ISSN 2433-5851

EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMENT:MODELS AND MODESEFLにおける学習者エンゲージメント：
モデルとモード

甲南大学総合研究所
叢書 138

Table of Contents
EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMENT: MODELS AND MODES
Welcome Message(1)
STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR ENGAGEMENT INLEARNING EXPERIENCES IN A JAPANESE UNIVERSITY
Keiko Yoshida(3)
INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES THAT INFLUENCELEARNER ENGAGEMENT
Brent A. Jones(25)
EMOTIONAL LEARNER ENGAGEMENT: A CASE STUDY OF AN
EXPERIENCED EFL TEACHER
Mayumi Asaba(57)
ENGAGEMENT AND TECHNOLOGY: TOWARDS A PEDAGOGY
FOR LEARNER ENGAGEMENT IN SPOKEN TEXTSRoger Palmer
(83)

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EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMENT: MODELS AND MODES
Welcome Message
Learner engagement continues to gain traction as a conceptual framework and area ofscholarly research in school settings, and we can now find references to the growing
body of literature on the topic in second-language acquisition studies. Still, although
the term engagement comes up quite often in English as a Foreign Language (EFL)
contexts, it is often used in more general terms with little or no connection to thisbroader body of research. This gap was one of the underlying reasons for forming thisteam and setting out on this research journey. The papers gathered here represent a
range of perspectives on the topic of learner engagement, especially as they apply to
our team’s teaching context, university EFL in Japan. Our research proposal included
three main themes: Models and Modes of Learner Engagement, Teacher Expertise,and e-Learning platforms of problem-based learning. We have thus organized here ourresearch findings around these three themes. Specifically, in the first paper, Keiko
Yoshida reviews a range of survey instruments used around the world to gauge learnerengagement and presents findings from a small-scale study using a questionnaire
adapted from representative studies in Australia and North America. Next, Brent
Jones shares findings from a qualitative study of teacher characteristics that influencelearner engagement in university EFL classes in Japan. On the topic of teacher
expertise, Mayumi Asaba offers an overview of her study of student perceptions
related to learner engagement and expert teaching. Finally, Roger Palmer outlines anaction research project in which university freshmen in a management department inJapan learned discourse structures and features through modeling and explicit
teaching using e-Learning platforms. Audio and video recordings of student
interactions highlighted the instruction and fed back into a loop of informed peer
assessment. This paper describes the methodology and models of instruction while atthe same time offering an overview of how students performed and were appraised bytheir peers. It is hoped that this collection of papers helps bring to the forefront the2

EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

topic of learner engagement and stimulates further discussion and research on related
issues and topics.

3

STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR ENGAGEMENT IN LEARNING
EXPERIENCES IN A JAPANESE UNIVERSITY
Keiko Yoshida, Institute for Language and Culture

Student Engagement
Currently there have been studies made on various types of engagement, including
customer engagement, employee engagement, community engagement, patient andfamily engagement, academic engagement, undergraduate engagement, student
engagement in higher education, etcetera.
In the field of education, Input-Environment-Output (IEO) model
introduced in Astin (1993) is widely utilized to evaluate their learning outcome.
Input is the knowledge and skills students have at their university entry and output
is those at their graduation. Environment, in the middle, means their experiences inschool and it is mainly divided into two categories; opportunities schools provide
for students, and challenges and efforts students make for the granted
opportunities (Okada et al. , 2011). Ogata (2008) considers that the phrase,“student engagement”, is closely related to the latter and showing them withvarious factors such as student active learning, academic engaged time outsideclass and class attendance.
The concept of student engagement has been actively used as the newmeasuring tool for institutional assessment since the 1990s in the United States.
With the growing number of student engagement studies, theories, conceptual
frameworks and dominant perspectives have been also developed. The behavioral
perspective that describes the relationships between student behavior and teachingpractice has drawn researchers’ attentions most. One representative survey method
to investigate the relationships is the National Survey of Student Engagement(NSSE), which is one unit of Center for Postsecondary Research in the Indiana
University School of Education. Another is the Australian Survey of Student
Engagement (AUSSE) introduced by the Australian Council for Educational

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EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

Research. The five engagement scales that the NSSE includes mainly focus on
educational approaches, such as academic challenge, active learning, interactions,enriching educational experiences and supportive learning environment. The AUSSE,on the other hand, puts its emphasis more on outcomes of education such as higher
order thinking (e.g. critical thinking and problem solving), general learning outcomes,
career readiness, grade, departure intention and satisfaction. The NSSE and the
AUSSE are called The Dominant Paradigm by Bryson (2014).
Kuh (2001), one of the developers of the NSSE, explained validity,
reliability and credibility of self-report data, while some researchers were concerned
about weakness of the student responses, wide variety of learning styles and focusesin different disciplines (Kahu, 2013). She also argues that we must not only look at
the behavioral perspective, which is realized by academic challenge and active
learning, but also other psychological, social-cultural and holistic perspectives, todescribe the construct of engagement more in details. Emotional and cognitive
dimensions are, for example, in Psychological perspectives.
Reviewing the terms to explain student engagement in the previous
literatures, Yamada (2018) defines it as below. He describes student engagement is
the concept to capture 1) the educational system and environment universities provide,
considering students’ situations and contexts, to increase their learning anddevelopment, 2) the deep commitment teaching and administrative staff make in their
daily instruction and guidance, 3) the process and a series of experiences students
choose on their own to be proactive in their learning, and 4) the interconnectedness
and dynamics between quality and quantity of involvement made by each university,
teaching and administrative staff member, and student.

学生エンゲージメントとは、大学生の学習と発達を促すために、彼らの置かれている状況や文脈も考慮しつつ、大学が提供する制度や環境、教職員が日常的に行う教育・指導等における深い関与、学生が自らの意志で選択し、学びに対して主体的に

STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR ENGAGEMENT IN LEARNING ･･････（YOSHIDA）

5

関与するというプロセスや一連の経験、そして大学、教職員、
学生それぞれが払う関与の質と量の相互連関やダイナミクスを捉える概念。

Findings from Previous Studies on Student Engagement
The NSSE Research
The NSSE research in 2014 investigating engagement of first-year and fourth-year
students in 622 four-year colleges in the States had the following findings: thatstudent experiences in college and interchange with their instructors vary among
schools and they are not related to school size or difficulty degree to enter, that the
number of advising sessions in their first year with their academic advisor has the
positive correlation with student perception about supporting environment provided
for them by schools, and that use of social media in their learning is positively
correlated with all the criteria related to their engagement.

The AUSSE Research
A series of AUSSE Research Briefing reports, Volume 1-12 with different focuses,
were published by AUSSE between 2008 and 2011. Volume 6 in 2010, for instance,
reveals that one in 15 first-year students in Australia are planning to move to anotheruniversity. Regarding their experiences, first years in Australia are less likely to ask
questions in class, make class presentations or join community-based projects thanlast-year students or their counterparts in the U.S. Also, it shows that first years inAustralia and New Zealand discuss their grades or career plans with teachers muchless than first-year students in America. More detailed analysis based on their majors
tells that science students work more on memorizing facts and engineering students on
application of theories into practices, while humanities students focus more on
analysis.

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EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

The CRUMP Research
In Japan, Center for Research on University Management and Policy (CRUMP) of
Tokyo University adapted the NSSE and conducted its own surveys in 2007 and 2018with a clear purpose of describing a precise picture of tertiary education in Japan for
its future reform. 48,233 students in 127 colleges participated in the former and
32,913 students in 77 universities did in the latter. Ogata (2008) analyzes the datacollected in 2007 and concludes that both features of education programs and student
engagement are important to build general skills and academic skills. To improvegeneral skills, active learning, for example, participation in discussion and questions
to instructors, is effective as well as academic engaged time outside class, but classattendance is not. To raise academic skills, active learning, academic engaged timeoutside class and class attendance are all important but the impact of active learningon academic skills is not as strong as on general skills. To have higher grades, active
learning and class attendance are the significant factors.

Research Design
The present study attempts 1) to adapt student engagement questionnaires,
common methods used by various schools and institutions in several countries,
from the previous overseas research to university student context in Japan, 2) toconduct a small-scale survey on student learning experiences and environment at
one university in Japan which can be administered simply by a single teacher and3) to share results in this university with a hope that they can give some hints todevelop student learning and instructors’ teaching.

MethodParticipants
A total of 67 students of a university in Japan answered the student engagement
questionnaire designed to collect data on activities, focuses and environment of
their current learning. Out of them, learning activities they experience at college is

STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR ENGAGEMENT IN LEARNING ･･････（YOSHIDA）

7

a special emphasis of the questionnaire. 65 students are freshmen and the rest two
are sophomores. The participants are in three different courses. 48 of them are in
the Regular course, 12 in the Science and International Studies course and seven
are in the English Intensive course mainly for students aiming to study abroad.
This university has eight different faculties and 29 of all the participants of thisstudy are from Business Administration, 26 from Economics, six from Science andEngineering and six from Intelligence and Informatics. They all study in one of thethree campuses of the school. Therefore, it cannot be said that the experiences ofthem represent those of students in all the faculties of the university.

Instrumentation
The questionnaire was adapted from the AUSSE (2011) and the CLASSE STUDENT
that was revised by University of Alberta from the NSSE originally developed byIndiana University. Since the NSSE, the AUSSE, and the CLASSE STUDENT in
University of Alberta were designed to collect data from college students in
English speaking countries, they were modified for this study on engagement ofJapanese university students. In the AUSSE, the questions ask students about theirclasses in general and usually start with “In your experience in your institution
during this academic year, ….” or “During the current academic year, …”, while in
the CLASSE STUDENT the items ask about their specific class and the question
statements are like “So far in this semester, how often have you done each of thefollowing in your [Course XYZ] class?” or “So far in this semester, how much ofyour coursework in your [Course XYZ] class emphasized the following mental
activities?” As the purpose of this study is to investigate student general learning
experiences and their perception about their experiences for development of ourteaching in this university, the former style questions as in the AUSSE werechosen.
The questionnaire with a total of 60 questions is divided into six mainparts and a personal data section. Part one consists of 27 statements relating to8

EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

engagement activities of students. Five questions (Questions 1, 4, 9, 25 and 27) areabout student choices in engagement activities, for example, asking questions inclass (Q1) and making efforts when they feel the class content is difficult (Q4).
Five (Questions 3, 5, 7, 13 and 15) relate to class design and assignments such as
making presentations (Q3) and combining ideas and concepts from other courses
together when completing assignments (Q7). Six (Questions 2 and 17-21) are on
relationship with teachers and advisors, including communication with (Q2, 17, 18
and 19) and feedback from (Q20) them. Four (Questions 10, 23, 24 and 26) ask
about relationship with entire classes, for instance, contribution to a class (Q10)and consideration of entire class success (Q24). Four (Questions 11, 12, 14 and 22)
are about relationship with other students such as cooperation with classmates for
assignments (Q11 and Q12) and offering support to other students (Q14). Three(Questions 6, 8 and 16) are to find their use of university learning support facilities
including SALC (Self-Access Learning Center) (Q8) and university online
network for assignments and discussions (Q16). Responses in part one are on a
Likert scale from one to four, with one coded as never/rarely and four as very
often.
Part two consists of five statements (Questions 28-32), and all of them
relate to cognitive skills which students consider were focused and trained in theirclasses. As in the CLASSE STUDENT in University Alberta, among various cognitive
skills, in particular, five skills are asked in this part: memorizing facts, ideas andmethods (Q28); analyzing the basic elements of each idea or theory (Q29);
synthesizing obtained ideas and information to create a new perspective (Q30);
making judgement on value or validity of information, discussions, or methods ofothers and self (Q31); applying theories or concepts into practices (Q32).
Responses in part two were on a Likert scale from one to four, with one coded asvery little and four as very much.
Part three consists of eight statements relating to other educational
practices. One question (Question 33) is about efforts for better achievement, two

STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR ENGAGEMENT IN LEARNING ･･････（YOSHIDA）

9(Questions 34 and 35) are on class preparation time, one (Question 36) relates toattendance, two (Question 37 and 38) ask about textbooks, and two (Questions 39
and 40) are about difficulty level of classes. Responses in Question 33 were on a
Likert scale from one to seven, with one coded as very little and seven as verymuch. Responses in Questions 34-40 were all on a Likert scale from one to four,
but with different names of steps, because there were different types of questions
asking time durations in a certain period, frequencies, degrees, and difficultylevels.
Part four consists of five statements and all of them are about classatmosphere. One question (Question 41), however, asks about atmosphere inconversations with teachers. The rest four (Questions 42-45) are on interactions
with classmates such as learning from classmates (Q44) and contributing toclassmates (Q45). Responses in Question 41 were on a Likert scale from one tofour, with one coded as very uncomfortable and four as very comfortable.
Responses in Questions 42-45 were all on a Likert scale from one to four, with one
coded as very little and four as very much.
Part five consists of four statements relating to career development
education. Three of them (Questions 46, 47 and 49) are about existence andexperiences of career education given by teachers and advisors and the rest one(Question 48) is about student perception about usefulness of class contents fortheir future career. Responses in part five were all on a Likert scale from one tofour, but with different names of steps, because there were different types ofquestions asking frequencies, degrees, and perceptions.
Part six consists of seven statements regarding student learning atuniversity in general. Three of them (Questions 50-52) elicit student perceptions
about affiliation with their university (Q50) and about academic advice theyreceived there (Q51). Four (Questions 53-56) are relationship with people
surrounding them on campus including teaching staff (Q54) and learning support
staff (Q56). Responses in Questions 50 and 53-56 were on a Likert scale from one

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EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

to seven, but with different names of steps, because there were different types ofquestions asking student sense of affiliation with school and relationships withothers on campus. Responses in Questions 51 and 52 were on a Likert scale from
one to four, with one coded as poor and four as excellent.
In personal data section, students answered their gender (Q 57),
course selection (Q58), grade year (Q59), and faculty (Q60).

Results
Engagement Activities
Table 1-1 shows that more than half students consider they frequently focus on
their coursework at hand and accomplish it responsibly, though they do not thinkthey ask questions or prepare for the class lessons often. They might regard
voluntary questions in class and previews for lessons as some extra activities
which are not included in their coursework.

Table 1-1 Student Attitudes and Engagement Activities for Classwork
Q1 Questions
Q4 Efforts
Q9 Previews
Q25 Focused
Q27 Responsible

28
3
12
1
3

Never
(42%)
(4%)
(18%)
(1%)
(4%)

Sometimes
28
(42%)
27
(40%)
35
(52%)
28
(42%)
21
(31%)

9
31
17
29
33

Often
(13%)
(46%)
(25%)
(43%)
(49%)

Very Often
2
(3%)
6
(9%)
3
(4%)
9
(13%)
10
(15%)

Total
67
67
67
67
67

In their response to Q33 about student efforts for final exams orassignments, however, more than ten percent of students rate their efforts as 7,
highest on the Likert scale, and more than half rate either 5 or 6. It can be assumed
that they evaluate themselves as being serious and responsible if they work hard on
large or final tests or assignments of classes.
To grab more details about their actual previews, Q34 and 35 asked
how much time students use to prepare for classes. The answers revealed that alittle more than half of them sometimes spend over one hour for class preparations
and a little fewer than half never spend over three hours for previews.

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STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR ENGAGEMENT IN LEARNING ･･････（YOSHIDA）

The frequency and length of their previews may be subject to theirclass contents, therefore, it is necessary to look at them. Table 1-2 shows the highpercentages of the responses of “Never” for Q5 and Q15. They are partially due toindividual English class syllabi and entire English education curriculum of theuniversity. In education of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) on Okamoto
campus in this university, though students take College English Reading andWriting classes in their first year, the focus of them seem to be heavily on reading.
Only a limited number of students taking English Intensive course are trained tocomplete and submit their writings after experiencing process writing with two or
more drafts in their first year.
It must be a little challenging to incorporate community activities in aclass syllabus of classes for first year students. Recently, however, courses called
Overseas Volunteer Activities have been created and others called Area Studies,
which are summer/spring intensive courses, sometimes include community
activities even outside Japan. Thus, responses of higher frequencies for Q15 are
expected to increase in the future.

Table 1-2 Learning Opportunities: Class Designs and Assignments
Never
Q3 Presentations
Q5 Two or More
DraftsQ7 Resources
Q13 Other Class
Knowledge
Q15 Community
Activities

Sometimes

Often

Very Often

Total

15

(22%)

16

(24%)

24

(36%)

12

(18%)

67

34

(51%)

15

(22%)

12

(18%)

6

(9%)

67

14

(21%)

28

(42%)

18

(27%)

7

(10%)

67

6

(9%)

35

(52%)

21

(31%)

5

(7%)

67

53

(79%)

7

(10%)

7

(10%)

0

(0%)

67

There are several freshmen orientations at the beginning of theacademic year about how to use the facilities and online systems of university. All
students on Okamoto campus are supposed to visit and study at LOFT, the Self Access
Learning Center, for English study for their first year College English Speaking

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EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

class, and ten percent of the entire class score is earned by their work at LOFT.
Since this self-report questionnaire survey was administered at the end of thesecond semester, their answers “Never” for Q8 in Table 1-3 is a bit surprising. It is
assumed that if they have never visited Learning Support Center, they answer“Never” in Q8. However, the table also indicates 70-80 percent students have used
the library, learning support center, SALC and online systems for their classwork.

