Students' Perceptions of Difficulties with Academic Writing: A Report from Kyoto University Academic Writing Courses

Academic writing is one of the keys to success in students' academic lives, yet one of the most difficult skills to learn. In 2006, Kyoto University adopted a new English curriculum in Liberal Arts and General Education requiring all first-year and second-year students to enroll in academic English courses. This paper aims to identify and report the difficulties students face in the process of academic writing in their transition from high school to their first and second year at the university. The study discussed in this paper was conducted in two first-year academic writing courses and one second-year academic writing course at Kyoto University in spring 2007. At the end of the term, the students completed a survey about their perceptions of difficulties with the content of the course. The first-year students reported most difficulty with adapting to the transition from high school practical English (English for General Purposes) to university academic English (English for Academic Purposes), especially with writing in a formal style and thinking about the rules of academic writing. The second-year students reported most difficulty with producing a coherent academic paragraph with no redundant sentences. Pedagogical implications are discussed

The Effect of Concept Mapping on L2 Writing Performance: Examining Possible Effects of Trait-Level Writing Anxiety

Research on anxiety in a foreign language-learning context is well-documented; however, few studies have directly focused on anxiety occurring within writing contexts despite the fact that writing anxiety is known to affect students’ learning. The present study examined the effectiveness of concept mapping considering students’ writing anxiety. Participants completed writing anxiety scales and were randomly assigned to three groups before completing a writing task: concept mapping, idea listing, or an unrelated task. Results indicated that, especially for students with low trait-level writing anxiety, concept mapping positively influenced the quality of writing content. Teaching implications will be discussed in the light of the results of this study

The effect of caffeine ingestion on cycling performance

The intent of this thesis was to study the effects of caffeine ingestion on substrate utilization and muscle metabolism during exercise, as reflected by endurance time to exhaustion. For this purpose, seven trained cyclists performed work bouts at 80% of maximal oxygen consumption to exhaustion after ingestion of caffeine (CAF trial) end under control (CON trial) conditions.Although the work time to exhaustion was not significantly different between the CAF trial, 91.8 (S.E. ± 7.7) min and the CON trial, 85.2 (S.E. ± 10.5) min, five of he subjected did show an average 18% increase in performance following ingestion of 330 mg caffeine. Since there was no elevation of FFA prior to exercise, it was expected that no muscle glycogen sparing would occur during the first 30', 41.7 (S.E. ± 6.1) mM/kg in the CAF trial and 42.1 (S .E. + 6.6) mM/kg in the CON trial. Serum glycerol concentration was significantly (P< .05) during the CAF trial at 10' and 30'. R values were significantly lower during the CAF trial, .87 (S.E. ± .01) than the CON trial, .91 (S.E. ± .01) at exhaustion. Significantly lower (p<.05) perceived exertion ratings were also observed during the CAF trial. These data suggest a positive effect on endurance exercise performance following caffeine ingestion.Thesis (M.A.

<論文>英語をリンガフランカとした文化概念に関する異文化間学習 日独の大学生によるオンライン交流

Intercultural interaction between university students of two different speech communities (i.e., different native languages: German/Japanese) was central to this practitioner research project, which involved two semester-long online exchanges using English as a common foreign language. The students were researching emic Japanese cultural concepts, and the authors, as teachers, conducted systematic evaluations of the seminars (a total of 130 students). The authors discuss the results of their evaluations regarding intercultural learning. Students' reflections on this international classroom collaboration suggest that although English as a lingua franca is not bound to any specific culture, it can be successfully used in classrooms to initiate intercultural learning concerning particular cultures.この実践的研究プロジェクトでは、2つの異なる言語コミュニティ(すなわち、ドイツ語と日本語という異なる母語)の大学生間の異文化間交流が中心となり、英語を共通外国語とする2学期のオンライン交流が行われた。学生たちは日本文化の象徴的な概念について研究しており、著者らは教師としてゼミ(合計130名)の体系的な評価を行った。著者は、異文化間学習に関する評価結果について述べている。この国際的な教室での共同作業に関する学生の考察から、国際共通語としての英語は特定の文化に縛られることはないが、特定の文化に関する異文化間学習を開始するために教室でうまく使うことができることが示唆された