IAFOR Journal of Education: Undergraduate Education

Volume 8 – Issue 3 – 2020

Social Support for International Students in Foreign Language Classroom
Communities of Practice
Takuya Kojima
Ca’ Foscari University of Venice
Italy

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Abstract
Drawing on communities of practice, this article considers social support for international
students in Japanese as a foreign language classroom at an Australian university. Social
support, which is a means of promoting well-being, is often set outside international students’
day-to-day routines, especially outside classrooms in that academic support is a primaryconcern. Language education studies concerning student emotional experiences acknowledge
that classrooms are venues for emotional turmoil and thus call for more attention on classrooms
to better understand and support student learning. Yet, in-class social support has been underdiscussed to date. This qualitative case study focused on four international students in an
introductory Japanese course within a Japanese program community of practice and analyzed
the data collected over a 13-week semester using a reflexive thematic analysis to write four
vignettes. The vignettes highlight that the students felt stressed in their daily and academic
lives, and built, gave, received, and benefited from social support in the classroom. The social
support impacted not only their Japanese learning, but also their study for other subjects; thatis, it enhanced their overall well-being as students. Exploring in-class social support using acommunity of practice perspective helped elucidate how educators can promote social support
in foreign language classrooms. Further, it prompted us to reconsider what classrooms are for,and underlined the importance of paying attention to such support to enhance the well-beingof international students who are likely to face challenges frequently.
Keywords: classroom, communities of practice, emotional experiences, foreign language,international students, social support, vignette

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Social support has become as important as academic support for international students at
Australian universities. This is because their day-to-day living is challenging. The students not
only have to manage a heavy study workload delivered via unaccustomed teaching methods,
but also contend with everyday life without family support, in a place where encounters withthe unfamiliar are all-too-common (Forbes-Mewett & Sawyer, 2016). Not all, but many ofthem face such challenges using English as their additional language, which is why language
education studies concern them (Page & Chahboun, 2019). Further, international students areoften under the pressure of hefty fees, restricting flexible academic paths. Therefore, they arelikely to have emotional, cultural, and financial issues impacting their mental health and wellbeing (Blum et al., 2012; Rosenthal et al., 2008; Stallman & Scochet, 2009). Social support
refers to connections and resources within a social network that improve mental health andpromote well-being (Pavri & Monda-Amaya, 2001; Shumaker & Hill, 1991). Providing
effective social support is likely to enhance international student well-being and resultant
academic performance.
Today, social support is often seen as an add-on that sits outside international students’ dayto-day living routines. For instance, a cultural mentor program, social clubs, counselingservices, and an international student welcome support desk at an airport are available in thecase of the university where the author conducted this study. These types of social support
expect international students to be proactive and utilize such opportunities and services
voluntarily. Yet, doing so is becoming harder and harder for them due to “greater timepressures, a larger range of courses and accompanying time-tabling complexities, and thegrowth of casual and part-time jobs in the 24/7 economy” (Forbes-Mewett & Sawyer, 2016, p.
672). Thus, exploring alternative means of social support is needed. This article focuses onclassrooms embedded in their day-to-day living routines, yet often assumed to primarily focus
on academic support (Pavri & Monda-Amaya, 2001).
This article aims to explore classrooms as spaces to facilitate social support for international
students, drawing on a case of a Japanese as a Foreign Language (JFL) education classroom at
an Australian university. JFL classrooms are on the focus because Japanese is both the target
and the medium of learning; therefore, such social spaces may not immediately define power
relationships based on the ability to use English as social and cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1991;
Razfar, 2005). The theoretical underpinning of this article is communities of practice (E.
Wenger-Trayner & B. Wenger-Trayner, 2015), setting the goal of learning as “community
building” and seeing learning as “belonging, participating and communicating” (Sfard, 1998,
p. 7). Despite the critique that classrooms are unlikely to have all the features of CoP (Haneda,
2006; Wenger, 1998), it is argued that it is possible for classrooms to become closer to CoP
when CoP informs the educational practice (Nagao, 2018). The JFL course design this article
examines is informed by the concepts of CoP (Thomson, 2017). Focusing on such CoP-likeclassrooms is best suited for consideration of in-class social support. However, such studies
have been scarce to date.
In the following sections, studies concerning student well-being in the field of language
education are overviewed, CoP is explained, and the literature drawing on CoP is reviewed toclarify the needs of the current study. Then, this article presents the methodology: the cases,
data sources, and analysis method employed to achieve this study’s aim. After describing theJapanese course as the background of the findings, four vignettes of focal participants areprovided. The discussion considers the effect of in-class social support for the students, how
the JFL classrooms come to offer social support and emotional experiences with social support

