ISSN 2188-0417

上智大学短期大学部

紀要

第 41 号

2020

Sophia University Junior College Division
Faculty Journal

目

次

論文

Active Learning in Large-scale Classes: Lessons From the Field…………………………………………………………………………… Chris Oliver

1

研究ノート

Research Note on SUJCD and Foreign Residents in Hadano,

1987-2007: Preliminary Contextualization………………………………………………… Maria Lupas and Sachie Miyazaki

19Sophia University Junior College Division Faculty Journal
第 41 号, 2020, 1-18

Active Learning in Large-scale Classes:
Lessons From the Field
Chris Oliver
Abstract
This article examines problems related to the use of active learning methods inclasses with large enrollments. Defined in contrast to “traditional” forms of classroom
instruction, especially lecture-based classes, active learning emphasizes classroom
practices in which students play a more overtly active role in the production of learning.
Given that active learning lends itself especially well to small classes, this article focuseson three problem areas that arise when attempting to bring active learning to large-scaleclasses: the monitoring of student involvement, rapport among students, and student
attitudes toward active learning itself. Drawing upon English-language literature on
active learning that includes both teacher-oriented, practical works on active learning aswell as social-scientific research articles on active learning in large classes, the present
article finds that the literature provides no clear-cut solutions to those three problem
areas but does suggest directions in which teachers might apply their efforts.

Introduction
Active learning is defined in contrast, whether explicitly or implicitly, to traditional
forms of classroom instruction, particularly those centered around lectures deliveredby the teacher as a figure of authoritative knowledge. As the University of Minnesota’s
Center for Educational Innovation puts it, for instance: “Active learning is any approach
to instruction in which all students are asked to engage in the learning process. Active
learning stands in contrast to ‘traditional’ modes of instruction in which students are
passive recipients of knowledge from an expert” (Center for Educational Innovation,
University of Minnesota, 2019; cf. Blaz, 2018, p. 9). Thus, in active learning, students
are envisioned less as passive receptacles of knowledge than as active participants
producing the learning that takes place in the classroom. While the term active learning
is somewhat of a misnomer in that it refers not to learning per se but instead to an
approach to teaching, it nonetheless emphasizes classroom practices in which students
play a more overtly active role in the classroom through any of a wide range of activities
that may include reflective writing, paired discussions, small-group projects, and role─1─Chris Oliver

plays (O’Neal & Pinder-Grover, n.d.). These activities may be used alongside—if not as
an outright replacement for—more traditional lectures.
Active learning lends itself especially well to classes that are relatively small insize. A simple example of this, from my own experience in required English courses
with enrollment normally between 24 and 30 students, is a “recap” activity based on
written work completed outside of class. Following two class sessions of study devoted to
one textbook chapter, each student completes outside of class a one-page, template-likerecap sheet concerning that unit, the contents of which include summarizing material
studied for the unit, analyzing and explaining the problem covered in the unit and its
significance, and—for students working with English-language material when thatis not their native language—applying vocabulary and grammar that they may havelearned when studying the unit. Students then bring their completed recap sheet to thefollowing class session, orally share the contents with others in pairs or small groups,
and discuss with one another the content of what they have mutually shared. Because
the textbook units afford various interpretations of problems covered therein, students’
understandings and explanations of the problem are informed by their own perspectives
rather than there being a single “correct” definition of the problem. Thus drawing
on students’ own subjectivity, the recap activity typically runs for approximately 20
minutes, with students interactively reviewing, synthesizing, and analyzing course
material.
At the same time, it is abundantly clear that active learning activities often do notscale up easily to classes with significantly greater enrollment. This I have experienced
in courses I have regularly taught for more than a decade: Cultural Anthropology andIntercultural Communication. Both are elective, content courses taught in English, notEnglish courses per se, with readings and written work in Englishi. While there can bevarying definitions of what constitutes large-scale—e.g., in Barkley & Major (2018), a
large lecture means a course with more than 100 students—here I will take it to denotecourses with a sufficiently large number of enrolled students whereby the instructor
and students subjectively feel that the classroom learning environment is too full ofpeople to be intimate, and where it is difficult for teacher and students alike to know
every person in the class by name. This applies to both of the above-named courses.
Over the years, the Cultural Anthropology course I have taught has had roughly 50-70
enrolled students, and Intercultural Communication has typically had 80-110. In thelatter, the class has normally been taught in a large classroom with approximately 20
rows of desks from the front of the room to the rear, creating a situation where there─2─Active Learning in Large-scale Classes: Lessons From the Field

is a certain interactional intimacy between the instructor and those students seatedclosest to the front of the classroom, but which progressively diminishes with the greater
physical distance between instructor and students toward the back of the classroom.
To date, these courses have been taught largely as lecture courses, with active learningcomponents used alongside the lectures.
Drawing on my experience over the years with these courses, in this article I firstreflect on and elucidate some of the key factors that help make active learning work
well in small classes and not work as well in large classes. In particular, I focus on thefollowing three factors: the ability of the teacher to monitor what is transpiring among
students during active learning activities; rapport among students as they interact
with one another in class; and the extent to which students are attitudinally “on board”
with participating in active learning. I then turn to the academic and teacher-oriented
professional literature dealing with active learning in higher education to ascertain what
solutions, if any, it suggests for the three above-mentioned problem areas. While an
exhaustive review of the literature on active learning is beyond the scope of this article,
I nonetheless draw on a number of books and articles published in English ranging fromnuts-and-bolts handbooks for college teachers to social-scientific research articles on
active learning in large-scale college classes. The literature on active learning does, as itturns out, offer suggestions that involve considerations of logistics, pedagogy, and evenethics.

Key factors that make active learning (not) go well
There are numerous factors influencing how well a given active learning activity
might unfold in class, including how well prepared the instructor is, how clearly theactivity’s objectives are defined, the physical arrangement of the classroom space, thedegree to which the instructor exhibits an authoritarian demeanor, and so on. Here,however, I focus on three factors that, in my own teaching experience over the years,
play a particularly important role in helping active learning work well in small-scaleclasses and preventing it from working similarly well in large-scale classes.
Ability to monitor
In small-scale classes, one key factor that helps make active learning easy tocarry out is purely logistical: because there are relatively few people in the room, theinstructor can effectively monitor what is transpiring in the class among all pairs orgroups of students. In a class of, say, 30 students who are engaged in small-group work,

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the instructor can easily meander among the groups, listen in on their discussions, andoffer group-specific guidance as needed.
Not surprisingly, it becomes increasingly difficult for the instructor to monitor
active learning activities the greater the number of students enrolled. In a class with
100 students, for example, a single teacher without any teaching assistants cannot
effectively keep tabs on what the entire room of students is up to, know whether they
are all on task, or provide timely guidance to each pair or group of students that may
need it. In this way, the active learning task can be carefully explained and assigned by
the instructor, but without the instructor able to monitor the entire class, it is largely up
to the students themselves to stay on task.
Rapport among students
A second factor is that a small class size enables students to become familiar with
virtually everyone in the class, to become comfortable with another, and develop good
rapport among themselves. While students may be total strangers to one another at
the start of the term, especially if they are first-year students new to campus, this canquickly be overcome in a small-scale class, especially if the instructor provides activities
structured so that students mix and become acquainted with one another. The rapport
that develops helps facilitate active learning activities where students need to interact
with others.
The greater the number of students in the class, however, the greater the likelihoodthat most students will remain strangers to one another. An active learning activity that
calls for students to be put into random pairs or groups may suffer as a result.
On-board attitude
Third, for interactive active learning activities to go well, students overall need to be
attitudinally “on board” with the doing of active learning, willing to actively participate
in and commit to the activity presented to them. In my experience, the overwhelming
majority of students in small-scale classes are indeed on board in this regard. There areoccasionally a very few students who may be only reluctantly on board but who, for thesake of conviviality and maintaining rapport with their classmates, elect to participate
rather than behaviorally withdraw themselves from the class activity. Occasionally,
there may be students who have social anxiety or other mental health issues that makeit difficult for them to interact comfortably with others in class. While such cases canpresent challenges to the doing of active learning activities, in small-scale classes that─4─Active Learning in Large-scale Classes: Lessons From the Field

