Language
Please replace * to @.
Educational Methods
Pedagogical Foundations of Education
Pedagogical Foundations of Education
Educational Methods
– The interrelationship among the objectives, content, and methods of education
– The intersubjective and interobjective relationship between the formation of linguistic knowledge and communicative activities in foreign language education
– Methodologies of lesson study and classroom research
Foreign language education, English language education, curriculum and instructional content design, lesson design
At present, my research consists of five major strands.
The first and central strand concerns theories of curriculum and instructional content/material design. In my doctoral dissertation completed in 2008, I conceptualized the curriculum framework of foreign language education in schools, particularly English as a foreign language education, as consisting of two domains: the accumulation of linguistic abilities and the use of linguistic abilities as an integrated whole. Through classroom practice and assessment focused on comparative expressions in English, the dissertation examined what kinds of approaches to curriculum and instructional content design are required, particularly in the domain concerned with the formation of grammatical knowledge. After 2008, however, as I began teaching English at the university level, the question of how to enrich the domain of “using linguistic abilities” in actual classroom practice became increasingly pressing. Until around 2012, I deepened this strand through collaborative learning practices and joint curriculum development and classroom practice projects with secondary school teachers.
As I became more deeply involved in English language education research, I came to believe that no matter how sophisticated theories of curriculum and instructional content design become, fruitful research would be difficult without methodologies capable of empirically examining their educational effects and meanings through classroom practice. This led me to a second strand: research methodologies. Together with joint researchers who shared similar concerns, I have examined quantitative and qualitative research methods as well as meta-analytic approaches. As part of my individual research related to the domain of grammatical knowledge formation, I have also conducted re-analyses of meta-analyses in second language acquisition and foreign language education research. I considered such work necessary because, without clarifying what kinds of studies on explicit grammar instruction have been conducted and what levels of effectiveness have been demonstrated, it would be difficult for researchers in those fields to understand educational-methodological research on curriculum and instructional content design.
During my years at teacher education universities, whether discussing curriculum and instructional content design or research methodologies in English language education, I was always required to consider their implications within the broader strand of teacher education studies. Collaborative work with elementary, lower secondary, and upper secondary school teachers—including editing authorized textbooks and serving as an advisor for lesson improvement—constitutes both research in this strand and my praxis as an educational researcher. I hope to continue developing networks for lesson study and classroom research both within and beyond this region.
Through engagement with the three strands above, I gradually became concerned that the purposes of teaching English as a school subject differ significantly among individuals, and that such discussions are often absent altogether. This constitutes the fourth strand: theories of subject purposes. Based on several studies, I have sought to position my own research within school English education at an appropriate critical distance, while also conceptualizing the relationship between subject-specific educational research and educational methodology in terms of the relationship between the particular and the general. Grounded in considerations of the purposes of Foreign Languages (English) Education, I aim to further explore the interrelationship among the objectives, content, and methods of education.
The fifth and final strand concerns general theories of teaching and classroom practice. Early signs of this interest can already be seen in my critical examination of the Course of Study policy advocating “teaching English in English.” In recent years, I have also had opportunities to examine educational policy trends represented by the GIGA School Initiative and “personalized and optimized learning,” particularly regarding the challenges they pose for classroom practice. My co-translation of Gert Biesta’s Educational Research: An unorthodox introduction has provided a perspective from which all of the above strands can be viewed comprehensively. My recent work has attempted to synthesize methodologies of classroom research grounded in cultural psychology and historiography, using English language education as a case. A major future challenge will be how to embed theories of curriculum and instructional content design into this framework, particularly in developing classroom research on the formation of grammatical knowledge, thereby reconstructing an educational methodology research framework centered on curriculum and instructional content studies.
March 2008: Ph.D. in Education, Graduate School of Education, Hokkaido University
April 2008 – March 2010: Specially Appointed Lecturer, Center for Educational Development, Shizuoka Institute of Science and Technology
April 2010 – March 2012: Lecturer, Department of Information Design, Faculty of Informatics, Shizuoka Institute of Science and Technology
April 2012 – March 2015: Lecturer, Department of English Language Education, Faculty of Education, Shizuoka University
April 2015 – March 2021: Associate Professor, Department of English Language Education, Faculty of Education, Shizuoka University
April 2021 – March 2026: Professor, School of Global Studies, Chukyo University
April 2026 – Present: Associate Professor, Faculty of Education, Hokkaido University
Please refer to researchmap for a complete list of publications and research achievements.
