no culture clashes,
misunderstandings, or reinforcement of stereotypes on the interaction level were reflected inteachers’ spontaneous responses.
Table 2The Challenges Students Encountered in COIL Project
Challenges
Language competence

Involvement

Time

Frequency

Percentage

Broken language communication

8

13.8%

Vocabulary

2

3.5%

Pronunciation

12

20.7%

Understanding

9

15.5%

Expressing

7

12.1%

Late responses

1

1.7%

Low participation

3

5.2%

Awkward silence

2

3.4%

6

10.3%

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COLLABORATIVE ONLINE INTERNATIONAL LEARNING: CHALLENGES FOR STUDENTS AND
TEACHERS

Cultural differences

2

3.5%

Cognitive differences

1

1.7%

No difficulty

5

8.6%

Total

58

100%

Challenges for Teachers
On the Classroom Level. The greatest challenge, reported by 71.4% of the teachers
in this study, was to find a good partner in COIL practice. The partners who were easy-going,
cooperative, full of ideas and having comparatively high expectations and supervision on
students were considered ideal. 42.9% of the teachers reflected on the difficulty in having
different teaching aims. It is unavoidable that partners have different pedagogical aims
according to their own course syllabi, students’ backgrounds and motivation. If the difference
is too huge, all students will eventually lose their motivation and the collaboration may resultin broken communication and lower achievement. The issue of finding a good partner alsointertwines with the issue of matching of learners. Students’ background, such as age,learning experience, language competence, should all have been taken into consideration. The
Chinese students in the COIL project in this study were all second language learners ofEnglish at an intermediate level. Their language proficiency is typically another issue toconsider before a COIL project is set up (28.6%). Whether the language proficiency is goodenough to guarantee successful communications is above all other factors when an instructorchooses a partner. A good partner can help to narrow the gap through designing appropriate
tasks, providing clear guidance and motivating students constantly.
Therefore, the standard of an ideal partner is not only the commitment of the
instructor, but also about whether both teachers’ pedagogical aims, course syllabi andstudents’ backgrounds can match. Guth (2013) similarly stressed the importance of faculty
partners’ in-depth discussions about institutional cultures, language proficiency, time zones,
and student expectations. O’ Dowd (2009) also identified the difficulties of building up
reliable and steady partnership. Besides, on the classroom level, 42.9% of the teachers in thisstudy found students, not only Chinese students, had a lack of motivation; however, they
didn’t provide any explanation of the reasons (See Table 3). It is rather worthwhile to conduct
further research studies on whether the motivation had been low since the COIL partnershipwas built or it dropped sometime during the project.
On the Individual Level. Although all teachers in this survey practiced COIL for

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COLLABORATIVE ONLINE INTERNATIONAL LEARNING: CHALLENGES FOR STUDENTS AND
TEACHERS

more than three times per year on average, only one teacher proposed that “I put in too muchenergy and time into COIL (14.3%), which exhausted me and shook my belief in COIL.
However, it is quite delighted to see the students’ gains through COIL” (See Table 3).
Generally, dozens of emails and tens of hours of online meetings are invested, especiallyduring the initial period of setting up a COIL collaboration, followed by weekly
communication between two teachers on students’ reactions and responses to see if any
change of syllabus or flexibility in time and deadline is in need. Guth (2013) also proposedthat faculty partners needed to monitor student interaction and collaboration carefully, in casethat intervention and supports were in demand. It is truly a challenge to invest a great amountof time and energy for teachers (Bahari, 2022). Due to this fact, O’ Dowd (2009) proposedthat “only the highly motivated pioneering teachers who are particularly convinced of thebenefits of this activity and who are probably engaged in research related to its outcome”
would invest time and energy to the practice and research of COIL (p. 6). Hence, the great
occupation of personal time restricts the wider application of COIL among more teachers.
On the Socio-Institutional Level. Time difference is another unavoidable issue(28.6%) (See Table 3 below), especially when collaborations are cross-continental.
Table 3
The Challenges Teachers Encountered in COIL Project
Challenges

Frequency

Percentage

Finding an ideal partner

5

71.4%

Differences in teachers’ aims

3

42.9%

Technology issues

3

42.9%

Lack of students’ motivation

3

42.9%

Time difference

2

28.6%

Very different level of language proficiency

2

28.6%

Lack of time and energy

1

14.3%

The hours available to all group members are so much shortened by time difference.
Texts are left unanswered until the following day and natural flows of conversations arebroken. It is hard to find a time slot for an online meeting, even if students compare theirtimetables and put aside their personal issues, such as part-time jobs, or sickness. The time81

COLLABORATIVE ONLINE INTERNATIONAL LEARNING: CHALLENGES FOR STUDENTS AND
TEACHERS

difference issue hugely hinders the communications, makes the students feel frustrated andeven ignored, and thus it gradually lowers students’ motivation after the initial period of a
COIL project.
The lack of technical support, especially an appropriate platform for students’communication, was reflected on by 42.9% of the teachers (See Table 3), which is inconfirmation of many other studies (Helm, 2015; O’ Dowd, 2013). The lack of a feasible
platform creates great barriers in communication, hugely frustrates teachers’ and students’motivation and even results in reinforcing stereotypes. Therefore, a charge-free platform forteaching purposes, with the function of chats, online meeting, voice message, uploading
pictures, videos and files, but without any restriction in registration or location, is in urgent
need.
How to Improve COIL
To investigate the difficulties and challenges for teachers in depth and to improve theCOIL project in the future, two other questions were designed in the questionnaire forteachers: What changes should be made in order to improve COIL and what supports areneeded? The feedback was still analyzed from the four levels; however, no feedback on theinteraction level was reported.
On the Classroom Level. The expected changes and support mainly focused on
formulating the syllabus, including standardizing the syllabus (57.1%), improving task forms(14.3%), choosing more academic themes (14.3%) and adjusting the duration (14.3%) (SeeTable 4, following page). “The teaching syllabus should be constantly improved andperfected” stated by a teacher participant. As Helm (2015, p. 213) concluded “having a wellestablished syllabus and project is one way of relieving educators of some of the time burdenthat the organization of telecollaboration projects imposes, and would also facilitate
integration into curricula and recognition with credits.” Each teacher has his own design of
the COIL syllabus according to individual teaching aims and the expectation of partner,
which provides COIL projects quite a lot of flexibility. However, to the seven teachers in thisstudy, each of whom teaches two to three classes of the same course, the COIL projects haveto be standardized in order to guarantee the fairness of assessment and consistent learning
objectives of all students.

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COLLABORATIVE ONLINE INTERNATIONAL LEARNING: CHALLENGES FOR STUDENTS AND
TEACHERS

Table 4The Expected Changes and Support of COIL Projects
Level

Changes and support

Frequency

Percentage

Classroom

Standardizing syllabus
Improving task forms
Choosing academic themes
Adjusting the duration

4
1
1
1

57.1%
14.3%
14.3%
14.3%

Socioinstitutional

Sharing experience
Assessment
Blending COIL into course
Building up steady partnership
Having a coordinator
Technical support
Institutional support
Providing training for students’intercultural competence

2
1
2
2
2
3
3
1

28.6%
14.3%
28.6%
28.6%
28.6%
43.9%
43.9%
14.3%

Individual

Figure 1
The commonly designed tasks in COIL projects
85.7%

57.1%

85.7%

57.1%

57.1%

42.9%
28.6%

s

0%

In
te
rv
ie
w

in
g

O
th
er

0%

in
te
rn
at
io
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ar
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re
r
er
i
at
tte
s
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g
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si
cu
gn
m
m
en
en
ts
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w
eb
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up
s
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es
In
en
di
ta
v
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tio
i
du
om
n
a
pa
lp
rin
re
se
g
nt
cu
at
ltu
io
re
n
sa
nd
D
isc
cu
us
st
sin
om
g
s
t
o
C
pi
or
cs
re
or
ct
in
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g
xt
gr
s
am
m
ar
er
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rs

90.0%
80.0%
70.0%
60.0%
50.0%
40.0%
30.0%
20.0%
10.0%
0.0%

Improving the task forms is one way to standardize the syllabus. The tasks commonly
designed by the teachers in this study from high to low in percentage were group presentation