Table 1-3 Uses of School Facilities and Resources
Never
Q6 Library, etc.
Q8 Support Center& SALCQ16 School Online
SystemSometimes

Often

Very Often

Total

13

(19%)

23

(34%)

18

(27%)

13

(19%)

67

20

(30%)

21

(31%)

16

(24%)

10

(15%)

67

14

(21%)

22

(33%)

13

(19%)

18

(27%)

67

Cognitive Skills
Regarding cognitive skills which are trained in their classes, students perceive all
the following skills below in Table 2 have a similar frequency pattern of training
opportunities. The responses to Q30-32 indicate that training of higher cognitive
skills, such as integration of what they study in various classes, critical thinking
toward various ideas, methods, and theories and application of learned knowledge
to new problems and situations, has been already started and evenly implemented
in their first year at college.

Table 2 Cognitive Skills Trained in Classes
Very Little

Some

Quite a Bit

Very Much

Total

Q28 Memorizing

3

(4%)

33

(49%)

20

(30%)

11

(16%)

67

Q29 Analyzing

2

(3%)

35

(52%)

16

(24%)

14

(21%)

67

Q30 Synthesizing

7

(10%)

34

(51%)

19

(28%)

7

(10%)

67

Q31 Judging

8

(12%)

32

(48%)

21

(31%)

6

(9%)

67

Q32 Applying

7

(10%)

37

(55%)

19

(28%)

4

(6%)

67

STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR ENGAGEMENT IN LEARNING ･･････（YOSHIDA）

13

Other Educational Practices
The data in Table 3 tells student perceptions about their class textbooks andcontents. The answers to Q37 and Q38 imply their positive ideas about textbook
choices, which are made by their teachers, departments, institutes or centers, forexample, interesting topics and a good challenge level of them. On the other hand,approximately one third or one quarter of them responded “Difficult” and largest
percentages of them answered “Somewhat Easy” in Q39 and Q40 about classcontents. The different sets of answer choices in the questions about textbooks andclass contents (Easy, Somewhat Difficult, Difficult and Very Difficult for
textbooks; Difficult, Somewhat Easy, Easy and Very Easy for class contents) in theoriginal questionnaire, which were applied in this study, made it difficult tointerpret their responses in this section. It can be suggested that textbook contents
and levels be kept as they are but class contents and difficulty levels be easier forsome students and a little bit more challenging for others. More flexible teachinglevel adjustment according to student skill levels seems necessary.

Table 3 Textbooks and Class Contents
Very Little
Q37 Interest in
Textbooks

7

(10%)
Easy

Q38 Textbooks

7

(10%)
Difficult

Q39 ClassContents
Q40 Keeping up
with Classes

Some
25

(37%)

Quite a Bit

Very Much

Total

30

5

67

Somewhat
Difficult45(67%)
Somewhat
Easy

12

(45%)

Difficult
(18%)
Easy

(7%)

Very
Difficult
3
(4%)

Total
67

Very Easy

Total

20

(30%)

40

(60%)

7

(10%)

0

(0%)

67

18

(27%)

39

(58%)

9

(13%)

1

(1%)

67

Class Atmosphere
While about twenty percent of students answered Very Comfortable,
approximately ten percent of students responded “Uncomfortable” incommunicating with teaching staff. Follow-up questions to find reasons for that

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EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

should have been asked. The overall atmosphere and learning environment among
students and with teachers are considered to be fair, but the responses to all thequestions in this section indicate that there are around ten percent students who
find it difficult to talk and work together with teachers and other students. Moredetailed investigations, individual supports and carefully designed activities
which help them to get involved more with ease are needed.

Table 4 Class Atmosphere
Q41W/Teaching
Staff

Uncomfortable

Somewhat
Comfortable

Comfortable

Very
Comfortable

Total

7

20

24

15

(23%)

66

Quite a Bit

Very Much

Total

(11%)

Very Little
Q42 Enjoy GW
Q43 Interaction w/
Classmates
Q44 Learning fromClassmates
Q45 Contributing
To Classmates

(30%)
Some

(36%)

5

(8%)

26

(39%)

22

(33%)

13

(20%)

66

6

(9%)

23

(35%)

22

(33%)

15

(23%)

66

8

(12%)

22

(33%)

21

(32%)

15

(23%)

66

12

(18%)

28

(42%)

18

(27%)

8

(12%)

66

Career Education
Table 5 indicates students had different frequencies of chances to talk and consult
about careers with teachers and more than half of them had none. To the contrary,over half of them receive support from the Career Center of the university.
Students consider that contents of their classes include subject matter relevant totheir future career to some degree. Teachers can more proactively connect theirlessons with students’ prospective future careers and make the connection clear to
them.

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STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR ENGAGEMENT IN LEARNING ･･････（YOSHIDA）

Table 5 Career Education
Never
Q46 Talk on Career with
Teaching Staff

3
9

(59%)

Sometimes
17

Very Little
Q47 Contents Relevant
To Career
Q49 Support for Career
Planning

1
6
1
5

(24%)
(23%)

(26%)
Some

39
35

Often
9

(14%)

1

Quite a Bit

Very
Often

Total

(2%)

66

Very
Much

Total

(59%)

9

(14%)

2

(3%)

66

(53%)

1
3

(20%)

3

(5%)

66

Learning at University
Majority of students recognize that advice they receive at university in general isfair or better. Table 6 presents that they evaluate higher their experiences at school
than advice. In addition, regarding the relationships with teaching, administrative,
and learning support staff, the largest number of students rate 5-6, 4, and 4,
respectively in Q54-Q56. As an educational institute, there is much room for thisuniversity to raise quality of academic, life-related, and career advice andexperiences and student perceptions about them.

Table 6 Learning at University
Poor

Fair

Good

Excellent

Total

Q.51 Advice

2

(3%)

36

(55%)

23

(35%)

5

(8%)

66

Q.52 Experiences

2

(3%)

21

(32%)

31

(47%)

12

(18%)

66

Conclusion
The results of the present study replicate some of the findings of the research
reported by Yamada from Benesse Educational Research and Development
Institute in 2018. The research presented the results of three surveys conducted in
2008, 2012 and 2016 with participants of approximately 4,000-5,000 college
students across Japan. For example, students in the both Yamada (2018) and thisstudy answered that they do have responsible attitudes and make sufficient efforts

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EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

toward classwork but do not ask questions in class or preview for classes at all or
so often.
The longitudinal research of Yamada and other researchers above
reported the sharp increase in the percentage of students who experienced classes
with frequent output opportunities and peer support among students, which can be
actually aimed and designed by teachers. Student side behavioral engagement ingroupwork and discussion also increased accordingly with the more output
chances described above. It implies that the changes made in class designs byteachers may positively affect student engagement in the long run. Therefore,
thoroughly planned revisions of class design and curriculum and systems to checkthe effects of them are necessary. For such revisions and check systems, it can besaid that longitudinal engagement research within a university will be one possible
good method.

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Astin, A.W. (1993). What matters in college? Four critical years revisited. San
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Bryson, C. (Ed.). (2014). Understanding and Developing Student Engagement.
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framework and overview of psychometric properties, Indiana University, Center
for Postsecondary Research. Retrieved August 20, 2017 fromhttp://nsse.indiana.edu/pdf/psychometric_framework_2002.pdf

小方直幸(2008). 「学生のエンゲージメントと大学教育のアウトカム」『高等教育研究』 11: 45-64. Retrieved April 2, 2017 from https://www.jstage.jst.go.
jp/article/jaher/11/0/11_45/_pdf/-char/ja

岡田有司, 鳥居朋子, 宮浦崇, 青山佳世, 松村初, 中野正也, 吉岡路(2011).「大学生における学習 スタイルの違いと学習成果」『立命館高等教育研究』, 11,167-182. Retrieved April 2, 2017 from http://r-cube.ritsumei.ac.jp/repo/reposit
ory/rcube/2679/hes11_12okada.pdf

山田剛史(2018). 「大学教育の質的転換と学生エンゲージメント」『名古屋高等教育研究』, 18, 155–176. Retrieved April 7, 2019 from http://www.cshe.nag
oya-u.ac.jp/publications/journal/no18/09.pdf

山田剛史(2018).「学生エンゲージメントが拓く大学教育の可能性〜改めて『誰のための』『何のための』教育改革かを考える〜」『第 3 回大学生の学習・生
活実態調査報告書（ベネッセ教育総合研究所）』, 31-39. Retrieved August 7,
2019 from https://berd.benesse.jp/up_images/textarea/05_daigakusei_sec2_P30_
39.pdf

18

EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

Appendix – Questionnaire

クラスにおけるエンゲージメントについてのアンケート

このアンケートに答えるのは自由です。以下の各項目について、該当すると思う数字に○をつけてください。できるだけ最も適切だと思う数字を選んでください。回答は研究の目的にのみ使用され、回答者や教職員の皆様にいかなる影響を及ぼすものではありません。ご協力をお願い致します。

甲南大学総合研究所 2017-2018年度 研究プロジェクト
国際言語文化センター 吉田桂子--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

パート1.

学習における活動について

今年度、大学において、以下の各項目をどのような頻度で行いましたか。

1.

授業で発言や質問をしたり、オンライン（メールや My Konan など）で質問をしましたか
1

2.

しばしばした 4

しょっちゅうした

しなかった

2

時々した

3

しばしばした 4

しょっちゅうした

しなかった

2

時々した

しばしばした 4

しょっちゅうした

3

しなかった

2

時々した

3

しばしばした 4

しょっちゅうした

課題を最終的に提出する前に、2 回以上、下書きをしましたか
1

6.

3

授業内容が難しいと感じた時に、努力をしましたか
1

5.

時々した

授業でプレゼンテーションをしましたか
1

4.

2

教員にアドバイスを求めましたか
1

3.

しなかった

しなかった

2

時々した

3

しばしばした 4

しょっちゅうした

図書館やオンラインの資料を使用しましたか
1

しなかった

2

時々した

3

しばしばした 4

しょっちゅうしたSTUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR ENGAGEMENT IN LEARNING ･･････（YOSHIDA）

7.

様々な資料から意見や情報を統合する課題を行いましたか
1

8.

しょっちゅうした

しなかった

2

時々した

3

しばしばした 4

しょっちゅうした

しなかった

2

時々した

3

しばしばした 4

しょっちゅうした

しなかった

2

時々した

3

しばしばした 4

しょっちゅうした

しなかった

2

時々した

3

しばしばした 4

しょっちゅうした

しなかった

2

時々した

3

しばしばした 4

しょっちゅうした

しなかった

2

時々した

3

しばしばした 4

しょっちゅうした

しなかった

2

時々した

3

しばしばした 4

しょっちゅうした

しなかった

2

時々した

3

しばしばした 4

しょっちゅうした

しなかった

2

時々した

3

しばしばした 4

しょっちゅうした

しなかった

2

時々した

3

しばしばした 4

しょっちゅうした

授業準備や課題について、教員と授業以外で話をしましたか
1

20.

しばしばした 4

課題や成績について、教員と授業以外に話をしましたか
1

19.

3

メールや My Konan などで、教員とコミュニケーションをとりましたか
1

18.

時々した

課題やディスカッションを行うために、オンラインのシステム (My Konan など)を使用しましたか
1

17.

2

学習の一部として、地域のプロジェクトに参加しましたか
1

16.

しなかった

他学生への学習支援や指導（有償・ボランティアを含む）を行いましたか
1

15.

しょっちゅうした

授業の課題やディスカッションをする際に、他の授業で学んだ知識や概念を活用しましたか
1

14.

しばしばした 4

授業外の課題や授業の準備に、クラスメイトと協力して取り組みましたか
1

13.

3

授業内の課題や活動に、クラスメイトと協力して取り組みましたか
1

12.

時々した

学習の進度についていっていましたか
1

11.

2

教材を読んだり課題を行うなど、準備を完全にしてから授業にのぞみましたか
1

10.

しなかった

学習支援サービス（Loft や教育学習支援センターなど）を利用しましたか
1

9.

19

しなかった

2

時々した

3

しばしばした 4

しょっちゅうした

学習成果について、教員やアドバイザーからすぐに（記述の・口頭の）フィードバックをもらいましたか
1

しなかった

2

時々した

3

しばしばした 4

しょっちゅうした20

21.

EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

教員やアドバイザーの水準や期待に合わせるために、思っていたよりも努力して取り組みましたか
1

22.

しょっちゅうした

しなかった

2

時々した

3

しばしばした 4

しょっちゅうした

しなかった

2

時々した

3

しばしばした 4

しょっちゅうした

しなかった

2

時々した

3

しばしばした 4

しょっちゅうした

しなかった

2

時々した

しばしばした 4

しょっちゅうした3

授業やクラスメイトと足並みを揃え、課題に取り組みましたか
1

27.

しばしばした 4

授業や課題に集中して取り組みましたか
1

26.

3

授業全体の成功について考えましたか
1

25.

時々した

自分の授業への参加度が授業全体の向上に貢献していましたか
1

24.

2

課題や授業について、授業外で他の人（他学生、家族、バイト先の人など）と話をしましたか
1

23.

しなかった

しなかった

2

時々した

3

しばしばした 4

しょっちゅうした

責任をもって授業・課題に取り組みましたか
1

パート２.

しなかった

2

時々した

3

しばしばした 4

しょっちゅうした

認知スキルについて今年度の授業において、以下の知的活動にどの程度重点が置かれていましたか。

28.

事実、知識、手法を覚える
129.

いくらかあった

3

わりとあった 4

非常にあったほとんどなかった2

いくらかあった

3

わりとあった 4

非常にあった知識、情報、経験を統合し、新しいより複雑な解釈や関連性に発展させる
1

31.

2

知識、経験、理論の基本要素を分析する（事例・状況の詳細な分析、要素の考察など）
130.

ほとんどなかった

ほとんどなかった2

いくらかあった

3

わりとあった 4

非常にあった情報、議論、手法の価値を決定する（他者のデータ収集・解釈方法の分析、自己の結論の堅実性の評価など）
1

32.

ほとんどなかった2

いくらかあった

3

わりとあった 4

非常にあったわりとあった 4

非常にあった理論や概念を実際の問題や新しい状況に応用する
1

ほとんどなかった2

いくらかあった

3

STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR ENGAGEMENT IN LEARNING ･･････（YOSHIDA）

パート3.

21

その他の教育実践について

今年度の授業に関する以下の項目について答えてください。

33.

試験や最終課題で良い結果を出すために、どの程度の努力が必要でしたか
ほとんど必要ではなかった 1

34.

3

4

5

6

7

非常に必要であった

平均的な１週間で、1時間を超える授業外課題はいくつありましたか
1

35.

2

2

なし

3

１つか２つ

３つか４つ 4

5つ以上

平均的な１週間で、3時間を超えて授業準備（調査、資料の読み込み、課題、実験、データ分析、リハーサル、その他）を行ったことはどのくらいありましたか
1

36.

しょっちゅうあった

2

０回

１~２回

3

３~４回

4

5回以上

2

ほとんどない

あまりない

3

ややある

4

かなりある

2

簡単である

やや難しい

3

難しい

4

かなり難しい（授業内・授業外の）学習内容・課題・試験の難易度はどうでしたか1

40.

しばしばあった 4

授業の教材の難易度はどうでしたか
1

39.

3

授業の教材を学ぶことにどの程度興味がありますか
1

38.

時々あった

今学期、１つの授業を平均何回欠席しましたか1

37.

ほとんどなかった 2

難しかった

2

やや簡単だった

3

簡単だった

4

かなり簡単だった

3

簡単だった

4

かなり簡単だった

授業についていくことはどうでしたか
1

パート４.

難しかった

2

やや簡単だった

授業の雰囲気について

今学期の授業の雰囲気に関する以下の項目について答えてください。

41.

教員と話すことはどうでしたか
1

42.

不安だった

2

やや安心だった

3

安心だった

4

かなり安心だった

クラスメイトとのグループワークを楽しむことがありましたか1

ほとんどなかった2

いくらかあった

3

わりとあった 4

非常にあった22

43.

EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

クラスメイトとの交流はありましたか1

44.

いくらかあった

3

わりとあった 4

非常にあった3

わりとあった 4

非常にあった3

わりとあった 4

非常にあったクラスメイトから学ぶことがありましたか
1

45.

2

ほとんどなかった2

ほとんどなかった

いくらかあった

クラスメイトに貢献できることはありましたか
1

パート5.

2

ほとんどなかった

いくらかあった

授業とキャリア開発について

授業とキャリア開発に関する以下の項目について答えてください。

46.

教員やアドバイザーに、キャリアプランについて話をしましたか
1

47.

2

ほとんどなかった2

しばしばした 4

3

いくらかあった

しょっちゅうした

わりとあった 4

非常にあった授業の学習内容が今後のキャリアにおいて役立つと思いますか
決して/ほとんど思わない 1

49.

3

時々した

教員より授業の学習内容と今後のキャリアの関連性が説明されていましたか
1

48.

しなかった

2

3

4

5

6

7 非常に思う

今後のキャリアの目標設定に関する教育的サポートがありましたか
1

パート６.