I have experienced over the years, because students do get to know one another as
individuals, they are very often attentive to and make efforts to include those students
who may be finding it psychologically difficult to engage with others. Small classes also
make it easier for teachers to identify such students and to make efforts to accommodate
their needs.
Here as well, size matters. From my experience, the larger the class, the greater
the likelihood that there will be significant pockets of students who are not sufficiently
on board with engaging in active learning tasks, especially when those tasks involve
working with other students with whom one is not already well acquainted. In somecases, there may be students with psychological or other issues that make it difficult forthem to engage spontaneously with other students as well as students who would simply
rather not have to interact with others in class. In a large class, it may be very difficult
for the instructor to know who these students are, let alone find ways of accommodatingthem during activity time.

Examples of active learning activities in large-scale classes
For the sake of illustration, this section describes three examples of active learningthat I have attempted to incorporate into my Cultural Anthropology and Intercultural
Communication courses in recent years. Problem points in each are highlighted.
Example 1: ICC experience sheet
In the Intercultural Communication (ICC) course, one activity I have used is similar
to the recap sheet described earlier that is used in the small-scale required English
course: i.e., each student is to complete in advance a one-page sheet, and then use it inclass as the basis for information-sharing and discussion. Rather than writing about the
textbook unit just covered, however, as in required English, each student is instead towrite about one recent communication experience of her own. Done a number of times
over the semester, it is meant to serve as a kind of reflexive communication journal that
includes factual description, interpretation, and application of concepts covered in class.
While the activity works reasonably well with some students, particularly those who sit
nearer to the front of the classroom, on the whole it does not. With over 100 students
in the course in spring semester of 2019, for instance, it was impossible to monitor the
many dozens of pairs of students around the classroom as they shared and discussed
their ICC experience sheets with one another. Moreover, a handful of students would
each solely occupy a three-person desk, each an island unto herself, either by choice

─5─Chris Oliveror because of not having any friends or close acquaintances in class with whom to sit.
Such “loners” generally would not engage in discussion with others—even if the desk
immediately behind or in front of them was occupied—unless individually urged to do soby me. An even greater number of students would not have even completed the writingin advance and would instead use the discussion time to do so, thus circumventing theintended purpose of this simple active learning exercise.
Example 2: Impromptu mini-discussions
In both my Cultural Anthropology and Intercultural Communication courses,
I regularly include at various points in my lectures brief, seemingly spontaneous
discussions among pairs or small groups of students (whomever is sitting adjacent
to each other), a method referred to as “bookending” (Allen & Tanner, 2005) that canbe one component of interactive lecturing (Barkley & Major, 2018). For instance, theCultural Anthropology course includes a lesson focused on the kula exchange that occurs
among residents of the Trobriand Islands and that revolves around two specific typesof objects—armshells and necklaces—that are generally not used outside of the kula
and thus have no value in terms of everyday practical use. Early in the lecture, I pause
to have students consider how we assign value to objects in our lives. For instance, I
ask them to think of one specific object of theirs that has value to them although notmonetary value and perhaps not even practical use value; then, to explain to one or
two other students what that object is and what value it has to them. This short active
learning exercise, which takes only a few minutes, is intended to have students actively
think about value in a way that they perhaps do not normally do, and to use thismoment of reflection to lead into a fuller examination of value in the lecture. While most
students in the class respond well to this type of mini-discussion, it is also apparent
that some students quickly go off task in their talking (and the larger the class, thegreater the incidence of this), and that “loners” as described in Example 1 generally do
not engage with anyone. For students who are actively engaged and on-task, this kind of
impromptu mini-discussion can be effective, but the effectiveness is unevenly distributed
among the students in the class.
Example 3: Intercultural simulation
Toward the end of the semester in the Intercultural Communication course, one
full class session is devoted to carrying out a kind of role-play called an intercultural
simulation. The students in the class are randomly divided into groups of approximately

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six people, each of which in turn is divided into two sub-groups (A and B). All thestudents in the A sub-groups then move to another classroom, and while they areaway all the B sub-groups receive a sheet of paper informing them of the imaginary
country they are “from,” some of the culturally ingrained values and communicative
tendencies they have, and that they will soon be hosting a small group of visitors froma foreign country. In the other classroom, the B sub-groups receive a similar paper, andin the privacy of their respective classrooms each A and B sub-group prepares for their
upcoming encounter with the people from the other country. Following the prep time,
the A and B sub-groups meet, invariably run into difficulties, take another preparatory
break, and then meet a second time. Logistically complex, the simulation is intended
to give everyone in the class a shared communication experience that can be used toconsider a number of topics and concepts covered earlier in the semester; it is also meant
to provide a shared basis for introducing issues to be covered in the remainder of theterm.
While the activity usually goes quite well overall, there is always significant
unevenness from one group to another in terms of how effectively the simulation plays
out. In the majority of the groups, the simulation seems to proceed as desired, with most
students participating actively and staying on-task. In some groups, however, it does
not go smoothly, with poor dynamics within or between the sub-groups. This could be
due to a lack of basic rapport stemming from the fact the groups were thrown together
randomly, or to a clash of personalities, or perhaps to pre-existing animosity between
some of the group members. With a large-scale class, there are too many students to beable to foresee possible problems in groupings, too many to allow close monitoring to see
what might have gone wrong in a given group. In some groups, the A and B sub-groups
essentially stop interacting with one another mid-way through the role-play, either
because they think they have “finished” or perhaps because too few of them are truly
on board with doing the simulation, which does in fact demand a significant amountof effort. Moreover, a very small handful of students occasionally even depart from theclassroom at some point between dividing the class up into random groups of six and theend of simulation. Among them may be students with psychological issues for whom it
would be a struggle to interact intensively with random classmates for most of an entire
class session.

Directions suggested by the active learning literature
Given that active learning is especially well-suited to small-scale classroom

─7─Chris Oliverenvironments, it is not surprising that the professional, teacher-oriented literature on
active learning has tended to give rather short shrift to large-scale classes. Blaz (2018),
for instance, provides a good summary of research on the effectiveness of active learning
as well as detailed descriptions of numerous specific active learning activities that canbe used in foreign-language classrooms. However, it has virtually nothing to say about
active learning in large classes. Fortunately there exists a growing body of research on
active learning in large-enrollment classes, some of which touches upon the three topics
of concern outlined earlier: the ability of the teacher to monitor student participation,
the quality of rapport among students, and the extent to which students themselves areon board with active learning.
Ability to monitor
The primary challenge to monitoring what is transpiring among students in a largescale class during active learning activities is that the instructor cannot physically beeverywhere at once in the classroom, and as a result is able to monitor only some of themany students in the class. A commonly used solution to this problem is to increase thenumber of people in the class who play teaching roles, such as by employing graduateteaching assistants. Godlewska et al. (2019), for instance, describe the manner in which
they converted a large introductory geography class with approximately 400 students
from a lecture format to a blended, active learning format. They did so by breaking theclass into smaller groups that stayed together throughout the term; key to this was
the team of nine teaching assistants who helped provide feedback and coaching to thestudents in the course. Yet, the use of such additional teaching-side personnel is not a
viable option for those of us faced with budget constraints that do not allow for teachingassistants or who lack a ready supply of qualified assistants.
Another common solution is to employ student-manipulated technology such as
electronic clickers that allows many streams of feedback to be simultaneously sent fromstudents to teacher. Some have experimented with using smartphones in place of clickers(Remón, Sebastián, Romero, & Arauzo, 2017; Álvarez, Baloian, Zurita, & Guarini, 2017;see also Marbach-Ad & Sokolove, 2002). Generally speaking, such use of technology
in class, whereby feedback from a multitude of sources is sent instantaneously to theteacher, serves best to enable the teacher to ascertain how well students are keeping
up with the progress of the lesson and how well they are understanding the lesson
material, rather than allowing the instructor to actually monitor whether each pair orgroup of students in class is staying on task, running into problems in interpersonal

