Pioneer Advanced Placement (P-AP) Program in Ehime
University :How the English course worked
Christopher CONNELLY
English Education Center, Institute for Education and Student Support, Ehime University

Toshinori INOUE
Admission Center, Institute for Education and Student Support, Ehime University

1

semester of the 2015/16 academic year.

Introduction
Ehime University has been working in collaboration

As Ehime University is one of the ﬁrst universities inwith its aﬃliated high school to oﬀer various forms ofJapan to establish this type of program, the pilot courses

college-level education to its students since the school

were given the title of Pioneer Advanced Placement （P-was reorganized in 2008.

In 2014 the university wasAP） . Additionally, due to the independent nature of theselected as one of four universities across the country

development and administering of the P-AP course by

to promote smoother school-to-college articulation in a

Ehime University, it is completely separate from and has

special government initiative called the Acceleration

no aﬃliation to College Board and its AP program.

Program for University Education Rebuilding .

Underthis program, the university has been trying to develop

Although the inclusion of Advanced Placement insyllabi similar to College Board s Advanced Placement

the course title suggests similarities to the AP program,(AP) program.

Ehime University s P-AP program actually focuses moreon dual enrollment. Under the P-AP scheme, high school

The purpose of this paper is to disclose the content

students attend classes at the university campus andof the P-AP program at Ehime University, to highlight theare taught by university lecturers. Additionally, students

many successful aspects of the course, as well as detailingenrolled in up-coming courses developed for the 2016/17

any areas requiring improvement for upcoming courses.

academic year will receive credit from the university, as
well as the possibility of joint credit from their high school.

The AP program oﬀers eager and academicallymotivated students the opportunity to pursue university-

These are typical features of dual enrollment programs in
the United States.

level courses while still in high school. These courses oﬀer
the possibility of earning credit towards an undergraduate

Incidentally, the Japanese Ministry of Education,

degree or even the chance to skip introductory level

Culture, Sports, Science and Technology（MEXT）set

university courses （College Board, 2016）. Many westernout proposals in 2011 for educational reforms with an

institutions have witnessed huge successes with theaim to stimulate student motivation in learning English.

program （Sadler, Sonnert, Tai, & Klopfenstein, 2010）.

These reforms stressed the need for an emphasis oncommunicative ability, as well as a focus on the ways

At present, it is virtually impossible to incorporate

in which mastering English can expand potential

every aspect of the AP program into the Ehime University

opportunities in the future.

The goal was to cultivate

project; however, despite the challenges associated witha global perspective in the English classroom with theapplying even a few AP features to a Japanese high school,

hope of increasing motivation amongst students （MEXT,

college-level courses in English and math for high school

2011, p.6）. The pilot P-AP English course developed by

students were successfully developed for the second

Ehime University employed these educational reforms to

大学教育実践ジャーナル 第15号 201715

Christopher CONNELLY, Toshinori INOUE

provide an English reading comprehension course with a

2.3 Motivation
Motivation is widely acknowledged by both teachers

focus on motivation, communicative ability, and providing
a global perspective in the English classroom. The pilot

and researchers as one of the key factors inﬂuencing thecourse was a huge success and in response, Ehime

rate and success of second language learning （Dörnyei,

University will be oﬀering two new P-AP English courses

1998）. Motivation provides the catalyst for learning a

in terms three and four of the 2016/17 academic year.

second language and maintains the momentum required
to sustain the learning process. With this in mind, one of

2 P-AP English Program in Ehime University
The impetus for the pilot course at Ehime University
wastolevels of motivation observed in the students in the ﬁrst
class continued through to the end of the course. This

local

was achieved in three ways: changing partners each class,

The main goals of the project were to;using a variety of activities and incorporating the element

promotehigh schools.

the major goals of the course was to ensure that the highgreatercollaboration

withimprove students overall reading comprehension skills;of music into each lesson, and the use of comment cards

create an All English learning environment; and mostand lesson surveys.

importantly, to provide a unique course to promote andOﬀering the students the chance to work with all of

maintain high levels of intrinsic motivation in the students.

the other students in the class was paramount in creatinga relaxed and friendly atmosphere, where the students

2.1 Reading Comprehension
The P-AP course was based on the English reading

could feel at ease interacting together in English andcourse, which is a required course for all ﬁrst-year

develop new friendships with students from diﬀerent

students at Ehime University.

schools and backgrounds.