ほとんどなかった2

3

いくらかあった

わりとあった 4

非常にあった大学での学習について

大学での学習に関する以下の項目について答えてください。

50．

大学・学部・授業で学んでいることを誇りに思いますか
決して/ほとんど思わない 1

51．

3

4

5

6

7 非常に思う

全体的に大学で受けた学術的アドバイスをどのように思いますか
1

52．

2

よくない

2

ふつう

3

良い 4

非常に良い

全体的に大学での経験をどのように思いますか
1

よくない

2

ふつう

3

良い 4

非常に良い

STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR ENGAGEMENT IN LEARNING ･･････（YOSHIDA）

53．

他学生との関係はどうですか
不親切である・疎外感がある

54．

23

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 親切である・仲間意識がある

教員との関係はどうですか
助けにならない・思いやりがない 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 助けになる・思いやりがある

55．

職員との関係はどうですか
助けにならない・厳格である

56．

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 助けになる・柔軟である

学生支援担当者との関係はどうですか
助けにならない・思いやりがない 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 助けになる・思いやりがある

あなたの基本情報

57．

性別：
1 男性

58．

2 女性

コース：
1 通常コース（1 TS・２ MS・３ PSいずれかに○をしてください）
2 英語集中コース

59．

4

エリアスタディーズ

学年：
1 1年生

60．

3 Dコース

2 2年生

3 3年生

学部：
1 文 2 法3 経済 ４ 経営 ５ マネジメント創造 ６ 理工 ７ 知能情報

8 フロンティアサイエンス

25

INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES THAT INFLUENCE LEARNER
ENGAGEMENT
Brent A. Jones, Hirao School of Management

Introduction
This report outlines partial findings from a larger study of learner engagement inuniversity English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classes in Japan. Although similaror related topics have been discussed in the second language acquisition (SLA)
literature (Osterman, 2014, Philp & Duchesne, 2016), there is still much work to
do in terms of conceptual clarity, theorizing and suggested application.
Specifically, while great strides have been made in theorizing on second language(L2) learning motivation (Boo, Dörnyei & Ryan, 2015), there is a relative dearth ofpractical advice for making use of this better understanding of related constructs toeffectively and efficiently help learners engage with their in-class second language
studies (Anjomshoa & Sadighi, 2015).
My motivation for studying learner engagement in this context
comes from the struggles that I have witnessed among my learners and wanting tohelp them and others with their language learning endeavors. For a variety ofreasons, the trend is for English language ability among Japanese students—atleast as measured by standardized proficiency tests—to actually drop over the four
years of university. It is hoped that the current study contributes in some small way
to reversing this trend.
Learner Engagement was operationalized in my study as theobservable outward indicators that the learner is focused on and involved
behaviorally, cognitively, emotionally and agentically in classroom language
activities (Reeve, 2012). The word “Engagement” appears often in educational
literature, and learner engagement is commonly understood as an important
precursor to academic achievement and school success (Chapman, 2003; Marzano& Pickering, 2010). This is true as well for the general field of second language

26

EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

acquisition (Ohta, 2000) and more specifically EFL in Japan (Murphey & Falout,2010). However, it is often unclear in the literature what exactly is meant byengagement (Reeve, 2012; Chapman, 2003). Intuitively, as a teacher, I feel that I
can recognize engagement or disengagement in my own learners when I see it.
Zyngier (2008) cites Newmann (1986) as expressing this same recognition,“engagement is difficult to define operationally, but we know it when we see it,
and we know it when it is missing” (p. 1765). However, I am less sure of exactly
where this recognition comes from, and wonder how well my perceptions alignwith learner realities.
In opening the lid on learner engagement, I find several areas ofinterest, including the interplay of cognitive and emotional engagement, and therelationship between engagement and motivation. The overall research question
for the larger study was what does learner engagement look like in this context.
The specific research question addressed in this report is what instructional
practices best promote learner engagement in my teaching context. Having a bettergrasp of the construct of engagement in this specific context should facilitate morewell-informed classroom decisions and further advances on the research front. As
mentioned by Parsons and Taylor (2011), “educators must continue to seek tounderstand and apply specific, well considered, if not agreed upon strategies that
support student engagement in learning both in and beyond the classroom” (p. 4).
My mission in this research journey was to help students and teachers
in my teaching context to have more satisfying and efficacious learning andteaching experiences. A better contextual understanding of learner engagement as
an educational construct and classroom phenomenon can potentially makeclassroom interactions more significant and productive for students and theirteachers. Increased student and teacher satisfaction should also result in lessdisaffection, alienation and burn-out for all parties. The better contextual
understanding should also aid program administrators, material developers,
teacher trainers and policy makers in their endeavors.

INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES THAT INFLUENCE LEARNER ENGAGEMENT（JONES）

27

Research Design
Due to the social and psychological nature of the construct of learner engagement,
I did not set out to test any hypotheses or work deductively toward any hard-fasttruths. Instead, I aimed to inductively and abductively work towards one (of many)
truths for a specific context using a qualitative case-study research approach. The
mixed-method research design included a combination of classroom observations,follow-up interviews with teachers and students, questionnaires and reflective
journals. The cases that I chose for the study were three second-year required
courses being taught at two different private universities in a semi-urban part ofwestern Japan. Specifically, I observed three teachers and their students at threedifferent times during the fifteen-week Spring semester (April - July). I
supplemented these nine observations and rounds of teacher and learner interviews
with questionnaires and related course documents.
I did not have a concrete plan for data reduction going into the study,
but hit on the idea of writing up vignettes during my early attempts at thematic
coding and writing up the findings. I wanted to share with the readers the story thatwas unfolding for me as I observed the classes and met with teachers and students,and vignettes for each case at each stage of the study seemed like the best way to
do this. These vignettes included descriptions of the physical setting, flow of thelesson, interactions among participants and classroom atmosphere. I also included
some participant impressions gleaned from the interviews, as well as my own
initial thoughts and possible areas for follow-up. The vignettes also included ashort introduction as well as a follow-up with some general commentary on eachround of observations and interviews. This commentary dealt mainly with issues
related to the basic psychological needs of competence, autonomy and relatedness(Ryan & Deci, 2000), but also included other topics from the literature on learnerengagement and L2 learning motivation and that seemed to merit further analysis.
As mentioned above, I employed thematic analysis alongside the phases describedby Miles and Huberman (1994). I actually started this thematic analysis prior to28

EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

hitting on the idea of vignettes, as soon as I had completed the first transcriptions.
I embarked on this thematic analysis to discover common themes or issues
according to suggestions by Braun and Clarke (2006) listed below in Table 1.

Table 1 Six Steps for Conducting a Thematic Analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006)
Step

Description

1. Familiarising yourself with yourTranscribing data (if necessary), reading and re-readingdata

the data, noting down initial ideas

2. Generating initial codes

Creating interesting features of the data in a systematic
fashion across the entire data set, collating data relevant
to each code

3. Searching the themes

Collating codes into potential themes, gathering all data
relevant to each potential theme

4. Reviewing themes

Checking if the themes work in relation to the coded
extracts (Level 1) and the entire data set (Level 2),
generating a thematic ‘map’ of the analysis

5. Defining and naming themes

Ongoing analysis to refine the specifics of each theme,
and the overall story the analysis tells, generating clear
definitions and names for each theme

6. Producing the report

The final opportunity for analysis. Selection of vivid,
compelling extract examples, final analysis of selected
extracts, relating back from the analysis to the researchquestion and literature, producing a scholarly report of theanalysisINSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES THAT INFLUENCE LEARNER ENGAGEMENT（JONES）

29

Conceptual Framework
The theoretical framework that I identified as being a useful lens through which toanalyze data collected for these three cases was self-determination theory (Ryan &Deci, 2000), mainly the basic psychological needs of competence, autonomy andrelatedness. This decision was made at least partially on my perceptions of theJapanese secondary education system as doing very little to meet the needs forcompetence and autonomy, especially in terms of English language education, anda realization that these earlier experiences lay a foundation of learner attitudes andbeliefs for students entering tertiary education. My understanding is that much of
the time and energy devoted to English is spent on checking or testing what
students do not know. These language classrooms are also much more about
control than supporting learner autonomy (Holden & Usuki, 1999; Sakai, Chu,
Takagi & Lee, 2008). Students have very little choice with regards to what, whenand how they study English in the classroom. At the same time, I recognize thatmeeting the psychological need of relatedness is one of the strengths of secondary
education in Japan. Much time and effort is devoted to group cohesion as well asbuilding and maintaining relationships among students and between teachers andstudents.
Contextual Background
Learners in this context will have studied English for a minimum of six years uponentering university, and will likely be required to demonstrate English language
proficiency on the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) orother standardized test when applying for jobs in their last year of university. For
a variety of reasons learner attitudes towards and proficiency in English vary
greatly and, as mentioned above, the general tendency is for English language
ability to actually drop over the four years of university (Tomei, 2017). Despite aseries of government policy initiatives in Japan since 1989 that stress theimportance of fostering English language skills and communicative competency inschools, Japan test takers continue to underperform on standardized tests of

30

EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

English proficiency compared with counterparts in other Asian countries (ETS,2017). Thus, there is a clear need for further research into how motivation istranslated into action (engagement) in this context.
Findings
To maintain participant anonymity, I use pseudonyms for each of the teachers andstudents. Throughout this report I use the terms instructional practice andinstructional approach interchangeably to mean ways in which the instructor
interacts with the instructional content and learners. This includes, for example,
when and how teachers use repetition, ask questions and promote interaction
among learners. At the same time, this includes choices made by teachers
regarding material, tasks, transitions between tasks, etc. In other words,
instructional practices are the interface that the teacher provides between the
curriculum and the learners. In my analysis of the vignettes as well as raw datafrom the observation sheets, interviews and support documents, I soon realizedthat delineating instructional practices from both teacher characteristics andcontextual features would be challenging, and despite some obvious overlap I
attempt here to keep the focus on teachers’ actions in the classroom. Several
instructional practices that I observed in the classroom and discussed withparticipants surfaced as influencing learner engagement, some positively andothers negatively. For the purpose of answering the research question, I present
here four instructional practices that clearly facilitated learner engagement,
namely the strategic use of pair and group work, patterns or rhythms of instruction,questioning style and scaffolding techniques. These categories emerged mainly
from reoccuring themes that appeared in the thematic coding of qualitative data
and were supported by classroom observation sheet data. I conclude this section bypresenting findings regarding practices that appear to hinder learner engagement,
as well as how findings related to this subsidiary question help to answer my main
research question.

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31

Strategic Use of Pair and Group Work
Drawing on data from the observation sheets and interviews, the highest levels oflearner engagement in each class meeting for all three teachers were observed
when teachers got their learners to communicate with each other in English or withthe teacher, and when there was a clearly perceived need to convey or gather
information. This observation, again, was based on learners’ facial expressions
such as raised or furrowed eyebrows, body language such as forward leaning
posture or gesturing with hands, as well as length and content of verbal
interactions (indicators). Length was subjectively judged by apparent willingness
to communicate (i.e. not retreating from interaction) and elaboration orquestioning. These high perceived levels of engagement in pair or group work
were confirmed in interviews with both teachers and learners. When discussing
levels of engagement during Robert’s (Case One) week three European Studies
class, one female student (Minako) expressed feeling most engaged when listening
to her partners’ presentation about research they were doing on EU and non-EU
countries. The following excerpt comes from the follow-up interview:Researcher:Okay, about food or culture—

Minako:Yes.

Researcher:—something like that?

Minako:Or the location about the movie.

Researcher:Oh, okay, where they shot the movie?

Minako:Yes.

Researcher:Oh, really? Which country was that?

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EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

Minako:It was Hungary, about Kiki’s Delivery Service.

Researcher:

Right. That’s the Miyazaki—?

Minako:Yes. And Heidi.

Researcher:

And Heidi. That’s the location?

Minako:Yes.

She mentioned this interaction as especially engaging because she had tolisten carefully to catch what her partner was saying and that she liked learning
something new about a country she had never visited. In discussions with Robert,
he explained that learners were responsible not only for information they weregathering for their own EU or non-EU countries but also information they recorded
from classmates’ presentations. Reflecting on my own classroom experiences,laissez faire or hands-off approaches to pair or group work are often unsuccessful,and the teacher needs to provide structure, offer or facilitate feedback, and remain
engaged themselves. The following comment by Minako on how Robert keeps her
and her classmates engaged in pair and group work reminded me of this (all direct
quotes are presented verbatim).

It happens when we have to work with partner, and after we finish,
he—while we work, he always goes around to see if they are
working, and also if they have a question or not because Japanesepeople feel shy to ask question in front of the class, so when he ask,
like, “Do you have a question or something?” or people say, “Yes,
I don’t know this,” or something. And then he always explain
about extra information.

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33

I also commented in my field notes on another occasion that while students
are checking their partner’s paper, Robert is moving from group to group and isdown at eye level asking individual students what their partner's main argument is.
Three other episodes stand out as showing the power of well-structured pairor group work in this context. One was an activity in Mariko’s (Case Two) weeknine Intensive Reading class where students worked in groups to prepare an
illustration (visual representation) that reflected contents from a paragraph they
were reading on megalopolises. The second was an inflection activity in
Sylvester’s (Case Three) week ten Business Communication class where students
would read a paragraph to a partner while using voice inflection to stress certain
content. The final example was an information gap in Mariko’s week fourteenclass where students were assigned one of two paragraphs, completed a worksheet,
confirmed their understanding with classmates who had read the same paragraph,and eventually summarized the paragraph for a student or students who had readthe other paragraph.

The Illustration Activity. In Mariko’s week nine class, the learners were working
through a challenging textbook passage on the topic of economic corridors (ormegalopolises) that have developed in different parts of the world. While much of
the textbook reading is assigned out of class, the basic approach for this and othersimilar readings during the class is for (1) Mariko to present the topic or focus of
the text verbally and/or with slides she has prepared, (2) Mariko to assign aparagraph or section of the text for students to discuss and answer prepared
comprehension and/or personalization questions, and (3) Mariko to follow up witha whole class discussion. In my three observations of Mariko’s class, engagementlevels and focus normally dropped while learners (re)read the text and struggle
through some awkward silence with their partners, but eventually the energy
levels rise and most learners exhibit facial expressions and body language that hint
at cognitive engagement. With the illustration activity, the dynamic was different.

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EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

Students still struggled to get going at the beginning, but quickly seemed toimmerse themselves in the activity and became quite animated (emotional
engagement).
The high levels of engagement during this activity were also mentioned by
Mariko and the two female students (Amiri & Maki) who were interviewed
following the lesson. Both girls singled out this part of the lesson as being mostengaging. Maki expressed that she and her partner were struggling to interpret the
numbers in the sentence and that this kept her focused on the activity. Amiri
mentioned the novelty of the activity, “Also, writing the image of the topics fromthese sentences. It’s a new idea for us in English class for a long time.”
In the following excerpt, Mariko responds to my question about a time
when she saw that either one student or a group of students was completely
engaged in what was happening during a lesson:

Mmmm, I saw in today’s class, they were pretty good at, you know
when they had to do that illustration thing, they were reallythinking how to interpret those numbers. I could tell because they
were talking in pairs and some of them got their illustration
totally wrong. They thought that 660,000,000 was the total world
population rather than 10%. And they’re really thinking in pairs,
and some of the students on the participation sheet wrote “Oh, mypartner really helped me understand.” So I thought they were
engaged in that moment.

One additional comment here is that Mariko had changed the seating
arrangement earlier in the class, so students were working with a new partner. I
commented in my notes that this would likely impact levels of engagement,
especially in this class where students seemed to regularly sit with the same
partner in the same part of the room near the back corner. However, energy andINSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES THAT INFLUENCE LEARNER ENGAGEMENT（JONES）

35

engagement levels through the first part of the lesson fluctuated between low andmedium (on the observation sheet) and it was only for this illustration activity thathigh engagement was sustained (9 consecutive 2-minute intervals). During theinterviews, I found out that this group of students were taking four English classes
a week together. So, while changing seating arrangements might impact levels of
engagement, I interpreted the high levels of engagement as resulting from how
Mariko had set up this activity (instructional practice) rather than seating
arrangement or partner (contextual features).

