ABSTRACT
The present chapter’s theme of Japanese learners of English in ASEAN contexts is stimulated by the rise in the number and profile of English study experiences in English-speaking ASEAN nations among Japanese and other East Asian students. The theme also derives from Chapter 2’s insight into Japanese students’ unexpected development of friendships with Korean and other Asian students at Canadian ESL schools, which is to some extent evoked by their racially and linguistically minority status in western societies.
The first half of the present chapter reviews: (1) push and pull factors behind the increased popularity of study experience in English-speaking ASEAN nations among Japanese and other overseas students and (2) literature knowledge of their images or experience of sojourn in ASEAN contexts. The latter half of the chapter evolves from my previous and latest studies conducted in Singapore and Malaysia (Kobayashi, 2011b, 2017).
The concluding part of this chapter critically discusses that the development of Japanese students’ willingness to speak up and engage in cross-cultural communication beyond certain contexts is contingent on at-home factors that often adversely constrain open-minded discussion, provide Japanese-dominant learning environments, and equate cross-cultural communication with English conversation with western native English speakers.