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Volume 8 – Issue 3 – 2020in the classrooms. The article concludes by discussing the limitations of this study andsuggesting future studies.
Literature Review
Learners’ mental health and well-being have been one of the major concerns for studies on
emotions, “conscious feelings that evoke reactions in individuals” such as enjoyment,
happiness, hope, surprise, anger, fear, shame, or boredom (Ross, 2015, p. 12), in the field of
language education. As often reported (López & Aguilar, 2013; Macintyre et al., 2009; Oxford,1990), “intense emotional experiences … direct interactions, affect learning and performanceand influence personal growth” of students (Pekrun et al., 2007, p. 13). For instance, anxiety
over examinations, evaluations, and grading (judgment) has been found to affect student
performance negatively (Zheng, 2008). Such studies are often in the cognitive paradigm andisolate and detect variables as static features of individuals (for example gender, ethnicity, andcultural background) that might affect one’s emotions and performance (Harzem, 2004; Ross,
2015). Thus, what matters has been what is inside each individual. Dörnyei (2009) argued thatclassrooms have been seen as “venues for a great deal of emotional turmoil, yet affect has beenan almost completely neglected topic” (p. 219, emphasis added by the author). This suggeststhat paying greater attention to classrooms may help better understand emotional experiences
and support language learners.
Since a social turn (Block, 2003), the field of language education has expanded its focus toward
how environments affect learning. Studies in the field began examining social aspects of thelanguage learner’s emotions through more qualitative-oriented approaches (Garett & Young,2009). In such studies, language learners are seen as “whole persons with hearts, bodies, andminds, with memories, fantasies, loyalties, [and] identities” (Kramsch, 2006, p. 251). A
sociocultural view understands that their language learning “is grounded in social interaction
and conditioned by social, cultural and historical contexts” (Benson & Cocker, 2013, p. 1).
From this viewpoint, the learning of such learners can be enhanced when an effective learning
environment is designed.
The current study draws on CoP to discuss such a learning environment design. CoP is a social
theory of learning that sheds light on relationships between learning and the learning
environment. It is defined as “group[s] of people who share a concern or a passion forsomething they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly” (E. Wenger-Trayner& B. Wenger-Trayner, 2015, p. 1). There are three foundational elements of CoP: domain, ashared passion or concern; practice, regular interactions with each other in a certain way; andcommunity, a social platform where members trust each other and feel a sense of belonging.
When these three develop, a community as a CoP enables and enhances learning as
participation. Learning as participation occurs as newcomers continuously build theirrelationships with the other members, concepts, and tools in a CoP. In doing so, they come tosee themselves, and others come to see them, as competent, contributing, and indispensable
members. With such mutually established membership, the members grow collective
responsibility and engage with collective learning (E. Wenger-Trayner & B. Wenger-Trayner,2015). Studies have so far employed CoP to investigate, understand, and design effective
communities for such collective learning. Yet, these studies caution us to explore classrooms
carefully.
Studies drawing on CoP have indicated that facing challenges is more common than assumed
for students in classrooms. For instance, Jang (2017) demonstrated how a classroom where

