Hiroshi Miyashita and Tyler Barrett
Abstract
One of the major challenges in the field of teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) in high schools in Japan is that English classrooms tend to lack learning activities to develop higher-order thinking due to the test-oriented practices. The purpose of this action research was to explore an extracurricular blended language learning (BLL) program that was created as an intervention to develop the higher-order thinking of EFL learners at a public high school in Japan, drawing on the construct of mediation from sociocultural theory (SCT) and using the Interaction Analysis Model (IAM) for the transcript analysis. In this BLL program, the participants engaged in online synchronous and asynchronous activities with English as a medium of instruction and communication while being supported by face-to-face sessions conducted in Japanese. The focus of this study was on the asynchronous forums. Data were collected through three methods: asynchronous forums to obtain written texts from participants, pre- and post-surveys, and the researchers’ observations. The results show that participants found collaborative constructivist learning meaningful and exhibited higher-order thinking development to varying degrees. However, there are some implications that learner-learner interaction was not sufficiently activated. In the conclusion section, this research presents suggestions for educators and policymakers to make use of affordances that both the online and face-to-face components in BLL systems provide to support K-12 students in developing higher-order thinking through constructivist learning.
Keywords: asynchronous forums, blended language learning, content analysis, dynamic assessment, higher-order thinking, Interaction Analysis Model, sociocultural theory
Introduction
One of the major challenges in the field of teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) at high schools in Japan is that English classrooms tend to lack learning activities to develop higher-order thinking due to the test-oriented and cognitive-behavioral theory-based practices. The purpose of the reported action research was to explore an extracurricular blended language learning (BLL) program created as an intervention to develop the higher-order thinking of EFL learners at a public high school in Japan. This study was guided by two research questions: (1) to what extent can higher-order thinking be improved among EFL learners at a high school in Japan by engaging in online asynchronous forums embedded in the BLL program?; and (2) what factors of the BLL program facilitated or inhibited the presence of higher-order thinking? Instructors’ facilitation in asynchronous forums drew on the construct of mediation from sociocultural theory. For content analysis, the Interaction Analysis Model (IAM) was used to measure higher-order thinking development in the asynchronous forums.
In the presented BLL program, the participants engage in online synchr