『次世代研究』 / NEXT GENERATION STUDIES『次世代研究』は次世代大学教育研究会の機関紙です。
本誌の目的は、教育や人材育成にかかわるテーマについて幅広く議論する機会を提供することです。扱われるテーマは、技術が可能にするアクティブ・ラーニング、ワークショップの方法論の授業への適用、学習と教育の戦略、高等教育のイノベーションなどです。

NEXT GENERATION STUDIES is the official Journal of the Meeting on Higher Education for the
Next Generation.
The purpose of this journal is to open discussions on a wide variety of human-resource development
or educational issues such as technology enabled active learning, application of workshop methodologies
to a class room, learning and educational strategies, how to innovate higher education.

所長 阪井和男 / 明治大学
Director: Kazuo SAKAI / Meiji University
責任編集 新田目夏実 / 拓殖大学
Chief Editor: Natsumi ARATAME / Takushoku University

執筆要項については下記まで問い合わせください。
明治大学サービス創新研究所〒168-8555
東京都杉並区永福 1-9-1
明治大学和泉キャンパス研究棟
法学部阪井和男研究室内
E メール：secretariat@service-innovating.jp
Institute for Service Innovation Studies,
c/o Kazuo SAKAI Laboratory, School of Law,
Meiji University, Izumi Campus,
1-9-1 Eifuku, Suginami-ku, Tokyo 168-8555, JapanFor inquiries, please send e-mail tosecretariat@service-innovating.jp

Table of Contents

Brief Introduction of Workshop on Higher Education for the Next Generation
Kazuo SAKAI ···································································································1Introduction and Preface to the Conference
Natsumi ARATAME ····························································································3English Language Education Policy and Practice in Japan Based on a
Comparison between Japan and the Philippines:
An Overview for Filipino English Teachers
Shigeru OZAKI ·································································································5English Program in the Faculty of International Studies,
Takushoku University: English Education for ‘Empowerment’
Noriko ARAI ·································································································· 21
Improving Oral Proficiency through the Callan Method
Makoto SHISHIDO, Yoshie SAKAMOTO, Junko HANDA,
Kazuo SAKAI, and Natsumi ARATAME ·································································· 43
Prosodic Interference Affecting English Communication among Cebuano-Visayan Speakers
In Southern Cebu
Janice GABAYAN GRABER ················································································ 61
Program and Conference Summary
Risa SHOJI ···································································································· 75

次世代大学教育研究会

阪井和男

次世代大学教育研究会（ http://nextedu.chiegumi.jp/ ）は、教育に関する多種多様な課題、ア
クティブ・ラーニングを可能にした科学技術、ワークショップ方法論の授業への適用、学習と教育の戦略、高等教育のイノベーション、などを調査し検討する研究会です．
この研究会は、阪井和男（明治大学）と家本修（大阪経済大学）により提言され設立されました．2005 年 6 月 11 日、明治大学において第１回目が開催され、今日にいたるまで、毎月開催されています．2014 年 12 月には、愛媛大学（日本）において、100 回目の記念ワークショッ
プが開催されました．2017 年には 140 回を超える開催となる見込みです．
また国際会議も、ケンブリッジ大学（Hitachi-Cambridge Laboratory, Cambridge, UK, Sep. 2008,
Aug. 2011, Sep. 2012）、ハワイ大学（Manoa Campus, Honolulu, Hawaii, Nov. 2013）、マレーシア工科大学（MJIIT, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Oct. 2014）、Waterfront Cebu City Hotel & Casino（Cebu City,
Philippines, Nov. 2015）、明治大学多重知能に関する国際シンポジュウム（MIIM2016、2016 年 6 月）、
ホルムズ・グランドホテマスカットとドイツ工科大学（Muscat, GUtech Oman, Dec. 2016）、ITAXA（ホーチミン市、ベトナム、2017 年 2 月）で開催されました。
この研究グループの参加者は、教育に関心をよせる教授、実業家、そして学生から構成されており、現在メーリングリスト（ https://sites.google.com/site/nextedujimu/ ）の登録者数は 314
名にのぼります。

1

Brief Introduction ofWorkshop on Higher Education for the Next Generation
Kazuo SAKAI

The workshop on Higher Education for the Next Generation ( http://nextedu.chiegumi.jp/ ) is a
research group to study and discuss a wide variety of educational issues such as technology enabled active
learning, application of workshop methodologies to a class room, learning and educational strategies, how
to innovate higher education, ..., and so on.
The workshop was proposed and established by Kazuo SAKAI of Meiji University and Osamu
IEMOTO of Osaka University of Economics. This research group was started at 11 June 2005 in Meiji
University. Up to now, it has been convened almost every month. The 100th anniversary workshop
convened at Ehime University (Japan) in December 2014. The number of workshops will be over 140 inMarch 2017.
The international conferences also convened in Cambridge University (Hitachi-Cambridge
Laboratory, Cambridge, UK, Sep. 2008, Aug. 2011, Sep. 2012), Hawaii University (Manoa Campus,
Honolulu, Hawaii, Nov. 2013), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (MJIIT, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Oct.
2014), Waterfront Cebu City Hotel & Casino (Cebu City, Philippines, Nov. 2015), International
Symposium on Multiple Intelligences in Meiji University (MIIM2016, Jun. 2016), Hormuz Grand Hotel
Muscat and GUtech German University of Technology in Oman (Muscat, Oman, Dec. 2016), and ITAXA(Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam, Feb. 2017)
The participants of this research group consist of professors, business persons, and students
interestedineducational

issues.

The

present

number( https://sites.google.com/site/nextedujimu/ ) becomes 314.

2

ofregistrationofmailinglistIntroduction and Preface to the Conference
Natsumi ARATAME

To date, the Philippines has not been a popular destination to study English for the majority ofJapanese people. Recently, however, an interesting development is taking place in English education in
Japan: (1) studying English in the Philippines from Filipino teachers and (2) learning English on-line withnative Filipino teachers based in the Philippines.
Since the Philippines was once part of the U.S. territory, English has been widely used as a medium
of instruction at all levels of their education system. Therefore, studying English in the Philippines orlearning English from Filipino teachers as an alternative to studying with an American or a British teacher
is not unheard of. However, to many Japanese teachers and students of English alike, this is a newphenomenon.
Historically, it was in the early 2000s that Korean educators discovered the advantages of studying
English in the Philippines over other English speaking countries: The costs were much lower, whichenabled them to introduce intensive one-on-one English programmes. The reputation spread slowly but
steadily, and after the 2010s, the number of Japanese students studying English in the Philippines started toincrease. In response to this, the number of privately owned English schools in the Philippines run byJapanese managers also started to rise.
This development, however, was received with mixed feelings. On the positive side, some people
welcomed the opportunity to learn English directly from “native speakers” at a much lower cost, but others,
including native and Japanese English teachers still expressed concern over the grammatical accuracy,
accents, and pronunciation of the Filipino teachers. This became the impetus for a group of researchers
headed by Dr. Kazuo Sakai of Meiji University to initiate a research project to investigate the effectivenessof English lessons taught by Filipino teachers, both on-line and off-line.
This conference was initially planned as "The 111th Meeting on Higher Education for the Next
Generation", a regular workshop conducted by Japanese researchers concerned with improving higher
education in Japan with innovative teaching methods. Since many of the English language schools arelocated in Cebu, it was decided that the meeting be held in Cebu. We are grateful for the financial andlogistical support extended by the Institute for Service Innovation Studies of Meiji University/Uchida Yoko
Co., Ltd., Takushoku University and QQ English.
Initially planned as a meeting for Japanese researchers, the Philippine Association for Language
Teaching (PALT) joined as a partner in view of the relevance to educators in the Philippines. The JapaneseSociety for Learning Analytics and The English Language Education Society of Japan followed suit. We
are particularly grateful for the invaluable input received from Dr. Ma. Milagros Laurel, the president of
PALT which helped to ensure the final programme became a true collaboration of Japanese and Filipino
3

NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

English teachers concerned with the theory and practice of second language acquisition.
The aim of the conference was to be both academic and educational in nature. It was expected to add
new insights to the theory of second language acquisition. It also tried to share with Japanese teachers how
and why Filipinos had become native speakers of English as well as the characteristics of Filipino English
compared with American or British English. The final program was organized to address the following fivethemes:1. English in the Educational System: Language Policy in the Philippines and Japan
2. English in Business and Professional Usage
3. Variations of English – World Englishes: Japanese, Philippine, and American/British
4. English Language Teaching Trends and Approaches: Traditional and New Methods
5. Beyond ELT: Challenges, Techniques and Strategies
In total, there were 18 presentations ncluding the keynote speech by Dr. Laurel. What we haveadopted in this special issue is only a sample of these presentations. Many presentations were a research inprogress and expected to be published in professional/academic journals in the future. An overall summaryof the presentations can be found in the appendix.
Through this conference, we have gained further insight into English educational policies in thePhilippines and Japan, the social settings in which English has been used in the Philippines, thecharacteristics of Filipino English, new teaching strategies and methods of evaluation and issues related tothe technical development of English education in both countries.
Most importantly, we have learned that through their encounters with Filipino teachers, Japanese
students are not only improving their English ability but are also being exposed to a diverse culture
different to that of their own. The impact of cultural exposure is something that cannot be overlooked whenassessing the effect of English education in the Philippines or English lessons from Filipino teachers.
Finally, with the primary goal of creating more effective teaching strategies, we hope that the
professional collaboration between Japanese and Filipino teachers will continue in the future.

About the author
Natsumi ARATAME, PhD is a professor at Takushoku University and Head of the Department ofInternational Studies, Faculty of International Studies, Takushoku University, Tokyo, Japan. His researchinterests include sociology, demography and area study with focus on the Philippines.
Email: naratame@ner.takushoku-u.ac.jp

4English Language Education Policy and Practice in Japan Based on a
Comparison between Japan and the Philippines:
An Overview for Filipino English Teachers
Shigeru OZAKI

Abstract
The goal of this article is to inform Filipino English teachers why so few Japanese people canspeak English well. To that end, the article discusses policies implemented by Japan to improve
English language education, comparing Japan and the Philippines whenever appropriate, so thatthey will be able to understand their Japanese students better. One of the most significant reasons
why Japanese people in general cannot speak English well is that they rarely have the opportunity
to speak it in Japan since the country has never been colonized by an English-speaking country;
English is not used as an official, second, or educational language unlike in the Philippines.
However, the Japanese government has been attempting to educate students to be fluent in English
in a number of ways: introducing English to elementary schools, changing the content of the
Course of Study and the entrance examination system, and designating some schools as a superEnglish language high school or a super global high school. The article concludes with a discussionof both advantages and disadvantages of teaching English in English and adopting it as a medium
of instruction across other subjects. These strategies are a major reason why Filipino people canspeak it well, and they can possibly improve Japanese people’s English dramatically.

Keywords: Japan, the Philippines, English education policy, entrance examinations, medium of
instruction

1. Introduction
Whenever I come to the Philippines, the locals say to me, “Few Japanese people can speak English,”without knowing why this is the case. There are a large number of both offline and online English schools
for Japanese people based in the Philippines (Ozaki, 2011; Ozaki, 2015). However, when I talk to English
teachers from the Philippines who teach Japanese people regularly, it seems that even they do not knowmuch about English education and the status of the English language in Japan, although it is crucial toknow about them in order to fully understand and help their students. It is thus essential for Filipino
teachers to learn about English education policy and practice in Japan. This article therefore aims to
explain the historical and current context of English language education policy in Japan, comparing it to5NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017that of the Philippines whenever appropriate for the purposes of clarification to the readers of this article
from the Philippines. However, it should be noted that this article does not go into the details of the statusquo of English education in the Philippines since the other two presenters in the discussion group to which
I belonged explained this in their presentations. I hope this article will be a first step to connecting thePhilippines and Japan through English language education, to which the conference title aspires. In
explaining English education policy in Japan, I will mainly address the following three questions:(1) Why can so few Japanese people speak English well?
(2) What policies has Japan recently implemented in order to improve English language education?
(3) What are the advantages and disadvantages of using English as medium of instruction for English
subjects and subjects other than English?
There have been relatively few studies comparing Japan and the Philippines from the viewpoint of
the English education system: Kawahara (2005) compared oyatoi gaikokujin, i.e., Western scholars invited
to Japan by its Government to educate university students in the 1800s to catch up with Western countries,
especially in terms of modern technology, and the Thomasites or English teachers sent to the Philippines
by the U.S. at the time of colonization. Nakahara (2011) made suggestions on improving English educationin Japan on the basis of a comparative study with the Philippines. Nakahara (2008) also compared thePhilippines and Japan in terms of the importance of English for work and people’s overall level ofcompetence. In addition, Ozaki (2015) discussed the beginnings of English education in both of thesecountries. This paper draws on the major points of these studies as well as some other literature where
relevant and further adds its own discussion of historical and current issues to the debate.
This article first explains one of the most fundamental reasons why so few Japanese are able tospeak English; second, historical facts are outlined to support the explanation; third, the current situation ofEnglish education in Japan and future policies proposed by the Government are described; and finally, two
crucial issues that are important to improve Japanese people’s English, namely, teaching English in English
and adopting English as a medium of instruction (EMI) across other subjects are discussed.

2. One of the Main Reasons Why So Few Japanese People Can Speak English Well
In Japan, English is used by very few people, who are mainly the elite; and most Japanese encounter
it only as a school subject. The majority of Japanese people rarely have the chance or necessity to use or
speak English in their daily lives, unlike in the Philippines, where English has commonly been used as an
official language, a second language (especially for business and commerce), and an important medium of
instruction for various subjects. For example, Nakahara (2008, p. 46) found that only 4.67% of theJapanese respondents in his study used English in their work, by comparison with 80.04% of the Filipino
counterparts. Consequently, in Japan it is not easy to make English language education more oriented tooral communication skills, as learners rarely speak or hear English either inside or outside school.
Nakahara (2008, p. 45) also asked both the Japanese and Filipino respondents to evaluate theirEnglish according to the four skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The self-evaluation scores
6

English Language Education Policy and Practice in Japan Based on a Comparison between Japan and the Philippines

out of 100 were as follows: for the Japanese—listening (30.15), speaking (26.63), reading (36.82), andwriting (27.44); and for the Filipinos—listening (89.01), speaking (84.30), reading (92.16), and writing(88.89). These figures clearly show a lesser confidence in English skills among the Japanese than theFilipinos. It should be noted that in Nakahara’s study, the Japanese participants even lacked confidence intheir skills of reading and writing, which can be attributed to the fact that most of the Japanese rarely reador write English in their daily lives, despite considerable attention being given to these skills at school,especially to the former.
The negative washback of entrance examinations, i.e., their influence on education, many of which
do not have oral communication components, leads English language education in Japan to be even lessoriented to oral communication. The goal of many Japanese secondary school students and their teachers is
for the former to pass entrance examinations and enter prestigious universities (Ozaki, 2012), but not to beable to use English in their daily lives since there is little opportunity to use it in Japan. In contrast, thewashback effect of entrance examinations on English education in the Philippines is unlikely to be as
strong as in Japan, since it is counterbalanced by the use of the language in daily life.

3. Brief History of English Education: Japan and the Philippines
In 1808, a British battle ship arrived at Nagasaki Port in Japan, demanding that the local government
supply it with food, water, and fuel (Kawazumi, 1978). In 1809, the Japanese Government ordered a few
Japanese-Dutch interpreters to learn English for national security (Sato, 2002). This marked the beginningof English education in Japan (Imura & Wakabayashi, 1980). On the other hand, the Philippines wascolonized by the U.S. in 1898, and English was introduced and spread throughout the islands upon theestablishment of the public system in 1901 (Bautista, 2001). Most of the American teachers, known as
Thomasites, were assigned to primary schools, and English became the medium of instruction (Bernardo,
2008; Kawahara, 2005; Martin, 1999). Thomasites also trained Filipino teachers to be able to teach in
English (Misch, 2013). Hence, from the very beginning, English has been used by only a minority in Japan,
while in the Philippines, it has been spoken by a majority; and this situation has not changed.
However, English was once a medium of instruction even in Japan. In the Meiji Era (1868–1912), it
became used at the university level (Kawahara, 2005; Reesor, 2002) because the Japanese Government
invited foreign scholars, particularly from the U.S. and Britain, to modernize the country; and those whocame from English-speaking countries gave lectures in English (Kawahara, 2005). Thus, Japan had alreadyadopted EMI a long time before the Philippines. However, only an elite minority were educated in English
unlike in the Philippines, and the popularity of EMI did not last very long, since a great deal of literature
was translated into Japanese so that students would be able to study various subjects in their own language.
Consequently, English gradually became merely a school and entrance examination subject (Imura, 2003).
Another important historical fact is that the U.S. failed to make English the official language ofJapan after the Second World War, although they had occupied the country for a while and had sought todo so (Kawahara, 2005). In contrast, the U.S. enforced EMI when it colonized the Philippines (Bernardo,
2008).
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NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

4. Brief Description of the Educational System in Japan
Before discussing the current situation of English education in Japan, this section briefly outlines its
basic educational system to provide a broader context for the current situation and proposed plans forreform.
Compulsory education in Japan starts from elementary school (6 years), followed by junior highschool (3 years), after which 97% of the students (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science andTechnology, n.d.a) go on to senior high school (3 years) . In 2015, a further 56.5% went on to attend either
2-year colleges (5%) or 4-year universities (51.5%) (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science andTechnology, n.d.b). Formal English education at public schools does not currently start until junior highschool.

5. Current English Language Education Policy and Practice in Japan
This section explains what is stated in the Course of Study, one of the most important English
education policy documents revised by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology(MEXT) approximately every 10 years, which presents what should be taught and learned at elementaryand secondary schools. The following subsections summarize the main points of the Course of Study (as of2015) and critically evaluate them from the viewpoint of practice, whenever necessary. The source of themain points is indicated in parentheses under the subsection title.

5.1 Course of Study for Elementary Schools(Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, n.d.c)
While English is not specifically mentioned as a subject in the Course of Study, it can beincorporated into a course entitled Foreign Language Activities, to which 35 classroom hours (45 minutes
per hour) are allocated per year in the fifth and sixth grades. The overall objective is to provide afoundation for pupils to positively develop communication skills through familiarization with the very
basics of foreign languages and cultures, as in singing songs and playing games using English.
One problem is that the subject does not currently provide the pupils with an adequate grounding in
English to meet the demands of the next educational level of junior high school, which is an issue that both
policy makers and implementers need to address and that concerns one of the plans proposed by theGovernment to be discussed in Section 6.3.

5.2 Course of Study for Junior High Schools(Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, n.d.d; Ministry of Education, Culture,
Sports, Science and Technology, n.d.e)
English should be taught for 140 classroom hours (of 50 minutes) in each year, totaling 420
classroom hours over the course of 3 years, during which time approximately 1200 words are taught. The
overall objective of foreign language education at junior high schools is to develop the students’ basic
communication abilities in the four skills (speaking, listening, writing, reading), deepen their8English Language Education Policy and Practice in Japan Based on a Comparison between Japan and the Philippines

understanding of language and culture, and foster a positive attitude toward communication throughforeign languages. More specific objectives of English education at junior high schools are as follows:
1. To enable students to understand the speaker’s intentions when listening to English.
2. To enable students to talk about their own thoughts using English.
3. To accustom students with reading in English to enable them to understand the writer’s intentions.
4. To accustom students with writing in English to enable them to write about their own thoughts.
One problem is that it is not feasible to achieve all these objectives within 140 classroom hours ayear, especially because students need a relatively high level of reading skills for senior high school
entrance examinations. Consequently, the third objective of reading is most likely to be focused on in
actual classes due to the limited time available.

