Abstract
Educators and researchers continuously discuss the best ways to engage and interest students in the material used in class. In this paper, we build on our research and the existing literature that suggests that using materials that are culturally familiar to the students is a good way to improve language gains as well as motivate and engage them in the lessons, as it connects the material more closely to their personal past experiences and schema. Here, we introduce the results of a survey that we developed to gauge student interests and discuss our approach to developing culturally relevant materials. The results of this study show that this interest is consistent across a variety of majors. This new prong of our work focuses on developing materials that are constructivist and culturally relevant, and therefore specifically designed to promote autonomous learning. After introducing the results of our survey into student interest and a discussion of materials creation, we close this article with a discussion of the feedback from students on a pilot lesson developed in conjunction with a renowned Japanese film critic.
Literature Review
Cultural Familiarity, Mental Schemata and Theories of Learning
As English has become what Dutch sociologist Abram de Swaan （2001） described as a supercentral language, and what the Japanese novelist Minae Mizumura （2015）
has called a universal language, global instruction of the English language has experienced a parallel shift, from teaching English as a second language to people living in countries whose main language is English, to the instruction of world Englishes, or teaching English to people who may never live in a country where the main language is English （Leung & Dewey, 2010）. In Japan in particular, the pedagogical strategies used to teach English need to be re-evaluated because studentsʼ goals have changed.
Many students learn English as a skill needed for a career in their home country rather
Robert Sheridan・Kathryn M. Tanaka・Jeanette Kobayashi
Student-Centered English Language Education in Japan
than to study or live abroad （Crystal, 2003; McKenzie, 2010）.
To meet the new goal of fluency in a universal language that can be used for business in oneʼs home country, rather than the goal of studying or living abroad, some instructors are beginning to shift their instructional methods. In particular, across the Middle East and Asia one method that is the subject of increased attention is the nativization of texts. Nativization is the adaptation of the textual and contextual cues of the original story into the learnerʼs own culture, while keeping its linguistic and rhetorical content essentially intact （Alptekin, 2006）. In the Middle East, researchers have demonstrated that nativization of foreign texts increases both literal and inferential comprehension （Alptekin, 2006; Ertzen & Razi, 2009; Tavakoli, Shirinbakhsh
& Rezazadeh, 2013; Demir, 2012） as well as vocabulary retention （Pulido, 2004）.
These studies have been extended into the Japanese context by scholars such as Chihara, Sakurai, and Oller （1989） who initially demonstrated that simple substitutions of English proper nouns to Japanese proper nouns resulted in higher cloze scores, a study that was replicated also in the Japanese context by Sasaki （2000） and expanded to demonstrate improved verbal recall of vocabulary. Finally, Sheridan, Tanaka and Hogg （2017） again built on these studies to show students who read culturally familiar texts scored higher in reading comprehension and vocabulary retention, in addition to reporting greater general interest and student engagement.
The above studies in general demonstrate that nativization of texts can yield benefits for learners. Following schema theory, a likely explanation of the results is that the culturally familiar contexts act as scaffolding, allowing students to organize the new information within these familiar schemata. Indeed, as proponents of schema theory have argued, “［n］ew information, new concepts, new ideas can have meaning only when they can be related to something the individual already knows” （Carrell &
Eisterhold, 1983, 553）. New information, in this case language, is arranged into the studentsʼ existing schema, activating studentsʼ memories and making greater language gains possible, as demonstrated in Japanese contexts by Sheridan, Tanaka and Hogg
（2017）; Sasaki （2000）; and Chihara, Sakurai, and Oller （1989）.
A consideration of the way in which schema theory works may open new approaches to pedagogy in the Japanese university EFL classroom. While we seek to avoid generalization, building on Rumelhart and Normanʼs （1978） discussion of universal modes of learning, we believe that in many cases compulsory language education in
primary and secondary school in Japan has made students most comfortable with accretion, with the modes of tuning and restructuring schemata being more challenging for them （Rumelhart & Norman, 1978）. Accretion consists of grammar structures, vocabulary, and the memorization of facts （Rumelhart & Norman, 1978）. Learning in this mode occurs when new facts are added to the existing schemata, which expands the studentsʼ knowledge, but does not shift schemata or provide a transformative learning experience. The current challenge for educators is to not only provide students with new information, but to provide opportunities for them to be able to actively use the language. Language is a tool, and accretion alone will promote student understanding but will not make the language something they can use actively and readily for themselves （Yanase & Koizumi, 2015）. Tuning assists with this, as new information is arranged within existing schemata that students can actively use more easily.
