Hello everyone, I am Xue-Wang Geng, a third-year doctoral student.

To start, I would like to briefly introduce myself and my research.

Before coming to Japan, I worked as a product manager for K12 online education applications at an IT company in China. Through my involvement in the design and development of educational applications, I became interested in Educational Technology. This led me to decide to study abroad in Japan.

Although I came to Japan, I did not know any Japanese at the time, so I attended a Japanese language school for two years before entering graduate school. The most difficult part of studying Japanese was learning compound verbs. For example, when I wanted to ask someone I didn’t know on the street for help, I didn’t know whether to use “yobu” (to call) or “yobikakeru” (to call out to). Furthermore, Japanese has expressions like “hito ni koe o yobikakeru” (to call out to someone) and “setsusui o yobikakeru” (to call for water conservation). I feel the meaning of “yobikakeru” is different in these two expressions, but is that actually the case? While this may be something Japanese native speakers never think about, understanding the concepts of Japanese compound verbs is very difficult for foreign learners. Therefore, I thought about whether I could design and develop a learning support system for compound verbs to help foreign learners.

Regarding my research, during my master’s program, I focused on the difficulties of learning compound verbs and developed an Augmented Reality (AR) system to support the learning of Japanese compound verbs by creating animations that introduce core schemas. In this system, by combining paper verb cards, the animation indicated by the compound verb is displayed via AR, making it possible to understand the meanings of the preceding verb, the following verb, and the compound verb itself. Currently, I am researching the construction of a Japanese compound verb learning environment that allows learners to reflect on their learning behaviors using AR by applying Learning Analytics to the learning data generated by the system.

Now, I would like to introduce a paper I read for this English seminar.

Title: Augmented reality enhanced cognitive engagement: designing classroom‐based collaborative learning activities for young language learners
Author: Yun Wen
Journal: Educational Technology Research and Development
Volume/Issue: 2, 69
Pages: 843-860
Year: 2021

I chose this paper because, while there are many studies that experimentally verify the effects of AR language learning systems, practical application in educational settings remains insufficient. In particular, there is extremely little research on AR language learning that incorporates Instructional Design. By reading this paper, I wanted to gain hints on how to design classroom lessons in combination with AR language learning systems.

I will now introduce the contents of the paper.

In this paper, AR is increasingly being applied in education as a technology that integrates the real world with virtual objects. Numerous studies have reported the benefits of AR, such as promoting positive emotions, improving collaborative learning, and learning efficiently and effectively. However, the paper points out that there is a lack of research on AR language learning in classrooms, and in particular, that there is not much AR language learning that incorporates collaborative activities. Furthermore, engagement in collaborative activities is mainly measured by questionnaires investigating perceptions and attitudes, rather than evaluating engagement in the activities themselves. This paper incorporated elements of Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) and inquiry-based learning into AR learning activities, designed a Chinese vocabulary lesson using an AR kanji learning game, and investigated students’ cognitive engagement.

Regarding the experimental design, two second-grade classes at a Singaporean elementary school were divided into an experimental class and a control class. The experimental class played the kanji learning game, while the control class performed similar activities without using the game. The experiment was conducted over three Chinese language lessons. Each lesson consisted of three steps: learning radicals, creating artifacts, and sharing them. In each class, the group learning process was recorded, and students’ cognitive engagement was analyzed and evaluated based on the ICAP framework for cognitive engagement developed by Chi et al. (2009, 2014). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with students and teachers.

As a result of the investigation, it was suggested that while both the experimental and control classes were actively engaged in the designed activities, the experimental class showed clear improvement in the activities of creating and sharing artifacts. The author explains the reason for this as follows: regarding the creation and sharing of artifacts, the learning experience through AR sustains active engagement, allowing students to engage more continuously.

In this paper, the goal is to improve cognitive engagement. It is shown that in the classroom, students can enhance cognitive engagement by learning language using an AR system and further collaborating to generate paper-based AR artifacts. On the other hand, it is also emphasized that the teacher’s role is essential to promote higher levels of cognitive engagement. However, I felt that language acquisition is also an important goal of AR language learning research, and that learning outcomes and their relationship with cognitive engagement should be discussed. Also, it is concerning that the design of the learning activities this time was not based on theories such as CPS and inquiry-based learning. In addition, although the author focuses on group learning activities, I am curious about the impact on individual learning and the impact on the group. I look forward to seeing what kind of research will be conducted in the future.