Pick 1-2 topics you are interested in and do web searches (try alternative search terms and search engines). Do another round of searches using Google Scholar. How do the results getting you thinking differently about each topic. Which one do you think you are most interested in, why?
My research terms for my searches were:
syllabus design japan
Japan instructional design
Japan composition instructional design
Japan composition
Japan composition instruction
Japan composition teaching
Japan college composition course design
Japan syllabus
What did I learn from this?
Holy cheese fritters, it is hard to find information about overseas composition classes.
There must be a term or something I'm missing, because I know these resources are out there somewhere! They must teach some equivalent to college comp in Japan, right?? I may need to email the Japanese staff at ODU to see if they can help me out on this one if I decide I want to try and take things further here.
That said, I found a few resources on EFL instruction and the "holes" in how lessons work in Japan, so those are the leads I'll probably follow. I'd probably be more interested in looking at some syllabi (?) from a Japanese comp class and then comparing them to a US comp class, but when ya got lemons, ya can't make grape juice.
Research Journal: Pick on topic you are interested in. Find 3 “scholarly” articles from peer-reviewed journals. Write robust annotated bibliography entries for all three articles.
Brown, J. (2012). Emphasizing content in the English composition classroom in Japan. Accents Asia, 5(1), 1-7.
This source, despite not being very long, has some very useful materials in it. First, it advocates for a small tweak in Japanese ESL instruction vs a complete overhaul. Likewise, it also takes examples from a real textbook used to teach English in Japanese schools. It gets a MAJOR frowny face for not mentioning which textbook it's using, though- not even in the table of contents does it list where the cited exercises came from, which leads to a hard hit right in the credibility. Still, at least, this source has a nice short list of other cites works I can go to for more opinions on teaching English Composition to Japanese students.
Nishigaki, C.,Chujo, K., McGoldrick, S. L., Hasegawa, S. (2007). A Cross-Sectional Contrastive Analysis of Japanese Students’ English Composition Skills. The Journal of Asia TEFL Vol. 4 (No. 1), 27-54,
Like the last source, this article also looks at the deficiency between ESL teaching and composition writing in Japanese schools. Unlike the last article, this source has lots of qualitative data to back up its opinions. It doesn't offer up answers, so much as proof of the disconnect between the Japanese grammar/vocabulary focused teaching methodology and the students' abilities to write cohesive essays based off of a prompt. It's a little less current then the Brown source, but ultimately has more weight, and will definitely be a good "factual backup" if I continue down this path.
Brenda, D. (1996). L1 and L2 composition theories: Hillocks' ‘environmental mode‘ and task-based language teaching. ELT Journal, 50 (4), 312-317 doi:10.1093/elt/50.4.312
This is the only article not focused directly on Japan. Instead, the author decides to look at a handful of L1 and L2 composition teaching methods and, based on the results of a study done on their effectiveness, recommends a hybrid of two popular models of instruction (instead of the more popular idea that one must be best). I like this piece because it takes a step away from 'this is what's wrong with Japan' and instead suggests a solution applicable to all EFL courses seeking to make better writers. If I continue with the topic, developing a curriculum with this hybrid method at the center may well be the key to happy compromise between the failing system now and a full overhaul of a very entrenched teaching idea.
oooh...this is a wonderful topic! You'll probably want to look at ELL journals as well as the growing number of books and/or special issues on ELL WAC/WID and/or international comp/WAC/WID. But yes...difficult to find. Charles Bazerman has been doing some work with this.
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