I should share a bit of the context for my (EFL) teaching that might put some of my questions in perspective.

I should share a bit of the context for my (EFL) teaching that might put some of my questions in perspective. First, I teach at generally low-level private university in Japan. My students are mostly at the false-beginner level, despite 6 years of fairly useless (and rigid) school English...often taught by teachers with limited English skills themselves. (There are EFL textbooks for the Japanese market that actually include a full "script" right on each page of the teacher's manual with every single word the teacher will say and when.) At university all students at all universities are required by the Ministry of Education to take one year of a foreign language. Most choose English. Those first year GE English classes are taught in a kind of lock-step with every teacher using the same textbook, though free to devote about 50% of their class time to whatever they think will most help their students. Some students choose to continue taking other English courses. ALL courses at ALL Japanese universities meet only once a week for 90 minutes. This is about the worst possible organization for language learning. Furthermore, there is little expectation on the part of either the students or the professors that students will do much work outside of class. This is because the dominant educational paradigm is still lecture>take notes>take tests. Students don't generally have to read textbooks for their classes. Students have to be trained to work in groups and discussion does not come easily in a culture that resists public disagreement.