Belinda Kennett

'What if [your] boyfriend was a foreigner?' Romance, gender and second language learning in an edutainment context

Language edutainment involves the utilization of various forms of technology in the teaching and learning of languages. One such form recently to have emerged is the ‘What if [your] boyfriend was a foreigner?’ iPhone app. This ‘iBoyfriend’ app is marketed to Japanese female learners as a tool for learning English conversation through the alluring context of romance with three virtual foreign boyfriends. In this paper we question the pedagogical value of the app and the cultural representations of women and the virtual boyfriends in the storylines. This form of language edutainment is predicated on problematic discourses of native speakers, foreign language learning, gender, and Japanese cultural identity. Finally, the app is shown to be indexical of the localized meanings with which English can be ascribed in particular cultural contexts.

Maintaining the momentum in Japanese language teacher education

This article will focus on primary and secondary schooling of Japanese into the 2000s. On this topic, we are fairly confident that our predictions will be those of other readers who are practicing in the pre‐tertiary area or have an interest in LOTE (Languages Other than English) policy or teacher education. The trends of the mid 1980s will continue with sporadic leveling and bursts of enthusiasm.