著者

杉野 直樹 斎藤 栄二 高橋 貞雄 清水 裕子 根岸 雅史 野澤 健 石塚 智一 内田 照久 前川 眞一

出版者

全国英語教育学会

雑誌

ARELE : annual review of English language education in Japan (ISSN:13448560)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.14, pp.221-230, 2003-03

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The present study aims at explicating the influence of test taking strategies on the test item reliability in English language proficiency tests. Widely known test taking strategies include starting with a certain section that might require more time than others to answer so that test takers can allocate more of their time allowance on it, or, especially in multiple-choice format, marking an alternative based on wild guessing. Also widely speculated is that, in the Daigaku Nyushi Center English test (DNC test, henceforth), those test takers who find themselves running out of time are forced to rely on wild guessing in answering test items. Some English language proficiency tests, such as TOEFL or TOEIC, strictly instruct test takers to tackle a specific section so that they cannot use the first strategy, however, many of the entrance examinations administered in Japan do not have such restrictions. In order to examine the influence of these two test taking strategies, viz. the 'answering order' strategy and the 'wild guessing' strategy, we conducted a large-scale survey using two parallel tests with different question/answering orders. Our analysis of the data with simulated wild guessing shows that wild guessing would deteriorate the test item reliability. Furthermore, it shows that those test takers who had more time to answer the same section seem to be using the wild guessing strategy anyway, which has significant implications on the test format itself.

著者

姉崎 達夫

出版者

全国英語教育学会

雑誌

ARELE : annual review of English language education in Japan (ISSN:13448560)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.14, pp.171-180, 2003-03

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The present study aims to clarify the effects of learning methods on EFL vocabulary learning. Three methods were compared, namely Context Learning, Collocation (COL) learning and Translation Learning, to learn ten adjectives. Two tests, an immediate and a delayed test, were conducted. Half of the contexts given in the learning phase were changed in the test phase to evaluate the effects of transfer. 144 subjects participating in this study were divided into two proficiency levels, advanced and weak. The results indicated that COL Learning and Translation Learning performed better than Context Learning on the immediate test, and that COL Learning performed better than Context Learning on the delayed test. The results suggest that advanced learners in COL Learning scored higher than those in Translation Learning and Context Learning, and that weak learners in Translation Learning and COL Learning scored higher than those in Context Learning.

著者

伊藤 隆

出版者

全国英語教育学会

雑誌

ARELE : annual review of English language education in Japan (ISSN:13448560)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.23, pp.121-136, 2012-03

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This study examined the impact of EFL learners' proficiency differences on their CMC interaction in two types of tasks. First, 114 university students were divided into three pairs: the higher proficiency learner (H)-lower proficiency learner (L) pair, the H-H pairs, and the L-L pair. Each pair performed a symmetrical convergent task. Second, they were split into four pairs: the higher proficiency sender (HS)-lower proficiency receiver (LR) pair, the lower proficiency sender (LS)-higher proficiency receiver (HR) pair, the HS-HR pair, and the LS-LR pair. Each type of pair completed an asymmetrical convergent task. In the symmetrical convergent task, the L in the H-L pair generally surpassed the L in the L-L pair in fluency and adequacy. In the asymmetrical convergent task, the LR in the HS-LR pair generally surpassed the LR in the LS-LR pair in fluency.

著者

長井 千枝子 籔内 智 橋本 健一 菅井 康祐 横川 博一

出版者

全国英語教育学会

雑誌

ARELE : annual review of English language education in Japan (ISSN:13448560)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.21, pp.61-70, 2010-03

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This study investigated the use of verb subcategorization information during sentence comprehension by Japanese EFL learners, using a self-paced reading task with the embedded anomaly technique. In order to observe when the syntactic structure was determined, filler-gap sentences were constructed as stimuli. Four types of verbs were used: simple transitive verbs, dative verbs, infinitive complement verbs and intransitive preference verbs. The plausibility of the direct object of the embedded verb was also manipulated. The results demonstrate that the high proficiency learners utilize verb subcategorization information of simple transitive verb; however they do not use it automatically as natives. The results also indicate that they cannot utilize that of other types of verbs. The low proficiency learners show the difficulty in processing the sentences with long-distance dependencies.