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Volume 8 – Issue 3 – 2020prescriptive correctness stands as an overt standard for judgment can be a stressful space, as it
creates unequal power relationships among class members with different types of social status
and positions. Specifically, Jang’s study revealed the power of high English proficiency in acontext where English is the primary language of communication for learning content. In her
study, the hierarchical relationships between a native teacher and students and then Englishnative students and non-English-native students are established. Yet, she also illustrated thatsuch relationships are still subject to negotiation and change. Jang argued that a certain levelof language proficiency is usually expected for each type of class, which shapes the student
experience in classrooms. Lantolf and Genung (2002) reported the case of a struggling student
in a Chinese language classroom due to the unnegotiable power relationship between the classteacher with a particular learning belief and the student with an opposing belief. In short,classrooms are often considered as “site[s] of struggle” (Darvin & Norton, 2015, p. 36).
Such struggles may arise in the studies employing CoP because the classrooms in the studies
are unlikely to function as CoP in its original sense. This is due to misalignments between
classroom realities and CoP as a theoretical construct. While a full discussion on themisalignments is given on other occasions, the following are a few instances relevant to thecurrent article. First, learning is at the center of attention in classrooms, while the practice iscentral in CoP (Wenger, 1998). Members in CoP participate to practice their knowledge andskills to satisfy a shared interest or solve a shared issue (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Learning
occurs as an integral part of the practice. Second, membership makeups differ. CoP expects tohave members with varying lengths of experience, from newcomers to members with sufficientexperience and master practitioners. In contrast, classrooms usually have a teacher and students
beginning to participate at the same time.
Despite the misalignments, adjusting foreign language (FL) classroom realities to CoP maylead to turning classrooms into CoP-like communities (Nagao, 2018; Thomson, 2017). Yet,learning in classrooms where CoP informs educational design is still underexplored. In
particular, how CoP-like classrooms impact on students with a focus on classrooms as spaces
for social support has not yet been thoroughly discussed.
Methodology
The current study is part of a larger study conducted to theorize a special CoP for FL classrooms
drawing on introductory JFL classrooms in a Japanese program CoP connecting all courses in
the program and surrounding communities (Thomson & Mori, 2015). In the program, students
can find various peers, purposes, and settings, which are often scarce in FL learning settings,
for their learning to be interactional, motivational, and authentic. The classrooms in this study
are considered as special CoP-like classrooms (Kojima, 2019).
This qualitative study focuses on four students’ experiences, Claire, Susie, Roy, and Raymond,as the focal cases of international students undertaking a FL course at an Australian university.
These names are pseudonyms to protect the privacy of the students. They were the onlyinternational students among 13 student-participants of the larger study and, thus, were chosen.
This study had two tiers. First, it aims to explore the complexity and uniqueness of a particular
entity in a real-life setting using multiple data sources. Second, it compares collective cases toachieve a well-rounded understanding of and insight into the interest of the study (Thomas,
2011).
The data came from observation notes, semi-structured interviews, and journals collected overa 13-week semester and was approved by the university ethics committee where the data was29

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collected. Each week, the author observed four seminars (explained later), from Week 4, when
all potential participants in each class gave permission, to Week 13. From these four, the author
focuses on two seminars: Claire and Susie attended the same seminar, and Roy and Raymondattended the same seminar. The observation notes contain the student seating, teacher
instructions, activities, notable conversations among class members, and the author’s
afterthoughts. In three one-hour interviews, conducted in Week 7, 10 and 13, the studentparticipants reflected on and described their learning experiences, focusing on their
participation, relationship with others, and identity in the course. Three 200-word journals,
collected before each interview session, report first impressions of the course, experiences
regarding the interaction test (explained later), and what helped or hindered their active
participation.
A reflexive thematic analysis of this study aims to interpret, construct, develop, and tellcontext-situated stories through thoughtful, reflective, active, and prolonged immersion in data
(Braun & Clarke, 2019). It was guided by the purpose of this study while allowing for emergent
themes, e.g. socialization. The analysis of individual cases identified how the participants
increasingly received social support as the semester progressed. Meanwhile, the analysis foundhow such social support enhanced their learning experience. A cross-case analysis (Schwandt,
2001) at a later stage looked for commonalities and differences among the four cases to
elucidate salient experiences of the four focal students.
This article presents findings as four vignettes; short scenarios of reflexive interpretive
accounts illustrating complex research findings and their theoretical embedding narratively(Langer, 2016). The emotions of the researchers are often shared in vignettes. The author, who
had been an international student at an Australian university in the past, could better present
the emotions of Claire, Susie, Roy, and Raymond through vignettes.
Research Context
The first-semester introductory Japanese course at an Australian university was designed for
those with little learning experience of Japanese. The objectives were for students to become
capable of talking about themselves and familiar topics, e.g., university life and daily routines,
as well as writing in the three writing systems; namely, Hiragana, Katakana, and a small setof elementary Kanji. The course had five assessment tasks. Seminars had an oral assessment
called an interaction test, which was worth 25% of the total mark. It involved pairs of students
preparing outside class time and presenting a five- to seven-minute performance. They peerevaluated each other in the form of voting for the top three pairs who received bonus points,
together with the mark from their teacher. The rest were two dictation tests, a mid-term
examination, and a final examination. More than 80% of attendance was required to take thefinal examination.
The course was expected to be challenging as is evident in the average failure rate of the course
in previous years being approximately 15%, higher than the university average of 8%, despite
years of high satisfaction rates and large numbers of positive feedbacks in student evaluations.
The pace of the learning was considered approximately twice as fast as learning at secondary
schools.
The course in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences is primarily for first-year students
majoring in arts. In reality, it consisted of students from all years (from first to near graduating)and all nine faculties (including fine art, business, engineering, and science). This was due to30