The final mode of learning, when entire schemata are restructured to create new world views, often occur with linguistic fluency （Rumelhart & Norman, 1976）. Indeed, many linguists have demonstrated that mastering a new language involves creating an entirely new schema or way to engage with the world （Carrell & Eisterhold, 1983）. Language affects how we perceive our reality and culture, and complete mastery at some point requires restructuring of schemata. That is to say, complete mastery of another language means understanding the nuances and cultural values embedded in the language. As the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis （the Whorfian hypothesis） famously states, language is relative; that is, words reflect ways of life and cultural idioms, the linguistic categories of a culture influence the way in which we think and some of our cultural behaviors （Lucy, 1992; Sapir, 1929; Whorf, 1940）. This is not, however, to say they limit our cognitive abilities. But for language learners in Japanese universities today, a complete restructuring of existing schema is not the final goal. In many English language textbooks, American, British, or even World English culture is often in the background of the text, as publishers try to interweave culture and language. For many mid-level Japanese students, the restructuring mode of learning wherein they attempt to process both culture and language may be more difficult if they cannot make distinct connections to themselves and their culture. This may have the effect, as previous studies have suggested, of lessening their language gains.
Thus, the challenge for educators in Japan is to not only expand studentsʼ
knowledge and allow them to make greater active language gains, but also to shift the way they use and reproduce it. To do this, we focused on the tuning mode of learning.
In our pilot study, we argue that cultural familiarity provides the schematic background to better allow for tuning to take place and allow students to make more language gains than peers who use schematically unfamiliar materials. This is because familiar culture allows students to fit new information into existing schemata. To this end, in the first part of our study, we ran a survey to assess which topics would engage student interest and further investigated whether these topic preferences would differ across majors. In the second part of our study, we then took these topics and applied a constructivist approach to materials development in order to create culturally familiar texts that would effectively shift studentsʼ learning modes from accretion to tuning to allow a more active, social language engagement. We believe this approach motivates Japanese students while allowing for greater language gains and teaches to the studentsʼ actual educational needs in the age of English as a supercentral language.
Part 1: What Culturally Familiar Topics do Students want to Study?
A constructivist approach to education applies schema theory to teaching and learning. This approach is rooted in the idea that learning is constructed based on prior knowledge, and new ideas must be incorporated into the existing framework in order to be retained （Piaget, 1978）. It further applies the idea that knowledge is constructed when learners actively create and test their own theories of the world （Piaget, 1968）. A flaw of many English language textbooks is the fact that they fail to connect with the person who studies them, and therefore need to be made to connect with the experiences and backgrounds of all students （Dornyei, 2001）. Furthermore, they do not effectively activate prior knowledge schema, as they will generally begin with a simple photo matching exercise or a discussion about what is happening in the given photographs, with a few general questions related to what students know about the theme that will be presented （Chase, 2018; Craven, 2016; Hegelsen, Wiltshier, & Brown, 2018; McCarthy, McCarten, & Sandiford, 2005; Richards, 2017; Wilson, 2011）. Often, textbook layout devotes only a short amount of time to activating prior knowledge and schema. In a textbook survey, Sheridan, Tanaka, Ando and Jackson （2017） revealed that the two most widely used textbooks in Japanese universities were the
series and the series. An example of the prior knowledge activation exercises can be found in Figure 1 & 2.
. An example of activating schema from the popular textbook series
（Level 1）（Hegelsen et al., 2018）
. An example of activating schema from the popular textbook series Choice （Level 1）（Wilson, 2011）
These images demonstrate that prior knowledge activation is often limited to the introduction of vocabulary, not ideas. It does not effectively draw on studentsʼ prior vocabulary, prior knowledge, or encourage them to develop their own ideas about a subject prior to the lesson. While vocabulary introduction is a key part of language education, it is also one of the goals for gains in the lessons. Thus, to use vocabulary activities as the knowledge activation exercises could lessen the language gains and reduce learning to the accretion mode. Our goal, therefore, was to spend time on students recognizing their existing culturally familiar schema and to then build on it to activate new modes of learning through creating a student-centered textbook focused on creating interested and active learners.
