THE LEARNER DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL
学習者ディベロップメント研究部会誌
ISSN: 2433-5401
https://ldjournal.ld-sig.org

The Learner Development Journal Issue 6:
Learner Development Beyond The Classroom
Author: Aya Hayasaki
Title: Beyond the Classroom, Beyond the Track: The Role of English in the Transformation of
Career Perspectives in Three Females in Rural Japan
Date of publication online: 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.37546/JALTSIG.LDJ6-6
Author contact: <hayaaya(at)gmail(dot)com>
Published by the Japan Association for Language Teaching
Learner Development Special Interest Group, Tokyo
https://ld-sig.org/
Copyright 2022 each respective author
This article can be cited as:
Hayasaki, A. (2022). Beyond the classroom, beyond the track: The role of English in
the transformation of career perspectives in three females in rural Japan. The Learner
Development Journal, 6, 82–96. https://doi.org/10.37546/JALTSIG.LDJ6-6

This article is part of a collection of practitioner research on the theme of “Learner
Development Beyond the Classroom” for Issue 6 of the Learner Development Journal (LDJ6),
edited by Isra Wongsarnpigoon, Dominique Vola Ambinintsoa, Phillip A. Bennett, and André
Parsons. Published once a year, each issue of the Learner Development Journal follows a
Community of ractices approach over a period of approximately 18 months in which
contributors work together, under the guidance of the editors, to share, respond to, anddevelop their research and writing.
Articles are published in the Learner Development Journal under a Creative Commons Attribution
License (CC BY), of which CC BY 4.0 is the most recent version. Under this agreement, authors
grant users the right to unrestricted dissemination and re-use of the work. They ask only thatproper attribution is given to the work.

PAPER
Beyond the Classroom, Beyond the Track: The
Role of English in the Transformation of Career
Perspectives in Three Females in Rural Japan
Aya Hayasaki, Waseda University, Japan<hayaaya(at)gmail(dot)com>
This study explores the process of perspective shifting among female English language learners who
participated in an English project-based learning programme in rural Japan. In Japan, academic achievement
and career aspirations are determined by socioeconomic status, gender, and region. However, in English
language education in Japan, there has not been sufficient research addressing the learning experiencesof individuals considering such social contexts beyond the classroom. Therefore, this study investigates
the reality and potential of English language learning among women living in rural areas� Three female
graduates of a senior high school in Kagoshima Prefecture were purposively selected, and a 90-minute semistructured interview was conducted with each. Trajectory equifinality modelling (Sato et al., 2009) was used
for data analysis. The findings revealed how the three women overcame different constraints, including lackof access to diverse role models and peers, few opportunities to make meaningful connections between
English language learning and real life, and parental attitudes towards investment in language educationand family financial situation. Given the current state of educational inequality, this study represents a
proposal to further the debate on how English language learning can make a meaningful difference to anindividual’s overall life and subsequent career choices.

本研究は、日本の地方において、英語でのプロジェクト型学習プログラムに参加した女性英語学習者の意識変容過程を探索する。
日
本では、学力や進路希望は社会経済的地位、性別、地域によって規定される（松岡、2019）。
しかし、英語教育においては、教室を超えたそのような社会的文脈を考慮した個人の学習経験について十分に研究されていない。
そこで本研究では、地方出身女性の英語学習の実態と可能性を探った。
鹿児島県内の高校を卒業した女性3名を合目的的サンプリングで選定し、それぞれに90分の半構造化面接を実施した。
データ分析には、複線径路・等至性モデル (Sato et al., 2009) を使用した。
結果として、3名の女性が、多様なロール
モデルや仲間との接点の少なさ、英語学習と実生活を有意義に結びつける機会の少なさ、言語教育への投資に対する親の考え方や家庭の経済状況に関する課題など、様々な制約を克服した過程が明らかになった。
教育格差の現状を踏まえ、本研究は、英語学習が個人の人生全体やその後のキャリア選択に意味のある変化をもたらすことをめざし、議論を深めることを提案するものである。

