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Short abstract:

This paper explores the mutual (trans)formation of pluriliterate English-mediated instruction (EMI) and uncertain critical STS pedagogies through insights from applied linguistics, educational theory, and a participatory action research project with the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL).

Long abstract:

This paper explores the mutual (trans)formation of English-mediated instruction (EMI) and critical STS pedagogies. While offering valuable tools for critiquing linguistic imperialism, critical pedagogy risks positioning experts/teachers as uniquely qualified to unveil inequality, tools of oppression, and means of students’ liberation. Drawing on recent theoretical insights involving language, education, and STS, as well as from situated engagement with EMI science and technology education at a university in Japan, this paper suggests a reconsideration of orientations toward control versus range in these interrelated realms. Rather than necessarily entailing the policing of the boundaries of English as a named language and the accurate reproduction of its conventions, EMI can enable a focus on expanding repertoires and poetic capacities for (re)translation with and beyond language in STS pedagogies. Illustrating this possibility, participatory action research with colleagues and students in hybrid and shifting roles between “student” and “teacher” has prompted stumbling, improvised performance, and adventures with the mediation of texts, communication, and concepts along uncertain paths. Indeed, this transdisciplinary scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) project has led to a curious distraction from explanatory narratives that have assigned positions and possibilities in entangled hierarchies of sensible speech, affect, knowledge, and agency. The accompanying reconfiguration of the sensible has not only surfaced deficit models, therapeutic language, and assumptions of inequality in folk pedagogies, but also potentially decolonizing solidarity/agonism. This paper demonstrates how critical STS pedagogy can emerge with EMI from different attention to pluriliteracies with transforming language, disciplinarity, and sensibility.

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Short abstract:

What kind of “environment” is enacted in an undergraduate Environmental Studies course in Japan? Our ethnographic action research on this transdisciplinary course mediated in English reveals frictions and gaps among traditional disciplines and explores knowledge production in practice.

Long abstract:

This paper explores how different versions of “environment” or “nature” are enacted in an undergraduate “Introduction to Environmental Studies” course in Japan with English as a medium of instruction (EMI), using an ethnographic approach focusing on teachers’ interactive narratives and reflections. EMI in higher education is a relatively new practice in Japan, where most of the courses are taught in Japanese, separated into narrower fields, notably under the umbrella categories of bunkei (humanities and social sciences) and rikei (natural sciences). This paper is part of our transdisciplinary action research on improving new EMI practices at a Japanese university, in which researchers/teachers from different backgrounds (chemical engineering, STS, cultural anthropology, and English education) came together to collaborate. Mediated with English, several frictions and gaps in the Japanese local contexts were made visible. For example, the translation of kogai (“public nuisance” or “environmental pollution”) appeared as a point of confusion, reflecting the particular Japanese versions of the “environment” and “Environmental Studies” that historically emerged along with the concept and materiality of kogai. Therefore, the “mere” explanations of “Environmental Studies” and the “environment” themselves are not straightforward, and their definitions, categorizations, examples, and imaginaries (figures and visual aids) have revealed nature-culture differences. English as a medium is not a neutral tool; it interferes with the discursive contexts, reveals usually hidden or coordinated conflicts, and transforms the production of knowledge. This paper discusses the mutual transformations of language, content, and teachers.

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Short abstract:

This study analyzes STS pedagogy in non-English speaking environments. In this research, I explore the aphasia of learners, instructors, and universities in English-mediated STS education, who all lost their first language, and the “enhancements” that come with aphasia.

Long abstract:

This study analyzes the pedagogy and experiences of teaching STS-related courses to non-native English speakers in a university and interdisciplinary setting in Tokyo in 2023. I conduct this research using autoethnography on my teaching experience and narrative analysis on syllabi and course evaluations. This study explores three “aphasia:” non-native English speaking learners who urge to practice English in formal settings under the ambition/pressure to become “global talents,” non-native English speaking instructors who not only go “publish or perish” but also face the English imperialism on both publication and teaching, and universities provide English-mediated courses in response to funding crisis and depopulation, as they all abandon their first language and the original framing of higher education. On the other hand, the study analyzes three enhancements coming with aphasia: often lower-than-average educator-learner ratio, an opportunity for disadvantaged younger generations to develop their language ability, and, not without irony, a space to connect with people who reflect the intellectual imperialism of English. This study further analyzes one of the core issues of education: how to make STS contents relevant and passionate in English-mediated education for learners. This challenge comes not only from language and background barriers but also an ontological one - a central topic in the English-speaking world is often not already a worthy being in other languages, and vice versa. However, instructors in English-mediated STS education often need to bridge this gap without systematic resources. This research contributes to STS pedagogy, indigenous knowledge, and higher education in the global neoliberal trend.

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Short abstract:

This paper explores English-Mediated Instruction (EMI) in a Japanese university, focusing on curious distractions in teaching. It challenges the general assumption of English’s homogenizing effect and linguistic imperialism, viewing language misunderstandings as opportunities for critical pedagogy.

Long abstract:

Even in non-English speaking countries, our academic engagements extend beyond just reading and writing in English; we are increasingly compelled, by the demands of higher educational institutions aspiring to internationalization, to teach in English. While denouncing this as a form of linguistic imperialism and advocating for the construction of multilingual environments, we also need to rethink the premise that English, perceived as a neutral language serving science, simply homogenizes our knowledge production. Moreover, to underestimate the impact of English as merely a tool for communication is to remain ensnared in a similar paradigm. This paper focuses on teaching experiences with English-mediated instruction (EMI) in a Japanese university, where the boundary between 'nature' and 'environment' suddenly becomes a focal point, giving rise to what might be termed 'evocative discrepancies,' where misunderstanding unearths assumptions taken for granted and leads to unexpected conversation. In classrooms comprising students and teachers from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds, with varying degrees of English proficiency, EMI does not facilitate frictionless knowledge reproduction; rather, it introduces a curious distraction. What might superficially be characterized by deficits and disorderliness becomes a critical juncture for rethinking pedagogy. Amidst growing critical reflections on homogenizing education by segregating classrooms based on language proficiency or disability, this paper contemplates the 'incomprehensibility' inevitably engendered by English as a creative opportunity.

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Short abstract:

Exploring the human-material relationship in education, this paper utilizes new materialism to challenge traditional views and introduce 'New-teaching-material-ism', advocating a symmetrical relationship and a novel educational paradigm.

Long abstract:

This paper aims to reconsider the relationship between materials and humans within the educational context of the Anthropocene era. Historically, Western philosophy has positioned humans as distinct from and dominant over nature, capable of controlling it from an external vantage point. Yet, the ongoing difficulty in resolving global issues, such as environmental crises, underscore the historical coexistence between humans and materials.

This study investigates the significance of materials in education across four key sections. First, it outlines the historical development of teaching material categories in Japan. Second, it demonstrates that discourse on Japanese teaching materials have predominantly been framed within a humanist perspective that privileges a linear progression toward rational and idealized beings, where the material-human relationship is viewed as asymmetrical. Third, by employing new materialism—which acknowledges the diverse changes occurring as materials and humans engage in varying connections and separations—I reexamine the notion of teaching materials. Fourth, through the examination of narratives from Japanese educators regarding Handmade Teaching Materials, akin to Montessori’s materials, used in Japanese special education for the non-verbal education of children with severe intellectual disabilities or multiple disabilities, I present instances of educational practices where children, materials, and teachers evolve collectively.

This paper introduces the term "New-teaching-material-ism" as a term for the theory and practice of reenvisioning teaching materials through the lens of new materialism. This approach advocates for a symmetrical relationship between materials and humans, suggesting a novel educational paradigm.