83

COLLABORATIVE ONLINE INTERNATIONAL LEARNING: CHALLENGES FOR STUDENTS AND
TEACHERS(85.7%), comparing cultures and customs (85.7%), interviewing international partners(57.1%), creating documents or web pages collaboratively (57.1%), discussing topics andtexts (57.1%), written assignment (42.9%) and individual presentation (28.6%), whichreflected that teachers generally stressed more on the learning outcomes of a whole group on
the basis of team work and communication than individual achievement, chose more oral
practices than written assignments in forms, and preferred cross-cultural comparison to
general topics in content (See Figure 1, previous page). After practicing COIL for years, mostteachers would combine different task forms in the whole process of COIL to provide
students exercises in different skills and avoid a motivation decrease after students repeat thesame task week by week.
On the Socio-Institutional Level. Like any courses, COIL practice also requires
collaborative wisdom from teachers within and beyond a team. In order to make COIL
projects more rewarding to students, teachers reflected their need in sharing experiences withother teachers (28.6%). How to balance COIL, as a blended part, with ordinary classroom
teaching is another change to make (28.6%). Besides, one of the teachers stressed the form ofassessment (14.3%) (See Table 4). Sharing experience, especially in how to improve COIL
and vary task forms and assessment forms with other teachers, greatly enhance teachers’
pedagogical skills and teaching motivation. Therefore, regular teaching activities, such asstaff training, teaching forums and workshops, are highly and urgently expected. To facilitateteaching, some institutions and organizations offer various support for educators, such as the
SUNY COIL and UNICollaboration platform.
The need for steady partnerships (28.6%) can be categorized together with the need ofa coordinator (28.6%) (See Table 4). For example, one teacher responded:
Building up institution-to-institution partnership would bring positive results in using
unified syllabus, steady partnership and unchanging time in teaching calendar, then it
wouldn’t cost teachers too much time and energy before setting up each COIL project.
The time and energy saved would be spent on summarizing and reflecting COIL
practice and eventually on composing research papers. It (teachers building up new
partnerships) is really a big waste to COIL project.
A coordinator could greatly help building up an institution-to-institution partnership

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COLLABORATIVE ONLINE INTERNATIONAL LEARNING: CHALLENGES FOR STUDENTS AND
TEACHERS

and maintain it. He could look for suitable partners who share similar pedagogical aims andwhose students’ backgrounds were not hugely different, “do the contact in early period ofsetting up a COIL project,” and “complete the reflective part in the last stage.” “A full-timecoordinator could make the COIL teaching sustainable.”This study also reveals institutional support is highly expected (43.9%) (See Table 4).
One teacher provided her demand with an explanation that “the institution should highlightthe prominent place of COIL in course management.” Their needs were concerning
supporting COIL teachers on institutional policy level, such as decreasing COIL teachers’
workload. Technical support (43.9%) is in close connection with support from institutions
and the society.
On the Individual Level. Although only a few students reported difficulty inintercultural communication, one teacher proposed “it is necessary to provide students somepreliminary training on intercultural competence before COIL project” in order tocommunicate successfully and avoid cultural misunderstandings and even stereotypes.
Limitations
The study presented several limitations. This study was only a case study concerning Chinese
university students’ experience in one COIL project with Japanese partners and instructors
from the same Chinese university. It could not represent every language learner or foreign
language educator involved in COIL projects. The international partners of these Chinese
instructors were from a much broader geographic scope, such as Brazil, Mexico, Switzerland,
The Netherlands, America and Japan. A large-scale survey on the Chinese students in allthese collaborations is very likely to provide more information for research. In regards to thesurvey tools, only one open-ended question concerning the difficulty encountered in COIL
was included in the questionnaire for students. Various question forms were needed in order
to elicit more responses. This study just provided a broad overview. To address the issues in
depth, large-scale quantitative research with well-designed questionnaires are needed.
Conclusion
This study attempted to contribute to a broader reflection of COIL practices in higher
education in China in terms of the challenges to students and teachers as well as the expectedchanges and support from the teachers’ perspective. The results inspired us to improve COIL
practice and support instructors of COIL on the classroom and socio-institutional level inorder to reach greater achievements and fully integrate COIL into university curricula.
From the students’ perspective, the greatest challenges were language proficiency on

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COLLABORATIVE ONLINE INTERNATIONAL LEARNING: CHALLENGES FOR STUDENTS AND
TEACHERS

the individual level; while from the perspective of teachers, the greatest barriers appeared tobe finding a long-term partner with similar pedagogical aims, motivating students andobtaining technical support on the classroom level and socio-institutional level. Most of thechallenges are not isolated ones, they are usually interconnected (O’Dowd & Ritter, 2006). In
order to improve the effectiveness of COIL practice, institutions need to facilitate teacherswith pedagogical support by organizing faculty training, setting up workshops, forums andconferences across institutions, funding for travel, and providing technical support, as well. A
full-time coordinator can better maintain the partnership among institutions, save teachers’
time for conducting COIL practices and coordinate the academic activities on the institutional
level. To guarantee the sustainable development of COIL, students’ and instructors’
enthusiasm and engagement are far from enough. It also requires the involvement andfacilitation on the socio-institutional level.
Funding
This research is sponsored by Tianjin Municipal Education Education Commission [grant
number 52WR10025].
BIO DATADi Mi, a lecturer at the Foreign Language College of Tianjin Normal University, China,
graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong with an MA in Linguistics. Her
interests lie in teaching English for general purposes and developing students' interculturalcompetence via collaborative online international learning.

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89PRAGMATICS & LOCALLY MADE CORPORA: A TOOLKIT FOR TEACHING SPEECH ACTS

Pragmatics and a Locally-made Corpora: A Toolkit for Teaching SpeechActs
TAYLOR MEIZLISH
Nagoya University of Foreign Studies

Abstract
Language learners’ effective use of language, their communicative competence, depends not
only on grammatical and textual competence, but pragmatic competence. To develop
pragmatic competence, language used in instruction needs to be contextualized. In addition,
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) stipulates that language for instruction should be
as authentic as possible. Corpora-based pragmatics can address both of these requirements byproviding authentic contextualized language. However, although available corpora containvast amounts of authentic language, they are not well-suited to instruction due to theiroverwhelming volume and lack of contextual information. This study endeavored to create a
corpus for instructional purposes of a particular speech act and explain the creation process
for other teachers to employ. Language for the corpus was provided by university EFL
instructors via a discourse completion task. The findings show a large variety ofcommunicative strategies used by advanced speakers that are often not presented in
textbooks.

Keywords: Pragmatics, Instructed Pragmatics, Corpus Pragmatics, Speech Acts, Suggesting

Before becoming an EFL teacher, I studied linguistics as an undergraduate. My first classes
were in morphology and syntax: how words are formed and ordered in phrases across humanlanguages. I was exposed to the great variety of structural patterns languages employ. Somelanguages required grammatical forms that did not exist in my native language of English.
One such grammatical form, which usually appeared as a verb inflection, was an “evidential.”
These serve to report the source of the information that the speaker is presenting. Sources canbe reported speech such as “I was told there is a fire in the field,” specific sensory sources
such as “I saw a fire in the field,” or (auditory evidence) “I heard there is a fire in the field.”
Speakers of languages with grammaticalized evidentials can easily indicate, or in some90

PRAGMATICS & LOCALLY MADE CORPORA: A TOOLKIT FOR TEACHING SPEECH ACTS

languages are required to indicate, how they know something. I saw clearly how languages
differed in structure. Linguists often abstract out grammatical systems from context to study
them in isolation and determine their underlying rules. This is necessary just as the language
learner may study grammar or vocabulary in isolation to learn and practice its rules.
When I moved from studying language as a phenomenon in a linguistics classroom
to an instrument of communication in a foreign language classroom and then to studying
abroad in a foreign country, I became much more interested in how language functioned incontext. After years of study to acquire knowledge of grammar and vocabulary, when I put
that knowledge to use in context, I became acutely aware that the phrases I attempted to use
often did not have the effects I intended. I would hear “No one says that anymore” or “That’s
too polite.” Although teachers had occasionally taught me some phrases were more “polite”
than others, it was mostly through my own trial and error that I learned what to say toteachers, shopkeepers, bus drivers, or friends to request permission, invite to lunch, or ask for
information. Additionally, the relationship I assumed a university student like myself had
with these people, influencing how I should speak to them, was based only on my own
experience in my home country. In the language classroom, I had heard generalizations about
my foreign languages, such as Germans are very direct and Japanese were much less so. Yet
how that translated into my choice of words was mostly left for me to determine through trial
and error. Even though I was comfortable with intermediate grammar and vocabulary, I felt
much less so choosing my language appropriately. Many studies now confirm this experiencethat grammatical ability does not guarantee comparable pragmatic competence in a foreign
language (Bardovi-Harlig, 2001; Bouton, 1996; Boxer & Pickering, 1995; Kasper, 1997).
My experience learning a foreign language and most influentially studying abroad in
the host culture led me toward an interest in the branch of Linguistics known as Pragmatics,
which studies language use in context. First studying it within the framework of linguistics, I
found the terminology and concepts immensely useful to discuss and understand how
language is used to negotiate human interactions, such as indirectness, face-needs, andpoliteness strategies. Outside the classroom, I found that speakers could tell when anutterance was “rude,” “polite,” or “tactful,” but often could not articulate why. In my
experience, only when speakers disagree on whether an utterance is appropriate does the needto discuss how and why arise. In such discussions, I often observed how teachers’ andlearners’ lack of pragmatics terminology made discussions so difficult to have as there were
few shared concepts and terms to facilitate discussions. As a language learner and thenteacher, I came to strongly believe incorporating the concepts and terminology of pragmatics
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PRAGMATICS & LOCALLY MADE CORPORA: A TOOLKIT FOR TEACHING SPEECH ACTS

