Statista.com reports that video games have become the world’s largest entertainment industry sector. The rapid growth and mainstream acceptance of video games have had very little impact on their adoption or adaptation to language learning contexts. Commercial off-the-shelf video games (COTS) have certainly been used for educational purposes in English language teaching. Still, their application is often not as straightforward as a graded reader, movie, song, or even something like a board game. This presentation will cover three areas that educators will need to acknowledge regarding a game’s viability and accessibility as a language learning tool. The first consideration is the learning context in which the COTS will be utilized, where the learning activity will occur. The next is the pedagogical considerations of a COTS. The final consideration, which is the largest roadblock to utilizing COTS for learning tools, is accessibility. Many obstacles such as cost, digital rights management, and usage licenses make adopting a COTS for language learning difficult; however, numerous exciting options exist to match any combination of learning contexts and outcomes.

This presentation is based on the teaching and learning online experience of teachers and adult learners in New Zealand and Asia during the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic. It reviews recurring themes from teacher and student feedback regarding programmes focusing on English for Specific Purposes (Academic Skills, Leadership, and Sustainable Development), taught by staff from a university in New Zealand. It compares programmes taught online with minimal/no planning in early 2020, with those formerly face-to-face taught online in 2020-2022 with a few months’ warning. It compares our experiences with those reported by practitioners and researchers worldwide, making use of local research and international publications. Comments include what goals students and teachers felt have been achieved with the online programmes, and how they were achieved. The presenter makes suggestions for the future regarding infrastructure, schedules, ‘overloading’, and staff/student familiarity with the use of both software and hardware.

Due to both a falling level of English proficiency in Japan as well as the COVID-19 pandemic, asynchronous online English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learning has received renewed research interest in Higher Education (HE). From researching the advancements in EFL e-learning, the author argues that whenever the pandemic abates, asynchronous platforms should be continued to be used in conjunction with traditional HE EFL classroom teaching.

Since learning ought to focus on increased interactions between speakers, as per social constructivist norms, educators should increase the use of tools that promote learning inside and outside the classroom.

Therefore the research focuses particularly on exploring the strengths of Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL), as it increases agency and interactions through location-independent learning, autonomy, self-efficacy, and collaborative learning. The e-learning platform Flipgrid shows promise of encapsulating these strengths and forms a basis of a discussion of the pros and cons of asynchronous e-learning, as well as an implementation proposal in a typical HE EFL scenario.

Benefits of VR for English education such as increasing engagement (Hu-Au & Lee, 2017), reducing affective filter (Schwienhorst, 2020) and public speaking anxiety (Godefridi et al., 2021), and raising students’ motivation (Tai, Chen, & Todd, 2020) are reported. Thirteen students in a two-week online study abroad program offered by a university in the U.S. to improve public speaking and acquire ICT knowledge took three VR lessons before the program. In this presentation, I will present the results of pre-and post-TOEIC speaking tests before the VR lessons and the public speaking lessons in the program, an analysis of pre-and post-questionnaires developed with reference to Can-do descriptors of CEFR Companion Volume (Council of Europe, 2020), and an analysis of students’ journals about the VR and the public speaking lessons. The possibility of integrating VR lessons prior to online or onsite study abroad programs will also be discussed.

The long-term impact of the global pandemic on international education makes it imperative to better understand international students’ learning experiences in virtual learning contexts. Despite the importance of emotion in online learning (Torres & Evans, 2020), it has received scant attention in the studies on emergency remote teaching (ERT) experiences. Informed by an integrated model of Community of Inquiry (CoI) and emotional presence (Majeski et al., 2018), this study investigated the roles of emotional presence in ERT and the influential factors by interviewing 12 English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) students who virtually pursued their graduate programs at a Canadian university during the pandemic. Findings of the research show that instructors’ and peers’ emotional perception and understanding played a vital role in shaping students’ learning experiences. Factors such as instructors’ approachability, ways of communication and course design had significant impacts on emotional presence in ERT. Implications for providing effective emotional support are also discussed.

This study examined how teachers of Korean as a second language in the U.S. adapted to online teaching during the pandemic. At a Korean Heritage language school located in the US, qualitative data including survey (n=11) and follow-up interview (n=8) of teachers were collected and analyzed. Teachers shared their own perceptions and practice on using target language only (Korean) or using English in their classrooms. In the preliminary results, this study shows the dynamics of online teaching depending on different age group and the proficiency level of Korean. Especially, depending on the grade level of students, teachers need to use different strategies depending on their motivation and interests in learning Korean. With teaching experiences, teachers showed different use of languages. For older students, using English was beneficial while parents’ support was helpful for younger students. Findings indicate that learner variables such as age, proficiency, and language use affected teachers' decisions.

