I-City, or a New Classroom for EFL in Times of Change: Its Theory and Practice

Abstract

The purpose of this presentation is to present an idea to address education inequality stemming from economy and geography, especially in English education as a foreign language, a report of a lesson practice, and issues to challenge. Schools in small islands in Japan serve very small numbers of students. While they have advantages in English education because of the small teacher-to-student ratio, they have disadvantages given the limited interaction they have with people of various cultures and with various English. Therefore, a joint class in a cyber-metropolitan school (school in i-City) created by connecting schools in small islands and in several countries could be beneficial, especially by utilizing Information and Communications Technology (ICT). Such a scheme could help address the problem of educational inequality. We practiced the class between two schools in Japan with Skype and big displays as a pilot case, observed it, and got results that students were satisfied with interaction with people of different cultures and that they got to use various English and improved the ability of listening. Also, the class increased the students’ motivation to learn English. Still, in the process of preparation of the project, we found several issues to address, such as exclusivity and politics.



Author Information
Shin Kurata, Nagasaki University, Japan
Norio Nakamura, Nagasaki University, Japan
Akiyoshi Suzuki, Nagasaki University, Japan
Kōichi Matsumoto, Nagasaki University, Japan

Paper Information
Conference: ACLL2018
Stream: New classrooms

This paper is part of the ACLL2018 Conference Proceedings (View)
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Posted by James Alexander Gordon