To the authorsʼ knowledge, there have not been any studies conducted into which culturally familiar topics students actually want to study. In order to fill this gap in the research, we conducted a topic preference survey. The ultimate goal of this exploratory research is to design a 12-unit textbook using the twelve most popular topics indicated by students from various majors.
Methodology Participants
Part one of our research began, then, with the idea that a student-centered text should be based on topics in which students expressed interest. Our first step was therefore to launch a bilingual “Topic Preference Survey” using SurveyMonkey, an online survey platform. The survey was taken by 318 lower intermediate-level EFL students from three private universities in Japan. The students were from the faculties of Agriculture （117）, Literature （87）, and Liberal Arts （109）, and the majority of them were between their freshman and their junior years in college. They were between the ages of 18 and 22. Out of the participants, 182 were women, 118 were men and 18 did not indicate gender identity.
Research Design
To design the survey, researchers drew on topics they had previously taught in classes that had received positive feedback from students as well as topics students indicated they would be interested in studying in informal conversations, creating six categories of broad topics they felt would be the most popular. These broad categories were then further divided into six sub-categories or “topics.” The survey itself consisted of 13 items: Six “ranking the topics” under each category items, where students were
asked to rank the topics in each category in order of those they would be interested in learning about in English language classes where 1 is the most interesting and 6 is the least interesting; six “giving examples for topics” in which students expressed interest;
and one item ranking the six categories.
Table 1.
Categories Japanese Groups
of People
Japanese Characters
Japanese
Pop Culture Japanese Food Japanese Places Animals in Japan Business Animation Animation At Ceremonies Dialect Cafes Minority Disney Applications Globalized Famous cuisine In captivity Topics Movie stars Ghibli Cosplay Michelin starred Local festivals In sport
Musicians Manga Gaming Regional Local legends Endangered
Politicians Sanrio Manga Seasonal Local traditions Fishing/hunting TV personalities Mascots Music Washoku Tourist attractions As pets
As Table 1 demonstrates, the six categories and the six topics within each category meant that students were given 36 different topics to choose from. It is important to note, however, there was some overlap of topics across the categories such as Manga and Animation, which appear in the categories of Characters and Pop Culture and Music and Musicians, which appear in Groups of People and Pop Culture.
Table 2.
Bilingual survey questions
1. 下記の日本人グループを英語の学習内容のトピックとして扱う場合、あなたが興味を持つ順 に１から6まで順位を付けてください。１…もっとも興味がある 6…もっとも興味が薄い Rank the following Japanese groups of people in order of those you would be interested in learning about in English language classes where 1 is most interesting to you and 6 is least interesting to you.
2. 下記の日本人グループを英語の学習内容のトピックとして扱う場合、それぞれのグループに おいてあなたがもっとも教材として扱ってほしい日本人名を記入してください。もし興味が ないあるいは分からない場合は、その箇所を空欄にしておいてください。
Give an example for each of the following Japanese groups of people that you are interested in. If you are not interested in one, do not give an example.
Table 2 gives examples of the two different types of questions found on the survey. These are the first and second questions from our survey asking students about the category of Japanese People. After the students ranked the topics in each category （as shown in Table 1）, they were asked to provide an example of what they would be most interested in studying in relation to that topic. If they were not interested in a topic, they were instructed to not give an example. The students were provided with a space beside each topic on the survey to give an example.
Results
Table 3 displays the descriptive statistics for the student rankings of each of the six topics in the six categories. In order to answer our first question and determine the most interesting topics, we examined mean rankings scores, frequency and median scores. The ranking mean scores showed the studentsʼ overall preference for each topic with the value of 1 indicating the greatest amount of interest and the value of 6 the least. The frequency showed the number of times that the students selected the topic as the most interesting （the value of 1） in its category and the median scores were included to account for any skewness and help us decide between any topics with similar mean scores.
