Paper short abstract:

This work will explore how blended learning would facilitate implementation of CLIL courses for intermediate learners by examining a case study with video lectures. We will also consider what we can do to make more effective use of ready-made video lectures on the web for intermediate learners.

Paper long abstract:

The present work will explore how blended (hybrid) learning facilitates implementation of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) courses for intermediate learners in Japanese. More specifically, we will demonstrate how video lectures provide learners with content studies and language skill training in a CLIL course that targets learners with the JF Standard for Japanese-language education B1 level.

CLIL involves all of the three modes of language use, namely interpretive (receptive), presentational (productive), and interpersonal (interactive). However, for CLIL in Japanese, implementing activities of listening to lectures, a category in the interpretive mode, is a challenge. As discussed in Chikamatsu (2012), in a content-based course, we may want a specialist in the content field to give a lecture. However, it is not easy to find someone who could give a lecture in Japanese when we conduct a course outside of Japan. At the same time, a question arises as to how difficult a lecture by the field specialist would be for the target students whose proficiency level is the JF Standard B1 (see Morikawa et al. 2008 for relevant discussion). Nevertheless, we definitely want to include lecturer listening activities into the course for the sake of both content learning and language skill training.

In this work, we will consider the merits of video lectures as opposed to live lectures for both instructors and students in light of Tateyama (2015), among others. We will, then, examine the survey results from a CLIL course with video lectures. The results of the survey demonstrate that the students watched the video lectures using different strategies according to the levels of language difficulties. Based on our findings, we will discuss the merits of including video lectures in a CLIL course. Moreover, we will consider what we can do in order to utilize ready-made video lectures on the web more effectively to enhance a Japanese course for intermediate learners. They were basically created for native speakers of Japanese; therefore, we need to provide scaffoldings when we use them for intermediate learners.