While several studies have discovered authentic coping strategies for language anxiety that learners use in actual classroom situations, their effects in terms of anxiety reduction remains unclear. This study investigates the effects of coping strategies on the levels of classroom speaking anxiety among Japanese EFL learners, focusing on five coping strategies extracted by previous research (preparation, relaxation, positive thinking, peer seeking, and resignation). Incidentally, general statistical methods such as correlation and regression analyses should be cautiously used for those two specific constructs (coping strategy and language anxiety), because the difficulty in distinguishing the following two directions (entitled A and B) in one dataset could distort the results: (A) because learners feel more (or less) anxious, they need to use coping strategies more (or less) frequently; (B) because learners use coping strategies more (or less) frequently they feel less (or more) anxious. Therefore, the present study employs “willingness to communicate” as an alternative variable and exploits these statistical approaches to investigate the effects of the coping strategies. The analysis of 149 Japanese EFL learners indicated that preparation and positive thinking were significantly effective strategies for coping with speaking anxiety among the group, both of which are discussed in terms of more general perspectives. The pedagogical implications describe teachers’ responsibilities to enable learners to use these two coping strategies more effectively.

We investigated tonal perception of melodies from 2 cultures (Western and traditional Japanese) by 5 different cultural groups (44 Japanese, 25 Chinese, 16 Vietnamese, 18 Indonesians, and 25 U.S. citizens). Listeners rated the degree of "melodic completeness" of the final tone (a tonic vs. a nontonic) and "happiness-sadness" in the mode (major vs. minor, YOH vs. IN) of each melody. When Western melodies were presented, American and Japanese listeners responded similarly, such that they reflected implicit tonal knowledge of Western music. By contrast, the responses of Chinese, Vietnamese, and Indonesian listeners were different from those of American and Japanese listeners. When traditional Japanese melodies were presented, Japanese listeners exhibited responses that reflected implicit tonal knowledge of traditional Japanese music. American listeners also showed responses that were like the Japanese; however, the pattern of responses differed between the 2 groups. Alternatively, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Indonesian listeners exhibited different responses from the Japanese. These results show large differences between the Chinese/Vietnamese/Indonesian group and the American/Japanese group. Furthermore, the differences in responses to Western melodies between Americans and Japanese were less pronounced than that between Chinese, Vietnamese, and Indonesians. These findings imply that cultural differences in tonal perception are more diverse and distinctive than previously believed.

Our study investigated the role of creativity in second language (L2) speech production using a picture narrative and an open‐ended argumentative task administered to 60 Japanese‐speaking learners of English. Following recent findings in the field of psychology, the participants’ creativity was assessed in terms of cognitive dimensions (divergent thinking fluency, convergent thinking) and a personality dimension (openness to experience). Participants’ speaking performance was analyzed using a set of complexity, accuracy, fluency and discourse measures. The results of hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that both divergent thinking fluency and convergent thinking played a role in the cohesion of speech (indexed by the frequency of connectives) in both speaking tasks, while only in the argumentative task did divergent thinking fluency contribute to an increase in the amount of information (indexed by the total number of words produced). Meanwhile, openness to experience was found to enhance syntactic and lexical complexity only in the picture narrative task. These findings suggest that speakers’ creativity is linked to syntactic and lexical sophistication and discourse aspects of L2 oral performance, all of which are related to conceptualization processes in L2 speech production.

This study aims to introduce the psychological expertise required for advising in language learning (ALL) both in theoretical and practical aspects, focusing on two psychological factors that could frequently cause problems in language learning (i.e., trait anxiety and perfectionism). The first section explains theoretical aspects and, based on its explanations and the results of case studies on Japanese EFL learners, the second section suggests practical skills to deal with the problems caused by those two factors. Although previous language learning studies have focused mainly on state anxiety, the theoretical aspect emphasizes the importance of trait anxiety in ALL, and three kinds of actual skills are suggested: (1) setting a clear framework, (2) applying beneficial aspects of trait anxiety, and (3) viewing trait anxiety objectively. As for perfectionism, the theoretical explanation identifies areas some ALL advisors might easily misunderstand, and two kinds of practical skills are introduced: (1) balancing positive and negative perfectionism and (2) applying the principles of cognitive behavior therapy. Lastly, but most importantly, since advisors are not necessarily trained psychological counselors, they have to be careful about how they use psychological expertise. To avoid erroneous decisions, it is important to maintain client-consultant relationships with veteran ALL advisors or certified psychological counselors.

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