Damian Rivers

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Verified

Damian verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

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• Ph.D
• Professor (Full) at Future University Hakodate

During the pandemic, the Japanese government drew upon the cultural concept of jishuku, or personal self-constraint, requesting that individuals accept responsibility for their behaviors and consider minimizing the potential negative impact on others. While the jishuku approach to pandemic management rests upon the established and persuasive influe...

The fundamental nature of the transaction between the student-as-consumer and the university-as-service provider changed during the COVID-19 pandemic as educational activities switched to a remote-access online learning format. Educational practices were primarily shaped in response to a public health crisis rather than the knowledge related needs...

As the most studied affective variable within foreign language education, the emotion of anxiety continues to generate significant research interest. Owing to technological developments in wearable research devices, new opportunities have arisen to expand the research methodologies used in the recording and assessment of foreign language education...

As education is remodelled to online solutions, instructors and students are required to adapt their teaching and learning through different forms of monitoring, regulation and assessment. This remodelling requires conceptual and philosophical reflection relating to stakeholder roles and the relationship between learners and teaching materials with...

With online learning solutions responding to the novel coronavirus pandemic, it is important for educational technologists and other practitioners to understand how learners are experiencing the demands of socially distanced online learning and how they conceive of themselves within distant spaces and digital communities. Research into the metacogn...

Informed by the educational conditions shaped by the novel coronavirus pandemic and an increased reliance upon online learning solutions and technologies, this article examines the role of personality traits and online academic self-efficacy in acceptance, actual use and achievement in Moodle on a socially distanced asynchronous university course i...

As an aspirational activity, English as a Foreign Language (EFL) education is a compulsory pursuit within many education systems around the world. Common to many such contexts, EFL is taught in relation to a dominant national language and is therefore cast into a marginal, non-official or non-native position. However, this domestic marginalization...

The objective of this article collection is to further advance inter- and multi-disciplinary inquiry within the broad domain of sports discourse and participation concerning communities increasingly influenced by new media technologies and platforms. In pursuit of this objective, this collection showcases articles from diverse academic fields and g...

The rise to the US Presidency of Donald Trump has been accompanied by the emergence of a new political rhetoric, one that is most frequently observed on the social media platform Twitter. Although Twitter has been a feature of political campaigns and communication for several years now, the public has not been exposed to the de-professionalised, in...

The construction of a wall along the US/Mexico border was one of the main political platforms upon which the 2016 US presidential election campaign was fought. Ahead of the upcoming 2020 US presidential election, and with the border wall still not yet built or funded, this article uses the authorisation component of Van Leeuwen’s (2007) framework f...

Football fan participation within the context of the English Premier League (EPL) has diversified through the rise of fan channels hosted on YouTube. As a pioneer within this participatory new media landscape, AFTV is the most prominent example within the genre having amassed over one million YouTube subscribers. Drawing data from the comments post...

Media frames have been applied to news information for decades to influence the manner in which news is both delivered and interpreted. However, media frames have tended to focus on traditional news media channels, but the emergence of new media platforms now necessitates a recalibration of how media framing is understood in relation to media and c...

This volume provides a comprehensive analysis of the ways in which digital communication facilitate and inform discourses of legitimization and delegitimization in contemporary participatory cultures. The book draws on multiple theoretical traditions from critical discourse analysis to allow for a greater critical engagement of the ways in which va...

During the National Policy Institute’s national conference in Washington D.C on Saturday November 19th, 2016, Richard Spencer, the President of the institute and the man believed to have popularized the term alt-right, delivered a speech in praise of the election victory of President Donald Trump. Spencer ended his speech proclaiming, “Hail Trump!...

During the National Policy Institute’s (NPI) 2016 annual conference, Director Richard Spencer gave a speech in praise of the election victory of President Donald Trump. Spencer concluded his address proclaiming, “Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail Victory!” after which several audience members were recorded performing Nazi salutes. Three days after...

This volume problematizes native-speakerism in language learning and teaching, critically engaging with the issue of native-speakerism as a language-based form of prejudice affecting language teachers. Bringing theoretical discussion together with empirical data, Houghton, Rivers and Hashimoto document past traditions and current perspectives surro...

This chapter revisits a long-standing area of contention within the domain of TESOL: the issue of status drawn from categorization as either a native-speaker teacher of English or as a non-native-speaker teacher of English. It remains that despite various discussions and debates surrounding this dichotomy being heard within mainstream literature no...

Twitter is increasingly being utilized within the sociopolitical domain as a channel through which to circulate information and opinions. Throughout the 2016 U.S. Presidential primaries and general election campaign, a notable feature was the prolific Twitter use of Republican candidate and then nominee, Donald Trump. This use has continued since h...

