Concept-Based Language Instruction: Usage-Based Linguistics and Sociocultural Theory in Teaching Japanese

This volume showcases how concept-based language instruction (C-BLI) can be effectively integrated into foreign language instruction.

C-BLI is grounded in the relationship between theory, research, and practice, incorporating visual aids called SCOBAs (schemas for a complete orientating basis of action) designed to teach accurate scientific concepts. SCOBAs materialize L2 usage-based linguistic and cultural concepts to create tools that promote conceptual understanding and internalization. Three overview chapters lay out the book’s sociocultural theoretic foundations, the role of mediation, usage-based linguistics, and the concept of subjective construal; internalization and its role in re-mediating the mind for L2 learning; and L2 pragmatics teaching and assessment. Subsequent chapters enact praxis via classroom research on C-BLI. Each study focuses on a difficult-to-acquire area of Japanese pragmatics and/or grammar, incorporating SCOBAs that teach core concepts; instruction moves from SCOBA-mediated interactive lecture to internalization tasks involving languaging to language practice. Each chapter concludes with a section for critical reflection to inform future research and materials design.

With its focus on research-teaching connections via praxis elucidating the power of linking concept-based language instruction with usage-based linguistics, this book will interest students and scholars of second language acquisition, language teaching and learning, applied linguistics, Japanese, and Asian languages.

Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http: //www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Kyoko Masuda is Professor of Japanese Applied Linguistics at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her current research areas include Japanese discourse studies, applied cognitive linguistics, sociocultural theory, second language acquisition, and role language/mimetic words used in Manga.

Amy Snyder Ohta is Professor of Japanese Applied Linguistics at the University of Washington. Her research uses sociocultural theory to consider the learning and teaching of Japanese as a foreign language, interlanguage pragmatics, classroom research, interview research, and autoethnography.

Rie Tsujihara is Affiliate Assistant Professor of Japanese Applied Linguistics at the University of Washington, Lecturer of Japanese at the University of Washington, and Lecturer of Japanese at Cascadia College. Her research focuses on the learning and teaching of Japanese as a foreign language, both pragmatics and grammar, with a special interest in sociocultural theory.