Note taking is a skill that is simultaneously recognised as essential for effective studying, yet often neglected in terms of teaching. This is particularly prevalent in an ESL/EFL context where many curriculums fail to implement a systemised approach to taking notes. The repercussions are significant as students who do not know how to organise their learnings are far more likely to submit work that is substandard. This presentation will look at the importance of note taking and the benefits it provides in terms of improved comprehension, increased memory retention and maintaining an organised record of learning. A system called Zettelkasten will also be explored which transforms note-taking from a memory retention tool into a powerful platform for critical thinking and creativity. The final stage will present an application called ‘Obsidian’ that provides a digitised approach to note-taking and will aid teachers and students alike in optimising the learning process.

A frequent criticism of using class time for student presentations is that students are only required to make their own presentation and then there is no quantifiable measure of the degree to which they further participate in such activities, for example, by critically evaluating other participants’ efforts. The advent of Cloud Computing and more recently online education makes this fully possible; however, it requires certain knowledge about Forms and Spreadsheets. This presentation will explain how to use Forms and Spreadsheets toward that end. It is based on several years of experience where students’ active participation during presentations was required and ultimately included as part of their participation grade. No previous knowledge is required for participants and better practices will be demonstrated step by step. Outcomes will include better knowledge of how to use Forms and Spreadsheets to empirically include student rater feedback to calculate their participation scores.

Underpinned by MacIntyre et al.’s (1998) heuristic model, this study adopted an idiodynamic method to investigate fluctuations in the level of willingness to communicate in a second language (L2 WTC) in an online class. Seven EFL university students participated in four sessions of an online class (each lasting 20 minutes). Following the completion of each session, they rated their L2 WTC by filling in an online editable excel spreadsheet with a scale of -5 (not willing to communicate at all) to 5 (most willing to communicate) on a minute basis while watching a video recording of their performance. Subsequently, stimulated recalls and semi-structured interviews were combined to identify factors affecting moment-to-moment changes in their L2 WTC. Results showed that L2 WTC highly fluctuated during sessions 1 and 2 due to joint influences of trait-like (e.g., introverted) and state-like factors (e.g., technical issues). In contrast, a more stable pattern of L2 WTC was observed during sessions 3 and 4, mainly due to state-like factors, such as adequate support from a teacher. These findings suggest that EFL learners can become more willing to communicate in an online class through teachers’ affective, technical, and pedagogical support. Methodologically, this study shows that an idiodynamic method is a useful analytical approach by which to understand the fluid and dynamic nature of L2 WTC in an online classroom—an emerging L2 learning environment. Pedagogically, we offer insights into how language teachers need to respond dynamically to such factors during the course of an online class. We recommend that teachers choose interesting and familiar topics, integrate game activities into L2 tasks, provide learning stimuli (e.g., photos), upload recorded online lessons into their respective learning management systems, provide affective support by recognizing students’ efforts verbally or by using emoticons (e.g., a thumbs-up emoji) to make students feel connected with a teacher and other classmates, offer considerable wait-time for their responses during an online lesson, and promote peer encouragement and nurture a positive online learning environment.

This workshop will explain and demonstrate the use of Google Workspace applications to build a transparent learning environment. It demonstrates an e-syllabus that gives students a clear idea of what sort of assignments to expect. The use of Google Forms and Sheets to accelerate feedback will briefly be explained and demonstrated thereafter. Finally, I will focus on how to build and disseminate a grade book that permits students to monitor their progress in a course and to access and submit incomplete assignments. Participants will be given the opportunity to trial each of the applications, and the outcome of this workshop should be the ability to build a dynamic grade sheet that can be shared with students (all the while preserving anonymity). Although the context of this presentation is from a tertiary education setting, the basic premises and the applications that will be demonstrated could readily be used at many levels.

A simple to use, organized, and welcoming learning management platform is something many of us have sought out during the pandemic in hopes of creating greater stability and connection. Though it was never intended to be an LMS, re-imagining ClassDojo to function in this capacity has turned out to be a solution worth sharing.
 During the workshop, attendees will learn from classroom experience over the last two years about how ClassDojo can be set up effectively as an LMS and how the tools on the platform can be used to support neurodiversity and rapport between students and teachers. 
Attendees to this workshop will have an opportunity to try out the student view for themselves to get a feel for what it would be like to use ClassDojo as a learner, and will have a chance to create their own class on the platform during the session.

In EFL teaching, the main goal for learners is to be able to communicate with a wide range of people. Tragant et al. (2020) argue that many learners have limited opportunities to use English outside of the classroom. According to Hagley (2020), “EFL often became an academic activity with few chances to use English in real-world communicative events.” To address this problem, this study examined whether two different types of social network communications have the potential to promote “real-world communication” in a university context. The results indicated that online interaction can contribute not only to improving students’ language skills but also to promote authentic language use outside EFL classrooms.

