Collaborative Learning in a Japanese Language Course

This article describes ethnographic action research that exploredexperiences of the first author and her undergraduate students as they engaged incollaborative learning (CL) activities in a university Japanese language course. Thepurpose of the study was to generate new practical knowledge of CL for her, so that shemight subsequently improve her teaching practice. A thematic analysis of the interviewand descriptive data revealed that the incorporation of CL helped promote a comfortableenvironment and reduce the effects of the hierarchical authority of the instructor.While facing new challenges, the class also co-constructed its own knowledge about thereading content, language concepts, and cultural matters by working as a collaborativegroup. These findings are represented in the form of a performative text that invitesreaders to actively engage with the study’s findings