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the course being one of the general education or free elective subjects. Full-time students took
up the Japanese course as one of four courses in the semester, whichever degree program they
undertook. Nearly 400 students were enrolled in the course.
Every week, students attended two-hour lectures with about 200 students, one-hour tutorials
with about 25 students, and then two-hour seminars with about 25 students. Lectures
introduced new topics followed by short activities with neighboring students, tutorials asked
students to engage with middle-length interactive activities, and seminars provided longer andmore complex activities. All types of classes employed a social and interactive mode oflearning as its underlying educational approach. Students were expected to prepare beforehand
to participate in interactions using Japanese in classes.
In the seminars, the students engaged with varieties of interactive pair and group activities suchas homework checks, forming short sentences, interviewing each other, reading dialogues
aloud, and role-plays comprising almost 90% of class time; . Seminar teachers monitored andsupported their students when needed after providing brief instructions about activities andquickly clarifying grammar points. One to a few support members, called Senpais (senior
students), came from the university’s advanced Japanese courses to facilitate the student
interactive mode of learning with the seminar teachers and add variety to class interactions
such as presenting a model role-play with the teacher (Thomson, 1998). The author in the focal
seminars acted as one of the Senpais while conducting observations.
To facilitate pair and group interactions, seminar members arranged desks and seats so thestudents could form groups of four to six and face each other. The students often discussed
issues with each other as the teacher and Senpais could not attend to all students at the sametime. During the activities, including role-plays, students were encouraged to use not only the
information in the textbook but also to include their own information. Such interactions aimed
to allow students to show who they were and get to know each other. To know each other as
people with names, they created a paper name card when the semester started. A few studentsbrought them out when each class started and displayed it on a desk until the class ended.
Findings
Clair’s Vignette
Claire was an Indonesian, second-year student majoring in marketing and finance. She came
to Australia after graduating from a secondary school in Singapore. Initially, her pleasant visit
to Japan just before the semester began and desire to befriend students from different faculties,
as her sibling did, motivated Claire to take up the course as her general education subject.
Another reason for taking the course was her intention to create a breathing space in her
intensive and, more importantly, stressful university studies. Her marketing and financecourses focused on “self-learning … you sit down, look through the textbook, [and] do yourhomework” (third interview). Students were expected to say correct answers, and she felt
“dumb” when failing to do so (first interview). Their participation was not voluntary but only
accounted for “five percent of [their] mark” (third interview). In such courses, Claire felt there
was no room for “self-expression,” which she thought was essential to knowing andbefriending each other (second interview).
Unlike in the marketing and finance courses, Claire expressed herself in the “lively,” “openminded,” “amicable,” “conducive,” “cheerful,” “light-hearted,” and “enjoyable” learning
environment of her seminar (first interview, first journal). Claire emphasized that she was31