This workshop is based on the perceived strengths, weaknesses, and challenges of English teachers in Japan, who were compelled to conduct lessons online during the pandemic in 2020. Throughout Asia, educators believed they were prepared for teaching online. However, the situation in Japan revealed that experience, training, and attitudes towards teaching with technology can affect learning. This workshop first presents a comprehensive literature review of how teaching online influences pedagogy, working with technology, learning, participation, and communication. Then, problems and recommendations reported by Japanese teachers will be presented, and participants will be invited to discuss solutions based on their personal experiences with online education and from the theories presented earlier. Examples include a) recognizing the influence of synchronous and asynchronous activities on communicative competence, and b) how to monitor students’ participation in virtual synchronous classrooms. This workshop provides professional development for solving technical and pedagogical challenges to teaching online worldwide.

As Susan Jones, a translation teacher at Kobe College, put it: machine translation (MT) is "here to stay." As technology improves, it is becoming harder for teachers to detect it or to prevent it in student-generated texts. The tendency for teachers to resist MT may come from a fear that learning is minimal when students unquestioningly trust MT output. This presentation proposes helping our students work with MT in order to benefit their learning as well as their writing. In this workshop, participants will first experience different types of MT apps and discuss the differences. We will then consider the limitations of MT with respect to cultural differences and new or specialized terminology. Finally, we will discuss ways to help students help themselves in class. As time allows, the audience will have the chance to bring their own texts to be translated and discussed.

Flipgrid is a smartphone application and website which allows for private video creation, uploading, viewing, and replying. It is popular with teachers as they can assign speaking practice for homework, monitor student videos, modify topics, easily upload class information, and is free. Students can practice, personalize, and post their own videos which gives them the locus of control, as well as listen to and reply to their classmates' videos. Using technology as a medium of communication has been a method which promotes willingness to communicate and decrease anxiety as AbuSeileek (2012), Baralt & Gurzynski-Weiss (2011) and Reinders & Wattana (2014) have found. However, none of these studies have focused on student-created videos. If students cannot produce output, they will be unable to fully engage in language development (Gregersen, MacIntyre, & Meza 2014) and speaking anxiety increases. Considering this, how does creating and watching videos affect learners' speaking anxiety? To investigate this question, six EFL classes (n=135) from a private Japanese university made five Flipgrid videos every 2-3 weeks over a 15-week semester as well as watched classmates' videos. These videos were related to their textbook topics, with students being allowed to plan or not, depending on their preference. A questionnaire was created with selected questions from the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986), and The Shortened Scale of Second Language Listening Anxiety (Kimura, 2017). This new questionnaire concerned L2 speaking anxiety and was translated into the students' L1. Both the experimental group and the control group (n=147) were given the questionnaire as pre- and post-tests, however the experimental group also had questions about using Flipgrid. It was found that using Flipgrid significantly reduced certain aspects of anxiety. In this presentation, I will discuss the research project and how speaking anxiety was affected by this technology use.

The logographic nature of Chinese language lead CFL learners to rate Chinese character learning the most difficult. Yet visual effects displayed by Augmented Reality technology may accelerate cognitive processing of images, or logographs, of character figures. This study investigates the effect of applying a mobile-based AR application on the beginning level CFL learners’ Chinese character learning; the learning styles of CFL learners were cross-examined with the learning effects to determine the potential of AR. Twenty-eight novice CFL learners were participated, receiving 6 weeks of AR learning experience. A mobile-based AR application were developed, containing 24 Chinese characters which were selected and grouped based on their shape similarities and radicals. The learning effects were determined by comparisons between a placement pretest and a retention posttest. The VARK questionnaire were used to determine individual learner’ learning style. Results explored the effect of using AR in learning Chinese characters and to determine the impact of learning styles on the AR learning experience. Suggestions were made about the further development on the AR technology as a self-learning tool as well as a teaching aid for learning Chinese.

Instructors are aware of all manner of digital tool affordances and the benefits of blending learning practices, but how often do they use these to collaborate with students? As presentations or handouts can be shared, they can also be annotated and developed in community. This workshop encourages instructors to revisit how they employ scaffolding and collaborating in unison as they share various materials online with students. The workshop briefly reviews some principles of digital scaffolding, including theorized benefits and constraints, and then presents examples of online collaborative tools that allow students to not only access instructors' materials and notes, but even work with peers or instructors together in the same space. Examples will include digital word processing suites, digital drawing programs, and web browser annotating extensions.