Keywords
learning beyond the classroom, project-based learning, gender, rural context, trajectory equifinality modeling
教室を超えた学習、
プロジェクト型学習、ジェンダー、地方、複線径路・等至性モデル

Japan is a society with educational inequality by international standards: Not only an
individual’s academic ability, but also educational expectations (how far they want to go
in education, such as going to university) and career expectations (what kind of job theywant) are defined by the socioeconomic status (SES), gender, and region of the family
in which they grew up (Matsuoka, 2019a). In particular, environmental factors such as
the availability of learning opportunities beyond the classroom, as well as cultural andhistorical characteristics of the region and school, are thought to contribute to inequalities
in access to and the quality of English language education (e.g., Matsuoka, 2010; Mori, 2018,
Yamamura, 2021). Regardless of their own efforts, young people’s career paths are oriented,
or tracked (Oakes, 2005), within this system of reproducing inequalities (Kariya, 2012).
However, little is known about the mechanisms that enable students from suchdisadvantaged backgrounds to pursue their desired careers, including admission to top-tieruniversities. To build a society in which all people, regardless of background, can have hope82

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for the future and choose a career path from a diverse range of options, it is imperative
to qualitatively examine the why and how of cases that have succeeded in overcoming
the constraints of educational inequalities in a specific context. Therefore, in the present
study, I aimed to gain insights into how to reduce regional gaps in educational andcareer opportunities for Japanese high school students by investigating the potential for
language learning experiences to positively influence their career choices in a particularregional context�

Literature Review
Educational Inequalities: SES, Gender, and Region

According to Matsuoka (2019a), in Japan, SES, gender, and region are often cited as thethree main factors for educational inequalities. In the sociology of education, the degreeof educational inequalities is often discussed based on the 4-year university enrolment
rate, which also accounts for the fact that those with higher education have higher
occupational prestige and income due to such inequalities (Matsuoka, 2019a). Table 1
compares Kagoshima and Tokyo in 2018, the year when the participants in this study
entered college. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (2018),
Kagoshima Prefecture has the lowest 4-year college enrolment rate at 38.85%, less thanhalf that of Tokyo. It is also noteworthy that there is a large gender gap.
Table 1. 4-Year College Enrolment Rate by Prefecture
Female Male
Gender Average
Tokyo
73.17
72.18
72.67
Kagoshima
34.11
43.44
38.85
National Average
50.14
56.31
53.30
Note. Adapted from e-Stat. Tokei de miru nihon [Japan in statistics], Ministry of Internal
Affairs and Communications, 2018 (https://www.e-stat.go.jp/)�

Inequalities in Academic Achievement and Educational and Career Expectation

In addressing the factors related to educational inequalities, previous studies have dealt
with not only students’ academic ability but also educational expectations, aspirations,and attitudes of students, parents, and teachers. For example, Katase (2009) investigatedregional gaps in the determinants of high school students’ academic motivation in four
regions of Iwate Prefecture. The study showed that regional gaps in education exist not
only by prefecture but also between prefectural capitals and other regions within thesame prefecture. Matsuoka (2019b) revealed that regional gaps in people’s attitudes
toward education increased from the 1990s to the 2010s. Furthermore, according toMatsuoka, the gaps in cultural capital related to SES partially explain differences in
attitude among individuals and regions. While it is vital to note that SES may be a causeof regional gaps, the issue of regional gaps is more than an economic one, and hereafter
I would rather focus on identifying challenges and possibilities beyond the economic
dimension in rural Japan such as gender roles�

