Reticence or unbalanced participation in the context of English as a foreign language (EFL) education in Japan has been an enduring challenge that most teachers face regardless of class size.Therefore, this study examined the effectiveness of using plastic chips as a means to visualize all students' performance in helping raise students' self-consciousness toward equal participation in a small-size discussion to seek ways to encourage two types of Japanese EFL students, both dominant and reticent ones, to self-monitor and acquire the social skills necessary to conduct a more constructive, balanced discussion.Over nine weeks, four out of six classes showed desirable outcomes with this activity, and further data analysis indicated that this type of consciousness-raising activity has a relatively short-term effect for most classes.
Yamauchi Kayoko (Mon,) studied this question.