Table 3. CategoriesTopicsMeanSEM95% CI ［LL, UL］SDSKEWSESKURTSEKMedianFrequencyPercentage People GroupsMusicians2.340.08［2.19, 2.48］1.340.750.14−0.440.27211435.85 Movie stars2.430.07［2.28, 2.57］1.310.950.140.430.2728627.04 TV personalities3.420.09［3.24, 3.59］1.600.270.14−0.920.2734213.21 Minority 3.970.09［3.80, 4.15］1.54−0.440.14−0.820.274278.49 Business4.080.09［3.90, 4.25］1.58−0.730.14−0.520.2744112.89 Politicians4.770.08［4.61, 4.92］1.39−1.030.140.120.27582.52 CharactersAnimation2.680.09［2.51, 2.85］1.530.570.14−0.800.2729329.25 Disney2.720.08［2.56, 2.89］1.470.410.14−0.930.2728827.67 Ghibli2.810.08［2.67, 2.96］1.350.520.14−0.250.2736018.87 Manga3.320.09［3.15, 3.49］1.520.080.14−0.920.2734714.78 Sanrio4.550.08［4.39, 4.70］1.39−1.020.140.190.275144.40 Mascots4.920.08［4.76, 5.07］1.44−1.320.140.790.276165.03 Pop CultureAnimation2.590.08［2.43, 2.74］1.400.530.14−0.850.2729028.30 Music2.790.10［2.59, 2.99］1.800.510.14−1.160.27212438.99 Manga3.180.08［3.02, 3.33］1.430.300.14−0.820.2733611.32 Gaming3.410.08［3.25, 3.57］1.46−0.160.14−0.920.2744514.15 Applications3.980.08［3.82, 4.15］1.51−0.360.14−1.020.274175.35 Cosplay5.050.08［4.91, 5.20］1.34−1.290.140.610.27661.89 FoodAt Ceremonies2.770.09［2.60, 2.94］1.560.510.14−0.820.2728526.73 Globalized2.890.09［2.71, 3.07］1.630.530.14−1.020.2727322.96 Washoku3.280.11［3.07, 3.49］1.900.190.14−1.440.2738827.67 Regional3.750.08［3.59, 3.90］1.38−0.240.14−0.650.274226.92 Seasonal3.990.08［3.84, 4.15］1.42−0.430.14−0.740.274185.66 Michelin stared4.290.10［4.10, 4.49］1.76−0.580.14−1.000.2753210.06
PlacesDialect2.370.09［2.18, 2.55］1.680.990.14−0.270.27214645.91 Famous cuisine3.10.08［2.94, 3.26］1.420.420.14−0.750.2733611.32 Tourist spots3.170.11［2.96, 3.39］1.930.350.14−1.380.2738526.73 Local festivals3.760.07［3.61, 3.91］1.32−0.190.14−0.560.274195.97 Local legends4.140.09［3.97, 4.31］1.53−0.550.14−0.740.274216.60 Local traditions4.420.08［4.26, 4.58］1.46−0.640.14−0.640.275113.46 AnimalsCafes2.490.10［2.30, 2.67］1.690.920.14−0.440.27213040.88 Endangered3.020.08［2.86, 3.19］1.500.140.14−1.040.2737022.01 As pets3.080.10［2.88, 3.28］1.790.490.14−1.150.2737222.64 In captivity3.730.08［3.58, 3.89］1.43−0.040.14−0.980.274154.72 In sport3.860.08［3.71, 4.02］1.39−0.210.14−0.660.274206.29 Fishing/hunting4.810.08［4.66, 4.96］1.39−1.220.140.590.275113.46
In order to reduce the number of choices, we decided to only keep the topics which had either a mean score better than 3 or a frequency score greater than 50 as shown in Table 4.
Table 4.