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Active Learning in Large-scale Classes: Lessons From the Field

dynamics, and so on. In this sense it is a partial solution to the problem of monitoringin a large-scale class. Nonetheless, the prevalence of smartphones today as well as theeasy availability of online surveys and other data-collecting services offers one option for
those of us in classrooms without school-provided clickers or other similar technology.
Yet another approach to the problem of monitoring is to disavow the problem inthe first place. As noted by Barkley (2009), there are differing visions of the role to beplayed by the teacher in an active learning classroom. While some view their role asthat of a hands-on coach who closely monitors what students are doing in class, offeringcorrections when needed, and working closely with students to help them performbetter, others suggest that the teacher’s ideal role is more of a facilitator whose mostimportant task is to carefully prepare the learning activities and environment in which
students will engage in self-directed learning. This does not mean the teacher should
be off “wandering the halls while their students are working in groups” (Bean, 2011, p.
199), but the instructor-as-facilitator plays a less hands-on role in the learning activities
once under way, purposefully standing aside to encourage students to take responsibility
for and manage their own learning.
Rapport among students
As noted earlier, one factor that helps make active learning activities successful,particularly those that involve students working in pairs or small groups, is good
rapport among students. In large-scale classes, this can present an obstacle given thatsuch classes are often characterized by anonymity (Benjamin, 1991; Tniby, Weiss,& Rousseau, 2014), whereby many if not most students are essentially strangers to
one another. If directed to work in pairs or small groups as part of active learning,
students may struggle to do so comfortably. Speaking presumably of American contexts,
Barkley (2009) points out that class civility can sometimes be a problem, with students
exhibiting disrespectful or even hostile behavior, and suggests preemptive measures
such as establishing a class civility policy at the start of the term. This and other steps
taken by the teacher can help create a sense of the class as a learning community inwhich students “feel that they are welcomed, valuable, contributing members (Barkley,2009, “Chapter 9,” para. 1).
As Robinson et al. (2015) make clear, one key challenge concerning active learningwhere students are expected to share and discuss ideas in groups is that they may
become overly concerned with group harmony at the expense of productive discussion.
Such group work, particularly when students are not very knowledgeable about the─9─Chris Oliver

topic at hand, creates what the authors refer to as “face-threatening interactions” wherestudents are often very sensitive to how they will be seen by others based on what they
say in class. One student interviewed thus described in-class brainstorming in thefollowing way: “brainstorming is not as interesting as it could be because we’re almost
like too afraid to say things because of what the other person might think” (Robinson
et al., 2015, p. 17). As this student’s comment shows, students may well be aware that
other students in their own group are all in the same predicament and tend to behave
similarly. Students may become so concerned with maintaining social harmony within
their small group that they end up avoiding voicing differences of opinion. This can
indicate a significant measure of friendliness, mutual concern, and rapport among
students, but this kind of restricted rapport—reminiscent of Basil Bernstein’s (1964,
ii

1966) well-known notion of restricted code —can actually impede the quality of learningthat takes place among the members of the group.
The authors rightly point out that overcoming this may require “more advanced
communicative skills than those upon which individuals usually rely on in everyday
conversations” (Robinson et al., 2015, p. 14). Put another way, while convivial rapport
among students is without doubt important for active learning to work well, anotherdimension of rapport—one more academic and amenable to the expression of ideas andexamination of arguments—may also need to be deliberately cultivated among students.
Such intellectual rapport will likely not emerge spontaneously from ice-breakers andother exercises used to promote conviviality; teachers may need to teach students how
to engage in discussion as a prerequisite to undertaking extensive, discussion-oriented
active-learning activities.
On-board attitude
A recurring theme in the literature on active learning is resistance or “pushback”
from students about the prospect of having to participate in a course organized around
active learning or that incorporates elements of active learning, particularly in large
classes (e.g., Lambach, Kärger, & Goerres, 2017; Messineo, Gaither, Bott, & Ritchey,
2007; Nguyen, Yu, Japutra, & Chen, 2015; Tniby et al., 2014). Messineo et al. (2007, p.
125), for instance, report that their efforts to apply active learning methods that worked
successfully in small classes to larger classes did not go over well: “Attempts to divide
students into discussion groups were met with apathy, group projects were greeted withresistance and frustration, and individual research projects were met with anger anddisbelief.” In subsequent research, they found that experienced students (non-freshmen)

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Active Learning in Large-scale Classes: Lessons From the Field

tended to be less committed to large classes and to see group work in such classes as awaste of time (Messineo et al., 2007). Similarly, another study found that while students
assigned a high value to both lectures and being active in class, this did not extend togroup-based, cooperative learning activities (Machemer & Crawford, 2007).
One plausible reason for this is the anonymity afforded by classes with large
enrollments (Benjamin, 1991; Machemer & Crawford, 2007). As noted by Benjamin(Benjamin, 1991, p. 70), “some students enjoy the anonymity of the large lecture classthat leaves them with little responsibility other than taking notes. Students reportfeeling less pressure in lecture classes, and the larger the class the less pressure theyfeel.” Machemer & Crawford (2007, p. 24) offer a similar view: Students may in factchoose to enroll in a certain class precisely because it is large, “because they seeka teacher-centered learning environment, where they can be passive observers andpreserve their anonymity.”
The attitudinal opposite of student pushback to active learning in large classes iswhat Cavanaugh et al. refer to as “buy-in,” a term that relates to “individuals’ feelingsin relation to a new way of thinking or behaving” (Cavanagh et al., 2016, p. 2). In thecontext of active learning activities in a classroom, buy-in can reflect how students
believe in the validity or usefulness of the active learning activity and how committed
they are to participating in it. Some maintain that a key way to promote buy-in, as such,is to explicitly “sell” students on the value of the active learning methods to be used inclass. Tniby et al., for instance, note that despite the educational merits of using teambased learning (TBL) in large classes in international relations and comparative politics,“some students may not appreciate either the requirement of working in teams or theextent to which they are asked to take responsibility for their own learning. …The best
strategies for minimizing student pushback are to be extremely clear in laying out thecourse structure and requirements, to avoid being defensive or apologetic about theapproach, and to explain or demonstrate the benefits of TBL” (Tniby et al., 2014, p. 191;
see also Baepler et al., 2016).
One means for cultivating student buy-in to active learning is by adopting the
EPIC model, comprised of exposure, persuasion, identification, and commitment. As
described by Cavanagh et al. (2016) and applied to an anatomy and physiology classinvolving more than 200 students, the process of operationalizing EPIC buy-in proceeds
through four steps: “from 1) exposure to active learning, to 2) persuasion that these
activities are good, to 3) identification that the activities are good for them personally,to 4) commitment to this way of learning” (Cavanagh et al., 2016, pp. 2–3). Whether one