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“never afraid to make mistakes or ask questions” in the seminar where she would not be judged
based on what she said (first journal). Her participation was voluntary and genuine in theseminar. Such an atmosphere emerged due to the interactive learning and assessment activities,
which were consistent over the semester. While the regular interactive tasks built the firm
foundation of her positive experience, the highlight was when Claire and her partner were peervoted as the top pair in the interaction test. She explained they “successfully pushed[themselves] out of comfort zones, developed [their] creative thinking and strengthened [their]friendship” (second journal). After the test, she felt not only “a surge of relief” but also
“reward[ed]” (second journal).
The Japanese course was indeed “challenging” for Claire (first interview). Yet, the social
networks encouraged her to complete homework, attend classes, and participate fully in theactivities. Claire explained that her motivation to complete homework partly came from “peerpressure” (third interview). However, she also associated completing homework withenjoyably checking it with her classmates and thus used Japanese homework to reduce thestress she felt from the finance and marketing subjects.
Claire summarized what she experienced as “cohesive learning,” in which the students
simultaneously “socialized” and learned Japanese from one another (third interview). She
befriended her group members and was acquainted with many classmates from different
faculties as she looked forward. To her, the seminar was a “very supportive learning
environment where [they could] collectively learn from everyone” (third journal). She
pleasantly completed the “challenging” course and continued onto the second-semester
introductory course.
Susie’s Vignette
Susie was a Chinese, first-year student majoring in psychological science. She moved toAustralia when she joined the second-last year of an Australian high school. With an activeand ‘outdoorsy’ personality, she enjoyed the culture of Sydney, for example going to beaches
and hiking. However, she lived with a host-family who had specific dietary rules due toreligious reasons. She often felt stressed as she could not eat some of her favorite Chinese
cuisines at home.
Since she was young, Susie had longed to study Japanese due to her keen interest in“charming” and “attractive” Japanese pop-culture (JPC) such as Japanese animation (firstinterview). She could finally start studying Japanese at the university as Japanese courses were
not offered at her high school. She looked forward to meeting classmates with similar interests,
and planned to continue learning Japanese through to an advanced level so she could watch
anime without subtitles, communicate fluently with other speakers of Japanese, and live inJapan
When her very first semester at the university commenced, Susie “always th[ought] that others[were] doing better than [her]” in all courses (second interview). She identified “English[being] their first language” as one of the primary reasons for feeling inferior (second
interview). Yet, the Japanese course soon became the one she could enjoy. This was because
frequent pair and group interactions focusing on tone, pitch, attentive feedback, and bodylanguage allowed her to feel like a Japanese speaker, which differed from her usual self.
Further, such interactions helped her befriend classmates from different academic and cultural
backgrounds but with shared interests in JPC. Susie said, she made “close friends” with a“strong link [and] strong connection” in the seminar (third interview).

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Susie underwent further delightful experiences. She realized that the students, including
herself, often laughed when they made mistakes. However, it was not “playful” but a “friendly
laugh” (first interview). They often made similar mistakes and therefore laughed together toshare and reduce the feeling of embarrassment and face the challenge of learning Japanese
together. Moreover, the teachers quickly remembered student names, including hers, unlike theteachers in other courses, which pleasantly surprised her (first interview). Susie found theinteraction test challenging and felt “super nervous” (second interview). Yet, she felt lessnervous and remained focused as her classmates continued looking and smiling at her nicely
during her performance.
In the seminar, many students were senior to her so Susie could learn not only Japanese but
also “how to survive” at the university (first journal). As the semester progressed, managing
the study workload of four courses became increasingly difficult. However, she could “always
complain [about her] work,” “share [her] problems,” and receive both practical and affective
support from her seminar classmates (third interview).
Despite all the positive experiences, Susie did not pass the course. She could not spend enoughtime studying for the final examination of Japanese due to the excessive workload of her othersubjects. Nevertheless, she told the author how content she was about the entire experience in
the Japanese course when we happened to come across each other on campus after the semester
ended.
Roy’s Vignette
Roy was a Chinese (Cantonese speaker), third-year student majoring in computer engineering.
Since his first year, he had struggled to manage the study for the engineering courses, which
often included several projects, presentations, and written assignments within one semester.
Further, the engineering courses were stressful, as the students often “show[ed] off” their skills
and knowledge without considering “other’s feeling[s]” (second interview). Roy took up theJapanese course as his general education subject. He was interested in music composition using
Japanese-origin artificial voice, Japanese artisans, and traveling to Japan one day. His Japanesestudy was to equip himself with Japanese skills sufficient for daily basics and future travel. He
came to the course with his friend, Raymond (whose vignette appears below), and they attended
lectures and seminars together.
The first impression Roy had about the course was “welcom[ing]” (first interview). Despite
there being students already ahead - like Raymond, who self-studied Japanese beforehand Roy did not feel left behind as his classmates, teachers, and Senpais were kind, patient, andsupportive. Yet, the fast-paced course was not easy for Roy, who started from the point
expected by the course and who was still preoccupied with the heavy workload of othersubjects. Over the interaction test period, he felt further stress due to his partner Raymond’s
seriousness, much higher proficiency level, and expectation. However, Roy coped with the testby negotiating to change the original script written by Raymond into a manageable andentertaining one. On the test day, he heard his classmates saying, “Come on, Roy! It’s yourtime!” which he highly appreciated (second interview). He felt that his pair’s successfulinteraction test performance, supported by his classmates and peer-voted as the top pair, opened
up his “potential” and personality, unlike the “really stressful” “on-your-own” presentations
in his engineering courses (second interview). Both his pair and his group members performed
well. After the test, Roy, Raymond, and their group members had a celebration dinner together.

