Date of Award


Document Type


Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)



First Advisor

David I. Hanauer, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Gloria Park, Ph.D.

Third Advisor

Laurel J. Black, Ph.D.


This thesis explores reflective learning journals written by Japanese college students who are enrolled in an English language program in the United States. The goal of the study is to examine what types of reflective journal entries students write and how reflective journal writing contribute to their language learning development. The most frequent types that observed in journals were reporting the classroom events, challenges, and strategies. Moreover, writing reflective journal contributes to participants' language learning in three ways: understanding of their own learning conditions, creating strategies, and motivating themselves by observing accomplishment from applying strategies. Lastly, the findings revealed that writing reflective journal is a useful task to develop students' language learning in following aspects: remembering, self-encouraging, self-realizing through completing the task. Two implications revealed in this study that writing reflective journal makes students study more for completing the task and participants develop metacognition.