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adopts this particular model for increasing student buy-in to active learning, the moregeneral implication is that the act of explicitly making students cognizant of the active
learning methods being used and the rationale for their use—particularly if these are
not common in the large-scale classes students ordinarily experience—may serve to help
get students more fully on board with the active learning activities that the teacher isincorporating into the class.
Nevertheless, a somewhat thorny issue that remains is how to deal with thosestudents who I described earlier as “loners,” who in a large class sit by themselves withno one immediately next to them and who make little or no effort to engage others inclass. Even though they may understand, at an intellectual level, the arguments infavor of active learning, at an emotional and behavioral level they may not be truly on
board with or may even feel incapable of doing active learning, especially if it involves
intense interaction with other students. There may be any number of reasons for this—introversion, extreme shyness, social anxiety, depression, etc.—which in a large classare not necessarily evident to the instructor. Cooper and Brownell (2016), for instance,
examine the experiences of students with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer,intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA) identities in active learning classrooms. In classes
involving significant active learning, the social dynamics between students become moresignificant, making certain identities more salient; the authors report that LGBTQIA
students “do not always experience the undergraduate biology classroom to be awelcoming or accepting place for their identities” (Cooper & Brownell, 2016, p. 1). In asimilar vein, students suffering from depression, social anxiety or other mental healthissue may be at their limit in merely coming to class, let alone being expected to actively
communicate and discuss their ideas with others.
The literature on active learning in large-scale classes seems to have little to say
about how to accommodate the various possible types of students who normally sit
aloneiii. Weimer (2012), for instance, suggests question-discussion among students as
one method that can work well in large classes. The assumption here is that students
are in fact seated next to someone with whom they can discuss the questions: “Students
may write ideas about answers, they may talk about answers with those sitting next tothem, and they may explain answers to each other” (Weimer, 2012, emphasis added).
One possible takeaway from this is that even in a lecture course that will occasionally
include short periods of discussion among students, the teacher can either require thatall students be seated next to someone, or that as a rule all students be seated next tosomeone although certain students may be exempted from this policy. This could be─ 12 ─

Active Learning in Large-scale Classes: Lessons From the Field

enforced, for example, through a seating chart or through assigned groups of students
who will be expected to work together in class. Many of the case studies and studiesof active learning in large classes involve class models where the large class is divided
into groups and all students, presumably, belong to a group so that it is impossible foranyone to be sitting alone. Connell et al. (2016), for example, report positive outcomes inchanging a large-enrollment biology course so that active learning was used extensively,
a process whereby students were placed in assigned groups and remained in thosegroups for the duration of the academic term (see also Godlewska et al., 2019).
Teachers can certainly pair up students or assign them to groups, as a matterof course, or arrange the classroom layout so that it is physically impossible for any
students to be sitting with no one next to them. In some cases this may be appreciated;in others it may simply make the students uncomfortable and not qualify as respectfultreatment of students as individuals. Given that college teachers today are sometimes
asked to make reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities or health issues
that could impair their ability to take part in classes, one cannot help but wonder if it
is right to address student pushback by trying to sell students on the merits of active
learning without equally investing ourselves in listening carefully to what they have tosay. A pedagogical and ethical dilemma that presents itself here is what to do if we cometo realize that there may be students who in fact have valid reasons for not being fully
on board with participating in active learning activities, particularly those that demand
them to interact intensively with other students. How do we respectfully accommodate
them without undermining the sense of on-boardness among other students in the class?

Conclusion
As discussed above, the professional and research-based literature on active
learning, while not offering clear-cut solutions to the three problem areas of monitoring,rapport among students, and attitudinal on-boardness, does suggest directions in whichteachers might apply their efforts. Concerning the monitoring of student engagementin active learning tasks, one possible direction is for the instructor to embrace a shift inperspective and relinquish the perceived need for thoroughgoing, real-time monitoringof student involvement in class and to instead place more emphasis on helping students
understand how to better contribute to the production of learning in active learning
tasks carried out in class. The problem of rapport may require recognizing that convivial
rapport among students does not necessarily engender the kind of intellectual rapport
expected of them in active learning activities. Finally, the commonplace stance in the─ 13 ─

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literature that active learning will in all likelihood involve students actively engaging
with and, in a sense, revealing themselves to one another begs us to consider how best to
respectfully deal with those students who resist or find it difficult to commit themselves
intellectually, emotionally, and behaviorally to active learning activities.
One issue not addressed in the present article is the role played by cultural factors
in efforts to implement active learning. This is hinted at, in passing, by Lambach et al.
(2017, p. 562), who briefly comment about the students in their study: “the students’extensive experience with the traditional lecture format has socialized them into alearning culture that is characterized by memorization and that is highly focused on
succeeding in written exams.” Though the authors do not develop the point, readers caninfer that “traditional” modes of teaching and learning are culturally variable and tied
to students’ understandings of the value of learning, their regard for teacherly authority,
their ingrained beliefs about what constitutes effective study, and their sense of propercomportment in the classroom. The active learning literature taken up in this article,
while predominantly coming out of the U.S., also draws upon research and case studies
from Canada, the U.K., Germany, Spain, and Chile, but the significance of differencesin educational environments is left largely undiscussed therein. Just as active learning
does not easily scale up from small-scale to large-scale classes, the question remains
as to what issues emerge when active learning is transferred across from one nationalcultural context to another.

References
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class: Seven strategies, from the simple to complex. Cell Biology Education,
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Álvarez, C., Baloian, N., Zurita, G., & Guarini, F. (2017). Promoting active learningin large classrooms: Going beyond the clicker. In C. Gutwin, S. F. Ochoa, J.
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Barkley, E. F. (2009). Student engagement techniques: A handbook for college faculty─ 14 ─

Active Learning in Large-scale Classes: Lessons From the Field[Kindle version]. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
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psychology class. Teaching of Psychology, 18(2), 68–74.
Bernstein, B. (1964). Elaborated and restricted codes: Their social origins and someconsequences. American Anthropologist, 66(6), 55–69.
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Cooper, K. M., & Brownell, S. E. (2016). Coming out in class: Challenges and benefits ofactive learning in a biology classroom for LGBTQIA students. CBE Life Sciences
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Godlewska, A., Beyer, W., Whetstone, S., Schaefli, L., Rose, J., Talan, B., … Forcione,
M. (2019). Converting a large lecture class to an active blended learning class:Why, how, and what we learned. Journal of Geography in Higher Education,
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Lambach, D., Kärger, C., & Goerres, A. (2017). Inverting the large lecture class: Active
learning in an introductory international relations course. European Political
Science, 16(4), 553–569. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41304-016-0078-3
Machemer, P. L., & Crawford, P. (2007). Student perceptions of active learning in a large

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Chris Olivercross-disciplinary classroom: Active Learning in Higher Education, 8(1), 9–30.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1469787407074008
Magna Publications (Ed.). (2017). Active learning: A practical guide for college faculty.
Madison, WI: Magna Publications.
Marbach-Ad, G., & Sokolove, P. G. (2002). The use of e-mail and in-class writing tofacilitate student-instructor interaction in large-enrollment traditional andactive learning classes. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 11(2),109–119.
Messineo, M., Gaither, G., Bott, J., & Ritchey, K. (2007). Inexperienced versus
experienced students’ expectations for active learning in large classes. College
Teaching, 55(3), 125–133.
Nguyen, B., Yu, X., Japutra, A., & Chen, C.-H. S. (2015). Reverse teaching: Exploring
student perceptions of “flip teaching.” Active Learning in Higher Education,
17(1), 51–61. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469787415616727
O’Neal, C., & Pinder-Grover, T. (n.d.). How can you incorporate active learning into
your classroom? In University of Michigan GSI Guidebook. Retrieved fromhttp://dev.crlt.umich.edu/sites/default/files/instructor_resources/how_can_you_
incorporate_active_learning.pdf
Remón, J., Sebastián, V., Romero, E., & Arauzo, J. (2017). Effect of using smartphones
as clickers and tablets as digital whiteboards on students’ engagement andlearning. Active Learning in Higher Education, 18(2), 173–187.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1469787417707618
Robinson, L., Harris, A., & Burton, R. (2015). Saving face: Managing rapport in a
Problem-Based Learning group. Active Learning in Higher Education, 16(1),11–24. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469787415573355
Tniby, K., Weiss, M. L., & Rousseau, S. D. L. (2014). Teaching the unfamiliar to a crowd.
PS: Political Science and Politics, 47(1), 189–194.
Weimer, M. (2012, April 3). Active-learning ideas for large classes: Simple to complex.
Retrieved December 9, 2019, from Faculty Focus website:
https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-teaching-strategies/active-learningideas-for-large-classes-simple-to-complex/─ 16 ─

