Welcome!

Welcome to Writing Innovation, a blog about the teaching and learning of English language writing in Japanese post-secondary classrooms. We are Marlen Harrison and Tomoko Oda, faculty/doctoral candidate at The University of Tampa and Indiana University of Pennsylvania, respectively.

On this site you’ll find information regarding our current book chapter proposal: Innovations in writing curricula in the Japanese post-secondary English language classroom: Instructor and learner perspectives and responses.

If innovation can be defined as a new method or idea (“Innovation”), how do learners in the Japanese post-secondary classroom respond to innovations in writing curricula? Likewise, how do instructors develop and implement such innovation? Despite the plethora of studies documenting development of teaching EFL (English as a Foreign Language), there has been little previous research in writing curricula investigated from two different perspectives such as the lived experiences of both learners and instructors, or how the Japanese EFL writing context, itself, is a unique environment. Although research has tended to highlight oral skills as effective strategies to improve English proficiency in Japan (Ogura, 2009), few studies exist that examine how EFL writing curricula addresses students’ emotional needs (Falout, 2009). This manuscript focuses on the narratives of both Japanese post-secondary English learners and English instructors in the Japanese EFL context, in order to more deeply explore innovative writing pedagogies in the Japanese post-secondary classroom, and the lived experiences of those involved in such innovations.

Project Intro

In our own experiences as an instructor of writing in Japanese post-secondary classrooms and a Japanese student of English writing in such classrooms, we have recognized that writing pedagogy can take on numerous forms depending on the educational context, identities of instructors and students, etc. The following research will offer insight into what writing instructors in Japanese post-secondary classrooms do and how students respond to such curricular design. We are not presently comparing writing instruction methods over time or looking for changes in curricular design, but rather we are interested in first-hand explorations of a) what innovation means to our instructor- (and learner-) participants and b) how they develop innovative writing pedagogy in their classrooms in order to more fully explore influences on writing curriculum such as, but not limited to, possible constraints, sites of struggle, sources of inspiration, and the extent to which awareness of student needs are integrated into writing curriculum. When compared with student-participants’ voices that examine perceptions about their own experiences in English writing classrooms, we may see where student needs and instructor responses overlap, how the perceived needs of students are or are not fully attended to, and more importantly, we may examine these stories to learn more about the post-secondary English writing classroom in Japan, in general.

Moreover, as we are not directly observing the learning environments of any of our participants, we focus on participant interpretations and self-report rather than actual behavior, a phenomenological methodology that focuses on perceptions of experience. We employ grounded theory and subscribe to a feminist communitarian ethical approach to data analysis by creating a community of participant-researchers where all participants’ voices can be heard. In short, it is the participants themselves who have a say in what data is significant and who help decide the coding constructs.

It is our hope that the stories included in this study create a dialog with each other whereby future research directions may be identified, readers may be introduced to new activities, and the participants themselves gain further insight into what they do, why/how they do it, and how such experiences shape their identities as writers and/or instructors. One participant offered, “Further studies such as [Harrison and Oda] are proposing are essential to understanding learner perspectives on their experiences, the first step perhaps in developing research perspectives.”

Marlen & Tomoko
August, 2013