Researcher Information - Sean Mahoney |

（Last updated : 2026-04-07 11:32:05）

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Sean Mahoney

Department / Course Fukushima University Faculty of Administration and Social Sciences Community and Cultural Studies Course

Job Professor

Profile
Sean Mahoney taught at high school and university levels in Canada before coming to Japan in 1995 with an MA in English from the University of Victoria. He is Professor of English at Fukushima University, where he has enjoyed teaching for over 25 years. Along with two university textbooks, he has published articles and book chapters in several countries on foreign language acquisition, including error gravity, mutual intelligibility, team-teaching issues, speech rate, and Japan's English language education policy. He has recently completed a chapter in Team Teachers in Japan: Beliefs, Identities, and Emotions, which was published by Routledge in summer 2023, and is currently working on two textbooks.

User Research Outline
I have recently published on a 5-year, MEXT-sponsored inquiry into the teaching of English at Japan's primary schools, particularly the contributions from so-called non-native English speaking assistant teachers. I had conducted a nationwide survey of 277 members of this increasingly important group of educators, both Japanese and non-Japanese, as the parameters on language use and ownership issues continue to expand. For my next research project, I'd like to reconsider a project from 2006-09, in which I focused on comparing the weight of different types of written errors in English (a research field called Error Gravity or 誤りの重み, 誤りの深刻度). This time, however, I would like to focus on the ranking of specific phoneme-related (or spoken) errors. Since mutual intelligibility is paramount in English Lingua Franca communication, it is necessary to determine which consonant and vowel distinctions have the greatest impact on comprehensibility and intelligibility. I have thus been studying the concept of Functional Load (機能負担量, 機能的負荷) and suprasegmental variance, and am training myself in how to use the PRAAT Spectrogram, which analyses acoustic sound waves. I would like to see whether the notion of Functional Load, if combined with key findings from Error Gravity studies, may contribute to improving English pronunciation teaching in Japan.

Self-PR
1) Author of Chapter 14 in: Hiratsuka, T. (Ed.). (2023). Team teachers in Japan: Beliefs, identities, and emotions. Routledge. (https://www.routledge.com/Team-Teachers-in-Japan-Beliefs-Identities-and-Emotions/Hiratsuka/p/book/9781032265841); 2) Frequent reviewer of book proposals for Cambridge University Press; 3) Executive for the Japan Society of English Language Education and for the Japan Association of English Teaching in Elementary Schools (JES); 4) Author of ALT Training Online Module #21: Doing Research (open access material to help ALTs learn how to do research)

Present specialized field
English Education, Second Language Acquisition keyword(English education, primary school, ALT, non-native speaker)

Book and thesis
Books	Hiratsuka, T. (Ed.). (2023). “Straight Talk about English from Primary School Homeroom Teachers” (Chapter 14) in Team teachers in Japan: Beliefs, identities, and emotions. Routledge. ISBN 9781032265841.,pp.175-185 (Co-authored) 2023/07/14
Books	New Essential Listening for the TOEIC Test (Co-authored) 2007/03
Books	Essential Listening for the TOEIC Test (Co-authored) 2005/01
Papers	A new era: Non-native English-speaking assistants JES Journal 20,pp.210-225 (Sole-authored) 2020/03
Papers	Primary School English Classes: Japan’s Non-native English-Speaking Assistants Korea TESOL Journal 15 (1),pp.227-233 (Sole-authored) 2019/12/30
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Academic conference presentation
2020/11/22	Locating the Non-native English-speaking Assistant (JALT 46th Annual International Conference on Language Teaching and Learning (Online Conference))
2019/11/03	Non-native English-speaking assistants at Shogakko (JALT 45th Annual International Conference on Language Teaching and Learning & Educational Materials Exhibition)
2019/07/20	Bilingual and multilingual ALTs: A new era (第19回小学校英語教育学会(JES))
2019/06/28	Help from experienced non-native English-speakers at primary schools in Japan (Asia TEFL 2019)
2018/10	Turning to non-native English-speaking assistants in primary schools (KOTESOL 2018)
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Educational ability

●Prepared Textbook and Other Teaching Materials

2025/05/08 ～ 2025/05/08	Online Publication　:研究したい英語指導者用の研修教材