The Inflection Activity. Another pair work activity that impressed me as greatly
promoting learner engagement was observed in Sylvester’s week ten BusinessCommunication class. At about thirty-three minutes into the class, Sylvester
distributed a worksheet and explained that one point which concerned him in the
Company Expo (a job-fair type event) was that some students did not effectively
use voice inflection such as stress or tonal variation. He emphasized that this wasa very important part of public speaking and informed students that they would
review something they had done in their year-one Speech and Discussion class.
Using the worksheet (with an excerpt of a short speech), he asked students to listen
and repeat each sentence without inflection. He then asked students to go throughthe worksheet and underline any words or phrases that they felt should receiveemphasis or stress when they next read it out loud. Finally, he had students standup and JANKEN (rock-papers-scissors) with a partner to decide who would speak
first. He explained that the winners should read one sentence at a time withoutemphasis and the loser should (without looking at their paper) repeat eachsentence with the proper inflection. Students got started right away and the energy
level quickly rose. Students were focused on their partner and facial expressions
and gestures hinted at high levels of engagement. As the noise level began to die
down after both partners had read with inflection, Sylvester asked them to stop,
praised their efforts and advised them to say each sentence with the inflection and36

EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

gestures two or more times. He then told everyone to find a new partner and try theactivity again. This was repeated one further time so that all students were assured
three chances for practice. While the students were still standing, Sylvester
emphasized to students that deciding what to stress and then practicing is an
important step in preparing for their presentations.
After students returned to their seats, Sylvester asked them to take out
their textbooks again and turn to the last page of the chapter which included
instructions for preparing their upcoming sales presentations. This was basically areview of key points from the chapter, and Sylvester asked students to JANKEN(rock-paper-scissors) one last time, and read either the first paragraph or second
and third paragraphs. Even though they were working in the textbook (normallyaccompanied by lower levels of engagement), the level of engagement remained
high and students were much more focused than before the voice inflection activity.
High levels of engagement were recorded on the observation sheet from theforty-minute interval (when they began working in pairs) through the fifty-fourminute interval (when they finished the pair work) to the sixty-two minute interval(where they completed the textbook activity).
In the follow-up interviews, Sylvester and the two female students(Kana & Erika) all felt the highest level of engagement in the lesson was achieved
during the inflection practice. Kana talked about her interest and confidence inpublic speaking, and that this activity had some meaning (relevance) for her. She
and Erika both agreed that they had to stay focused to hear what their partners’
were saying and working out where to stress or what tonal variation to use.
Sylvester mentioned that he was basing his interpretation of higher levels of
engagement on body language and perceived levels of concentration (indicators).
Again, it is interesting that these higher levels of engagement during the voice
inflection activity also seemed to carry over into the following textbook activity.
The Information Gap. Information gaps are a staple part of the EFL teacher’srepertoire, likely because they encourage interaction and provide a structured

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37

communication activity with clear goals and immediate feedback. Towards the endof Mariko’s week fourteen Intensive Reading class, where students were working
through the last part of a textbook reading on mortality rates in preparation for the
final quiz the following week, Mariko organized an information gap that resulted
in the highest levels of perceived learner engagement that I had witnessed during
any of my visits. Here are her instructions:Okay. I have divided you guys into two groups. Okay. Half of you
have paragraph 10. The other half have paragraph 12. Okay. If
you have paragraph 10, could you come over here? [pointing tofront right corner of room]. And if you have paragraph 12, could
you sit over there? [pointing to left side of room] Okay? And yourjob is to really, really understand the assigned paragraph. Okay?
And you can work together with people who have the sameworksheet. Later, you have to explain this paragraph to your new
partner who doesn’t have the same one. Okay? And, I made somecomments on the side with questions. Okay? This will help you
understand the reading. So, try to answer the questions. Also
some words are underlined. That means I want you to explain themeaning of the words. Okay? So, paragraph 10 can you come over
here? Paragraph 12 can you please come over here? You canwork in a group. Go ahead.

As with almost every pair or group activity in all three cases, there
were a range of responses and it took most groups several minutes to begin
interacting with their partners. Mariko seemed to recognize this and began
prodding each group to check their understanding. There was a slow but noticeable
increase in levels of engagement, and there was a distinct change in the type ofinteractions within groups. Individual members seemed much more determined to38

EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

get their meaning across (repetition, gestures and facial expressions), and there
was much more give and take to these interactions. My notes at around twelve
minutes into this activity read:

The highest observable level of engagement occurred when
students were trying to explain something to another student there seemed to be an authentic need to make oneself understoodor convey the content that one was responsible for.

With just a few minutes left in class, Mariko assigned new groups offour with two members having the same paragraph. She instructed students toshare what they learned from their respective paragraphs. This transition was thesmoothest of the entire class (possibly because class was nearly finished) and allgroups seemed to get started right away. Students who were explaining were using
gestures and checking with their partner who had read the same paragraph. The
other two members were writing notes and asking questions. Again, my notes:

Definitely highest level of engagement comes right at the end of
this lesson. Students intent on explaining and listening to theirpartners. The fact that students stay after the bell and continue
with the task into their break time is a good indicator of highlevels of engagement - not everyone though? Clear goal to thetask and cognitive and linguistic challenge of the task seems to beimportant contextual/task factor that influences levels of
engagement.

In our follow-up interview, Mariko also mentioned this last activity as
being the most engaging for the students. She said her impression was that students
were intent on both conveying their information and listening to their partners, toINSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES THAT INFLUENCE LEARNER ENGAGEMENT（JONES）

39

the point that staying late did not matter. The following is an excerpt of ourinterview:

Mariko:Ummmm, and then I think, as you can see probably, theinformation gap part was the most exciting for them.

Researcher:Sure, it changed . . . The whole atmosphere of the class changed.

Mariko:Right. So I think they were engaged in . . . after . . they didn’t mind
staying after the . . . even after the bell rang.

Researcher:Yeah, that one group in the middle in the front, especially the one,the one guy right he was kind of leading that discussion. But they
probably could’ve kept talking for another 20 minutes. (laughs)

Mariko:Right, right. And I saw one kid from one group who couldn’t
quite understand their partners, so he went to another friend andthey explained it to him too.

Researcher:

Oh good.

Mariko:So they just kept on going, so that was good. I don't like keeping
students late...that was the first time in the semester...but yeah, I
think they got really into the topic. So . . .
Amiri was the one student that I interviewed immediately after thelesson. We spent most of our time talking about the guided journaling she wasdoing as part of the current research project, but she did make a point of describing
how the worksheet that Mariko had prepared helped her and her classmates
understand the contents of the reading and also provided structure for theirconversations about the respective paragraphs. She also mentioned that the40

EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

pressures of the test the following week had helped to keep her invested in theactivity. Some conflicting results came out of the classroom observation sheet,
where the initially high level of engagement at the sixty-four minute interval was
not maintained. Medium levels of engagement were recorded from the sixty-six
minute mark through to the eighty-eight minute interval and the end of the lesson.
In reviewing the video recording, we can see two pairs (four students) during thefirst phase and one group (five students) in the second phase that cut the activity
short and/or seem preoccupied with something other than the task. I maintained theconservative cutoff for high engagement at 80% or more described in Smith, Jones,
Gilbert and Wieman (2013). This accounts for the drop from high to medium soonafter the start of the information gap, while Amiri and other participants perceived
the activity as being engaging.
It should be noted that learner engagement in all nine classroom
observations varied greatly from task to task and from student to student. Thus,
even when I recorded high levels of overall engagement, there were individual
students who exhibited signs of not being as engaged as their classmates.

Patterns or Rhythms of Instruction
One thing that became clear in the observations was that each teacher has theirown patterns or rhythms of instruction but also that there is a general pattern whichlooks something like this: (1) the teacher introduces a topic or issue via a lecture,reading or video clip, (2) the teacher assigns some type of pair or group task, (3)the learners work collaboratively on completing the task, (4) the teacher checks onoutcomes by leading a class discussion or debriefing session. From myexperiences in the classroom, this pattern is pretty standard and accounts for the
majority of interactions in many educational settings. The predictability of thesepatterns likely have a settling effect in that learners can anticipate what is coming
and can prepare behaviorally, cognitively and emotionally. The downside is that
this predictability also allows students to tune out (Ainley, 2012). In our follow up

INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES THAT INFLUENCE LEARNER ENGAGEMENT（JONES）

41

interview after Sylvester’s week ten Business Communication class, Kana said
that she was fairly engaged throughout the class, with an estimate of eight out often, but that she had grown accustomed to the video tasks where a bad example isfollowed by a good example. She expressed that this had become boring for her
and that she sometimes catches herself thinking, “enough already, let’s move on.”In the same interview, Erika estimated that four out of ten was her low, and said
these dips came when she could anticipate what was coming and didn’t need tolisten that carefully or concentrate on what was happening.
The influences that these patterns or rhythms of instruction have onlevels of engagement were seen in all three cases, and I will present here three
instructional practices that illustrate this point: Pulling Learners in with Quizzes
or Tests, Mixing it Up, and Well-Timed Shifts. Again, these categories emerged
mainly as recurring themes in the thematic coding of qualitative data and were
supported by classroom observation sheet data.

Pulling Learners in with Quizzes or Tests. One somewhat surprising finding forme was the power that quizzes or tests have to focus the attention of learners in thiscontext. Upon reflection, however, learners in this context are accustomed to test
taking and are familiar with this style of study (Goto Butler, 2015). Also, I havenoticed this tendency for Japanese university students to dive right into quizzes or
tests in my own classes as well. In my analysis of the nine vignettes, I found four
examples where teachers started their lesson with a quiz, test or test-related
activity. First, in Robert’s week three European Studies class, he had pairs ofstudents quiz each other on information researched for their EU and non-EU
countries. Then, in Robert’s week eight class, he uses a more formal quiz to checklearners’ understanding of other information they had collected about these same
countries using a teacher-prepared worksheet. Next, in Mariko’s week nine
Intensive Reading class, she passes back the mid-term test that students had taken
the previous week and leads a debriefing session on parts of the test that students

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EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

struggled with. Finally, in Mariko’s week thirteen class, she leads off with avocabulary quiz. My observation notes for all four instances include comments
about how these quizzes or activities seem to pull learners in. The topic of quizzes
or tests did not come up with any regularity in the interviews and I am relying here
on my observation notes, commentary in the vignettes, and remarks by learners on
the participation sheets. Beginning the lessons with these quizzes, tests or
test-related activities may or may not have been a strategic instructional practiceon the part of the teachers, but it did seem to have the favorable outcome ofincreased learner engagement (at least behavioral and cognitive) early in thelesson for these two groups of learners in their 9:00 a.m. classes. Both teachers andlearners made more than one mention of engagement levels at the beginning ofthese classes as normally being particularly low.

Mixing it Up. Also related to the patterns or rhythms of instruction, was how
teachers wove together activities and either stretched or shortened tasks in waysthat influenced (and were influenced by) levels of learner engagement. Whenobserving Robert’s classes, I saw examples of mixing it up in the ways he varied
the style of quizzes, how he shifted the order of regularly-occurring tasks (country
presentations, e-portfolio work, mini-lectures with note-taking). Robert also used
at least one instructional practice that caught me off guard. After learners finishedthe quiz at the beginning of the week eight class, he called on each student and asksthem to publicly report their score on the quiz. When I queried him about this in
the interview, he explained that he did this to put a fire under some students who
had gotten off to a slow start and were not doing much research on their countries
or preparation for the classes. Robert also picked up on learner interest andstretched out a couple of classroom exchanges. One of the lengthier interactions
involved the topic of false friends, or loan words from English into Japanese thathave completely different meanings from how they are used in English. The words“mansion” and “tension” are two of the examples he touched on. This topic seemedINSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES THAT INFLUENCE LEARNER ENGAGEMENT（JONES）

43

to be of interest to students and Robert picked up on this and expanded on the
topic.
Although my general impression was that Mariko mixed things up lessthan the two other teachers, likely due to the restraints placed on her by the
textbook, she did have her own ways of switching things around to keep students
engaged. Despite the general pattern of classroom interactions outlined earlier,
Mariko would vary the types of questions she prepared for the slides, interject withpersonal stories or advice, or organize supplementary tasks like the illustration andinformation gap activities mentioned above. In her week nine class, she and thelearners were struggling through a particularly challenging part of the text on themegalopolises. There were several rounds of students reading and discussing witha partner, followed by Mariko checking comprehension and trying to personalize
the material. In one of these exchanges where the topic of light emissions mapping
came up, Mariko closed the shades and played a short video of satellite images oflight emissions from the Earth at night that was accompanied by music. Students
were focused on the screen throughout, and Mariko followed up by switching backto the slideshow and questions about what these light emission maps tell us. This
interjection (although rated as a medium level of engagement for the sixty-two andsixty-four minute intervals) seemed to have the desired result of refocusing thelearners and helping them through this part of the text.
My observations of Sylvester revealed similar practices to the othertwo teachers, namely the shifting of order of regularly-occurring tasks,interjecting with personal stories or advice, and expanding on topics of perceived
interest to learners. One example of an attempt to mix it up came in his week fourclass where they were preparing to watch one bad and one good example of abusiness presentation. In preparation for the bad example, he asked students towork in pairs, and assigned one student to focus on what was wrong with themanner in which the speech was delivered (physical message) and the other tofocus on the content of the talk (story message). The assignment of roles or areas

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EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

of focus for the listening task seemed to have the desired effect, and most students
seemed highly engaged, even Kana who later reported some boredom with thesevideo activities. This strategy was mentioned in the teacher’s manual andSylvester had slightly altered it to good effect for his class.

Well-Timed Shifts. Another instructional practice related to patterns or rhythms of
instruction are short, strategic shifts in direction or jolts that are used by the
instructor to grab attention or shake learners out of a lulled state. In the threeclassrooms that I observed, these shifts sometimes came when teachers seemingly
recognized drops in engagement or when an activity was winding down. I am
relying here mainly on my observation notes and commentary related to thevignettes. However, I was able to augment these with interview data. The two mostprominent of these shifts were the game of rock-papers-scissors used by Sylvester
to decide speaking order or student roles and short breaks used by Mariko to wakeup or refresh learners. After students are in pairs in Sylvester’s week three class,he tells them to JANKEN (rock-paper-scissors). Sylvester uses the Japanese word
JANKEN and later explains that this is one of his strategies he often uses forgetting students’ attention and keeping the class engaged. He refers to the winneras JANKEN Master (a twist on a Jackie Chan movie) and the loser as Lucky Loser.
In our follow up interview, Sylvester makes a point of mentioning his use of
JANKEN to keep students focused:

Yeah. I—I’ve sort, I did -- I taught in high school, and it’s – part of theculture isn’t it? With janken I think if it’s there why don’t you use it? [ . . . ]Because they’re used to that kind of action. And sometimes I noticed themsort of dropping off a bit if I speak too much. I ask them to do janken they’reawake suddenly, so it’s a good quick thing to get them back into the lesson.

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45

This was obviously a go-to strategy for Sylvester, and I observed him
using it between three and seven times per lesson on the three occasions that I
observed his class. In my vignette for Sylvester’s week fourteen class, I note thatat the beginning of the lesson Sylvester asks students to open their textbooks andagain uses JANKEN to decide reading order. The students seem quite accustomed
to this routine and the winners immediately start reading their part (problems)
aloud while their partners follow along in the textbook.
At around forty-five minutes into Mariko’s week three class, shecomments to learners on the waning energy level in class and tells students to takea short break, get up and walk around, stretch, get some coffee, etc. There is a
palpable sigh of relief and the energy level spikes upwards as students movearound and talk in Japanese. Although I did not complete an observation sheet forthis meeting, my fieldnotes included mention that a majority of learners exhibitedsigns of cognitive engagement when they came back from the break and continued
working through the text. In the follow up interviews, Mariko mentioned this break
was an attempt to bring the students back, and both Amiri and Yuri (another female
student) also mentioned high levels of engagement when Mariko gave them a break.
In one of my follow up questions after Mariko’s week nine class, I asked Amiri and
Maki what they would do if they were in the position of the teacher. Amiri offered
the opinion that students are often very busy, stressed or tired and she said shewould offer them more breaks and concentrate the study into shorter chunks. This
topic of the packed schedule of students came up in earlier interviews and may be
an area for further study. In my notes for Mariko’s week nine class, I entered thefollowing:

Although Mariko has asked students to check with a partner, most
students are working by themselves. My impression is that someare not sure how to proceed. The contents are quite challenging,with information about how these economic centers attract global

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EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

talent and of how global talent is mobile. Mariko recognizes thatstudents are struggling to stay focused on the reading and uses
different strategies to maintain interest. She tries to connect thecontents of the reading to Japan and students’ realities, offers
words of encouragement, and eventually tells learners to take ashort break and passes around a bag of candies.

In talking with the three teachers, it was clear that they recognize
engagement when they see it. They described “reading” students or the class andmaking adjustments. These teachers also seem to have strategies for boostingengagement (Sylvester using JANKEN and giving students responsibility, andMariko providing students with breaks). Returning to my conceptual framework,
these strategies would be part of the interface between motivation (context andself) and engagement (action), in that teachers are likely to be interpreting
contextual and self features in ways that help them translate learner motivation
into action.