5.3 Course of Study for Senior High Schools(Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, n.d.f; Ministry of Education, Culture,
Sports, Science and Technology, n.d.g)
The Course of Study states that individual schools can decide on subjects and the number of units forgraduation. However, some subjects are compulsory, and students must obtain a minimum of 74 units intotal to graduate from a senior high school. While there are six English courses listed in the Course of
Study, only Communication English I is compulsory, comprising 3 units (equivalent to 105 classes of 50
minutes), which can be reduced to 2. The titles and objectives of the six courses listed in the Course of
Study are as follows:
1. Basic English Communication
To develop students’ basic abilities such as listening, speaking, reading and writing, while fostering a
positive attitude toward communication through the English language.
2. English CommunicationⅠ
To develop students’ basic abilities such as accurately understanding and appropriately conveying
information, ideas, etc., while fostering a positive attitude toward communication through the English
language.
3. English CommunicationⅡ
To further develop students’ abilities such as accurately understanding and appropriately conveying
information, ideas, etc., while fostering a positive attitude toward communication through the English
language.
4. English CommunicationⅢ
To enhance students’ abilities such as accurately understanding and appropriately conveying
information, ideas, etc., and enable them to use such abilities in their social lives, while fostering a
positive attitude toward communication through the English language.
5. English ExpressionⅠ
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NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

To develop students’ abilities to evaluate facts, opinions, etc. from multiple perspectives andcommunicate through reasoning and a range of expressions, while fostering a positive attitude toward
communication through the English language.
6. English ExpressionⅡ
To further develop students’ abilities to evaluate facts, opinions, etc. from multiple perspectives andcommunicate through reasoning and a range of expressions, while fostering a positive attitude toward
communication through the English language.
It is not easy to achieve all these objectives, especially due to the negative washback effect ofentrance examinations mostly focusing on reading skills, as well as the limited time available. Especiallyspeaking skills can be easily neglected since university entrance examinations rarely have speaking tasks.
The Course of Study further states that various language activities in all these courses should be conducted
in English. This policy statement is crucial to improving English education in Japan through increased
exposure to the language, which is one factor accounting for the difference in English proficiency between
the Japanese and the Filipinos (Nakahara, 2011). In the Philippines, EMI has been implemented for a rangeof subjects, including math and science. Consequently, Filipino students are exposed to a large amount ofEnglish, which enables them to speak the language fluently. EMI may therefore be the best way to improve
English skills in Japan, an issue that is discussed in detail later with regard to relevant Government policy
proposals.

6. Policies for Improving the Current Situation
This section covers the Japanese Government policies for improving the current situation: superEnglish high schools, super global high schools, plans to improve English education for globalization, andentrance examinations. After summarizing the policies, the following subsections critically evaluate them,whenever necessary.

6.1 Super English Language High Schools (SELHi)(Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, n.d.h)This policy was implemented between 2002 and 2009, with 169 schools selected as super English
language high schools in 2009. The goals of this policy were the development of writing and speaking
skills; evaluation methods; and cooperative relationships between elementary, junior and senior highschools, and universities; etc.
Positive results concerning SELHi students included their improvement in the four skills andvocabulary acquisition, increased exposure to English, participation in extracurricular activities related toEnglish, and higher motivation to learn English. Positive results concerning teachers included theirdevelopment of objectives, syllabuses, and materials that could be shared across schools, teaching ability
and evaluation methods, teaching English in English, and English environments outside school, etc.

10English Language Education Policy and Practice in Japan Based on a Comparison between Japan and the Philippines

6.2 Super Global High Schools(Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, n.d.i)
This policy evolved from the super English language high schools and was implemented from 2014
for a period of 5 years, with 56 schools participating in 2014. The objective is to educate students to be
global leaders with an interest in social issues and the role of education, high communication ability, andgood problem-solving skills, as necessary in the international community. Specific methods of achieving
these objectives are fieldwork with overseas high schools, overseas study tours to present results, academic
workshops with international students at Japanese universities, and the active use of foreign teachers andreturnee Japanese teachers.
It seems that the focus of super global high schools is to educate students to be able to play activeroles using English in the international community rather than merely improving their language skills,
which had been the goal of the super English high schools. This new objective reflects the Government’s
positive attitude toward English as a language of international or intercultural communication, beyond
merely representing a set of symbols for expressing oneself. As of yet, the positive results of these schools
are unknown.

6.3 Plans for Improving English Education for Globalization(Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, n.d.j)Some plans for improving English education to cope with globalization were proposed by theGovernment on 13 December 2013, on the basis of which an expert committee was formed for further
discussion (at nine meetings from February to September 2014). The following goals were set: The Courseof Study should emphasize what students can do using English. Elementary schools should start Foreign
Language Activities in the middle grades, cultivate a positive attitude towards writing and reading in thehigher grades, and make English a formal subject in the higher grades in order to teach it systematically,
paying more attention to the connection between elementary school English education and junior highschool counterpart. Junior high schools should teach English in English, emphasize practice in conveying
one’s thoughts and feelings without placing too much focus on the Grammar Translation Method, andintroduce more advanced language activities, such as presentation, discussion, and negotiation. Senior highschools should introduce students to language activities on a variety of topics. In summary, the two major
goals were to start teaching English at an earlier age and to get students to use it more.
Although the Government has been trying to improve English education by introducing it into theelementary school education, it is questionable whether earlier English education will dramatically
improve students’ English proficiency. Proponents of this idea often refer to the Critical Period Hypothesis(Nakabachi, 2007). However, learning English only a few times a week is unlikely to have the same effectas living in an English-speaking country and being exposed to the language for many hours every day(Nakabachi, 2007). Kanatani (2007) insists that learning English for many years from elementary school is
not very effective unless students are taught the language frequently enough to master the basics and thatneither elementary or junior high schools allocate enough class hours to English.
11NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

On the other hand, those who are against the idea of introducing English education into elementary
schools often claim that children will lose their ability in their own language (Nakabachi, 2007). This idea
is similarly misconceived, since learning a foreign language only a few times a week is unlikely to
influence the students’ first language competence, unless the number of Japanese classes is reduced toaccommodate the English classes (Nakabacji, 2007). Therefore, this policy is not likely to have any
dramatic influence on students’ competence in either English or Japanese, although it may encourage
students to make continuous efforts to improve their English language skills.

6.4 Policy Concerning Entrance Examinations
Before discussing the actual policy, this section will first provide a brief overview of the university
entrance examination system and its importance for high school English education in Japan.
There are three major types of universities in Japan: national, municipal (prefectural or city-run), andprivate universities; there are different types of entrance examinations. The influence of tests on education,
often described as washback, is considerable in senior high school English education because teachers
must prepare their students for these entrance examinations (“Koukou Rishuu Busoku,” 2006; “Nyuushi
Taisaku,” 2006; Otagaki, 1996; Ozaki, 2012; Watanabe, 2004). The results of university entrance
examinations are critical, since graduates of prestigious universities tend to have a bright future in terms of
their careers. However, the content of entrance examinations does not always match official English
education policy that is stated in the Course of Study; this gap leads to a disparity between policy andpractice (Ozaki, 2012). Therefore, changes to university entrance examination content could greatly
contribute to English education at school. Although Watanabe (2004) has found that teachers’ beliefs canmediate the washback of entrance examinations, his finding does not deny the significance of entrance
examinations. In contrast, in the Philippines the washback of English entrance examinations is unlikely tohave as strong an effect on high school English education as in Japan, due to the prevalence of English ineveryday life. It is a very important language as an official language, medium of instruction, and second
language especially in business and commerce. For example, there are a large number of call centers forclients living in English-speaking countries (Keitel, 2009) and online as well as offline English schools(Ozaki, 2011; Ozaki, 2015) there; they provide Filipinos with good job opportunities. In other words,
students are motivated to improve their English whether or not they take entrance examinations.

6.5 New Form of Entrance Examination(Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, n.d.k)
The Government is now planning to implement Daigaku Nyuugaku Kibosha Gakuryoku Hyoka
Tesuto (provisional name), which means a scholastic ability test for university applicants. The new test
aims to comprehensively assess each of the four skills, thereby also including the productive skills of
speaking and writing, e.g., through interviews and writing tasks. The Government is correspondingly
planning to revise the Course of Study to present objectives that suitably integrate the four skills fromelementary school onwards.
12English Language Education Policy and Practice in Japan Based on a Comparison between Japan and the Philippines

The above-mentioned idea seems good; however, the autonomy of individual universities needs tobe taken into consideration with respect to their entrance examinations. Currently, most applicants to alarge number of private universities take tests created by individual universities, although some private
universities allow their applicants to choose to take either their own tests or the national standardized test.
Since the application fees for private university individual tests are a major source of university income, it
is highly unlikely these universities will give up their own entrance examinations. This means that the
number of students who will receive positive washback from the new test will be limited.
In addition to the new form of entrance examination, English proficiency tests created by private
corporations can be used as entrance examinations. According to Obunsha (2016, p.1), 110 (14%) out of
764 universities were planning to utilize such tests for their entrance examinations for the year 2017. While
this may appear to be a good idea, as they often integrate the four skills and can be taken more than once a
year, the goals of private company tests do not always match those of university entrance examinations,which aim to measure applicants’ achievement on the basis of the Course of Study. For example, the goalof the TOEFL is to examine whether applicants’ English proficiency is of a sufficient standard to follow
university or graduate school level instruction in English-speaking countries. Therefore, the content is far
removed from the Japanese high school English curriculum.

7. Adopting EMI
Comparing English education in Japan and the Philippines as well as reviewing the status quo andfuture plans of japan lead to the key issue of adopting EMI, which would dramatically increase thestudents’ exposure to the target language. The following two subsections therefore discuss both the views
for and against EMI for English and other subjects.

7.1 Teaching English in English
Erikawa (2014) argues that individual teachers should have the freedom to decide whether to use
English or Japanese depending on the situation; therefore, enforcing a policy requiring all teachers to teachin English is a questionable practice. However, without this policy, teachers may not opt to use English intheir classes; if teachers do not use it, students also may not use it (Ozaki, 2015). In the Philippines, people
were forced to use English as the medium of instruction by the U.S.; otherwise, they would not haveadopted it as the educational language (Ozaki, 2015). Erikawa (2014) continues that there is no evidence
for the effectiveness of instruction given in English. In contrast, Ozaki (2015) presents thecounterargument that in order to be competent in English, learners must receive plenty of opportunity topractice and use it, the benefits of which are clear when we consider the situation in the Philippines. Given
that English is not an official or second language in Japan, one of the most practical ways to increase
exposure to the language is to implement EMI in English education, thereby maximizing opportunities for
its use also by students within limited classroom hours.
However, a concern of EMI in English classes is that students may not be sufficiently proficient tounderstand the teachers and follow their instruction (Terashima, 2009). Furthermore, students cannot
13

NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017express themselves even when they have questions, which may cause them to get frustrated and give up
learning the language. Nakahara (2011) maintains that Japanese should be used for low-level students andcomplex grammatical explanations. Ozaki (2015) suggests that teachers should teach in Japanese first,
gradually reducing the amount of its use to English only either at high school or in university courses forEnglish majors, namely, in the case that the washback effect of entrance examinations prevent this fromfeasibly being undertaken earlier on. MEXT needs to take this into consideration when they state that
English should be taught in English.
Terashima (interviewed by Boku and Sen, 2013) claims that it is not only students but also teachers
who struggle with their English proficiency: Few Japanese teachers of English have sufficient competencein the language for EMI, and the Government has not allocated sufficient funds to teacher training. For
example, as of 2015, the National Center for Teacher’s Development only offered study tours to the U.S. or
UK to 30 English teachers for 2 months (National Center for Teacher’s Development, n.d.), although there
used to be 6-month and 12-month programs (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science andTechnology, n.d.l). The Government should provide more English teachers with the opportunity to study in
English-speaking countries, both preceding and during the course of their employment, at least partiallycovering their expenses.
Furthermore, the Government needs to hire teachers with a better command of English, although thismay require reform of the whole educational system in Japan, given the varied roles and duties of Japanese
secondary school teachers, such as developing curricula, taking care of club activities, organizing school
events, disciplining students, counseling those with problems, and even supervising their private lives tosome extent, since schools are also seen as accountable for their students’ behavior even outside of school.
Making effective use of assistant language teachers (ALTs) is one way to support teachers withinsufficient English ability, without the requirement of extensive funds. As of 2015, there are 4,404 ALTs
participating in the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme (Council of Local Authorities forInternational Relations, 2015). The JET Programme is part of the foreign language policy of Japan, which
invites young adults from various countries to teach at elementary, junior high, and senior high schools.
However, not all schools are able to make use of them on a regular basis since there are 20,852 elementary,
10,557 junior high, and 4,963 senior high schools as of 2014 (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports,
Science and Technology, n.d.b). Furthermore, if Japanese teachers of English do not have a good commandof English, it is difficult for them to communicate, make teaching plans, and teach classes with ALTs,
many of whom do not understand Japanese. On the other hand, if they do, they can use English in theirclasses without depending on ALTs. Thus, training Japanese teachers to obtain a good command of English
is critical to improve English education in Japan. If it is too costly or unrealistic to subsidize study abroadfor teachers in English-speaking countries, the Government should nevertheless offer them more practiceout of school hours or during vacations, utilizing the numerous ALTs throughout Japan. This would also
minimize the cost to their personal lives since they would not have to leave Japan or be separated fromtheir families.

14

English Language Education Policy and Practice in Japan Based on a Comparison between Japan and the Philippines

7.2 Adopting EMI for Other Subjects
In the Philippines, English has been a main medium of instruction across various subjects. This is
one of the main reasons why a large number of Filipinos have had regular opportunities to use the language
and become fluent in it. In Japan, with the exception of the Meiji Era (1868–1912), when English became amedium of instruction at the university level, English has been relegated to a school subject. This is one of
the most significant reasons why relatively few Japanese people have the chance to use or speak English
regularly and have consequently been unable to develop their practical English skills.
The biggest hindrance to EMI is that there are not many teachers who can actually teach various
subjects in English in Japan. This poses problems even for Japanese teachers of English. In the Meiji Era,
the Government invited scholars from the U.S. and Britain to Japan, who educated Japanese university
students in English (Imura, 2003). However, there are so many more universities now that it may not be
feasible to invite so many people from English-speaking countries to teach at different educational levels.
In the Philippines, Thomasites, who were native speakers of English, not only taught various subjects toFilipino students in English but also trained Filipino teachers to use English as a medium of instruction(Misch, 2013). In addition, approximately 200 Filipinos were sent to the U.S., and they majored in various
subjects such as law, medicine, or veterinary science at universities (Gonzalez, 2008). Consequently, thePhilippines no longer have any need for teachers who are native-English speakers.
Another concern is students’ insufficient English ability to follow instruction given in English. They
are likely to have an even harder time than when they are taught English in English since the difficultylevel of academic instruction in non-language subjects tends to be higher. Thus, teaching English in
English can be a good first step on the path to EMI for subjects other than English. Another solution to the
problem is to teach the same or similar content in Japanese first, and then in English later (Ozaki, 2015).
When we address the idea of adopting EMI, we need to not only consider the students’ improvementin their English proficiency but also their understanding of the subject matter and their academic
achievement, as Terashima (interviewed by Boku and Sen, 2013) claims. Filipino students’ level ofacademic achievement in math and science is not as high as that of Japanese students (Nakahara, 2011).
This result, at least partially, comes from Filipino students’ insufficient proficiency in English, which istheir second or third language yet used as the medium of instruction (Yanagihara, 2007). In fact, someresearchers (Ramirez, Yuen, & Ramey, 1991; Thomas & Collier, 1997; Walter & Dekker, 2011) found thatminority language students who were educated in their own language achieved higher academic goals thanthose who studied in a second or third language. Terashima (interviewed by Boku & Sen, 2013) insists that
it is not easy to develop creativity and critical thinking in a second or foreign language for high-level
discussion. This is a reasonable criticism since it is difficult to train students to think analytically, logically,
and critically at a high level in a language that they are unable to fully understand or produce. It is almost
impossible to acquire CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency) in a foreign language; learners’
logical thinking ability is negatively affected by the lack of CALP (Kawahara, 2005). Constantino (n.d.)
explains this issue, referring to the educational system of the Philippines:
A foreign tongue as a medium of instruction constitutes an impediment to learning and to thinking
15NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

because a student first has to master new sounds, new inflections, and new sentence constructions. His
innermost thoughts find difficulty of expression, and lack of expression in turn prevents the further
development of thought. (p.13)
In fact, the Department of Education in the Philippines decided to implement a policy to educate
children in their mother tongues, which may support the development of their cognitive and academic
abilities faster than when educated in a second or third language (Burton, 2013). Japan can learn a great
deal from the Philippines in this regard, since the latter has been using English as a main medium of
instruction for over 100 years.
The medium of instruction in schooling may be merely one of the factors contributing toward thetechnological and economic development of a country, since there are many other countries whose people
are educated in their own languages that have not developed to the extent of Japan. Terashima (interviewed
by Boku & Sen, 2013) compares Japan and Korea with respect to the relationship between English and thecountries’ development, noting that although the average TOEFL score of the Koreans is much higher thanthat of the Japanese, Japan outweighs Korea in terms of the number of Nobel laureates. He further makes
the point that young Japanese people can find a job without a high command of English in Japan. They arevery lucky since they do not have to rely on someone else’s language. The prosperity of a country and its
living standards obviously do not depend on the number of fluent English speakers, which should be bornein mind when discussing whether Japan should drastically change its English language education.
Nakahara (2011) claims that subjects other than English itself should not be taught in English at any
educational level, except for schools recruiting students with exceptionally high English ability. Some
Japanese universities have a department or faculty in which all or most of the courses are taught in English,
and the number of such universities has been increasing. Admitting that English is unnecessary for mostJapanese in their daily lives, including their careers, Ozaki (2015) suggests that some university courses
should be offered in English, especially to English majors whose main academic goal is to attain highEnglish proficiency. Using English for different subjects will dramatically widen students’ vocabulary as
well as topic range, and they will be able to discuss diverse issues in English. It may also be beneficial tooffer some courses in English for majors of other subjects, such as science or commerce, who can be
anticipated to need English for their future career.

8. Conclusion
Currently, relatively few Japanese can speak English fluently, since there is little opportunity ornecessity to use the language in their daily lives. This is one of the main reasons why it is difficult to makeEnglish education more focused on oral communication. However, the goal of English education should beto enable students to use English in both written and spoken communication because it has become themost commonly used international language; and some, if not many, of the students will use it in the future.
Moreover, nobody can predict exactly who will make use of English in the future; therefore, English
education should attempt to prepare all students to be able to use it. In order to achieve this goal, botheducators and policy makers should do their best to improve English education overall. Nevertheless, this16

English Language Education Policy and Practice in Japan Based on a Comparison between Japan and the Philippines

requires some careful handling, since improvement of pupils’ foreign language competence might affectthe development of their cognitive and academic abilities if EMI is enforced across the curriculum.
Furthermore, having a large number of people with a fluent command of English does not necessarily leadto a country’s prosperity.
In aiming to improve English education, the Japanese Government and educators can learn a great
deal from the Philippines, both positive and negative, since it has a long history of an educational systemenabling a large number of people to use English as a second language in their daily lives.

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About the author
Shigeru OZAKI, PhD is Professor of Foreign Language Education and Head of the Department of
the English Language, Takushoku University, Tokyo, Japan. His research interests include language testing,language education policy, and education for international education. Email: sozaki@ner.takushoku-u.ac.jp20English Program in the Faculty of International Studies, Takushoku
University: English Education for ‘Empowerment’
Noriko ARAI

Abstract
The Faculty of International Studies, Takushoku University (hereafter FISTU) has originally
started as the Faculty of International Development Studies in 2000. As a unique brand-new
Faculty aspiring to educate internationally-minded youths who can function anywhere in the world
as well as survive in the era of globalization, its English program was designed with particularemphasis on teaching ‘practical and communicative English’. Looking back on the author’s own
experience of teaching English at FISTU since 2002, this paper examines how the English Programof FISTU has tackled (or not tackled) many problems standing in the way of improving students’English proficiency. After clarifying the background to so-called Japanese poor communicativecompetence in English, it reviews the English Program at FISTU from the aspects of its curriculum
reform, the utilization of G-TELP test as a placement test and TOEIC 500 as a target score and,more importantly, a kind of life motivator, the annual speech contest as a visible embodiment of
three ‘core’ English classes, the special care to support students, and the efficacy of study abroad(SA) programs. Following this, it aims to identify the defects of the current program and discuss
the tasks for its further improvement. As an exemplificative case of today’s English education
program at an average private university in Japan, to a great extent, this particular case study willreflect the current situation of today’s English education in Japan by illustrating some difficult
challenges it has faced and struggled to tackle over the past few decades. In conclusion, the notionof ‘empowerment’ is proposed as an important philosophical framework to lead to a way out fromthe blind alley of Japanese English education.

