YUMI GOMEZ (SEITOKU UNIVERSITY)

COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AND ITS EFFECT IN PROJECT-BASED LANGUAGE LEARNING –A MULTI-CASE STUDY FROM JAPAN : LINGUISTICS, DISCOURSE ANALYSIS, AND RELATED AREAS

Students in English as a foreign language learning (EFL) context have limited opportunities to use the target language, thus making it hard for them to acquire practical abilities to use English for real-life communication. In recent years, English teachers in Japan have adopted more student-centered learning methods, such as task- or project-based learning, to allow more authentic language use in the classroom. One of the main benefits of these methods is the role of social interaction, as students often work together autonomously in a situated setting to share and debate ideas with peers using the target language. This study focuses on how such social interaction with peers relates to students’ final product quality, focusing on Japanese university students working on a group project in an English classroom. The author will discuss the relationship by referring to results from a qualitative performance analysis of the final presentation and a discourse analysis of students’ interactions during the project. The results show that groups with more collaborative engagement led to cognitively deeper interactions but did not necessarily produce a better final performance. This presentation will provide valuable empirical insights for foreign language teachers adopting a similar teaching method. (Poster Presentation Preferred)

Yumi Chikamori Gomez is an associate professor at Seitoku University in Japan. Her main research area revolves around classroom interactions through collaborative tasks in the EFL context. Other interests include metacognition and critical thinking through peer interactions.