Drawings Reveal the Beliefs of Japanese University Students

Abstract

Although Japanese students study English for 6 years in secondary schools, they demonstrate little success with it when they enter higher education. Learners’ beliefs can predict the future behaviour of students, so it may be effective to investigate how learners’ beliefs limit their success and how beliefs might be nudged in a positive direction. While many researchers still depend on a questionnaire called BALLI [by Horwitz (Learner strategies in language learning, 1987)] to reveal explicit beliefs, alternative approaches, especially those designed to reveal implicit beliefs, might be helpful for promoting learning. The present study seeks to identify beliefs with a discursive approach using visual metaphors as narratives. Employing a Jungian approach, this study investigates how students’ beliefs are revealed within drawings of themselves and their surrounding environments and artifacts while they are engaged in language learning. Participants were university students majoring in science and technology in Japan. The questionnaire was administered to 70 entering students in April, 2014. Data included students’ drawings of themselves as learners of English as well as written descriptions of students’ backgrounds, English-learning experiences and written descriptions of themselves as learners. It is our aim to examine how a Jungian approach analysis can function as an alternative method to investigate learners’ beliefs.