Keywords: English language education in Japan, English program in FISTU (The Faculty ofInternational Studies, Takushoku University), globalization, World Englishes, English for‘empowerment’

1. Introduction
As globalization advances, English language education is increasingly emphasized in Japan where
English is “taught not only as a foreign language but also as a global language” (Ito, 2002, p. 36). As
Schneider (2014) succinctly states, “in policy and pedagogy, and in public discourse, the impact of and a
21

NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

desire for English appears to be steadily growing” (Schneider, 2014, p. 18). There is a common belief that
English communicative competence is essential in global communication and that English is the language
which people in the world use to communicate and which enables communication with people in the world.
Whether this is true or not1, in this context English education in Japan has been reshaped so as to improve
English communication abilities in recent years and the same is the case with English education in the
Faculty of International Studies, Takushoku University (hereafter FISTU) where I have been teaching
English since September, 2002. This paper clarifies the background to Japanese poor communicativecompetence in English, and then examines how the English program of FISTU has tackled (or not tackled)many problems standing in the way of improving students’ English proficiency, focusing on the issues suchas the curriculum reform, the class division based on G-TELP scores, the utilization of TOEIC score of 500
as a target score to motivate students to study English, the annual speech contest as the visible embodimentof three ‘core’ English classes, the special care to prevent students from failing English credits anddropping out, and the study abroad (SA) programs to cultivate students’ cultural awareness. By doing so itaims at identifying the defects of the program and the tasks for its further improvement. As an
exemplificative case of today’s English education program at an average private university in Japan, to agreat extent, this particular case will reflect the current situation of English education in Japan byillustrating some difficult challenges it has faced and struggled to tackle over the past few decades.

2. Background
2.1 So-called ‘Japanese Poor Communicative Competence in English’
As is well known, there is one popular view that “Japanese are notorious for their ‘national’ failure
to acquire a working command of English” (Honna, 2006, p. 121) despite some six to ten years of English
education. It is even said that “TEFL in [Japanese] high schools and universities has been a failure”(Hashimoto, 2009, p. 22). While in Japan “English is a much-sought-after major preferred foreign
language” (Kachru, 2005, p. 75) and policy and pedagogy have experienced an enormous upsurge ofEnglish in recent years, “many –if not most—Japanese claim little fluency in the language in spite of some
six to ten years of schooling in it” (Stanlaw, 2004, p. 7). Interestingly and perhaps aptly, Kachru
characterizes the relationship between Japanese people and English language as “a sweet and sour
relationship” (Kachru, 2005, p. 73).
Of course, I have been painfully made aware of this rather shameful situation through my own
experience of learning and teaching English in Japan. The answer to the question of why we are so poor atcommanding English is not simple at all. Here, needless to say, various factors seem to combine to produce
so-called ‘Japanese poor communicative competence in English’. Although 12 factors to be listed below
might be rather overgeneralized, they are all based on my own experience of learning and teaching English
in Japan and I believe they would be a good starting point for the deep understanding of the current
situation of English education in Japan.

22

English Program in the Faculty of International Studies, Takushoku University: English Education for ‘Empowerment’

2.2 12 Factors of Japanese Poor Communicative Competence in English
1.

‘Juken’ (preparation for entrance examination) which forces students to study reading and rulelearning and to acquire the skills needed to achieve pass rates in the prescribed written exams, notcommunication skills. Here English is regarded as “a means of sorting students rather than a pass tocommunication” (O’Donnell, 2005, p. 301) and ‘yakudoku’ (a widely-used grammar-translationteaching method) “continues to predominate in English language pedagogy, its proponents
proclaiming its necessity as the key to success in the all-important entrance exams” (O’Donnell, 2005,
p. 302). O’Donnell explains:Emphasising translation over grammar study, the ‘yakudoku’ classroom is teacher-centredon the word for word translation of English text into Japanese. Language instruction isalmost always conducted in Japanese; the development of oral and written English is not
fostered in this learning environment (O’Donnell, 2005, p. 302).

The symbiosis between ‘juken’ and ‘yakudoku’ creates a powerful emphasis on “the meticulous
standards for accuracy and an unfortunate tendency to focus on exceptions to the rules of grammar”(O’Donnell, 2005, p. 302). As a result, Japanese students end up by acquiring a sort of ‘mute English’
instead of communicative English.
2. Lack of fundamental English knowledge and skills caused by lack of English learning due to therecommendation (‘suisen nyūshi’) system which allows students to enter university without writing
entrance examinations. Recently many students can get admission to Japanese universities including
Takushoku University without taking any English examinations. This very fact causes a serious
problem that they have not acquired even basic skills of English, let alone ‘mute English’, before
entering university. For such students, needless to say, the high priority of English education should
be assigned not to communicative English but to what is called ‘remedial English’ even at the level ofhigher education. This means that they are taught at university fundamental English knowledge andskills such as grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation which should have been learned at junior highschool.
3. The tradition of ‘shame culture’ which hinders many Japanese students from engaging in active
communication practice in English—they do not try to take linguistic risks, feeling afraid of making
mistakes and bringing shame on themselves by doing so.
4. Classroom culture nurtured by cultural traits which put a high value on ‘humility’ (Aspinall, 2006, p.
263-4), ‘silence’ as gold, and spirit of ‘harmony’. Japanese students tend to keep classroom
harmonious by keeping silent without showing off their skills acquired even though they are excellent
enough to do so. For them it is very important to blend into the group just by listening passively towhat their teacher says and getting on with the work they have been told to do. This kind of attitude in
the classroom cannot be considered as a barrier to progress for other school subjects such as
mathematics and science, but it can be a serious barrier for communicative English learning. With
23

NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

regard to this point, Aspinall says, “Clearly, the nature of communicative English as an academic
subject that requires an extra dimension of activity above and beyond ‘book learning’ creates serious
problems for the established Japanese culture of learning in schools” (Aspinall, 2006, p. 264).
5. ‘Native speaker fallacy’ that “the native speakers’ English is standard and worth trying to achieve as
the best knowledge about English language use” (Abe, 2013, p. 49-50). In Japanese junior and seniorhigh school, as Abe (2013, p. 50) points out, all the audio materials accompanying English textbooks
are recorded by native Western English speakers, Americans in many cases. Besides, most of thenative speaking English teachers working at Japanese schools are native Western English speakers(and surprisingly the majority are white men). Here is what is called “native-speakerism” which is “apervasive ideology within ELT, characterized by the belief that ‘native-speaker’ teachers represent a‘Western culture’ from which spring the ideals both of the English language and of English language
teaching methodology” (Holliday, 2006, p. 385). In such an educational milieu it might be natural thatmost students should have “a belief that the native western speakers’ English is the only correct andauthentic form of English” and “it may be that this general belief causes Japanese people to lose
confidence in their own English” (Abe, 2013, p. 50). Lack of confidence would surely lead to theirhesitation to speak English in front of others and block their progress with English communication
skills.
6. Major affective as well as cognitive barriers caused by learning English which is a ‘noncognate’
language. Needless to say, English is ‘a truly foreign language’ which is more demanding thancognate languages for Japanese students to learn, thereby producing strong negative affective
reactions from them. According to Samimy (1994) who conducts research on teaching Japanese
language to American university students, “the attrition rate among students who take Japanese has
been reported to be ‘as much as eighty percent’” (Samimy, 1994, p. 29). Moreover, she introduces the
ETS (Educational Testing Service) Oral Proficiency Testing manual which states “under ideal
conditions, it takes American students 720 hours of instruction to reach the Level 3 in oral skills in
French or Spanish, whereas it takes the same students 2,400-2,760 hours to achieve the same level oforal proficiency in Japanese” (Samimy, 1994, p. 29). Terashima (2010) also explains the relationshipbetween linguistic distance and difficulty of language acquisition for native English speakers in thefollowing table:
Table 1
Linguistic Distance: Time Required for the Acquisition of a Target Language and its
Difficulty for Native English Speakers
FrenchRussianChineseKoreanJapanesetime required

1

3

no data

No data6difficulty

1~2

2~4

5~7

9~10

10

Note. Adapted from Terashima (2010, p. 127)24

English Program in the Faculty of International Studies, Takushoku University: English Education for ‘Empowerment’

Conversely, these researches would also indicate enormous difficulty of learning English for Japanese
students. From the above information, it might be even surmised that about eighty percent of theJapanese students studying English are potential dropouts. If so, it would be considered quite naturalthat Japanese cannot easily acquire the language. Thus, linguistic distance between Japanese andEnglish is a serious barrier for Japanese students to overcome.
7. Lack of enough hours of instruction. Despite the fact that it takes enormous time for Japanese students
to reach a certain level of English oral skills as discussed above, Japanese schools (junior and seniorhigh schools and universities) do not offer sufficient hours of English instruction. According toHanefuji (2006), Japanese students study English at junior and senior high school for 550 ~ 950 hours(Hanefuji, 2006, p. 16). In universities the hours of English instruction vary according to schools andmajors. In the case of FISTU 315 hours are spent on the instruction of compulsory English classes.
Thus obviously Japanese students do not get enough hours of English instruction from schools. To
make the matter worse, many students not only in FISTU but also in general do not spend much timein studying English after school despite the fact that they need to supplement the lack of study time.
As a result, their English proficiency remains low level.
8. Large class size which makes the management of the class difficult for English teachers and hinders
active communication practices there. O’Donnell takes note of the belief of a Japanese teacher whom
he interviewed for his research that “communicative teaching cannot be accomplished unless classsizes are substantially lowered” (O’Donnell, 2005, p. 312). A couple of years ago FISTU decreased
the average number of the students in one class from over 30 to about 25 for the purpose of improving
the quality of English education. Although this was surely a good improvement, the class size is stillrather big for active and effective communicative English learning/teaching.
9. Few opportunities to speak with English speakers not only during English class but also in daily
school life. Abe (2013) claims, “Increasing the number of English speaking teachers (whether they arenative English speakers or not) is necessary because Japanese students have few opportunities to
speak with them” (Abe, 2013, p. 52). In fact, many students wish to communicate with English
speakers at school and improve their communication skills. In 2015 I conducted a survey byquestionnaire to 22 first-year students in the lowest-level English class. To the question of whether
they like English or not, 11 students (50%) answered “Yes” and 4 (18%) answered “Rather yes”. The
students who answered “No” or “Rather no” were only 6 (27%). Besides, to the question asking theaim of learning English, 9 students (41%) answered, “They aim at improving communication skills”.
Despite their poor English skills assessed based on the results of the placement test, surprisingly manyof them were still interested in English, or rather, English communication. We, English teachers,
should take their wishes and needs in English education more seriously and explore pedagogicalapproaches that can meet them. In this sense, the current situation which do not offer many
opportunities to speak with English speakers at school is nothing else than discouraging anddemotivating for students.
10. Lack of synergy among English teachers. In Japanese universities many English teachers work25

NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

part-time and most of them teach English at a couple of universities. In such circumstances it is quitedifficult that they spend extra time exchanging information about their classes and students andcooperating with other teachers teaching the same class. In the case of FISTU students need to takethree kinds of compulsory English classes taught by three different English teachers in charge of eachclass. Ideally speaking, these three teachers should share information about their teaching, students’attitudes, progresses, problems, etc. and utilize it for educational purposes during the term. But thereality is that each class is taught completely separately as an independent one and the three teachers
do not know what is going on in other two classes. This can be the case happening in many otheruniversities in Japan. Although it might be too demanding to ask all the teachers for extra time toshare their class information after class, lack of synergy among English teachers can be regarded as a
backdrop of inefficiency of English education in Japanese universities.
11. “Sociolinguistic reality [which] does not call for much English” (Schneider, 2014, p. 22). In practice“English is not much needed in Japanese society” outside of international businesses (Honna, 2006, p.
121). In short, English competence is not necessary for our survival. Japanese is the only language weJapanese need to master for our daily survival. In such a monolingual society it might be natural thatJapanese students should have poor communicative competence in English.
12. Strong tendency that students are attracted to many other exciting and interesting activities rather
than English learning. Although this might be an indirect factor causing students’ poor English
communication abilities, it can be still an important aspect in considering the issues of motivation, or
rather, the lack of motivation to study English. During university, students put their heart into many
interesting activities such as sports clubs, part-time jobs and volunteer work. In a sense, their lives arefull of exciting things to do and, needless to say, English learning which requires a lot of time, efforts,
and patience for the improvement must be perceived to be boring and unexciting. As a result, many
university students end up doing the minimum work required to get the credits of the compulsory
English classes without aspiring to acquire a good command of English.
These are the notable and important factors which I consider cause so-called ‘Japanese poor
communicative competence in English’. It might be said that the future success of English education in
Japan depends on removing or at least minimizing these factors for the improvement of English
proficiency. In the following section, looking back on my own experience of teaching at FISTU over the
past decade, I will examine how the English Program has tackled (or not tackled) the above 12 factors inorder to make progress with students’ English competence.

3. English Program in FISTU
3.1 English Curricula in FISTU
3.1.1 ‘Innovative’ Old Curriculum for Improving Communicative Competence
In 2000 FISTU originally started as the Faculty of International Development Studies, and it wasthen the only undergraduate school in Japan where students could major in Development-Cooperation
26

English Program in the Faculty of International Studies, Takushoku University: English Education for ‘Empowerment’Studies. It also offered another department called Asia-Pacific Studies which was also unusual as anundergraduate course in Japanese universities at that time. As a unique brand-new Faculty aspiring to
educate internationally-minded youths who can function anywhere in the world as well as survive in theera of globalization, its English program was designed with particular emphasis on teaching ‘practical andcommunicative English’ and its curriculum made for that purpose was surprisingly innovative andunconventional.
Table 2
Old English Curriculum at FISTU Adopted from 2000 to 2003
year

term

Taught by JTEs

Taught by NESTs

Taught by NESTs

Credits

1

Communication I A

Communication I B

Reading & Writing I

1x 3 = 3

2

Communication II A

Communication II B

Reading & Writing II

1x 3 = 3

1

Presentation I A

Presentation I B

Debate I

1x 3 = 3

2

Presentation II A

Presentation II B

Debate II

1x 3 = 3

1

2(total) 12

In 2002 when I began teaching English there, I was unexpectedly asked to be in charge of oral
communication classes called Communication A for the first-year and Presentation A for the second-year.
Both were aimed at developing English oral communication skills through extensive oral communicationand listening practice. The main focus of these classes was on giving students an opportunity to start bytalking familiar topics, to build confidence in using English without being afraid of or shy about speaking
English in front of others, to enjoy using English and to get a sense of achievement from expressing
themselves in English. To put it briefly, they were designed as the classes to break their silence in English
classrooms. The role of Japanese teachers was to help them overcome their psychological barrier inspeaking English and get used to English communication. The reason why these unique classes wereincorporated in the curriculum seems to lie in the fact that many students have not acquired basic
communication skills even after six years of English education at junior and senior high school. In fact,many Japanese students feel frustrated when their mind goes blank even when listening to the simplest ofEnglish or at their own lack of ability to say even the simplest of expressions.
However, why were these classes taught by Japanese teachers of English (JTEs), not by
native-English-speaking teachers (NESTs)? Normally in Japanese universities JTEs teach English reading
and writing skills as well as grammar, whereas NESTs teach listening and speaking skills, as well as oral
communication and presentation skills. And this division of roles has remained unchanged as somethingprescriptive and superior up to now. But the English program of this brand-new Faculty unconventionallyassigned oral communication classes to JTEs and reading and writing classes to NESTs. Communication A
and Presentation A, both of which were taught by JTEs, were paired with Communication B and
Presentation B taught by NESTs respectively. Each pair was composed of the part teaching ‘unstructured’
discourse of English communication and presentation such as small talks and everyday casual27NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

conversations (Communication A, Presentation A) and another part teaching the ‘structured’ one which
focused on reading for, writing and presenting a speech (Communication B, Presentation B). This was
actually a quite natural division of roles which could bring out the best in strength of each side, as JTEs
knew the process of acquiring English communication skills through their own learning experience andNESTs were much better versed in structured English. Nevertheless, I could not realize this immediately.
Recollecting my own experience of learning and teaching English, neither had I seen JTEs teachEnglish oral communication nor taught it myself in spite of the fact that I had experienced teaching English
at several Japanese universities before. Therefore, at first I was perplexed about what to do in thesecompletely new classes. However, it ended up being a needless fear and unexpectedly I found this way
rather effective and innovative. And, above all, these classes were always interactive and so very lively andinteresting.
With no teaching model in mind, I could teach English freed from the traditional teaching methods
such as ‘yakudoku’ (grammar-translation teaching method) which I had got used to both as a student and ateacher. “Don’t worry! Look at me! When I was a university student, I couldn’t speak English at all. You
are much better!” Speaking like this, I tried to make myself function as a kind of facilitator to decrease
students’ enormous hesitation to speak English and encourage them to speak English freely withoutbothering too much about grammatical mistakes or correct sentence structures. Here I made the most of myown ‘painful’ experience of struggling with English in the past and presented myself in the classroom not
as a good “role model” with a high fluency in English, which Tsukamoto’s (2011) study considers very
important, but rather as a bad “role model” from whose ‘shameful’ experience they could learn something
fundamental and useful in acquiring English communication skills.
At the same time, sometimes I tried to make myself function as a kind of cultural mediator to informthem about cultural differences we Japanese find confused in communicating in English and how to deal
with them. Here I introduced my experiences of living in the UK, where I discovered English as a living
communication tool, not a subject for exams, and found English communicating style quite different fromJapanese. In order to avoid misunderstanding and make communication smooth, needless to say, it isessential for students to know the aspects of cultural differences and language usage depending on thesituation.
In spite of its certain effectiveness and potential as a new ‘innovative’ system, the English
curriculum was reviewed shortly in 2003 and the unique system in which JTEs teach oral communication
and NESTs reading and writing was replaced by the traditional one in which JTEs teach grammar, reading
and writing and NESTs listening and speaking, oral communication and presentation skills. And thecurriculum was completely reformed at the same time with the Faculty reform carried out in 2005. The
main reason of this change was that the previous curriculum did not give students any opportunities tolearn English grammar properly despite the fact that many of them had not understood basic grammar at all.
Moreover, their average TOEIC score had never reached 400 and it seemed necessary for JTEs to teachbasic grammar properly first of all in order to improve their English proficiency. This was simply because
JTEs were “perceived as good teachers of grammar, and had the ability to resort to the students’ first28

English Program in the Faculty of International Studies, Takushoku University: English Education for ‘Empowerment’language when necessary” (Walkinshaw & Oanh, 2014, p. 1). Since then I have been teaching grammar,
reading and writing in the class named English Foundation Skills. Frankly speaking, sometimes I wonder
how much more effective this traditional way of teaching English is and if this change might be not areform but a retrogression or not, missing the previous interactive, lively oral communication classes
where I could see students ‘empowered’ in the process of finding their English voice.
3.1.2 ‘Traditional’ New Curriculum for Building Up English Foundations
The Faculty was renamed the Faculty of International Studies in 2005 when it was reformed in its
course system. At present it offers seven courses: International Cooperation, International Culture,
International Economics, International Politics, International Tourism, International Agriculture,
International Sports. As stated above, the English program also revised its curriculum so as toaccommodate English education as a ‘tool’ to gain academic knowledge in these seven courses, whileemphasizing the aspects of ‘practical and communicative English’ much more strongly in response tosocial ‘desperate’ demand for globally competitive graduates with high communicative abilities in English.
The current curriculum is composed of two parts: (i) three ‘core’ English classes and (ii) a variety ofPractical English classes. First- and second-year students need to attend the three ‘core’ English classes andearn 12 credits in total. And when they become third-year they are required to register two PracticalEnglish classes and earn 2 credits. Each English class is worth 1 credit and students are required to take atleast 14 credits in English: 12 of three ‘core’ English classes and 2 of two Practical English classes.
3.1.2.1 Three ‘Core’ English Classes
Three ‘core’ English classes are (a) English Foundation Skills I~IV, (b) English Oral Communication
Skills I~IV, and (c) English Presentation Skills I~IV, and students has each of the classes on Mondays,
Wednesdays and Fridays during the first two years and need to take 12 credits in total as is shown in thefollowing table:
Table 3Current English Curriculum
year

term

Taught by JTEs

Taught by NESTs

Taught by NESTs

Credits

1

Foundation Skills I

Oral Communication Skills I

Presentation Skills I

1x 3 = 3

2

Foundation Skills II

Oral Communication Skills II

Presentation Skills II

1x 3 = 3

1

Foundation Skills III

Oral Communication Skills III

Presentation Skills III

1x 3 = 3

2

Foundation Skills IV

Oral Communication Skills IV

Presentation Skills IV

1x 3 = 3

1

2(total) 12

The broad descriptions of each class are:1.

