著者
磯田,貴道
出版者
Japan Association of College English Teachers
雑誌
JACET journal
巻号頁・発行日
no.48, 2009-03-23

The current study investigated the change of EFL learners' unwillingness to speak English. 103 Japanese university students were analyzed in terms of whether they had reduced their unwillingness to speak English after they were engaged in activities devised based on the principles of SPM (sentences per minute: Soesi, 2005). Data on their unwillingness to speak English was collected before (Time 1) and after (Time 2) three weeks of instruction. Unwillingness to speak English was conceived of a complex of three factors, i.e., high anxiety, low perceived competence, and avoidance of speaking. Comparison of the means of the three factors for Time 1 and 2 showed that the means for Time 2 were lower than Time 1. Matched-sample t tests were performed on the three variables, the results of which indicated that the differences were statistically significant. In addition, examination of the changes of the individual learners and the results of cluster analysis showed that, although some learners showed an increase in their unwillingness to speak English, a large percentage of the learners had decreased their unwillingness.
著者
YONEZAKI Michi ITO Harumi
出版者
大学英語教育学会
雑誌
Jacet journal (ISSN:02858673)
巻号頁・発行日
no.55, pp.93-110, 2012

Our previous research disclosed that oral reading such as "read and look up" combined with "personalized oral reading" is highly correlated with speaking ability. This is because this sort of oral reading embeds semantic and grammatical verification and restructuring, and thus increases learners' cognitive load. This result led to a further hypothesis; if oral reading instruction which involves high cognitive load is continued for a certain period of time, learners' speaking ability can be improved. A two-month experiment was conducted to verify this hypothesis with the first-year upper secondary school pupils as the participants. The participants were divided into two groups according to the different degrees of cognitive load accompanying the oral reading activities they were engaged in. The result of the experiment disclosed different levels of improvement in the participants' speaking ability, depending upon different degrees of cognitive load of the oral reading activities; greater cognitive load led to greater improvement in speaking ability. This finding endorses the pedagogical value of oral reading activities as preparatory practice in speaking as long as they involve high cognitive load.
著者
TANAKA Hiroaki
出版者
一般社団法人大学英語教育学会
雑誌
Jacet journal (ISSN:02858673)
巻号頁・発行日
no.56, pp.87-106, 2013

商標法に定められた商標の商品及び役務の区分並びに指定商品又は指定役務に基づき,本論のオンラインでの公開は控えております。
著者
靜 哲人 望月 正道
出版者
一般社団法人大学英語教育学会
雑誌
JACET JOURNAL (ISSN:02858673)
巻号頁・発行日
no.58, pp.121-141, 2014-03-31

This paper reports on the development and validation of a new English placement test specifically designed for Japanese university students. After discussing problems with EFL placement tests currently used at tertiary institutions in Japan, the paper describes the concepts, specifications, and development process of the new test. It then presents the results of validation attempts based on the response data collected from a sample of 1,800 Japanese EFL learners. The main findings are: (a) the test exhibits a very high Rasch person reliability of .94, with its items well targeted for the intended population; (b) the test consists of items with quite a wide range of difficulty and those difficulties are invariant across sub-samples; (c) the test produced substantially different mean scores for the 18 institutions at which the participants were enrolled; (d) the test exhibits a high criterion-related validity against the TOEIC^[○!R] test, predicting 68% of its total score variance; and (e) the test data show the best fit to a three-factor correlated model. The paper concludes with the interpretation that the evidence gathered illustrates the validity of the new test.