教授・上村 妙子

During the 1980s I studied at the graduate school of Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) in the USA. I majored in applied linguistics. The Department of English at IUP emphasizes the teaching and learning of English composition both in first language education and second language education. Please refer to （http://www.iup.edu/graduateprograms/) if you are interested in the programs at this university.

　　While studying at IUP, I got interested in how Japanese EFL students compose in English and what characteristics could be found in their compositions. Since then, I have been conducting writing research. I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation on revising strategies in Japanese students’ writing in English as a foreign language. My recent research interests lie in how Japanese students’ Japanese and English writing are related to each other.

　　AT IUP I met a lot of international students who were from different countries, such as Jamaica, Egypt, Taiwan, Korea, China, and France. My host father was originally from Egypt, while my host mother was from Germany, and they lived in Indiana. They spoke to each other in English, which was their second language; they thought that speaking English would be fair for both of them although both of them were able to speak German. These experiences taught me a lot about cultural differences and made me realize that those differences would give us new perspectives that could enrich our lives. Since then I have tried to find invisible values and thinking patterns of different cultures hidden in observable objects in our daily life. For example, how to eat at a restaurant, which seems quite simple, is indeed very different from culture to culture, ranging from how to order and to how to pay.

　　I compiled a high school writing textbook entitled World Trek with other writing researchers. We attempted to produce a discourse-based textbook that aimed at developing Japanese students’ abilities to write a coherent composition, rather than simply providing them with practice in sentence-level translation from Japanese into English. Students are more interested in developing their speaking abilities in English than their writing abilities. However, the Internet has become prevalent everywhere in the world, and increasing attention has been paid to the importance of communication in written English.

　　I like travelling in and out of Japan. Here let me tell you what I am proud of!! I have visited all the prefectures in Japan. Also I have been to Korea, Taiwan, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Turkey, UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Finland, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Australia, Canada, America, and Mexico. I would like to visit more countries and encounter more different people from different cultures.