English Foundation Skills: this class is taught by JTEs with the emphasis on basic grammar,
pronunciation and vocabulary expansion in addition to reading and writing.
29NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

2. English Oral Communication Skills: this class taught by NESTs is aimed at improving students’ oral
communication skills.
3. English Presentation Skills: this class is also taught by NESTs and has its goal as the integrated formof making full use of all the four skills of reading, writing, listening, and speaking which students will
have learned in the above two classes.

Foundation
SkillsPresentation
SkillsOral
Communication
SkillsFigure 1. The Image of the Connection among Three ‘Core’ English Classes
Contrary to its concept and image, however, ‘lack of synergy’ among three teachers in charge ofeach class can be observed here as I discussed above as the tenth factor of Japanese poor communicativecompetence in English. Of course, we, English teachers, sometimes exchange information about ourclasses and students in the lecturers’ room or in the corridor during a break between classes or lunch time,
but no system has been established in order to connect the three classes with a view to producing synergy
effect. This could be seen as a kind of systematic fault which might need some repairing.
However, it is easier said than done. What can we do in order to connect the three classes in asystematic way and gain synergy effect in the English education of FISTU? Probably the possible andfundamental thing to do would be to examine the current three syllabi of each class and combine them intoone ‘big’ syllabus so that they could share it. But this would certainly require reviewing textbooks used ineach class and surveying minutely what is taught there. As a result, it might be necessary even to regulate
textbooks and contents taught there. Such a strict regulation might prevent each teacher from expressing
his/her individuality and damage educational effect. Needless to say, this must be avoided and here theissues of how much we should leave each class to teacher’s discretion should be carefully considered. The
current system which separates each class as individual guarantees teacher’s right to choose the textbook in
accordance with the broad description of his/her class and makes it possible for them to teach English intheir own style. This would be a merit of the current system. Maintaining such a merit and avoiding too
strict regulations, we need to explore the best way of connecting the three ‘core’ classes systematically andgain more educational effects by doing so. This is one of the urgent tasks for the English Program of
FISTU.
30

English Program in the Faculty of International Studies, Takushoku University: English Education for ‘Empowerment’

3.1.2.2 Practical English Classes
In addition to the above three ‘core’ classes, there are a variety of Practical English classes offered in
the Faculty. Practical English I and II are elective classes for first- and second-year students to prepare for
TOEIC test. Practical English III and IV for third-year students are, as I mentioned, compulsory. However,
if students’ TOEIC scores have reached 500 when they become third-year, these classes are exempted andthey can get 2 credits without attending the classes.
The Faculty also offers four elective English classes called Advanced Practical English for third- andfourth-year students. Here students can learn mainly academic English laying stress on TOEFL and other
English tests.
However, why should we offer these English classes to prepare for external English tests such as
TOEIC and TOEFL under the course name of ‘practical English’ in the university curriculum? Especially it
seems that the classes for TOEIC test are rather overemphasized despite criticisms that TOEIC test
composed of English listening and reading sections cannot measure every aspect about students’communicative proficiency (Cunningham, 2002; Knapman, 2008; Takahashi, 2012). Takahashi (2012)claims that “what is measured [by the TOEIC test] is only the degree of receptive skills” and the test scorescannot measure accurately the “communicative abilities which ensure the test-taker’s interactions in reallife contexts” (Takahashi, 2012, p. 132). In this sense, TOEIC test which is “such a pencil and paper
multiple choice test” that cannot reflect real life communication is neither ‘practical’ nor ‘communicative’(Takahashi, 2012, p. 132). If we aim at offering English program focusing on truly practical andcommunicative English in a very real sense, it would be necessary to review the current curriculum puttingstrong stress on TOEIC test.

3.2 Class Division Based on English Proficiency
In FISTU all the English classes except Advanced Practical English are divided based on students’proficiency in English. In April when the academic year starts first- and second-year students take G-TELP
Test (Level 4) as a placement test and are divided into 12 classes according to six levels based on the
results of the G-TELP Test. Each class consists of about 25 students. Added to these 12 classes, there are
two more classes for the students who belong to International Sports course. Their English curriculum isdesigned specially for them so that we can teach them English specific to their course and treat themdifferently from the students of other courses.
G-TELP (General Tests of English Language Proficiency) conducted by ITSC (the International
Testing Services Center) in the US “assesses the English language ability of nonnative speakers in realworld situations” and “the content comprises practical words and expressions in actual, contemporary use
in the U.S.” (G-TELP). It evaluates the English proficiency of examinees at five different levels (fourlevels in Japan) and the following (Figure2) is the correlations with other prominent English language tests
such as TOEIC, TOEFL and EIKEN:

31

NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

G-TELP

TOEIC
scores

TOEFL
scores

EIKEN

- 990
Level 1

- 900
- 800

Level 2

- 700
- 600

Level 3

- 650

Grade
1

- 600
- 550

Grade
Pre-1

- 500
Grade
2

- 500

Grade
Pre-2

- 400
Level 4 - 300

- 400

Grade
3

- 200
Figure2. Correlations with Other Tests
Source: G-TELP, http://www.g-telp.jp/index.html
Note. "Eiken" is the test of Practical English Proficiency
administered by Eiken Foundation of Japan.
One of the biggest differences between G-TELP and other English tests such as TOEIC and TOEFL
is that the former is ‘Criterion Referenced Test’ whose “assessments are made according to universally
recognized criteria that describe the ability of the examinee in the performance of specific language tasks”
and the latter is ‘Norm Referenced Tests’ which “compare the examinee’s test scores with those of otherexaminees” (G-TELP; Ogasawara & Maruyama, 2014). While the scores of TOEIC and TOEFL “serve as
general indicators of language proficiency relative to that of other test-takers”, G-TELP provides“objective, diagnostic information” on the examinee’s performance (G-TELP). As English proficiency
should not be measured by comparing students’ scores, G-TELP as a criterion-referenced test is considereddesirable as a placement test.
FISTU use G-TELP Level 4 Test, which has three sections of Grammar, Listening and Reading &Vocabulary, to evaluate students’ proficiency. It focuses on basic English in simple communications and is,
as Figure 2 shows, equivalent to TOEIC score of less than 400 or EIKEN Grade 3 which is the English
proficiency level of junior high school graduates in Japan. Level 4 Test can differentiate well TOEIC
scores of less than 400 and this very fact makes us keep on using it as a placement test.
The average G-TELP scores of the first-year students of FISTU in 2015 are Grammar 62.5,
32

English Program in the Faculty of International Studies, Takushoku University: English Education for ‘Empowerment’

Listening 55.7, Reading & Vocabulary 55.9, and Total 174.1. Considering that a skill area score of 75% ormore indicates that “examinee has demonstrated mastery of the particular skill area” (G-TELP), these
average scores clearly show that more than half the students of FISTU need ‘remedial English education’at university. As I discussed above as the second factor in causing Japanese poor communicativecompetence in English, they should be taught basic English knowledge and skills such as grammar,
vocabulary and pronunciation which should have been learned at junior high school.
At the same time, however, the result of G-TELP test in the year also shows that about 26% of thefirst-year students obtain the total score of more than 240. Obviously this group of the students has alreadyacquired a mastery of basic English skills and does not require remedial English education. What theyrequire is the further improvement of their English competence. Thus, G-TELP test plays an important role
not only as a convenient and reliable placement test but also as a tool to grasp students’ English level andtheir needs in English education.

3.3 TOEICAs for TOEIC test, FISTU administers TOEIC IP test twice a year in April and November and all thefirst-year students are required to take the November TOEIC test. Since 2013 the Faculty has set a target
score at 500 and, as I explained above, introduced compulsory Practical English classes for the third-year
students who have not obtained the target score (Practical English III and IV), expecting this system could
promote students’ motivation to learn English even for the purpose of gaining enough TOEIC score to beentitled to the exemption from the third-year compulsory classes of Practical English. However, both in2013 and 2014 the average scores of TOEIC test did not reach even 400, and consequently in 2015 many
third-year students had to take Practical English III & IV against our wish. To make the matter worse,many of them voluntarily chose to take the classes instead of making efforts to improve their TOEIC
scores before they became third-year.
This fact actually aroused deep doubts among English teachers about the meaning of setting TOEIC
500 as their target score. It might be said that this newly introduced system has been already a mere
formality. Nevertheless, it should be noticed that it has surely contributed to encouraging and motivatingsome, not many though, students to study English hard to reach the target score. Even among the studentsof the lowest-level class some studied English from the very basic skills and succeeded in getting morethan 500. For example, a female student I taught when she was a first-year student could improve herEnglish proficiency enormously in the process of learning English with the aim of gaining TOEIC 500.
Her G-TELP scores in April, 2013 when she entered FISTU (Grammar 45 + Listening 45 + Reading &Writing 20 = Total 110) placed her in the lowest-level class (Class 1). She was one of the students whoentered FISTU by means of the recommendation (‘suisen nyūshi’) system. Looking back on her highschool days, she told me that she had done nothing but play rock music in her club activity. Entering
FISTU, however, she seriously started thinking about her future career and studying English from the basic
at the university and even at an English language school outside of the university. After one year’s hard
study she achieved the TOEIC score of 505 in April, 2014 and her English class for the second-year went
33

NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

up from Class 1 to Class 3. This little success brought her confidence in her own ability, encouraging her tostudy English more and go for the next challenge in her life. Now she studies at a different university inorder to realize her dream of studying abroad. As can be seen here, TOEIC 500 means more than the score.
It can work positively as a motivator for students not only to study English but also to challenge manyother things in their lives. In this respect, we cannot easily disregard this system just as a mere formality.

3.4 Speech Contest
In November an annual speech contest for the first-year students is held. Although students’speeches are prepared and trained in the class of Presentation Skills, we actually regard them as theoutcome of the three ‘core’ English classes. The contest is simply a good opportunity for students todevelop their communicative competence and presentation skills in English as well as their own thoughts
and opinions in the process of producing the speech draft. Even though the students’ speeches presented
there cannot be expressed numerically like the result of TOEIC test, they are surely the visible achievementof English education in FISTU.

3.5 Special Care
English program in FISTU deals with many problems all the year around and some of them have no
relation with English education. For example, we call all the students who have not turned up for the firstand second English classes at the beginning of the term in order to remind them to attend the class. Thismight sound silly, but it works and many students start attending not only the English classes but also otherclasses. In this way we try to prevent students from failing English credits and even dropping out of theuniversity. Besides, some students have psychological problems and cannot interact with other studentssmoothly in the classroom. For such students attending oral communication classes is nothing but a greatburden and it is part of our job to understand this and help those students in many ways so as not to fail thecredits and end up leaving school.

3.6 Study Abroad Program
FISTU offers a variety of Study Abroad (SA) programs 2 and encourages the students to participate inat least one program so that they can develop not only their linguistic ability but also ‘cultural awareness’
which is essential in fostering their communication skills. Regarding ‘cultural awareness’, Ito (2002)
advocates the necessity of “cultural learning” in today’s English language education in Japan as follows:

We should desire to develop among our students awareness of the existence of cultures different
from their own, awareness of the interrelation between English and the culture of English-speaking
people, and awareness of the global status of today’s English. This multifaceted awareness is then
expected to lay the basis for a positive attitude among our students toward cross-culturalcommunication and understanding. This attitude then has to be converted into a skill with which to
explore not only other cultures but also their own cultures, and later into a skill with which to34

English Program in the Faculty of International Studies, Takushoku University: English Education for ‘Empowerment’

explore the world around themselves through the medium of English (Ito, 2002, p. 52).

Needless to say, the experience of studying abroad is the experience of “cultural learning”. Students
can broaden their perspectives of different people and cultures as well as themselves and their own cultures.
Moreover, they can realize the usefulness of English language as lingua franca through their experienceand many of them come back to Japan with strong sense of purpose in their study.
Besides, as I mentioned as the eleventh factor in Japanese poor communicative competence inEnglish, sociolinguistic reality in Japan does not call for much English. In fact, most of the Japanese
students do not have an opportunity to use English as a means of real life communication in their daily life.
Therefore, SA experiences have significant meanings for them, fueling their efforts to communicate inEnglish. Moritani et al. (2016) points out the psychological impact of an SA experience especially in the
motivational and attitudinal aspects which influences the students’ future linguistic outcomes. As thestudents’ willingness to communicate in target language is an essential factor for their linguistic progress,
the important role of affective factors on the linguistic outcomes derived from SA experience should be
more stressed in English education in Japan. In this sense, it would be vital to the further improvement of
our English program to explore the possibility of developing its own SA programs and establish a system
to incorporate them into the curriculum in the near future 3.

4. Tasks for the Future
Looking back on my experience of teaching English at FISTU, I examined the English programfrom the aspects of its curriculum reform, the utilization of G-TELP test as a placement test and TOEIC
500 as a target score and, more importantly, a kind of life motivator, the annual speech contest as a visible
embodiment of the three ‘core’ English classes, the special care to support students, and the efficacy of SA
programs. Although we have made every effort to provide good English education for our students insideand outside the classrooms, the examination has revealed that the program is still imperfect in many
respects and needs its further development for the purpose of improving students’ communicativecompetence in English. The main tasks to be tackled are as follows.

4.1 Revising Curriculum for Truly Practical and Communicative English Education
The old English curriculum of FISTU was designed with the intention of reforming students’ ‘mute
English’ caused by ‘Juken’ and English learning through ‘Yakudoku’ with its emphasis on thoroughly
communicative English learning through the unique system in which JTEs teach oral communication and
NESTs reading and writing. As a result, this curriculum did not provide students with an opportunity tolearn English through ‘Yakudoku’. In this sense, this was an innovative curriculum aiming at transforming
their ‘mute English’ to ‘communicative English’ through the process of finding and fostering their English
voice. At the same time, the unique teaching system forced JTEs to speak English much more in
instructing students and transform their teaching from Japanese-based instruction to English-based, which
was simply revolutionary as we JTEs had got too much used to learning/teaching English in Japanese. If
35NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

we aim at truly practical and communicative English education, such merits of the old curriculum should
be remembered once again and incorporated in the future revised curriculum.
On the other hand, it is essential to maintain the aspect of the current English curriculum which
offers opportunities to learn basic English knowledge and skills for developing four well-balanced skills,
especially grammar which is “part of the required knowledge in language acquisition”, to the students who
have not acquired them before entering the university (Okada, 2014, p. 99). Contrary to the old curriculum,
the current one focuses on building up students’ basic knowledge and skills of English and in the class
entitled Foundation Skills JTEs teach mainly English grammar, reading and writing following the
traditional role division of English teaching. As Park (2012) claims that one of the strengths of NNESTs[nonnative-English-speaking teachers] is “their ability to explain and teach English grammar due to their
lived experiences as English language learners”, it would be appropriate for JTEs to teach grammar (Park,
2012, p. 129). However, the problem which might happen here is that there is high possibility for JTEs to
end up reapplying such a traditional teaching method as ‘Yakudoku’ and returning to the old way ofteaching English which does not pay much attention to developing students’ communicative competence.
Here it seems helpful to note Takahashi’s study (2010) discussing the indispensability of grammaticalcompetence as “solid core” in fostering communicative competence (Takahashi, 2010, p. 62-4). She
advocates “Form-focused instruction” which “assumes that learner’s attention to linguistic forms while
focusing on meaning plays an essential role for learning grammar” and argues the importance ofconducting both “implicit grammar instruction” and “explicit grammar instruction” in the framework ofcommunicative approach (Takahashi, 2010, p. 57, 59). The English Program of FISTU should place
grammar instruction in this way for the purpose of improving English communicative competence.
Moreover, the current curriculum with strong emphasis on TOEIC should be reconsidered. A seriesof Practical English classes are aimed at preparing for TOEIC. As I discussed above, studying for TOEIC
is not useful in nurturing truly practical and communicative competence of English. Instead of TOEIC, it
would be more helpful to offer truly practical English classes such as media English and business writing
as well as communicative English classes to give students more opportunities to speak English withEnglish speakers in the curriculum.
4.2 Diversifying Teaching Staff from the Viewpoint of ‘World Englishes’
At present nineteen English teachers (three full-time JSEs, five part-time JSEs, one full-time NEST,
one special part-time NEST, and nine part-time NESTs) are working for FISTU. Out of the eleven NESTs
only one is female and the rest are all male, and all are white Westerners (American, Australian, British andIrish). I consider this rather ill-balanced in the light of the concept of teaching/learning English as aninternational language. As is well-known, English is now regarded as ‘World Englishes’. Japanese students
need to know the fact that multiple varieties of English are spoken around the world and recognize they do
not need to speak like native English speakers. If they have opportunities to be taught by English speaking
teachers from the Outer and Expanding circle countries (Kachru, 1985) who speak the varieties of English,
they may “see English from different perspectives” and “begin to notice that communicating in a variety of36

English Program in the Faculty of International Studies, Takushoku University: English Education for ‘Empowerment’

Englishes is both practical and fun, and that they too can perceive themselves as intelligible to other
English speakers all over the world” (Abe, 2013, p. 52). The awareness of ‘World Englishes’ may pushaside their pressures to speak like native English speakers by encouraging them to speak English “without
having an overemphasis on pronunciation and grammar” (Abe, 2013, p. 52). Thus, diversifying teaching
staff would surely contribute toward correcting their ‘native speaker fallacy’ which blocks the
improvement of their communicative abilities. Together with having English teachers with different
backgrounds, it would also be effective to incorporate SA programs in non-Western countries where
English is effectively spoken as their second and foreign language into the English curriculum.

4.3 Developing a New Evaluation System
One of the biggest systemic defects in the English Program of FISTU is that no systematic
evaluation system “from the perspectives of ‘language assessment’ and ‘program evaluation’” has not beendeveloped (Saida et al., 2010, p. 241-2). ‘Language assessment’ is mainly composed of students’proficiency, achievement and self-learning motivation. Although TOEIC can be a motivator in encouraging
students to study English, TOEIC scores do not always reflect students’ English proficiency. In this regard,
the English Program should review the current system to use TOEIC as their goal, an indicator of students’proficiency and achievement, and instead explore other methods which can assess their English
competence in a much more concrete and visible way. One direction would be to introduce Can-Do
statements (CDS) to the curriculum so that students’ English competence can be grasped clearly andobjectively for both teachers and students. In this case, CDS should be “tailor-made” so that it can fit ourstudents and assess their proficiency as accurately as possible (Fujita & Mayekawa, 2013, p. 147).
Another much easier way would be to use G-TELP not only as a placement test but also as a‘posttest’ to assess their improvement of the skills. At present G-TELP is used just for the purpose ofdividing students into classes based on their English proficiency. However, G-TELP could be more useful
if we try to make the most of it by grasping students’ needs through its results, providing English teachingwhich fits them during the term, and assessing the improvement of their skills after the term. Utilizing
G-TELP as a series of cycle in this way would be helpful in producing good educational effects.
Besides, the current system which allows each teacher to decide the assessment of students’ grades
simply makes the achievement evaluation opaque, unclear, and even unreliable when considering thegrades of ‘S’ or ‘A’ do not always guarantee their good English skills. In order to avoid this, it would benecessary to set the same objectives, syllabus and grading system to be shared among teachers so thatstudents’ grades could reflect their proficiency and achievement. However, we have never discussed theseissues among English teachers in the program in the past. This very fact may be actually a fatal flaw of ourEnglish Program. We have totally lacked a perspective to evaluate objectively our English Program. For
the further improvement of the program, needless to say, it is essential to establish a system to monitor the
program itself at regular intervals and revise it if necessary.