Active Learning in Large-scale Classes: Lessons From the Field

Notes
i

While the primary language of instruction is thus English, in-class discussions among
students are typically carried out in Japanese, at the students’ discretion.

ii

In Bernstein’s formulation, restricted code is characterized by the assumption of areduced need for speakers to explicitly articulate themselves to others due to a closelyshared set of interests, expectations, and identifications. The more the intents ofothers are taken for granted, “the more likely that the structure of the speech will
be simplified and the vocabulary drawn from a narrow range” (Bernstein, 1964, pp.
60–61).

iii

Practical tips on how to accommodate “introverts” (e.g., Magna Publications, 2017;
cf. Bain, 2004, p. 131 on “shy” students), while useful in cases where the instructor
can with certitude identify certain students as introverts, applies only to a limited
segment of those students I am referring to here.

─ 17 ─

Sophia University Junior College Division Faculty Journal
第 41 号, 2020, 19-32

Research Note on SUJCD and Foreign
Residents in Hadano, 1987-2007: Preliminary
1Contextualization
Maria Lupas and Sachie Miyazaki
ABSTRACT
Sophia University Junior College Division (SUJCD) is located in Hadano City,
Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, and has a relatively long-standing relationship with
its host community. This research note looks at the junior college’s relationship with
one part of the Hadano community, namely, the foreign residents. It focuses on two
groups of foreign residents: those who came to Hadano as refugees through the Yamato
Resettlement Center from what is known as Indochina (Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam)
and those who came from South America, particularly Peru. It considers some of theindividuals involved in the Japanese language classes and other support for foreign
residents including the junior college’s In-Home Volunteer Tutoring Program.

Introduction
We started this research in 2017 as part of a Sophia University intramural teamresearch project on the role of churches and civic institutions in welcoming refugees toJapan. In that year, the worldwide refugee crisis was reaching new limits, and antirefugee sentiment was fueling the election of populist governments in different places
around the globe. On a local level, our interest in this topic was also motivated by thelong-standing involvement of many members of the Hadano campus community withrefugees in the Hadano area. We desired to use this research project as an opportunity
to take stock of what had been done, what was being done, and where potential needs
might be. Several members of the research team at the Yotsuya campus had considerable
experience collecting data from interviews in video format and creating video archives.
This kind of video ethnography was new to many of us at the Hadano campus but
seemed an exciting method to collect data which we believed needed to be collected.
We used a “pick the low-lying fruit” method and started by interviewing people we
could easily get a hold of, and from these people understood little by little the namesof people who were connected to their stories and whom we also tried to contact with
their assistance. We did not assume that people had immutable roles and that some

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Maria Lupas and Sachie Miyazaki

people were always “helpers” and other people were always “being helped.” This kindof pigeon-holing did not naturally appeal to us, and we did not use it, with the resultthat we looked into the stories of both people who were at one point on the receiving
end of support as well as people who were on the giving end. In fact, many people on thegiving end of the support for the years we were studying were foreign missionaries andthus could be considered foreign residents themselves. And those who received help inthe beginning years of the study period later helped those who arrived after them. This
study therefore includes data we gathered concerning both those supporting foreign
residents and those being supported as foreign residents. Both sides are represented,
and in the case of Hadano, the boundaries sometimes are quite porous.
Two particular groups of foreign residents we are studying, those from Indochina
and from Peru, were not always numerically the most represented in Hadano from1987 to 2007, but they came into contact more often with the institutions we studied.
They received more language support from the institutions we examined than the more
numerous groups from Korea, China, and the United States.
This research note presents some preliminary background studies we conducted forthe interviews as well as some early findings and intuitions. This note consists mainly ofcontextualization of some main institutions and people. Contextualization is importantbecause partnerships between people and also institutions are often shaped by the2history, culture, and mission of each of the parties. Knowing the history and culture of
the institutions and people is therefore valuable for understanding their relationships.

1. Some demographics of the foreign population in Hadano forthe years 1987-2007
Hadano City in Kanagawa Prefecture enjoys a green, relatively low-lying location
between the Tanzawa Mountain range to the north and Sagami Bay to the south. It is
about one hour by train to either Tokyo’s Shinjuku Station or to the center of Yokohama.
On a clear day, Hadano’s view of Mount Fuji well deserves notice. It is here that several
groups of foreign residents have been able to resettle since the 1980s.
Political, economic, and social upheavals in southeast Asia in the 1970s contributed
to the displacement of peoples. People trying to escape from Vietnam by boat became
known as “boat people,” while those escaping by land from Cambodia and Laos
became known as “land people.” Collectively, displaced persons from Cambodia,
Laos, and Vietnam were also called the “Indochina refugees,” and, following the firstlanding of boat people in Japan in 1975, the Japanese Cabinet eventually finalized─ 20 ─

Research Note on SUJCD and Foreign Residents in Hadano, 1987-2007: Preliminary Contextualization

3

a plan to officially resettle 500 such refugees from Indochina. The plan included theestablishment of centers which would train the refugees in the Japanese language andin the basics of living in Japan, as well as facilitate their insertion into Japanese society
through vocational and housing assistance. The first resettlement center was opened in
Himeji in Hyogo Prefecture in 1979, and a second center opened in 1980 in Yamato in
Kanagawa Prefecture. The opening and operation of the centers was entrusted to the4Foundation for the Welfare and Education of Asian People (FWEAP).

The Yamato Resettlement Center in Kanagawa Prefecture operated for eighteen
5years from 1980 to 1998 and helped a total of 2,641 people to resettle to Japan. By
1994, the original quota of 500 refugees had been expanded to include 10,000 people and6

the framework set up by the Japanese Cabinet to welcome them was then terminated.

Following the decision to phase out the framework, the Yamato center continued tooperate until its final closing in 1998.
Hadano City was a destination for some of the Indochinese refugees from the
Yamato Resettlement Center. While not all the Indochinese residents of Hadano camethrough the Yamato Resettlement Center, the presence of some residents attracted othercompatriots who later came to settle there, too. Table 1. shows the number of registeredforeign residents from Indochina:

Year

S61
S62
S63
H1
H2
H3
H4
H5
H6
H7
H8
H9

1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997

Cambodia

35
43
40
33
37
38
39
48
55
52
58
65

Laos

Vietnam

Total
Foreign
Residents

Total
Population

2
2
8
17
22
27
41
34
53
73
92
112

478
566
600
672
1,050
1,516
1,663
1,778
1,745
1,937
2,046
2,238

145,086
148,469
151,184
152,801
155,620
158,212160,146
161,692
163,244
164,722
165,395
166,512

13
21
44
45
49
47
58
79
77
103
115
130

Table 1. Foreign residents in Hadano City, 1986-1997 (Source: Tōkei Hadano [Hadano
Statistics], 1991-1997)

─ 21 ─

Maria Lupas and Sachie Miyazaki

In 1987, for example, there were a total of 566 foreign residents registered in HadanoCity, of whom 43 were from Cambodia, 21 from Laos, and 2 from Vietnam. Before 1986,
the largest foreign resident populations were from Korea and China and those from
Indochina were not numerally significant enough to appear in the detailed statistics.
By the year 2001, after the Yamato Resettlement Center closed, the number of foreign
residents from Indochina living in Hadano had remained about the same with 57 people
from Cambodia, 132 people from Laos, and 189 people from Vietnam registered in
Hadano.