into the language classroom gives teachers and learners a shared framework to discuss andlearn the appropriacy of language use.
The Current Study
To incorporate pragmatics into the language classroom, teachers need to identify thecontextual factors that affect language use (sociopragmatics) and the language that would beappropriate depending on those factors (pragmalinguistics). Pragmatics can provide thesociopragmatic concepts and terminology, but the “appropriate language” presented in
textbooks is often overly formal, limited, and inauthentic. Teachers can look to available
corpora such as the Corpus of Contemporary American English for authentic language.
However, since these corpora are not organized by language functions, such as “suggesting”
nor do they give contextual information critical to choosing appropriate language, they are
not particularly useful or convenient for gathering language to teach language functions(Suzuki, 2009). The context necessary for pragmatic information to be gathered goes far
beyond the “co-text,” the words before and after the language in question. It should also
include the situational and cultural context (Culpeper et al., 2018).
To remedy this, the current study endeavors to create a small-scale corpus ofauthentic language targeted at the speech act of suggesting. 11 participants, who are all EFL
teachers at Nagoya University of Foreign Studies, completed a Discourse Completion Task
(DCT) consisting of eight situations which were designed to elicit suggestions. The languagethat participants used was then categorized and annotated for use in the language classroom.
Results showed that participants used a wider variety of pragmalinguistic resources than is
typically presented in textbooks. While textbooks typically present only “head acts” in theteaching of speech acts, the authentic language gathered in the corpus consisted mostly of“supporting moves.” The case can then be made that these supporting moves deserve more
attention in instructional materials.
Theoretical Background
Pragmatics
Pragmatics can be defined as “the study of communicative action in its sociocultural context”(Kasper & Rose, 2001), and it studies the linguistic choices speakers make depending oncontextual and interpersonal factors. Leech and Thomas (1983) first subdivided pragmatics
into pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic components. Pragmalinguistics refers to the
linguistic resources for conveying communicative acts and relational or interpersonal92

PRAGMATICS & LOCALLY MADE CORPORA: A TOOLKIT FOR TEACHING SPEECH ACTS

meanings. Such resources include strategies like directness and indirectness, routines, and alarge range of linguistic forms which can intensify or soften communicative acts. For
example, to suggest, one could simply say, “How about Starbucks?” but one could also say,“Pardon me for bothering you, but if you don’t mind walking just a little, there is Starbucks
just a few minutes away that has an excellent selection of coffee that perhaps you might like.”
Both statements attempt the “act” of suggesting, but they index very different relationships
between the two speakers. Speakers must choose the language that matches their perceptionof the relationship they have with each hearer appropriately.
In contrast, sociopragmatics refers to the social perceptions and norms on which
speakers base their interpretation and performance of communicative acts (Leech, 1983).
Speech communities have differing assessments of social distance and social power between
speakers as well as the degree of imposition involved in various communicative acts (BlumKulka & House, 1989; Olshtain, 1989; Takahashi & Beebe, 1993). The typical relationshipbetween parent and child, two classmates, or boss and employee in a speech community
underlies the assessment of language appropriacy. These assessments are negotiable and canbe altered through the dynamics of conversational interaction such as in Fraser’s (1990)
notion of the “conversational contract.” The conversational contract is what participants
expect from each other in terms of rights and responsibilities, but they can be altered throughdiscourse.
Pragmatic Competence
Speakers require knowledge of both the pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic factors
to effectively communicate. If one is requesting a favor from a coworker, the request will
likely not be fulfilled by the hearer if either of these are lacking: if the request is
inappropriate in the sociocultural context (sociopragmatic) or inappropriate linguistic forms
are used in making the request (pragmalinguistic). This ability is conceptualized as pragmaticcompetence. Pragmatic competence is a necessary component of communicative competence
because it enables speakers to maintain and negotiate interpersonal relationships throughlanguage. Though an utterance may use accurate grammar, it may not be received well by asuperior at work. For example, saying to one’s boss at work, “Smoking is a disgusting habit.
You should quit.” The suggestion will likely be refused because giving health advice to asuperior at work is inappropriate (sociopragmatically) and the language used is also
inappropriate (pragmalinguistically).

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PRAGMATICS & LOCALLY MADE CORPORA: A TOOLKIT FOR TEACHING SPEECH ACTS

Teaching Pragmatics
Most aspects of pragmatics have been demonstrated to be teachable through classroom
instruction, such as speech acts: complaint and refusal (Morrow, 1996), implicature (Bouton,
1994; Kubota, 1995), apology (Johnson & deHaan, 2013), requests (Ren & Su, 2017),
suggestion (Aufa 2014), and pragmatic routines (Tateyama et al., 1997; Wildner-Bassett,1994). Explicit instruction, by which teachers provide meta-pragmatic information, has beenrecognized as generally more effective than implicit instruction, mere exposure tocontextualized input (Ishihara, 2010). See the summary of existing interventional studies in
Alcon and Martínez-Flor (2008) and Kasper (2001). See Jeon and Kaya (2006) for a metaanalysis of the research in instructed pragmatics. In my own experience, explicit terminology
is engaging and effective with learners. I am frequently pleased at students’ reactions to suchterminology, as if they have just gained words to say what before was only a feeling or vague
notion.
Speech Acts
The range of instructional fields in pragmatics is rapidly expanding but the most wellresearched area is that of the teaching of speech acts. Tatsuki (2016) reviewed ninepedagogical collections published from 2001 to 2016 and found that speech act theory
activities made up 71.6% of activity topics. As the notion of functionalism arose inlinguistics, classifying language according to its function rather than form, speech act theory
was a natural offshoot, which views language as a strategy to accomplish real-world actions.
Speech Act theory as proposed by Austin (1962), conceives utterances as action. Examples ofspeech acts include requesting, apologizing, and suggesting. The speech act contains threeacts:•

Locutionary Act - The language itself and the literal meaning of the words•

Illocutionary Act - The actual intended meaning of the words•

Perlocutionary Act - The effect of the words, the intended outcome.

Examples of the three acts in suggesting would look like:•

Locutionary Act: “Why don’t we always put the key in the same spot so we don’t loseit?”•

Illocutionary Act: I suggest we put the key in the same spot.

•

Perlocutionary Act: Speakers put the key in the same spot.
There is often a conventionalized locution which does not literally correspond to the94PRAGMATICS & LOCALLY MADE CORPORA: A TOOLKIT FOR TEACHING SPEECH ACTS

illocution. The phrase “Why don’t we…?” is not understood as asking for a reason why
something is not done but is conventionally understood as making a suggestion. Phrases forsuggesting such as “Why don’t we…?” or “You could…” are head acts, the nucleus of the
speech act which accomplishes the act independently of other language used. The phrase “sowe don’t lose it” functions as a supporting move by offering a reason, sometimes called agrounder. There is a great variety of supporting moves as well as what are variously called
modifiers or softeners. Speech acts such as requesting, refusing, and suggesting may be
regarded as a face-threatening act (FTA) (Blum-Kulka & Olshtain, 1984; Martínez-Flor,
2005; Trosborg, 1995). They impose on the hearer’s freedom of action and potentiallydamage the hearer’s need to be accepted and liked by the speaker if the speech act is refused.
(Leech, 2014). The hearer’s freedom of action is conceptualized as negative face and theirneed to be liked and accepted as positive face. These face needs must be carefully managed
by the speaker when making a face-threatening act.
Suggesting
The current study focuses on language used for the speech act of suggesting. The speech actof suggesting is an illocutionary act in which the speaker undertakes to give
advice/instructions, offer help, or make a proposal for the benefit of the hearer. In one sense it
is a face-enhancing act for the speaker because the speaker attempts to benefit the hearer,
thereby increasing the speaker’s value to the hearer. In this sense, ‘suggestion’ is assumed to
be an expressive or convivial according to Searle’s classification (Searle, 1979). Conversely,
the suggestion also imposes on the hearer’s freedom of action if the hearer accepts andfollows the suggestion. In this sense is can be classified as a directive in which the speakerattempts to direct the behavior of the hearer.
Textbook Language for Suggesting
When textbooks approach the teaching of suggesting, head acts are most often the focus.
Head acts are easy to identify and grasp for learners and should not be discarded. However,even what is usually presented in textbooks as head acts can be dated and too formal. Jiang(2006) noted that the most frequently used structures for suggesting in naturally occurring
data were not always taught in textbooks. Further, the structures that were taught were far lesscommon. See Jiang (2006) for comparisons between naturally occurring language and thatwhich is presented in textbooks. Additionally, supporting moves or modifiers are often absent
in textbooks, even though the current corpus creation project will demonstrate their95