37

NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

4.4 English Education for ‘Empowerment’
Another defect is that English education in Japan including the English Program of FISTU seems tolack any clear vision or philosophy of teaching/learning English. What kind of English should we Japaneseacquire? What should we target in our English education? Why should we teach/learn English? The
answers of all these questions remain unclear and just the idea that English is so important and useful as aninternational language that we Japanese need to acquire its skills has urged and pressurized us to try toteach/learn English hard.
At FISTU I have seen many students suffering from their poor English competence despite the factthat most of them like English and wish to become a good English speaker. “What should I do to improve
my English skills?” “What is necessary to be able to communicate in English?” Every time they ask methese questions, their hopeless faces remind me of my school days. When I was a university student, I was
dreadfully pressurized into mastering English by a wave of ‘internationalization’. The word
‘internationalization’ sounded attractive, but it also burdened us, young students, with a feeling of great
oppression. And now the word ‘globalization’ oppresses my students enormously and impels them toconquer English by any means in order to survive the era of ‘globalization’. In a sense, we Japanese havebeen obsessed with English learning spurred by such vogue words as ‘internationalization’ and‘globalization’, and, as a result, miserably we have ended up disempowered by our lack of enoughcompetence to command English. Remembering the fact that English is just a foreign language, it would
be nonsensical and unnecessary that we have felt so oppressed by English. Besides, English is now aninternational language whose ownership native speakers cannot claim and which “no nation can havecustody over” (Kilickaya, 2009, p. 36). The concept of ‘World Englishes’ is useful here again in that weJapanese also can speak our variety of English “not as passive and malleable subjects, but as agentive andcreative multilinguals” (Kuppens, 2013, p. 327). English education in Japan should not only “teach English
so that they [students] will be able to understand/tolerate many accent and varieties through exposure”(Kilickaya, 2009, p. 37) but also develop “the Japanese variety of English that is not restricted by thenative-speaker norm” (Matsuda, 2003, p. 726). By doing so we Japanese will be empowered with its
intelligible competence. English education in Japan should set the goal for this purpose. The viewpoint ofEnglish education for ‘empowerment’ will help us explore “a different way of looking at the language[English], which is more inclusive, pluralistic, and accepting than the traditional, monolithic view ofEnglish in which there is one correct, standard way of using English that all speakers must strive for”
(Matsuda, 2003, p. 727) and establish a different way of learning/teaching English for Japanese people tocreate a new relationship between English and themselves.

Conclusion
English education in Japan has been wandering into a blind alley for a long time, searching for asurefire remedy which can cure Japanese poor competence to command English. As can be seen, theEnglish Program of FISTU is no exception. Although we have tried hard to develop students’ English
competence in the framework of teaching practical and communicative English, we have not yet
38English Program in the Faculty of International Studies, Takushoku University: English Education for ‘Empowerment’established an effective system to produce satisfactory results in our English education. Or rather, lots ofdefects of the program hindering the improvement of students’ English competence have been found as aresult of looking back on my own teaching experience at FISTU and examining the English Program forthis paper. The tasks are daunting and many of them cannot be tackled alone. It would be most important tocooperate with other English teachers and the faculty members in order to improve our English Program.
No matter hard it may be, challenging the tasks and repairing the defects one by one will surely lead us to away out from the blind alley of English education in Japan and pave the way for its original, new English
education which can empower us Japanese.

Acknowledgements
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Prof. Natsumi Aratame (Takushoku University, Tokyo,
Japan) who kindly offered me precious opportunities to make a presentation at Philippine-Japan
International Roundtable Conference on TESOL in Asia: Connecting the Philippines and Japan throughEnglish Education held in Cebu city, Philippines in November, 2015 and to write this paper based on thepresentation.

Notes
1. Kubota and McKay’s study (2009) questions “to what extent English actually does serve today as a
lingua franca in multilingual, internationally diverse communities” (Kubota & McKay, 2009, p. 593).
Concluding that “English is not an international lingua franca in many multilingual contexts yet itexerts invisible symbolic power” (Kubota & McKay, 2009, p. 616), they advocate that “[a]s TESOL
professionals, we need to critically reflect on our own attachment to English so that we can create a
discourse that affirms all kinds of diversity; promotes language awareness, attitudes, and skills
necessary for communicating with non-English speakers; and scrutinizes racial, class, linguistic, andcultural biases that perpetuate unequal relations of power” (Kubota & McKay, 2009, p. 615).
With regard to multilingualism, since its foundation in 2000 FISTU has adopted ‘a dual foreign
language system’ teaching students two foreign languages, that is, English and one more chosen by
students themselves among 11 foreign languages: Arabic, Brazilian-Portuguese, Chinese, Filipino,Hindi, Indonesian, Korean, Malay, Spanish, Thai, Vietnamese. Although it can be too demanding forstudents to learn two foreign languages at the same time, it goes without saying that this system surely
contributes toward widening their views and developing their language awareness based on
multilingualism, which I find invaluable in educating internationally-minded youths in the Faculty ofInternational Studies.
However, the reality is much more complex. In spite of the dual language system which
promotes multilingualism, there is still a tendency that we consider English much more important as‘Almighty’ lingua franca than any other foreign language. Students are, in a sense, pressurized to
improve their English proficiency as much as possible for their future success.

39NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

2.

FISTU offers seven short study abroad programs (Canada, China, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia,
Philippines, and Thailand) during summer and spring vacations. The periods range from two weeks to
one month and mostly first-year students participate in the programs. They can choose to learn either
English language or the native language of each country in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines andThailand.
Studying English language in the Southeast Asian countries has different value from studying
English in English-speaking Western countries such as the USA and the UK, because students canhave opportunities to speak with many people in those countries who speak both English and theirnative language in their everyday life despite the fact that English is a foreign/second language forthem and learn the usefulness of English language as an international communication tool. Hereprobably students can understand native-like pronunciation and way of speaking English is not soimportant for English communication and shake off their obsession of ‘native speaker fallacy’ whichpressurizes them to speak like native speakers. Besides, English teachers in those countries know very
well how to learn English and improve English skills as non-native English speakers from their own
learning and teaching experiences. Therefore, it would be helpful for our students to receive English
instruction from them in improving their English skills.

3. Over the past few years more than fifty students of FISTU have studied English at English language
schools in Cebu city, Philippines. FISTU has allowed many of them to replace their study there withEnglish classes at FISTU and gain the credits depending on their study hours and contents. In thisrespect, we have already incorporated SA programs into our program.

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About the author
Noriko ARAI, PhD is Professor in the Faculty of International Studies at Takushoku University,
Tokyo, Japan. Her research interests include gender studies, auto/biography and English education in Japan.
Email: narai@ner.takushoku-u.ac.jp

42

Improving Oral Proficiency through the Callan Method
Makoto SHISHIDO, Yoshie SAKAMOTO, Junko HANDA,
Kazuo SAKAI, and Natsumi ARATAME

Abstract
This paper is a report on the findings of research trials conducted on undergraduate level oralcomputer-mediated communication English practices through the Callan Method in Japanese
universities. Several test results were used to examine the resulting effectiveness of the trials.
Findings indicate that the Callan Method trainings are greatly effective in improving oral
competence especially in vocabulary and slightly significant in improving overall competence ofEnglish. Psychological aspects were also examined and very high evaluations of satisfaction andmotivation are observed. The results showed that the oral computer-mediated communication
practice with the Callan Method had immediate effects in oral proficiency of English for lessexperienced students. In conclusion, The Callan Method training seems to be an effective way to
improve listening and speaking skills of English for Japanese university students.

Keyword: Callan Method, satisfaction, self-efficacy, motivation, flow

1. Introduction
In the university English education in Japan, it has been debatable how not only input activities but
also the output activities should be implemented. Aimed at improving the English communication skills by
actual communication with native speakers, computer-mediated conversation activities (Oral
Computer-mediated Communication: OCMC) has been attracting attentions, taking an advantage ofcommunication tools online. Looking at the situation in Japan, in recent years, several universities have
implemented the OCMC as preparatory courses for studying abroad, or incorporated OCMC as student
possible anticipation courses for the job hunting. Cziko & Parks (2003) suggested that communication
practice with a native speaker through e-learning can be a great resource for studying for the learners ofEnglish as a second language whose opportunities of practical communication are limited. They also notedthat the communication practice with native speakers through e-learning is important and that thisrecognition has been spreading.
Currently, oral English proficiency training has become primarily important in English
communication skills training, and how to provide learners with the opportunity of output activity has

43NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

become an important issue. Considering from the viewpoint of providing the framework of college
education, it is expected for an output activity to be not only highly effective but also easy to introduce.
The Callan Method is an English training method for learners of English as a second or foreign
language and it was developed by Robin Callan in UK in 1959. It is a kind of direct method and used bymillions of people across the world. It is believed to be an exceptionally quick way to successfully master
English as a foreign language and designed specifically to improve listening and speaking abilities in a
lively and active environment. In particular it aims to extend the listening and speaking abilities.
First of all, the dominant feature of Callan Method is speed. The utterance speed of instructor is very
fast; 220-240 words per minute (WPM), which is faster than those of native English speakers; 150-180
WPM. Normally, English conversation school teachers are said to speak at a speed of 60-100 WPM andeven news reporters at 200 WPM. Secondly, the instructor should always ask each question twice at top
speed, and immediately start off the answer for the student by giving him or her the first two or threewords of the answer. The instructor should not wait a second for the student to answer, but should
immediately begin dragging the answer out of him/her by a pushing and pulling process. Thirdly, there
should not be a moment’s silence in the lesson. The instructor and students should be speaking every
second. Fourthly, it is extremely important for the instructor to correct the student's pronunciation. Finally,
immediate feedback is always given to the student and, if abundantly given, students also increase
opportunities to obtain the “awareness” with respect to their own learning.
The Callan lessons are mainly carried out in the flow of “instructor asks and student answers”
structure. Starting from revision of the previous lesson, new vocabularies are introduced and the lesson
moves onto the reading and dictation. The content is also structured on a set up concept, starting from easyquestion and answer. QQ English was founded in 2009 and it organizes two language schools in Cebu,
Philippines: one in IT Park and the other in Seafront. It teaches English to Japanese learners through Skype,adopting the Callan Method

2. The Study
In order to investigate possibilities for introducing OCMC into the Japanese university English
education and to examine the effectiveness of OCMC, several trials were carried out for implementing oral
practices with the Callan Method through Skype and in class sponsored by the Institute for Service
Innovation Studies of Meiji University, formerly known as the Institute for Civilization and Management.
Nine trials have been conducted so far. (Table 1)

44

Improving Oral Proficiency through the Callan Method

Table 1
Research Trials for Implementing Oral Practice with Callan Method through Skype and in Class
Year

Month

SchoolType# of Student# of Lesson

1

2011

September –December

Meiji Univ.

On Line21

50 min x 80

2

2012

July September

3

2012

4

Meiji Univ.

10

Jissen Women’s Univ.
Kyoai Gakuen Maebashi Univ.

On Line23
8

90 min x 20

November December

Tokyo Music Univ.

On Line6

90 min x 20

2012

September December

Meiji Univ.

On Line48

90 min x 20

5

2013

May - June

Meiji Univ.
Jissen Women’s Univ.

Face toFace

93

90 min x 20

6

2013

Kyorin Univ.

On Line20

50 min x 40

7

2014

May - July

Takushoku Univ.

On Line10

90 min x 9

8

2014

October December

Takushoku Univ.

On Line13

90 min x 20

9

2014

May - July

Shiraume JH &SH

On Line13 (JH7/SH6)

25 min x 30

November January

3. Findings
Some of the results from the trials are to be introduced in order to prove that oral computer-mediatedcommunication English practices through the Callan Method are effective in Japanese universities.

3.1 Research Findings from Trial #1
The first trial was carried out between September and December in 2011. The participants werecollected at Meiji University and 21 students participated. The lessons were held on the on-line basis
through Skype while the instructors work at the QQ English in Cebu, Philippines and the students attended
the lessons at their homes in Japan. The students took 80 50-minute lessons during three months of the trial.
The pre-test and post-test scores of TOEIC were compared in order to investigate the effect of the lessons.
The lowest score in the pre-test was 275, the highest was 810, and the average was 586.9 points. The
lowest score in the post-test was 545, the highest was 850, and the average was 694.3 points. The smallest
increase of 30 points, the biggest of 250, and the average of 107.4 were observed. (Fig. 1)

45

NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

student

Figure 1. Pre-Test and Post-Test TOEIC Score Comparison of Trial #1

3.2 Research Findings from Trial #2
The second trial was carried out during summer vacation between July and September, 2012. The
total of 41 students participated; 10 from Meiji University, 23 from Jissen University, and eight from
Maebashi Kyoai Gakuen College. The students received the total of 20 on-line based lessons throughSkype during three months of this trial. Each lesson was 90 minute long and consisted of 50 minutes of theCallan Method lesson and 25 minutes of TOEIC test preparation with 15 minutes of break in between. In
the same way as the first trial, the instructors worked at QQ English in Cebu, Philippines and the students
received the lessons at their homes in Japan through Skype. The pre-test and post-test scores of TOEIC,CASEC, and Versant tests were analyzed this time.
CASEC is an abbreviation of Computerized Assessment System for English Communication and it
measures English proficiency for listening and reading. The length of the exam is between 40 and 50
minutes depending on test takers and the score range is 0 to 1,000 points. It has 61 questions in four
sections in total; 16 questions in Vocabulary, 17 in Expression, 17 in Summary comprehension, and 11 in
Listening comprehension. Meanwhile, Versant is a speaking test through telephone and examines oral
fluency of English. The score range is between 20 and 80 points. It has the total of 63 questions in six
sections; eight questions in Read aloud, 16 in Repeat, 24 in Question and answer, 10 in Comprehension,
three in Summary and two in Free talk.
First of all, Maebashi Kyoai Gakuen College conducted an analysis of its students with their TOEIC
raw scores. There were eight students from the College in this trial. The lowest score in pre-test was 255
and the highest was 635. The lowest score in post-test was 300 and the highest was 700. The biggest
increase of 145 points and the average of 29 were reported. (Fig. 2)
In order to analyze and compare the CASEC and Versant test scores, we developed the idea of Score
Development Rate (SDR) which indicates potential increase of scores of a test taker. We came up with thisidea because we felt that there was slight unfairness when we compared just the increases of raw scores.
For example, if a student with 490 in pre-test gets 590 in post-test, the increase is 100 points. In the sameway, if a student with 890 in pre-test gets 990 in post-test, the increase is also 100. However, these46

Improving Oral Proficiency through the Callan Method

increases may have different meanings. When we calculate these increases with SDR, there is a distinctive
difference between these two examples. The SDR of the former student is 20% while that of the latter is100%. The formula of SDR is as below.
SDR = (Post-Test Score – Pre-Test Score) / (Full Mark – Pre-Test Score)
Example 1: TOEIC score increase 490 to 590(590-490) / (990-490) = 20%
Example 2: TOEIC score increase 890 to 990(990-890) / (990-890) = 100%
The difference is significant and so we decided to use the SDR to analyze the increases of test scores forthis trial.

student

Figure 2. Pre-Test and Post Test TOEIC Score Increase of Maebashi Kyoai Gakuin College
Students
Secondly, the SDR of CASEC was analyzed. The result showed an average of 6.7% increase in total.
(Table 2) We can say that it is a slight increase. To make it clearer, here are some typical examples of scoreincrease of CASEC test takers; a student with the pre-test score of 400 increased to 440 in the post-test,
and a student with 600 in the pre-test got 626 in the post-test, and one with 800 received 813.

47

NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

Table 2
Score Development Rate of Pre-test and Post Test Scores of CASECSDR :CASEC

LowestGreat Increase
++++

>=50%

Big Increase

HighestSummary

Listening

Comprehension

Competence

0

2

0

0

Vocabulary

Expression

0

Total

>=25%

<50%

6

8

5

7

0

Increase ++

>=10%

<25%

13

10

9

14

16

Slight Increase +

>=5%

<10%

0

6

4

4

9

Fluctuation ±

>=-5%

<5%

8

6

6

5

10

Slight Decrease->=-10%

<-5%

6

2

4

4

3

Decrease -->=-25%

<-10%

5

6

5

6

3

Big Decrease --->=-50%

<-25%

1

1

2

0

0

<-50%

2

2

4

1

0

Total

41

41

41

41

41

Maximum

43.4%

44.8%

57.0%

45.8%

24.1%

Minimum-75.3%-104.9%-87.9%-58.8%-13.7%

Average

3.2%

5.5%

-0.3%

8.3%

6.7%

STD

24.0%

26.7%

32.1%

19.8%

9.8%

+++

Great Decrease----

Score Development Rate

Thirdly, the SDR of Versant Test was studied and the average of 3.9% increase in total was observed.
(Table 3) We categorize this increase as fluctuation. However, we noticed that there is an average of 20.1%
increase in Vocabulary. We classify this as increase.

48

Improving Oral Proficiency through the Callan Method

Table 3
Score Development Rate of Pre-test and Post Test Scores of Versant
SDR: Versant

LowestGreat Increase
++++

>=50%

Big Increase +++>=25%

Increase ++Sentence

Vocabulary

Fluency

Pronunciation

Total

0

0

0

0

0

<50%

4

2

1

1

0

>=10%

<25%

13

34

7

7

9

Slight Increase +

>=5%

<10%

8

2

6

7

13

Fluctuation ±

>=-5%

<5%

8

1

18

13

13

Slight Decrease ->=-10%

<-5%

3

1

4

6

3

Decrease -->=-25%

<-10%

3

0

2

5

1

Big Decrease --->=-50%

<-25%

0

0

2

0

1

<-50%

1

0

0

1

0

Great Decrease----

Score development Rate

Highest

Structure

Total

40

40

40

40

40

Maximum

33.3%

41.2%

25.0%

36.6%

21.6%

Minimum-51.4%-7.1%-35.7%-82.4%-30.8%

Average

6.2%

20.1%

0.9%

-0.1%

3.9%

STD

16.0%

7.4%

12.3%

17.2%

9.0%

To summarize the Score Development Rates of the test results from pre-test and post-test of CASEC
and Versant, we observed a slight improvement of overall competence of English and great improvementof an oral competence of English especially in vocabulary.
The psychological aspects were analyzed through pre and post lesson questionnaires throughout thethree months of trial. The first item in the questionnaires was about student satisfaction. We asked thestudents if they were satisfied after completing all the 20 lessons. 51% of the students responded verysatisfied, 46% satisfied, and only 3% answered ordinal. There were no students who said “not satisfied.”(Fig. 3)
About the question on learning effectiveness or self-efficacy, 22% of the students replied very
effective and 63% effective while 12% answered ordinal and 3% said little effective.(Fig. 4)

49

NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

3%

3%
12%

46%

22%

51%
Very Satified

Very Effective

Satisfied

Effective

OrdinalOrdinal63%

Figure 3. Questionnaire－Satisfaction

Little Effective

Figure 4. Questionnaire－Learning Effectiveness(Self-efficacy)

As for the motivation, 56% of the students responded very motivative and 35% motivative. On theother hand, 3% of them said ordinal, 3% little motivative, and there were 3% of no response. (Fig. 5)
3% 3%
3%
35%

56%

Very Motivative
Motivative
OrdinalLittle Motivative
No Response

Figure 5. Questionnaire－Motivation
When motivation was analyzed, the following phrases were recognized as key words to indicate thatthe students were motivated: “I want to improve my speaking skills.” and “I want to speak more.”
However, these phrases were considered as indications of contriving learning strategies: “I want to acquire
more vocabularies.” and “I need to read a conversation textbook.” The comments such as “I had some
opportunities to learn English every day.” and “I used a English-English dictionary” were categorized asrevision of learning.
As for cognitive learning strategies, 12% of the students responded that they tired a lot while 64%
tried a few. 15% said ordinal, 3% replied few, and 6% answered none. In responding a question, what kindof ingenuities did you try?, there were many responses about preparation and reviewing and many students
said that they tried some in-class strategies.

50

Improving Oral Proficiency through the Callan Method

3%

6%

7%

12%

15%

17%

A lot

17%
A Lot
A Few

A Few

OrdinalOrdinal

Few

Few
64%

No

59%

Figure 6.

