KONAN UNIVERSITY

Institute for Language and Culture

Providing an environment for acquiring global communication skills

The Institute for Language and Culture was established to provide language instruction and to foster cross-cultural understanding. A basic principle of the institute is to nurture a broad cross-cultural perspective through the study of foreign languages. Essentially, it is believed that language instruction contributes to an international perspective and life-long educational opportunities. A comprehensive foreign language and cultural education curriculum is offered for university students and visiting exchange students in order to prepare them to participate in a variety of social settings in a global era. Moreover, cutting edge digital tools are employed in multimedia and iPad-equipped “iCALL” classrooms in order to enhance the overall learning experience.
Name Title Field of Research Subject of Research
KO, Kintei Professor Chinese Language, Comparative Literature: Japanese and Chinese Literature, Comparison of Japanese and Chinese Culture, Cross Cultural Management Research on differences of communication between Japanese and Chinese; research on cross-cultural communication of Japanese corporations in China
NAKAMURA, Noriko Professor French Literature, Teaching French as a Foreign Language, Multiculturalism Research on the plays of Jean Giraudoux, French multimedia teaching materials development, multiculturalism
NOMURA,
Kazuhiro		 Professor Speech Communication, Educational Technology and English Teaching Developing public speaking and leadership skills, Teacher development, Integrating media and technology in higher education
FUJIWARA, Mieko Professor Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages Motivation for learning German as a foreign language; analysis of textbooks for teaching German as a foreign language
IBA, Midori Professor English Phonetics, Applied Phonetics Speech perception and production, pronunciation of English, Verbo-tonal Method
KIM, Tae Ho Professor Japanese Medieval History, Comparative Culture between Japan and Korea Comparative studies of folk culture in Japan and Korea
CHICHE, Didier Professor French Literature, Teaching French as a Foreign Language History of French intellectuals, French cinema, multiculturalism in French society
MACH, Thomas Professor Language Teaching Methodology, Learner Autonomy, Sustainable Living Practices Digital literacy, L2 vocabulary acquisition, self-access language learning; cross-cultural perspectives on agrarianism and sustainable living movements
ISHII, Koichi Associate Professor Teaching Methodology (Chinese) Chinese modern literature, Chinese education, comparative culture(China/Japan)
KIRK, Stanley Associate Professor Applied Linguistics and TESOL Motivation in second language acquisition, motivation in student volunteerism, reading and writing pedagogy, history of Japanese immigration to Canada
TANIMORI, Masahiro Professor Japanese Grammar, Teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language Japanese essential sentence structure, topic of sentences, teaching materials development
YOSHIDA, Keiko Associate Professor Applied Linguistics, Teaching English as a Foreign Language Perception and pronunciation of English speech sounds (development and training); English education in Asia, Strategies in classroom and autonomous study, students' perceptions about their goals, responsibilities and abilities in learning English
WANG, Marian Associate Professor Higher Education Policy and Practice, Second Language Acquisition Raising Global Human Resources through Debating, Critical Thinking, Higher Education Policy Reform, World Englishes
NOMURA, Yukihiro Associate Professor German as foreign language didactic methods, communicative approach to the teaching German, intercultural competence
STRINGER, Thomas Instructor TESOL Learner Autonomy, Self-Access Learning, Learner Metacognition, Motivation
MERTENS, Craig Instructor TESOL Content Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), Vocabulary Acquisition, and Intercultural Communication
KOBAYASHI, Jeanette Instructor TESOL Ideal Self, Psycholinguistics, Constructivist teaching metholody
GRIFFITHS, Michael Instructor Applied Linguistics, TESOL Corpus Linguistics, Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), Technology Enhanced Language Learning (TELL)
MCNAMARA, Stephen Instructor Applied Linguistics/ Education Syllabus Design; Cognitive Domain Taxonomies; Content and Language Integration
SHOLDT, Gregory Instructor TESOL Extensive Reading, English for Academic Purposes, Classroom Based Research Methods, Testing