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Roy used to judge courses by his performance compared to the other students, which gave him
more psychological “burdens” and occasionally resulted in a sort of “depression” (thirdinterview). However, he stopped doing this in the Japanese course after the interaction test. For
him, the Japanese classes became “relaxing” and “refreshing,” which took away some of his“burdens” (third interview).
Feeling relaxed did not mean that Roy stopped doing his best in Japanese. He further increased
his “curiosity” in his study of Japanese and started to attend the lecture twice (in the morningand afternoon) toward the end of the semester (third interview). He even surprised himself by
not missing any Japanese classes, unlike the engineering classes, which he skipped as often as
he could. While his overall grade was not high, he enjoyably completed the course.
Raymond’s Vignette
Raymond was a Chinese, third-year student majoring in mechanical engineering. As a student
near graduation with a sound understanding of university study, he did not express any concern
regarding his study. However, he mentioned the gap between his way of spending leisure time,such as cooking at home with friends, and the typical Australian ways of spending time atcafés, beaches, mountains, and pubs. He called this his culture shock.
Raymond took up the Japanese course as a general education subject to fulfill his degree
requirements. He was partly motivated by his interest in JPC but was also considering enteringa master’s degree program in Japan, which he felt had a strong mechanical engineering
industry, which pushed Raymond to study Japanese. He had already self-studied Japanese,learning Hiragana, Katakana, and some expressions, and he had even considered taking theintermediate Japanese course. However, Roy was not able to do the same, so Raymond chosethe introductory course, which was rather for “leisure [and] joy or [a] WAM-booster” (firstjournal). WAM is weighted average mark.
In reality, Raymond occasionally experienced frustration and struggle, instead of “joy,”regardless of his high academic performance. During interactive activities, he often could notreach his full potential as the content was “too easy” for him, but not for the others (thirdinterview). While preparing for the interaction test, he also expressed his dissatisfaction at
having to make a “performance reduction” to accommodate Roy, despite it resulting in thebest performance in their seminar (second journal).
Even under such circumstances, Raymond maintained high motivation. He found andeffectively drew on opportunities to communicate with Senpais. He challenged himself in suchopportunities and satisfied his curiosity by asking Senpais questions beyond the course content.
During the interaction test, he observed his classmates supporting each other through clapping,making eye contact, and saying good luck. To him, it was “a model of the society” where
everyone encouraged each other to feel “less stressful” (second interview). He started
engaging in frequent interactions with his classmates about not only Japanese learning but also
university studies, such as engineering, and personal interests. Raymond described theexperience in the seminar as “the simulation of real making friend[s]” (third journal). It was asimulation because everyone was different from who they were outside the seminar whenplaying Japanese-speaking-selves. Yet, the friends they made were “real” (third journal).
Over the semester, Roy observed Raymond spending a greater amount of time on studying
Japanese than his engineering subjects. Yet, Roy said, Raymond performed in the engineeringcourses better than previous semesters. Roy thought that Japanese learning brought Raymond34