Figure 7. Questionnaire－Notices

Questionnaire－Contriving Learning Strategies
Considering notices, 17% of the students responded that they noticed a lot and 59% a few. On theother hand, 17% replied ordinal and 7% said few. Some examples of indication of positive expressions are“I can do something.” There were 16 cases of such responses. For negative expressions, the phrases like “Irealized that I cannot do something” and “I have to do something” were recognized in the questionnaires
and 14 cases of such comments were found. In either expression, high evaluations for satisfaction, learning
effectiveness, and motivation were observed. Therefore, we came to believe that self-efficacy and notices
for improvement lead to positive learning attitudes.
To summarize the questionnaires, very high evaluations for satisfaction, learning effectiveness(self-efficacy), and motivation were observed. In addition, high evaluations for contriving learning
strategies and notices were indicated. Consequently, we can conclude that only a few students contrived
learning strategies (autonomic adjustment for learning) based on Notices and many students felt
self-efficacy and gained high motivation.
Concluding the findings from the second research trial, we discovered that the oralcomputer-mediated communication practice with the Callan Method was not very effective in over-all
English proficiency. However, immediate effect in oral proficiency for less experienced students can be
expected and immediate effect in some areas of proficiencies can also be expected especially in vocabulary.
There are some expected changes of student attitude in learning. High evaluations for emotion wererecognized and positive attitudes of self-efficacy in learning were witnessed. Reduced resistance or
hesitation for speaking in English was noticed and this will create the improvement of confidence.
Maintaining and improving motivation will lead to continuity of learning

3.3 Research Findings from Trial #5
The fifth trial was conducted between May and June, 2013 and 93 students participated. The
students were collected from Meiji University and Jissen Women’s University. The total of 20 lessons was
carried out on face to face basis in classroom. Each lesson consisted of an instructor and three to four
students and lasted for 90 minutes. In this trial, researched items were self-evaluation of achievement inlistening and speaking, emotions during lessons, and flow state.
51

NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

Self-evaluation of achievement in listening and speaking was investigated by 20 Items for
Self-Evaluation of Listening and Speaking Skills based on Can-Do List by STEP®. (Tables 4&5) The
students chose items for the “can do” before and after lessons. Self-evaluation of achievement responses
were numerically calculated.
Table 4
Items for Self-Evaluation of Achievement - Listening
Items for Self-Evaluation of Achievement - Listening
a. （Introduce foreign culture and life style）
Understand simple contents of lecture and seminar in English
b. （Announcement or Information of event）
Understand important information of announcementc. （size, discount rate, stock availability）
Understand simple explanations of clerk while shoppingd. （Speech and lecture）
Understand very long conversation about topics of your own interest
e. Understand important points of News programs on TV and radiof. （Directions for Train transfer, Explanation for delay）
Understand directions and announcement in using airport and public transportationg. Understand order and inquiry on telephone if related to own work and specialized fieldh. （Speech in general education lecture)
Understand various topics and issues in very long conversation
i. （Planning an event, meeting at work）
Understand opinions and comments in meetings
j. Understand News report on politics and economy on TV and radio

52

STEP Level

Point

G2

1

G2

1

G2

1

G Pre1

2

G Pre1

2

G Pre 1

2

G Pre 1

2

G1

3

G1

3

G1

3

Improving Oral Proficiency through the Callan Method

Table 5
Items for Self-Evaluation of Achievement - Speaking
Items for Self-Evaluation of Achievement - Speaking

STEP Level

Point

G2

2

G2

2

G2

2

G Pre 1

4

G Pre 1

4

G Pre 1

4

G Pre 1

4

h. Express opinions and ask questions about current social issues and topics

G1

6

i . （Planning an event, meeting at work）Exchange opinions and comment in meetings

G1

6

j （Changing schedule, negotiating price）Negotiate various topics through telephone

G16a. （reasons for being late or absent）
Explain various situations happening in daily lifeb. （color, size, price）Explain what you are looking for, tell your preference and ask simple
questions to a shop clerk while shoppingc. （Tell Jason to call me back, Tell Jason that I cannot attend the meeting)
Leave simple messagesd. （Presenting research results, giving a business presentation)
Talk details about own research and survey
e. Concerning your work and special field, Ask questions and give opinions about a lecture
or presentation
f. （Appointment for dentist, beauty salon）
Deal with tasks and interactions in a set situation
g. Explain summaries and outlines of books and movies

The emotions during lessons were measured by SAN Emotion Scale (Sakai et al, 2013) (Figure 8).
The meseasurements were conducted at the end of each lesson for 20 times with the scale and the
responses indicated what emotions students had during lessons.

1–
2–
Figure 8. SAN Emotion Scale

3

–

4

–

5

–

6

-

7

In positive psychology, flow state, also known as the zone, is the mental state of operation in which aperson performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, andenjoyment in the process of the activity (Csíkszentmihályi, 1990). In order to investigate whether the
students were in flow state or not, the student emotions were examined with the questionnaire at the end ofeach lesson for 20 times. (Table 6)53

NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

Table 6Check List for Flow State
Number

Question

1

Challenging

2

Confident in doing well

3

Advancing forward toward goal

4

Doing well5Completely Concentrating

6

Working as you want

7

Forgetting about own self

8

Controlling (dealing) well

9Forgetting about time10

Having fun※「Confidence in abilities」(2,4,6,8), 「Positive emotion and Awareness experience byimmersion」(5,7,9,10), 「Challenge toward goal」(1,3) （Ishimura, 2008）

The correlations were calculated between emotion, self-evaluation, and flow state in listening andspeaking (Table 7). A very strong correlation can be seen in the “emotion” category. Between “exitemotion” and “peak-end,” there is a very strong correlation with 0.954. According to the peak-end rule ofKahneman (Kahneman, 2011; Redelmeier & Kahneman, 1996), what is memorable can be determined by
the “peak-end” emotion (the average points of the peak emotion and end feelings). In this experiment, it
may be concluded that “peak-end” is determined by the “exit emotion.”A strong correlation can be found in the “flow state” category. Of the “flow state,” three items of“confidence in the ability,” “positive feelings and awareness by the immersive experience,” and “challenge
to the target” have correlations of more than moderate each other, and particularly there is a strong
correlation with 0.814 between “confidence in ability” and “challenge to the target.” In other words, aperson with high in “confidence in ability” has a strong tendency of higher in “challenge to the target.”This trend is more obvious among the people with low initial emotion with 0.887, the people with highinitial emotion show a correlation of 0.805.
As for the “self-efficacy” classified by Can-Do list, between listening and speaking, and between
before (pre) and after (post) the lessons, there are basically four combinations of the two times two.
Judging from the fact that the strongest correlation with 0.749 is observed between “pre-listening” and“pre-speaking,” we can recognize that students who have confidence in speaking beforehand also have astrong confidence even in listening.

54

Improving Oral Proficiency through the Callan Method

Table 7
Correlation between Emotion, Self-Evaluation, and Flow State in Listening and Speaking
EmotionFlow State
Challenging

Positive・
Immersion

Confidence

ΔSpeakingPost-Speaking

Pre-Speaking

ΔListening

Post-Listening

Pre-Listening

Peak・End

End

Peak

Beginning

BeginningSelf-Evaluation

1

EmotionSelf- Evaluation
Flow State

Peak

0.384

1

End

0.292

0.320

1

Peak・End

0.371

0.589

0.954

1

PreL

0.092

-0.201-0.051-0.107

1

PostL

0.084

-0.130-0.170-0.186

0.559

1

ΔL

-0.0200.097-0.111-0.064-0.571

0.360

1

PreS

0.291

0.117

0.079

0.104

0.749

0.433

-0.413

1

PostS

0.213

0.018

0.070

0.065

0.612

0.603

-0.091

0.706

1

ΔS

-0.080-0.123-0.005-0.044-0.123

0.262

0.398

-0.3130.450

1Confidence

0.241

0.296

0.183

0.250

0.177

0.038

-0.160

0.337

0.192

-0.1671

Positive・
Immersion

0.091

0.356

0.143

0.234

0.025

0.002

-0.0260.000-0.085-0.1150.526

1Challenging

0.187

0.451

0.098

0.226

0.033

0.023

-0.014

0.128

0.044

-0.102

0.814

0.695

1

“Post-listening” and “post-speaking” has a moderate correlation of 0.603. This indicates that thestudents who gained confidence in listening afterwards also acquired moderate confidence in speaking
after training. These contributions are seen mainly among the people with high initial emotion, and thecorrelation coefficients are respectively 0.769 and 0.664.
A strong correlation of 0.706 was recognized between “pre-speaking” and “post-speaking”, and it isobvious that the students who have confidence in speaking beforehand have strong confidence in speaking
even after the training. However, this trend is recognized primarily among the students with high initialemotions (5-7 out of 7 in the SAN emotion measurement scale) (r=0.713), it reduced to a moderatecorrelation of 0.513 among those with low initial emotions (1-4).
An interesting fact among the students with low initial emotion is that the “post-speaking” and“Δspeaking” shows a strong correlation of 0.818. This is because, in case of students with low initial
feelings, speaking evaluation after training is determined mostly by the improvement of speaking.
As for negative correlations, there are moderate negative correlations (r=-0.571 and r=-0.413,
respectively) between the improvement in listening and pre-assessment listening and the improvement inlistening and pre-evaluation speaking. This means that the students with low confidence both in listening
and speaking beforehand show large improvement in listening in self-evaluation afterwards. Since there is55NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017no such relationship with the improvement in speaking in this course, it is understandable that self-efficacy
has indicated more improvement in listening than in speaking.
Between “emotion” and “flow state” categories, because a moderate correlation of 0.451 is notified
between the “peak emotion” and “challenge to the target,” the students with strong “peak emotion” seem tobe aggressive in “challenge to the target.” This is mainly because there is a contribution from the students
from low initial emotion (r=0.501).
In the “self-efficacy” and “emotion” categories, only weak correlations were observed. However,when limited to the students with low initial emotion, there are moderate correlations between the “initialemotion” and “peak emotion” in speaking and “end emotion” and “peak-end” in listening. That is the“initial feelings” is correlated moderately both with the “pre-speaking” (r=0.543) and with “post-speaking”(r=0.449). On the other hand, “end emotion” and “pre-listening” have a moderate correlation of 0.420 anda medium correlation of 0.612 can be seen between “end emotion” and “post-listening.” In this way, low“initial emotion” reflects in the low “self-efficacy” in speaking and “self-efficacy” in listening is reflectedin the “end emotion.”
There are some typical features about the relationships between the “self-efficacy” and othercategories. In other words, “confidence in the ability” has a moderate correlation of 0.513 with“pre-speaking” and “challenge to the target” is moderately correlated with “peak emotion” (r=0.501).
However, only weak correlations are observed between these categories among the students with highemotion. In case of the students with low initial emotion, the lack of “self-confidence” in speaking before
taking the course is reflected in the low level of “confidence in the ability” and the high level of the “peakemotion” enhances high score in the “challenge to the target.”
Here are a summary of observed results from correlations.
･ High scores in emotion at beginning greatly affect continuity rate of learning.
･ Emotions to lessons were determined by emotional state at the end.
･ High scores in confidence in skills co-relate with high scores in challenge toward goal.
･ Students with strong peak emotions indicated active result in challenge toward goal.
･ Students with confidence in speaking at the beginning have strong confidence in listening.
･ Students with confidence in listening have moderate confidence in speaking at the end.
･ Students with confidence in speaking at the beginning also have strong confidence in speaking at theend.
･ Students with little confidence in listening and speaking at the beginning showed large improvement oflistening and speaking in self-evaluation.
･ Self-evaluation in listening showed more improvement than speaking.
･ Post lesson evaluations for speaking were determined by the improvement at the end of lesson.
･

Low emotions affect low self-evaluation for speaking and also influence the end emotions ofself-evaluation.

･ Little confidence in speaking at the beginning affect low confidence in skill and high in peak emotion
facilitates challenge toward goal.
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Improving Oral Proficiency through the Callan Method

In this trial, through the face-to-face in class conversation practice in small groups, we tried toobserve how the students engage in their introspection in terms of self-efficacy and emotional aspects.
Despite the trial was carried out in a short period of 20 times, the increase in the self-efficacy was observed
after the course as a whole. However, as for the changes in self-efficacy, more accurate self-analysis
through the course is suggested and so the interpretation requires a more careful verification.
In the emotional aspects, it became obvious that growing emotion at the beginning of the course canbe a major impact on the maintenance of the subsequent course continuous rate. In addition, the heightened
emotion at the beginning was also likely to be maintained until the end of the course. Regardless of thelevel of emotion at the beginning, we found that the students with high in “confidence in the ability” arealso higher in “challenge to the target.” And especially in the group of students with low initial emotion,
the students with strong “peak emotion” tend to be positive in the “challenge to the target.”As for the relationship between the emotional aspect and self-efficacy, I noticed the following
features. Overall, those who have the confidence in speaking beforehand have a strong self-confidence
even in listening. In addition, those who are not confident in listening and speaking before the trial showed
higher improvement of self-efficacy in listening. Since there is no such relationship with the improvementin speaking, in this trial, it is evident that the students can improve self-efficacy more in listening thanspeaking.
Looking at each group by the levels of emotion at the beginning, in a group of the students with highemotion at the beginning, the students who have confidence in listening after the course have moderateconfidence in speaking afterwards and the students who have higher confidence in speaking at the
beginning have strong self-confidence in speaking even afterwards. On the other hand, in a group of thestudents with low emotion at the beginning of the course, self-efficacy in speaking after the course ismostly determined by the improvement in speaking. Furthermore, in this group, initial low emotion isreflected in the low level of self-efficacy in speaking and self-efficacy in listening also affected the “endemotion. “ In addition, the lack of confidence in speaking before the course is reflected in the low levelof ”confidence in the ability” and the high level of the “peak emotion” increases the aggressiveness of the“challenge to the target.”

4. Conclusions
Throughout the nine trials in this research, a variety of knowledge was obtained about therelationship among the emotional aspects, self-efficacy, and learning continuity rate of the students in
English speech and conversation practices. In order for students to enhance self-efficacy and to sustain thewillingness to learning, it is clear that the emotion during the course have brought great impact. It appears
to be an important issue how we can set up such learning environment as to give rise such feelings.
Although the trial conducted this time was in a small group and on a face-to-face basis, in terms of thedevelopment of desirable learning environment, it is also determined to be an element that should beemphasized in the practice of distance education.

57

NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

In conclusion, the oral practices through the Callan Method seem to be very effective in oral
proficiencies such as listening and speaking for Japanese university students of English as a foreign
language. The Callan Method through Skype provides opportunities for oral practice to the students at
home. In the future, taking advantage of this knowledge, we would like to verify the output activities in an
effective distance education format. More continuous researches are necessary to evaluate pre and post
lesson improvement of oral proficiency accurately.

Special Thanks
We would like to express a special thanks to the following companies:
QQ English
The Japan Institute for Educational Measurement, Inc.
Pearson Japan
UCHIDA YOKO, CO,. LTD.

References
Can-do List by STEP® http://www.eiken.or.jp/eiken/exam/cando/list.html
Csíkszentmihályi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper and Row.
Cziko, G., & Park, S. (2003). Internet audio communication for second language learning: A comparative
review of six programs. Language Learning & Technology, 7(1), 15–27.
Ishimura, I. (2008). Psychological research on the driving factors of the flow experience and its positive
function. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation. The Graduate School of Comprehensive Human Sciences,
University of Tsukuba.
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow, New York: Farrar Straus and Giroux.
Redelmeier, D. A., & Kahneman, D. (1996). Patients’ memories of painful medical treatments: Real-timeand retrospective evaluations of two minimally invasive procedures, Pain, 66, 3-8.
Sakai, K., Ariga, M., & Naito, T. (2013) SAN emotion measurement scale.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12166972/siing-SAN-emotion-scale-v11.pptx

About the author
Makoto SHISHIDO, Tokyo Denki University, shishido@mail.dendai.ac.jp
Yoshie SAKAMOTO, Institute for Service Innovation Studies of Meiji University,
ysh.sakamoto@gmail.com
Junko HANDA, Institute for Service Innovation Studies of Meiji University, junko.handa0506@gmail.com
Kazuo SAKAI, Meiji University, sakai@meiji.ac.jp
Natsumi ARATAME, Takushoku University, naratame@ner.takushoku-u.ac.jp
The lead author of this article, Makoto Shishido, Ph.D. is professor of English and educational
technology in School of Information and Environment at Tokyo Denki University, Chiba, Japan. His
58

Improving Oral Proficiency through the Callan Method

research has embraced studying the Input Hypothesis in second language acquisition and developing
E-Learning materials for facilitating autonomous learning. His current interests in research include
utilizing eye tracking for assessing learners’ proficiency and creating effective reading materials for
E-Learning.

Notes:
This paper is based on joint research of Yoshie SAKAMOTO, Junko HANDA, Makoto SHISHIDO,
Kazuo SAKAI, and Natsumi ARATAME at the Meeting on English Education for the Next Generation.
The research project began in July, 2012 when the first experiment was conducted at Meiji University. It
has released several presentations and publications at prestigious academic societies. Parts of this article
are based on the following papers: “Practices of Speaking English by Using Callan Method: A Case Studyin One-on-one Conversation Lessons Online” (Sakamoto et al, 2014), “A Study of Learners’ Self-reflectionin Oral Communication Practice” (Sakamoto et al, 2015a), and “Factors for Enhancing Motivation forContinuous Study: Interviews with Learners of the Oral Communication Drill using Callan Method”(Sakamoto et al, 2015b).
Sakamoto, Y. et al. (2014). Practices of speaking English by using Callan Method: A case study in
one-on-one conversation lessons online. Proceedings of the 30th Annual Conference of JSET,
831-832.
Sakamoto, Y. et al. (2015a). A Study of learners’ self-reflection in oral communication practice. Language
Learning and Educational Linguistics 2015-2016, 1-11.
Sakamoto, Y. et al. (2015b). Factors for enhancing motivation for continuous study: Interviews withlearners of the oral communication drill using Callan Method. Proceedings of the 31th Annual
Conference of JSET, 287-288.

59NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 201760

PROSODIC INTERFERENCE AFFECTING ENGLISH
COMMUNICATION AMONG CEBUANO-VISAYAN SPEAKERS IN
SOUTHERN CEBU
Janice GABAYAN GRABER

Abstract
This study aims to heed the call of giving importance to the creative aspects of first language
interference in oral English communication. It contends that languages have their own distinct
features but this does not mean inferiority or superiority to another. The suprasegmental features of
the Philippine English Variety as spoken in the southern towns of Cebu are identified to examine
the aspects of first language interference in speaking English. An investigation on the distinct
suprasegmental features of the southern Cebuano Variation is first identified and compared to thestandard. Results indicate that the Southern Cebuano Variation is spoken with a sing-song twang.
This is characterized with a strong emphasis on the last syllable of most words, especially when
they are used in a sentence. Further, findings reveal that the distinct prosodic features of the L1studied do not significantly affect the respondents’ English prosody despite the obvious disparity ofboth languages. The phonological interference identified is phonemic, not prosodic. Therefore, theL1 interferences in stress, pitch and intonation do not have a significant influence on the
suprasegmental features of the Filipino English variety spoken in the southern municipalities ofCebu. The prosodic interferences identified are not noteworthy enough to swerve speakers from thestandard. In an attempt to explain such phenomenon, Flege’s Merger hypothesis claims that themerging of phonetic properties of phones impact both the first language and the target language(Lord 11). As speakers become invariably influenced by L2, they may experience phonologicalmodifications. Hence, while one think that acquiring new phoneme(s) will be more difficult thanrearranging the two existing sounds from allophones of the same phoneme to separate phonemes,
research has proven otherwise (Major and Kim qtd. in Yavas 205). This study concludes that
inclination for prosodic interference is higher when the structures or sounds are similar in L1 andL2 than when they are dissimilar. This study recommends further investigation of the phonemic
structure of the Cebuano-Visayan Southern Variety.