（Category） Topics Ranking Mean
Scores Frequency
Scores
（People） Musicians 2.34 114
（People）Movie stars 2.43 86
（Characters/Pop culture） Animation 2.68/2.59 93/90
（Characters） Disney 2.72 88
（Characters） Ghibli 2.81 60
（Characters/Pop Culture） Manga 3.32/3.18 47/36
（Pop Culture） Music 2.79 124
（Food） At ceremonies 2.77 85
（Food） Globalized 2.89 73
（Food） Washoku 3.28 88
（Places） Dialect 2.37 146
（Places） Tourist spots 3.17 85
（Animals） Cafes 2.49 130
（Animals） Endangered 3.02 70
（Animals） As pets 3.08 72
Based on this selection method, we were able to narrow down our choices to 15 topics.
Manga was kept with a mean score of 3.32/3.18 and frequency score of 47/36 since, as explained in the next section, the categories of Characters and Pop Culture were amongst the most popular and manga provided a way to engage both of those topics.
The thirteenth and final item of our survey asked the students to rank the categories in order of those they would be most interested in studying. As shown in Table 5, Groups of People and Characters were ranked as the most interesting with similar mean scores of 2.88 and 2.91, closely followed by Pop Culture and Food, and finally Places and Animals. The results of the ranking mean scores were supported by the frequency scores, with People being the clear-cut favorite topic followed by Characters, Pop Culture and Food, which were tightly grouped together.
Table 5.
Categories Mean SD Median Frequency Percentage
People 2.88 1.89 2.00 119 37.42
Characters 2.91 1.47 3.00 50 15.72
Pop Culture 3.13 1.42 3.00 48 15.09
Food 3.30 1.42 4.00 43 13.52
Places 4.38 1.54 5.00 23 7.23
Animals 4.38 1.74 5.00 35 11.01
Due to the popularity of the first four categories, we decided to give more weight to the topics found in these categories when selecting the 12-topics for the textbook displayed in Table 6. Although not Japanese, Disney was a very popular topic, so we combined references to it in a lesson on Ghibli, which is described in our pilot lesson in the second part of this paper. We set the lesson up so that students could extend the lesson and talk about Disney and Ghibli in Japanese culture.
Table 6.
Units
People - Musicians People - Actors/Actresses Characters ‒Ghibli Characters - Manga Pop Culture - Anime Pop Culture - Manga Food- At ceremonies Food- Globalized Japanese Expressing yourself - Music Expressing yourself - Dialects Places in Japan- Animal cafes
Places in Japan- Local food and cuisine
To investigate our second hypothesis that there would be similar interest across the three faculties, a series of Spearman rank-order correlations were conducted to determine if there were any relationships between the three faculties and their ranking mean scores for the six topics in each of the six categories. The results of the
correlational analyses displayed in Table 7 show that there was a positive, strong relationship in all 18 correlations and 15 out of the 18 correlations were statistically significant at greater than or equal to 0.94. In general, the results support our hypothesis, suggesting that there is similar interest in the topics across the three faculties.
Table 7.
1 2 3
People
1. Faculty of Liberal Arts ―
2. Faculty of Literature .94** ―
3. Faculty of Agriculture .94** 1.00** ―
Characters
1. Faculty of Liberal Arts ―
2. Faculty of Literature .94** ―
3. Faculty of Agriculture .81* .75 ―
Pop Culture
1. Faculty of Liberal Arts ―
2. Faculty of Literature .94** ―
3. Faculty of Agriculture .94** .83* ―
Food
1. Faculty of Liberal Arts ―
2. Faculty of Literature 0.66 ―
3. Faculty of Agriculture .94** 0.77 ―
Place
1. Faculty of Liberal Arts ―
2. Faculty of Literature .94** ―
3. Faculty of Agriculture .94** 1.00** ―
Animals
1. Faculty of Liberal Arts ―
2. Faculty of Literature .94** ―
3. Faculty of Agriculture 1.00** .94** ―
**correlation is significant at the 0.01 level （2-tailed）.
*correlation is significant at the 0.05 level （2-tailed）.
