Hiroya Tanaka

This paper reports on the learning framework integrating a web e-portfolio and two mobile applications. It also reports on a preliminary study on how learners used different systems or materials to study for vocabulary tests in a particular general English course at a Japanese university, and how they recognized the usefulness of each system and material. Participants were 66 Japanese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students from two intact classes who completed a questionnaire survey at the end of the course. The results of the survey revealed that, although the participants generally evaluated the usefulness of the different systems and materials in a similar way, one of the mobile applications was most often used to prepare for the in-class vocabulary tests followed by the e-portfolio and the wordlist.

Vocabulary is an area that requires foreign language learners to work independently and continuously both in and out of class. In the Japanese EFL setting, for example, more than 97% of the population experiences approximately six years of English education at secondary school during which time they are required to learn approximately 3,000 words (i.e., lemmas). Given the lexical distance between Japanese and English, this leaves Japanese university EFL learners with a long way to go before they can acquire a sufficient number of words to comprehend authentic texts in English. To help Japanese university EFL learners sustain their vocabulary learning, the researchers have developed Lexinote, an e-portfolio system that allows learners to record and save the target words they encounter online, to search for them in online dictionaries, to practice them in several ways including written and oral rehearsals according to word familiarity (i.e., level of understanding of each lexical item...

A lack of reading quantity in EFL (English as a Foreign Language) classrooms has remained one of the most serious problems faced by teachers of English in Japan. Although the extensive reading (ER) approach is regarded as having significant potential in addressing this problem, it is not used in many EFL classrooms. This study investigates the effect of a quasi-extensive reading program on Japanese high school EFL learners' reading comprehension, reading speed, and their perceptions of the program. The participants in ...