PRAGMATICS & LOCALLY MADE CORPORA: A TOOLKIT FOR TEACHING SPEECH ACTS

prevalence higher than that of head acts in naturally occurring language. Teachers are often
left to rely on intuitions, media, and the rare, published corpus of a select few speech acts
available to find authentic language for instruction.
MethodCorpus Creation
To remedy this lack of authentic language available for the teaching of speech acts, I
attempted to create my own small-scale corpus of language targeted at a particular speech act.
I chose the speech act of suggesting because I have taught this speech act many times andwanted to test whether the language I had been teaching to students was authentic or not. I
relied mostly on teaching head acts but considering the language collected in this corpus, thecase for teaching supporting moves was greatly strengthened. I believe this corpus creation
process to be replicable and practical for teachers wishing to teach speech acts with authentic
language. I will detail the creation process below.
Participants and the Research Context
The participants who provided language for the corpus were 11 university-level English
language instructors at Nagoya University of Foreign Studies. Eight were native speakers andthree were not. All had between 3-10 years of university level teaching experience except one
who had 1-2 years of experience. These participants were primarily selected for ease of datacollection so that other teachers and researchers can easily replicate this corpus collection
process. Attention was not paid to English proficiency levels although all participants had
M.A. degrees in teaching or related fields and experience teaching English. Pragmaticcompetence was not measured, and as some participants were not native speakers, theirpragmatic norms may differ. The data was collected using Google Forms and participants
were compensated for their time. Participants were told at the beginning that their responses
will be used to create an authentic corpus of language with which to instruct students in theact of “suggesting.” For each situation presented to participants, they were instructed to“write what suggestion you would make, word for word.” They were presented with an
example situation and response before beginning. Participants were then presented with eightsituations and four further questions about their teaching experience and use of corpora.
Data Collection Method
The tool used to collect language for the corpus was a Discourse Completion Task (DCT).

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DCTs were originally developed by Blum-Kulka (1982) to examine the speech acts of nativeand non-native speakers of Hebrew. Since then, they have been used extensively in studies of
L2 speech act production (for a review of DCT use see Kasper, 2008; Kasper & Rose, 2002;
and Taguchi & Roever, 2017). DCTs typically involve presenting a participant with a brief
scenario describing a setting and followed by a dialogue that has at least one open slot to becompleted. DCTs are often designed to target a particular speech act, such as requesting or
refusing. The situation description usually involves information on the setting, relationships
between interlocutors, social distance, and the goal(s) of the interaction. An example situationfrom this study is as follows:
You see a new classmate who you don't know well on campus. He/She is parking abicycle next to a doorway blocking the entrance. There is a bicycle parking space
nearby. What would you say?
Participants were instructed to respond appropriately in each situation as if they were
university students. The DCT consisted of eight situations that were crafted by manipulating
the principles of Power, Distance, and Imposition, which I will explain below.
Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness theory viewed the formation of speech acts
dependent upon and constrained by three dimensions: Power, Distance and Imposition.
•

Power is the relative power or status difference between speakers, such as
between a boss and employee (large difference) or close friends (small
difference).

•

Distance is the social distance between speakers: lifelong friends (lowdistance) compared to two speakers meeting for the first time (high distance).

•

Imposition, sometimes referred to as Risk, indicates the degree of time oreffort being asked of the hearer and the potential risk to the relationshipbetween speakers by attempting the speech act.

Situations were created with unique constellations of Power, Distance, andImposition, resulting in eight situations (Appendix A). In Table 1, “+” represents high Power,
Distance, or Imposition and “–”, indicates low. The first four situations were suggesting to aclassmate. A classmate indexes roughly equal Power. The latter four situations weresuggesting to a teacher. A teacher indexes a larger power differential. In situations #1, #2, #5,
and #6, the social distance between speakers was low. In situations #3, #4, #7, and #8, the97PRAGMATICS & LOCALLY MADE CORPORA: A TOOLKIT FOR TEACHING SPEECH ACTS

distance was high. The Imposition was relatively low in situations #1, #3, #5, and #7, andrelatively high in #2, #4, #6, and #8. It was hypothesized that situations of low overall P/D/I,
such as #1 and #2, would require fewer politeness strategies and elicit more direct language,
while the inverse would be true of situations of higher overall P/D/I such as #7 and #8.
Table 1
P/D/I Configurations of the Eight Situations in the DCT
Situation #

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Power

–

–

–

–

+

+

+

+

Distance

–

–

+

+

–

–

+

+

Imposition/Risk

–

+

–

+

–

+

–

+

–––

––+

–+–

–++

+––

+–+

++–

+++

OverallNote. These are the configurations of P/D/I used in this DCT.
Creating the DCT questions
Configuring the three variables can be done as follows. I consulted Aufa’s (2014) DCT ofsuggesting for reference. As an example, let us examine situation #1 in the DCT:
You see your close friend on campus. He/She wants to buy a coffee but doesn't know
where to buy a coffee nearby. What would you say to him/her?
The three variables of Power, Distance, and Imposition were configured as follows:•

Low Power is indexed by “friend” because friends typically have a lower
power differential between them. Other options for hearers include“classmate” or “co-worker.” “Younger sibling” can be used for a negative
power difference in favor of the speaker.

•

Low distance is indexed by “close friend.” Other options include “friend you
are close with,” or “friend you have known for a long time.” “Close friend”
was chosen for its naturalness in English. In Situations #5 and #6, in the caseof a teacher, “teacher you are close with” was chosen for the same reason.

•

Low Imposition was specified by “He/She wants to buy a coffee.” This was
selected because it was hypothesized most participants would suggest acoffee shop that was convenient rather than one in a distant and hard to98

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access place. This demands a relatively low expenditure of time and effort on
the part of the hearer. If the coffee turned out to not please the hearer, the lossof time and effort is presumed to be relatively low. The Risk of suggesting a
coffee shop was hypothesized to be low as the hearer has already expressed adesire to buy a coffee so the suggestion was welcome.
Next, let us consider high Power, high Distance, and high Imposition/Risk situation
creation by way of situation #8:
You are talking with your new English teacher who you are not very close with afterclass. He/She is a heavy cigarette smoker and complains there is no place to smoke
on campus. He/She looks very stressed and coughs often. You always think he/sheshould quit. What would you say to him/her?
The three variables of Power, Distance, and Imposition were configured as follows:•High Power is indexed by “teacher,” as the participants were instructed toanswer as if they were students. Teachers generally have power and statusadvantages over their students as they are entrusted with their instruction andgrading.

•High Distance is specified by “new teacher who you are not very close with.”
As this situation was meant to contain the greatest Distance, it wasemphasized twice by “new” and “who you are not very close with.”•High Imposition was specified by “You always think he/she should quit.”
This forced participants to make a suggestion to quit smoking rather thansomething less imposing such as suggesting smoking before coming tocampus. Quitting smoking is often difficult and painful, hence imposing agreat deal of time and effort on the hearer. Additionally, suggesting thatsomeone quit smoking potentially implies they have made a poor personal
choice in continuing to smoke. This implied judgement reflects badly on thehearer’s positive face and threatens the relationship between speakers by thepotential insult. In addition, “he/she complains there is no place to smoke on
campus” indicates a resistance from the hearer to quitting smoking, thereby
theoretically making the hearer even less receptive to a suggestion to quit.

In between situations #1 and #8 were additional unique configurations of P/D/I.

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Classifying Language
Head Acts. I will follow the classifications of Martínez-Flor (2005) by classifying
head acts as Direct, Conventionalized (direct), and Indirect as it is an authoritative work inthe study of suggesting and the categories are useful salient concepts that are approachable
for both students and teachers (Table 2).
Table 2A Taxonomy of Suggesting by Martínez-Flor (2005)

Note. Suggesting head acts categorized as direct, conventionalized (indirect), and indirect.
The head act is the nucleus of a speech act and realizes the speech act without theneed of other language (Blum-Kulka et al., 1989). Head acts are underlined in the following
tables. Direct and conventionalized forms of head acts are easy to identify such as “Why
don’t you…?” or “You might…,” but it is notable that indirect forms such as “I’ve heard
that…” can be considered head acts depending on context. Direct and conventionalized forms
clearly propose a suggestion to the hearer from the speaker that is understood as such by100

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both. Indirect forms do not unambiguously propose a suggestion and hence give plausible
deniability to both parties that the utterance was intended as one. This politeness strategy isunderstandably employed to lessen the force of the suggestion to the point because it need not
be interpreted as a suggestion by the hearer. Thus, the hearer can more easily refuse it by notinterpreting it as such. Indirect “head acts,” if they are classified as such, often occur in
addition to a direct or conventionalized head act. This would seem to imply that they do notaccomplish the speech act independently, at least in the eyes of the speaker.
Supporting Moves
Language beyond what can easily be identified as a head act was classified as “supporting
moves” and then categorized by function. The annotation scheme was developed withreference to other annotation schemes (Blum-Kulka et al., 1989; Gao, 1999; Li, 2010;
Trosborg, 1995; Weisser, 2018) but all judgements were made by the author. See Appendix C
for a recommended annotation scheme by Trosborg (1995). Although there exists a wide
range of annotation terminology both within pragmatics and instructed pragmatics for suchphrases, for the purposes of instruction, terminology was selected to favor accessibility toteachers and students alike. For example, instead of “grounder,” which in pragmatics
typically indicates reasons, explanations, or justifications, “giving reasons” was used.
Syntactic categories such as “internal” and “external modifiers” were also avoided as they do
not indicate function. Although annotation terminology from pragmatics research can bedirectly used, I recommend teachers use their own judgement and adapt the terminology for
their students.
Results
Next, I will examine the results from three situations in the DCT.
Situation #1: Low P/D/I
Situation #1 prompt:
You see your close friend on campus. He/She wants to buy a coffee but doesn't know
where to buy a coffee nearby. What would you say to him/her?