Part 2: Constructivist Textbook Creation and Pilot of Materials
Constructivist approaches to education build on schema theory and Vygotskyʼs theories of social culture including tuning and restructuring. This means that rather
than memorization or mastering specific skills, constructivism focuses on students constructing their own knowledge, and therefore need to be active in the learning process （Bruner, J.S., 1961）. Constructivist pedagogy emphasizes interaction, collaboration, and community to move studentsʼ zone of proximal development and develop new learning strategies as more active learners （Vygotsky, 1978）. Thus, constructivist approaches to language learning are fundamentally social and collaborative; as Brooks and Brooks have argued, constructivism focuses on problems and concepts holistically, whereas traditional education often oversimplifies and focuses on small elements leaving students to develop their own larger pictures, which can confuse students （Brooks & Brooks 1993）.
Rather than having students try to break down a reading by focusing on grammar, vocabulary, and general questions and answers pertaining to the reading passage, it is important to pique studentsʼ interest and activate prior knowledge, and introduce new material that challenges their prior knowledge so that can find ways to break the material down and make it more meaningful to them （based on their own experience and individual ways of learning）. However, in textbook design there is often an insufficient amount of time dedicated to activating prior knowledge, and students need to be clearly directed to connect what they know about a topic and what they will be learning about it （Lent, R.C., 2012）. In addition, many textbooks tend to focus their units on smaller grammar points or target vocabulary and teach to those outcome goals. Again, this is education in an accretion mode and does not offer new schemata or shift student understanding. It is here we drew on the constructivist approach to design new teaching materials.
Methodology Participants
The materials developed for this portion of the study were piloted in two intact classes at two different universities in the faculty of Agriculture and faculty of Literature. The students from the faculty of Literature （17） were in their freshman year, whereas the students from the faculty of Agriculture （41） were in their junior or senior year. All students were between the ages of 18 and 22. Out of the participants, 30 were women and 28 were men.
Research Design
Our pilot study laid out the text in the following manner, adapted from the
description of a constructivist lesson by Flynn, P., Mesibov, D., Vermette, P. J., and Smith, R. M. （2004）:
1. Recall: The activation of prior knowledge in pre-reading activities 2. Comprehension: Understanding the main themes
3. Application of prior knowledge to new information 4. Analysis of new information
5. Synthesis of prior knowledge with new information in post reading activities 6. Evaluation and reflection
To make the text more engaging for students, rather than having EFL professionals or the article authors produce readings for units, we decided to reach out to specialists in the field to create more authentic reading materials. Indeed, as Gagnon and Collay （2006） argued, authentic texts are a necessary part of constructivism: “Such academic learning must be realistic, compelling, and credible to students” （Gagnon &
Collay, 2006, 14）. All of the readings for our text are written by specialists; we omit the author names here as we finalize the text and use only Mark Schillingʼs text, as discussed below, as the example used in our pilot study.
Based on the statistical results of the survey in the first part of our study and the availability of professionals to contribute, we chose 12 topics, as displayed in Table 6, which we grouped into 6 units. Professionals in the field were solicited to write a one- page reading passage that acted as an anchor for the unit. As mentioned earlier, although Disney was a very popular topic, we combined it with Ghibli. We asked renowned Japanese cinema critic Mark Schilling to write a one-page, intermediate level reading. He gave us a text entitled, “Animation in Japan” that provided a look at the rise of Miyazaki Hayao and the aesthetics of Studio Ghibli. The reading also mentioned the influence of Disney and Tezuka Osamu as a way to create connections to other areas of prior knowledge. Finally, the reading detailed the social messages often found in animation like Miyazakiʼs work. The reading was adapted from his volume on pop culture （Schilling, 1997, 138-146） and is thus a good example of an authentic text that uses constructivism and schema theory to push students into a tuning mode of learning that was actively engaged with the materials.
After collecting the articles written by professionals, including the one by Mark Schilling we use as an example here, we looked at the constructivist approach to activate studentsʼ prior knowledge and promote autonomous learning. Now that we had
the reading passages which were deemed interesting to students, we wanted to ensure that before introducing the new information, students had the opportunity to share and discuss their current knowledge and feelings about the themes. We laid out our lesson in the following manner:
Activation activities: Pre-reading.
To begin the unit, and in order to engage studentsʼ existing schema, we asked three broad prereading questions. These questions were designed to not only be broad but to activate different potential schema in order to allow students more autonomy in situating the reading, and therefore directing the lesson in ways that interested them.