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“confidence” and “good motivation,” which affected Raymond’s overall academic
performance (third interview).
Discussion
Effect of In-Class Social Support
This article has illustrated that Claire, Susie, Roy, and Raymond gained social support in theseminars. As international students, they felt stressed in their academic and daily living as
anticipated (Blum et al., 2012). The stress was certainly a burden for them, yet not to the extent
that they needed to seek external support like counselling (Forbes-Mewett & Sawyer, 2016).
International students like them may be quite common. The current study found that they copedwith or even reduced such moderate stress and enhanced well-being, which appeared to affecttheir academic performance positively. Notably, the effect went beyond the seminars. Claire
reduced her stress from her business course using Japanese homework, Susie learned “how tosurvive” at the university, Roy lifted the “burdens” of his engineering courses, and Raymondgained “confidence” and “good motivation” to do well in his engineering courses. Thissuggests how impactful social support just in one classroom can become. Classrooms are seen
as venues primarily for academic support (Pavri & Monda-Amaya, 2001). Social support isoften provided outside classrooms, which international students are expected to accessvoluntarily. Social support could also be promoted and effective in JFL classrooms embeddedin their day-to-day living.
How Social Support Arises
The emergence of social support in the seminars was not coincidental. Using the educational
devices informed by CoP, students, teachers, and Senpais were able to pursue “community
building” and engage in learning as “belonging, participating and communicating” (Sfard,
1998, p. 7). The result of community building and “cohesive learning” was “real”
relationships that promoted social support for one another. Socialization played a pivotal rolein the seminars. Learning Japanese became not their exclusive focus, but an integral part ofsocializing with each other, unlike typical classrooms (Wenger, 1998). Knowing each other as
people with names enhanced the community building process and sense of membership, as
Susie noted. One entire seminar may not have become CoP as the students did not know allother members well, as Claire befriended her group members but only acquainted with theother classmates. Yet, the seminars were turning toward being CoP-like classrooms containing
several sub-CoPs, which enabled social support to arise, develop, and function.
The membership makeup was as crucial as socialization to ensure social support in theseminars. For instance, Raymond had a head start, but his knowledge and skills were initially
not recognized as the social and cultural capital in the seminar (Bourdieu, 1991). Yet, Raymond
approached Senpais, who could recognize his resources as the capital. He first built
relationships with Senpais, and then with his classmates. He could have been isolated and thus
received little social support if there was only a teacher and students as exists in typicalclassrooms. Power relationships exist in classrooms, and they are unequal (Jang, 2017).
Particular students are disadvantaged when a hierarchical relationship is established andmaintained (Lantolf & Genung, 2002). Intriguingly, even students with more resources like
Raymond could be disadvantaged. His experience alerts us to the importance of enrichingmembership makeups to avoid the stagnation of particular students in classrooms as students
who prepare in advance for upcoming courses may not be rare.

