A series of studies has indicated the important role of classroom design as the physical manifestation of educational philosophy and values. The extensive body of academic work on the influence of learning space on teaching and learning activities and, eventually, student motivation and attitudes has resulted in rising awareness of the matter and introducing learning space design guidelines and recommendations generally and for foreign language education.

Foreign language textbooks, specifically Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) textbooks, feature a classroom environment to introduce the vocabulary and phrases that learners will need in class, as well as a common environment for Japanese language learning and usage. Additionally, they help learners from various cultural backgrounds raise awareness about Japanese academic culture and the common learning environment. However, there is little to no previous research on the representation of study space in JFL textbooks.

We apply multimodal content analysis research methodology to fill the research gap and analyze the linguistic and visual representation of the classroom and learning space in twelve JFL textbooks.

The results of our analysis show that some of the textbooks published in the 2020s tend to represent outdated classroom layouts and miss out on modern equipment, leaving students unable to address issues with audio-visual systems or Wi-Fi environment. Furthermore, in our presentation, we bring together textbook analysis in foreign language education and representation studies with educational psychology and architecture to trace the potential implications of the common traits in the representation of learning spaces on the interaction between educators and learners, learners’ autonomy, and mindset. Though our research is a small-scale pilot project, our research managed to address an issue of utmost importance in textbook design and point out the necessity to update and reimagine the classroom space in language learning materials to meet the learners’ needs and create an autonomous learning environment and a proactive mindset.

Keywords: Textbook analysis, Content analysis, Learning Space Design, Japanese language education.