The questions, therefore, were:
a） What is your favorite animation? Why?
b） Which do you like better, Disney or Ghibli? Why?
c） Give an example of a film with a social message. What is the message?
d） List some of the differences between anime and animation in the box below.
We chose to use answer boxes rather than lined spaces in order to encourage students to associate freely and in a manner best suited to their individual learning style in their answers.
Our second pre-reading activity was a vocabulary acquisition accretion exercise, but we designed it to extend into tuning through peer comparison. We asked students to choose any five vocabulary that were new words to them that they felt were important. We further asked them to use these words in an example sentence that did not come from the dictionary, a pedagogical device we have used in homework questions before （Sheridan, Tanaka & Hogg, 2016）. Students often chose similar words but the different vocabulary they chose allowed for peer exchange and peer teaching, which appeared to open up a space for Vygotskyʼs zone of proximal development to engage. Finally, it is important to note that the questions activate not only prior knowledge, but a personal connection and response to the material that is going to be presented, which is important for them to be able to receive that material with interest.
As Shuck, Albornoz and Winberg （2007, 111） state, “the blending of emotions and learning in the classroom promotes secure, emotionally engaging environments that challenge and test as well as encourage knowledge acquisition.”
Post-reading activities: Individual.
The students were then asked to read the article and answer the post-reading
questions for homework. The reading was summarized above, and the post-reading questions were divided into individual and group work. The individual questions, which were assigned as homework together with the reading, are as follows:
（1） Miyazaki said, “Japanese today have nothing to rely on in their minds. They have alienated themselves from their own natural and spiritual environment.”
What do you think he means by this? How have Japanese people done this?
What do you think Japanese can do to become closer to their natural and spiritual environments?
（2） Write about your favorite Ghibli film. Summarize your favorite Ghibli film below.
（3） Describe your favorite character（s） in the film. Why do you like them?
（4） Describe any social message in the film.
The questions were designed to recall the previously activated schema and use it to incorporate information and vocabulary from the article. They were also asked with critical thinking skills in mind, such as analyzing quotations, giving opinions, and summarizing. Again, the questions did not ask students to dissect the article by analyzing its content and memorizing its grammar, but rather more broadly, to try to understand the general themes presented and make an emotional connection to it.
Post-reading activities: Group.
Next, students shared their knowledge in interview-based pair work. Students asked two partners the following questions and recorded their answers:
（1） What is your favorite Ghibli film?
（2） What happens in the film?
（3） What are your favorite characters in the film? Why?
（4） What are the social themes in the film?
This added a social and communicative element to the lesson. Students verbally recalled the answers they had written for their homework, and through writing down their peerʼs answers, they practiced their listening skills as well. The constructivist and communicative, active approach to materials thus effectively utilized all four language skills and reinforced a target set of vocabulary while remaining student-driven and developed.
The final step of the lesson was comparing interview answers in groups. This gave students a final opportunity to learn from each other, thus expanding their current
knowledge and using the tuning mode of learning and Vygotsky to incorporate the new language from the lesson into their existing schema. It is critical to the success of student-centered, constructivist lessons that students engage in socially-based, in-class work.
Post-reading activities: Your opinion.
The lesson concluded with an assessment. Students were given a six-point, bilingual Likert scale to rate their interest and were asked to make reflective comments on the lesson. While this assessment was of great use to the researchers as we move forward to refine our text, the reflection was an important step in cementing the learning process for students as well, as proponents of active learning have argued
（Kolb, 2014）. Reflection allows for students and teachers to think about how to integrate the new knowledge with existing knowledge, and how to apply that new knowledge to their lives in a meaningful way （Gagnon and Collay, 2006）.
Results Student Quantitative Responses to the Lesson
Students were asked to rate the lesson on a 6-point Likert scale. The lesson seemed to be well-received, showing that Japanese contexts may help to increase interest, as shown in Sheridan, Tanaka and Hogg （2017）, with a positive mean interest rating of 4.67 （SD＝.83）. Although female participants rated the lesson higher （M＝4.77, SD＝0.94） than male participants （M＝4.57, SD＝0.69）, there was not a significant effect for gender, t （58）＝0.90, p＝0 .37. Also, there was not a significant effect for faculty of study either （t （58）＝0.50, p＝0,62） with the faculty of Agriculture students rating the lesson slightly higher （M＝4.71, SD＝0.81） than the students from the faculty of Literature （M＝4.59, 0.87）. This suggests that these materials might be effective in a variety of contexts.