The course introduces

various reading skills, such as summarizing and inferring,
Providing an interactive lesson using competitive

which the students can use to improve their English
The

activities, which involved the students cooperating

reading course prepares the students for the common

together and working to solve the various tasks ensured

reading ability through textbook based activities.

reading test taken by all ﬁrst-year students, and supportsthat the students were actively making use of the readingan overall goal of developing a deeper understanding ofskills they were learning in a natural and productive

the various skills, which can be used to improve reading

way. Introducing various tasks such as gap-ﬁll exercises,

comprehension. Additionally, the use of graded readerssummarizing tasks, inferring quizzes, and a variety of otherand a wide variety of texts and activities allows students

unique activities ensured that the students motivationto access English reading on a level they may not haveremained high for the entire 90-minutes of each lesson.

previously encountered.
Feedback from the students on their comment cards
2.2 All English

every lesson highlighted both their enthusiasm towards

The All English approach stems from the basic

the course, as well as their desire to participate further.

premise that the greater the exposure to an L2, theBy responding to each student s comments individually

greater the probability of learning the target language

after every lesson, the teacher managed to develop a（Ellis, 2005；Lee, 2013）. With a greater emphasis on

one-on-one relationship with each student, which further

test scores and grammar-translation accuracy, the moreincreased motivation. Finally, comments on the course

communicative aspects of English language learning cansurvey conducted in week ﬁfteen showed that all of thebe overlooked in Japanese junior and senior high schools,

students were frustrated that the course had come to an

to the detriment of the students English education

end and were interested in whether the opportunity to（Edwards, 2012；Reesor, 2003；Ryan, 2009）. Comments

participate in similar courses would be made available.

from participating students on the post-course survey
highlighted their dissatisfaction with the prevalent use ofJapanese in their high school English lessons and showedthat they felt they gained much more from the All
English approach.

16

3P-AP English Course in 2015

3.1 Participants
The program was made available to students from

大学教育実践ジャーナル 第15号 2017

Pioneer Advanced Placement (P-AP) Program in Ehime University: How the English course worked

Matsuyama East High School, a Super Global High School

than others, which was one of the contributing factors to（SGH）, Matsuyama South High School, a Super Science

the random seating arrangement. The random pairing

High School （SSH）, and Ehime University Senior High

allowed the more conﬁdent students the opportunity to

School. In total, twenty-ﬁve students took part: ﬁvework with the less conﬁdent students, which presented

students from Matsuyama South High School, ten students

everyone with the opportunity to learn from each other.

from Matsuyama East High School, and ten students from

Each lesson followed a set pattern （detailed below）,

Ehime University High School. All of the students werewhich gave the students an idea of what to expect duringsecond-year students and the class consisted of eight

each lesson. Despite the group set-up, the students worked

boys and seventeen girls.

The class also included one

in pairs for the majority of the lesson and activities andinternational student from Norway who was taking part

only collaborated as a group for general discussion andin an exchange program at Matsuyama East High School.

homework checks.

3.2 Course Outline

Warm-up

The 15-week pilot P-AP course took place once a

Each class started with some general conversation

week on Wednesdays from 18:00 till 19:30 and followed

practice to increase the students spoken English skills

a similar syllabus to the compulsory reading course

and to help them relax. The students were paired up andtaken by all ﬁrst year students at Ehime University. The

asked to talk to their partners about general conversationﬁrst-year reading course focuses on introducing various

topics such as movies, music, school life, and weekend

reading skills such as skimming, scanning, and inferring

activities. The warm up section introduced elements of thewith the goal of improving the students overall reading

compulsory ﬁrst-year speaking course, which highlights

comprehension ability. Although predominantly based

speciﬁc structures within a conversation that can be usedon the reading course, the P-AP course varied in many

to improve the ﬂow of conversation.

respects, catering speciﬁcally to the needs of the highschool students, as well as oﬀering a more comprehensive

Speed Readingstyle lesson incorporating all four of the core language

In order to improve the speed at which the students

skills: speaking, listening, reading, and writing. The

were reading, a short speed-reading exercise wascourse utilized the Skills that Thrill textbook used for

conducted every lesson. The students read a 300〜400

the regular ﬁrst-year reading course; however the lessons

word passage, took a note of how long it took them to read

were supplemented with and relied heavily on a variety ofthe passage once they had ﬁnished, then answered ﬁve

unique activities and handouts used to further integratecomprehension questions on the back of the page. The

the four core language skills into every lesson. Althoughcomment cards used in class provided a chart where thethere was an emphasis on improving the students reading

students could keep track of their weekly scores and plot

skills, the classes were also geared towards enhancing

the results on a graph, oﬀering an easy way to observe

the students overall communicative ability through pair-their progress. Figure 1 is a copy of the speed-reading

work, group work, discussion, and competitive activities.

chart section of the comment card.

