The Teaching Strategy to Develop Learners' "Imagination" at a Japanese Senior High School : A case study of using the essay "Venus de Miro" by Takayuki Kiyooka

The aim of this research is to develop learners' "imagination" for Japanese language instruction at the senior high school level in order to help them think logically. This study explores a teaching strategy to effectively cultivate learners' logical thinking through imagination by analyzing their performance in a writing activity. The research examines the hypothesis that "the ability to infer the title of a text on the basis of its proper understanding advances learners' logical imagination." In the classroom instruction for this experiment, the target students are required to decide the most appropriate title of the text and to explain the reason for their judgment if they were textbook editors. The investigation concludes that it is necessary for learners to practice expressing themselves with clear grounds for their idea based on a specific viewpoint in order to enhance their logical imagination