Educational Inequalities and the English Language

In comparison to other subjects, the English language learning environment is particularly
vulnerable to social inequalities. According to Terasawa (2015), the social and family
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Beyond the Classroom, Beyond the Trackenvironments of Japanese people influence their English proficiency, and the English
proficiency gap is also related to the gap in college opportunities (see also Terasawa,
2017). In terms of gender, Kitamura (2020) interviewed Japanese adult women who
work in English to address the gap between the assumption that English can expandand “save” women’s career options and the opposite realities in the Japanese context�
Issues of social inequality surrounding English language education have received more
attention outside Japan, including China (Hu, 2003), Indonesia (Lamb, 2012, 2013), andHong Kong (Yung, 2020). Kubota (2011) cited previous studies that show how English
education has disadvantaged the vulnerable around the world and argues that we should
critically examine the state of English education today, when neoliberal ideas are moreprevalent than ever. In today’s volatile society, where educational inequalities threaten to
widen even further, it is time for both researchers and practitioners of English education
to reconsider whether the diversification of learning methods inside and outside theclassroom is actually stratifying learning opportunities for young people�
It is also worth noting that many studies, particularly in Japan, appear to have separated
the English learner aspect from the individual’s life and focused solely on how to improvelearners’ language proficiency skills in the classroom (Kubota, 2015). This study, on theother hand, sees language learning as a social activity that influences and is influenced byfactors outside of the classroom�

The Study

I first contacted Mr. Matsui (pseudonym), who was organizing “glocal” (global and local)
education programmes for senior high schools across the country, in February 2020. He
was especially enthusiastic about educating young people in Kagoshima Prefecture, where
he was born. At first, I only had an obscure idea of what Mr. Matsui was doing. However,as I learned more about him and previous participants in his educational programs, I
found out that many of the participants in the English-medium project-based learning
programme (hereafter “English PBL”) at Kokusai High School (pseudonym; hereafterKHS) in Kagoshima, particularly girls, had experienced a significant change in their career
perspectives. In this study, I will focus on the trajectories of the participants who statedthat they “achieved a more positive career path” as a result of participating in this English
PBL. The research questions for this study are as follows:
1. What trajectories did the three participants, who achieved positive career outcomesthrough the English PBL, take to reach their final career decisions?
2� Did any regional (and other) constraints affect their career decision-making process,and if so, what were they?
3. How did the English PBL help them to overcome such constraints?

Methodology
Research Context and Participants

Located in the southern part of the island of Kyushu, Kagoshima is one of the mostremote prefectures from major cities in Japan. The participants of this research are from
Kagoshima City, the prefecture’s capital city. While Kagoshima City may be considereda relatively privileged environment compared to other areas within the prefecture, thisstudy highlights the challenges that the participants overcame as high school students
from Kagoshima Prefecture. In this sense, I position this study as a case study in one
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Aya Hayasakiof the prefectures most affected by regional and gender inequalities in educational
opportunities�
The three research participants had previously participated in the English PBL at KHS in
Kagoshima City. These three students were purposively selected as they self-identified ashaving changed their post-high-school career to a more positive one after participating inthis PBL. To select the research participants, I asked Mr. Matsui, who had led this PBL, tointroduce me to three past participants� The selection criteria were as follows:
1. The chosen participant changed their previously chosen career path after highschool for positive reasons after participating in the English PBL.
2� From Mr. Matsui’s point of view, each of the chosen participants’ overallcharacteristics differed, including personality, academic ability, interests, and family
background.
Table 2 summarises the profiles of the three participants in this study.
Table 2. Profiles of the Three Research Participants

Age
GenderMajor
FamilyPrior overseas
experience
Other characteristics(according to Mr.
Matsui)Momo
20
FemaleIntegrated Sciences

Name (Pseudonym)
Yuki
20
FemaleInternational Liberal
Arts
Father, mother,younger sister

Ai
20
FemaleEconomics

Father, mother, twin
Father, mother,brother, younger
younger sisterbrother
Homestay in the USA None
None
(2 weeks, age 15)
She was “academically She came from a “low- Her parents werehigh-achieving” andperforming junior high firmly against her“a good role model to school” and was “out going outsidepeers”of touch”
Kagoshima after
senior high school