Lesson Outline
The students sat in groups of four and remained in thesame seats that they chose in lesson one for the ﬁrst four
lessons. This allowed the students the chance to get used
to the unique lesson style and engage with classmatesfrom their own high schools, which helped reduce anxiety,add a sense of familiarity, and boost motivation. However,from lesson ﬁve the students were randomly assigned aseat at the start of each lesson to promote interaction
with other students from diﬀerent schools and to oﬀer
them a chance to work with everyone in the class. Someof the students were much more proﬁcient in English

大学教育実践ジャーナル 第15号 2017

Figure 1. Speed-reading chart

17

Christopher CONNELLY, Toshinori INOUE

Husada（2013）explained that personalizing lessons

Homework Check
Before commencing with the main section of thewith customized materials oﬀers the teacher the freedom

lesson, the students quickly checked their homework

to blend the focal skills with the interests of the students,

with their partner and other group members and had theas well as taking into account various learning styles ofopportunity to ask the teacher any questions or request

the individuals.

There is also greater choice, freedom

Allowing theand scope for spontaneity when teachers develop theirstudents to work in pairs/groups to check their homeworkown materials. Stepping away from a purely textbook

helped foster discussion in English and reduced anxiety,orientated lesson to an interactive, task-based lesson

conﬁrmation regarding speciﬁc sections.

which prompted a greater number of students to raise

greatly increased motivation and engagement with thetheir hands to answer the questions during the wholematerial.

class homework check.

activities, the students displayed high levels of motivation

Additionally, with a wide selection of uniquethroughout the entire 15-week course.
Introduction of the Target Skill
Each lesson was based on one chapter from theMusic and Lyrics

textbook and each unit of the textbook introduced a

Listening plays an essential role in communication

particular reading skill, such as skimming, scanning,with research showing that out of the total time devoted

summarizing, and inferring.

Although each lesson

to communicating, the act of listening makes up 40-50%;

focused primarily on the new target skill, skills learned

speaking, 25-30%; reading, 11-16%; and writing, about 9%

in the previous lessons were also incorporated into the（Mendelsohn, 1994; Renukadevi, 2014）. Despite these

activities section to provide greater exposure to theﬁgures and the importance of listening in communication,

skills and promote combined usage of various skills.

listening comprehension remains one of the most

The initial two pages of each chapter highlighted theneglected and poorly taught skills in the English as a

new skill and oﬀered a few simple activities to help theforeign language（EFL）classroom（Gilakjani & Ahmadi,

students understand how to use the skill, which was

2011; Nation & Newton, 2008）.

the basis of each lesson. However, to oﬀer the students
more opportunity to develop all four of the core language

In order to tackle this problem, current chart songs

skills, supplementary activities were used to provide thewere incorporated into every lesson to increase motivation,

students with practice using each skill instead of following

to help improve listening comprehension, and to attempt

just the reading passages in the rest of the chapter.

to foster an interest in English music in the students. A
questionnaire regarding the students music preferences

Activities
In response to the results of the pre-course

conducted in week three showed that less than half of thestudents regularly listened to western music. Additionally,questionnaire, a greater focus on communicative ability

the majority of those students expressed an interest in

and practice in all four core language skills prompted thethe melody and music alone and placed little importancedeparture from a textbook based lesson to a predominantly

on the lyrics.

task-based, interactive lesson. After introducing the skillsin the introductory pages of each chapter, the lesson

For the listening activity, the students were each

moved away from the textbook and centered more on

given a copy of the song lyrics and were asked to ﬁll ina selection of worksheets and activities used to increase

the gaps using the missing words given in a table at thepair and group communication whilst interacting with thebottom of the lyrics sheet. The students listened to thecourse material. The majority of the activities were pairsong once and had a few minutes to confer with theiractivities and the students could earn bonus participation

partner before listening to the song a second time. After

points for completing the activities, which brought out

listening to the song twice the answers were read out

their competitive streak and made each lesson much moreby the teacher and the students had to check whether

fun and engaging. Additionally, the students worked withthey managed to correctly ﬁll in all of the missing words.