Research into the emotional experiences of language learners and their impact upon the language-learning process remains relatively undernourished within second language education. The research available focuses primarily on emotions experienced within the classroom, rather than in the daily lives of learners within various social contexts. This ar...

Framed against a backdrop of complex intergroup dynamics and the legacies created for foreign language education, the current article tests three hypotheses which explore the efficacy of direct contact encounters between Japanese university students and ‘idealized’ native-speaker English teachers. As antecedents to positive language learning outcom...

While mainstream psychology has made significant advances into the understanding of personality, applied linguistics research has offered a more muted response (Dörnyei and Ryan, 2015) despite Bandura (2001, p. 10) declaring that self-efficacy beliefs represent ‘the foundation of human agency’. The study documented within this article therefore exa...

The incorporation of metaphors into everyday language use has formed the basis of scholarly investigation and analysis for decades. Particular attention has been given to conceptual metaphors, which are seen as essential tools for individuals to interpret and process various ideas and experiences. Within the milieu of metaphorical speech, metaphors...

The original definition of native-speakerism (Holliday 2005) was devised in specific relation to the domain of English Language Teaching (ELT) and cast as an ideological reflection of inequitable practices originating from within, and thus favouring, the English-speaking West. It can be suggested that this ideological conferment has hindered the de...

Influenced by a professional interest in political hip-hop, expressions of nationalism and sociolinguistic constructions of otherness, this chapter explores the discursive intersections of racialized identities as formulated around, and in response to, hip-hop culture. In contrast to several other chapters presented within this volume, the expressi...

Originating from youth cultures in the South Bronx during the late 1970s, the performative musical genre of hip-hop represents “a form of rhymed storytelling accompanied by highly rhythmic, electronically based music” (Rose, 1994, p. 2), one frequently portraying narrative experiences born from socioeconomic desperation, structural oppression, and...

Native-speakerism has become an increasing feature within mainstream TESOL discourse and a common reference point in discussions of language-related prejudice and discrimination. Drawing from a variety of data sources and with an intentional slant toward entertaining the unfashionable, this chapter stands against sectarian interest through a critiq...

This book adopts a sociolinguistic perspective to trace the origins and enduring significance of hip-hop as a global tool of resistance to oppression. The contributors, who represent a range of international perspectives, analyse how hip-hop is employed to express dissatisfaction and dissent relating to such issues as immigration, racism, stereotyp...

It is now widely acknowledged that language learning is inherently social, rather than being a purely cognitive, mind-internal, process. It is embedded in and influenced by political and economic structures, social relations, institutional practices, ideologies and discourses. Decisions at the policy level—which languages to prioritize and when and...

With foundations in the evolutionary work of British biologist Richard Dawkins and situated at the nexus of language, society, popular culture and communication science, Internet memes represent “artifacts of participatory digital culture” (Wiggins and Bowers, 2015: 1886). Furthered by the “relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic e...

This volume develops a comprehensive understanding of the manner in which dominant/emergent ideologies, discourses and social structures impact language education. The 14 chapters analyze the complex social dynamics of "isms" within language education and detail how such dynamics influence language education pedagogies and practices, institutional...

As a teacher-researcher with over 15 years experience within the social context of Japan, the confessional statement above is intended to alert the reader to my own positioning in relation to the contents of this chapter. As someone defined by others as a native speaker of English, I have often been a reluctant benefactor, at the pre-recruitment st...

Described as ‘a hotbed of innovation and new developments in international academic mobility’ (Knight, 2007, p. 23), the period since the turn of the century has witnessed a remarkable increase in the cross-border movement of individuals in pursuit of educational opportunity. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2011, p. 318)...

This volume stands as an intended expression of responsible pedagogy, however, as no such recognized category exists—on the odd assumption that all of our pedagogies are responsible—it will most likely be banished to the distance domain of critical pedagogy, host to the voices of ‘them’ and ‘their’ views as opposed to ‘us’ and ‘our’ views. With thi...

One could make the argument that many modern-day democracies, despite appearing to promote the expansion of individual freedoms and liberties, demonstrate a more substantive interest in maintaining a status quo in which authorities are able to reduce individual freedoms and liberties unopposed under the rhetorical guise of the powerful acting in th...

English as a Foreign Language (EFL) education within the context of Japan is firmly underpinned by sociohistorical constructions of racial difference and racial hierarchies that have considerable influence on contemporary student and institutional attitudes. Embracing these sociohistorical foundations, this article adopts experimental procedures to...

This chapter showcases the ways in which narrative accounts and thus identities manifested, are manipulated, restricted and/or empowered by the complexities of the ‘native-speaker’ English teacher location within the Japanese sociocultural context. The study participants are initially bound together by the national context in which they reside, the...

