2021 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Multilingual acquisition at third-level education in Japan and Spain: an analysis of the professional prospects of young graduates
| Project/Area Number |
19K13290
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| Research Institution | Ritsumeikan University |
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Principal Investigator |
ルッケル瀬本 阿矢 立命館大学, 理工学部, 准教授 (30614523)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2019-04-01 – 2023-03-31
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| Keywords | Multilingual acquisition / third-level education / job perspectives / curriculum design / comparative research / education policy |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
In FY 2021-2022, the work conducted this year focused on four main areas. First, Dr. Aya Luckel-Semoto, the P.I., and research collaborator, Dr. Elena Prats Porcar, analyzed the results of the first phase of the questionnaire, "Present and future of multilingualism in third-level education in Japan and Spain: from the educators' perspective." The results revealed that while Japan is monolingual and language classes are often required for university graduation and Spain is multilingual and language acquisition is a matter of individual freedom, the importance of multilingual learning is common in both countries, despite their different backgrounds and circumstances, and multilingual learning is inevitable for better job prospects in the future. The P.I. prepared an oral presentation to be given at the 44th National Convention of the Japan Association of Comparative Culture and the 2022 International Academic Congress, to be held in Yamagata Prefecture on May 21, 2022. Next, the P.I. and the research collaborator prepared to conduct a second questionnaire, and a pilot test was conducted in both Japan and Spain in December 2021. For this work, we used the survey design tool Qualtrics. Also, we distributed the questionnaire survey to students in Catalonia in March 2022 and got over 200 answers. Finally, the journal article entitled "Students' Perceptions on Blended Learning in Foreign Language Acquisition in Japan" was further refined and will be submitted to an international journal in the spring of 2022.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
4: Progress in research has been delayed.
Reason
The ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic in Japan, where the P.I. resides, and in Spain, where the comparative study is being conducted, made it difficult to conduct the second phase of this project, a questionnaire survey of students, until the fall semester of FY2021. Although it was difficult to conduct the questionnaire survey of students in Japan due to the Quasi-State of Emergency, the P.I. and the research collaborator were able to conduct the pilot survey of the second questionnaire in Japan and in Spain and the survey in Spain after October 2021.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
In FY 2021-2022, the P.I. and the research collaborator expect that we may be able to distribute the questionnaire to Japanese undergraduates in the summer as part of the second phase of the project; in May 2022, we will give an oral presentation as a report of the first phase at the 44th National Convention of the Japan Association of Comparative Culture and the 2022 International Academic Congress, to be held in Yamagata Prefecture on May 21, 2022. In July 2022, we plan to conduct a questionnaire survey of students in Japan; from August to December 2022, we will analyze and write a journal article on the two questionnaires conducted in this project and give an oral presentation between January and March 2023. We will use different tools for the analysis of the qualitative and quantitative data within the survey questionnaire: NVivo for qualitative and Stata for quantitative. Subsequently, we will work on the preparation of a journal article to present the results of our study, as well as the conclusions reached in our project. We also intend to organize a conference, inviting some experts in the area of foreign language acquisition in higher education; however, this will be dependent on the state of the COVID-19 pandemic. Submission to an academic journal is then planned.
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| Causes of Carryover |
Due to the prolonged duration of the Covid-19 pandemic, we were unable to complete the second phase of our planned research study this quarter. The following is how we are planning to complete the study: First, we will work with Dr. Plats and her contacts to focus our efforts on a second survey study to be conducted in Japan. Second, complete and submit two papers with Dr. Prats. Third, work on data analysis of the second survey. Finally, we will prepare to submit the final report to an international journal in the winter.
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Research Products
(3 results)
