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Unlike conventional distance learning, the COVID-19-induced emergency online learning environment has resulted in students experiencing prolonged social isolation and anxiety, thereby creating additional barriers to their motivation to learn. Studying under these conditions influences students' motivation to complete and turn in course-related assignments, especially newly enrolled students taking the English reading online courses as second language learners (L2). The aim of this qualitative study is to examine various factors influencing Japanese college freshmen's (n = 80) motivation when completing graded online assignments as part of asynchronous English reading courses held during the COVID-19 pandemic. The post-course survey of students from three separate classes was used to capture a detailed panorama of learner motivation. Results from an inductive content analysis of responses indicated that higher levels of motivation were strongly associated with assignments that facilitated learner autonomy, social interaction, personal interest, and practical utility of the task. Conversely, decreased motivation appears to be strongly associated with assignments reinforcing the perception of high difficulty, personal inefficacy, and cognitive overload. These findings are consistent with studies examining online learners' motivation in the pre-pandemic period. This study found that intrinsic motivation plays an explicit role in enhancing learners' engagement with instructional materials. Researchers recommend that, especially during emergencies such as a pandemic or major crisis, teachers should deliberately and extensively employ strategies to enhance the motivational appeal of instructional materials and assignments. When designing online assignments for freshman courses, special attention must be paid to psychological (autonomy, utility, relevance), cognitive (information overload), social (relatedness, interaction), and environmental (an emergency, uncertainty, isolation) conditions of learning.

The COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in unprecedented campus closures and social distancing, has reinforced the value of learning using a virtual teamwork format. While a large body of research focuses on the inputs (members’ skills, motivation, technology, and virtuality) and outcomes (satisfaction, performance, and learning) of virtual teamwork, to date, only a limited number of studies have explored virtual teamwork processes involving university students. By drawing on the team processes model ( Marks et al., 2001 ), in this qualitative study, we extend the scope of virtual team processes to a university online course. In addition, we explore transition, action, and interpersonal processes that undergraduate students experience when learning in virtual teams. The study participants included Japanese and international students ( N = 20) from three universities in Japan taking a synchronous online course in international organizations during the summer of 2020; 15 combinations of virtual teams were created. The study is based on the inductive content analysis of e-portfolios created and managed by students taking the online course. The findings show that virtual teams are multitasking entities that transition through multiple processes simultaneously and consequentially to achieve team goals. From the analyzed e-portfolios, it can be observed that across all themes, systems monitoring (action processes), affect management (interpersonal processes), and strategy formulation and planning (transition processes) have been crucial in invigorating virtual teams toward task accomplishment. Finally, the study discusses both theoretical and practical implications.

While many studies indicate that "virtual exchanges" also known as telecollaboration are useful for developing intercultural communicative competence, there is a paucity of research on how learners acquire new knowledge related to their own culture and society before interacting with online foreign exchange partners. This study explores the potential of applying an inquiry-based strategy in developing students' intra-cultural awareness to enhance the quality of their intercultural communication. A quasi-experimental design involving undergraduate students in Japan (n = 112) was developed to assess the effectiveness of an inquirybased telecollaboration using explicit instruction in experimental group compared with unassisted intra-cultural telecollaboration in control group. Quantitative results indicated that while several outcomes on telecollaborative tasks and intra-cultural learning were not significantly different across conditions, students learning in an inquiry-based environment reported higher levels of engagement as well as ABOUT THE AUTHOR Murod Ismailov, PhD, is an assistant professor of communication at the Centre for Education of Global Communication under the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Tsukuba, Japan. Also, he works as an Adjunct Lecturer at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and the National Police Academy of Japan. His research focuses on learner-centered pedagogy, 4C skills development, e-learning, telecollaboration, and inquiry-and project-based learning. In addition, he is actively involved in numerous research projects and grants supported by the Japanese government addressing topics of intercultural communication, English Medium Instruction (EMI), and social capital/ education in the post-Soviet countries. His most recent articles were published in Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, E-Learning and Digital Media, F1000 Research and other international peer-reviewed journals.

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In recent years, telecollaboration has been gaining popularity among scholars, teachers, and students engaged in foreign language education because it facilitates the use of Internet-mediated communication tools to connect language and culture learners in geographically distant locations. Telecollaboration, as currently viewed in academic and classroom settings, places greater emphasis on the development of learners’ intercultural communicative competence. The problem with this approach is that this process may not consider the possibility that learners engaged in online intercultural exchanges could have limited or no knowledge about certain aspects of their own lingua-culture. We argue that, for learners to effectively share lingua-cultural knowledge with their online peers abroad, there must be a framework that supports the construction of learners’ own intra-cultural knowledge to provide a solid foundation for intercultural learning and communication. In this paper, we develop an inquiry-based model of telecollaboration incorporating both inquiry and online exchange based on the inquiry cycle, which includes engagement, exploration, explanation, elaboration, and evaluation. This paper builds a case for the application of inquiry-based telecollaboration in a real classroom environment, which could not only help learners obtain and eventually share more authentic, deeper knowledge about their lingua-culture, but also promote informed intercultural exchange.

As many universities in non-Anglophone countries have committed to internationalising their academic programmes, more content courses in Arts and Sciences are being taught in English. When content courses are taught in English in a country where English is not the first language, this is called English Medium Instruction (EMI). Using specific country cases, previous studies have confirmed that an EMI course can pose many challenges to the learning of course content by students. To date, there have been few attempts to examine these challenges through a large-scale qualitative prism, which would be useful for gaining new insights in order to inform policy as well as classroom interventions. In this systematic thematic synthesis we have aimed to identify the obstacles to implementing learner-centred pedagogy in EMI tertiary programmes, focusing on student perspectives. The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) and Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Studies (COREQ) were used to appraise and synthesise 40 empirical articles. The articles included 1769 participants in 20 non-Anglophone countries and jurisdictions. The participants were both local and international non-native English-speaking students enrolled in EMI courses. The synthesis yielded 46 descriptive themes stratified into six analytical domains. The suggested domains are meta/linguistic, instructional, meta/cognitive, socio-cultural, affective, and institutional obstacles. They suggest that students in different regions faced quite similar challenges in their EMI courses. The challenges consist of inadequate use of English by students and lecturers, and a lack of student-centred pedagogy, particularly in teacher–student and student–student interactions. The findings of most learner-centred EMI studies revealed that the main challenges came from English comprehension (the first three suggested domains); fewer studies included factors related to the learning environment (the last three domains). This review can inform university administrators, teaching staff and researchers engaged in internationalising higher education and aid in designing appropriate EMI programmes that offer better learner-centred educational experiences.

The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) guidelines were extensively studied to understand inclusive learning and teaching in higher education. However, to date, there have been few studies that approached UDL-based asynchronous university courses from the needs satisfaction perspective in self-determination theory (SDT). To address this gap, researchers designed and implemented two 15-week asynchronous online courses based on UDL. They then tested their effectiveness with college freshmen (N = 225) by adopting a sequential explanatory mixed method. The study aimed to examine (i) whether asynchronous instruction based on UDL catered to inclusion and diversity across gender and academic background and (ii) whether the instructional design supported learner engagement and needs satisfaction. The findings showed that both male and female students as well as Arts and Sciences students equally engaged in the courses and perceived the needs support from the course design. However, the study also found that although universal design supported autonomy and competence, it nonetheless failed to fully satisfy learners’ relatedness needs. The researchers concluded by discussing empirical and theoretical implications.