Questioning Style
Another instructional practice that impressed me in the observations andinterviews as impacting levels of engagement was questioning style. Questions
that were directed at getting the learners to connect the content to their own
experiences or reflect critically on their own assumptions or beliefs clearly had apositive impact on overall levels of engagement. Conversely, questions straightfrom the textbook or restricted to comprehension seem to be less engaging.
Questioning styles where the teacher is looking for one correct answer seemed
least engaging. This type of questioning might be necessary to gauge student
understanding, but there clearly seems to be a downside. Mariko having students
discuss particularly challenging passages from the text seemed to be much

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47

preferable to just asking comprehension questions or dishing out the answer andteacher interpretations.
Questioning style also refers to how the teacher poses questions: tothe class in general, by asking one student, or questioning a limited number ofstudents engaged in group work. When asked about things Robert does to keep
students interested or engaged, Minako talked about how he moves from group togroup during the activities and checks their understanding and progress. She
mentioned this as especially important since she and her classmates are normallyshy about asking questions in front of the class, and felt that everyone appreciatesthat he always offers explanations and extra information. Three other issues thatcame up in this same interview were calling students by name, active participationin class, and classroom atmosphere. Minako mentioned that in some of her other
English classes, the teacher asks questions to the group but all members are
reluctant to raise their hand even if they know the answer (contextual feature). She
feels that Robert does a good job of calling students by name, making it mucheasier for students to answer and reducing the amount of wasted time.
When talking with Mariko after her week three class, she highlighted
that different questions impacted engagement in different ways. With somequestions, students find the answer right away and then tend to drift off with little
or no interaction with their partner. At other times, when the question is too
difficult, they also switch off. She feels the most engaging questions are
open-ended, opinion type questions and said she was still testing what worked
with this group of students. During the same interview, Mariko expressed feelingthat a big part of her job was to think on her feet and make adjustments when
delivering lessons. This discussion comes up in the literature on expert teachers(Goodwyn, 2010) and reflective practice (Farrell, 2008), and might be an area
requiring further analysis. She talked about picking up on some eye contact andbody language from students which she interpreted as expressing engagement anda desire to be called on. She also recognizes that students do not react well to

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questions aimed at the class, but sometimes does this intentionally with theunderstanding that students will likely be faced with this questioning style whenstudying abroad. In talking with Amiri and Yuri (another female student) after thissame class, their feeling was that the average level of engagement was up aroundeight (out of 10). Amiri felt her engagement was highest when Mariko was asking
questions, especially questions outside of the textbook that required students to
use their imagination.
I commented in my observation notes that Sylvester sometimes asks aquestion to the whole class, and that these questions are mainly met with anuncomfortable silence, but that eventually the same two or three students speak up.
In talking about posing questions to the class, Sylvester expressed that this issomething he still struggles with. He says he doesn’t expect students to put theirhands up right away, but feels putting them on the spot a bit is a form of positive
pressure. He tries to offer hints and tries to read students’ expressions for signs
that they understand the question and/or know the answer.
Returning to SDT and my conceptual framework, we need to ask how
certain questioning styles meet or thwart learners’ psychological need forcompetence, autonomy or relatedness. Both Mariko and Sylvester mentioned using
easy questions to promote feelings of competence. Mariko commented ininterviews that competence is extremely important, and offered the observationthat Japanese students are especially hard on themselves and require a boost in
confidence. She feels she promotes feelings of competence through the use of easyquestions, praise and positive reinforcement. My impression is that listing up thevarious questions on slides, having students discuss possible answers and thenchecking answers as a class is one way the Mariko’s lessons can potentially boost
feelings of competence. As for autonomy, the open-ended, experience-based andopinion-type questions provide learners with room to exert their autonomy andagency. In terms of relatedness, we can recognize a preference for questions aimed
at individuals rather than the group, and calling on students by name is well

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received in this (and likely most) contexts. Again, we see questioning style as one
more interface between motivation and engagement, i.e. getting learners totranslate their motivation into language learning behaviors in the classroom.
Scaffolding Techniques
One additional practice that seemed to help learners engage with the instructional
task or material was the skillful use of scaffolding. The practice mentioned aboveof preparing slides with questions and having learners read and discuss possible
answers is one example. Others were the worksheets that Mariko used to facilitate
the information gap described earlier and the ones that Sylvester used to facilitate
the company expo meetings in his class. In discussing the meetings, Sylvester
stressed that the detailed worksheets seemed to be working but that his plan was toslowly offer less structure so students would not become too dependent on them. In
the interview with Mariko after her week nine class, she described another class
where she had provided scaffolding for listening comprehension and how this had
engaged her students:

Uhh, also today in the second period, we were studying content
words and function words and I used uhh Eric Clapton’s “Change
the World.” Uhh, they had to listen to it and especially pay
attention to content words, so I took out some modals, you know,“I can change the world, I would . . . could be the king” and forthe highest level students I took the modals out, I say “Listen
carefully because he uses “can” and “could” differently,” heuses “can” in the beginning and changes to “could” because hefeels less confident about this woman he wants to get, so when I
play the song I could tell my higher level students are reallylistening and say “Oh that was can” or “That was could” so I
could tell they were really listening carefully, talking to theirpartner, asking me questions like “Oh wasn’t it will” or “Why

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EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

was it would. Let’s listen again.” I thought that they were quite
engaged.

Robert’s use of scaffolding was apparent in several parts of eachmeeting that I observed. Some of the more salient examples were (1) the detailed
agendas and lists of learning outcomes that he wrote up on the whiteboard each
week, (2) the information cards used on week three to focus attention on the typesof information learners should be investigating, and (3) the e-portfolio examples
he used to illustrate what was expected of learners. Additionally, Roberttransitioned to a mini lecture in his day fourteen class by asking students to discusswith their partner the meaning of capitalism. This scaffolding or priming also
seemed to bolster learners’ sense of competence and encourage deeper investment
in listening to the lecture. In my conceptual framework, these deeper levels ofinvestment in classroom activities are theorized as promoting better quality
language learning.

Summary
I will conclude with a few instructional practices that seemed to have a detrimental
impact on learner engagement, and reflect back on the larger research question.
Based on observation sheet data and the vignettes, the lowest levels of engagement
came when learners were in a passive role as receivers of information from theteacher, or when they perceived the task or material as either too difficult, too easy
or too predictable. Minako brought up the fact that students in her program are
expected to work in small groups and be active. She contrasted this to her
experiences in secondary school classes, where, “We have to sit, and we have tostay silent, and we just have to write or read something. It’s not like we are join.
We are just working about one thing.”
Although not directly related to any of the instructional practices
outlined above, Erika mentioned her disappointment when teachers do not collectINSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES THAT INFLUENCE LEARNER ENGAGEMENT（JONES）

51

homework assignments. She feels it is frustrating when she has put the effort into
doing a good job and then the teacher does not make the effort to check.
Relating back to my main research question, we have support for theclaim that learner engagement in this context is experienced through the
instructional practices, with active interactions with fellow learners and theteacher offering the most engaging experiences. At the same time, instructional
practices that are personalized, meaningful (relevant to the learners’ realities) andappropriately scaffolded promote the highest levels of engagement. Thesefindings lend support to discussions of teacher expertise (Hattie, 2003),
professional development (Day, 1999), and expanding young people’s capacity tolearn (Claxton, 2007). Viewed in relation to the conceptual model, these
instructional practices seemingly work with other contextual features to meet or
thwart the psychological needs (self), and thus strengthen or weaken the
motivation (via learner identity). The strength of the resulting motivation is thentranslated into action (engagement), possibly via learner investment.

Conclusion
As mentioned earlier, the above investigation into teaching strategies was part ofa larger study aimed at gaining better conceptual clarity regarding learnerengagement in university EFL classes in Japan. It is hoped that the findings listed
here contribute in some small way to readers’ understanding of the role of learnerengagement in these and other contexts, and that language teachers can add to or
strengthen their own individual approaches to classroom interactions that engage
their learners and promote higher levels of language learning.

52

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Christenson, A. Reschly, & C. Wylie (Eds.), Handbook of research on student
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Anjomshoa, L., & Sadighi, F. (2015). The importance of motivation in second
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Boo, Z., Dörnyei, Z., & Ryan, S. (2015). L2 motivation research 2005-2014:
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Chapman, E. (2003). Alternative approaches to assessing student engagement rates.
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Marzano, R. J., & Pickering, D. (2010). The highly engaged classroom.
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Miles, M. B. & Huberman, A. M. (1984). Drawing valid meaning from qualitative
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Murphey, T. & Falout, J. (2010). Critical participatory looping: Dialogic member
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Ohta, A. (2000). Rethinking interaction in SLA: Developmentally appropriate
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Osterman, G. L. (2014). Experiences of Japanese university students' willingness
to speak English in class: A multiple case study. SAGE Open, 4(3), 1-13.

Parsons, J. & Taylor, L. (2011). Student engagement: What do we know and whatshould we do? AISI University Partners, Edmonton: Alberta Education.

Philp, J., & Duchesne, S. (2016). Exploring engagement in tasks in the language
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instrument to characterize university STEM classroom practices. CBE-Life
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57

EMOTIONAL LEARNER ENGAGEMENT:A CASE STUDY OF AN EXPERIENCED EFL TEACHER
Mayumi Asaba, Hirao School of Management

Introduction
It is a common practice for professionals to study experts who have exceptional
skills and knowledge in their specific field. Figure skaters watch videos of theprevious Olympic gold medalists numerous times to analyze their movements in an
attempt to model their fluid performance. Similarly, pianists repeatedly listen tomusic performed by world reknowned pianists to create similar sounds. Experts
are role-models not only for novices but also experienced professionals, who
continue to refine and develop their skills. In the same way, teachers and teacher
educators can gain valuable insights from studying the performance of experts.
The ultimate goal of L2 teachers is to help students become proficientin the target language. One way to achieve this goal is to observe and understandelements of expertise demonstrated by expert educators in the field. What are sometasks that can be used to facilitate students’ learning, and how are they introduced
to students? What elements of expertise in L2 teaching are reflected during highlevels of learner engagement? If you have experienced expert teaching in your life,
you probably remember how you felt in the lesson. You may have been intriguedby the content in a way that you wanted to explore the content on your own evenafter the lesson was finished. You may have found a meaningful connection
between what you were learning in class and you were experiencing outside theclassroom. You may have been inspired to take on challenges because of the
support and encouragement that you experienced in the class. This small-scale
study, which investigated students’ perceptions related to learner engagement andexpert teaching sets out to answer these questions.

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EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

Expertise in Teaching
Previous researchers of expertise studies in education point to the effect thatknowledge has on expertise in teaching (Berliner, 2001, 2004; Day, 1999;
Korthagen, 2004). Shulman (1986; 1987) proposed a model of knowledge bases
essential to expertise in teaching. The knowledge bases range from knowledge
about educational purposes, content that teachers teach (content knowledge) togeneral principals of teaching, such as how to manage a class (pedagogicalknowledge). In addition, he argued that effective teachers have rich knowledge
about their own curricula (curricular knowledge), learners and their characteristics,
educational ends and purposes, and educational contexts. Finally, one of the mostsignificant aspects of teacher knowledge, which comprises all these aspects ofteaching is pedagogical content knowledge (Hattie, 2003; Turner-Bisset, 2012).
Pedagogical content knowledge is critical to excellent teaching. It
allows teachers to rely both on their knowledge about theories and practice anddeliver the content in a flexible, comprehensible, and effective manner to theirlearners (Shulman, 1986). In addition, teachers use pedagogical content
knowledge to incorporate students’ perspectives into their teaching. Among the
few studies conducted in L2 teaching settings, for example, Richards, Li, and Tang
(1995) investigated how three groups of ESL teachers of different levels ofknowledge approached their lesson planning. They found that teachers who lacked
knowledge about both content and pedagogy dedicated all their attention to simply
teaching the material without considering students. However, teachers withpedagogical content knowledge considered students’ perspectives when theyplanned a lesson, such as how relevant and interesting the materials would be tostudents and what kind of problems students were likely to encounter in the lesson.
One of the aspects of pedagogical content knowledge concerns
learners. According to Turner-Bisset (2012), expert teachers have knowledge oflearners in regards to social and cognitive aspects. They understand social aspectsof students; for example, what students find interesting and how various factors

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59

affect their learning. Expert teachers are also knowledgeable about cognitive
development of learners. Based on their knowledge of learners, expert teachers not
only incorporate students’ perspectives into their teaching (Richards, et al., 1995),
but also adapt their teaching toward their targeted learners (Johnston & Goettsch,
2000; Tsui, 2009). For example, in four case studies of experienced EFL teachers
at Japanese universities, I (Asaba, 2019) analyzed how the teacher participantschose and revised materials and tasks. In the results, I reported that these teachersconsidered how materials and tasks were interesting and challenging for theirlearners. Pedagogical content knowledge supports expertise because it allows
teachers to adapt their teaching effectively to engage their target learners.

Learner Engagement
Facilitating students’ engagement is an essential aspect of expertise in teaching.
According to Richards (2010), one of the most important aspects of expertise in L2
teaching is reflected in a learner-focused approach. It includes teachers’ abilities
not only to shape the lesson based on students’ responses, but also to raise the levelof student engagement with the lesson. In fact, teacher participants who had richpedagogical content knowledge in the study by Richards et al. (1995) claimed thatthey considered students’ engagement to be the most important element of theirteaching.
Three factors facilitate learner engagement: tasks, students’
perceived roles in class, and their relationship with teachers. For example,
Shernoff, D., Csikszentmihalyi, Schneider, and Shernoff, E. (2014) reported thatstudents experienced increased level of engagement when they perceived that there
was a good balance between the difficulty of a task and their competence and when
they thought they had an active role in class rather than a passive role. This
argument concurs with what Yazzie-Mintz and McCormick (2012) found in theirstudy. They explained that their student participants experienced high level ofengagement when they collaborated and generated knowledge together with their

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EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

peers and teachers. Furthermore, the participants indicated their belief relating toteachers as powerful factor for their engagement. Interestingly, students’
responses demonstrated that their expectations for teachers were not related totheir academic growth, but rather their own personal growth. That is, the students
sought encouragement and hoped to construct a meaningful relationship withteachers. This study was conducted with high school students in the United States.
However, the findings provide important implications to L2 teaching, especially in
the Japanese context. That is because interpersonal relationship between teachersand students is considered to be an essential aspect of teaching in Japanese
educational settings (Tsui, 2005).
Despite of numerous studies done in the area of learner engagement, thedefinitions of learner engagement differ among researchers. For the purpose of thispaper, I use a definition by Assor’s (2012), who described engagement as efforts
and actions taken by students to achieve set goals. In addition, in order tounderstand how expertise in L2 teaching affects learner engagement, I used theframework proposed by Yazzie-Mintz and McCormick (2012). According to theseresearchers, the quality of engagement can be divided into three components;
behavior, cognitive, and emotional. Behavior engagement refers to observable actions
taken by students inside and outside the classroom. It includes their participation of
extracurricular activities, assignments, and activities. Cognitive engagement relates tostudents’ actual learning of content, which can be reflected in their mastery of thematerials. Emotional engagement concerns affective aspects of students’ learning.
They include their motivation about learning and a sense of connection they feelbetween what they learn and their own experiences.
Understanding how students perceive their engagement fromemotional aspect is important. Students are an essential aspect of school culture.
Therefore, without understanding how students perceive their own experiences
about various aspects of their school lives, it is impossible to create a holistic
picture of student engagement (Taylor & Parson, 2011). Exploring students’EMOTIONAL LEARNER ENGAGEMENT: A CASE STUDY OF ･･････（ASABA）

61

emotional dimension of engagement is a particular interest of teachers andresearchers when unveiling students’ perceptions. That is because emotional
dimension focuses “largely on students’ internal lives not frequently expressed
explicitly in observable behavior and actions (Yazzie-Mintz & McCormick , 2012,
p. 750). In addition, affective aspects of L2 learners, such as motivation are one of
the most significant factors to facilitate L2 learning (e.g., Dörnyei, 1994; Ushioda,
2010). Understanding how teachers can enhance emotional aspects of learnerengagement is necessary.
Therefore, the purpose of this research is to uncover hidden aspects oflearner engagement by investigating how this process can be facilitated. In
particular, by utilizing the framework of expertise in L2 teaching, I analyze how
one experienced EFL teacher at a Japanese university attempted to increase
emotional aspect of learner engagement. In addition, I examine the effects that his
teaching had on students from their perspectives. I propose the following researchquestions:

1.

What are teaching practices that enhanced students’ emotional engagement?

2.

What emotional effects did the students experience as the result of hispractices?

Methods
This paper is a part of my dissertation research I conducted at Temple University,
Japan; therefore, I first provide a brief explanation of the dissertation study. In thedissertation, I examined characteristics indicating L2 teaching expertise based onfour case studies of EFL teachers at Japanese universities. The purposes of theresearch was to identify characteristics indicating expertise and describe thedevelopmental processes of expertise. I identified teacher participants who werelikely to demonstrate the characteristics of expertise based on the criteria
suggested by Palmer, Stough, Burdenski, and Gonzales (2005). The criteria

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EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

included qualifications, experience, and recommendations from supervisors. I
selected four teacher participants who met the criteria.
Data collection included classroom observations, interviews withteacher participants, a collection of artifacts, and focus group interviews withstudents from observed classes. For the purpose of this paper, I mainly analyzed
the data I gathered from interviews with one of the teacher participants and student
focus groups from his classes I observed. I chose to focus on the teacher participant
I refer to as Walt, and what his students said about his teaching. That is because
they had extensive discussions about how Walt engaged students with his teaching,materials, and feedback.
Walt (all names are pseudonym) is originally from the United States
and came to Japan to teach English at a conversation school. He then obtained his
Master’s degree in TESOL at an American university in Asia. Upon completion of
the degree, he started to teach English at a university. At the time of data collection,
he had been teaching EFL at Japanese universities over ten years. He was apart-time instructor and was teaching 13 classes at four universities, including Oka
University (pseudonym). He worked in the department where students studiedinternational affairs, such as economics and world culture. All students wererequired to take English courses. Walt’s recommendation came from his former
full-time colleague at this university. He described Walt to be different from otherpart-time teachers in the program because of his contributions to creating projects
and sharing handouts.