The three participants had several commonalities: All were female, born and raisedin Kagoshima City (although all three attended elementary and junior high school in
different districts), around 20 years old at the time of data collection, in their third yearof university, and they had completed the English PBL at KHS and joined a study tour to
the UK with the same group. It was after their enrolment into KHS that all three students
learnt that the high school offered a short study tour to the UK. To join the study tour,
they were required to complete a project-based learning programme in English as partof the integrated studies class. Then, upon selection based on document application andpresentation, they could join the study tour. In their second year at KHS, approximately
40 students were selected to participate in this English PBL group while the rest of thestudents in the same grade completed their PBL in Japanese (around 300 students wereenrolled in this grade at KHS); at a later stage, 15 out of these 40 students were selected to
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Beyond the Classroom, Beyond the Track

My Positionality

The data were analysed in consideration of the reflexivity of the researcher (Sultana,2007). I am someone from Kagoshima Prefecture who experienced constraints as asenior high school student when choosing my own career because of my gender andthe geographical location of my hometown. Thus, to some extent, I position myself as a
researcher with shared identities with the participants, including being a female Japanese
EFL learner who grew up in the same region as them, experiencing similar challenges.
Until my final year of senior high school, I was planning on going to a junior college
in Kagoshima, as it was something my mother had recommended. However, learning
English greatly expanded my own educational and professional opportunities, and as aresult, I went on to a competitive English-medium liberal arts college, which would nothave been an option had I stayed in my hometown. This led me to continuing my studies
in a master’s program at a British university and, currently, in a doctoral program at auniversity in Tokyo, Japan. Space does not allow me to describe the details of my own
story, but my motivation to pursue this research stems from the fact that my own life haschanged dramatically as a result of my English learning experiences. At the same time,
however, I was an outsider listening to these women as an external researcher regarding
KHS and this English PBL programme.

Data Collection

I conducted a semi-structured interview with each participant in Japanese for around
90 minutes. When I reached them, all three participants were studying at universities
in different parts of Japan. I interviewed Momo and Yuki face-to-face in Kagoshima City
during their summer vacation� I interviewed Ai via video call on Zoom as she did not plan
to return home during the summer. Both our cameras were on, and we could see eachother’s faces during the call�The questions in Table 3 were prepared in advance as an interview guide. The life story
questions were adopted from Irie’s (2022) study on the role of English in older Japaneselearners, developed from McAdams (1988, 1993) and the Foley Center for the Study ofLives (2009). To leave room for exploration of events that I was not aware of but that were
important to the interviewee, I tried to give the interviewee more control over the content
of the interview. I minimised the number of questions I prepared in advance so that theflow of the conversation would be natural, and the order of the questions asked in theactual interviews varied among the three participants�
During the interviews, I made efforts to confirm the meaning of the participants’narratives by paraphrasing or summarising what I thought was important. Later, I readthe transcriptions of the recorded data repeatedly and coded significant events that may
have led to divergent decision-making. A Trajectory Equifinality Modelling (TEM) diagram,which is explained in the Data Analysis section, was created by arranging the events,
choices, and relevant social factors experienced by each participant in chronologicalorder�

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Table 3. Interview Guide
Self-Introduction
About your life from childhood until today• How would you divide your life so far into chapters?
• What is the best thing that has happened to you in your life?
• What has been the biggest challenge (difficulty) in your life?
About going to KHS• What brought you to KHS?
About the PBL• What motivated you to carry out your PBL in English?
• What changes have occurred in you after participating in the PBL?
• If this PBL had been conducted in Japanese, what changes do you think would
have (or not have) occurred?
What do you envisage yourself doing in the future?

Data Analysis

For the analysis, I used Trajectory Equifinality Modelling (TEM; Sato et al., 2009). This
analysis method is suitable for depicting the process of value transformation fromthe existence of actual choice behaviours and outcomes, as well as other theoreticallypossible but unchosen alternatives. In the framework of TEM, the participants andresearcher jointly draw the participants’ trajectories. In this study, the obligatory passage
point (OPP; the point that all the participants go through), the bifurcation point (BFP;
transitioning point), and the equifinality points (EFP; final points reached) were set as in
Table 4.
Table 4. Obligatory Passage Point, Bifurcation Point, and Equifinality Points in This Study
Obligatory Passage Point (OPP)

Bifurcation Point (BFP)

Equifinality Points (EFP)

Entry to KHS

Perspective shifting

Going to the university of
their choice

Participation in the English PBL

In addition to the points mentioned above, I also indicated in the TEM diagrams the past
trajectories and prospects that seemed to be notable turning points in each participant’s
career decisions�Findings and Discussion
Participants’ Trajectories

First, I attempt to answer the question, “What trajectories did the three participants, whoachieved positive career outcomes through the English PBL, take to reach their final careerdecisions?”