7

Kanagawa prefecture’s economy had performed well in the early 1980s, and theprefectural governor could proudly claim that “Kanagawa has become Japan’s industrial
nerve center” (Kanagawa ken Kenmin Sōmushitsu, 1985). Moreover, Hadano City’s open
spaces and location close to Tokyo and Yokohama made it a convenient site for factories
belonging to several manufacturers. The factories and services catering to them wereable to employ a considerable number of workers. The registered businesses in Hadanoran the gamut from food corporations to makers of electronics with the highest grouprepresented being makers of electronics. Table 2 shows the businesses in Hadano andthe number of people they employed.

Year

S61
S62
S63
H1
H2
H3
H4
H5
H6
H7
H8

1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996

Businesses in
HadanoPeople employed
by HadanoBusinesses

339
340
367
363
510
381
378
367
344
342
350

17,88518,183
19,245
19,716
21,36019,755
19,69418,991
19,91019,615
19,695

Table 2. Number of businesses in Hadano City and the people employed by thosebusinesses (Source: Tōkei Hadano [Hadano Statistics], 1991-1997)
A spotlight was shone on the Indochinese refugees by a tragic incident in February─ 22 ─

Research Note on SUJCD and Foreign Residents in Hadano, 1987-2007: Preliminary Contextualization

1987. The incident involved a Cambodian refugee living in Hadano. On February 8,
he killed his wife who had been in the hospital since the previous day and scheduled
for surgery. She died on her hospital bed right after the neighboring patients hearda scream (Asahi Shimbun, February 9, 1987, 23). When the refugee’s house wasinvestigated, the couple’s three young children were also found dead. Newspapers
reporting the incident at that time gave different katakana versions of the man’s nameincluding: Boi Mūn ボイ・ムーン , Bui Mūn ブイ・ムーン , and Bui Muan ブイ ∙ ムアン .
At the time of the incident, he was 34 years old, his wife was 26, the eldest girl was 8
years old, followed by a boy 6 years old, and a young girl who was 4 years old. The couple
had arrived in Japan less than 2 years before the incident and had stayed at the Yamato
Resettlement Center before moving to Hadano (Asahi Shimbun, February 9, 1987, 23).
Newspapers at the time connected the killings to the man’s inability to learn theJapanese language. They reported that the man originally held a job with a company
in Isehara, but that he had quit that job since January and was staying at home (Asahi
Shimbun, February 9, 1987, 23). The 6-year-old son was also reported to have talked
with the Yamato center around noon on February 7 and told them that the father was
sitting in front of the television and drinking alcohol (Asahi Shinbun, February 10, 1987,
23). Newspapers and others interpreted the killings as the result of the man’s inability
to keep a job due to his not being able to speak Japanese.
Several newspapers including Asahi Shimbun and Mainichi Shimbun covered
the incident with Asahi Shimbun publishing several articles on it. Nevertheless, thenews was not on the front page of either of these two major-circulation newspapers. In
Hadano, the news made a larger stir, and it mobilized several people in the Hadanocommunity and at the junior college to want to start Japanese language classes tosupport foreign residents.
In the 1990s other groups of foreign residents grew in number, particularly thosefrom Latin America. Table 3 shows the number of residents in Hadano from Peru andBrazil. No data is available for Peru for the years 1989 to 1992 since the numbers were
not significant enough to be counted as a distinct group.

─ 23 ─

Maria Lupas and Sachie Miyazaki

Year
H1
H2
H3
H4
H5
H6
H7
H8
H9

1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997

Peru

72
68
92
119
168

Brazil
65
286
563
539
568
556
640
661
799

Total
Foreign
Total
Residents Population

672
1,050
1,516
1,663
1,778
1,745
1,937
2,046
2,238

152,801
155,620
158,212160,146
161,692
163,244
164,722
165,395
166,512

Table 3. Hadano foreign residents from Peru and Brazil(Source: Tōkei Hadano [Hadano Statistics], 1991-1997)
By the year 2000, the number of residents from Peru and Brazil increased
dramatically. Table 4 shows the data for the years 2000-2007.

Year
H12
H13
H14
H15
H16
H17
H18
H19

2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007

Peru
257
298
325
344
393
420
433
443

Brazil
762
877
899
944
965
1,006
964
920

Total
Foreign
Total
Residents Population

2,551
2,952
3,069
3,265
3,402
3,578
3,556
3,576

168,142
168,323
168,431
168,505
168,540
168,317
168,587
169,067

Table 4. Hadano foreign residents from Peru and Brazil (Source: Kanagawa kennai
8

gaikokujin tōkei [Kanagawa prefectural statistics on foreign residents] )2. Some institutions working with foreign residents in Hadanoincluding SUJCD
Several institutions were involved in supporting foreign residents. Here we will
focus on three of them: the NGO Ayumukai, the In-Home Volunteer Tutoring Program─ 24 ─

Research Note on SUJCD and Foreign Residents in Hadano, 1987-2007: Preliminary Contextualizationof Sophia Junior College, and Hadano Catholic Church.

A. Ayumukai
The Hadano NGO “Tōnan Ajia no Hitobito to tomoni Ayumukai [Walking together
with the People of Southeast Asia Association],” henceforth, Ayumukai, was begun as adirect response to the February 1987 incident. In 2018, to commemorate their 31 years
thof operation, the NGO issued a 30 anniversary issue of their publication Ayumi. In
it, they clearly link the NGO’s founding to the February 1987 incident (Tōnan Ajia no
Hitobito to tomoni Ayumukai 1).
Ayumukai was closely connected to people in the Hadano City Hall. One of thepersonnel of the Hadano City Hall, Shinji Harada, recalls in a 2007 article on thethoccasion of the 20 anniversary of the NGO that he was shocked upon learning what had
happened and asked the mayor of Hadano to begin a volunteer support structure to help
the refugees. In the same article Harada is credited with being a founder of the NGO(Kikuchi 2007).
The main way in which the Ayumukai NGO tried to support refugees was to holdJapanese language classes. These classes taught Japanese and also provided consulting
for daily life in Japan. Classes were set up as early as March of 1987, one month after
the killings, and the NGO was officially launched one year later in 1988 (Tōnan Ajia no
Hitobito to tomoni Ayumukai 10).

B. Sophia Junior College In-Home Volunteer Tutoring Program
The junior college was involved early on with members of what would become the
NGO Ayumukai. Junior College students began volunteering to teach Japanese classes
on Sundays. One of the pillars of the Ayumukai NGO, Seiji Imafuku, was himself
graduate of Sophia University and this facilitated the collaboration with the juniorcollege. According to a 2005 internal publication about the junior college volunteer
program, it was after this first experience of the students at the Sunday Japaneseclasses that the need was felt to do in-home volunteer tutoring. It was then that thejunior college partnered with the Ayumukai NGO and launched the In-Home Volunteer
Tutoring Program (kateikyōshi borantia) on weekdays. The in-home volunteering began
in May of 1988 and ten junior college students participated that year.
The In-Home Volunteer Tutoring Program begun in 1988 expanded year by year
and in 2004 received a “Good Practice” award from the Japanese Ministry of Education.
The number of junior college volunteers grew from 10 students in 1988, to more than 70