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Table 3Situation #1: Head Acts and Supporting Moves
Participant

Head Acts

1

2

Are you looking for somewhere to buy acoffee?
I can take you to a coffee shop nearby.
(conventionalized indirect)

3

4

Supporting Moves

There's a Starbucks up the road past thegrocery store.
Just take the first right at the light. There's
a place called Ando Cafe that's pretty
good, too.
They've got really good cheesecake. I bet
you can find it on Google maps."
Why don't you try Starbucks?
(conventionalized indirect)

5

It's just round the corner.

There's a cafe just over there. They havenice coffee.

6

Let me show you where to buy somecoffee.
(conventionalized indirect)

7

I heard that coffee in ** cafe in the **building is good.
(indirect)

I never actually buy coffee, but

8

Want me to take you there?
(conventionalized indirect)

There is a really nice cafe nearby.

9

You can get them at Seven near ~~building. I can walk with you.
(conventionalized indirect)

I need coffee to wake me up.

Note. Head acts and supporting moves used by participants in situation #1
To analyze the supporting moves on their own, let us plot them according tofunction:102

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Table 4Situation #1: Functions of Supporting Moves
Function

Language

Confirming intent(utterances which reaffirm wants orneeds)Are you looking for somewhere to buy a coffee?

Informing(utterances that give relevant
information)

There’s a Starbucks up the road past the grocery store.

Giving Reasons(utterances that give reasons for thesuggestion)

There’s a place called Ando cafe that’s pretty good,

Just take the first right at the light.

too.
They’ve got really good cheesecake.
I bet you can find it on Google maps.
They have nice coffee.
I heard that coffee in ** cafe in the ** building is good.
There is a really nice cafe nearby.

Offer of assistance(utterances that offer help or support)

I can walk with you.

Empathizing(utterances that show understanding ofanother’s feeling)

I need coffee to wake me up.

Note. Supporting moves used by participants in situation #1 categorized by function.
Of the 11 participants, two were excluded due to not submitting the exact words theywould use instead of a description of what they would say; “I would first ask what type ofcoffee they are specifically looking to buy then would direct them accordingly.” Head acts
were used by six of nine participants while the other three only used supporting moves. Fourparticipants used a head act followed by supporting moves while two used only a head act.
This situation of overall low P/D/I contains frequent use of conventionally indirect head acts,
such as “why don’t you…?” and “you can (get them at…),” with only one indirect head act,

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“I heard that…is good.” Supporting moves are present but minimal. Most participants used
only one or two. The most preferred supporting move was “giving reasons.” Other supportingused were “confirming intent,” “informing,” “offer of assistance,” and “empathizing.”
Situation #4: Low P, High D/I
Situation #4 prompt:
You see a new classmate who you don't know well on campus. He/She is parking abicycle next to a doorway blocking the entrance. There is a bicycle parking space
nearby. What would you say to him/her?
Table 5Situation #4: Head Acts and Supporting Moves
Participant

Head Acts

Supporting Moves

1

It might be better.
(indirect)

Hey, just want to let say, there is aplace over there where you can put
your bike.

2

You may want to move your bike.
(conventionalized indirect)

Hi. We take the same class.
It probably blocks the entrance.

3

Excuse me, I know this is a convenient
place to park, but your bicycle isactually blocking the entrance...

4

It might be better to put your bikein the space over there.
(indirect)

Hey,
Yeah, it’s no big deal! Easy to miss.

5

Follow me, I can show you.
(conventionalized indirect)

Hi xxx, we’re in the same xxx class,right?! You cycle to school too? I
usually park at the bicycle parking
over there.

6

7

You might want to be careful parking
here.
You should park your bike at thebike parking,it’s this way.

(conventionalized indirect)

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Participant

Head Acts

Supporting Moves

8

There’s a bicycle parking space ____.

9You should leave it over there.
(conventionalized indirect)

I don’t think you can leave your bike
here;

10

You want to park your bike overthere in a parking space.
(conventionalized indirect)

Hi, (Name)!
I can show you.

Note. Head acts and supporting moves used by participants in situation #4.
Table 6Situation #4: Function of Supporting Moves
Function

Language

Address(utterance which greets or recognizes thehearer)Hey
Hi
Hi, (name)Hi, xxx
Hi

Disarmer
just want to say(utterances that signal awareness of potential Excuse me,
offense)Giving reasons(utterances that give reasons for thesuggestion)

It probably blocks the entrance
your bicycle is actually blocking theentrance…

Informing(utterances that give relevant information)

there is a place over there where you can put
your bikeit’s this way

Empathizing(utterances that show understanding ofanother’s feeling)

I know this is a convenient place to park.
Easy to miss.

Offer of assistance(utterances that offer help or support)

I can show you.

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Function

Language

Camaraderie/friendliness(utterances which show connection andinterest)

We take the same class.
We’re in the same xxx class, right?!
You cycle to school, too?

Note. Supporting moves used by participants in situation #4 categorized by function.
One participant opted not to attempt a suggestion and explained this choice bysaying “I wouldn’t say anything, I don’t know them well enough to get involved.” Of the tenparticipants who attempted a suggestion, head acts were used by seven while the other three
only used supporting moves. All seven of the participants who used a head act also usedsupporting moves. The most preferred supporting moves were “address” and“camaraderie/friendliness.” Other supporting moves used were “address,” “informing,”“giving reasons,” “disarming,” and “empathizing”.
Situation #8: High P/D/I
Situation #8 prompt:
You are talking with your new English teacher who you are not very close with afterclass. He/She is a heavy cigarette smoker and complains there is no place to smoke
on campus. He/She looks very stressed and coughs often. You always think he/sheshould quit. What would you say to him/her?
Table 7Situation #8 Head Acts and Supporting Moves
Participant

Head Acts

Supporting Moves

1

Are you okay? It must be inconvenient for you,but it may be a good chance.

2

Professor, I am sorry if it is rude to you, but it
might be a good opportunity for you to reflect
upon your smoking habits and your healthcondition.

3

Are you okay? That sounds like a bad cough.

4

That cough sounds bad, are you okay?

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Participant
5

Head Acts

Supporting Moves

Maybe you would consider
quitting smoking?
(Conventionalized indirect)

Ms./Mr. (Name), I don't want to be rude, but you
seem very stressed about finding a place to smoke
on campus and you are always coughing.
My dad used to be a heavy smoker but after hequit, he seems happy and healthy.

Note. Head acts and supporting moves used by participants in situation #8.
Table 8Situation #8 Functions of Supporting Moves
Function

Language

Hinting
Are you ok?
(utterance which indirect refers to the reasons That sounds like a bad cough.
for suggesting)
It must be inconvenient for you.
You seem very stressed about finding a place tosmoke on campus and you are always coughing.
Disarmer(utterances that signal awareness of potential
offense)I am sorry if it is rude to you

Relevant case(utterances that provide relevant examples)

My dad used to be a heavy smoker but after hequit, he seems happy and healthy.

Polite Address
Ms./Mr.
(utterance which politely greets or recognizes Professor
the hearer)
Note. Supporting moves used by participants in situation #8 categorized by function.
Of the 11 respondents, only five attempted to say anything with the other six
responding “I wouldn’t say anything.” or “Nothing.” Some participants offered reasons fornot making a suggestion: “I would just feel uncomfortable” and “Giving health advice to ateacher (older person) is not appropriate.” One participant used a head act “Maybe you would
consider quitting smoking?” but with the modifiers such as hedges (“maybe”), hypotheticals(“would”), and an indirect verb to soften the suggestion (“consider”). This head act cameafter numerous preparatory supporting moves. The other four participants used only107