Student Qualitative Responses to the Lesson
The written feedback and opinions students provided further reinforced the fact that by using constructivist methods and culturally familiar schema, students were able to actively engage the larger issues raised by the text rather than the finer grammar or vocabulary points, leading to ultimately greater ability to use the language. Students wrote:
・“I didnʼt think about the deep meaning which studio Ghibliʼs anime have. So, if I have a chance to watch Studio Ghibliʼs anime again, I try to think what Miyazaki
tells us. It is so interesting and so important thing.”
・“I can understand more deeply about Ghibli. I didnʼt think that they have social messages when I was a child. Iʼm happy to understand their message and I think more deeply.”
・“First, I have no interest in the Ghibli anime. However, I become have an interest, because Ghibli anime describe many social massage in the filme.”
・“I donʼt think social message about the film. So this class I thought about social message. It is very good.”
・“I noticed things of the film knowledge that I donʼt know.”
These answers indicate that constructivist and culturally based materials may offer a way for students to think more deeply about the issues presented. It might challenge their prior knowledge and way of thinking in a way that can still be integrated into their existing cultural schema, so gains can still be made. Furthermore, it is important to note that this student-centered approach elicited uniformly positive reactions. Despite the difficulty of the text, mid- or lower- level students made great introspective gains and engaged with the text in meaningful ways, as demonstrated by the thoughtful engagement with the materials in their homework and class discussion.
As is apparent from the feedback, all students had very positive reactions.
・“Because the Ghibli movie is often broadcast, it was easy to do the task. I felt that social message that the film that everyone feels is different is interesting.”
・“Because this topic is not difficult for me than textbookʼs story. And I can hear a lot of opinions, information and feedback, so I can enjoy during this class, before and after too. This topic doesnʼt have correct answer, so it was so exciting! I like this topic.”
Again, studentsʼ prior background knowledge made the task “easier for them” as well as more exciting or enjoyable.
・“I like Ghibli film and I want to know what others opinions about it. I grow up with Ghibli films. I think Ghibli film are one of the material culture of Japan.
Ghibliʼs film work affects a lot of people because their films are deeply imagined.”
・“Because animation in Japan is pop culture, so I like it very much I gained a deeper interest about Japanese animation.”
Students made a strong connection to this unit because it activated their prior cultural knowledge. These responses are indicative of the success of our approach of
grounding our lessons in culturally relevant material using the constructivist approach.
Students were able to learn from the reading passage, but more importantly, they also learned from each other. This allowed them to expand on their prior knowledge by thinking about the content in a different way and allowing for different opinions from others.
Conclusion
Prior research has shown us that minor changes to meet readersʼ cultural expectations yielded clear positive benefits. Our work in extending these studies to concrete pedagogical tactics to use constructivist and culturally relevant materials not only provides students with opportunities to discuss topics relevant to student interests, but also encourages students to take responsibility for their learning and allows greater gains through the tuning process. This pilot study suggests some intriguing conclusions for educators and curriculum planners in these various contexts and future avenues for further research and material design.
Acknowledgments
The authors of this paper would like to thank Dr. Masanori Kimura of Kindai University for his guidance and help, especially with the translation of the survey questions. We would also like to express our gratitude to Dr. Richard Derrah of Kindai University and Dr. David Beglar of Temple University for their valuable advice and feedback.
Funding
This research was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science under Grant 16K02945.
Author Note
Robert Sheridan, Faculty of Agriculture, Kindai University, Nara, Japan; Kathryn Tanaka, Faculty of Cultural and Historical Studies, Otemae University, Nishinomiya, Japan; Jeanette Kobayashi, Institute for Language and Culture, Konan University, Kobe, Japan
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Robert Sheridan, Faculty of Agriculture, Kindai University. E-mail: [email protected]
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