a new partner each week, so the stronger students could

On the back of the lyrics sheet was an additional activity

help the less conﬁdent students, ensuring that everyone

to check comprehension. The students could then makehad a chance to earn bonus participation points.

use of the various reading skills learned over the duration

18

大学教育実践ジャーナル 第15号 2017

Pioneer Advanced Placement (P-AP) Program in Ehime University: How the English course workedof the course to try and answer questions regarding the
lyrics and the meaning of each song. Points were awarded
to the ﬁrst six pairs who ﬁnished the activity the quickest,which encouraged them to collaborate together, honing
the various reading skills to quickly complete the task.
Comments on the course survey indicated that thiswas the most beneﬁcial section of the lesson, as thestudents were able to focus on the lyrics and understandthe meaning of each song whilst actively using what they
were being taught in the lesson. Additional comments
showed that the majority of the students had developed
a greater interest in English music and were actively
seeking out new songs to listen to in their free time.
Comment Cards

Figure 3. Back page of the Comment Card

Finally, the middle section of the front of the card

One of the most successful aspects of the course wasserved as a nameplate, where the students wrote their

the use of comment cards. Figures 2 and 3 show the front

names in bold letters. This enabled the teacher to quickly

and back of the comment cards.

These were used toremember all of the students names, as well as oﬀering

facilitate one-to-one communication between each student

everyone in the class a quick and easy way of rememberingand the teacher and give the students a space to keep

their classmates names. At the end of each lesson, thetrack of various points and scores awarded throughout

students were given between ﬁve and ten minutes tothe course. In week one, the students received a blankﬁll in the diﬀerent sections and write any questions or

copy of the comment card, which was an A3 sheet foldedcomments they had regarding the lesson. The cards werein half with printed sections where the students could

collected at the end of each class and the teacher could

keep track of their weekly quiz scores, homework, bonus

read the comments and oﬀer any advice or suggestions asparticipation points, and chart their speed reading times.

well as writing personal replies to each student to foster asolid one-on-one relationship with each and every student.
Although a lot of the students were very outspoken
and motivated to ask questions during the lesson, many ofthe less conﬁdent students made good use of the comment
cards to ask the questions they didn t feel conﬁdent to ask
in front of their classmates. Many of the students voiced
their opinions about the lessons in general, highlighted
areas of the course that they found diﬃcult or thatneeded extra clariﬁcation, and were very forthcomingwith personal questions regarding English, relationships,
politics, foreign exchange programs, and general inquiries.

Figure 2. Front page of Comment Card

Assessment

Additionally, the students could comment on the

Similar to the regular reading course taken by all

lesson, ask the teacher questions, or write about theirﬁrst-year students, the P-AP course curriculum prepareddaily lives, oﬀering the teacher an insight into thethe students for the common reading test conducted in

students hobbies and interests as well as providing a way

week 14 of the course. The students ﬁnal grade consistedof easily communicating with all of the students. Figureof four components; attendance and in-class participation

3 is a copy of the back of the comment card used for(20%）, quizzes and homework（30%）, results from thequestions and comments.

TOEIC Bridge test（20%）, and the ﬁnal common test

大学教育実践ジャーナル 第15号 201719

Christopher CONNELLY, Toshinori INOUE（30%）.

All of the students successfully passed thepositive attitude to various aspects of the course.

course and the average grade was 74%, with a top score
4.1 Student Commentsof 100% and a bottom score of 61%.

Pair WorkOne of the most successful points of the course was

4 Results of the Student Surveys

the chance for the students to co-operate with everyone

In order to assess student conﬁdence, expectations,and highlight any possible areas of concern, pre andelse in the class and work with a new classmate eachlesson.

post course questionnaires were conducted in weeks one
and ﬁfteen. Table 1 displays the questions used in thequestionnaires along the average scores for the class; ascore of 1 denoted strongly disagree and 5

strongly

agree .
Table 1： Pre/Post Questionnaire results
Question
I'm interested in lessons conducted only in English
I am worried about lessons conducted only in English
I'm interested in lessons taught only by native English
teachers
I'm worried about lessons taught only by native
English teachers
I enjoy working with other classmates in pairs/groups
I am worried about working with other classmates inpairs/groups
I am conﬁdent to answer questions by the teacher inEnglish in front of the rest of the class
I am worried about answering questions by the teacher
in English in front of the rest of the class
I need a Japanese translation of the English teachingmaterials
I don't need a Japanese translation of the English
teaching materials
I need a Japanese translation of English explanations
and commands during class
I don't need a Japanese translation of English
explanations and commands during class

Pre
4.6
2.8

Post
4.8
1.8

4.6

4.8

2.9

1.7

4.0

4.4

2.4

2.2

3.1

4.1

ran out of space after ﬁlling the two A4 pages on the

4.1

2.2

comment card.

