Constructivist Learning Environments and National Identity of Learners

This study is a collaborative project between Arturo Escandon (Ritsumeikan University, Japan) and Cristina Parra (Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand). It lies at the intersection of two disciplines, Education and Social Psychology, and addresses issues of great interest to both, relating to constructivist methodologies and national identity development: How do constructivist methodologies (on which most Western contemporary pedagogies of foreign language are based) interact with established learning styles of Japanese foreign language students? How do constructivist methodologies affect students’ national identity? Do they contribute to achieving the Japanese government’s goal of internationalisation?

Pedagogic Identities in Foreign Language Education at the Tertiary Level in Japan

This is the theme Arturo Escandon is currently researching as part of his doctoral studies at the Department of Education, University of Bath (UK). It aims at assessing contradictions, disturbances and innovations in foreign-language activity systems at the tertiary level in Japan using Basil Bernstein's notion of pedagogic code. It also draws from Activity Theory and a variety of Socio-cultural approaches to analysing learning in an attempt to explain how Japanese and foreign practitioners, as well as learners, position themselves in particular foreign-language learning settings in Japan. It is also an attempt to better understand learners' resistance to education/learning by studying not only students' (dis)positions but also the position of the main stakeholders, especially issues of labour division, pedagogic discourse and object perception (i.e., stakeholders' different expectations) in activity systems.

Distributed Learning Systems for Spanish as a Foreign-Language

This is an ongoing effort aimed at providing instructional material for distributed learning systems. [link]