著者

山西 博之 廣森 友人

出版者

全国英語教育学会

雑誌

ARELE : annual review of English language education in Japan (ISSN:13448560)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.19, pp.263-272, 2008-03

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This paper reports the current attempt to develop English language proficiency benchmarks (Can-Do lists) suitable for students at Ehime University. A survey was conducted in order to create the educational and achievement goals for the university's General English Education courses and the standards for assessing the level of achievement of those goals. This paper focuses especially on the benchmark of the writing course and describes the concrete procedure by which it was established. If we set appropriate achievement goals and assessment standards we can decide on assessment standards and methods that conform to them. Once such standards and methods have been decided, we can use them as the basis for developing more effective teaching methods. Thus, this paper will be a beneficial source of information for both language educators and curriculum designers who intend to create more appropriate educational and achievement goals for their students and improve methods of teaching and evaluation suitable for them.

著者

岡部 純子

出版者

全国英語教育学会

雑誌

ARELE : annual review of English language education in Japan (ISSN:13448560)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.5, pp.61-69, 1994-07

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A number of studies have attempted to determine the writing mechanism of EFL/ESL writers. However, only a limited amount of research with an empirical approach has been offered, and this has hindered the generalization of each study's findings. This paper reports a study which investigated to what extent L1 writing ability and EFL proficiency contribute to the quality of EFL composition written by Japanese university students. Forty students were asked to take an English proficiency test and then to write two compositions on the same topic; one in Japanese and the other in English. The scores ofholistic evaluation of the students' L1 and EFL composition and scores on a language proficiency test were examined by correlational analysis, multiple regression analysis and factor analysis. The study showed that EFL proficiency accounted for the quality of EFL composition better than L1 writing ability did.

著者

相澤 一美 落合 夏江 大崎 さつき

出版者

全国英語教育学会

雑誌

ARELE : annual review of English language education in Japan (ISSN:13448560)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.14, pp.151-160, 2003-03

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The gap between receptive and productive vocabulary seems to increase with progress in learning. It is estimated that Japanese EFL learners' receptive vocabulary is double the size of their productive vocabulary (Tono et al., 1997). However, what is not so satisfactory from a pedagogical standpoint is empirical data to explain how this discrepancy happens. This study is designed to compare the effects of the two teaching methods that focused on either receptive or productive aspects of vocabulary at the two different proficiency levels. The target words were presented to students followed by basic receptive drills. Later these drills were supplemented either by receptive or productive drills. The result showed that learners in the production-centered class outperformed their counterparts in the reception-centered class in receptive tests a week later. However, in productive tests, the upper receptive and the upper productive groups did not differ in scores of the productive test. A possible explanation will be discussed for the effects of vocabulary teaching in the Japanese EFL classroom.

著者

高桑 潤

出版者

全国英語教育学会

雑誌

ARELE : annual review of English language education in Japan (ISSN:13448560)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.12, pp.11-20, 2001-03

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This research presents two conclusions about EFL learner's syntactic processing in the written language. First, the experiment made on senior high school students showed the possibility that an enforced decrease of syntactic processing strategies leads to a smaller difference between comprehension and production. Second, it demonstrated that some of the subjects clearly followed the different syntactic processing mechanisms in comprehension and in production. Some could not comprehend relative clauses well though they could produce them. Others could not produce but could comprehend them. These results show the possibility that there is little difference between comprehension and production in EFL learners' pure syntactic processing in the written language, though the learners may have two different syntactic processing mechanisms running in opposite directions.

著者

田頭 憲二

出版者

全国英語教育学会

雑誌

ARELE : annual review of English language education in Japan (ISSN:13448560)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.12, pp.91-100, 2001-03

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Although it is generally thought that words which are difficult to learn are also hard to retain, researches on vocabulary learning often fail to grasp the evidence of this statement. We looked at foreign-language vocabulary forgetting in Japanese EFL learners (N=21), using a paired-associate learning in which English words were paired with Japanese translations. In the learning phase, the participants memorized all the words. Two post tests followed 4 days and 11 days after the learning respectively. The stimulus materials were controlled on word concreteness. Receptive testing took place (L2-L1 direction). It was found that 1) concrete words were less susceptible to forgetting than abstract words at 1st post test (4 days after). However, 2) this concreteness effect could not be seen between 1st and 2nd post tests (11 days after). Theoretical accounts of these findings were proposed.