─ 25 ─

Maria Lupas and Sachie Miyazaki

volunteers per year for the years 1998 to 2003. For the years 2003 to 2005 the number ofstudent volunteers was over 100. As the program grew, the geographic area to which thetutors were sent also expanded and households as far as Hiratsuka, Isehara, and HonAtsugi were receiving tutors. In general, the tutoring was in the evening for one hourwith a start time sometime between 5 and 7 p.m. depending on the learner’s schedulingneeds.
The program, which originally focused on providing service to families fromcountries in Indochina residing in Hadano City, also began to help other groups offoreign residents. It began working with another NGO called “Chūnanbei no Hitobito oKangaerukai [Thinking about People from Central and South America Association].” By
the end of 2005, according to an internally published 2006 guidebook, the largest group
receiving the student tutors was from Peru. Significantly, the 2006 guidebook intended
for prospective families seeking in-house tutoring was published in eight languages:
Japanese, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Lao, Khmer, and Chinese. The
guidebook notes that there were no fees for the families either for the tutoring or forthe materials. The families were given the possibility to share their cooking at a booth
during the yearly school festival as a way of giving back to the school.
Part of the success of the In-Home Volunteer Tutoring Program in terms of its
durability and the number of students and community members involved might be
attributed to the good fit between the junior college’s goals as an education institution
and the Hadano community’s needs and assets. On the junior college’s side, its
educational goals were based on three founding principles: a training in Christianhumanism, an international training, and language training. On the side of the Hadanocommunity, there was a need for further Japanese language and daily life support
for the foreign residents and this was also an asset because it meant that the foreign
residents brought their own international experience to the Hadano community and to
those who would be doing service for them. By volunteering in the tutoring program, thejunior college students who helped the foreign residents of Hadano were also meeting
their school’s goal by getting a training in the Christian value of helping their neighbors,by getting an international experience by going into the homes of the foreign residents,
and by improving their own language skills through teaching language.

C. Hadano Catholic Church
Hadano Catholic Church was entrusted to several foreign missionary priests overthe course of the years. The church opened its doors and allowed the use of its facilities─ 26 ─

Research Note on SUJCD and Foreign Residents in Hadano, 1987-2007: Preliminary Contextualization

for the Japanese language classes. Some of the tutoring done by the In-Home Volunteer
Tutoring Program also took place in the Hadano Catholic Church facilities which arelocated a few minutes’ walk away from the Hadano train station. When in 2000 and also
again in 2006, Masahiro Raphael Umemura, bishop of the diocese of Yokohama to which
Hadano Catholic Church belongs, began issuing plans and guidelines for Yokohama
diocese with regards to the foreign resident faithful, the members of Hadano Catholic
Church found the support to start their own Japanese language classes on the church
premises on Sunday mornings after the morning Mass. These classes, begun in 2006,
originally targeted several Vietnamese residents who were also Catholic.

3. Role of individuals in working with foreign residents as wellas the kind of support they gave
As Barbara Jacoby insightfully noted about developing and sustaining partnerships
between campuses and the community, “partnerships between institutions start as
relationships between individuals” (61). This is especially the case with beginning of thejunior college’s In-Home Volunteer Tutoring Program and other activities in the Hadanocommunity.
One individual involved with the Hadano Community was Sister Maria Maldonado(1931-2009) of the Company of Mary Our Lady, in Latin Ordine societatis Mariae
Dominae Nostrae, a Roman Catholic religious order founded in the early seventeenth
century by Saint Jeanne de Lestonnac. Sister Maria Maldonado came to Japan from
9

Spain in 1961. The Company of Mary had been working in Japan since 1959 andoperated the dormitory for women adjacent to the junior college where several of thesisters also taught.
Sister Maria Maldonado did not formally teach at the junior college. She had a
training in social work and performed various services. She personally knew many
Hadano residents and took an interest in those living in Hadano. One informant forthis study, a resident of Hadano from Peru, explained how Maldonado, better known as
Sister Maria, actively helped her settle in Hadano in the early 1990s.
According to this informant, Sister Maria played a key role in helping her break outof a vicious cycle. The situation was that the informant and her husband had recently
come from Peru. A son was born to the couple in Japan, and when the child grew older,
the couple wanted to put the child into daycare so that both parents could work. Yet
without daycare for the child, it was difficult for the mother to look for a job, but it wasalso not possible to get the daycare without both parents already working. Once the─ 27 ─

Maria Lupas and Sachie Miyazaki

mother was finally able to get a tentative job offer from a company, another obstacle was
the long waiting list for child daycare. The informant insisted that it was Sister Maria’s
speaking to the city hall on her behalf that speeded up the process.
Sister Maria had also helped the informant when she was pregnant, and her baby
was born in the hospital. On that occasion, Sister Maria, who was from Spain and spoke
Spanish, served as the interpreter between the informant and the doctor. After that,
Sister Maria helped other foreign residents in hospitals with her interpretation skills:“After this first experience she started helping other people in the hospitals, mainly for
10translations.”

The informant was also aware of Sister Maria’s activities to help foreigners inprison in Japan. This is because Sister Maria would ask people to contribute magazinesand other reading materials they no longer needed for the prisoners: “if you havenewspapers or the latest thingummy to take to the people in prison,” she would ask. “Shewouldn’t talk much about this kind of situations with us but, she let us know that she
was committed to these people, too.”

11

Sister Maria Maldonado became relatively well known in Hadano and several
publications highlighted her multiple activities in Kanagawa. Among other publications,
she was featured in the Hadano City edition of the free paper Town News (number 364)
for her volunteer work in the national hospital in Kanagawa and her organizing student
volunteers from the junior college dormitory to come help as well. The Kanagawa
Prefecture based Tomoshibi Undō o Susumeru Kenmin Kaigi [Prefectural Conference
Commending Bright Activities] also included her in an album of inspiring personalities.
Another individual connected to the junior college’s involvement with foreign
residents was Sister Rosa María Cortés Gómez, ODN (1940-2015). She came to Japan
from Spain in 1962 with the same Roman Catholic religious order, the Company of Mary
Our Lady. She was on faculty at the junior college and appears in the yearbook with thefirst graduating class of 1975. Immediately after the 1987 incident in Hadano, she wasinstrumental in organizing the student volunteers for Japanese language classes which
later became the In-Home Volunteer Tutoring Program.
One informant for our study who came from Laos to Hadano through the Yamato
Resettlement Center in the early 1990s described the kind of hands-on help that Sister
Cortés provided. Sister Cortés would bring the informant to the school grounds andprovide driving lessons to help the informant pass the driving test and get a driver’s
license. To do this, they would drive on the extensive convent and school grounds when12

the grounds were not being used.

─ 28 ─

Research Note on SUJCD and Foreign Residents in Hadano, 1987-2007: Preliminary Contextualization

Sister Cortés also formally studied the problem of foreign residents in Japan and in2005 completed a doctoral dissertation entitled, “Minority Groups in Japan: A Historicaland Cultural Approach” (Cortés 2006). Some of the findings in her dissertation appear
summarized in the junior college faculty bulletin from 2006.

Conclusion
This preliminary research contains some of the context to the interactions between
SUJCD and the foreign population in Hadano City. We found that individuals had a big
impact in putting programs together. We also noticed that many of the individuals were
foreigners themselves. Areas of further research include interviewing more informants
about their experiences as supporters or receiving support. A look at the experiences ofthe second generation of foreign residents might also yield interesting data.