PRAGMATICS & LOCALLY MADE CORPORA: A TOOLKIT FOR TEACHING SPEECH ACTS

supporting moves. Preferred supporting moves were “hinting,” “polite address,” and“disarmer” while one participant used a “relevant case” of their own dad quitting smoking.
Discussion
Head Acts and Supporting Moves
Across all the situations, the most salient feature of participants’ responses was the use of
supporting moves. Head acts alone were extremely rare and supporting moves were often
used without any head act. The most face-threatening situation, #8 of high P/D/I, saw only
one participant of five use a head act and even this was used in conjunction with multiple
supporting moves to mitigate the threat of the head act. Situation #1 saw the highest
incidence of head acts with two participants using head acts without any supporting moves.
This would seem to imply that speech acts in situations of low P/D/I can be accomplishedsolely by head acts although most participants did use at least one supporting move alongwith their head act. This confirms Taguchi’s (2016) findings which showed that low P/D/I
situations were perceived as less difficult to perform speech acts in compared with those ofhigh P/D/I situations. Situation #4 displayed a middle way between the two with head acts
used by most participants but accompanied with multiple supporting moves. It can reasonably
be concluded that speech acts in situations of low P/D/I require fewer supporting moves andthose of high P/D/I requires more.
Teaching Implications
From the three situations presented above, I would now like to present some teaching
implications that can be drawn from such a corpus creation process.
In situation #1 of low P/D/I, head acts were the most used of all the situations in thisDCT while supporting moves were minimal. The supporting moves of “giving reasons” and“informing” were the most common. Preparatory moves, supporting moves that proceed thehead act and prepare the hearer, such as “confirming intention”, were only used by one
participant. If students evaluate a situation as having overall low P/D/I, they can then betaught that head acts are appropriate and supporting moves can be used but are not always
necessary. Supporting moves can consist primarily of “giving reasons” and other information
to justify the suggestion but “disarmers” and other preparatory supporting moves are notnecessary. A formula for suggestions in such situations can be presented as “head act” +“giving reasons/informing.”
In situation #4 of low Power, high Distance, and high Imposition, head acts were108

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slightly less prevalent than those of situation #1 but still used by six of ten participants.
Supporting moves were more common and more verbose than in situation #1. Preparatory
supporting moves such as “address,” “disarming,” and “camaraderie/friendship” were usedby six of ten participants. Students can be instructed that head acts are appropriate insituations of low P, high D, and high I but should be accompanied by supporting moves.
When Power is low, “camaraderie/friendliness” strategies are appropriate and can be used toemphasize the closeness and equal status of speakers before attempting a head act.
“Camaraderie/friendliness” strategies were far less common in situations #5, #6, #7, and #8
with a hearer of higher power. It can be inferred this is because showing camaraderie with asuperior would be inappropriate due to the Power difference. A formula for suggestions insuch situations can be presented as “address” + “disarmer” or “camaraderie/friendliness” +“head act” + “giving reasons/informing.”
In situation #8 head acts were rare. They were only used by one of five participants
who attempted a suggestion. The one head act present uses indirect hedging language,“Maybe you would consider…,” and occurs after multiple preparatory supporting moves.
Students can thus be taught that in situations of high P/D/I, head acts can be used but must beproceeded by supporting moves. The preferred supporting moves to be taught are “hints,”“polite address,” and “disarmer.” Furthermore, it can be implied that hinting can be enough tomake a suggestion in a situation of high P/D/I. A formula for suggestions in such situations
can be presented as “polite address” + “disarmer” + “hint” + (“head act”).
Table 9Teaching implications drawn from situations #1, #4, and #8
Situation

Head acts andsupporting moves

Situation #1:••

Giving reasonsConfirming
intent•Informing••

Address
Camaraderie/friendliness•

Disarmer•

Low P

Head acts areappropriate

•
•

Low D
Low I

and supporting moves
minimal.

Situation #4:

Head acts areappropriate but
supporting moves arenecessary.

•
•
•

Low P
High DHigh I

Preferred supporting
moves

Formula for suggestinghead act+ giving reasons/informing

address+ disarmer orcamaraderie/friendliness+ head act+ giving reasons/informing109

PRAGMATICS & LOCALLY MADE CORPORA: A TOOLKIT FOR TEACHING SPEECH ACTS

Situation #8:•••

High PHigh DHigh I

Head acts are likely
inappropriate. If used,
multiple supporting
moves are necessary.

•
•
•

Hints
Polite address
Disarmer••••polite address+ disarmer+ hint+ (“head act”).

Note. Teaching implications drawn from the results of situations #1, #4, and #8.
Standardization of P/D/I
Although it is relatively easy to manipulate Power and Distance, Imposition is much harder tostandardize. To create situations with identical degrees of Imposition, such as #2, #4, #6 and#8 which are theoretically the same “high” degree of imposition, the same situation would
need to be used. That is, “suggest (person) quit smoking” and only the Power and Distance ofthe hearer be changed. This would yield: #2 “suggest a close friend quit smoking,” #4“suggest a new classmate quit smoking,” #6 “suggest a teacher you know well quit smoking,"
and #8 “suggest a teacher you don’t know well quit smoking.” These repetitive tasks would
be monotonous and likely confusing for participants. In an effort to elicit natural language
from participants in a variety of situations, each situation contained a unique topic forsuggestion, such as suggesting someone buy a different coat, move their bicycle, or speak up
in class. The drawback of doing so was that speakers likely rated some situations which were
designed to be low Imposition as perhaps “moderate” or even “high” and vice versa.
Conclusion
Language collected via a small-scale corpus can be used to identify authentic language toteach in the instruction of a chosen speech act. After creating a DCT based on the principlesof P/D/I, the collected language should be categorized into head acts and supporting moves.
Head acts can be classified as direct, conventionalized (indirect), and indirect following
Martínez-Flor (2005). Supporting moves can be classified into functional categories using anannotation scheme such as Trosborg’s (1995) in Appendix C or Li’s (2010) in Appendix D.
Teachers can adapt the categorization terminology to be more accessible for their students.
Patterns of head acts and supporting moves for the chosen speech act in each situation can be
abstracted out and used for instruction. A minimum of two DCT situations are recommended
for such a corpus; one situation of low P/D/I and one situation of high P/D/I. Additionalsituations with different configurations of P/D/I will provide a larger variety of head acts andsupporting moves. Situations should use realistic situations to elicit natural and varied
language. Intercoder reliability between creators of the DCT and classifiers of the collected110

PRAGMATICS & LOCALLY MADE CORPORA: A TOOLKIT FOR TEACHING SPEECH ACTS

language would be preferable to create situations reliably indicating high or low P/D/I andreliable categorization of collected language. This is a major limitation of data collected inthis current study which was designed and analyzed by only one author. Nevertheless, I
believe the data is still useful and reliable for the purposes of instruction. The purpose of thisstudy was to outline the necessary principles and relevant research for any teacher wishing to
replicate this process for their speech act of choice.
Although head acts are present in at least one participant response in every situation,
there is a higher occurrence of supporting moves across all situations. As P/D/I increases, theratio of supporting moves over head acts increases. Classroom instruction can reflect thisfinding by instructing students to use more supporting moves and fewer head acts as P/D/I
increases. In future works, I intend to present how language instructors can teach speech acts,
such as suggestions, in a more effective manner by creating their own corpus andincorporating explicit pragmatic instruction.

BIO DATA
Taylor Meizlish holds a BA in Linguistics and an MA in Linguistics: Language Teaching
Specialization. His interest is in developing students’ pragmatic competence by applying theinsights of Linguistics and Pragmatics to the EFL classroom. He currently teaches at Nagoya
University of Foreign Studies.

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Appendix A
DCT Situations
Situation #1

You see your close friend on campus. He/She wants to buy a coffee but
doesn't know where to buy a coffee nearby. What would you say tohim/her?

Situation #2

You see your close friend at a clothing store. He/She is going to buy an
expensive coat from that store. You have seen the same coat for acheaper price at another store. What would you say to him/her?

Situation #3

You are in English class. Your new classmate who you don't know wellis being quiet and not answering questions in class. You think he/sheknows the answer but is just a little shy. What would you say to him/her?

Situation #4

You see a new classmate who you don't know well on campus. He/She isparking a bicycle next to a doorway blocking the entrance. There is abicycle parking space nearby. What would you say to him/her?

Situation #5

You see your English teacher who you are close with on campus. He/She
wants to buy lunch on campus but he/she doesn't know what restaurants
there are on campus. What would you say to him/her?

Situation #6

You are talking with your English teacher who you are close with.
He/She is going to buy an expensive and outdated smartphone. You haveseen a much cheaper and newer one in another store. What would you
say to him/her?

Situation #7

You are having lunch and talking with your new English teacher you are
not very close with. He/She wants to visit a local sightseeing spot thisweekend. You know a good place you think he/she would like. Whatwould you say to him/her?

Situation #8

You are talking with your new English teacher who you are not very
close with after class. He/She is a heavy cigarette smoker and complains
there is no place to smoke on campus. He/She looks very stressed andcoughs often. You always think he/she should quit. What would you say
to him/her?

Note. DCT Situations used in the current study.

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Appendix B
Suggesting Head Acts and Supporting Moves
Supporting moves

Head Acts
DirectYou should…
Why don’t you…?

Address

Hi, Hey, Professor, Hi (name)

GivingReasons

Because X…
There is…
It probably blocks the entrance.

Disarmer

I don’t mean to be rude
Excuse me

Offer of
Assistance

I can show you
I can take you there

Camaraderie/friendlinessWe take the same class.
We’re in the same xxx class, right?!
You cycle to school, too?

Empathizing

I know this is a convenient place to park.
I have the same idea.
I’m shy, too.

How about…?
You could…
Maybe you could
try…
It might be better
to…
Would youconsider…?
I heard that…

Confirm intent Are you sure you’re gonna buy this one?
Do you have to buy this one?
If you are interested in…
Are you thinking about changing your phone?
Hint

That sounds like a bad cough.
It must be inconvenient for you.
You seem very stressed about finding a place tosmoke on campus and you are always coughing.