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The unique features of the Japanese course seemed to facilitate social support in the seminars.
Notably, including students from all years and all faculties stimulated the students’ curiositywith one another. Students with a wide variety of academic backgrounds may be common inany courses open as general education and free elective subjects. Yet, this appeared lesscommon in the classes for only the students majoring in the same degree. Thus, for students tobecome aware of the feature, it is better brought to their attention unless they know it
beforehand, like Claire. It was also notable that the focal students entered the Japanese coursewith expectations of it providing breathing space, opportunities to meet students with sharedinterests in JPC, and even a course for “leisure.” Feeling “light-hearted” rather than stressed
may have helped them get to know their classmates willingly. English proficiency was not at
the forefront of the concern, as Susie’s experience implies (Jang, 2017). However, this was not
the concern for the others. The near-graduating students who had established strategies forcoping with their university study, like Raymond, and the students with competent academic
English, like Claire, who studied long enough in Singapore, may not have been very concerned
about English.
Emotional Experiences in Classrooms with Social Support
The focal students did not experience only “joy” in the seminars, even with social support. As
Claire noted, the Japanese course was “challenging,” even for Raymond, as discussed above.
This was especially evident around the interaction test, as preparation was “stressful,” students
were “nervous” on the test day and felt "a surge of relief” after the test. Yet, mutual support
may have been highlighted because the test was “challenging.” Besides, they could feel“rewarded” after the test as Claire went beyond her “comfort zone” and Roy opened up his“potential” in learning Japanese. This suggests that emotions like anxiety, fear, shame, andfrustration may not always negatively impact a student’s growth; rather, such feelings may be
crucial for student growth. Conversely, emotions like enjoyment and happiness alone may notnecessarily result in student growth, as demonstrated by Raymond, who first sought “leisure[and] joy” but ended up voluntarily seeking challenges to learn more and more. This study has
affirmed that emotional experiences impact student growth (Pekrun et al., 2007). More
importantly, it suggests that satisfying study experiences may not be filled with only “leisure[and] joy” but ups and downs accompanied by a wide range of emotional experiences, whichfunctions positively with social support.
Seeing such learning with a wide range of emotional experiences as positive makes us revisit
the purpose of classrooms. Students were often expected to know correct answers before
coming to classes, as Claire and Roy explained. In such classrooms, students spoke up to provethat they knew the answers, gain points toward the overall grade, and even “show off” theirsuperiority to the other students. Those who failed to say the correct answers and were seen as“dumb” would have seldom tried again. It is understandable that students, like Roy, experiencea sort of “depression” (López & Aguilar, 2013). Indeed, the Japanese course expected thestudents to prepare before each class. Yet, failing was nothing wrong. They instead welcomedmaking mistakes with a “friendly laugh,” raised concerns without hesitation, and encouraged
one another when facing challenging tasks. By one definition, classrooms exist for students tolearn; that is, become able to do something they were previously unable to do. This process
should include both failures arousing fear, shame and frustration and successes arousing
enjoyment and happiness. If this is allowed, encouraged, and supported, students can come toclassrooms to learn further and further, like Roy, who attended repeated lectures twice on thesame day.

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How the students in the seminars perceived their learning experiences was not necessarily
determined by their academic grades. The introductory Japanese course set learning objectives
that applied to all students. Roy and Susie missed some objectives. They could have felt
dissatisfied and lost motivation midway. Yet, both reached the end of the course and departed
the course full of pleasant experiences. This could be because the learning outcomes Roy andSusie uniquely achieved within the course duration were not necessarily fewer than otherstudents, especially students like Raymond, who already knew the content covered in thecourse. It appeared normal that those course objectives did not capture all individual learning
outcomes of nearly 400 students who stood at different start lines, underwent different
pathways, and crossed different goal lines (Kramsch, 2006). Yet, their unique learning
experiences were not dismissed but recognized and valued by not only themselves but also
their classmates, teacher and Senpais since their successes were results of not an individual but
a collective endeavor. Student learning experiences in such classrooms may turn into theirpersonal growth in a wider and longer-term sense and might be more meaningful andempowering than just accumulating knowledge regarding Japanese especially for thosestudying it not as part of their major.
Conclusion
This article posited that CoP-like JFL classrooms could function as spaces where international
students built, provided, gained, and benefited from social support without voluntarily
accessing services outside their day-to-day lives. The positive outcomes of in-class social
support went beyond the walls of the classrooms. Further, considering social support in JFL
classrooms in this article has highlighted the need to reevaluate the purpose of classrooms. This
article has brought to light the significance of paying attention to and facilitating social supportin university JFL classrooms.
However, studies reporting and examining similar attempts remain scarce. Further studies
focusing on similar aspects of FL education practice and student learning would reveal moretypes of outcomes, as well as challenges, for effectively implementing CoP-informed
educational practice to promote in-class social support. Notably, this study only focused oninternational students in one classroom; yet classrooms are always situated in a broader
sociopolitical context (Holland & Lave, 2001). Future studies could consider relationships
among experiences in multiple contexts and communities to achieve a more well-rounded
understanding of international student experience. Further, student university lives extend
beyond one semester, continuing over three or four years; thus, a longer-term perspective
would be important for future studies.

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Corresponding author: Takuya Kojima
Contact email: takuya.kojima@unive.it

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