Momo’s Case

Compared to the other two participants, Momo had the most exposure to English
language learning between kindergarten and starting high school. She was also the only
one of the three participants who had travelled abroad before entering high school.
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According to Mr. Matsui, who introduced her to us, she was an “honours student” typewith very high academic ability and had served as head of a sports club. A TEM diagram of
Momo is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Momo’s TEM
Momo had been keen on all aspects of learning, including English, from an early age. Her
mother was an English teacher, and she grew up listening to Western music. When she wasin primary school, she became obsessed with the Harry Potter books in the school library,
and this is where her fascination with the UK began. It was also during this period that her
older brother went to the USA for a short period of study. She challenged herself in speech
contests and English tests and gained confidence in English. When she was in junior highschool, she, like her brother, participated in a short-term homestay programme in a sistercity of Kagoshima City in the USA. Her parents were supportive of what she wanted todo. Momo enrolled in KHS largely because she liked the atmosphere at the school, wherestudents worked hard not only in their studies but also in club activities, and because her
friends with better grades than her applied to KHS. She was dedicated to both her studies
and sports, and her teachers and friends often praised her for her hard work. However, she
was skeptical that they really meant it. Momo was in a science-track class, where there werevery few female students. Momo told me that none of the female students aspired to go touniversities further than the Kyushu area regardless of their academic potential, while themale students wanted to go to more academically challenging universities in Osaka, Tokyo,
and other major cities, all of which are geographically far away, so it would normally costtens of thousands of yen by air or shinkansen (bullet train) just to get there. Even though
Momo was very likely to be accepted into a top university in Tokyo, she originally had nodesire to go there. She was somewhat reluctant about her career prospects and did nothave a clear vision for the future�

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Interestingly, there was an unexpected positive effect from completing the PBL in
English. She felt that although she was hesitant to express her opinions in Japanese, she
was able to “aggressively” seek feedback and make improvements when preparing her
presentation in English. She also realised that she could express herself more freely inEnglish. Furthermore, her success was not limited to the classroom. She presented herwork in English at an international symposium for high school students to showcase
findings from their PBL in Kagoshima and won a prize, which even led her to take part ina larger symposium in Southeast Asia. It was during this time that she made friends withpeople with similar goals in other rural areas of Japan and felt that she could challenge
herself in something she could not have previously imagined herself doing� Being
recognised for her scientific research at this international symposium and meeting otherfemale students devoted to science with similarly high goals from other rural areas inJapan convinced her that “it was okay for me to aim higher.” Momo told me that doing thisPBL in English had broadened her network of contacts and vision for the future. She said
that if she had done the same thing in Japanese, this learning experience would not have
had such a significant impact on her life.

Yuki’s Case

Unlike Momo, Yuki used to dislike studying in general, with little interest in English, until
she entered senior high school. According to her, Yuki came from a “low-performing”
junior high school and was “out of touch [グレていた; gurete-ita].” Although public juniorhigh schools in Japan are based on location, not on performance, this context might
partially reflect the result of the regional difference in people’s attitudes toward education
as in Matsuoka (2019b). Yuki’s life story is arranged in chronological order using TEM as in
Figure 2:

Figure 2. Yuki’s TEM
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From an early age, Yuki was “given a lot of freedom” to grow up in a carefree
environment, under her parents’ (especially her mother’s) educational policy of letting
her do whatever she wanted. She says that the fact that her primary school was verysmall may have been another significant factor in her building a free and open-mindedpersonality. (There are many small-scale schools in Kagoshima Prefecture, including in
the city.) However, taking the Eiken Test in Practical English Proficiency was one of the
few things Yuki was strongly encouraged to do, as her mother believed in the importanceof investing in foreign language learning from an early age� While she is very grateful forthis “free” environment, the freedom she was given led her to hang out with “bad” friends
when she entered junior high school. She calls her experience of those years “empty joy.”At this stage, Yuki had nothing she wanted to do and was thinking of finding a job as soon
as possible rather than going on to higher education. However, she started attending
cram school because she admired her former best friend’s enthusiasm for studying, andas a result, she chose KHS, where many students aim to go on to high-ranking universities.
It was out of curiosity that she convinced her mother to let their family become ahomestay host for an international student visiting KHS from a top university in the UK.
This experience made her feel especially close to the English language and university
students. “I thought overseas university students were people from a distant world,” shesaid, “but I was glad that they spoke to me as fellow human beings and from the same
point of view” (my translation from Japanese). This encouraged her to join the English PBL
and carry out a research project for people with foreign roots staying or living in Japan.
She then started interacting with communities of international students. In this process,she came to realise that “there might be something I could do for society: to support
people from international or mixed ethnic backgrounds who are having difficulties inJapan.” This realisation, in her words, was “meaningful joy.” Beyond that, she met a rolemodel who studied at a Japanese liberal arts college where all lectures were conducted in
English, which she thought was the place for her.

Ai’s Case

According to Mr. Matsui, Ai differed from Momo and Yuki in that her parents were
initially opposed to her going to higher education outside Kagoshima Prefecture due tothe family’s financial situation. However, as the interview revealed, after all her efforts
to convince them, Ai’s parents even allowed her to spend an extra year studying as aronin [浪人] after graduating from KHS, and in the end, she went to a private university
in the Kansai area� Ronin refers to students who, after graduating from junior or seniorhigh school, are unable to enrol in the next stage of schooling and study independently
towards future enrolment. Ai’s TEM diagram is shown in Figure 3.
Ai was the only one of the three who had never really been exposed to English language
learning until she started studying it as a compulsory subject in junior high school. She hasa bright leader-type personality and spent her time in the jazz band in primary school. She
was not good at English in junior high school, but she gained confidence when she was“very much praised by her teacher in an English recitation competition” in which everyone
at school had participated, including her friends who had been taking private eikaiwa(English conversation) lessons outside school. Here, she decided that she might havea talent for English and that “it might be worth committing to it.” Although Ai was “notacademically outstanding,” she had a strong sense of responsibility, was highly trusted
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school. This enabled her to enter KHS through a recommendation from her junior highschool [推薦入試; suisen nyūshi], rather than through the general entrance examination[一般入試; ippan nyūshi]�

Figure 3. Ai’s TEM
Ai had worked hard in music up to secondary school and wanted to try something new
at KHS. She joined the English Speaking Society (ESS) because she had been praised for
her English pronunciation in junior high school and because she liked speaking. As for
the English PBL, she said, “I simply wanted to go to the UK, and I also wanted to challenge
myself in various ways as a high school student, so I thought I’d like to take advantageof the opportunity I had.” Then, she took on the challenge of the English PBL and chosea research theme of “revitalising tourism in Kagoshima.” She had the opportunity to talkto people from various backgrounds, including foreign tourists in the city. Below is Ai’s
enthusiastic reaction after I introduced myself and explained the purpose of this researchat the beginning of the interview:
In my PBL, I had many opportunities to try things I had never thought about before orthings I had thought I could not do. As I did these things, saw many new things, andlearned new things, I felt that I didn’t want to stay in Kagoshima. I wanted to know more.
I wanted to know more, and I met people who knew a lot more than I did, and I reallyfelt that I was growing up more and more. I suddenly felt that I needed to think more
about my career path, that I wanted to go out more and think about something moreand expand myself. I feel that my experiences in senior high school were the catalyst
for me to finally get outside Kagoshima and go to university and make a big move inthat way. So, I’m very interested in what you’re doing, Hayasaki-san [the researcher].
In the opening 2 minutes of the interview, Ai revealed how encounters with people who
showed her new worlds and various discoveries during her high school activities made her
realise her potential. At the same time, she developed a certain sense of crisis (“I need to
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think more”), curiosity about her future career, and a desire to become a more proactive
learner� This increased willingness to independently choose her future led her to step“outside Kagoshima�”My Reflection