Informing

I usually use ** store because they have goodprices.
Just take the first right at the light.

Relevant Case

My dad used to be a heavy smoker but after hequit, he seems happy and healthy.

Indirect

Note. A sample of head acts and supporting moves from this corpus.

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Appendix C
Internal and External Modification Strategies

Note. External and Internal modification strategies for speech acts by Trosborg (1995).

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Appendix D
Politeness Strategies: Internal and External Redressive Actions

Note. Politeness strategies divided into Internal and external redressive actions by Li (2010).

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Frameworks for Teaching Culture and Critical Thinking in the Language
Classroom
KEVIN OTTOSON
Nagoya University of Foreign Studies

Abstract
The push for Japanese institutions of higher education to internationalize their curriculum andfoster global jinzai (global human resources) is evident through recent governmental
initiatives (e.g., CAMPUS Asia, Global 30 Project, Top Global University Project). While
research, and discussion on internationalization the curriculum has focused on mobility
programs like study abroad (Hammond & Radjai, 2022; Yonezawa, et. al, 2009), the COVID19 pandemic has prevented many students from participating in these internationalization
efforts. As a result, internationalization at home efforts through virtual exchanges like
Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), have increased in popularity. Whilevirtual exchanges offer more inclusivity by allowing all students to participate in international
exchanges, not all language teachers can facilitate a virtual exchange in their classroom. This
paper presents frameworks to internationalize their classroom material through fostering
linguistic skills and intercultural competence that the Council on Promotion of Human
Resource Globalization Development (2012) describes as global jinzai.
Keywords: intercultural communicative competence, global jinzai, teaching culture

Internationalization efforts by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science,
and Technology (henceforth MEXT) are aimed at fostering university students who caninteract effectively and appropriately in a global context. These so-called global jinzai (global
human resources) are described by the Council on Promotion of Human Globalization
Resource Globalization Development, an advisory council established in 2011 under Japan’s
prime minster and his cabinet, as young people who can proactively meet challenges andsucceed on a global stage (Yonezawa, 2014). According to MEXT (2012), global jinzai canhelp enhance Japan’s global competitiveness and international relations. MEXT (2018)

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implicitly acknowledges that through its new Course of Study, the fixed teaching standards
for kindergarten to high school, global jinzai cannot be merely fostered at the tertiary level.
Global jinzai must be intentionally developed beginning from early childhood education.
Starting from the primary school level, the new Course of Study sets aims at deepening
young learners’ understanding of language and culture and fostering an attitude willing tocommunicate appropriately with others in a foreign language (MEXT, 2018). Despite theimportance placed on internationalizing the curriculum, to the best of the author’s knowledge,
MEXT did not provide practical or theoretical approaches to foster global jinzai. Thus, thispaper aims to provide two frameworks that can assist teachers in working toward theJapanese government’s internationalization aims.
Theoretical Background
Global jinzai are defined as those who possess the following factors: “1) linguistic andcommunication skills, 2) self-direction and positiveness, a spirit of challenge,
cooperativeness, and flexibility, a sense of responsibility and mission, 3) understanding ofother cultures and a sense of identity as a Japanese” (Council of Promotion of Human
Resource for Globalization Development 2012). Starting from the primary school level, the
new Course of Study aims at deepening their understanding of language and culture andfostering an attitude willing to communicate appropriately with others in a foreign language.
These objectives of a deepened understanding of language and culture along withwillingness to interact appropriately and effectively put in place by the Japanese government,
fit within the knowledge, attitudes, and skills described in Byram’s (1997) model ofintercultural communicative competence and Deardoff’s (2006) process model ofintercultural competence (see Figures 1 and 2).
Byram’s (1997) model of intercultural communicative competence was developed
for language teachers. Crucial to this model is the political education component. This
component, strategically centered in the middle, sees the intercultural speaker as possessing acertain degree of critical cultural awareness (see Figure 1, next page).

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Figure 1
Model of Intercultural Communicative Competence (Byram, 1997)

Note. Adapted from Byram (2021, p. 44).
Figure 2
Process Model of Intercultural Competence (Deardorff, 2006)

Byram, in a lecture on intercultural competence and foreign language teacher
education, states that the intercultural speaker must have a certain degree of all these122

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components; however, to have a certain degree of intercultural communicative competence,
one should aim to develop other components not presented in the model in Figure 1 (Hamid
Saffari, 2013). For example, nothing is mentioned about non-verbal communication
involvement (e.g., chronemics, proxemics, haptics). These are left out as Byram thought it
might be unreasonable to expect language teachers to aim to develop non-verbal
communication competence in addition to the other attitudes, knowledge, and skills.
Deardorff’s (2006) process model of intercultural competence in Figure 2 sees thedevelopment of intercultural competence as a lifelong process that begins with the requisite
attitudes of curiosity, openness, and respect. Based on Deardorff’s (2004) dissertation
research using a Delphi technique to gather opinions about intercultural competence fromintercultural researchers in North America and Europe, Deardorff (2004) put forth thisprocess model and a pyramid model to conceptualize the development of interculturalcompetence. Deardorff (2006) defines intercultural competence as “the ability to interact
effectively and appropriately in intercultural situations based on specific attitudes,intercultural knowledge, skills, and reflection” (p. 249). Crucial to this conceptualization isthe appropriateness as not defined by oneself; rather, the appropriateness of the interaction
must be deemed appropriate by the interlocutor. The intercultural speaker cannot deem theinteraction appropriate simply by themselves.
As mentioned previously, the Japanese government has placed emphasis oncommunicating effectively and appropriately with others. Implicit in the rationale forincorporating these attitudes, knowledge, and skills is the reality that interculturalcompetence does not just happen naturally. It must be intentionally developed. Thus, todevelop intercultural competence, language instructors can benefit greatly by having
frameworks that they can use in their teaching to foster the attitudes, knowledge, and skills
necessary to interact with others effectively and appropriately in intercultural situations. This
paper aims to present two frameworks put forward by Moran (2001): 1) cultural elements
framework, 2) cultural knowings framework. Noonan (2018) describes the attractiveness ofthese frameworks through their ease of use, versatility, ability to use the textbook material ona deeper level, and to build mental processes to help students develop critical cross-culturalawareness.
Describing ‘culture’
Prior to discussing the frameworks that allow for examining culture and language on a deeper
level, it can be helpful for teachers to describe to their students what kind of culture we are

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talking about. When our students think of culture, they will often think of what is often
referred to as “Big C” culture. The “Big C” culture encompasses the architecture, art, music,
or literature that often comes to mind when we think of a particular country. These aspects ofa group’s culture are often presented on postage stamps and featured prominently in language
textbooks. While “Big C” culture is important, it does not tell us much about the everyday
lives of the people in that particular group (Noonan, 2018). In contrast, the “Little c” culture
makes up elements (i.e., products, practices, people) of a culture that we encounter in our
everyday lives (e.g., products-business cards, coupons; practices-greetings, apologies,
negotiations; people-clerks, custodians, bus drivers). For students to understand the concept
of “Big C” culture and “Little c” culture, instructors may want to utilize the help of
metaphors to explain both types of culture.
Metaphor #1: Culture as an iceberg
One popular metaphor is the iceberg model of culture. Crucial to understanding this metaphor
is the fact that what we see about a culture is not as big as what we do not see. Culture is likean iceberg, in that what we see explicitly (e.g., communities, products, practices, persons, andsymbols) represents the tip of the iceberg. In contrast, the tacit culture represents theperspectives (e.g., perceptions, beliefs, attitudes) that is much bigger in size and hidden fromour view under the surface (Berardo, 2012; Brake et al., 1995, as cited in Moran, 2001;
Levine, et al., 1987; Weaver, 1993). Thus, a goal for cultural learning is to continually aim toprobe the deeper parts of the iceberg to seek to understand the perspectives that drive theactions and behaviors of others (Berardo, 2012).
Metaphor #2: Culture as an elephantAnother popular metaphor for culture is that culture can be an elephant. As the popular storyof the blind men and the elephant goes, one blind man in the back touching the tail says, “Theelephant is like a rope; it’s tough, long, and thin.” While another blind man touching the sideof the elephant disagrees and says, “No! The elephant is like a brick wall”. Next, anotherblind man who is touching the leg says, “No, No, No! The elephant is like a column of abuilding.” While on their own, they are all correct to a certain extent, but when they put all
their ideas together, they can start to build a clearer picture of the elephant. The same applies
to understanding a culture. Our collective experiences and understandings with another group
can start to build a better understanding of that group of people. However, we cannot rely
solely on one experience or perception to understand the myriad of products, practices,124

