Yuka Akiyama

• Ph.D. in Linguistics (Georgetown University); M.Ed. in TESOL (Boston University)
• Lecturer (Junior Associate Professor) at The University of Tokyo

This study examined whether 30 learners of Japanese in the United States who engaged in a semester-long video-based eTandem course made gains in global language comprehensibility, that is, ease of understanding (Derwing & Munro, 2009), and what linguistic correlates contributed to these gains. Speech excerpts from Week 2 and 8 of tandem interaction...

While many studies highlight the role of telecollaboration for language learning, there is a lack of research investigating focus on form practices in synchronous, video-based ex- change, let alone studies that do so longitudinally. Furthermore, none of the previous studies on telecollaboration examined beliefs as one of the individual differences...

Telecollaboration is a type of online learning arrangement between geographically distant participants for the development of language and intercultural competence. After two decades of research, it is an apt time to engage in a systematic review of previous studies in the form of a scoping review in order to illuminate the pedagogical practices co...

This study examined the impact of video‐based conversational interaction on the longitudinal development (one academic semester) of second language production by college‐level Japanese English‐as‐a‐foreign‐language learners. Students in the experimental group engaged in weekly dyadic conversation exchanges with native speakers in the United States...

This volume brings together seven empirical studies about aptitude-treatment interactions (ATI), i.e., about how (second language) learners with different aptitudes match or don’t match with different educational treatments; and aptitude-testing interactions, i.e., about how learners with different aptitudes perform better or worse depending on the...

This study examined how longitudinal interaction impacts the development of second language (L2) oral proficiency in relation to learners’ different experience and proficiency levels. Japanese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) participated in weekly conversation exchanges with native speakers (NSs) in the USA via videoconferencing too...

To explore the value of introspective measures in aptitude-treatment interaction (ATI) research, this study analyzed the cognitive profiles and concurrent think-alouds of six university learners of Japanese who were highly successful, moderately successful, or unsuccessful under two computer-mediated feedback conditions in a larger ( N = 80) quanti...

This study examined phonological, temporal, lexical and grammatical correlates of native speakers' perception of second language (L2) comprehensibility (i.e., ease of understanding). L2 learners of Japanese with various proficiency levels engaged in oral picture description tasks which were judged by native speaking raters for comprehensibility, an...

Telecollaboration is an organized partnership between geographically distant foreign language learners for the purpose of language learning and intercultural competence development (Belz, 2003). One of the most popular telecollaborative set-ups is eTandem (Helm, 2015), in which learners of different native languages work together to help learn each...

In our precursor research (Saito & Akiyama, 2017 in Language Learning), we reported that one academic semester of video-based L2 interaction activity was facilitative of various dimensions of the Japanese learners’ spontaneous production ability development (e.g., comprehensibility, fluency and vocabulary). In this paper, we aimed to revisit the da...

This study analyzes the conversational styles of two dyads who engaged in a semester-long, video-mediated telecollaboration between Japan and America. While one dyad expressed the greatest satisfaction and developed the autonomy to continue the project beyond the curricular requirement, the other dyad expressed the greatest frustration, requiring a...

This chapter examines the effects of lexical categories on Focus on Form (FonF) and the use of multimodal features of Skype for preemptive and reactive Language-Related Episodes (LREs) in a task-based language exchange via Skype (i.e. telecollaboration). Twelve pairs of Japanese-as-a-foreign-language learners and native speakers of Japanese engaged...

In this article, I suggest that language practitioners consider the great potential of using language exchange (LE) for professional development, so they could better identify students’ hardships in learning a language and promote collaboration among language teachers. Specifically, I will first define LE and introduce several well-known LE configu...