Data Collection
Classroom observations. Classroom observations took place in a writing courseand extensive reading (ER) course Walt taught during the fall, 2015. The purposeof the observations was to gain insights into the participants’ teaching practices,such as how he engaged his students in his lessons. I visited two different courses
to understand how he approached classes, which had different students and content

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63

areas. I visited his classes during week 3, 8, 9, 12, and 13 in a 14-week semester.
During classroom observations, I took field notes to keep a record of events in theclassroom. In addition, I placed a video recorder on a tripod at the back of eachclassroom during observations upon permission from participants and theirstudents.

Interviews. I interviewed Walt and audio-recorded interviews upon receiving his
permission. I followed the general framework of three-stage interviews by
Seidman (2006). He suggested that the first stage is to explore participants’ life
history. The purpose of the second stage is to ask questions related to participants’current experiences. The final stage is related to their reflection on the meaning of
their experience.
I conducted my first-stage interview with Walt before the semester
began. I mainly asked about why he came to Japan, his first job at an English
conversation school, and his transition to university teaching. The second stage
interviews took place three times right after classroom observations. I asked
questions related to the observed classes and certain events that I took notes during
the observation. They include his interactions with students and activities that heintroduced in class. In the final interview, my questions centered around how hereflected on his experience as an EFL teacher in Japan, particularly at universities.
I also asked about what he hoped to achieve in his career.
I transcribed and summarized the interview data. I transcribed datathat indicated reoccurring ideas based on themes suggested in the literature on
expertise. I summarized the parts I did not consider important, such as when theparticipant was thinking aloud what he wanted to say or simply describing things
that happened during the class. I had a native-speaker of English check mytranscriptions of quotes that I used in this report and revised accordingly.

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EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

Student focus groups. I conducted focus group interviews with students from theobserved class to understand how Walt and his teaching were perceived by his
students. I chose focus groups for two reasons. The first reason concerns therichness of data. According to Morgan (1997), one advantage of focus groups isthat it provides the ability to deal with a topic that is “either habit-ridden or not
thought out in detail” (p. 11). That is, often participants do not recall certain eventsor do not deeply reflect on these events unless they have a chance to discuss withothers who share the same experience. Therefore, I hoped that interactions thatstudents have with each other would uncover elements that are often hidden or
forgotten, such as some events that occurred in a lesson and what they thought ofit.
Second, I chose focus groups because of my positionality. At the timeof research, I was teaching as a full-time instructor at Oka University and wasteaching or had taught some of the students from Walt’s class in my own classes.
I was concerned about my positionality as their teacher that I would be putting too
much pressure on the students, especially if I had conducted individual interviews
with students. Therefore, I chose focus groups because they allow researchers toinvestigate participants’ perspectives “without pressuring them into making
decisions or reaching a consensus” (Liamputtong, 2011, p. 5). By allowing
students to have their classmates in the same proximity, I attempted to create anenvironment, in which they had “peer group support and reassurance”(Liamputtong, 2011, p. 107) and help “produce a livelier group dynamic” (Morgan,
1997, p. 20).
A total of five students from Walt’s classes volunteered to participate
in the focus-group interviews. Three male students, Nigel, Makoto, and Yuta
participated the focus group interview from the writing course, a female student
Nana and a male student Ryo participated the interview from ER course. The focus
groups took place in a classroom at Oka University. To ensure that students have

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65

had sufficient time in Walt’s class, I conducted focus groups after the semester wasover, in which classroom observations took place.
Prior to focus groups, students signed the informed consent form,
which I had prepared in Japanese. Then I explained that the purpose of my research
was to understand Walt’s teaching practice, and their comments about the classand his teaching would be kept confidential. With their permission, I used a voicerecorder during the focus-groups. I played the role of a moderator to ensure
students stayed on topic during the discussions. I introduced the questions I had
prepared (See Appendix) and presented them both visually and verbally. Eachstudent focus group interview took approximately one hour. I transcribed therecordings in full and translated them into English.

Data Analysis
I used both deductive and inductive approaches to analyze the data. For the
deductive approach, I relied on the findings of previous research in the field. This
research was strongly influenced by knowledge about expert teachers. Therefore,
I looked for characteristics indicating expertise described by previous studies inboth general education and L2 teaching. This included types of knowledge, such as
pedagogical knowledge and knowledge of learners. I also looked for themes thatindicated the emotional component of learner engagement. The inductive approach
involved analyzing the data by focusing on specific pieces of information and by
making connections among them for meaningful patterns (Hatch, 2002). Finally, I
investigated not only how the participants approached the two courses similarly,
but also differently. The examination of within-participant variation provided mewith dynamic insights.

Findings
Two questions posed for this study concern practices that Walt demonstrated toconsider students’ emotional engagement and the effects that students experienced

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EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

as a consequence. Three themes concerning Walt’s practices related to students’emotional engagement were salient: raising students’ interest and confidence,
helping students build personal relationships with each other, and easing students’anxieties.

Raising Students’ Interest and Confidence
Walt demonstrated his beliefs that increasing students’ interest for a target skill
was an integral aspect of his teaching. For example, he believed that one of hisroles as an ER teacher was to help students gain appreciation and interest forreading. In the pre-semester interview that I conducted prior to classroom
observations, Walt compared two types of curriculum for ER courses that he hadtaught from in the program. The objectives for the original curriculum were toassist students to read a certain number of words mainly through sustained silent
reading. In this curriculum, students read silently for most if not all of the classtime. In contrast, the revised curriculum included discussion as one of thesuggested activities. When asked about his reaction to the revised curriculum, he
responded, “I loved it, yeah, it’s a much better approach” (interview, pre-semester,fall, 2016, 55:27) because one of his goals for the course “was to get them[students] really interested in reading" (interview, pre-semester, fall, 2016, 55:39).
One of suggested activities that he used was reading circles, in which students readand discussed the same book, Holes by Louis Sachar.
Walt used reading circles in order to enhance students’ interest forreading. For example, he explained in the interview how reading circles gave
students an authentic experience of a good reader:. . . because a lot of stories are really interesting, and you can tell thatsome of the students were really . . . deeply involved in stories as far as
engaging with each other, in the class, asking each other really goodquestions, but also asking me questions . . . about why the author decided

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67

to do that, what’s [sic] meaning of this. I think that anytime you readsomething, and you are engaged with the reading, you always tend to ask
those kinds of questions . . . there is no really right answer when you read,
you know a good reader will be . . . having an imaginary conversation
with the author . . . you are really getting into the story and into books, so
I think by doing those reading circles, that really helped cement that idea
into their heads.
-

interview, pre-semester, fall, 2015, 55:46

This quote demonstrates Walt’s idea about what good readers do. He
considered a good reader as someone who enjoys having a dialogue with a story
and an author. He wanted his students to have a similar experience as a good reader
by using reading circles.
When reflecting on the semester the classroom observations wereconducted, Walt again discussed his goal to help students find joy in reading. He
stated, “I wanted them to kind of to fall in love with reading, I don't think that waspart of the curriculum, [but I wanted to] just get them to have a positive experience
reading in English” (interview, post-semester, fall, 2016, 3:30). He explained
further about his goal to teach students the value of reading, describing two aspectsof reading in this way:

. . . hopefully they walk out with a more positive experience of reading ina class because too many students that you talk to say "Oh I hatereading”. . . . If they are reading something interesting then they may be
more likely to have a more positive view of reading and you know not
only in L2 but also L1, maybe by this class, "Oh you know reading is
actually important you know to understand the world".
-

interview, Week 8, fall, 2015, 21:02

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Furthermore, Walt raised students’ interest through the movie and allowing themto make predictions about the story. He believed raising students’ interest wasnecessary. He said it was because "I think it's the key to, you know, having goodreading classes when you get readers hooked on the material, and they want tocontinue to keep reading" (interview, Week 3, fall, 2015, 15:12). He made students
predict the story in groups (field notes, Week 3, fall, 2015) because he said, "I
think by doing that, hopefully [it’ll] raise their interest in the story, so that when
they read, they will be able to figure out if their prediction came true or not"(interview, Week 3, fall, 2015, 15:36). These comments illustrate Walt’s belief
that raising interest among students was a necessary component for learnerengagement.
Walt also believed it was important to raise students’ confidence for atarget skill. Comments from his ER student focus group indicates that this goal wasachieved. When asked about the positive influence he had from Walt’s class, Ryo,
who was a freshman at the time of data collection, explained that it was the amountof reading he did. He said,

本読む回数がめちゃ増えました。その英語だけじゃなく日本語も日本の日本語の本もだいぶ増えて、ていううか高校の時の時に読まなさす
ぎて年に１冊か２冊がまあ丁度いいだろう。でも大学の１学期にもう10,10 冊ぐらいは…プライベート、そう授業以外の時でもまあ少しず
つ読むようになったかな。とうのは自分の中で変化はありました。
I read a lot more often. Not only in English, but Japanese too, Japanesebooks in Japanese. Well, I didn’t read at all in high school. Maybe one or
two books a year was the most I did. But I read about ten, ten books in thefirst semester of university. . . . I could feel the change inside of me, I
started reading in my private time, even outside classrooms.
-

FG, Ryo, 23:18

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69

Nana shared a similar view. She explained that she bought a book as thick as Holes,
while she was in Canada, which she stopped reading after reading 30 pages. She
explained that she gave up reading the book because she got bored with the story.
However, she said: 「それでもあの本を読み切れたってことはなんか若干自身にはなった…宿題やったけどちゃんと読めるんやなっていう。」“The fact that I
was able to finish the book [Holes] kind of gave me a sense of confidence . . . I felt
I could finish reading even though it was homework” (FG, Nana, 24:27). Theircomments indicate the fact that Walt was successful in helping students gain
confidence for reading both in English and Japanese.
Expert teachers believe that they have the ability to influence students’
lives, such as raising students’ interest for the content they teach (Dunkin, 1995).
Gregory (2005) proposed a teaching model that goes beyond deliveringcontent-related knowledge and is similar to what I found in Walt’s case. Gregoryemphasized the important role that college and university professors play in using
course content to reach students’ potentials in life as human beings. He explained
the essence of education as an experience whereby students “get educated because
they learn how to study our beloved content, and they carry the how of thatlearning with them in the world as cognitive and intellectual skills that stick longafter the content is forgotten” (p. 97). Gregory suggested teaching fundamental
aspects of life through academic content. The aspects range from teaching students
how to analyze academic content critically and logically to relating the content totheir own lives. The descriptions I provided about Walt’ teaching does notnecessarily indicate that his teaching assisted students’ academic growth based on
Gregory’s definition. However, his teaching influenced students’ attitudes toward
the target content. That is, students learned to gain appreciation and confidence forreading.
Furthermore, teachers play an essential role in influencing students’motivation in L2 learning (Dörnyei, 2001). One of these influences involves
convincing or tempting students to engage in tasks rather than passively waiting

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for them to absorb knowledge from teachers. Another way that these teachers
motivated their students intellectually was their ability to teach and share the joyof learning, which is another long-recognized characteristic of expertise (Lowman,
1984). Walt demonstrated various ways to show students the joy of learning, whichbecame the foundation for students’ motivation to learn. These endeavors that hemade to enhance students’ motivation accord with what Lortie (1975) said about
his participants, who did not believe “that children are naturally eager to learn.
They believed it takes a teacher to stimulate intellectual curiosity and interest in
school” (p. 114). Walt also understood the importance of fostering students’motivation and was able to effectively bring out and enhance students’ motivation
by utilizing his knowledge about Japanese university students who study English
as a second language.

Making Personal Relationships
Walt also believed it was important for students to make personal relationships
with other students to maximize the effect of learning. When Walt discussed a listof things he thought students gained from his class, he said, “they learned about
each other a lot, which I think is important so they got to know each other asclassmates and possibly friends during the course of the year or the semester”(interview, post-semester, fall, 2015, 19:08). He also explained one of his personalgoals for the class was to help students “have positive experiences in their school
life, so as long as they do their work in class, I’m really happy . . . establishingfriendships in the class I think is important, making friends with other classmatesand going out and doing fun things. . . .” (interview, post-semester, fall, 2015,6:15).
Walt also explained the importance of showing the progress thatstudents were making as a factor to keep up with reading. He stated, "Instead of[students] looking at it as like ‘oh this is something we have to do," [they can] lookat it more like some friendly competition between other students in the class"EMOTIONAL LEARNER ENGAGEMENT: A CASE STUDY OF ･･････（ASABA）

71(interview, Week 13, fall, 2015, 24:54). Two students from the focus group shared
their experiences related to this point. Ryo commented: 「あっと、あー。あの(Waltの本名)が毎週みんなの進行度を比較するやつは結構好きだな。」“I liked thething (Walt’s real name) did to compare everyone’s progress every week” (FG,
Ryo, 7:49). He continued and said, 「すごいまあ客観的に見れていいなっと思う。
多分人によっては『わー、私のいっちゃん遅い、わーいややわあ』って思う人も多分いると思うんですけど。でもまあそのひとの為にもいい、いいのかなっ
ていうのは思いました。」“it was good that you could see it objectively. Maybesome people thought ‘Oh no, I am the slowest, no’, but I think that’s good for that
person too” (FG, Ryo, 8:04). Walt’s manner of teaching students how to be
responsible for their own reading progress by motivating them indicates his
creativity.
Furthermore, both students agreed that they could not have finishedreading the book, Holes alone. Nana felt it was mainly because of reading circles
that she was able to finish the story. She said,

いやまあ、授業で絶対ここまで読んで来なさいっていうのもあるし、それによってそのかだい、課題もあるから人に迷惑を掛ける訳にはいかないからやっぱりね、やらなきゃいけないっていう使命感とでも読んでたら面白いから話の内容もいいから、「あれ、これもう終わっちゃったんだな」って気づくことがあって、だから全然苦にならなかったっていうのが一番多いかな。
I was assigned pages that I needed to read as a part of class, and becauseof the assignment, I felt a sense of obligation to read and not cause otherpeople trouble, you know, and as I continued to read, the content of thestory was interesting, so sometimes I found myself thinking “I amalready done [reading],” so I never suffered [from reading] at all.
-

FG, Nana, 24:54

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Their comments demonstrate that his class helped them achieve the instructional
goals. One of the significant factors was his ability to help students build a
relationship with each other. He used their close relationship as a way to motivate
students and make them responsible for their contribution to class.
Walt demonstrated knowledge that students should have positive
interpersonal relationships in order to achieve instructional goals. Markus andKitayama (1994) created a framework in which the Japanese see oneself andunderstand how to be a person in relation to others as an interdependent view ofself. Based on this model, one attempts “not to become separate and autonomousfrom others but to fit-in with others, to fulfill and create obligation, and, in general,
to become part of various interpersonal relationships” (p. 97). Walt created alearning environment, in which students felt responsible for achieving goals as agroup and as an individual.

Easing Students’ Anxieties
The most salient aspect of Walt’s teaching regarding emotional engagement was toconsider students’ anxieties in class. He attempted to ease students’ stress andanxieties in several ways. For example, the manner in which Walt gave a quiz also
indicated that he considered students’ anxieties. He explained that the purpose ofpairing students to work on a quiz was “. . . to take the pressure from them because
it’s not like a normal assessment where it actually counts for a percentage of theirgrade” (interview, Week 8, fall, 2015, 9:05). Walt used the quizzes only to award
students with word counts from the book, Holes. Therefore, Walt did not see thenecessity of giving extra pressure to students, especially because the quizzes were
low-stakes tests. His creative use of quizzes and a movie to reinforce
understanding from students relieve students’ anxieties, allow students to learn
from each other, and raise interest and confidence in reading. These choices ofactivities demonstrated his expertise.