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communities, persons, and perspectives of a particular group.
Metaphor # 3: Culture is a fish in water
Another useful metaphor for culture is the fish out of water phenomenon. As the old Chinese
proverb goes, “If you want to know what water is like, don’t ask a fish.” The fish out of water
expression refers to being out of one’s comfort zone. It is once we are out of our regularenvironment, we start to develop a better understanding of our environment. Involved in that
understanding is the realization of our dependency on our cultural environments (Berardo,2012). The same can be applied to the understanding of a group’s culture. Outside of ourculture, we encounter different products, practices, communities, persons, and perceptions.
Encountering these differences can allow us to compare and relate the difference to that ofour own. Thus, we develop a better understanding of our own culture. Hokusai’s print, The
Great Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa-oki Nami Ura), is unique in the fact that it is the only
one of the 36 views of Mt. Fuji that is taken from outside of Japan. This print can be a usefulvisualization for Japanese students of the reflecting back upon Japan that will take place overthe course of the year and throughout their lifetime. The author uses this picture as the coverslide to every class’ PowerPoint slides as a reminder to constantly try to see your own culture
from an outsider’s perspective.
Source culture and target cultures
When referring to culture in the language classroom, the terms ‘C1’ and ‘C2’ are often used.
C1 refers to the student’s own culture or source culture. C2 refers to the target culture. EFL
textbooks in Japan have often presented C2 culture as that of the cultures in the US, Canada,
UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Cortazzi and Jin (1999) in their examination of culturalcontent in EFL textbooks refer to C3, C4, and C5 cultures, or international target cultures, asneither the source or target cultures of both English and non-English-speaking cultures
around the world.
Cortazzi and Jin (1999) describe the perceived benefits of textbooks that feature the target
or international target cultures as developing the learners’ abilities to 1) talk to visitors, 2) bea visitor, 3) develop intercultural knowledge and skills, 4) indirectly develop a sense of theirown identity. Conversely, EFL textbooks that feature the C1 or source culture can develop thelearners’ ability to talk to visitors and directly develop a sense of their own identity.
Additionally, Noonan (2018) argues for giving students opportunities to talk about their C1.
Some of the benefits of talking about the students’ C1 are that it allows for students to do the125FRAMEWORKS FOR TEACHING CULTURE & CRITICAL THINKING IN THE LANGUAGE
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following:1) to speak about their own culture, which is often ignored in textbooks2) to develop knowledge and pride in their own culture3) to critically analyze possible negative aspects of their culture4) to see their culture from an outside perspective and thus to critically analyze cultureswith more sensitivity.
Moran’s (2001) cultural elements framework and cultural knowings frameworkpresented in this paper can allow the teacher to incorporate both the source culture and thetarget cultures in the learning classroom. These frameworks allow the students to explore
both the source and target cultures on a deeper level that is often presented in the textbook.
Additionally, Noonan (2018) describes how these versatile and easy-to-use frameworks help
develop the mental processes necessary for cross-cultural critical awareness.
Framework 1: Cultural elements framework
The first framework is Moran’s (2001) cultural elements framework. This framework allows
for students to focus on an element or elements of a culture in greater detail. Thus, thestudents can develop their ability to critically analyze other elements of a culture in greater
detail. The cultural elements framework involves looking at a particular cultural phenomenon
and looking at the following elements of that aspect: 1) products, 2) practices, 3) persons, 4)communities, and 5) perspectives. For example, products are things that a culture creates anduses (e.g., chopsticks, bottle scrapers, convenience stores). The practices of a culture caninvolve behaviors and social interactions (e.g., apologizing, exchanging greetings,
exchanging business cards, negotiating, writing New Year’s cards). Then, the persons are thepeople acting in a culture (e.g., custodians, office workers, security guards, store clerks, taxi
drivers). Next, the communities are groups of people sharing values and behaviors (e.g.,
Buddhist monks, club members, EFL teachers, sports fans). Finally, the perspectives of aculture are the underlying beliefs shared by many of its people (e.g., filial piety, respect for
the elderly, time as a commodity). Moran (2001) suggests that teachers present a list or elicit
a list of cultural phenomena. The list of phenomena can include the following: a concert, afood market, a game, a harvest, a marriage ceremony, a mode of transportation, a musicalinstrument, or a restaurant. Once a phenomenon is chosen, then the teachers can ask thestudents to answer the following questions presented by Moran (2001):

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Figure 3
Questions to Ask When Analyzing Cultural Phenomena (Moran, 2001).

Figure 4 (following page) illustrates how taking a cultural element like a tachigui(standing while eating) soba restaurant, a specific type of restaurant found on train platforms
in Japan, can be analyzed by its products and practices as well as the communities, persons,and perspectives involved with them. Prior or following this activity, the teacher should havethe students look at a type of restaurant in one of the target cultures of the language they are
studying. See Moran (2001) for an example of the cultural elements of drive-thru restaurants,
a common style of take-out service from restaurants that originated in the United Statesslightly before the mid-20th century.
Moran (2001) describes how completing this activity will reveal the difficulty ofidentifying the products, practices, perspectives, and communities of cultural phenomena weare not familiar with. Even with the cultural phenomena we are familiar with, this activity canpresent its challenges. Teachers can refer to the metaphor of a fish out of water and remind
the students how difficult it can be to clearly see all the cultural elements involved with aphenomenon, particularly when that is the only environment we have lived in. According toBerardo (2012), when beginning to work across cultures, it is imperative to try to understand
one’s own ocean and its influences.

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Figure 4
Cultural Elements of a Tachigui Soba Restaurant

Framework 2: Cultural knowings framework
The following cultural knowings framework can be used to supplement the content related tointeractions in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) textbooks or materials used in theclassroom. Moran (2001) details the role for the teachers when it comes to learning about thenature of the interactions. Figure 5 (following page) shows the teacher’s role for each of thecultural knowings.

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Figure 5
Cultural Knowings and Teachers’ Roles

Note. Adapted from Moran (2001, p. 18).
Hansford, et al. (2001) describe how the framework helped a teacher integrate
cultural learning into a unit of a textbook that included a focus on apologies. The language
function of the unit was the use of because and so. Thus, the teacher focused on the use of
because and so in the context of apologizing. When apologizing in English one might use theword “because” (e.g., “I’m sorry I’m late because my bicycle had a flat tire.”) to explain why
the unfortunate event happened. Likewise, someone might use the word “so” to explain what
the person will do to return the favor (e.g., “I’m sorry I couldn’t pay for lunch today, so I will
pay for your lunch tomorrow.”) Then Hansford, et al. (2001) provides cultural objectives forthe unit on apologies included examining the similarities and differences between appropriate
apologies in Japan and North America. Included in the objectives were non-verbal and verbal
aspects of appropriate apologies in both cultures. Figure 6 shows an outline the cultural
knowings and the goals for the unit.

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Figure 6
A Visual Summary of Activities Using the Cultural Knowings Framework

Note. Adapted from Hansford et al., (2001, p. 34).
Once the objectives are set, it is time for the teacher to facilitate the learning of theseknowings. Figure 7 presents a series of sequences that has a particular focus. The series ofsequences can either start with participation or with the response. Moran (2001) provides
these questions that can focus on the teacher’s roles and responsibilities at each stage.

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Figure 7
Focus questions for the Cultural ExperienceNote. Adapted from Moran (2001, p. 141). *Start with either participation or description.
Moran (2001) describes beginning the sequence by having the students participate insome sort of an experience. In this case, it might be a role-play of a situation where they need
to apologize. One student can pretend as if they are waiting for their friend to meet them, thenthe friend appears and needs to apologize for being late. The degree of lateness and thesituation’s context will dictate the apology style. Additionally, the teacher can present andmodel a short sample dialogue that contains both verbal and nonverbal language. Then thestudents can take part in the dialogue with a classmate. After the students have theexperience, the teacher can help the students to continue the sequence of description,interpretation, and response. For Moran (2001), the teacher needs to be keenly aware ofwhich part of the sequence he or she is focusing on the students. The objectives must be clear,

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and the teacher should be mindful of their role in reaching the objectives and how they can beassessed. Figure 8 presents Moran’s (2001) cultural knowings and objectives.
Figure 8
Objectives for Moran’s (2001) Cultural Knowings

Conclusion
This paper gives an overview and examples of two of Moran’s (2001) frameworks
for facilitating the teaching of culture into the classroom. These frameworks provide apractical approach to internationalizing the curriculum from the primary to the tertiary level.
Regarding Moran’s (2001) cultural elements framework, the versatile and user-friendly
framework will enable teachers to examine the elements of a culture presented in EFL
textbooks on a deeper level by looking at the products, practices, people, communities, andperspectives that influence a cultural phenomenon. Additionally, by using Moran’s (2001)
cultural knowings framework, teachers can help students understand how to engage ineveryday exchanges and interactions effectively and appropriately by guiding the students intaking part in an experience, describing it, exploring why it happened in that way and what itmeans, and reflecting on it. Utilizing these frameworks to examine culture on a deeper levelgives students a space to actively share their experiences, ideas, and opinions with othersfrom similar and different backgrounds, and develop crucial thinking skills necessary to
examine their own culture and the cultures of others.

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CLASSROOMBIO DATAKevin Ottoson is a lecturer at Nagoya University of Foreign Studies. He holds an Ed.D. fromthe University of New England. His research interests include study abroad, virtual exchange,
and intercultural competence.

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