Toward a new theory of 'languaging' in college education guided by translanguaging theory

2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K18672
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Education and related fields
• Research Institution: Tokyo University of Science
• Principal Investigator: Ogawa Masakata 東京理科大学, 科学教育研究科, 教授 (80143139)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-06-30 – 2019-03-31
• Keywords: 大学理系教育 / 大学教授法 / 教授学習言語 / 言語様式 / ランゲージング

Outline of Final Research Achievements

While people believe that Japanese college classes are taught in Japanese, a literature review revealed that few studies consider empirical data on realities of languaging in college classes. This study aimed to uncover the realities to develop a new theoretical framework, and then report on preliminary case studies guided by the framework. The core idea of the new theoretical framework is to change focus from 'language' to 'languaging’when examining the realities of language practices within science classes. Based upon the framework, languaging in science classes was analyzed through the theoretical lenses of: (1) instructor’s interventions vs. the students’ activities; and (2) written vs. oral languaging. The case studies included are: (1) a comparative study of professors’ experiences in their college student days and those in their current classes as instructor, (2) a historical study, and (3) cross-national comparative case studies.

Free Research Field

科学教育

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

社会のグローバル化の波のなかで，日本の大学も国際化を進めることが求められ，授業を日本語から英語に変えるという動きが顕著になってきている．しかし，日本の大学の講義や授業の言語実践の詳細なリアリティについてはほとんどデータがない．授業が日本語で行われるといっても，専門用語は英単語だったり，教科書や参考書が英語だったりというケースは理系には多い．本当に，大学で行われている講義は日本語で教えられていると言ってもよいものなのか？本研究はこの素朴な疑問を解決するための新しい理論枠組を開発し，それを適用して，日本の理系講義の言語リアリティを描き出そうと試みたものである．