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Walt demonstrated his ability to relate to students’ anxieties in otherways. He said that one of his strengths as a teacher was his sense of humor. He
believed that this was especially important. He said,. . . learning a language can be a stressful thing for some students, youknow, having to speak or communicate in a foreign language when you
don't have a strong grasp of that language, it can cause a lot of anxiety, so
by lightening the atmosphere, I can kind of help with that.
-interview, post-semester, fall, 2015, 52:32

This comment illustrates Walt’s understanding of how students mightfeel about speaking in their L2, especially in front of others.
In addition to his humor, Walt also used positive class dynamics toease other students’ anxieties. When I began my data collection in the second
semester, there were some students who joined from this semester. He discussed
how he paired new students with old students on the first day of the semester sothat old students could explain the class to new students. When asked about why he
did not explain it himself, he responded,

Just to help them feel more comfortable in the class. Rather than me
explaining, it's good to get peer explanation from the students because
they might say things that I wouldn't say maybe. And also I think maybe
students are more likely to listen if it is not coming from the teacher, it iscoming from a couple of students.
-

interview, Week 8, 2015, fall, 6:45

He continued,

Maybe they are more likely to hear to, to remember things or to listen to74

EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

things from their peers versus from the superior. I just think back to mystudent days as well when I was a college student, how much information
I could get from just a fellow classmate versus from my professor. Fellow
classmates are more approachable I think and easier to kind of talk to. [A]Professor, or the teacher can be kind of intimidating.
-interview, Week 8, fall, 2015, 7:14

These comments demonstrate his ability to take students’ perspectives
based on his own experiences as a learner.
Walt also indicated his knowledge about what can cause students’anxieties in this particular context. During classroom observations, I noticed that
he was constantly walking around the classroom while students were working ingroups or individually. When asked about this point, he said that he usually did thisbecauseI think in Japan, a lot of students can sometimes be a little bit reticent to
ask questions. . . . If a student has a question, sometimes they don't wannaraise their hand and ask in front of the whole class, but as you are walking
around, sometimes students will actually grab you and say, "What does it
mean?" or "Can you help me?" or sometimes I'll actually specifically ask
them just to confirm that they know what they need to work on . . . just to
make sure they are on task.
-

interview, Week 3, fall, 2015, 12:31

By providing students with opportunities to individually ask him
questions or to ask students to explain what they were supposed to do, Walt wasable to view this issue from students’ point of view.
Furthermore, Walt allowed students to rely on their first language(Japanese) on some occasions by taking students’ perspectives. For example, heEMOTIONAL LEARNER ENGAGEMENT: A CASE STUDY OF ･･････（ASABA）

75

told students that they could research about a topic in Japanese for a
problem-solution paper. Because he conducted his class in English, I asked why heallowed them to use Japanese for this occasion. He said,

I think a lot of L1 support in this case is important because they are doing
research, they are trying to get some topic knowledge about their topic,
and I think if I was gonna write a research project in Japanese, it probably
would help me to do a lot of background research in my native language,
in English first, just so I get a deeper understanding of the topic at hand
before I start writing about it.
-interview, Week 3, fall, 2015, part 2, 8:43

As I described before, he demonstrated his ability to understand how
students might feel by associating himself with students. By focusing on his
priority, which was to help students write a paper in English, he was able to see
how students researching in their L1 would be beneficial.
Comments that students from Walt’s ER class made in a focus groupalso supports this point. They discussed using Japanese in several situations in hisclass, such as when they asked questions about how to use Microsoft Word, how topronounce certain words, and how to correct grammar mistakes. They found it
helpful that Walt not only understood Japanese but allowed them to communicate
with him in Japanese occasionally. Nigel said,「ワードのここがおかしいとか言われへんねん。」 “I don't know how to say there is something wrong [about aparticular thing about] Microsoft Word [in English]” (FG, 14:14). Another student
said, 「そういうときは日本語使って聞いたら答えてくれるし。ての良かったかな。」“In such situations, if I asked in Japanese, he would respond. That was maybegood”. He continued,
わかれへんねんな。無理やろ、普通に。普通にしゃべられへんのに、
そんなん余計無理やわ…フォントあと、てんぱってるやん、なんかこ76

EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODES

っちもミスが、その、なんていったらいいん、不具合があってやってるから、こっちもテンパってるから、説明できへんなかなか。そのときにやっぱ日本語通じた方が、やっぱりこう、安心感はある。
I just wouldn’t know. It’s impossible obviously. I can’t evennormally speak [English], and it is even more impossible . . .
like [changing] a font, I was panicking, I made a mistake,you know, what can I say, because I was having a problem,
so I was panicking, so I couldn’t explain really well. So if we
can use Japanese, I feel a sense of relief.
-

FG, Yuta, 14:42

This comment illustrates that students found it helpful that Walt was flexible
enough to help them deal with issues in Japanese. Walt demonstrated his abilities
to ease students’ anxieties so that they can focus on achieving the instructional
goals. His creative manner in helping students feel relaxed in class underpins L2expertise in teaching.
Several L2 researchers pointed out some time ago the importance ofconsidering anxieties that learners feel when speaking their L2 (e.g., Dörnyei,
2001; Krashen, 1985). The participants also demonstrated their knowledge related
to this aspect. Based on this knowledge, they focused on lowering students’anxieties by utilizing collaborative work, giving individual students opportunities
to ask questions in person, and allowing students to rely on L1 in a flexible manner.
Walt created an environment that allowed students to focus on learning and using
the language rather than having their anxieties interfere with their learning. His
manner in approaching teaching from students’ perspectives and providing a safe
community underpin his expertise.

EMOTIONAL LEARNER ENGAGEMENT: A CASE STUDY OF ･･････（ASABA）

77

Conclusion
I set out to explore how emotional aspects of learner engagement is facilitated byexpertise in L2 teaching. The teacher participant, Walt considered three areas ofemotional aspects to engage learners such as raising students’ interest andconfidence for reading, helping students build relationship with each other, andeasing students’ anxieties. His teaching practices affected students’ emotional
engagement positively as reflected in their comments about his classes. This study
demonstrated the integral role that pedagogical content knowledge plays inunderstanding students’ perspectives to enhance the effect of L2 teaching.
There were several limitations that may have affected the results ofthis study. The first limitation concerns a small number of students thatparticipated in the focus group interviews. Further research should include more
student participants, particularly students of different proficiency levels to better
understand how proficiency plays a role in student perception of teachers. Second,
including more teacher participants to analyze learner engagement is necessary.
For the purpose of this paper, I only focused on one teacher participant. Finally,
future researchers should consider using other data collection methods, such as
surveys that students can answer during class or one-on-one interviews withindividual students. This will provide more in-depth and dynamic understanding
about learner engagement, including changes that occur based on specific in-classactivities and incidents of interactions between students and teachers.

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この論文は、2019 年にテンプル大学で発表した博士論文の一部を加筆・修正したものです。

83

ENGAGEMENT AND TECHNOLOGY:TOWARDS A PEDAGOGY FORLEARNER ENGAGEMENT IN SPOKEN TEXTSRoger Palmer, Hirao School of Management

Overview of the Study
This paper investigates the kinds of casual conversations that language learners
participate in during their classes (de Silva Joyce, 2000). The central argument is thatsuch informal talk has a unifying structure which tends to be overlooked, one which
can be identified and taught explicitly just like any other whole text. The three mainareas addressed are the nature of pedagogic discourse, multimodal social semiotic
approaches, and the semiotic landscape of the classroom.

Pedagogic discourse is taken to mean the way exchanges in teaching are organized(Rose, 2014). These are the short meaningful conversations which go back and forth,involving the instructor and the class/individuals, and the learners responding to the
instructor and each other. Students take part in those exchanges with the teacher andwith each other in various ways, as initiator or responder. What frequently emerges isa pattern of engagement for the high achievers and exclusion for the others. Other
considerations are the building of knowledge through the exchanges, the way learning
activities are structured, and the particular modes employed at any one time and how
they are brought into the exchanges (Rose, 2014).

A multimodal social semiotic approach brings together the modes used in society tomake meaning. In the classroom, audio recordings of student utterances will only
produce transcripts that fail to take into account the three dimensions that video cancapture, encompassing books, gaze, gesture, image, notes, notebooks, posture,screens, speech, and writing (Bezemer et al, 2012). Developments which allow for
descriptions of the semiotic landscape of the classroom (Bezemer et al, 2012) haverepercussions for the pedagogic function of texts, influencing decisions taken by

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instructors to include and exclude particular texts and the ways they are used in class.
A typical shift over time would witness a teacher moving from discussing classicaltexts, to displaying historical texts via multimedia, to focusing on student-generated
texts to be discussed and interacted with, to editing them together with the class. The
process of making student texts the object of discussion heightens learnerengagement.

The current study took place in 2017, building on research into the structure of casual
discourse and measurement of student performance in casual conversations (Banks,
2000). The participants were freshmen in a management department in Japan.
Modeling and explicit teaching helped the students learn relevant discourse structureand features. Recordings of student talk using voice recorders and video cameras
highlighted the instruction and fed back into a loop of informed peer assessment.
Students participated fully in the pedagogic discourse, working in pairs asconversationalists or peer assessors. The paper illustrates the research methodology,
the models for explicit instruction, and offers a view of how the students performed
and were measured/appraised by their classmates. The aim of the paper is to help
instructors to achieve active engagement by all members of a class and to offer
suggestions on how to attain measurable improvement by students in their casualconversations in target language texts.

Oral Paper: Background
The oral presentation of the paper, Towards a Pedagogy for Learner Engagement inSpoken Texts, was given on March 3rd, 2018 at Text & Context: Oita Text Forum
Workshop 9. The conference was held at the Dannoharu Campus of Oita University
under the theme of, ‘Literacy and Technology in Language Pedagogy and Use.’
The talk focuses on the need for greater and more effective learner engagement inrelation to spoken texts. It fits in with action research on engagement conducted in theclassroom for the study. The emphasis on action research is in response to theENGAGEMENT AND TECHNOLOGY:TOWARDS A PEDAGOGY FOR･･････（PALMER）

85

difficulties of applying prevalent research-based theories, among them Second
Language Acquisition (SLA), to actual students studying in a class context. A theoryof language, or about language, may struggle to describe the ways students interact inthe second language (L2). Some seem to succeed with ease while for others there isgreat toil and frustration, and a possible loss of interest and focus in their studies.

For the purposes of the current paper, what is meant by casual conversations in class(de Silva Joyce, 2000) is not limited to chatting. It is understood that L2 teachers will
at some time allocate less controlled or unstructured speaking time for their students.
Learners are given the opportunity to talk in pairs, or in groups, about a topic, using
the various linguistic resources available to them. Those resources are of course
limited by their knowledge of the L2 and factors affecting their performance, such as
anxiety. Some of the questions which arise, and gave impetus to this study, concern
whether casual conversation can and should be taught and improved (Banks, 2000). It
is pertinent to ask if conversation is teachable, and if so whether progress in speaking
casually is measurable. By extension, it might be appropriate to ask if it would help
students to chart their own progress in speaking.

One of the concerns of the study is to overcome a drift in classroom chat and adevaluation of it. If it is consigned to being merely spontaneous talk and of notionaluse for practice, then there is a danger of the language teacher’s role becoming cut off
from teaching it, hence constrained to the instruction of discrete language items orerror correction. This point of view has sometimes been framed as the primacy oflanguage accuracy. On the other hand, there is a position which argues that time andpractice may be more important than explicit language instruction. This pushes
research to fall into a trap of language fluency being paramount. Such an either/or
situation is open to the criticism that fluency-based discussion in groups about a topic
does not improve speaking in concrete terms, while controlled language practice basedon accuracy fails to let students express their own ideas. One way out of the

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EFL LEARNER ENGAGEMET : MODELS AND MODE

dichotomy of fluency and accuracy is to reconsider the classroom as a social space: itis above all a place for students to build knowledge and express their own meanings.
Using Teachers’ Voices (de Silva Joyce, 2000) as a guide, this study set out toinvestigate these issues by placing students, and the need to engage them, at the heartof the learning process. The research tries to help learner difficulties with unstructured
speaking, so that they improve and they are able to see and track their improvement.

The Nature of Pedagogic Discourse
If we imagine a class, there will generally be a small group of the most involved (fully
engaged) or high-achieving students at the front and middle, a larger group of
mid-range students sitting further back who are somewhat engaged, and the biggest
group of students who are likely to fail and have tuned out (not engaged) sitting at theextremities of the class (Rose, 2014). If a question is posed, the students at the front
are liable to notice and attempt to answer.

As regards casual conversations, it is possible to reframe the conference theme oflanguage pedagogy in general as pedagogic discourse in particular. Then, we would
consider the way conversational exchanges in class, typically short conversations
taking place between partners, come to be organized (Rose, 2014).

When observing

precisely what the teachers and students are doing, it is apparent that some students
interact with the teacher, while others do not, and that some interact fully with eachother while others appear to not be engaged at all in the learning process (Rose, 2014).
Not only the conversations themselves, but the transfer of knowledge is implicit in theexchanges. Instructors need to design tasks that build in activities to capture theattention of all of the students. Rose (2014) suggests that teachers address thedifferent modalities, including speaking and listening and reading and writing and therole of images or symbols, to see how they can be part of the meaning-focusedconversations. In this, there is a role for technology to play in multimodal discourse.

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The argument presented here is not about new methodologies. It is not concerned withhuge changes which are hard to implement in most institutions, where they fail to takeaccount of each unique situation and the individuals in that context. The assumption isthat the same teacher in the same educational environment can make incremental
changes with the right support. The first step is to identify the structure of casual
discourse following the research of Peter Banks (2000), who measured student
performance in casual conversation. The main difference is that in the current study, it
was applied to management students at a university in Japan. Since the earlier study in
2000, it has become much easier to make audio and video recordings than it used tobe, with the advent of affordable iPads for video recordings and high quality audio
recorders.

To help learners master casual conversations an explicit teaching approach was
adopted, which presented models of casual conversation. Students were helped to
identify the structure and features of casual talk and then practice it themselves. A
simple project was set up involving a

new group of first year university students

fresh from high school. They were assigned to the bottom level English class based on
their placement scores in the management department. Within the confines of aregular study skills L2 class, the research was made part of the time devoted to
discussing books that students were reading. Some of that time had been identified asa possible weak link in the class, since it was being used mainly for practice rather
than to extend language. Students had been talking in pairs, but they had not made useof new structures or discourse features or related it to their own social needs as an
English speaker. They had tended to talk about the books but not about the meanings
they attach to the books or the writers or the characters.

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Multimodal Social Semiotic Approaches
A study conducted through the Institute of Education in London University (Bezemer
et al, 2012) investigated learning in institutions as widely divergent as hospitals,
museums and schools. The research helped to demonstrate that learning in general,and this includes language learning, is part of social research. A classroom is a social
space as much as a public hospital is a collectively used social area. The approach of
the study is social semiotic and multimodal, that is, one which focuses onmeaning-making in different modes. Multimodality is involved with the various
modes that are used, while semiotics is concerned with signs and symbols. In theclassroom just as in society as a whole, multiple modes are in operation at any one
time. The researchers (Bezemer et al, 2012) took into account gaze, gesture andposture as much as pictures and writing. They also examined the media of theclassroom, such as screens, books, and taking notes (Bezemer et al, 2012). The current
study seeks to apply technology (such as video) that can capture the diverse modes tothe action research, in an attempt to enhance language teaching and learning.

To bring learner engagement together with literacy and technology, it is helpful toconsider in more detail the importance of social semiotics, the theory that deals withmeaning. Essentially, the kinds of technology that we use to communicate or represent
images, and thereby express meanings, have their own affordances (Kress, 2010).
What can be accomplished in one mode and by one device, such as a pen, cannot
necessarily be accomplished in another mode, such as by using voice. When
discussing literacy, it requires the learner to be adept in numeracy, reading andwriting. Above and beyond this, the demands of the 21st century demand that thelearner is tech-savvy or they are disadvantaged in the workplace and all their social
interactions. Hence for the learner, relatively small decisions, such as choosing asmartphone instead of a desktop computer as their medium,has a much wider

impact: as Kress (2010) explains, the affordances of the medium which is selected will
have an effect on the way the individual makes meaning. Furthermore, within society

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the medium may shape the identity of the user (Kress, 2010). To elaborate, the personusing the mobile device takes it with them to the classroom; they interact with it as adictionary; they text their friends; they record the class notes on the board as a photo;
they upload the picture to their cloud and reuse it later in their e-learning portfolio as
well as sharing it with their friends; during that time the image is resized and edited.
Hence the new mobile learning device forms a part of their identity through which
they live their lives. This is an entirely different social function from that of thedesktop computer.

The Semiotic Landscape of the Classroom
Within the classroom, the work that goes into the pedagogy helps to build student
literacy. Having observed how the affordances of the technology play a crucial role inshaping learning behavior, it becomes easier to see the important role of emerging
technologies which change the resources available to teachers as well as students.
Much previous research has separated the L2 from the student’s native or first
language (L1), however, there is much to be gained from work on literacy
development in a variety of settings. A study carried out by Bezemer et al (2012)
investigated the teaching of L1 poetry in an English school. Though the student
groups differed, many other elements were consistent between the class in 2000 and
2006: the curriculum remained unchanged and the instructor was the same. The
technology of instruction underwent some important revisions, in that an interactive
whiteboard (IWB) took over the role that formerly belonged to an overhead projector(OHP) with transparencies (Bezemer et al, 2012).

Some of the key points from the research (Bezemer et al, 2012) were that theaffordances of the OHP technology pushed the instructor towards certain teaching
behaviors. For example, the kinds of texts which were displayed and discussed andplaced at the heart of the class tended to be well-known English texts by prominentauthors, acting from a position of authority. Conversely, the move towards the IWB

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allowed much more flexibility and interaction with the medium of instruction.
Consequently, the texts which formed the object of discussion were those composedby the students themselves. Bezemer et al (2012) highlights the change of roles of theparticipants in the classroom and the different power relations that newly exist as partof the pedagogy.

A number of issues arise which link the technological affordances to the level ofengagement of the students. Should an instructor copy or scan student reactions to thepoem or text in question (Bezemer et al, 2012), or write their own poems, then thesecan be represented during class by means of the IWB. Any editing or annotating or
correction of the texts can involve the student-generated texts themselves:
furthermore, students are directly engaged in the process of editing. The instructor andlearners are able to build a text together, with implications for both ownership of thepedagogy and classroom as social space and authority over it (Bezemer et al, 2012).

The authors of the study draw attention to a transformation in ‘the semiotic landscapeof the classroom’ (Bezemer et al, 2012). Over time, changes in pedagogy andadvances in technology have repercussions for what texts and images are shown in theclassroom. Whereas the OHP tends to place the focus on speaking and writing, othermodes are favored by the IWB, with superior image quality and manipulation ofimages, as well as color and overall layout important factors. In fact, the kinds oftextual analysis also undergo a transformation (Bezemer et al, 2012). Seen in thislight, technology has profound implications for literacy, with implications for the
choice of texts, the way they are shown, and how to interact with the text.

