YAGI, Keita    Lecturer    English for Liberal Arts Program, College of Liberal Arts, International Christian University
Date	2016/09/03
Presentation Theme	Designing a one-term course on how to write a primary research paper through content-based instruction
Conference	JACET 55th International Convention
Promoters	JACET
Conference Type	International
Presentation Type	Speech (General)
Contribution Type	Individual
Venue	Hokkaido
Details	This case-study presentation will report on an intensive university level content-based writing course, which aims to teach the content as well as how to write a primary research paper. This course is a compulsory elective course for sophomore students at a bilingual university in Tokyo. The students register for the course according to their interest about the content. In this particular course, SLA was used as a topic and 20 students, of whom more than half were interested in becoming a language teacher, took this course. Although the students learned how to write papers by using academic sources during their freshman year, writing a primary research paper could be a new experience. Therefore, the course was carefully designed to scaffold their learning. While covering the content by using a textbook about SLA, writing tips and feedback on their writing were provided as a classroom activity or individually. To deepen their understanding about the content (SLA theories), the students were asked to reflect on their language learning beliefs and their own language learning experiences. Similarly, to have them notice the differences between secondary and primary research papers, they read and analyzed some short sample research papers. At the end of the course, after each student reported on their research paper through a poster session, the students evaluated not only their language learning beliefs and experiences but also the course itself by using the SLA theories. The students’ evaluations and reactions will be shared in addition to how the students’ work and papers were graded.