Sakai and Takagi (2009) argue that Japanese students are very keen to achieve high scores in exams, which often determine their future and, therefore, they study outside of class, as well as in class to acquire adequate English proficiency. Accordingly, Japanese students need to take responsibility for their own learning to succeed in an exam-oriented culture. Thus, students’ success in language tests is related to learner autonomy. During the process of autonomous learning, students have more opportunities of experiencing significance, personal relevance, emotional engagement, and internalization. The purpose of this mixed methods study is to examine how Japanese students of English as a foreign language (EFL) perceive their own roles in autonomous language learning as well as their teachers' roles, how effectively they can make decisions while learning a foreign language, and what they do to acquire EFL outside the classroom settings. Quantitative data were collected and analysed from 148 college students who completed an online questionnaire. In addition, interviews were conducted with some of the participants. Students at higher levels of English as a foreign language assumed a greater share of responsibility for their education and were more driven than those at the intermediate level. Therefore, the study clearly demonstrates the necessity of incorporating autonomous learning into L2 language instruction.

The COVID-19 pandemic presented many opportunities for instructors of foreign languages toexperiment with online learning technologies and gain knowledge that would assist them in theimplementation of these tools in the future. Even though COVID-19 pandemic generatedchallenges, these opportunities were plentiful. Therefore, this study investigates the challengesfaced by English as a Foreign Language (EFL) instructors while delivering online EFL classesduring the pandemic in Japan. The study investigates how they have overcome obstacles andwhat they have discovered from their experiences that can help online language instructorsimprove the quality of instruction they provide. Semi-structured interviews were conductedwith seven EFL instructors at the English Department of a Japanese university using MicrosoftTeams. During the interviews, participants revealed how they overcame challenges to intereststudents in their online classes and how they came up with unique techniques to teaching.Based on the findings, it appears that the online pedagogical training that instructors receivedwas inadequate. As a result, the study recommends that universities should formulatestandardized guidelines for the delivery of education over the internet and expand the types ofopportunities provided for instructors to receive adequate training.

The impact of culture on language has been acknowledged for many years (Vygotsky, 1962) as well as how local culture may influence the communication strategies and interactions of EFL learners. Since intercultural communicative competence is the key to such communication, I investigated the perceptions of Japanese university students of integrating American and British cultural activities with language learning both in and outside of the EFL classroom. Data were collected through a questionnaire administered to 78 university students. The results suggest that students had positive attitudes and an interest in developing further understanding of the target language culture both in and outside of class. Furthermore, they believed that the target language culture should be incorporated in the teaching of foreign languages. Therefore, this study highlights the need for integrating the teaching of culture with language instruction into the curriculum in the Japanese context. 言語に対する文化の影響は、長年にわたって広く認識されている（Vygotsky、1962）。同様に、地域の文化がEFL学習者のコミュニケーション戦略と交流にどのように影響するかについても広く認識されている。したがって、異文化コミュニケーション能力は、国際コミュニケーションを成功させるための重要な要素である。本研究では、大学生のEFL教室と授業外での米国及び英国の文化活動と語学学習の統合に対する認識を調査している。調査は、日本の大学の78人のEFL大学生に実施された。結果は、生徒がクラスの内外で対象言語の文化を理解することに前向きな姿勢と関心を示したことを示唆している。さらに、彼らは対象言語の文化が外国語の授業に組み込まれるべきであると信じていた。したがって、この研究は、日本の実情に即して、文化と言語を統合的に教える必要性を強調している。