2.9

2.2

3.4

4.5

3.2

2.0

3.0

4.2

Comment Cards
All of the students actively made use of the comment
cards over the duration of the course and more than 80%of the students required additional writing sheets as they

The responses for the pre questionnaire showed
high levels of motivation regarding the All English stylelessons; however, levels of conﬁdence regarding thestudents use of English during the lesson, as well as theirconﬁdence in understanding a lesson conducted entirely inEnglish were low.
In accordance with the goals of the project, motivation
remained high throughout the duration of the 15-weekcourse. Additionally, as can be seen in Table 1, levels of
conﬁdence in their use of English, as well as conﬁdence
in understanding a course conducted entirely in English
were higher in the post surveys and questionnaires.
All English Experience
Additionally, a mid-course survey was conducted inComments regarding the All English style of course

week 8 and a post-course survey in week 15 to assess

were very positive and highlighted the lack of emphasis on

student satisfaction and give the students the opportunity

communicative skills in high school English lessons.

to express their thoughts and feelings. The 14-question
survey included a 4-point Likert scale and open-ended
questions. Comments from the students revealed their

20

大学教育実践ジャーナル 第15号 2017

Pioneer Advanced Placement (P-AP) Program in Ehime University: How the English course worked

to interact with the teacher in English in front of theother students was higher, and the results of the surveys
indicated that the students themselves were very
proud of their achievements and surprised by the vast
improvement in both their communicative abilities, as wellas their reading comprehension skills.
Finally, the comments from the post-course survey
indicated that the course had a positive impact on thestudents beliefs regarding English and English education.
Compared to the standard high school lessons, theemphasis on supporting communicative ability in an All

Recommendations to participate in the P-AP
All of the students commented on their desire to

English environment was acknowledge by all of theparticipate in any future classes. When asked whether

students, which has inspired many of them to participate

they would recommend the course, they responded with:in any further P-AP courses, as well as seek out foreignexchange programs to further develop their English.

6

Conclusion
The goals set out in the pilot course were achieved

and feedback from both the participating students andthe teaching staﬀ at the participating high schools was
overwhelmingly positive.

However, a few points wereraised which will be taken into consideration for upcoming
P-AP courses. Some of the students conveyed a request toincorporate elements of TOEIC into the lessons to further

5

aid their personal goals for the TOEIC test. Additionally,

Discussion

as high school lessons place a lot of emphasis on reading

Feedback from both the questionnaires and theand reading comprehension, a course focusing more on

surveys was overwhelmingly positive and stressed

communicative skills, especially speaking and discussion

thean Allskills would be preferable. Further additions will include

English environment, their positive attitude towards

the development of various skills transferable to otherstudents desire

to

study

Englishinpair and group work, their consistently high levels of

university courses, exposure to real-life situations tomotivation, and their acknowledgement of the beneﬁts offurther develop English as a communication tool anda communicative style lesson. The comments raised some

not just a subject , oﬀer the students the opportunity tovaluable discussion points.

Firstly, compared with theinteract with other high school students in a university

general ﬁrst-year university students, the P-AP students

setting, and ﬁnally to develop communication skills not

displayed consistently high motivation throughout thedealt with through general high school English courses.

course. As mentioned previously, motivation is one of the
key factors that directly inﬂuences the rate and success

Taking into consideration the positive results andof second language learning （Dörnyei, 1998）. The 100%

overall success of the course combined with the requests

pass rate for the course, coupled with the extremely highregarding further P-AP courses, the author has developed

levels of participation observed in each class highlight the

two new P-AP courses, which will run in the second

profound eﬀect of intrinsic motivation.

semester of 2016. The courses will focus on speaking andpresentation skills, as well as reading and discussion skills

Secondly, the student's levels of English proﬁciency

with an overall emphasis on improving communicative

showed a marked increase by the end of the course.

ability. We look forward to further collaboration with local

Conﬁdence levels were higher, the students willingness

high schools and further expansion of the P-AP project.

大学教育実践ジャーナル 第15号 201721

Christopher CONNELLY, Toshinori INOUE（1）, 59‑63.

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