Dr Hanako Fujino

One of the main challenges and opportunities for language learners in a study abroad context is learning to navigate the routines of L2 social interactions and politeness practices necessary for establishing oneself as a legitimate social actor and forming meaningful interpersonal connections. This can be particularly difficult when there is significant divergence between learners’ self-presentation strategies and understandings of politeness associated with their existing languages and those that are prevalent in the new cultural environment. This chapter reports on a study examining the ways in which L2 Japanese learners enrolled at UK universities made sense of their experiences of politeness within the context of forming interpersonal connections during study abroad in Japan. It presents narrative accounts based on interviews with university students who studied at a partner institution in Japan for 9–12 months. Analysis focuses on the ways that learners not only attempted to understand the cultural significance of politeness forms according to contextual norms but also actively incorporated their knowledge of other languages and cultures into their developing understandings of politeness.

世界のグローバル化に伴い、以前にも増して異なる文化や価値観を持つ人々が共生するようになり、外国 語教育では単に言語を的確に使えるだけではなく、相手の文化を理解し、自己の文化との違いを受け入れる 能力、つまり異文化間コミュニケーション能力（intercultural communicative competence, ICC）が求められる ようになった（Byram et al. 2013）。英国の高等教育においても、人の移動が頻繁になりかつ世界情勢が不安 定な中にあって、異文化に対する寛容性や関心の高い人材を育てるための教育がますます強く望まれるよう になった（Bothwell 2016）。しかし、言語教育の実践では、未だに言語とコミュニケーションを中心とした 授業が行われている場合が多い（Byram et al. 2013）。また、異文化間能力（intercultural competence, IC）は必 ずしも自然に身につくわけではないとも言われており、意識的なトレーニングの必要性が唱えられている （Behrnd & Porzelt 2012）。 本発表は、英国の日本語教育の現場においてどの程度 IC 及び ICC の養成が意識されているかに関する基 礎的調査の報告である。英国で活躍している日本語教師（n=34）と日本語を専攻し、日本に留学した経験の ある大学学部生（n=38）に彼らの動機や異文化理解に関する意識、日本語教師または話者としての社会的貢 献について、オンラインアンケートを行い、詳細な記述を求めた。Byram（1997）の ICC モデルに照らし合 わせて学生回答者のコメントを分析した結果、全体として“critical cultural awareness”の不足が目立った。自 らを異文化に対する寛容性が高いと評価した学生が多かったものの、その根拠として挙げられた理由から は、異文化理解への自己認識にかなりの差が見られた。また、英国の大学の「多文化コミュニティー」とし ての側面に対する認識が高いとはいえないことが窺えた。一方教師は、英国の大学の「多文化コミュニ ティー」としての側面に対する認識は高く、日本語教育の実践の場が、異文化理解能力開発のために有益な 教育効果をもたらすことを十分理解していることがデータから観察された。しかし、「多言語多文化社会を 意識した教育を行っているか」という問いに対しては、具体的な教育実践に言及した回答が少なく、日本文 化について紹介する際に自己の文化と照らし合わせて話し合う程度で IC 及び ICC の養成がカリキュラムに 含まれている場合は少ないことが分かった。つまり、教師のビリーフと実践の間には乖離が見られた。 以上の結果を踏まえ、英国における日本語教育の現場で IC 及び ICC を高めるために何ができるかを考え たい。= With the advance of globalisation we are living in an increasingly diverse society where people with different cultures and values coexist. Foreign language education has also taken a ‘cultural turn’ (Byram et al. 2013) by which, in addition to learning to use the target language accurately and appropriately, gaining intercultural communicative competence (ICC), i.e., understanding and accepting other cultures, has become a central theme. In the age of international mobility and instability, it became required in higher education in the UK to train students to be tolerant and be interested in other cultures (Bothwell 2016). In reality, however, language and communication continue to be the main focus in many language classrooms and ICC has not been integrated as one of the learning objectives (Byram et al. 2013). Studies have also shown that intercultural competence (IC) does not always develop naturally through the experience of studying abroad, and suggest the need for intercultural training prior to studying abroad (Behrnd & Porzelt 2012). This study is a fundamental research on the awareness of IC and ICC in Japanese Language education in the UK. An online questionnaire was administered to each group. The questions focused on their motives for teaching or learning Japanese, how they perceived IC and ICC and what they thought their contribution to society was. Some questions asked the participants to explain in detail and a total of 34 teachers and 38 university students, who are majoring in Japanese and have studied abroad in Japan, participated. The results from analysing the student questionnaire using Byram’s ICC Model (1997) showed that in general many of the students lacked “critical cultural awareness”. Although many of them thought that they were tolerant to other cultures, there was a big difference in their self-awareness to IC. The results also showed that many of the students did not recognize British Universities as a ‘multicultural society’. The results from analysing the teacher questionnaire showed that many recognized British Universities as a ‘multicultural society’ and fully understood that the classrooms of Japanese language education could improve IC and ICC effectively. However, to the question, ‘Are you teaching students to have an awareness of our multilingual or multicultural society?’ only a few teachers provided concrete examples of IC and ICC related teaching, and few curricula included the training of IC and ICC. That is, there was a separation of teachers’ belief and actual teaching. Based on the results above, we would like to consider what we can do in order to improve IC and ICC for Japanese language education in the UK.