KEYWORDS: interference, prosodic, phonemic, suprasegmentals, L1

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NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

1. Introduction
A good command of the English language translates to success in academic and career
accomplishments. Thus, English communication skills are of prime importance in the Philippines. It has
been so since the drafting of the second Philippine constitution declaring English and Filipino as official
languages in the Philippines.
The English used as a norm in Philippine education is General American (Llamzon , 1997). And
although the advent of American Based Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industries has further
strengthened the ubiquity of General American English, some Filipinos, as Llamzon notes, are willing tocopy American English only to a point (1997). They retain something of their identity- in not conforming
to nasal twangs, in their careful articulation of syllables, and in enunciating with a rolled /r/, instead of theretroflex /r/, are among many examples. The sociolinguistic underpinnings of this are what Braj Kachru
explains that the spread of English considers certain aspects, acquisitional, sociolinguistic, pedagogical andtheoretical (2001).
This widespread linguistic influence is also affecting Cebu, a progressing island in the southern partof the Philippines. Despite the three vowel sounds of the Cebuano language, as opposed to the 14 vowel
sounds of the English language, many BPO industries and English as a Second/Foreign Language
institutions opt to open businesses in Cebu for two important reasons, lower cost of living than Manila andgood English communication skills of Cebuanos. However, English proficiency is not entirely true to thewhole Cebuano populace. In contrast to the readily accessible facilities in big universities and educational
advancements in the city, the nearby towns rely on whatever resources they have. This situation often leads
students from faraway towns to pursue college education in the city. As these students mingle with peersfrom the city, their accented speech becomes a common interest, even to the point of being a subject of
misunderstanding.
An accented first language speech is also often manifested in the way they speak English. This iswhat Braj Kachru calls interference. This interference is presumably a result of contrasts between thephonological features of the different Cebuano native languages and General American English.
Interference as a subject in language learning is often ignored (Kachru, 2001). This study aims to heed
the call of giving importance to the creative aspects of first language interference in oral English
communication. It contends that languages have their own distinct features but this does not meaninferiority or superiority to another.
Previous studies of the Philippine English phonology such as that of Tayao and Llamzon have dealt
much with segmental phonemes, describing vowels and consonants. There is however very little material
on suprasegmentals. Tayao (2009) in her study recommends that further investigation of suprasegmental
features of speech be conducted to include morphophonemic changes that appear as a result of speech.
This study is of such endeavor. It describes the suprasegmental features of the English spoken by Cebuanosin the southern part of the province. This description is analyzed and categorized to identify the language
interference that the different groups experience in speaking English.
This study assumes that first language interference is highly influential in the way Southern62

Prosodic Interference Affecting English Communication among Cebuano-Visayan Speakers In Southern Cebu

Cebuano’s speak English. This claim is supported by the language interference theory as defined by Dulay(qtd in Khansir, 2012) as the automatic transfer, due to habit, of the surface structure of the first language
onto the surface of the target language, and Vygotsky’s social interactionist theory which assumes that
language development is determined by the interaction of physical, linguistic, and social factors- any andall of which may vary greatly for each individual learner.
Vygotsky’s Social Interactionist theory is the notion that human mental function is from participating
cultural mediation integrated into social activities. This has much relation to Ellis (1997) who refers tointerference as transfer, which is the influence that the learner’s first language exerts over the acquisition of
the second language. He argues that depending on the learner’s stage of development, this transfer isgoverned by learner’s perceptions about what is transferable. Ellis raises the need to put a distinction
between errors and mistakes. According to him, errors reflect gaps in the learner’s knowledge and theyoccur because the learner does not know what is correct. Mistakes, on the other hand, reflect occasional
lapses in performance; they occur because the learner is unable to perform what he or she knows.
Carroll argues that the circumstances of learning a second language are like those of a mother tongue(2008). Sometimes there are interferences, and occasionally responses from one language system intrude
into speech. The other language learned is kept as distinct as possible. To successfully learn L2 requires thelearner to often preclude the L1 structures from the L2 learning process, if structures of two languages aredifferent.
On a similar note, Kachru writes about a context of diversification positing that they are not only
acquisition deficiencies as generally presented. A deeper sociological, linguistic, attitudinal and cultural
reasons suggests that diversification whether conscious or unconscious is often symbolic of subtle
sociolinguistic messages which include, exponent of distance, marker of creativity potential, expression of
the Caliban syndrome-that which negates all that is local, the names, language, heritage and so on, anddiversification versus international English.
Beardsmore suggests that many of the difficulties a second language learner has with the phonology,
vocabulary and grammar of L2 are due to the interference of habits form L1 (2003). The formal elementsof L1 are used within the context of L2, resulting in errors in L2, as the structures of the languages aredifferent.
Therefore, it may follow that languages with more similar structures are more susceptible to mutualinterference than languages with fewer similar features like English and Cebuano. The learner is likely toresort to L1 structures for help if L2 is more distant from L1. The further apart the two languages are
structurally, the higher the instances of errors made in L2 which bear traces of L1.
However, the amount of interference that speakers experience would tend to vary depending on
several physiological and environmental factors such as exposure to the target language, formal language
training and cultural influences. Therefore, it is justifiable that speakers be classified into categories.
Llamzon(1997) in his study on Philippine phonology categorized speakers into three and analyzed eachcategory’s phonological feature based on David DeCamp’s post-creole continuum. On this continuum, theacrolect is closest to the standard form of a language, the basilect is the most distant from the standard
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NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

form, and the mesolect is intermediate between the two. (Bhela,1999). Therefore, there is a great deal ofvariation in the speech community and the point at which a form of speech is located along the continuum
depends on the context as well as the social characteristics of the speaker.
This study considers all the aspects mentioned in investigating the distinct suprasegmental featuresof Cebuano-Visayan languages in the southern towns of Cebu, in terms of stress, pitch, and intonation,
characteristics of the Philippine English variety in the aforementioned variables, L1 interferences insuprasegmentals that affect English utterances among Southern Cebuanos on the lexical, syntactic, anddiscourse levels. It takes into account different social characteristics before analyzing the amount ofinfluence L1 has on the target language.

2. Method
This qualitative study uses the normative survey technique to collect demographic data of the
respondents who are freshman English university students from Cebu’s southern towns: Dalaguete, Alcoy,
Bolhoon and Oslob. These students are assumed to have raw English abilities, thus making them the best
representatives of their respective speech communities.
The respondents were identified through a purposive - random sampling technique on all the
freshman English classes in Cebu Normal University. This guarantees that all the possible samples thatwere taken from the population have the same probability of being chosen.
A data-gathering instrument was distributed to the respondents, who in turn accomplished the tasks
in the instrument. Their reading and spontaneous speech styles were then elicited. Through observation andinterview, distinct features of utterances spoken in Southern Cebu are identified and are presented in atable. The characteristics of these utterances were compared and contrasted to the phonology of General
American. Features of both languages are then compared and contrasted.
The result of the contrast and comparison was used as basis in identifying the interferences that the
respondents experience in speaking English. The phonemes in both sections were described in reference to
the General American English to highlight the language interferences found. To do this, the respondents
were asked to read the set of utterances in the data-gathering instrument. They were also asked to speak
spontaneously regarding familiar topics. The responses were recorded on tape, and the audio recordings ofthe three groups were analyzed and interpreted according to the basis of the theories advanced.
To determine the prosodic features of the respondents’ native language and contrast it to English, acomparative survey was done. The data gathered was analyzed, organized and interpreted. For validation
purposes, the results of this study were juxtaposed with a survey result that was conducted through a fieldwork in the southern towns of Cebu.

3. Instrument
The research instrument is made up of two parts. The first part is designed to get the demographic
profile of the respondents. Among the data obtained are educational attainment and language backgroundof the respondents.
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Prosodic Interference Affecting English Communication among Cebuano-Visayan Speakers In Southern Cebu

The second part of the instrument is of three sets. The first set consists of randomly selected words,
sentences, and selections, written Cebuano-Visayan that the respondents read. The list of English words iscomposed of 15 randomly selected everyday words. It has five two-syllable words that are stressed on thefirst syllable, four two-syllable words stressed on the second syllable, and six multiple syllable words
stressed on the second and third syllable.
The second set of the instrument consists of fifty (50) words that carry stress in Philippine Englishthat are distinctive from General American. These words are identified by Barcelon (qtd. In Llamzon,1997)
as commonly mispronounced words by Filipinos. Ninety percent of which are used by Tayao (2009) in her
study about the phonological features of Philippine English. These words include fifteen (15) words
stressed on the first syllable, fifteen (15) words that are stressed on the second syllable, four (4) words thatare stressed on the first or second syllable, five (5) words that are stressed on the first or third syllable,
seven (7) words that are stressed on the second and forth syllable, and four (4) words that are stressed on
the last syllable. Sentences that are used on both items are based largely on newspapers and news articles
from the internet so as not to deviate the respondent’s familiarity from the topics.
The third set is a list of speaking tasks that made respondents interact spontaneously. Subjects range
from personal to educational, political, environmental, and entertainment issues. These are matters that are
deemed to be of interest to the respondents. The speaking tasks required respondents to talk about theirpersonal profile- educational background, occupation, if any, and family life.
Data analysis of this study is in three phases. Firstly, distinct features of Cebuano-Visayan variety
spoken in the southern towns of Cebu are extracted from certain utterances that respondents read from theresearch instrument. These utterances are compared to “standard” Cebuano-Visayan variety-one thatenjoys the glottopolitical status of the language.
The result of the analysis of the first phase is employed in identifying the characteristics of thePhilippine English Variety as spoken by the people in Southern Cebu. The results of the previous analysis
are compared to the stress, pitch, and intonation of General American English.
On the third phase, the presence of language transference in stress, pitch and intonation on theutterances of the respondents are examined through lexical, syntactic and discourse levels.

4. Results and Discussion
Despite the variations, commonalities among the dialectal features of the towns under study are seen
to typify their speeches. Discussed in this section are the common characteristics of suprasegmental
features that are found in the dialectal variations in Alcoy, Dalaguete, Bolhoon and Oslob. These features
are compared to the General American features to be able to examine the language transfer that occurs inthe speakers’ L2 learning.
The following results are revealed in the study:

4.1 Distinct suprasegmental features of Cebuano-Visayan spoken in the southern towns of Cebu
Southern Cebuano Variation is spoken with a sing-song twang. This is characterized with a strong65NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

emphasis on the last syllable of most words, as shown in the following table of random Cebuano words.
The table shows how word stress in “standard” Cebuano differs from the Cebuano variety as spoken in theSouthern municipalities of Cebu. For the purpose of this study, standard Cebuano-Visayan pronunciationrefers to the variety which enjoys a glotto-political status, that which is spoken in Cebu City which is thecenter of trade and commerce in the island.
Table 1
Standard Cebuano vis-à-vis Southern Cebu Variety“Standard” CebuanoSouthern Cebu Variety

Stressed
Syllable/s

Stressed
Syllable/s

tambuk (fat)tam-Tambuktam- , -bukbabuy (pig)

ba-

Babuy

ba- , - buy

Buntag (morning)bun-

Buntagbun- , tagudtu (noon)

ud-

Udto

ud- , -toHapun (afternoon)

ha-

Hapon

ha- , -pon

Humut (pleasant smell)

-mut

Humut

-mut

bahu (bad smell)

-hu

Bahu

-hu

da-ut (thin)

-ut

da-ut

-ut

Guba
(broken /out of order)

-ba

Guba

-ba

mahadluk (to be scared)-had-

Mahadluk-had- , -lukkaraan(old /not new/of the past)-ra-Karaan-ra- , -angutumun (to be hungry)-tu-

Gutumun-tu- , -monbagul-bagul (skull)-ba-bagul-bagul-ba- , -gul

ipaka-un(to feed/to give as food)-ka-

ipaka-un-ka- , -unbintana (window)- ta

Bintana-ta , -na

There is a noticeable rising intonation in a significant number of utterances. Instead of a low tonethat signals the end of a word as spoken in the standard form, there is a significant rise of the voice when it
comes to the finality of each word. In the South, there is a noticeable stretch of the vowel sounds of most66

Prosodic Interference Affecting English Communication among Cebuano-Visayan Speakers In Southern Cebu

syllables. Thus, equal emphasis of syllables is placed along with the first syllable stress on standard
Cebuano. The following paratones represent the certain stress levels for syllables. 1is low, 2 is normal, 3 ishigh and 4 is very high.
The words tambuk,buntag, babuy, bahu, and da-ut, are generally given stronger emphasis on thesyllables with the vowel sound /u/. Among the respondents, however, it can be observed that the emphasis
previously mentioned is significantly lower due to a laxer enunciation of the vowel sound /u/. A significant
finding is that contrary to the standard’s three phoneme utterance, the South has more. In the south, /u/ isrelatively less tense and shorter than the standard. Humut and guba also share these characteristics. In thefour words previously mentioned, the first syllables tam-, ba- and da- are also emphasized.
Stress on words with multiple syllables like mahadluk, gutumun, bagul-bagul, kara-an, bintana,ipaka-un are also evident on the southern dialect. Had- for mahadluk, -tum- for gutumun, -ba- forbagul-bagul, -ra- for kara-an, -ta- for bintana, and –ka- for ipaka-un. In addition, it is noticeable that thelast syllable of each word is also given strong emphasis in the southern dialect. Instead of a low tone thatsignals the end of a word as spoken in the standard form, there is a significant rise of the voice as
respondents came to a finality of each word. This is a similar case scenario with the words udtu and hapun,
are pronounced in standard Cebuano with more emphasis on the first-syllable. In the South however, there
is a noticeable drag in the vowel sounds of the last syllables. Thus, equal emphasis of these syllables isplaced along with the first syllable stress on standard Cebuano. Therefore, one distinction of the
Cebuano-Visayan variety in the south is its tendency to stress the last syllable in a multiple-syllable word.

Figure 1. Paratone Showing Multiple-Syllable Word ipaka-on (to feed) Stressed on the Last Syllable

Figure 2. Paratone Showing Multiple-Syllable Word mahadlok (to fear) Stressed on the Last Syllable

Distinctions in pitch and intonation are also very evident in the dialect. Cebuano Visayan has four
pitch levels that correspond to stressed and unstressed syllables in words that build the thought units thatconsequently, make-up the sentences (Pesirla,2013). Pitch level 1 is used with falling tone after
declaratives and imperatives, pitch level 2 is a normal tone used to start all kinds of sentences, level 3 is arising pitch tone for every stressed syllable and in ending all interrogatives and words in series and theextra-high pitch level 4 is used on the last stressed syllable of emphasized words in exclamatory sentences.
But for the purpose of this study, pitch levels are observed in the way they are integrated with the othersuprasegmental phonemes stress and juncture in sentential level. This integration is called intonation.
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NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

The staccato rhythmic intonation of Cebuano Visayan depends on the type of sentence. Pesirla (2013)
notes two kinds of intonation, rising and falling. Rising intonation is used in interrogatives. On the other
hand, the falling intonation is used in a statement, in imperatives and exclamations. The multiple syllable
stress is especially apparent when words are used in a sentence.

Figure 3. Sample sentences showing words with multiple-syllable stress

It is also noteworthy that the southern variety has more vowel sounds than the standard Cebuano.
Some of which are the less tense vowel sounds. These add to the tonality in the dialectal variation.

4.2

Characteristics of the Philippine English Variety as spoken by the people in Southern Cebu

Findings reveal that the distinct accent that respondents have in spontaneous natural speech in L1
does not have a significant effect in the way they speak English. Speakers tend to be very careful with theway they share ideas using L2. The trace of the southern accent of the respondents is especially apparent inword stress only, wherein some emphases are placed on the wrong syllables.

Figure 4. Codemixed Words Stressed on the Last Syllable

However, the usual sway of the voice which is typical of the southern dialect is not noticeable on
spontaneous talk. The suprasegmental features of their first language only affect their English intonation
when codeswitching is done.

Figure 5. Stresses on Codeswitched and Non-codeswitched speeches

The respondents were made to read fifty (50) words that, according to Tayao (2009), are found to becommonly mispronounced by Filipinos. Among the fifty words, fifteen words are stressed on the first68

Prosodic Interference Affecting English Communication among Cebuano-Visayan Speakers In Southern Cebu

syllable in General American. These are carton, menu, baptism, hazardous, pedestal, and formidable,
spiritual, subsequent, government, rescue, ancestors, sabotage, talented. Among the fifteen, most of the
respondents’ stress miscues are on the words talented, pedestal and ancestors. These words were stressedon the second syllable. Some of the speakers stressed the second syllable of government. It may be noted
however, that government was written along with govern, a verb that stressed on the second syllable. This
placement is seen to be a distraction to the respondents.
The second set is composed of fifteen words stressed on the second syllable. These are direct,
centennial, ingredient, certificate, participate, thereby, utensil, dioxide, percentage, committee, bamboo,
precinct, throughout, lieutenant, semester, govern, colleague. Most of the respondents stressed utensil,
semester and dioxide on the first syllable. Committee was given stress on the third syllable.
There was no mistake on words that may be stressed on the 1st or 2nd syllable, robust, centenary,despicable and kilometer. Primary and secondary stresses on the 1 st and secondary stress on the 1 st and 3rd
syllables for economics, economical, adolescence, antecedent, rehabilitate, cemetery and commentary,complimentary and documentary are commonly mistaken by the respondents, especially in for words suchas adolescence and antecedent. Respondents’ 2nd and 4th syllable stress on paraphernalia, itinerary,preparatory, hereditary, interpretative, pronunciation are generally correct. The most noticeable finding on
this section is that respondents from the south of Cebu are weak on segmental phonemes. A great deal ofpronunciation miscues is attributed to absent vowel sound varieties in the dialectal variation and someconsonant sounds like the /d/ in ingredient is sounded as /dƷ/. Such a subject is beyond the scope of thisstudy. This may well be included in recommendations.
To test the respondents’ intonation, they were made to read a news article and were asked toparticipate in a spontaneous speech. Illustrated in the following is how the respondents read the article.

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NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

Figure 6. Stress Levels of Respondents’ Read Speech(source: http://www.sunstar.com.ph/superbalita-cebu/balita/2014/05/20/maternity-ikiha-na-maternity-nanghimakak-343921)

The results of this section draw many similarities with that of that of the read article in set A. As
previously mentioned, the distinct accent that respondents have in spontaneous speech does not affect theway they read. Findings in this section show that in reading the English news article, there is no trace ofthe southern accent of the respondents. The usual sway of the voice which is typical of the southern dialect
is not apparent in interviews. Upon examination of the multiple accent in a single word as characterized bytheir first language, what may be observed are only segmental miscues due to the absent varieties of theGeneral American vowel sounds in the Cebuano language.
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Prosodic Interference Affecting English Communication among Cebuano-Visayan Speakers In Southern Cebu

The typical rising intonation on almost all utterances cannot be spotted either. This implies that
second language interference of the respondents does not include read speech. The next discussion will
center on this subject.
To test if L1 affects L2 learning, the respondents were made to answer questions that required themto talk spontaneously. The questions require them to speak about personal, familiar and academic matters.
The speeches reveal that the transfer that occurs as the respondents speak in English is largely on the vowel
and consonant production. The suprasegmental features of their first language do not affect their intonation
in English. On the contrary, they do have an effect on stress, to a certain degree. Some words are stressedon the wrong syllables, like talented, adolescent, overflow, committee, hazardous, baptism, utensils andancestors. However, the possibility that the respondents’ less exposure and poor education to the words
in question are not ruled out in this study. Therefore, evidences gathered are not enough to attribute solely
the respondents’ stress miscues on first language interference
Upon examination of data gathered from interviews, the most striking characteristic on the Southern
Variety is on segmental miscues and not on suprasegmentals.
4.3.

L1 interferences in stress, pitch and intonation that affect Southern Cebuano’s English utterances

Findings show that a noteworthy prosodic interference occurs when an English word is code-mixed
with a Cebuano word.