Works Cited
Saint Jeanne de Lestonnac and Sisters of the Company of Mary Our Lady. Editions
Fleurus, 1990.
Asian Province of the Company of Mary Our Lady. https://asiaodn.org/アジアにおける活動 /.
Accessed 14 Dec. 2019.
Asahi Shimbun. “Narenu ikyō de ikka hōkai 慣れぬ異郷で一家崩壊 [Not Adjusting to a
Foreign Country, One Family Comes to Ruin],” Asahi Shimbun 朝日新聞 daytime
edition, No. 3611 (February 9, 1987), 23.
Asahi Shimbun. “‘Tōchan Abareteruno,’ 6 Sai, SOS Denwa「父ちゃん暴れてるの」６歳、SOS 電話 [“Papa Is Acting Violently?” A Six-year Old’s SOS Call,” Asahi Shimbun
朝日新聞 morning edition, (February 10, 1987) 23.
Foundation for the Welfare and Education of the Asian People. “History of the Refugee
Assistance Headquarters.” 2009, http://www.fweap.or.jp/history%20of%20RHQ.
htm.
Cortés Gómez, Rosa María. “The Rights of Minorities in Japan: The Japanese
Government’s Four Periodic Reports to the United Nations Human Rights
Committee for the Covenant of Civil and Political Rights.” Faculty Bulletin
Sophia Junior College, vol. 26, 2006, pp. 1–35.
Kikuchi, Nobuo 菊地信夫 . “Te o Sashinoberu Yūki 手を差し伸べる勇気 . [The Courage toExtend a Hand]” Fukushi Times 福祉タイムズ . 2007.
http://www.knsyk.jp/pdf/times/c7a4c4bb1a57826b8e82efb42df1e567.pdf
Jacoby, Barbara. Service-Learning Essentials: Questions, Answers, and Lessons Learned.

─ 29 ─

Maria Lupas and Sachie Miyazaki

Jossey-Bass, 2015.
Kanagawa ken Kenmin Sōmushitsu 神奈川県県民総務室 [Kanagawa Prefecture General
Affairs Office]. The History of Kanagawa. 1st ed, Kanagawa Prefectural Govt.,
Office of Administration & Coordination, Community Relations Dept., 1985.
Kanagawa Prefecture. Kanagawa Kennai Gaikokujin Tōkei 神 奈 川 県 内 外 国 人 統 計[Kanagawa Prefectural Statistics on Foreign Residents].
https://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/docs/k2w/cnt/f4695/index.html, March 2019.
Ramalay, J. A. “The Perspective of a Comprehensive University.” In Civic Responsibilityand Higher Education, edited by T. Ehrlich, Oryx, 2000, 227-48.
Tōnan Ajia no Hitobito to tomoni Ayumukai 東南アジアの人々と共に歩む会. 30 Shunenkinenshi
Ayumi 30 周年記念誌 歩 AYUMI[30 Year Anniversary Ayumi Magazine]. 2018.
Tōkei Hadano 統計はだの [Hadano Statistics]. Hadano-shi Kikaku Sōmubu Gyosei Eieika
秦 野 市 企 画 総 務 部 行 政 経 営 課 [Hadano City Planning and Administration
Department], 1991, 1993, and 1997.
Tomoshibi Undō o Susumeru Kenmin Kaigi ともしび運動をすすめる県民会議 . 50 hi no
jinbutsu shi 50 燈の人物誌 [50 People Album]. 1992.
Town News. “Hadano no shizen mo hito mo daisuki desu 秦野の自然も人も大好きです[I Love the Nature and the People of Hadano].” Town News Hadano Edition
タウンニュース秦野版 . No.364, 1982, p. 2.

Notes
1

The authors would like to thank the energetic staff of the SUJCD Service Learning
Center especially Ms. Suzuki and Ms. Tsuchiya for their support of our project in a
myriad of small and large ways. Lupas would like to express a special thank you to thededicated staff of the SUJCD library and to the staff of the special Hadano collectionsof the Hadano City Library.

2

See Ramalay, 2000, 240.

3

See Foundation for the Welfare and Education of the Asian People (FWEAP) site.
http://www.fweap.or.jp/history%20of%20RHQ.htm

4

See the FWEAP site. http://www.fweap.or.jp/history%20of%20RHQ.htm

5

Ibid.

6

Ibid.

7

https://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/docs/k2w/cnt/f4695/index.html

8

Ibid.

9

See https://asiaodn.org.

─ 30 ─

Research Note on SUJCD and Foreign Residents in Hadano, 1987-2007: Preliminary Contextualization

10

Interview, September 2018.

11

Ibid.

12

Interview, March 2019.

─ 31 ─

編

集

後

記

2019 年度も 2018 年度に策定した査読基準に従い、（1）
形式と体裁に関すること（文体、書式、
引用・参照、文献目録）、および（2）内容に関すること（研究課題、先行研究、論理性、表現、
研究倫理）について、それぞれの投稿論文につき 2 名の専任教員が査読者として審査を行った。
紀要 41 号には 7 件の掲載希望があったが、実際に提出に至ったのは 2 件であった。査読の結果、論文 1 編と研究ノート 1 編の計 2 編の掲載となった。

Chris Oliver 氏は、大人数の授業におけるアクティブ・ラーニング活動における問題点について議論している。教員による個々の学生の活動のきめ細かな観察、学生同士の良好な関係の構築、学生による活動への積極的参加、などはアクティブ・ラーニングの成功に不可欠な要素であるが、それが大人数の授業では必ずしも機能しないことを述べた上で、Oliver 氏が担当する大人数クラスである異文化間コミュニケーションと文化人類学の授業でどのような実践が行われているかを紹介している。主体的学びと協働力を養うアクティブ・ラーニン
グは、本学が推進すべき課題として FD シンポジウムでも取り上げてきた問題であり、当論文は従来は講義形式であった授業にもいかにアクティブ・ラーニングを取り入れるのかについて示唆を与えてくれるものである。

Maria Lupas 氏および Sachie Miyazaki 氏は、秦野市における外国籍市民の歴史を、特に1987 年から 2007 年にかけて秦野に移住したインドシナ難民および南アメリカのペルー人たちに焦点を当てて紹介している。その上で、これらの外国籍市民を支援してきた「NGO 東南
アジアの人々と共に歩む会」、「上智短期大学家庭教師ボランティア」、「秦野カトリック教会」という 3 つの組織の成り立ち、支援の内容、支援実施者について、支援を受けた人および支援者へのインタビューなどに基づき詳細に論じている。当研究ノートは予備調査の段階での報告であるが、より多くのインタビューを今後行っていく予定であることが記されており、支援の歴史と実態について更に明らかにされていくことが期待できる。
執筆者の 2019 年度担当科目は以下の通りである。
Chris Oliver ……………… 英語Ⅰ、TOEIC対策講座Ⅰ, Ⅱ、準上級英語アカデミックスキルズ（社会学）、
異文化間コミュニケーション、文化人類学、ゼミナールⅠ, Ⅱ
Maria Lupas …………… 英語Ⅰ, Ⅱ, Ⅳ、基礎英語スキルズ（ライティング）、上級英語スキルズ（多読速読）、プレ・ゼミナール
宮崎 幸江………………… 留学準備（オーストラリア）、バイリンガル教育、サービスラーニング入門講座、
サービスラーニング（小中学校日本語支援B）、プレ・ゼミナール

最後に査読を担当した 4 名の教員にお礼を申し上げる。各論文を改善するための建設的提案は、本紀要の質的向上につながったと考える。
また、編集作業を潤滑に進めてくださった、事務センターの五十嵐梢氏と株式会社プリン
トボーイの松村元玄氏にお礼を申し上げる。
上智大学短期大学部紀要第 41 号編集代表者

近藤佐智子

上智大学短期大学部紀要

41号（2020）

2020年3月 5 日 印刷
2020年3月12日 発行
編集代表者

近藤

印

㈱プリントボーイ

刷

所

佐智子

〒157- 0062 東京都世田谷区南烏山6－24－13
発行者

上智大学短期大学部〒257-0005
神奈川県秦野市上大槻山王台999
電話 0463－83－9331（代表）http://www.jrc.sophia.ac.jp※本紀要は本学ホームページ上でもご覧になれます。