One of the most active and culturally bound modes of stereotype perpetuation, particularly concerning the unknown or less familiar other, is through various forms of media - “[i]n constructing social reality, mass-mediated information generally plays a greater role in domains where we do not have direct experience or other means to test its veracit...

When confronted by a concept as vast, enduring and multidimensional as ‘identity’ one can select among numerous points of departure for investigation and analysis. Throughout this volume, we engage with the notion of social identities (thus emphasizing the significance of context in intergroup identity dynamics) and the associated concept of multip...

The relative status of native and non-native speaker language teachers within educational institutions has long been an issue worldwide but until recently, the voices of teachers articulating their own concerns have been rare. Existing work has tended to focus upon the position of non-native teachers and their struggle against unfavourable comparis...

Within foreign language education contexts across the globe, inadequate attention has been paid to documenting the dynamics of identity development, negotiation and management. This book looks at these dynamics in specific relation to otherness, in addition to attitudinal and behavioural overtones created through use of the term 'foreign' (despite...

Through the juxtaposition of reflections on professional experience and interviews with colleagues this chapter critiques the policies and practices imposed upon a collective of ‘native-speaker’ English teachers employed at a tertiary institution specializing in foreign language education in Japan. Within this particular site, the critique accentua...

The issues surrounding limited-term contracts within the domain of foreign language education have been under scrutiny from various commentators within the sociocultural context of Japan for many years. These issues are multidimensional, inherently complex, and cannot be extensively documented within the limitations of this particular section. Howe...

Adopting mixed methods of data collection and analysis, the current study models the ‘perceived value of compulsory English language education’ in a sample of 138 undergraduate non-language majors of Japanese nationality at a national university in Japan. During the orientation period of a compulsory 15-week English language programme, the 138 stud...

This study assessed the attitudinal responses of 48 Japanese university students towards 10 accented English speech samples across nine evaluative criteria. Of the 10 samples, one was a Japanese-English speech sample (the intracultural familiar), seven were non-native-English samples originating from a variety of Asian countries (intercultural othe...

For some language educators, communicative-style language teaching, by definition, entails viewing the use of the learners’ first language (L1) as counterproductive to the learning process or as an unfortunate but sometimes necessary recourse. However, recent research has shown that L1 use can serve important cognitive, communicative, and social fu...

On the premise that the learning of a second or foreign language should contribute to, rather than subtract from, the cultural and linguistic resources which a learner already possesses, this paper documents an individual teacher’s pedagogically centred challenge to a politically driven and potentially exclusive English-only language policy within...

Within the Japanese English Language Teaching context and consistent with the dominant conversation role assigned to the native English speaker teacher, there exists a belief that the most effective manner in which to teach and promote multilingualism and intercultural understanding is through restricting students to monolingual practices and prohi...

It has been widely acknowledged that Japanese universities are lagging behind those of other major countries in developing and implementing globally focused strategies which aim to internationalize student and faculty populations. According to the latest Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) figures, in 2007 internat...

Building upon the seminal work of Kosterman and Feshbach (1989), the previous context specific work of Karasawa (2002), and the recent work of Sullivan and Schatz (2009), this paper examines four psychosocial facets of Japanese national identification in relation to a selection of English language learning processes among 401 Japanese university st...

Drawing on various sources of official discourse and public commentary pertaining to the recent implementation of two large-scale strategies aimed at internationalising student and academic staff populations within Japanese higher education institutions, this paper will present a number of broad multifaceted perspectives addressing those issues whi...

Framed within debates concerning national identification and English as a Foreign Language education within Japan, the current study explores the relationships between three specific attitudinal facets of Japanese national identification (internationalism, patriotism and nationalism), the perceived vitality of English-speaking nations, the intercul...

With a strong focus on the social-psychological processes associated with individual and collective identity formation and fabrication, and on the premise that English language learning within the Japanese context is heavily implicated into the realm of nationhood and national attachment, this context-specific presentation will share the findings o...

In this study, 94 university freshmen undertook an authentic, experientially driven media production project at a Japanese university which promotes a target language (TL)-only classroom language policy. The project was staged across six 90-minute lessons and sought to promote culturally and socially relevant task-based activities grounded in the b...

On the premise that the learning of a second or foreign language should contribute to, rather than subtract from, the cultural and linguistic resources which a learner already possesses, this paper documents an individual teacher's pedagogically centred challenge to a politically driven and potentially exclusive English-only language policy within...

Within Japan almost all mobile camera phones are equipped with two-dimensional barcode scanning technology as a standard feature. Consequently, QR (Quick Response) codes are now widespread throughout Japan as a means of product identification and advertising. Despite this, their implementation into public and private educational settings has been r...