In previous papers, I have reported on a study I carried out with a fellow researcher inIndonesia, as reported in the Swiss ETAS Journal (Palmer & Septina, 2013). The
study, conducted at a relatively early stage in the adoption and widespread use oftablets, involved the use of iPads in language teaching and engaging learners. Students

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actively used the iPads for their own language learning and social interaction, forstudy and play, and through their reflections it was possible to change the nature ofactivities and the amount of time devoted to classroom exercises. For purposes ofillustration, learners were rewarded for their participation in vocabulary quizzes by
being allowed to use the iPad for educational games. At other times, the iPad could be
passed around from student to student, which was quite unlike other classroom
technology at that time, mainly desktops and laptops. One of the key findings was thatthe classroom as a social learning space was reclaimed for and by the students: Kress(2010) refers to the mobile convergence device which replaces the clutter of books,
materials, CD players and VCRs with the iPad serving as a video recorder, camera,
MP3 player, and computer. Furthermore, technology which was unavailable orprohibitively expensive in Indonesia, such as the IWB with its multiple functions, canbe cheaply and easily replicated using a projector, whereby the iPad desktop serves asa virtual IWB creating a dynamic interactive space (Palmer & Septina, 2013). By
projecting writing frameworks on to the board, learners can complete and edit them,while gaining the focus and involvement of the whole class. Moreover, videos andstill shots of the class are a core component, being instantly uploaded to a classYouTube account for later viewing. Student texts are captured as images andimmediately displayed for comment, corrective feedback, discussion and evaluation.
The realtime feedback allows students to monitor and reflect on learning. The captureof class moments allows the instructor to reflect on multiple aspects of the class whichmight otherwise have been hidden away.

The world of tablets is categorically different from the world which existed before
their invention. Classroom behavior is shaped just as much as other social behavior ischanged by the smartphone. What emerges from the research (Palmer & Septina,2013) and teaching practice is that visual work (capture and transformation of images)
is foregrounded by the affordances of the hardware. Removing the keyboard from theiPad is a design decision that has social consequences, guiding the user to make92

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different decisions which emphasize more visual cues and fewer typed words (creating
written texts). Ultimately, the new pedagogy and the new literacy go hand-in-handwith the new technology.

Personal, multifunctional, convergent mobile devices (Kress, 2010) such as
smartphones are all around us, impacting on the lives of university students in theirsocial lives as well as inside the classroom where they are expected to perform a rangeof language learning tasks. Working with a researcher based in Malaysia, I drew up aseries of questions for a survey to ask students in Japan and Malaysia about theirpreferences in e-learning contexts. They submitted their responses to a Google Form
via their mobile devices (Palmer & Tann, 2015a). Results revealed that little attention
was being paid to voice, video, blogs, and bookmark functionality in classroom
learning, whether directed by the instructor or not (Palmer & Tann, 2015b). Thoughmany respondents claimed to be proficient in using applications that assist withlearning, in fact no positive correlation was detected among them about actuallycoping well with the demands of digital literacy. One of the key shortfalls was in the
explicit instruction of how to use the particular technology, the main focus being on
the software or application. As for the hardware, it is not evident how teachers areusing the specific affordances of tablets for improving the pedagogy. Frequently, thespecific skills that are brought into the foreground by mobile devices are left
undefined. Thus there is a need to understand that the life lived online and offline are
merging, that a slice of life is experienced, captured and immediately uploaded andbroadcast, and that mobility and multiple uses in multiple modes take precedence overa single-purpose, high quality device (Kress, 2010).

Action Research
Recordings of classroom interactions often tend to be audio, but this brings with it anumber of limitations. If the technology is endeavoring to capture voice and sound,then audio may suffice. However, if the aim is to observe the engagement of the

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students in the pedagogy, then the recording ought to take into account a range ofmodalities. Conversational exchanges involve not only the spoken word but also thewritten word, visual cues, gestures, and others (Rose, 2014). The social space of theclassroom is difficult to encapsulate in a few recorded words, for eye contact may
precede or accompany the word. Students who are already the least engaged may
become overwhelmed by the various sensory inputs, which the instructor may
mistakenly ascribe to lack of effort to understand, or low ability in the target language
or certain skills. One way to move beyond teaching missteps, such as an over-relianceon one’s own experience or intuition, is to harness technology to help us to view theclassroom through all the modes that impact on it. Without video recordings, forexample, it is impossible to observe different pairs of groups simultaneously.

A further consideration in engagement is that audio recordings help researchers to
capture those who are participating the most, but they ignore the ones who are left out
and are not participating or who are less able to or are more constrained. By observing
the students who are involved in the casual classroom chat, not only who is speaking
and how they are speaking but who is listening and who does not listen (Rose, 2014),
we think much more about how we assess them and how well we set them up to
succeed in class. Listening back through an audio recoding or decoding a transcript of
it will only inform us about ‘student voices’ (de Silva Joyce, 2000); but it will not
help us with the voiceless, the disempowered, the students who are least engaged.
Posing a question to a whole class may easily reinforce stereotypes, in which thehighest-performing student answers the question, and the instructor’s impression ofthat student in relation to the others is reinforced and becomes an entrenched position.

Using the research pioneered by Banks (2000), I attempted to circumvent some ofthese issues. Since the students who do not regularly participate are invisible intranscripts of classroom discourse, I set up pairs to talk and to be observed by otherindividuals and pairs all around the classroom at the same time. Within the pair,94

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everyone talks on an equal footing, while another person observes and evaluates themin turn. Analyzing peer discussions in group work enables us to see participation as it
unfolds (Rose, 2014).

The following schematic gives an overview of the development of a casualconversation and the teaching points. Each part of the conversation was practiced insequence, so that if the greetings handout was introduced in week 1, then the opening
gambits would follow in week 2.

The overview was distributed to the students as a road map to guide them through theresearch. It showed them where we were going from as a starting point, what we were
doing at any one time, and where we would be ending up. It also helped me to predict
which areas students might struggle with, such as opening gambits or icebreakers:
Japanese students are sometimes loathe to initiate small talk with strangers, even in
their L1. The group focused on in the research was made up of students who were

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Japanese management majors in the bottom level, fresh from high school, 18 years
old, largely monolingual, who had to take my class even though they are not language
majors.

The next excerpt is taken from a handout to practice greetings. Interestingly, in thecontent-based program in which I work we rarely teach greetings explicitly unlessthey are part of the context-specific target vocabulary. This results in greetings being
something we assume the students are proficient in, even though they are culturally
specific and hard to master. This is why they were worked into a class activity in astudy skills course where learners have to discuss the graded readers they have readrecently with a partner. As part of any class activity, there has to be a lead in - greet
the partner, make small talk, and go from there.

Greetings
In casual conversations with people we know, we use informal greetings to start andfinish conversations.

Starting

Finishing

Hi / Hello

Nice seeing you!

How are you?

Goodbye / Bye

How are you doing?

See you later

What's up? (very informal)

Practice
Find a partner and choose roles. When you have finished, switch roles. After trying
both roles, make your own conversations.

Anna:

Tom, what's up?

Tom:

Hi Anna. Nothing much. I'm just hanging out. What's up with you?

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Anna:

It's a good day. I'm feeling fine.

Tom:

How is your sister?

Anna:

Oh, fine. Not much has changed…

Tom:…Well, I have to go. Nice seeing you!

Anna:

Later.

Maria:

Oh, hello Chris. How are you doing?

Chris:

I'm well. Thanks for asking. How are you?

Maria:

I can't complain. Life is treating me well.

Chris:

That's good to hear.

Maria:…Good to see you again. I need to go to my doctor's appointment.

Chris:

Nice seeing you.

Maria:

See you later.

The practice can be modeled, demonstrated in front of the class, and carried out in a
few minutes. Every member of the class is standing up and talking throughout. It is
efficient and effective and allows the instructor to notice if any students are unable tocomplete the task. For opening gambits, by contrast, it was important to spend moretime role-playing the situations. The students rarely strike up conversations withstrangers in public, so without instruction they find these scenarios awkward,
embarrassing, and unnatural as they cannot imagine behaving in such a way. Oncethey are proficient in them, they find it liberating and empowering.

Opening Gambits
1 The traffic/weather is good/poor tonight.
(This works in any situation.)

2 How often do you come here?
(Useful in a public place, like a cafe or library.)

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3 How do you know John?
(This is a good at a party or even in a new school class.)

4 How long have you belonged to…?
(It is especially effective at a meeting or club.)5 What do you think about…?
(This works well in the immediate context, such as when attending a talk orpresentation.)

Source: http://busyteacher.org/14169-5-conversational-openers-shy-student.html

Even advanced students benefit from increasing the range of their expressions andlinguistic repertoire. It is generally the case that language learners remain within their
comfort zone, making excellent use of one part of language while avoiding another.
This is equally true of clarification and encouraging, parts of language that disappear
from casual talk unless a conscious effort is made to include them. Regular recycling
involving peer observations can help enormously to ensure students are using themproperly. Awareness of the conversation strategies that learners already use or may
know from their L1 helps to build generic knowledge. Students come to realize thateach stage is an integral part of casual conversation and should not be omitted.

How to Ask for Clarification

There are many ways to let someone know that you don’t understand. The right
response depends on where you are, the situation, and the relationship between the
speakers.

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I’m sorry. Could you repeat that please?
I’m sorry I didn’t hear you. Could you please say that again slowly?
You said…. ?
Did you say X or Y?
Pardon?
Excuse me?
What was that?
Say that again please?
I’m sorry, I don’t understand what ______ means.
Huh? (Only with close friends!)

Adapted from:http://busyteacher.org/14911-how-to-teach-students-ask-for-clarification.html

How to Encourage the Speaker

Make a comment

Really!

Ask a short question

Were you?

Repeat a word or phrase A: It can be minus 50 in winter.B: Minus 50!
Rephrase

A: Yes, it can be pretty awful.B:

Horrible.

Ask for more information What makes you say that?
Ask for an explanation

What do you mean?

Adapted from: Geddes, Sturtridge & Been (1994). Advanced Conversation.
Macmillan: UK

Even native English speakers who have not been trained may struggle to differentiate
an anecdote (a simple record plus a remarkable element) from a recount (a simple

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record) in daily conversational settings. Students in our program learn through the
Genre-Based Approach (GBA) to reading and writing, which helps them to build
knowledge through the teaching of whole texts. They come to understand how toapply their background knowledge to casual conversations. For new students in our
program in the current study, there was no L1 or L2 experience of the GBA and hence
they required detailed scaffolding and explicit instruction. One outcome of thisresearch is that the anecdote and recount as spoken discourse require systematic,
staged instruction over a number of classes, just as if they were texts on the page.
Casual conversation can be broken down into its generic functions: as such, thosefunctions need to be taught.

Modeling is not easy: an anecdote has to be a true happening in the past containing aremarkable event, to differentiate it from a simple recount, but as a model it tends tobecome artificial since it lacks the spontaneity of a real life situation:

Anecdote
S1

How was your day?

S2

[Orientation] Oh, you won’t believe what happened to me!

S1Really? What

S2

[Remarkable event] Well, I took the bus as usual, and there was an empty
seat next to me. When we stopped in the next town, an actress got on who I
had seen on TV and sat down next to me. I really wanted to ask her
something, but I don’t know her name. I was so excited, but you know, I
just couldn’t think of anything. Anyway, it was the most amazing
experience. I’ve been thinking about it all day long.

S1[Reaction] Wow!

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Recount
S1

How was your day?

S2

[Orientation] Oh, it was pretty good, thanks. [Record of events] I took
the bus to work, and fortunately it was on time. Just as I got to school it
started raining, but fortunately I didn’t get wet…

S1

…that was lucky…

S2…yeah, and [Record of events] our biology class was quite interesting
because we learnt about classifying the tropical plants that grow well at
this time of year, and I’d been wondering about that. It’s going to be on
the test.

S1

Right.

S2

Anyway, how about you?

S1

Yeah, my day was OK too: a bit tiring though.

Recounts need adapting to the real life context of the students or they soon become
contrived and students lose their engagement in the task.

In view of the research implications concerning inclusion and exclusion in thepedagogy (Rose, 2014), students were called upon to carry out a peer assessment via
an analogue sheet based on the research of Banks (2000). Their actions throughout theconversations were recorded using multiple audio and video recorders, with theassistance of classmates. What is left is a record of not only what was said, but who
was participating in the different modes at any one time.

The peer assessment has a pair of students talking and a pair of students recording
what they say. The instructor can observe and record what they say, and how they
smile, and who they look at. In meetings with students, it is possible to play therecording back to them and ask them to assess how much they participated, and elicit
from them what they have accomplished so far, as well as what they hope to work on

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and improve. Using a (functional) grammar reference enables instructors to analyze
the language used by the students, to apply what is known about written recounts totheir spoken recounts, thus breaking down precisely how the students are performing
and track their language development.

In the peer-assessed task, students are directed to talk about something real that
actually happened to them in the recent past. They practice doing this in class theweek prior to being recorded, to build confidence, check understanding, and ensure
they know what is expected of them. Reading back through the student-generated
notes, a pattern emerges in which the retelling of real-life occurrences in the recountpresents challenges, as does a basic grasp of grammatical structures. Yet within theparameters of the task for this class, it is apparent that the casual conversations are
structured, do have a good flow, and are a vast improvement on the long pauses andincomplete chats that preceded the research intervention.

Conversation skills
Objective ~ To practise the language you need to have a simple
conversation with an acquaintance
Instructions ~ Listen to each conversation: did the two speakers:

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S1

Start

S2

S3

S4

S5

S6

S7

S8

~ say hello?
~ use an opening
gambit?
~ talk about a sharedsituation or experience?

Continue~ ask questions?
~ seek clarification?
~ encourage?
~ tell an anecdote/recount?

Finish~ say they had to go?
~ give a reason why?
~ say when they would
meet again?
~ say goodbye?

The conversation should be at least one minute long.
Each speaker should be easy to understand, even though they may make a few
grammatical and pronunciation mistakes.

Adapted from: Banks, Peter (2000). 1 Measuring student performance in casualconversation. Section Two: Taking a close look at student performances. In de Silva
Joyce, Helen (ed.). Teachers’ Voices 6: Teaching casual conversation. National
Centre for English Language Teaching and Research Macquarie University
A typical completed observation sheet of a classroom dialogue reveals how much (orhow little) students have come to understand the structure of casual conversations.

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Frequently, a student observer would fail to check off the anecdote or recount, which
is challenging to identify in real time and still hard to notice for students even whenanalyzing the script. They were generally highly accurate in noticing when aclassmate missed one of the stages in the conversation. The record of multimodal
participation is of course still incomplete, but even so it is evidence of the genre-based
pedagogic discourse, with students not only learning to improve their casualconversations but also the ability to break down the language and structure. Together
with the literacy is the application of the technology to capture the engagement of thestudents.

Conclusion
The complex semiotic landscape of the classroom has huge implications for thepedagogic function of texts, whether written down or spoken in casual conversations.
Multimodal semiotic approaches supported by emerging technologies appear toengage students more and offer promising descriptions of the world around us. Thereis still so much more to be investigated and work to be done, especially when werealize that a classroom full of unique individuals cannot reach its language learningpotential simply through instinct and our teaching experience. Explicit teaching of
casual conversations does seem to represent a fruitful research direction.

REFERENCES
Banks, Peter (2000). 1 Measuring student performance in casual conversation. Section
Two: Taking a close look at student performances. In de Silva Joyce, Helen (ed.).
Teachers’ Voices 6: Teaching casual conversation. National Centre for English
Language Teaching and Research Macquarie University

Bezemer, J., Diamantopoulou, S., Jewitt, C., Kress, G., and Mavers, D. Using a Social
Semiotic Approach to Multimodality: Researching Learning in Schools, Museums andHospitals. NCRM Working paper (March 2012). Institute of Education: London, UK

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Derewianka, B. (1996). Exploring the writing of genres. Royston: United Kingdom
Reading Association.

de Silva Joyce, Helen (ed.). (2000). Teachers’ Voices 6: Teaching casualconversation. National Centre for English Language Teaching and Research
Macquarie University

Kress, G. (2010). Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary
Communication. UK: Routledge

Palmer, R. & Septina, N. (2013). Reflections on Using iPads for Teaching and
Learning. ETAS Vol. 30 #2, Spring 2013. pp.71-73

Palmer, R. & Tann Yin Yann, R. (2015a). How can a mobile device be effectively
utilised for studying in an e-learning context? Hirao School of Management Review(Konan University) Vol.5, 2015, pp.81-97

Palmer, R. & Tann Yin Yann, R. (2015b). Learner Use of Personal Learning
Environments in Education. Konan University, Education and Research Center for
Information Science, Bulletin No. 14, 2015, pp. 1-36

Rose, David. (2014). Analysing pedagogic discourse: an approach from genre andregister. Functional Linguistics 2014 1:11

Introduction of researchers（Order of writing）
Keiko Yoshida

Associate Professor
Institute for Language and Culture
Konan University

Brent A. Jones

Professor
Hirao School of Management
Konan University

Mayumi Asaba

Fixed-Term Instructor
Hirao School of Management
Konan University

Roger Palmer

Associate Professor
Hirao School of Management
Konan University

2020年(令和2年)2月28日 発行
甲南大学総合研究所
神戸市東灘区岡本8丁目9番1号 (〒658-8501)（非売品）