Figure 7. Paratone Showing Prosodic Interference When English Words are Code-mixed with Cebuano

Figure 8. Paratone Showing Prosodic Interference When English Words are Code-mixed with Cebuano

Figure 9. Paratone Showing Prosodic Interference When English Words are Code-mixed with Cebuano

Words like “nurse”, “hospital”, and “plaster” were pronounced entirely different from English, andexactly that of L1. Prosodic interference was also apparent only on multiple syllable words that perhaps
were not familiar to the respondents. Due to their unfamiliarity, respondents decoded the words the way
71NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

they did their L1.
In an attempt to explain such phenomenon, Flege’s Merger hypothesis claims that the merging ofphonetic properties of phones impact both the first language and the target language (Lott, 2012). As
speakers become invariably influenced by L2, they may experience phonological modifications. Hence,
while one think that acquiring new phoneme(s) will be more difficult than rearranging the two existingsounds from allophones of the same phoneme to separate phonemes, research has proven otherwise (Major
and Kim qtd. in Yavas,2011).
On a syntactic level, results revealed that the prosodic interference occured when speakers
codeswitched. There was an observably automatic change in the intonation, from English to southern
Cebuano variation, upon switching codes. The southern sing-song twang came about whenever there is a
Cebuano word in the sentence.
In discourse, traces of the prosodic transfer were very minimal and almost insignificant. They werediscernible in content words stressed in the final part of the sentence. Some of the sentences in a discourse
were spoken with much lower finality than the English pitch level. Remarkably, this did not occur on an
entire discourse. The speakers were generally adamant to the General American accent when they
explained something in English. The most observable transfer in discourse is phonemic interference, notprosodic.

5. Conclusion
Based on the analysis and findings of this study, it is concluded that the inclination for phonologicalinterference is higher when the structures or sounds are similar in L1 and L2 than when they are dissimilar.
Results of the study reveal that the prosodic interferences identified are not noteworthy enough to swerve
speakers from the standard.
Further, the L1 interference of southern Cebuano variation is mostly phonemic, not prosodic.
Therefore, the L1 interferences in stress, pitch and intonation do not have a significant influence on the
suprasegmental features of the Filipino English variety spoken in the southern municipalities of Cebu.

6. Recommendation
In view of the foregoing findings and conclusion of this study, the following are recommended:
1. A study on the segmental phonemes of the southern Cebuano variety may be conducted. This will
broaden the subject matter on prosody. Although ample researches have been done on the subject ofsegmentals but they will prove significant unless localized. Conducting a segmental study of thesouthern variety will not only help the dialect be recognized, but it will be a useful basis in teaching asecond language.
2. A focus on the Philippine English variety as spoken by the people in Southern Cebu may be done interms of vowel and consonant production. As observed in this study, the phonemic interference is thevery subject that should be given importance since it greatly influences the way the respondents talk.
3. For a better English speaking ability, students are encouraged to avoid code-mixing and codeswitching,72

Prosodic Interference Affecting English Communication among Cebuano-Visayan Speakers In Southern Cebu

especially because they are found to encourage prosodic interference. Further, an enhancement on
vocabulary instruction may be promoted since decoding an unfamiliar vocabulary is found to result toirregular and almost intelligible speech that, although does not promote prosodic interference, is still
worthy of attention.

References
Beardsmore, H.B. (1982). Bilingualism: basic principles. Avon: Tieto.
Bhela, B. (1999). Native language interference in learning a second language: exploratory case studies ofnative language interference with target language usage. International Education Journal, 1(1), 22-31.
Retrieved July 10, 1999 from ehlt.flinders.edu.au/education/iej/articles/v1n1/bhela/bhela.pdf
Carroll, J.B. (2008). Language and thought. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice- Hall.
Ellis, R. (1984). Classroom second language development: a study of classroom interaction and language
acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
Ellis, R. (1997). Second language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hickey, R. (2010). The handbook of language contact. Oxford,UK: Wiley Blackwell.
Kachru, Braj. (2001). The sacred cows. English Today, 44(41), 16-38.
Khansir, A.A. (2012). Error analysis and second language acquisition. Theory and Practice in Language
studies, 2(5), 1027-1032. Retrieved May 2012 fromwww.academypublication.com/issues/past/tpls/vol02/05/22.pdf, doi: 10.430/tpls.2.5.1027-1032
Llamzon, T. A. (1997). The Phonology of the Philippine English. In Ma. Lourdes S. Bautista(Ed.), English
is an Asian language: The Philippine context (proceedings of the conference held in Manila on 2-3
August 1996)(pp. 41-48). Australia: The Macquarie Library Pty. Ltd.
Lott, D. (2012). Analysing and counteracting interference errors. ELT Journal, 37(3), 256- 261.
Pesirla, A. (2012). The linguistics of Cebuano-Visayan. Mandaluyong City: Anvil Publishing.
Pisoni, D. and Remez, R. (Eds). (2008). The handbook of speech perception. MA,USA: Prentice-Hall.
Tayao, M. L. (2009). A lectal description of the phonological features of Philippine English. In Ma.Lourdes
Bautista and Kingsley Bolton (Eds.) Asian Englishes today: Philippine English Linguistic andLiterary Perspectives (pp. 157-171). Manila: Anvil.
Yavas, M.(2011). Applied English Phonology (2nd Ed.). West Sussex,UK: Wiley Blackwell.

About the author
Janice GABAYAN GRABER, PhD is a professor at Cebu Normal University in Cebu City,
Philippines. She teaches English education, linguistics and literature. Her research interests include English
studies, applied linguistics, and theoretical linguistics. Email: janicegabayan@gmail.com

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NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 201774

Program and Conference Summary:The 111th Conference on Higher Education for the Next Generation
Philippine-Japan International Roundtable Conference on TESOL in ASIA
- Connecting the Philippines and Japan through English Education November 7-8, 2015
Waterfront Cebu City Hotel & Casino
Risa SHOJI

Sponsorship and Financial Support
This conference was sponsored and held as part of "The 111th Meeting on Higher Education for the
Next Generation, which intends to establish a new vision for the future of university education with
innovative ideas and technologies. The conference was cosponsored by the Philippine Association
for Language Teaching (PALT), Japanese Society for Learning Analytics, Philosophical
Association for Language Teaching, JELES (The English Language Education Society of Japan).
We are particularly grateful for the financial and logistical support extended by the Institute forService Innovation Studies of Meiji University/Uchida Yoko Co., Ltd., Takushoku University and
QQ English.

1. Objectives
More and more Japanese students are learning from Filipino teachers in various modes of delivery.
Some Japanese students enroll in Intensive English courses offered by various universities and language
schools in the Philippines. Others learn English on-line with native Filipino teachers based in thePhilippines via Skype.
As it situates itself in diverse cultural contexts, ELT provides opportunities for inquiry into thepedagogy and methods of teaching and learning the English language. What variety of English should betaught? What is the role of the mother tongue in learning a second language? What methods are effectivein Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)? These are some of the issues that thisconference hoped to address.
The conference brought together more than fifty educators, policy-makers, industry practitioners,
and scholars from Japan and the Philippines to discuss English Language Teaching in Asia, focusing on thePhilippine-Japan experience.

75NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

2. Program Detail
2.1 DAY 1
13:00 - 13:30 Opening remarks
Mr. Raiko FUJIOKA, CEO of QQ English
Dr. Natsumi ARATAME, Professor at Takushoku University
13:30 - 14:00 Keynote address
Dr. Ma. Milagros LAUREL, Associate Dean and Professor at University of the Philippines, Diliman“TESOL IN Asia: The Philippine-Japan Experience”
14:00 - 15:30 Panel 1 English in the Educational System: Language Policy in the Philippines and Japan
Dr. Editha ATENDIDO, Assistant Superintendent at Department of Education, Cavite“English in the Educational System: Language Policy in the Philippines”
Dr. Shigeru OZAKI,
Professor at Takushoku University, Visiting Researcher at Ateneo de Manila University“English Language Education Policy and Practice in Japan”
Dr. Margarita BALLESTEROS
Vice President at PALT, Philippine Commission on Higher Education.
15:30 - 16:00 Short break
16:00 - 17:30 Panel 2 English in Business and Professional Usage
Mr. Naoto KATO, President at Sky Cruising Co., Ltd.
“Guide to non-TOEIC English needs in the international business scene”
Mr. Hiroyuki MIURA, UI&UX designer at Castalia“Persistent Learning with Goocus, Mobile Learning Platform”
Dr. Sterling PLATA, Professor at De La Salle University, Manila“English for Business and the Professions in the Philippines”
17:30 - 18:00 Closing Remarks
Dr. Yasuhisa TAMURA, Professor at Sophia University, Japan

2.2 DAY 2
09:00 - 10:30 Panel 3 Varieties of English – World Englishes: Japanese, Philippine, and American/British
Dr. Ma. Lourdes TAYAO, Retired Professor at University of the Philippines, Diliman
Dr. Marilu MADRUNIO, Dean and Professor at University of Santo Tomas“Some Lexical Features of Complaint Letters in Philippine English”
Dr. Janice C. GABAYAN, Assistant Professor at Cebu Normal University“Prosodic Interference Affecting English Communication Among Cebuano-Visayan Speakers
in Southern Cebu”
10:30 - 11:00 Short break
11:00 - 12:30 Panel 4 English Language Teaching Trends and Approaches: Traditional and New Methods 1
Ms. Bernadette SUMAGUI, Principal at Lumil National High School, Cavite, Philippines:76

Program and Conference Summary

Dr. Noriko Arai, Professor at Takushoku University“The English Program in the Faculty of International Studies”
Dr. Makoto Shishido, Professor at Tokyo Denki University“Improving Oral Proficiency through the Callan Method”
12:30 - 13:30 Short break
13:30 - 15:00 Panel 5 English Language Teaching Trends and Approaches: Traditional and New Methods 2
Dr. Michiko NAKANO, Professor Emeritus at Waseda University“English Language Teaching Trends and Approaches: New and Traditional Methods from the
Perspective of Waseda University”
Mr. Hiroshi YOSHINO and others, Tsukuba University“On the Quality Assurance of Academic Degrees”
Mr. Yoshito MIYOZAWA, Director at QQ English:
15:30 - 15:45 Short break
15:45 - 17:15 Panel 6 Beyond ELT: Challenges, Techniques and Strategies
Dr. Yasushi TSUBOTA, Professor at Kyoto Institute of Technology and Ms. Yumiko KUDO of QQ
English and D's Dual Studio“Collaborative Activities with English Teachers in the Philippines”
Ms. Shoko FUKUNAGA, Takushoku University, QQ English, and Daredemo Hero“Learning Experiences in Cebu”
17:15 - 17:30 Closing Remarks
Dr. Natsumi ARATAME, Professor at Takushoku University

3. Summary
3.1 Day 1
After the opening remarks by Dr. Natsumi ARATAME, a session organizer of the conference, Mr.
Raiko FUJIOKA, the CEO of QQ English language school in Cebu, a sponsor of the conference, and Ms
Grizette E. PONCE, an academic manager of QQ English delivered a welcome speech.
Following their message, Dr. Ma. Milagros LAUREL, who is the Associate Dean and a professor at
the University of the Philippines, Diliman, gave the keynote address. Dr. Laurel has been involved inlanguage research for many years. In addition to teaching at the university, she has contributed to language
education in the Philippines as a chairperson of the PALT. Dr. Laurel explained why Japanese peoplechoose the Philippines as their place to study English. She also explained how Philippine professors teachin the classroom by considering the characteristics of Japanese students.

3.1.1 Panel 1 English in the Educational System: Language Policy in the Philippines and JapanIn Panel 1, three speakers gave a talk on language policy in Japan and the Philippines. Dr. Editha
ATENDIDO, an assistant superintendent at the Department of Education, Cavite, introduced the Philippine
language education policy called “K to 12” (kindergarten to high school, totaling 13 years of compulsory
77

NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017education) which started in 2013. This policy aims at educating students to attain bilingual proficiency
both in English and Filipino. Unlike Japan, five English skills, namely, reading, speaking, writing, listening,and viewing abilities are taught in an integrated manner.
Dr. Shigeru OZAKI, a Professor at Takushoku University, spoke about Japanese English education
policy. Dr. Ozaki explained the reasons why many Japanese people couldn’t speak English. According toOzaki, since English wasn’t necessary for those living in Japan, there was a lack of English classes andteachers. Furthermore, current English courses are very much focused on passing the university entrance
examination. He maintained that changing the nature of English examination might change what is known
as the “washback effect” in English courses.
Dr. Margarita BALLESTEROS, a Vice President at PALT and the Philippine Commission on Higher
Education emphasized that the use of open education resources and ICT would make the collaboration
between Japan and the Philippine more effective and efficient despite the distance between the twocountries.

3.1.2 Panel 2 English in Business and Professional Usage
In Panel 2, three speakers gave a presentation on business English. Mr. Naoto KATO, President of
Sky Cruising Company, pointed out that TOEIC had negatively impacted the English speaking skills ofJapanese people, because it is used to test an English ability of employees in Japanese business
communities. Mr. Kato suggested that “reproduction” (a method of repeating the English heard in the ear)
could be a more effective learning method for business people who must learn English in a short period oftime.
Mr. Hiroyuki MIURA, a UI&UX designer at Castalia, introduced “Goocus”, a new mobile learning
platform on which "persistent learning" becomes possible. He explained that completing online courses
on mobile devices is not easy for many reasons. Goocus makes it possible to developinteractive learning materials using various data formats. It automatically sends notification
to learners when learners are behind schedule. The progress can be made visible among
learners to motivate each other. This system would also help turn the application into a marketableeducational product very easily.
Dr. Sterling PLATA, a professor at De La Salle University, Manila, made suggestions for practicalEnglish lessons and teaching strategies appropriate in various business situations, to specific occupations
and a more specialized field of activity.
Questions and answers were given regarding how each speaker conceived ESP (English for SpecificPurposes), and how and why the TOEIC test came to be emphasized in Japan.
Dr. Yasuhisa TAMURA, a professor at Sophia University, gave the first day’s closing remarks. He
said that collecting and analyzing data for individual learners had become possible and such a demand was
growing due to the widespread availability of mobile devices such as tablet PCs. Dr. Tamura suggested theneeds of learning analytics that optimized pedagogic methods for individual learners as well as theintegration of wearable devices.
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Program and Conference Summary

3.2 Day 2
3.2.1 Panel 3 Varieties of English – World Englishes: Japanese, Philippine, and American/British
The second day opened with Panel 3, English as it is used around the world. The first speaker, Dr.
Ma. Lourdes TAYAO, an authority of Philippine languages, explained that English speakers in thePhilippines could be categorized into three groups. Dr. Tayao pointed out that not all the Filipinos could
speak fluent English. She also explained the differences between Philippine and American English, andmaintained that Filipinos had a unique accent when speaking in English.
Dr. Marilu MADRUNIO, from University of Santo Tomas, analyzed what is considered as standard
English from different perspectives. Also, Dr. Madrunio described the characteristics of Filipino English bycomparing English complaint letters in the Philippines and Singapore.
Dr. Janice C. GABAYAN, an assistant professor at Cebu Normal University, pointed out that the
English variety as spoken in the southern towns of Cebu was not seriously affected by their native
language; the phonological interference identified was phonemic, not prosodic. She recommended further
investigation of the phonemic structure of the Cebuano-Visayan Southern Variety to form a useful basis inteaching a second language.

3.2.2 Panel 4 English Language Teaching Trends and Approaches: Traditional and New Methods 1
Panel 4 discussed English language teaching trends and approaches, including traditional and new
methods. Ms. Bernadette SUMAGUI, Principal of Lumil National High School, Cavite, described theeffective use of the audio-lingual method with repetitive grammar practices in the classroom.
Dr. Noriko ARAI, a professor at Takushoku University, introduced the present situation at her
university; English classes were managed by Japanese and native speakers of English; the English speech
contest and overseas study program motivated students to learn English; students’ proficiency wasmeasured by TOEIC, although the method of evaluating students' proficiency needed to be improved. Dr.
Arai suggested, based on a survey on student attitudes, that more attention should be given to develop
effective teaching strategies to motivate and empower students to learn English.
The next speaker, Dr. Makoto SHISHIDO, a professor at Tokyo Denki University, gave apresentation on improving oral proficiency through the Callan method, an English teaching method which
was developed in the UK in 1959. In this method, the teacher asks the student the same question twice, andthe student must instantly give an answer, accurately and with full sentences. The teacher speaks much
faster than the native English speakers do (220 to 240 words per minute). According to research conductedat several universities in Japan, the students’ TOEIC scores improved by 110 points, which indicated that
the Callan method was quite effective in improving English skills within a short period of time.
In the question and answer session, there were questions on the Callan method mainly from Filipino
participants and those who were interested in the effectiveness of repetitive learning methods.

3.2.3 Panel 5 English Language Teaching Trends and Approaches: Traditional and New Methods 2
The session on English language teaching trends and approaches continued in Panel 5. Dr. Michiko79

NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 2017

NAKANO, a professor emeritus from Waseda University, introduced the innovative teaching methods that
had evolved over time at Waseda. Instead of emphasizing grammar and reading comprehension, Waseda
now offers a variety of learning programs such as “Tutorial English” (1:4 practical conversation) and“Cross-Cultural Distance Learning” (CCDL) which allows Waseda students to talk with students in othercountries, in addition to a variety of language learning systems for mobile devices. Common European
Framework of Reference (CEFR) is used in each program to measure the students' ability to communicate.
The number of C1 level students has increased as a result. The effort to monitor students’ achievement andto improve teaching strategies is a continual process at Waseda.
A research group led by Mr. Hiroshi YOSHINO, Teaching Fellow at the Department of Risk
Engineering, The Graduate School of Systems and Information Engineering, described an achievement
evaluation system used in the department to ensure the quality of academic degrees. The design andoperational forms of the system are under review and revision so that it can reflect teacher evaluations aswell as students self-assessments.
Mr. Yoshito MIYOZAWA, a former diplomat and the director at QQ English, was the last speaker inthis session. He explained why Japan had the lowest score in the TOEIC and TOEFL tests; the Japanese
government adopted the grammar translation method after the Meiji Restoration so as to catch up with
Western Civilization as quick as possible, rather than emphasizing oral communication. Mr. Miyozawa iscurrently developing new teaching materials that incorporate the element of practical conversation.
In the question and answer session, questions were asked why the academic language in Japanwasn't English, what kind of English skills were needed for conducting business and academic research
globally, and the environments that would be conducive to improve English skills.

3.2.4 Panel 6 ELT: Challenges, Techniques and Strategies
Dr. Yasushi TSUBOTA, a professor at Kyoto Institute of Technology, and Ms. Yumiko KUDO of
QQ English, gave a presentation on language anxiety, an important factor that affected Japanese students
when learning a foreign language. They examined its effect by testing "audience design" (a teachingstrategy in which various listeners joined the English communication class directly or via Skype) to relieve
any anxiety and tension while learning English.
The last speaker was Ms. Shoko FUKUNAGA, a Japanese Government Tobitate Scholar, and ajunior student at the Faculty of International Development, Takushoku University. She worked as an internat a Cebu-based Japanese NGO, Daredemo Hero, while studying English at QQ English. Ms. Fukunaga's
account as an intern reminded all the participants in this conference of the meaning of learning English in
the Philippines: to gain a deeper cross-cultural understanding and work better for the poor people.

3.2.5 Closing Remarks
Dr. Natsumi ARATAME, a professor at Takushoku University, gave the closing remarks of thetwo-day conference. He summarized the conference from empirical, methodological and theoretical pointsof views. The conference, he said, was able to address language policies in Japan and the Philippines,
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Program and Conference Summary

characteristics of Philippine English, effective teaching strategies including the Callan method, and new
software applications and testing tools. He concluded by suggesting that developing intrinsic motivation
was very important for Japanese students in learning English. Dr. Aratame argued that intrinsic motivation
would be more likely to develop when students were put in an environment where they had tocommunicate with people with different cultural backgrounds. In his opinion, studying in the Philippines
or learning from Filipino teachers was not only an effective way but enjoyable experience for many
Japanese students.

About the author
Ms. Risa Shoji is a visiting researcher at Institute for Service Innovation Studies of Meiji University.
Email: info@risashoji.net

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NEXT GENERATION STUDIES No.1, November 201782

次世代研究 No.1
第111 回次世代大学教育研究会論文集2017 年11 月7 日
発行人 阪井和男
発行日 2017 年11 月7 日
発行所 明治大学サービス創新研究所〒168-8555
東京都杉並区永福1-9-1 明治大学和泉キャンパス棟
法学部阪井和男研究室内
secretariat@ service-innovating.jp
http://www.service-innovating.jp/
https://nextedu.chiegumi.jp/