After interviewing the three participants, my first impression was that they seemed tobe more powerful and have more access to various resources than I had imagined. In
the first place, these three participants were lucky enough to have the academic abilities
and/or experience in extracurricular activities to be accepted to KHS, which is one of thehighest-level senior high schools in Kagoshima Prefecture. As for my own experience, I
am from a much smaller city, approximately 40 km away from central Kagoshima, and myparents believed it was a “waste of money” to pay for me to attend a cram school. Thisidea seemed to be partly for financial reasons (I had two younger siblings that they had
to support.) and partly because my mother especially believed that “girls don’t need to go
to a 4-year university.” She also did not want me to move outside Kagoshima, much lessoverseas. In this sense, I found my situation closest to Ai’s. Fortunately, in the end, Ai and I
were able to convince our parents to let us follow the paths we chose. Should we think weare just fortunate?
At the same time, the data show some barriers that even these fortunate women had
to break, which they might not have needed to had they been learning in a different
context. I will elaborate on this in the next section.

Undergoing Constraints and Overcoming ThemThis section answers RQ2 (“Did any regional (and other) constraints affect their careerdecision-making process, and if so, what were they?”) and RQ3 (“How did the English PBL
help them to overcome such constraints?”) simultaneously� There were various constraints
on the trajectories of these three participants, three main ones of which are discussed
below.
The first is the lack of encounters with diverse role models and peers. For example,
Momo was in a science class and had no female classmates with similar goals, so she
could not consider going to a university outside Kyushu. However, Momo’s participationin the English PBL broadened her scope for action. As a result, at an international
symposium abroad, she met high school students from other rural areas of Japan who
wanted to go out into the world and test their potential. This encouraged her to believethat she too could aim high. Interestingly, her role model was not from Tokyo or otherurban areas, but “a girl from another rural area.” This may not be directly related tolanguage learning and use, but it does speak to the importance of near-peer role models
as advocated by Murphey and Arao (2001). Similarly, for both Yuki and Ai, the English PBL
provided opportunities to expand their social network, which stimulated their curiosity.
Furthermore, it meant a lot to Momo that experts listened to her seriously and gave
her constructive feedback on the topic of her science project. In this sense, she also felt
emotionally closer to distant role models. Momo’s case shows that even highly capable
learners can find it difficult to take action with a clear vision if they do not have a model toaim for. The English PBL was the igniter of her positive challenge.
Second, few opportunities were available to meaningfully link English language learningwith real life� This concerns the quality of the learning environment provided in andoutside school and extended communities and has a strong link with the current issue’s
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theme, “Learner Development Beyond the Classroom.” For example, when Yuki set out
to take the high school entrance exam, she originally received an “E” grade, meaning that
her chances of entering KHS were very low. Yuki’s junior high school was in a “rough”
area where her classmates smoked cigarettes, and she said that her life would havebeen different in many ways if she had not been inspired to study by her former bestfriend. At KHS, she had opportunities to get to know students from overseas universities,
who spoke to her amicably in Japanese, which they were learning. This made her feelcloser to university students and people from other countries, and she also wanted to
speak to them in their own language, English. With this experience and her open-mindedpersonality, she was able to take advantage of the English PBL as a place to develop herinterests and deepen her understanding of culture and identity�
A third vital factor, as evident in Ai’s stories, is parental beliefs about investment ineducation and about the economic situation of the family. Her parents were concerned
about both financial issues and her academic ability, but she continued to strive for auniversity outside the prefecture, despite their opposition. Through the English PBL, Ai
examined the revitalisation of local tourism (utilising the region’s unique resources) byinterviewing foreign tourists visiting Kagoshima and visiting local businesses. She wanted
to get to know the outside world as she began to wonder what she could do for her
hometown of Kagoshima. Eventually, Ai’s teachers at KHS helped to persuade her parents
to give her a chance to try for a more challenging target university�

Pedagogical Implications

This study has shown that English learning opportunities in the form of PBL, both in andout of school, can be a driving force in changing the career paths of high school students.
English PBL may be a useful tool to make English language learning more personalised forindividual interests. Of course, it makes sense to do PBL in the students’ first language, but
the significance of doing this in English can be found in Momo’s narrative. Expression in aforeign language has the potential to liberate the self more than that in the first language.
Of course, it should be considered that the reverse could also be true, as discussed in
the foreign language anxiety research (e.g., Gkonou et al., 2017; Horwitz et al., 1986).
There is no doubt that conducting PBL in a foreign language is more challenging than ina first language. However, that is why PBL in a foreign language (for the participants inthis study, English) made them feel more challenged and ultimately more accomplished.
Another advantage of PBL is that, in principle, students can choose the topic according totheir own interests, which is not necessarily so in conventional classrooms in the Japanese
educational system, even in English-medium classrooms. This freedom of choice allows
for greater student autonomy and makes learning and using English more meaningful andaccessible.

Limitations and Important Emerging Questions

The data and discussion of the three participants in this study are not representative ofKagoshima Prefecture or the project participants but are only a subset of many cases.
Although this study was an exploratory comparison of three individuals with different
profiles, I hope to collect and analyse data about the learning experiences of more
students on a municipal, school, or project basis in the future. Furthermore, at this stage,
only one interview was conducted for each participant. In future studies, two moreinterviews will be conducted with each participant to further refine the TEM diagrams.
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Many further questions also arose and remain unanswered: Are the students satisfied
with the outcomes of attending university? Are they satisfied with the career options they
are offered upon graduation? What makes a context “rural”—is it something definable, or
should we leave it up to individuals’ interpretation? Ultimately, what constitutes successfor language learners in this context? Is pursuing more challenging educational andprofessional opportunities always the best option? What other forms of transformation
could language learning bring about? These questions will lead to a deeper understandingof under-researched rural or, in a broader sense, local contexts in English education in
Japan and will in turn provide suggestions for learning in broader contexts. It is significant
that this interview-based research, in which learners revisit their past learning experiencesand explore with the researcher social factors behind their decision makings, has led tosuch important questions for the future�

Conclusion

This study explored how high school students in Kagoshima prefecture, which has
one of the lowest rates of students entering 4-year universities in Japan, changed theirperspectives on their post-high school career paths through participation in the English
PBL and what sociocultural factors were involved in this process. The findings revealed
how the three women experienced changes in their perspectives on their interests,
abilities, and future visions through re-telling their life stories. The constraints these
women overcame had both similarities and differences, including lack of access to diverserole models and peers, few opportunities to make meaningful connections between
English language learning and real life, and parental beliefs about educational investmentthat were incompatible with students’ beliefs. Reflecting on the findings and discussion
in this study, I recommend that schools and stakeholders should consider, in accordancewith the characteristics of the region, connecting students with diverse role models,developing learning programmes in which students with diverse academic abilities andlanguage skills can play an active role, and providing equitable guidance and intervention
if necessary, regarding further educational and career opportunities after their learning.
We, as researchers, should continue to inquire how English language learning can makea meaningful difference in an individual’s overall life and subsequent career choices andconduct comprehensive studies that look beyond the classroom.

Author Bio

Aya Hayasaki is a research associate and PhD student at Waseda University, Japan. She
is also a part-time lecturer at Gakushuin University, Japan. She holds a Master of Arts
in Teaching English as a Foreign Language from the University of Birmingham, UK. Her
professional interests include L2 learner and teacher well-being, learning beyond theclassroom, and transformative learning, especially in rural contexts.

Review ProcessThis paper was open-reviewed by Simla Course and Colin Rundle of the Learner Development
Journal Review Network and by the Journal Steering Group. (Contributors have the option ofopen or blind review.)

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